State, industry and LSU engineering officials gathered Friday afternoon to mark the start of a university-based carbon storage research well project to pinpoint ways to best store carbon dioxide underground effectively and efficiently.
The research well, which will be built next to LSU’s Petroleum Engineering Research, Training and Testing (PERTT) Lab, will allow for the study of CO2 in all three phases. Drilling will begin in the spring.
“It’s widely known in this audience that we’ve been putting CO2 underground in the United States and Canada and elsewhere for many decades, but we haven’t done it with the same purpose and in the same types of geological formations as we’ll want to do for permanently sequestering CO2 underground,” said Roy Haggerty, LSU’s executive vice president and provost, at the ceremonial groundbreaking. “It’s this facility that will help us to test and prove those technologies so that the people in our state are comforted and assured that this is safe, reliable and effective technology.”
The technology—known as CCS—takes carbon dioxide, compresses it into a near-liquid state and permanently injects it deep underground. The depth underground prevents the release of the gas into the atmosphere.
CCS has become a popular topic in Louisiana. Many industry and state officials see the technology as an essential tool in reducing global warming and emissions and there are a handful of related billion-dollar projects on the table.
AirProducts is developing a $4.5 billion Louisiana Clean Energy Complex in Ascension Parish, while CF Industries has proposed a $2 billion Carbon-Capture Ammonia Complex in Ascension Parish.
“We do everything you possibly can with carbon in Louisiana,” says LSU College of Engineering Dean Vicki Colvin. “This well is going to let us go to the next step. If we can make plastics from carbon or drive our cars now, the next stage is storing it and reducing emissions.”
The project’s estimated cost is around $10 million, LSU officials tell Daily Report.
The U.S. Economic Development Agency and Louisiana Economic Development are funding the construction project, while Halliburton, ExxonMobil and Shell are providing material and design support.
ExxonMobil Senior Vice President of Low Carbon Solutions Dominic Genetti says one challenge with growing the industry is the permitting process and the time it takes.
“Louisiana is ahead of everybody,” he says. “They have primacy and they’ve been responsive and working with us to ensure we have the right well designed to get a permit, but the EPA is a little bit slower.”
The research well will be drilled 7,900 feet underneath LSU, starting on the far western side of campus. The test well will be the third research well drilled in the PERTT Lab’s history. It won’t inject CO2 into underground formations beneath the campus. It is only for research purposes.
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