For Release: Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Contact: David Gillies: 202-225-5661

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY CARBONDALE RECEIVES $300,000 IN RECOVERY ACT CARBON SEQUESTRATION FUNDS

Washington - U.S. Congressman Jerry Costello (D-IL) announced today that Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC) has received a $300,000 grant as part of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding from the Department of Energy. The funds will be used for a carbon capture and sequestration research project entitled: Risk Assessment and monitoring of Stored CO2 in Organic Rocks under Non-Equilibrium Conditions, which will conduct experiments to evaluate the structural behavior of the Illinois Basin’s organic rocks under extreme transient conditions.

“This research is critical to advancing carbon capture technology and fully utilizing our vast resources of coal,” said Costello, a senior member of the House Science and Technology Committee. “Our economy depends on maintaining low-cost, reliable power, and for the foreseeable future, there is no substitute for coal. We need to use it as cleanly as possible, and carbon capture and sequestration hold great promise in this regard. There is no better place in the country than the Coal Research Center at SIUC to conduct this research and I will continue to support these efforts.”

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