NEW HAVEN, W.Va. — American Electric Power is looking for $334 million in federal money for its proposed CO2 capture and underground storage project at the Mountaineer Plant in New Haven, W.Va.

AEP, based out of Columbus, recently announced it hopes to get those federal funds through the United States Department of Energy. AEP says the $334 million is half the cost of the total project.

According to AEP, up to 100,000 metric tons of CO2 would be captured per year and then be designated for geological storage in deep saline aquifers at the Mountaineer site. AEP feels this Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology will address the growing issue of CO2 emissions.

CO2 is currently not a regulated pollutant in the state of Ohio and has become a local hot topic for those who oppose the American Municipal Power Generation Station in Letart Falls which will be another coal-fired power plant. One opponent, the Natural Resources Defense Council, feels there’s been no firm commitment by AMP and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to address carbon dioxide emissions as part of the company’s air permit.

The NRDC is appealing AMP’s air permit before the Ohio Environmental Review Appeals Commission which this summer granted a summary judgment agreeing with AMP, and disagreeing with opponents, that carbon dioxide should not be considered as part of Best Available Control Technology standards in the air permit, according to AMP. In the original appeal of the air permit, opponents said the air permit-to-install unreasonably and unlawfully does not include a Best Available Control Technology limit for carbon dioxide emissions.

The Columbus Dispatch recently reported Columbus-based Battelle, which has been working with AEP on the Mountaineer project, is pulling out of another project to test carbon-dioxide burying at an ethanol plant in Darke County in Western Ohio. Various media outlets reported Greenville residents opposed the project citing fears that CO2 injection would result in seismic tremors, affect underground water supplies and depress property values.