NETL’s Carbon Management Research Project Review Meeting

My three main takeaways from the NETL’s Carbon Management Research Project Review Meeting were as follows:

1. The key element for all the #CarbonSAFE projects (currently being considered for some $50,000,000 in #DOE grant money in Q3/Q4) is the so-called Community Benefit Programs, which are program elements of the CarbonSAFE projects that seek to provide jobs/local spending/training for community members and businesses where the projects are located. These programs are of primary importance for those companies and partnerships seeking approval for CarbonSAFE grant monies.
2. We should not expect to see any #CCS projects begin operations in 2024 beyond the two projects in ND (Dakota Gasification and Blue Flint Energy) that are expected to begin injection operations this year. The reasons for this are we need more Class VI wells injecting #CO₂, and to get more Class VI wells injecting CO₂, we need more CO₂ pipelines; to get more CO₂ pipelines, SCS, NHG etc. need permits and RoW access. Once pipelines are in place, emitters will sign up, operators will start injecting and we’ll have plenty of opportunities.
3. There is a great deal of time, effort, and money being spent on capture technologies, which are critical barriers to CCS project economics. In general, we can expect non-biofuel emitters to struggle with additional monitoring costs when their capture costs eat up as much as 80% of their 45Q credits. On the plus side, these costs are dropping as technologies advance so we can be hopeful of the future for CCS outside of the biofuel market.