BC digs deeper on carbon capture
Bakersfield College delved deeper into the challenges and opportunities of carbon capture and sequestration during a webinar Tuesday focusing on what is shaping up to be an indispensable technology for achieving carbon neutrality statewide by 2045.
Speakers participating in the event said that while vehicle electrification will continue to reduce greenhouse emissions, tough-to-reform industries like agriculture, steelmaking and cement production mean some carbon will have to be sucked right out of the air if California is to meet its overarching climate goal.
The head of the California Geologic Survey, former state Oil and Gas Supervisor Steve Bohlen, said the technology exists to achieve carbon neutrality within 24 years but that the state will have to be “much more committed” to the effort than it has been so far.
There’s no question California will need to transition to zero-emission vehicles, he said, but it’s likely the state will continue to rely on internal combustion-powered cars and trucks — and imported gasoline if state legislators insist on phasing out oil production — well into the middle of the century.
Building more power storage is part of that scenario, Bohlen added, as the state increasingly turns to cars that run on batteries. He suggested building gravity-based energy storage projects inside depleted local oil wells.
A big part of the solution will have to be carbon capture and sequestration, he asserted. Doing so will be a big project requiring the introduction of conduits for moving carbon dioxide around the state. He said hydrogen energy technologies are likely to require similar pipelines.
“This will require an investment in infrastructure,” he said.
A representative of a local oil producer that has proposed CCS explained how such investments might work in the state.
Chris Gould, executive vice president and chief sustainability officer at Santa Clarita-based California Resources Corp., said the state is attractive for CCS because of the space that depleted oil reservoirs offer for the storage of carbon — and because of the financial incentive built into California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
While the federal government offers $50 per ton for permanent geological sequestration of carbon, the LCFS currently pays about $185 per ton, Gould said.
CRC has proposed two CCS projects in Kern. One would remove carbon from the smokestack of its Elk Hills power plant; the other would remove carbon dioxide right out of the air and bury it underground in a former oil reservoir where the company has deep engineering data and experience.
The plan is to do its first carbon dioxide injections by 2025. By 2027, it expects to have ramped up to injecting 5 million tons per year of CO2.
“These are ambitious, challenging but achievable goals,” he said.
Tuesday’s webinar was part of a series produced as part of Bakersfield College’s partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.