Carbon Capture: Up In The Air

Three energy experts say successfully creating carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) projects requires handling risks, communicating honestly, and agreeing on goals with government agencies.

CCUS industry faces obstacles in funding, politics, and permitting. These obstacles affect the energy sector.

An expert said at the SUPER DUG conference that CO2 is new and not new.

CCUS tech is important for reducing emissions. It can take carbon from power plants and store it beneath the ground. It can also work with making blue hydrogen.

The source is Hart Energy. Siddharth Misra is a teacher in petroleum engineering. Misra works at Texas A&M University.

To finish CCS projects, we need to manage risks like seismic activity, plume monitoring, and CO2 containment. Siddharth Misra, a professor at Texas A&M, talked about this at a conference. We also need to stop groundwater contamination.

We must monitor four risks well. Geophysical monitoring is important. Misra says we must watch the plume, reservoir, wellbore, seal, and formation above. If we watch all of these things, there will be no risk. Projects will end well.

The U.S. can store 3,000 gigatons of CO2, but not many sites are being used. That's the problem according to Misra.

In the U.S., there are only seven active storage sites. They are all deep saline aquifers and they can accommodate 10 megatons of carbon each year. More storage spaces are being built with 11 sites currently under construction. Also, 130 sites are in the making to store about 200 megatons of carbon every year. However, Misra said that there is still a need for storage for almost 1 gigaton of carbon annually.

It's a big job, he said. We need to create a project every week until 2040. It's really hard. The National Laboratories, oil and gas companies, and storage companies are helping. They're finding technology to help us meet our goals.

People are interested in safely storing CO2 in empty oil and gas places.

Misra said that these oil and gas reserves have stored gas for more than a million years. Thus, they can also store CO2. This is a new area with few active sites, which creates new opportunities for innovation.

Summit Carbon Solutions COO James Powell says we need alignment between federal, state, and local governments. He said this while looking aboveground.

Summit Carbon Solutions COO is James Powell. He was featured in Hart Energy.

Many states want to be in charge of storing CO2 which is good. However, there is a problem with the federal, state, and local levels not working together. This is causing misalignment.

Summit Carbon Solutions is doing a big project costing $5.5 billion. They want to catch emissions from 32 ethanol plants in five states. They will make more than 2,000 miles of CO2 pipeline to get the emissions and take them to sequestration sites in North Dakota.

We have gotten 80% of the rights to use land for transportation stuff. We also got 130,000 acres of space for hiding things.

Summit Carbon Solutions is taking a risky approach with the Midwest Carbon Express CCS project.

Powell says that for projects to succeed, they need the support of local, state, and federal governments. Each level of government should find the project attractive.

He said that it's essential to persuade these people that the project is beneficial for them. The problem is that it's hard to match their goals and objectives in a new market. A few people don't recognize the requirement for it.

Summit has a project called Midwest Carbon Express. The project is present in 82 counties. This can be difficult.

Minnesota has a different political climate than its neighboring states. When speaking to public officials or at public meetings, things are different.

Powell said that we need to consider politics in our message. We must adjust our message to appeal to different audiences. The truth doesn't change, but how we express it matters.

Some counties have put a hold on rules that limit pipeline construction. Summit tells these counties about the topic quite often.

Many landowners have pipelines on their property for a long time. Some landowners aren't concerned about it. But some are scared about CO2. We need to educate the public and landowners about CO2.

Nikhil Ati, who works for McKinsey & Co., said we need to talk honestly about CCUS and decarbonization. This is because of recent events in the energy world.

Investments in all kinds of energy are necessary due to the current energy market changes. Ati suggests ongoing investment in infrastructure. A genuine and fact-based conversation is required to make proper decisions and choices.

McKinsey & Co.'s Nikhil Ati is a partner. The source is Hart Energy.

Ati talked about decarbonization and economics. Energy security and affordability need balancing. Companies set 30% to 50% decarbonization targets. But some are unsure how investors and shareholders will react.

Not all decarbonization projects make money yet.

Ati says that we can reduce emissions by 20 to 30% by focusing on things like operational efficiency, capturing fugitive emissions, and a bit of electrification. He doesn't count the big things like carbon capture, switching to hydrogen as fuel, and large electrification projects.

Ati said that 20% of petrochemical sector emissions can be reduced at a reasonable cost. But for remaining emissions, we need to set a carbon price of $130. Unfortunately, we are not close to that yet.

According to him, the federal incentives like 45V hydrogen credits and 45Q CO2 credits aren't that effective in balancing the economic equation. They do have an impact, but it's not enough.

To make things happen, we need bigger incentives in the use cases.