Jan. 7, 2008 - Food processing company Archer Daniels Midland plans to capture and bury the carbon generated by its ethanol plant in Decatur, Ill. The $84 million project will be one of the first in the U.S. to use carbon sequestration technology.

"We see potential for carbon sequestration to improve the environmental footprint of biofuels by further reducing greenhouse gas emissions," says Dennis Riddle, ADM's president of corn processing.

Carbon produced during ethanol's fermentation process will be injected into wells drilled deep into the nearby Mt. Simon Sandstone Reservoir, whose porous saline rock formations made it the chosen site for the FutureGen clean-coal project announced last month.

ADM is working with the Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium (MGSC) and the Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS) on the project, which will be funded in large part by the U.S. Department of Energy, which is also supporting the FutureGen plant.

The project, which will break ground this spring, is slated to begin carbon sequestration activities in October 2009.