Great Plains Institute Blog Post: Analysis of Transport Infrastructure Shows Near-Term Carbon Capture and Storage Potential Webinar

The Great Plains Institute (GPI) published a blog post following the July 20th webinar, Regional Transport Infrastructure for Carbon Capture and Storage, hosted by the Regional Carbon Capture Deployment Initiative and the Great Plains Institute.

The webinar provided details on near-term carbon capture and storage opportunities under the revamped 45Q tax credit, design and planning approaches to scale necessary CO2 transport infrastructure, and other insights from the recently published whitepaper, Transport Infrastructure for Carbon Capture and Storage: Regional Infrastructure for Midcentury Decarbonization. The original blog post is provided below and can also be viewed on GPI’s website.

On July 20, the Great Plains Institute and Regional Carbon Capture Deployment Initiative hosted a webinar on the white paper, Transport Infrastructure for Carbon Capture and Storage: Regional Infrastructure for Midcentury Decarbonization. This report highlights the scale and design of carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture and transport infrastructure needed to meet US midcentury climate goals in the industrial and power sectors. The two-year modeling effort identified 418 industrial and power facilities throughout the US that can feasibly capture 360 million metric tons of CO₂ per year at a relatively low cost.

Speakers on this webinar provided details on near-term capture and storage opportunities under the revamped 45Q tax credit, design and planning approaches to scale necessary CO₂ transport infrastructure, and updates on carbon capture jobs potential and the buildout of CO₂ transport infrastructure.

You can watch the full webinar here or jump to a specific segment of the webinar through the outline below, which also includes select quotes from webinar speakers.The full slide deck is available for download here.

Elizabeth Abramson, research analyst, and Dane McFarlane, director of research, Great Plains Institute, and Jeff Brown, economist, University of Wyoming, authored the report. The report’s analysis is part of GPI’s facilitation of the Regional Carbon Capture Deployment Initiative and is the result of collaborations with more than a dozen research institutions to plan and design regional infrastructure for the economy-wide deployment of CO₂ capture, transport, and storage.

Brad Crabtree
Vice President, Carbon Management Program, Great Plains Institute
Director, Carbon Capture Coalition  

Crabtree introduced the report and described its significance to carbon capture deployment and development of CO₂ transport infrastructure. He explained how the State Carbon Capture Work Group’s focus on regional carbon capture deployment led to the analysis of regional capture, transport, and geologic storage of CO₂.

“What’s really exciting about the modeling results is that they make tangible both the economic opportunity of economy-wide carbon capture deployment, but also the climate benefits.”

“Carbon capture needs to deliver 20 percent of total CO2 reductions by 2050—and this modeling shows we are on track to do just that… If you were to take this modeling to a national scale you could easily get to a billion tons captured per year.”

Dane McFarlane
Director of Research, Great Plains Institute

Elizabeth Abramson
Research Analyst, Great Plains Institute

McFarlane and Abramson provided an overview of the analysis, going into detail on screening eligibility, near- and medium-term CO₂ transport infrastructure scenarios, and the beneficial economies of scale for shared CO₂ transport infrastructure.

“There is a plethora of opportunities for near term carbon capture retrofits, especially in the Midwest from high purity, low-cost sources, such as biofuels.” – Elizabeth Abramson

“The analysis showed there is financial opportunity today to start building a shared regional CO₂ corridor that will serve greater deployment and transport into the future.” – Elizabeth Abramson

You can step through Elizabeth’s slides on the core findings of GPI’s analysis here:

Sean Yaw
Assistant Professor, Gianforte School of Computing at Montana State University

Yaw provided a high-level overview of SimCCS, an open-sourced software that determines the most cost-effective way to deploy carbon capture infrastructure.

“Our collaboration with the Great Plains Institute and the Regional Carbon Capture Deployment Initiative allowed us to take the research training wheels off of SimCCS and see how it handled in the real world, enabling us to innovate and scale thousands of [CO₂] sources and sinks.”

Kevin Ellett
Research Geologist, Indiana Geological Survey

Ellett explained the Sequestration of CO₂ Tool (SCO₂T), another open-source software enabling users to move beyond carbon storage resources and get a closer look at storage capacities and costs of storage in saline formations.

“The Great Plains Institute’s leadership has been instrumental to the success of new regional initiatives going forward. They are building broader stakeholder groups to advance deployment on a large-scale.”

“With the introduction of the 45Q tax credit, saline storage became a potential game changer for advancing CCUS [carbon capture, use, and storage] deployment at a large scale.”

Whitney Herndon

Associate Director, Rhodium Group

Herndon covered an additional piece of research regarding the economic and employment implications of carbon capture in the US. Her work with the Rhodium Group includes a three-phase analysis, reviewing a subset of Regional Carbon Capture Deployment Initiative states and industries. The research is pulling near- and medium-term scenarios from the report to analyze the economic and employment impact related to the deployment of carbon capture technology and infrastructure in those states. State-by-state results will be coming out this later this summer.

“For all three pieces of analyses we will be looking at the direct employment impacts for the facilities themselves as well as the pipeline networks associated with scaling-up carbon capture deployment.”

Patrice Lahlum
Program Consultant, Great Plains Institute & Regional Carbon Capture Deployment Initiative

Lahlum provided brief updates on the Regional Carbon Capture Deployment Initiative’s effort to help states get carbon capture ready, including the newly launched carboncaptureready.org website.

“We are working with states to broaden the focus and look at state-level policy to close the cost gap and build on what’s in place with 45Q on the federal level.”

“The Carbon Capture Ready website serves as a place to showcase analysis and provide states, policy makers, and stakeholders various tools and educational materials to help move the needle for carbon capture deployment.”

Learn more about carbon capture deployment opportunities at http://www.carboncaptureready.org