Lawmakers hope Mississippi can become a key player in emerging carbon storage industry

For many years, pure assets from an extinct volcano referred to as the Jackson Dome, about 3,000 ft beneath Mississippi’s capital metropolis, have given the state a task in a multistate oil extraction enterprise.  

The operation, generally known as enhanced oil restoration or EOR, takes pure carbon dioxide from the Dome, sends it via a pipeline to grease fields in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, and injects the CO2 into the bottom to push oil out for manufacturing.

Now, as america authorities tries to encourage emissions discount from industrial sources, Mississippi lawmakers are hoping that the identical pipeline, owned by Denbury Inc., will give the state a brand new function within the rising carbon seize enterprise. 

Carbon seize and storage, or CCS, is an costly methodology of lowering greenhouse gasoline emissions the place a enterprise separates CO2 from the opposite gasses it produces, after which transports it to a storage web site the place it’s injected into the bottom for everlasting storage.  

Whereas CCS has existed for years, it was too expensive for corporations to contemplate with none incentive. However in 2018, the federal authorities enacted a tax credit score that enormously expanded incentives for emitters. 

Mississippi Home Power Chair Rep. Brent Powell, R-Brandon, defined that corporations hoping to obtain the tax credit score may probably transfer to the state and use its present pipeline for storage. 

“What we’re hoping with that is that the landowners and the general public can get some royalties for the storage, however we’d actually prefer to see some business come into the state that’s near the pipeline,” mentioned Powell, who specified electrical and fertilizer vegetation as companies he envisions offloading their carbon in Mississippi. 

Beneath this system, each floor and mineral rights homeowners can be compensated, Powell, who wrote the invoice, mentioned. 

This 12 months, Gov. Tate Reeves signed into legislation Home Invoice 1214, a invoice that may enable the Mississippi State Oil & Fuel Board to supervise a carbon storage program within the state.

The united statesEnvironmental Safety Company at present regulates carbon storage wells in a lot of the nation, however now states are hoping to acquire authority to fulfill rising curiosity regionally.

The Oil & Fuel Board first has to acquire authority from the EPA, which it plans to use for by the tip of the 12 months, the board informed Mississippi Immediately. Thus far, simply Wyoming and North Dakota have such a program, in response to the Carbon Seize Coalition.

David Snodgrass, lead geologist for the Oil & Fuel Board, mentioned that eminent area gained’t apply to carbon storage in Mississippi. Eminent area, which was restricted within the state after a 2011 poll initiative, provides the federal government the ability to take personal property for a public use mission with out the landowners’ consent. Corporations searching for to construct a carbon pipeline or storage wells would first want to hunt approval from a majority of landowners. 

The brand new legislation permits the Oil & Fuel Board to maneuver ahead with the mission and not using a majority approval, however Powell mentioned it might solely apply if there are unresponsive or absentee landowners.

“If a man’s adamant, ‘You’re not crossing my property,’ the Board’s not going to let (the corporate) cross their property,” Powell mentioned. 

Specialists counsel that Mississippi, in addition to its neighboring states, are prime places for carbon storage due to their geology. 

Susan Hovorka, a analysis scientist on the College of Texas’ Jackson College of Geosciences, defined that the pore area – tiny openings between grains of rock within the floor the place gasoline may be saved – provides the Gulf Coast area a bonus over the remainder of the nation. 

“The Gulf Coast states are significantly well-endowed, whenever you take a look at maps of the pore area availability, these states shine out as winners,” Hovorka mentioned. “There are different states which have alternative, however the Gulf Coast states’ alternative is especially glorious.” 

Starting in 2008, Hovorka and different scientists carried out one of many first large-scale carbon storage exams within the U.S. at an oil area close to Natchez owned by Denbury Inc.

Hovorka mentioned whereas this system is new to a lot of the world, there’s a well-established observe for safely storing carbon. 

“Individuals can get some confidence as a result of this isn’t new stuff being executed for the primary time,” she mentioned, mentioning the world’s first industrial seize and storage mission in Norway that started in 1996. “It’s previous stuff being put to new makes use of to mitigate greenhouse gasses.”

However storing carbon and transporting it are two various things. 

Final month, the Pipeline and Hazardous Supplies Security Administration, or PHMSA – the federal company answerable for pipeline security – introduced its findings from a 2020 gasoline leak in Satartia, Miss. The report discovered a number of failures on the a part of Denbury, and proposed a penalty of $3.9 million towards the corporate.

After the episode in Sataria, some advocates are questioning whether or not the nation is ready for an elevated demand on carbon transportation. 

Whereas each Powell and Snodgrass referenced the corporate as a proponent of beginning a program within the state, Denbury officers informed Mississippi Immediately it’s too early to say if it is going to start carbon storage within the state. Denbury is at present securing areas in different Gulf Coast states, together with Louisiana and Alabama, however doubtless wouldn’t begin storage till 2025. 

“I’d say it’s untimely,” mentioned Dan Cole, Denbury’s Vice President of Carbon Seize, Utilization and Storage. “We’re definitely evaluating, are there some good potential storage websites in Mississippi?”

Cole mentioned Denbury can be taking a look at massive items of land with few homeowners. He added that the corporate would use its present EOR pipeline so long as it met the capability wants for transporting carbon.