[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE FUTURE OF ADVANCED CARBON
CAPTURE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
November 22, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-58
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
38-397 PDF WASHINGTON : 2020
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma,
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois Ranking Member
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon MO BROOKS, Alabama
AMI BERA, California, BILL POSEY, Florida
Vice Chair RANDY WEBER, Texas
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania BRIAN BABIN, Texas
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
KENDRA HORN, Oklahoma RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas
BRAD SHERMAN, California TROY BALDERSON, Ohio
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee PETE OLSON, Texas
JERRY McNERNEY, California ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
PAUL TONKO, New York JIM BAIRD, Indiana
BILL FOSTER, Illinois JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington
DON BEYER, Virginia FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida GREGORY F. MURPHY, North Carolina
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois
BEN McADAMS, Utah
JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia
VACANCY
------
Subcommittee on Energy
HON. CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania, Chairman
DANIEL LIPINKSI, Illinois RANDY WEBER, Texas, Ranking Member
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
KENDRA HORN, Oklahoma MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas
JERRY McNERNEY, California JIM BAIRD, Indiana
BILL FOSTER, Illinois
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois
C O N T E N T S
November 22, 2019
Page
Hearing Charter.................................................. 2
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Randy Weber, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Energy, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 6
Written Statement............................................ 7
Statement by Representative Lizzie Fletcher, Chairwoman,
Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 8
Written Statement............................................ 10
Written statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S.
House of Representatives....................................... 11
Witnesses:
Dr. Ramanan Krishnamoorti, Chief Energy Officer, Professor of
Chemical Engineering, University of Houston
Oral Statement............................................... 14
Written Statement............................................ 16
Dr. Jeffrey Long, Faculty Senior Scientist, Materials Sciences
Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Oral Statement............................................... 55
Written Statement............................................ 57
Mr. Greg Kennedy, Senior Project Director, NRG Energy; and
Director of Asset Management, Petra Nova Project
Oral Statement............................................... 62
Written Statement............................................ 64
Mr. Roger Dewing, Director of Technology CCUS, Air Products and
Chemicals Incorporated, Inc.
Oral Statement............................................... 70
Written Statement............................................ 72
Mr. Nigel Jenvey, Global Head of Carbon Management at Gaffney,
Cline & Associates
Oral Statement............................................... 76
Written Statement............................................ 78
Discussion....................................................... 82
Appendix: Additional Material for the Record
Presentation submitted by Dr. Ramanan Krishnamoorti, Chief Energy
Officer, Professor of Chemical Engineering, University of
Houston........................................................ 104
White Paper: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/970b/
62daa17a329a98f03
bcd33233199f42c5bcf.pdf?_ga=2.85876569.1336167076.1574703669
-796248402.1574703669...................................... 125
Report: https://uh.edu/uh-energy/research/ccme/content/uh-
energy-ccme-white-paper-series-03-2019-web.pdf............. 126
Presentation submitted by Mr. Nigel Jenvey, Global Head of Carbon
Management at Gaffney, Cline & Associates...................... 127
THE FUTURE OF ADVANCED CARBON
CAPTURE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
----------
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2019
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Energy,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:17 a.m., in
the Waldorf Astoria Ballroom, Hilton University of Houston,
4450 University Dr., Houston, TX, Hon. Lizzie Fletcher
presiding.
Present: Representatives Fletcher and Weber.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Fletcher. This hearing will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a
recess at any time.
Good morning and welcome to today's field hearing, the
Future of Advanced Carbon Capture Research and Development.
I am Lizzie Fletcher. I represent Texas' 7th congressional
District, and I am delighted to be here with all of you this
morning.
And I am going to turn the floor over to Mr. Weber for an
opening statement. He's the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee.
Mr. Weber. Well, good morning, and thank you, Chairwoman
Fletcher. I'm excited to be back in Texas. I think I'd rather
be here than just about anywhere. We're going to have the
opportunity today to hear about ground-breaking new research
and development in carbon capture technology.
Today's hearing is a chance for private-sector
organizations to highlight their leading roles in fossil energy
innovation through carbon capture, through storage, and through
utilization technologies. The scope and range of technologies
being pursued is as vast as the untapped oil and gas reserves
right here in good old Texas.
Coal and natural gas, believe it or not, make up about 64
percent of the net electricity generation in the United States,
and that number is expected to only dip to 58 percent by the
year 2040. Simply put, the use of fossil fuels isn't going away
anytime soon.
We have incredible domestic fossil energy resources, and
our economic stability depends on the power that those
resources produce.
So it should come as no surprise that a robust industry has
developed right here at home focused on investing in the next
generation of technologies to produce and use American fossil
fuels more efficiently, more safely, and at a lower cost for
American consumers.
In fact, I think I'm well within my rights to label
Houston, Texas as the carbon capture capital of the world, and
I would include my District 14 with that. We've seen incredible
research and technology successes through a collaborative
public-private partnership right here in our backyard, multiple
partnerships.
One such example is Air Products, a production facility in
my district right down the road in Port Arthur, Texas. This
facility, which was sponsored in part by the Department of
Energy (DOE), captures over 90 percent of the CO2
from the product streams of two commercial-scale steam methane
reformers and injects that carbon dioxide into the West
Hastings oil field for enhanced oil recovery, which used to be
in my district when I was a State Rep., back before I got
demoted to Congress.
In return, Department of Energy has estimated that an
additional 1.6 to 3.1 million barrels of oil will be produced
annually from this CO2 application process.
Now, let me put that in perspective for you all. Today's
price of Texas West Intermediate Crude is $57 a barrel, OK? So
that would mean, if it's 1.6 million to 3.1 million barrels of
oil, that's a savings of $91,248,000. If it's at the higher
number, 3.1 million, that would be a revenue stream of
$176,793,000. It means jobs, it means economic stability, it
means energy security. It is absolutely incredible to what
we're trying to achieve.
Another example is the Petra Nova facility just a few miles
southwest of here, a facility my colleagues and I will have a
chance to visit this afternoon. This facility captures carbon
dioxide from a coal-fired plant and then, much like the Air
Products facility, routes that CO2 to the West
Ranch, which was in my district when I was a State Rep. It's
about probably 35, 40 miles from here. They use it for enhanced
oil recovery. Within the first 10 months of opening, this field
saw oil production boost by 1,300 percent using enhanced oil
recovery.
Let's do the math again. If you took those same number of
barrels, if you took 1.6 million barrels, it goes up
$91,248,000. That's unbelievable, the amount of difference in
price. So it's incredibly important for us.
Additionally, the Department of Energy is making smart,
targeted investments in early stage research to advance the
next generation of production and emissions control
technologies through the DOE Fossil Energy Research and
Development, what we call FER&D, program.
Now, listen to these numbers. It's funded at $740 million.
Remember the hundreds of millions of dollars from the one
facility I just cited? Is this program paying off? You'd better
believe it is. It's funded at $740 million, and it conducts
research that supports clean, affordable, and efficient use of
domestic fossil energy resources. The complex fossil energy
resource challenges we face today will require an all-hands-on-
deck approach: Academia, industry, the Department of Energy.
They are the ideal partners. But I want to add one group to
that, and that is the environmental groups. We ought to all
work together to make sure this is working for the best
possible outcome.
With support from the Department of Energy, the technology
developed and deployed at facilities like Air Products and
Petra Nova are reducing the emissions from local refineries and
producing affordable American fuel to power our economy.
So that's basically it. I look forward to hearing about
these partnerships from our witnesses today, and I want to
thank all of our witnesses for testifying; and, Chairwoman,
thank you for holding the hearing.
And I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Weber follows:]
Thank you, Chairwoman Fletcher. I'm excited to be back home
in Texas and have the opportunity to hear about groundbreaking
new research and development in carbon capture technology.
Today's hearing is a chance for private sector
organizations to highlight their leading roles in fossil energy
innovation through carbon capture, storage, and utilization
technologies. The scope and range of technologies being pursued
is as vast as the untapped oil and gas reserves here in Texas!
Coal and natural gas make up 64 percent of net electricity
generation in the United States, and that number is expected to
only dip to 58 percent by 2040. Simply put, the use of fossil
fuels isn't going out of style anytime soon.
We have incredible domestic fossil energy resources, and
our economic stability depends on the power they produce.
So it's no surprise that a robust industry has developed
here at home focused on investing in the next generation of
technologies to produce and use American fossil fuels more
efficiently, more safely, and at a lower cost for American
consumers. In fact, I think I am well within my rights to label
Houston, Texas as the carbon capture capital of the world!
We've seen incredible research and technology successes
through collaborative, public-private partnerships right here
in our backyard. One such example is the Air Products
production facility in my district, just down the road in Port
Arthur.
This facility, which was sponsored in part by the
Department of Energy, captures over 90 percent of the CO2 from
the product streams of two commercial-scale steam methane
reformers and injects that carbon dioxide into the West
Hastings oilfield for enhanced oil recovery. In return, DOE has
estimated that an additional 1.6 to 3.1 million barrels of oil
will be produced annually from this CO2 application process.
Another example is the Petra Nova facility, just a couple
miles southwest of here - a facility my colleagues and I will
have the chance to visit this afternoon. This facility captures
carbon dioxide from a coal-fired plant and then, much like the
Air Products facility, routes the CO2 to the West Ranch oil
field, also in my district, for enhanced oil recovery. Within
the first 10 months of opening, this field saw oil production
boost by 1,300 percent.
Additionally, the Department of Energy is making smart,
targeted investments in early-stage research to advance the
next generation of production and emissions control
technologies through the DOE Fossil Energy Research and
Development (FER&D) program.
Funded at $740 million in FY 2019, FER&D conducts research
that supports clean, affordable, and efficient use of domestic
fossil energy resources. The complex fossil energy research
challenges we face today will require an all hands-on deck
approach. Academia, industry, and the Department of Energy are
the ideal partners to develop these solutions.
With support from DOE, the technology developed and
deployed at facilities like Air Products and Petra Nova are
reducing the emissions from local refineries, and producing
affordable, American fuel to power our economy.
I look forward to hearing more about these partnerships
from our witnesses today. I want to thank our all witnesses for
testifying today, and the Chairman for holding this hearing.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you very much, Mr. Weber. I'm
grateful for your work to bring us together for this hearing
today on the future of advanced research and development on
carbon capture, and it's fitting that we meet here in Houston.
I also thank the University of Houston and Dr. Khator for
hosting us this morning.
Houston, as many of us in the room know, is a place of big
ideas. It always has been. Perhaps more important, it is a
place where big ideas become reality, and that is the subject
of today's hearing, very big ideas that are becoming a reality
right here in Houston.
Here in Houston, we know energy. When it comes to energy
innovation, this is its home. Right now, we are experiencing an
energy renaissance, one that has reduced costs and increased
investment here and around the world.
Texas, as we all know, is the largest producer of oil and
natural gas in the country. Texas is also the leader in
developing wind energy in the country. We have installed 3-
times as much wind power as the next leading State. And Texas
is also the sixth leading State when it comes to solar power
and solar energy capacity.
So, the other thing we know here in Houston is that climate
change represents a real and growing threat. We are already
experiencing its effects, and we know that reducing emissions
is a key to addressing climate change.
The advances in technology that have transformed our energy
economy have substantially reduced U.S. carbon emissions.
Replacing coal-fired power plants with natural gas plants has
contributed more to the reduction of domestic carbon emissions
than any other effort.
Developing and utilizing more renewable energy sources is
another critical part of our overall effort.
But we need to do more.
That is why I am glad that we are here today to talk about
carbon capture research and development.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ``Special
Report on Global Warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius'' makes clear
that the use of carbon capture technologies will be essential
under just about any plausible scenario to sufficiently limit
our global temperature increase.
Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) provides an
important pathway to meeting our energy needs and reducing our
carbon emissions. While these technologies are promising, we
need more research and development to reduce the costs of these
technologies and to deploy them at the scale needed to meet our
climate mitigation goals.
That's why I worked closely with my colleagues on our
Committee, including our Committee Chairwoman, Representative
Johnson, Subcommittee Chairman, Mr. Lamb, and Mr. Veasey from
Fort Worth, to bring forward the Fossil Energy Research and
Development Act to expand Department of Energy research,
development, and demonstration programs, including carbon
capture technologies for power plants, carbon utilization,
carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere, leak detection for
methane, and identifying other novel approaches for light
hydrocarbons produced during oil and gas shale production.
As we see consistently on this Committee, on the Science,
Space, and Technology Committee overall, there is an important
and valuable, and I would say essential, partnership between
government, research institutions, and industry that is
critical to advancing our efforts. And one of the things I
appreciate most about this Committee is that consistently we
have panels of witnesses from those various groups informing
our work.
So I look forward to hearing from our expert witnesses
today about how this important technology works and what the
Federal Government can do to make smarter investments and
assist in developments that ensure that we remain the global
energy leader, and that we remain and become the global clean
energy leader while addressing the challenges before us to
reduce carbon emissions.
I want to thank you all for joining us here. I look forward
to an excellent discussion.
I would also like to briefly recognize Dr. Renu Khator,
President of the University of Houston, who is joining us this
morning, for a few introductory remarks.
Thank you, Dr. Khator.
Dr. Khator. Thank you, Madam Chair, Members of the
Committee. Welcome to the University of Houston. On behalf of
our Board of Regents, our 74,000 students in the system, 46,000
students here on this campus, over 300,000 alumni, and a great,
great, wonderful fleet of researchers here, I would like to
welcome you all and thank you for choosing to come to the
University of Houston. Your presence here means a lot.
I mean, I could talk a lot about the University of Houston,
but that's not what I'm here for. But I just wanted to say that
we being in Texas, first of all, take our responsibility toward
higher education very seriously. We take responsibility for
providing affordable education and access to a higher
education, but at the same time also producing the intellectual
capital that is necessary to solve some of the problems that
you've just outlined.
Being in the top five petroleum engineering programs in the
country, being ranked number one in the entrepreneurship
program in the country, being ranked number one in transfer of
technology of our professors into the real world when measured
in terms of the revenue from IP, we ranked number one there as
well, all of these things make sure that we have the ability
that we could do it, we could find the solutions. And as I
always say, we as an institution being in Houston never raise
the ivory walls to begin with, so we have no problem in
knocking them down, a very collaborative institution.
You will hear a lot from our energy advisory board members.
They advise us, and they take us to the areas that we didn't
think possible. But you will also hear from our chief energy
officer. Anything we can do to advance the agenda as you have
outlined, we are here as your University, and again being in
Houston, being in Texas, we take it very, very seriously.
So thank you for being here. I hope you have a good time
and enjoy the beautiful campus on this beautiful day.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you so much, Dr. Khator. I would
like to second your comment. I think collaboration is something
that we do very well here in Houston, and I'm pleased that so
many of our Houston area delegation members are here today for
the hearing.
If there are Members who wish to submit additional opening
statements, your statements will be added to the record at this
point.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Fletcher follows:]
Thank you, Mr. Weber. I am grateful for your work to bring
us together for this hearing today on the future of advanced
research and development on carbon capture, and it is fitting
that we meet here in Houston.
Houston is a place of big ideas - it always has been.
Perhaps more important, it is a place where those big ideas
become realities. And the subject of today's hearing is a very
big idea that is becoming a reality.
Here in Houston, we know energy. When it comes to energy
innovation, this is its home. Right now, we are experiencing an
energy renaissance, one that has reduced costs and increased
investment here and around the world.
Texas is, as we all know, the largest producer of oil and
natural gas in the country. Texas also is the leader in
developing wind energy in the country. We have installed three
times as much wind power as the next leading state. Texas is
also the sixth leading state in solar energy capacity.
Here in Houston, we also know that climate change
represents a real and growing threat. We are already
experiencing its effects. And we know that reducing emissions
is key to addressing climate change.
The advances in technology that have transformed our energy
economy have substantially reduced U.S. carbon emissions.
Replacing coal-fired plants with natural gas plants has
contributed more to the reduction of domestic carbon emissions
than any other effort. Developing and utilizing more renewable
energy sources is another critical part of our overall effort.
But we need to do more.
That is why I am so glad that we are here today to talk
about carbon capture research and development.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ``Special
Report on Global Warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius'' makes clear
that the use of carbon capture technologies will be essential
under just about any plausible scenario to sufficiently limit
our global temperature increase.
Carbon capture, utilization, and storage provides an
important pathway to meeting our energy needs and reducing our
carbon emissions. While these technologies are promising, we
need more research and development to reduce the costs of these
technologies and to deploy them at the scale needed to meet our
climate mitigation goals.
That is why I worked closely with my colleagues, including
our Committee Chairwoman Johnson and Subcommittee Chairman Lamb
and Mr. Veasey, to bring forward the Fossil Energy Research and
Development Act to expand Department of Energy (DOE) research,
development, and demonstration programs including carbon
capture technologies for power plants, including technologies
for coal and natural gas; carbon storage, including to develop
and maintain mapping tools and resources that assess the
capacity of geologic storage formations in the United States;
carbon utilization, including to assess and monitor potential
changes in the life cycle of carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gas emissions; advanced energy systems to reduce
emissions from and improve the efficiency of fossil fuel power
generation; developing and assessing methods to separate and
recover rare earth elements from coal and byproduct streams;
identifying the environmental, health, and safety impacts of
methane hydrate development; carbon dioxide removal from the
atmosphere; methane leak detection and mitigation; and
identifying and evaluating novel uses for light hydrocarbons
produced during oil and shale gas production.
As we see consistently on the Science, Space, and
Technology Committee, there is an important and valuable
partnership between government, research institutions, and
industry that is critical to advancing this effort.
I look forward to hearing from our expert witnesses today
about how this important technology works and what we in the
federal government can do to make smarter investments and
assist in developments that ensure that we remain the global
energy leader and as the global clean energy leader, while
addressing the challenges before us to reduce carbon
emissions.I want to thank all of you here today for joining us
for this hearing and I look forward to an excellent discussion.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]
Good morning and thank you, Chair Fletcher, for holding
today's hearing in Houston on the Department of Energy's
efforts to advance carbon capture, utilization, and storage, or
CCUS, technologies.
Historically, fossil fuels have served as the primary
sources of U.S. energy as they provide reliable power at low
costs. They have also been an important resource to the
manufacturing sector, which relies on fossil fuel combustion to
provide high-temperature heat needed for a variety of
processes, including the production of cement and glass.
My home state of Texas has played an important role in the
fossil fuel industry as the leading producer of crude oil and
natural gas in the U.S. However, as our nation's priorities
have evolved, we are now focused not only on using energy
sources that provide low cost, dispatchable energy, but also on
how the greenhouse gases produced by these sources are
mitigated and managed.
That's why we must strengthen our investment in the
Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy, which amongst
other activities, supports research to reduce emissions that
result from the production and use of fossil fuels. This
includes the development of technologies such as carbon
capture, utilization, and storage, and methane leak detection
and mitigation. DOE's Fossil Energy Office has already been
instrumental in advancing CCUS technologies, having heavily
invested in one of the first commercial scale demonstrations of
carbon capture and storage in the power sector at Petra Nova.
Yet, there is much more to be done. To date, there has been
relatively little research, development, and demonstration
conducted on CCUS technologies applied to natural gas plants,
an increasing energy source for our power sector, and
industrial processes, which produce over 20% of U.S. greenhouse
gas emissions. Moreover, many experts, including former DOE
Secretary, Ernest Moniz, have highlighted the need to advance
direct carbon capture technologies to manage existing, ambient
carbon pollution.
For these reasons, I am a proud cosponsor of H.R. 3607, the
bipartisan Fossil Energy Research and Development Act of 2019,
which reauthorizes and expands these important research
activities, and specifically enables DOE to conduct additional
demonstration projects, like Petra Nova, that are critical for
propelling the CCUS industry forward.
I look forward to discussing this legislation further and
hearing from our distinguished group of witnesses today on the
research investments we need to make our transition to a clean
energy future possible. Thank you for being here this morning.
With that, I yield back.
Chairwoman Fletcher. If there are no other statements, I
will go ahead and recognize Mr. Weber to introduce our
witnesses.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, ma'am. But before I do, I want to
echo Dr. Khator's remarks. She's being very gracious and very
humble. As one of those 300,000 alumni from the University of
Houston, I want to say for those of you who want to increase
your Texas or your energy bona fides, they're still taking
applications for continuing education, so we'll have people
outside with clipboards to sign you up.
But seriously, thank you, Dr. Khator. We are just so
grateful to be here today. Thank you. You bet.
So, our first witness today is Mr. Greg Kennedy, Senior
Project Director of Petra Nova Asset Management at NRG Energy,
and in this capacity he oversees the management of innovative
carbon capture projects designed to capture and store 1.4
million tons of CO2 per year.
I've actually done some math, Mr. Kennedy, on that. If the
cost is $600 a ton--that's $840 million. If the cost is $94 a
ton, as some are trying to get it down to that, that would be
$131 million a year. So that's about a $700 million difference;
unbelievable.
Mr. Kennedy has over 4 decades of project management
experience overseeing commercial contracts, power origination
operations, and other global special projects in the energy
industry. Prior to joining Petra Nova project, he served as the
Senior Project Director of all southeast assets for GenOn
Energy.
Mr. Kennedy holds a bachelor of science and engineering
degree from Purdue University and received his master of
business administration from the University of Houston.
Did I mention they're still taking applications for the
rest of you all?
[Laughter.]
Mr. Weber. Next we're going to Dr. Jeffrey Long. Our next
witness, Dr. Jeffrey Long, is a Faculty Senior Scientist at the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research expertise
and interest includes inorganic and materials chemistry, metal
organic frameworks, catalysts and conductivity, and molecular
magnetism.
Dr. Long has received extensive recognition throughout his
career for excellence in both teaching and research in the
energy field, including from Harvard University and UC-
Berkeley.
Dr. Long, we need to add UH to that list, by the way.
He has also earned fellowships in the Office of Naval
Research, the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation, and the Bakar Fellows Program at UC-Berkeley. Dr.
Long holds two Bachelor of Arts degrees from Cornell University
in chemistry and mathematics and a Ph.D. in chemistry from
Harvard University.
Welcome, Dr. Long; and, Mr. Kennedy, you too.
Dr. Ramanan Krishnamoorti is our next witness that we're
going to welcome today, and he's the Chief Energy Officer of
the University of Houston. He oversees UH Energy, a program
that partners with the energy industry to build those technical
leadership skills that Dr. Khator was talking about and develop
those new technologies.
Since 1996, he has had a storied career in energy research
at UH, receiving over $16 million for his innovative research
in the energy field. When I read that I thought, man, you've
been given a lot of money, but we all know it actually goes
here to the school and we appreciate your stewardship of that.
The doctor has been recognized for his outstanding research
and teaching in the field of prestigious institutions,
including the University of Houston, the National Science
Foundation, and the Journal of Polymer Science. Polymers are
very big in my district, by the way.
He is also a Fellow of the Neutron Scattering Society and
the American Physical Society.
Dr. Krishnamoorti received his bachelor of technology from
the Indian Institute of Technology and holds a Ph.D. in
chemical engineering from Princeton University.
Welcome, Doctor.
Next we'll go to Mr. Roger Dewing. Our next witness is the
Director of Technology at the Air Products Technology Center,
where he has led engineering teams in Europe, China, and in the
U.S. After graduating from the University of Surrey with a
bachelor degree in chemical engineering.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Weber. He has completed the Graduate Training Program
in the U.K., taking on assignments in oil refining as well as
offshore drilling. He then served with British Gas PLC as a
part of their LNG engineering team before joining the Air
Products Technology Center in 1996. Man, that's 23 years ago.
Since beginning his career with Air Products, Mr. Dewing
has built energy processing technology and knowledge transfer
systems all around the world. His most recent project will
support cryogenic process innovation and development in the
Middle East.
So, welcome, Mr. Dewing. We're glad you're here.
Our next witness is Mr. Nigel Jenvey. He is the Global Head
of Carbon Management at Gaffney, Cline & Associates where he
helps industry professionals understand the value of carbon
management, which is one of the reasons we're here today.
Prior to this role, he has held leadership positions for
some of the largest energy companies in the world, including as
head of Carbon Capture, Use and Storage for British Petroleum.
In addition to his role at Gaffney, Cline & Associates, he is
now the Coordinating Subcommittee Deputy Chair for the National
Petroleum Council CCUS study, due to be completed in 2019.
Mr. Jenvey attended the University of Leeds, where he
earned a bachelor of engineering degree in mining, like we were
talking about, mining engineering, and he also holds a master
of science in petroleum engineering from Imperial College,
London.
Welcome, Mr. Jenvey.
With that, Madam Chair, I will yield back.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you very much, Mr. Weber.
As our witnesses should have been informed, you will each
have 5 minutes for spoken testimony and hopefully summarizing
the written testimony that you have already prepared. It is
included in the record for the hearing. And when you've
completed your 5 minutes each, then we will begin with
questions from the Members, and each Member will have 5 minutes
to question the panel. We'll do at least the first round of
questions that way.
So, we will start with Dr. Krishnamoorti, if you would like
to begin. Thank you.
TESTIMONY OF DR. RAMANAN KRISHNAMOORTI,
CHIEF ENERGY OFFICER, PROFESSOR OF CHEMICAL
ENGINEERING, UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Thank you so much, Chairwoman Fletcher,
Ranking Member Weber, and Members of the Committee. Thank you
for being here at the University of Houston. We call it the
energy university, and you'll see why.
Thank you for having me here today to talk about our
approach to carbon management specifically at the intersection
of fundamental science, new technology, and policy.
My name is Ramanan Krishnamoorti, as the Chairwoman
indicated. I'm the Chief Energy Officer here and Professor of
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Let me sort of set a context for this. Abundant, low-cost
energy makes the world possible. Affordable and sustainable
energy will be needed in ever-increasing quantities throughout
the 21st century as our planet's human population grows by an
additional 2 to 3 billion. Satisfying this need will be
challenging. Adding to this challenge is the requirement that
we must address energy-related climate change risks.
The University of Houston is uniquely positioned to play a
leading role in delivering innovative solutions that will be
required to address both of these global-scale imperatives. UH
has committed itself to establish itself as the energy
university, the university that will advance the science,
technologies, and policies that underpin the energy transition
while providing affordable energy for our entire planet's
population.
At the University of Houston, located in the energy
capital, we are committed to addressing the issue of carbon. A
year ago we acted on this imperative that was brought to us by
a broad group of stakeholders. My colleague Tracy Hester of the
UH law school and I created the Center for Carbon Management in
Energy, a center that's currently led by a former DOE official,
Charles McConnell. It is our thesis that the energy industry is
the only industry that operates at scale and is positioned to
substantially reduce the annual addition of 36 gigatons of
carbon dioxide and cumulative addition of 800 billion tons of
carbon in the atmosphere. Moreover, we recognize that
addressing the carbon challenge must be interdisciplinary,
embracing the systems approach that addresses the present and
the future.
Toward this, we have integrated scientific advances with
technology innovations and, most importantly, connected them to
regulatory, business, and public policy. In my written
testimony I provided you a detailed analysis of the current
challenges and opportunities in carbon management. I've
emphasized the fact of the impact of UofH in providing
innovative technological and policy strategies to address
CO2 and natural gas emissions. These twin challenges
require innovative solutions, and they must address the
immediate challenges and strategic long-term disruptive
solutions.
Some prominent examples of these--I will go through three
of them really quickly, in the interest of time. First, growing
energy demand in emerging economies such as India presents an
opportunity to address the twin challenges of access to
affordable energy and addressing climate risk. A UofH project
led by my renowned petroleum engineering colleague, Dr. Ganesh
Thakur, who had an illustrious career at Chevron working in the
Permian and doing some of the early stage CO2
experiments there, has been working in collaboration with Oil
India, Ltd. This is one of the publicly held companies in India
in the state of Assam, and has demonstrated how CO2
captured from nearby petrochemical plants can boost oil
recovery in a nearby depleted oil field. This is a huge issue
in a country like India where about 85 to 90 percent of their
energy is being imported and their depleted oil fields stand as
a national security and global instability challenge.
Second, we've been advancing cost-effective--and this is
important--cost-effective direct air capture through the
development of modular and intensified carbon capture
technologies that are coupled with excess renewable energy that
is unique to the State of Texas, and finding ways to
appropriately deploy them on a distributed basis. Ongoing
developments of membrane and electro-membrane technologies,
along with integration into modular and intensified direct air
capture units, is underway.
As a last example, going back to my chemical engineering
basis here, the inherent stability of CO2 means that
many traditional processes for converting CO2 to
chemicals are highly energy intensive and hence produce
additional carbon. In contrast, my colleagues in the Department
of Chemical Engineering at UofH are using CO2 both
as a source of carbon as well as a source of active oxygen that
can reduce the energy footprint of existing large-scale
hydrocarbon conversion processes such as methane
dehydrogenation. Such a process would result in continued
monetization of natural gas liquids, as well as utilization of
CO2.
So, in conclusion, Members of the Committee, the University
of Houston stands ready to address the most challenging
problems facing our generation, providing affordable and
reliable access to an ever-growing demand for energy and
simultaneously addressing the energy-related climate change
risk.
I thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony today
and look forward to answering your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Krishnamoorti follows:]
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Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Dr. Krishnamoorti.
Dr. Long?
TESTIMONY OF DR. JEFFREY LONG,
FACULTY SENIOR SCIENTIST, MATERIALS SCIENCES
DIVISION, LAWRENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL LABORATORY
Dr. Long. Chair Fletcher, Ranking Member Weber,
distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting
me. My name is Jeffrey Long, and I'm the Faculty Senior
Scientist at Berkeley Lab and a Professor at the University of
California-Berkeley.
Fossil fuels will continue to supply the majority of global
energy for many years to come, making it crucial that we invest
in carbon capture technologies that will stem the buildup of
greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. Support for basic
scientific research plays a vital role in this quest. I will
present a case study that underscores this point.
I'm a Director of a DOE-funded Energy Frontier Research
Center, the Center for Gas Separations. Our goal is to create
new materials that enable the efficient separation of gas
mixtures, with particular emphasis on separations that reduce
carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
Toward this end, we synthesize new porous solids known as
metal organic frameworks or, affectionately, MOFs. These
materials behave as sponges capable of soaking up vast
quantities of a specific gas molecule such as carbon dioxide.
MOFs are particularly powerful for such applications owing to
their controllable structure and their extremely high internal
surface areas. Indeed, just one gram of a MOF in amounts
similar to a cube of sugar can have a surface area greater than
a football field.
Consequently, if designed properly, a small amount of a MOF
can remove an enormous amount of carbon dioxide from the
exhaust gas produced by fossil fuel combustion.
Working within our center, we serendipitously discovered
that certain MOFs can capture carbon dioxide through an
unprecedented switch-like mechanism. What's particularly
exceptional about these materials is that CO2
capacity is highly sensitive to temperature such that one can
envision using them in a system where CO2 can be
captured and then released in pure form with minimal energy
input.
It's important to emphasize that intensive collaboration
among a team of talented scientists with diverse backgrounds,
as well as access to unique federally funded facilities such as
the Advanced Light Source at Berkeley Lab, were essential to
gaining an understanding of why these materials behave in this
unexpected manner.
Our discovery led to a DOE ARPA-E (Advanced Research
Projects Agency--Energy) project that enabled us to further
optimize the materials for efficient removal of CO2
from a power plant flue gas. We showed that the capture and
release of carbon dioxide could be accomplished using much
smaller temperature changes than required for other
technologies. This strategy eliminates the need to divert high-
value, high-temperature steam away from electricity production,
avoiding a large increase in the cost of electricity.
In the course of these efforts, we also showed that
variance of the MOFs could be efficient for the removal of
CO2 from other gas mixtures, including biogas,
natural gas, and even directly from air.
This research led in 2014 to the formation of a startup
company, Mosaic Materials, in which for full disclosure I have
a financial interest. Acceptance into Cyclotron Road, an
incubator program at Berkeley Lab, enabled a demonstration of
how the new technology might be deployed at scale. This then
led to success in raising venture capital, and Mosaic Materials
is now actively pursuing the commercial production of MOFs for
integration within numerous CO2 separation
processes.
Substantial government support has been raised to
facilitate these efforts, including from the DOE for carbon
capture from power plants, from the Navy for efficiently
scrubbing CO2 from submarine atmospheres, and from
NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) for
CO2 capture and life support applications.
The company has further succeeded in forming strategic
partnerships with other companies with an interest in carbon
capture, including Exxon Mobil.
Berkeley Lab is now leading a project funded through the
National Energy Technology Laboratory in which we're working
with Mosaic Materials and an engineering company called Svante
to carry out a pilot demonstration at a coal-fired power plant.
Here, use of the MOF in a unique rotating bed system can
achieve quick capture-release cycle times and reduce energy
consumption. Ultimately, it's envisioned that widespread
commercial deployment of such technology could result in a
dramatic reduction of the costs and energy associated with
carbon capture as it necessarily becomes implemented across the
globe.
The discovery of new carbon capture MOFs would not have
been possible without basic research support at numerous
stages. If we're to halt global warming, it is essential that
we continue to champion and even increase such support for
basic science. Moreover, we need to invest intensively in
accelerating the most promising new discoveries toward
technology realization. This is a difficult, slow, and
expensive process but one that is of vital importance to our
future.
Again, thank you for inviting me. I look forward to
answering any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Long follows:]
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Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Dr. Long.
Mr. Kennedy?
TESTIMONY OF MR. GREG KENNEDY,
SENIOR PROJECT DIRECTOR, NRG ENERGY, AND
DIRECTOR OF ASSET MANAGEMENT, PETRA NOVA PROJECT
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you. Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member,
and Committee Members, I am honored to be here today testifying
on carbon capture and utilization and sharing NRG's perspective
on the role that carbon capture can play in reducing greenhouse
gas emissions.
My name is Greg Kennedy, and I'm Senior Project Director
for NRG Energy, a large, publicly traded, competitive power
company, and I serve as President of Petra Nova. At the outset
I'd like to provide some context for what it means to be
competitive in the electricity sector. It means that NRG is not
a utility with rates determined by regulators. We do not have
captive ratepayers from whom we can recover costs or a
guaranteed rate of return. Our shareholders bear the risk tied
to the plants that we build and operate and investments that we
make to support those plants, including our investment in the
Petra Nova project.
This morning I want to focus on carbon capture utilization
and storage and NRG's experience at Petra Nova, the only
commercial-scale CCUS project in the United States. Petra Nova
is the largest post-combustion carbon capture project in the
world, and it was completed on time and on budget.
Petra Nova captures CO2 from NRG's WA Parish
power plant located southwest of Houston, Texas. We use amine-
based post-combustion technology to capture 90 percent of the
CO2 from a 240-megawatt-equivalent slipstream of
flue gas from one of the coal units at the plant. When
operating at 100 percent, over 5,200 short tons of CO2
are captured each day. The captured CO2 is then
dried, cooled, compressed, and transported 81 miles via
pipeline to the West Ranch oil field, where it is injected to
enhance oil recovery and ultimately sequestered.
To help finance and achieve the technological goals of the
project, the NRG partnered with JX Nippon, a global oil and gas
company, in a 50/50 joint venture. Additionally, Petra Nova
formed a joint venture with Hilcorp Energy, a privately held
oil and gas company, to use enhanced oil recovery to increase
oil production at the West Ranch oil field. We are parties to a
third partnership as well, and one that is very important to
this Committee. Petra Nova would not exist without support from
the U.S. Department of Energy, which provided a $190 million
cost-shared grant to defray the project's approximately $1
billion price tag.
Petra Nova became operational on December 29, 2016, and as
of the end of October the plant has delivered approximately 3.6
million tons of captured CO2, equivalent to pulling
almost 700,000 cars off the road for a year. From an
engineering perspective, the project has been a success, and
the technology works.
As with any first-of-a-kind effort, we have learned several
lessons. We have gained a valuable and detailed understanding
of the challenges presented by scaling up carbon capture to
commercial scale: The impact of location-specific
considerations such as ambient temperature, any capital and
operating costs, along with options to reduce or manage both.
Working with our technology provider, Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries, we have encountered and solved a variety of
challenges. What we have learned has, of course, been shared
with the Department of Energy and provides valuable insights
for the next generation of CCUS projects. We encourage the
Committee to position the Federal Government as a more active
partner in making projects work from both an engineering and
business perspective. Strengthening these public-private
partnerships is critical, because if a commercial-scale
demonstration is not also financially viable, it will be the
first and last.
One way to strengthen these partnerships would be ongoing
collaboration between the DOE's R&D (research and development)
efforts, technology providers, and potential project investors
to work through technology challenges. Petra Nova was a 10X
scale-up of a post-combustion demonstration project in Alabama.
Future projects will likely be a further scale-up in size, and
whether this results in larger equipment or multiple trains of
similar-sized equipment, this will likely create new challenges
to keep costs down.
I would also encourage this Committee to collaborate with
the tax-writing committee to ensure that the 45Q tax credit is
implemented in a way that provides flexibility around,
eligibility for, and receipt of the credit. These initiatives
will help to continue advancing commercial-scale CCUS projects
by facilitating technology improvements to drive capital and
operating costs lower, the ability to sell CO2 at a
competitive price, and access to tax credits can improve
project economics.
We encourage the Committee to remain engaged both on the
challenges to reduce carbon emissions and to deploy the
technologies needed to solve that challenge. At NRG, we are
committed to be part of that solution.
I thank you for the opportunity to appear this morning, and
I'm happy to answer any questions that the Committee may have.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kennedy follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy.
Mr. Dewing?
TESTIMONY OF MR. ROGER DEWING,
DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY CCUS,
AIR PRODUCTS AND CHEMICALS, INC.
Mr. Dewing. Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member, and Members
of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify
before you today. First, I want to commend the leadership of
this Committee for exploring the promise of carbon capture
technology and its importance to global energy.
I'd like to start by outlining how Air Products believes
carbon capture and storage, or CCS, projects may develop over
the next few years. I'll highlight how important these projects
could be in reducing carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere
whilst maintaining global energy supplies.
Many of the current proposed CCS projects revolve around
the production and utilization of hydrogen. Hydrogen, we
believe, may be an enabler for many CCS projects. If current
hydrocarbon fuels, from natural gas to coal, are converted to
hydrogen and carbon dioxide, or CO2, and if the
carbon dioxide is captured and stored, then the produced
hydrogen can be considered to have been produced emission-free.
This hydrogen is often referred to as ``blue hydrogen.''
Using hydrogen to distribute and store energy has some
significant benefits. It can be used as the fuel for power
generation in turbines. It can be used for transportation in
fuel cells. It can be distributed to industry clusters to de-
carbonize energy-intensive industries. Excess hydrogen can also
be stored for use when demand is high. It can therefore be
complementary to green energy projects such as solar or wind,
providing a backup supply of energy when needed.
However, CCS projects will only become a reality if you can
ensure two fundamental questions can be answered: Where will
the CO2 go? And who will pay for it to be captured
and stored? I will explore the answers to these questions again
in a moment.
Within Air Products I'm currently setting up a group to
further develop our CCS technology. We're recruiting scientists
and engineers in the U.S. into our head office in Pennsylvania
and elsewhere in the world. This is to meet the need for
greater sustainability in global industrial projects.
Air Products' initial interest in CCS started in 2005 when
these types of projects were being led by large power
generation companies. However, global interest diminished with
the recession of 2008. But that interest is returning with a
slightly different focus. Current proposals seem to be for a
large group of projects feeding a single CO2 storage
solution. The U.S., Canada, EU, and China are leading that
renewed interest.
The U.S. is the market leader for CCS projects and
associated technology. Currently, over half the operating CCS
projects around the world are in the U.S. There are already
hundreds of miles of super critical CO2 pipelines
moving large quantities of CO2 for enhanced oil
recovery. And also, the U.S. has the Federal 45Q tax credits
providing financial incentives to capture that CO2.
I would argue that this credit may not be enough on its own,
but it is ahead of many other countries who have nothing in
place at the moment.
Among the current CCS projects operating is Air Products'
Port Arthur facility here in Texas. It originally produced
hydrogen and steam for the refinery locally, but since a
retrofit in 2013 it also captures 1 million metric tons of
CO2 a year, and it's been operating for 6 years. The
project was partially funded by the DOE, which allowed us to
develop our CO2 Vacuum Swing Adsorption technology
that can flexibly capture CO2 from processed gases.
Air Products also installed equipment for the compression and
drying of that CO2 so that it could be delivered to
a local Denbury pipeline for EOR (enhanced oil recovery). We
were also able to reconfigure the facility such that it
provides the same industrial gas products to our customers.
The capture project is still operating and is a success
because it answers those two fundamental questions I posed
earlier: Where the CO2 will go? And who will pay for
it to be captured and stored? First, the Denbury CO2
pipeline, used to supply CO2 for EOR, was only 13
miles away, so there was a home for the CO2. Second,
the DOE funded the project, the 45Q tax credits, and the fact
that CO2 has a value for EOR made the project
financially sensible.
Looking to the future, Air Products is actively seeking
more projects like Port Arthur. That experience gives us a
proven reference for designing and operating CCS projects. It
is likely that many of the next projects may be of similar
scope. Retrofits of existing hydrogen facilities lend
themselves to capturing significant CO2 at modest
capital cost.
Air Products' recent acquisition of Shell and GE
gasification technologies should offer another opportunity to
develop CCS projects. Gasification technology converts a broad
range of hydrocarbon feeds into hydrogen-rich synthesis gas. It
is then possible to capture the CO2 from this gas
for storage. This means fuels such as coal can be used for
energy supplies with theoretically no CO2 emissions
to the atmosphere.
Some final thoughts. The use of fossil fuels, as we said,
will continue for many years to come, and CCS will allow this
to continue while still meeting CO2 emission
targets. CCS means that heavier carbon-rich fuels may still be
used to provide energy without the associated heavy burden of
atmospheric CO2. CCS projects are in operation
today, so the technology to capture and store CO2
already exists. There are no technology barriers to the
projects, but further research will be essential to reduce
costs and improve efficiency. This will make more projects
feasible when the two fundamental questions are asked and
answered.
Thank you for the opportunity to present Air Products'
perspective on CCS issues, and I hope that with the continued
support of the DOE that many more CCS projects like our Port
Arthur facility will become reality. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dewing follows:]
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Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Dewing.
Mr. Jenvey?
TESTIMONY OF MR. NIGEL JENVEY,
GLOBAL HEAD OF CARBON MANAGEMENT,
GAFFNEY, CLINE & ASSOCIATES
Mr. Jenvey. Good morning, Chair Fletcher, Ranking Member
Weber, distinguished Members of the Committee. I sincerely
thank you for the opportunity to talk to you today and provide
some perspectives that I have on capture and storage. Gaffney,
Cline & Associates provides independent and trusted technical,
commercial, and strategic advice to the oil and gas industry. A
key pillar of our carbon management practice includes the
assessment of the range of carbon solutions that are available
to avoid, replace, reduce, offset, or sequester greenhouse gas
emissions to assure continued compliance and competitiveness in
a constantly evolving global energy market.
While there is no silver bullet to carbon management, per
se, carbon capture, use, and storage is widely considered a
vital carbon solution or clean energy technology that is
available today. But according to the International Energy
Agency, it is not on track for meeting the world's sustainable
development goals. My objective today is to convey my
experience on how continued U.S. technology and capability
leadership will expand deployment domestically and
internationally.
Amine-absorption CO2 capture technology is
proven today for use at commercial scale, as you've heard from
Mr. Kennedy from Petra Nova. The original patent for this, a
process for separating acidic gases, was filed in 1930. The
technology is capital intensive due to its large scale and
complexity, along with the significant energy and maintenance
costs for operation. While cost and performance improvements
have been achieved over time, this is now reaching fundamental
limitations in the thermodynamics of the regeneration energy
needed for the amines. Cost reductions are therefore stalling.
Other newer technology types, some of which you've heard
about here today, include cryogenic, absorption, membranes, and
process systems that have been researched, developed, and in
some cases demonstrated at commercial scale over the last
decade.
Typically, these technologies require less capital and have
lower energy demands to operate. While some hold promise,
deployment on commercial power plants or large-scale industrial
facilities, of course, still has a significant amount of risk
for investors due to the total as-spent cost and long-term
operational performance uncertainties.
A novel approach has therefore materialized--we've heard it
from colleagues here today--where some of these newer
technologies are being demonstrated at much smaller scales.
Sometimes they are being combined into hybrid systems or
integrated with renewable power and heat sources. Innovation at
this small modular scale carries less risk, reducing cycle
times to success or failure. While they are currently less
mature, these innovations could result in potential
breakthroughs in cost that with further support and time
potentially move back into power and large-scale industry
applications.
We now understand that CCUS is a versatile carbon solution
in that it can greatly reduce CO2 emissions from
existing energy, industrial infrastructure, and the atmosphere.
However, since there is no panacea for CO2 capture
technology to address all CO2 emissions, a
diversified technology program is therefore needed.
I have personally worked in CCUS since 2004 on technology
and projects across the world and have found unequivocally the
U.S. to be the world leader in CCUS research, development,
demonstration, and deployment. This is evidenced by consistent
congressional support, over 20 years for the Department of
Energy to lead and support public-private collaboration on
science and technology, an established regulatory framework,
over 5,000 miles of installed CO2 pipelines, over 40
years of CO2 enhanced oil recovery experience, over
80 percent of the world's installed CCUS capacity, and world-
leading policy support with the 45Q tax credit.
However, the rest of the world is catching up, with 12 of
the next 15 projects in advanced development located outside of
the U.S., according to the Global CCS Institute.
Over the last year I have therefore had the honor and
pleasure to serve as Deputy Chair to the CCUS Study
Coordinating Subcommittee of the National Petroleum Council.
This study was undertaken at the request of Secretary Perry and
is due to report out on December 12, 2019. While, of course, I
cannot comment on the specifics of this pending report, we have
developed a roadmap for deployment at scale that will ensure
continued U.S. leadership. A differential feature of the study
has been to assess the costs of capture, transport, and storage
to the largest 80 percent of all U.S. stationary sources. This,
therefore, underpins our identification of the level of value
necessary to enable deployment, builds the case for ongoing
RD&D (research, development, and demonstration) across the
entire CCUS value chain, and enables assessment of the economic
benefits: jobs, economic competitiveness, and energy security.
The resulting recommendations have been laid out in three
phases to achieve deployment at scale and are categorized into
financial incentives, supportive legal and regulatory
frameworks, technology and capability, and stakeholder
engagement themes. I offer to revert to this Committee to
provide further details of this study at a later date, should
you be interested.
In conclusion, the U.S. is well positioned to lead the
world with its experience, technology, and capability.
Continued public-private commitments to RD&D investment are
essential.
Thank you once again for your time today, and I would be
happy to answer any of your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jenvey follows:]
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Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you very much, Mr. Jenvey.
At this point we will begin our first round of questions
for our witnesses, and I will start by recognizing myself for 5
minutes. I do want to follow up on your offer and your
comments, Mr. Jenvey, about the path forward, and your
recommendations. I think this Committee would very much
appreciate getting a copy of the recommendations as soon as
they are available.
That kind of gave us a preview of the question that I'd
like to put to everyone who is here about what it is that we
can do to assist in this effort, because we sit before you as
Members of Congress. This is the Science, Space, and Technology
Committee, and this is the Energy Subcommittee. This is an
issue that we are very focused on, and so I have a ton of
questions. Five minutes will not cover all of them. We may get
to do another round and, of course, would love to continue the
conversation as we go.
But one particular question in your written testimony, Mr.
Jenvey, was about the potential for use of these carbon capture
technologies to reduce emissions in other industries such as
cement or steel and petrochemicals. So, can you talk a little
bit about how carbon capture technologies differ, how the
designs differ with other applications, as opposed to the ones
that have been designed for coal-fired power plants or natural
gas plants?
Mr. Jenvey. Thank you. So, there are definitely synergies
between the types of technologies, the fundamental building
blocks that those technologies use, whether it's absorption,
adsorption processing, or whether it's pre-combustion or post-
combustion. So there is some ability to transfer from one
industrial setting to another, but each is different. I think,
as Mr. Kennedy pointed out earlier on, of course, they have
environmental, atmospheric, different changes where they're
actually operated. The stream compositions are different for
the amount of CO2 that's contained within them.
Usually in the industrial processes there are process
emissions, which tend to have higher concentration of
CO2, as opposed to combustion emissions from power
plants or furnaces and heaters, which is a lower concentration
of CO2. But then again, those streams also have
other gases, other contaminants in them that also have to be
dealt with.
So there's a lot of synergy between the different
technologies. But as I said, there's really no panacea that's
safe for all different types of applications. Generally, cost
of capture is related to CO2 concentration in the
stream, and therefore that really is a focus in order to spot
the early opportunities, the low-hanging fruit, to be able to
target those and find the right technology that can be applied.
Chairwoman Fletcher. And as a quick follow up, are you
aware of any planned or existing projects that work on carbon
capture on some of these other processes right now?
Mr. Jenvey. There's one that's in the public domain that's
going on over in Europe. It's one of those advanced projects in
development that's capturing from a biogas site in Norway, and
also a cement plant in Norway.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you very much.
Like I said, 5 minutes goes very quickly, so I have limited
time.
But, Dr. Krishnamoorti, I also wanted to touch on your
testimony. You mentioned that carbon dioxide is inherently
stable, meaning that it requires a lot of energy to convert
carbon dioxide to other chemicals for potential carbon
utilization applications. Some of my colleagues in Congress,
some who serve on this Committee with us, have expressed a
similar skepticism about carbon utilization for this very
reason.
So given that processing carbon dioxide is such an energy-
intensive process, is it reasonable to expect that we will have
a booming market for products that utilize carbon in the
future? What would those products look like? Can you talk about
that?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Sure, and this is the power of
chemistry. Even though it is such a stable molecule, there are
clever ways to not necessarily take it back to carbon and
oxygen but take it to transitionary states where you can get it
to happen at a much lower energy price and therefore be able to
utilize it. This is some of the work that I was talking about
where my colleagues are working with taking carbon dioxide,
finding ways to apply catalysis to it, getting it to now be a
co-reactant with methane and natural gas liquids to convert it
into useful fuels; for instance, methanol. Co-plasma is a
technology that we have been starting to deploy to take carbon
dioxide with methane and with other lighter hydrocarbons to
convert into methanol and other higher hydrocarbons. These take
much less energy.
Clever chemistry works beautifully. This is what we've done
for 150 years.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Terrific.
With the few seconds I have remaining, I think we're all
familiar with the use for enhanced oil recovery. Are there
other, besides what you've touched on, other existing or
potential uses for carbon dioxide that you see as part of this
process?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Some of the ones that hit the headlines
are things like we can make plastics. We can use it in cement
production. But those, when you look at the scale, are very
small.
Perhaps the one place which is really attractive is taking
carbon dioxide and making fuel, making gasoline. That is a
target that is ripe for the picking. Catalysis is available.
It's a matter of reducing cost and getting it to be comparable
to extracting from the ground and getting the natural gasoline.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you very much, Dr.
Krishnamoorti.
My time has expired. That's what the little lights tell us.
So we will move on, and I will now recognize Mr. Weber for 5
minutes.
Mr. Weber. This is for all witnesses, so we'll start here
and go down.
I'm very supportive of advanced renewable energy
technologies and clean energy technologies, like nuclear
energy, for example. It is clear to me that fossil fuels will
be an important part of the U.S. energy portfolio for years to
come.
Since many of you have touched on this issue in your
prepared testimonies and remarks, I'm interested to know what
each of you say to those who would believe that we should not
invest in clean energy R&D for the fossil fuel sector and
instead funnel all of our research and development money into
renewable energy technologies. What do you think about that?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. We've given it a lot of thought. Being
in Houston, being a partner with many of the industries here,
we believe that there are no silver-bullet solutions. It's an
all-of-the-above strategy that has to operate. We believe that
the fossil industry, it is not the hydrocarbon that is the
problem. It is what comes out of that tailpipe is perhaps the
problem.
And even that we dispute. We think that there are critical
ways in which CO2 can be utilized, and therefore
should not be considered even a waste. I think there's a really
interesting way to perhaps find a way to use that CO2
and be economically advantaged.
So the short answer, absolutely not that we should be
picking the technology solutions. I think we identify the
challenge, which is we need to be protecting the environment.
Mr. Weber. Thank you. So we'll coin a new phrase today
based on that. The old phrase, ``When life gives you lemons,
make lemonade''----
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Make margaritas.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Weber. Make margaritas. It's 5 o'clock somewhere.
But the new phrase is, ``When life gives you
CO2, make energy.''
Dr. Long?
Dr. Long. Yes, I agree with my colleague. I'd also add that
the task of converting all of this energy infrastructure to
renewable sources, there's no way we can do it without taking
decades, particularly in developing countries where they will
also use the cheapest source of fuel.
In addition, even if we could convert immediately to
renewable sources of energy, we have the problem of the current
CO2 levels in our atmosphere, and a lot of
projections of not increasing temperatures on our planet
involve CO2 capture from air. So we need to pursue
this technology for many different uses.
Mr. Weber. Thank you.
Mr. Kennedy?
Mr. Kennedy. Yes, just echoing the same comments that were
made. Renewables are very important. But, as you mentioned,
fossil energy is not going to go away anytime soon. So to the
extent that we can continue the R&D efforts to negate some of
the impact of those fossil fuels, I think we're all better off
by doing that.
Mr. Weber. Well, they're still developing horizontal
fracking and drilling and becoming better and better and better
at that, and I would postulate that also they are getting at
capturing all the things that come out of that process.
Mr. Dewing?
Mr. Dewing. I think we've proven that we can store CO2
for the long term, thousands of years, underground. That's
where the fossil fuels came from. We can return it there safely
and take the benefit of the fossil fuel energy for the
foreseeable future, and I think we need to, to maintain the
world's energy requirements.
Mr. Weber. Mr. Jenvey?
Mr. Jenvey. Definitely it's not a race to renewables. It's
really a race to lower emissions in energy.
Mr. Weber. Good point.
Mr. Jenvey. And, of course, fossil fuels and thermal power
generation is a great partner to renewables within the grid,
providing flexible backup to intermittency that naturally
occurs within those renewable energy forms. So really it's
about a partnership and an all-of-the-above energy solution. Of
course, cost is a major consideration for consumers between the
choices that there are within the energy supply.
Mr. Weber. Thank you.
I've just got a couple of minutes left, so I'm going to go
back to you, Mr. Dewing. In your prepared testimony, I like how
you highlighted these questions: Where will the CO2
go? You just mentioned underground for thousands of years. And
who will pay for it? Now you and Mr. Kennedy have both explored
various answers to these questions this morning. But since we
are on the Science Committee, we want to hear more about the
science of this process.
So first, from an industry perspective, I'd like to hear
more from both of you about the technical challenges associated
with the placement of captured CO2. In your opinion,
what are the major barriers associated with this end, of
getting the CCUS pathway that can be addressed with our help
through basic research and development?
Mr. Kennedy, we'll start with you.
Mr. Kennedy. Yes, sure, and thank you. Let me just give you
a few examples of the technical challenges that I think would
be helpful through additional R&D: The behavior and impact of
amines in large-scale carbon capture projects and equipment,
including the degradation rates and the effect on carbon
capture systems; the effects of higher operating temperatures
on critical equipment. As was mentioned, location matters.
Given the ambient conditions here in the Houston area, cooling
capacity is a very, very important part of the process. We use
some of the largest heat exchangers that manufacturers make. So
it's very important to continue the R&D efforts to improve upon
that.
Optimizing vessel sizes. We have some very large vessels
that were done in our first-of-a-kind facility. Additional R&D
to drive capital out to see if you can right-size or properly
size those vessels.
Then outside of our technology, just expanding
technologies: Capture of waste CO2 from other large
sources, including natural gas, direct air; and then also
furthering our knowledge in EOR, looking at unconditional
reservoirs and different geologies and how CO2
interacts in those.
Mr. Weber. [Inaudible.]
Mr. Dewing. I think the key issue we face is the efficiency
of removal. If you're using lots more energy to remove that
CO2, then it's running away with you. So we have
processes that work where we've got an absorption process that
we think is a well beater, and we're looking forward to do
that. We want to improve that. We have heat exchange issues as
well. Some of the temperatures, we're experiencing some of the
approaches on those heat exchanges need a lot of development,
too. So we'd like help with investment to continue to improve
our efficiency, improve the processes.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Weber.
I'll now recognize Mr. Cloud for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cloud. Thank you. This is an exciting topic. I'm really
happy that you all are here to talk about these important
issues. The world's demand for energy is growing. I have always
believed that the solution to the challenges we face is
advancements in technology rather than us all retreating from
the industrial age. So it's exciting to see the developments
that are happening.
Mr. Kennedy, I'm really amazed, first of all, to hear that
a project was done on time and on budget. So if you could,
first of all, give us a manual on that, that would be
applicable across a number of spheres. But in all seriousness,
there was a project I think in Kemper County, Mississippi where
the government invested almost $400 million that ended up being
wasted. So what was the difference in the success that happened
at Petra Nova? How can we be effective in investing the
taxpayer dollars to get the desired results?
Mr. Kennedy. Yes, sure, and they (Kemper) had a totally
different technology. So, what was successful for us? Number
one, like I mentioned, was a scale-up of a demonstration
project, so there was some history that the technology actually
works. Ninety percent of our engineering was done prior to
starting construction, so there were not a lot of scope
changes. We had phenomenal partners. We basically formed a
consortium with our technology provider and our contractor and
did a single EPC contract. So they worked together on meeting
the needs that we had in our turnkey project. A lot of those I
think were very helpful to get us to where we got to.
Mr. Cloud. And, Mr. Krishnamoorti--I hope I said that
right--I really appreciated a lot of how you phrased this in
the need to have research that gets this to a market-based
approach. I think as far as moving us into the future, that's
the best approach, as opposed to a heavy hand of regulatory
environment. Of course, we'll need some light touch there
probably, but in the sense of what technologies, what research
areas need to be done? What are the areas that we need to focus
on that will get this to market viability? And maybe all of you
can lean into this a bit.
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Sure. We believe that a large part of
this is on the capture side, and we want to look at point
source capture as being the first and foremost place where we
can do this work. You heard from Petra Nova; they have done
some very interesting things.
The other story in the Houston area, which has got another
very large natural gas-based power plant that has developed new
technology that is ready for the commercial world, is something
that you hear about. Net Power, they have done some pretty
amazing work. That's the kind of technology that needs to be
scaled up.
Mr. Weber. Repeat their name again?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Net Power. They are in Pasadena, Texas,
and they've demonstrated at 50 megawatts what they can do to
capture CO2. They need to scale up. We need to find
ways to get that technology ready for the marketplace.
Likewise, I believe distributed sources are something that
we've got to look at. We've got abundant renewable electricity
available that is not being utilized. How do we get that to be
utilized and produce CO2 in places where it can be
used? Right now, there is more demand for CO2 in the
State of Texas than available piped CO2. The big
challenge is pipeline, and that's something that can be
addressed by a light touch of regulation, change CO2
from being a waste product to being a critical material that
can create economic value.
Mr. Cloud. That was going to be my next question, if the
infrastructure existed or what needs there were in helping us
to make it to that.
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Yes. Going to common carrier pipeline
will relieve enormous challenges today in the CO2
market, and that will mean you'll get to see a lot more of
these planned activities being done at scale. And the more we
can do things at scale, we can make this cheaper.
Yes, we're doing a lot of things in the science and
engineering world that will be disruptive, but that's 5, 10, 15
years out. We need things to happen now to make it viable for
the future. Thank you.
Mr. Cloud. Now, one of the great successes I see here is
that in this case the investment went to technologies that went
to practical applications. Do you all have any suggestions for
that? Because a lot of times we'll invest in research, we'll
have these breakthroughs, they make it to the journals, but
they don't make it to practical application. Do you all have
any suggestions for how we can be more effective nationwide in
getting the research dollars that produce the breakthroughs
that actually make it to the sphere of application?
Dr. Long. Yes, you're absolutely right. There's a huge
valley of death between fundamental discovery of some new
possible technology and demonstration. One thing that does try
to address that is ARPA-E. I think it's something we need a lot
more of. There's a disconnect between the scientist doing the
fundamental research and engineers who know how to build a
practical device. We need to bridge that gap with funding, get
those scientists and engineers together.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you very much, Mr. Cloud. I
appreciate that.
We were just conferring that this Committee has passed the
reauthorization of the ARPA-e bill through our Committee, and
we're hoping that it will come to the floor very soon. So I was
just checking on the timing on that, so thank you very much.
I will now recognize Dr. Babin for 5 minutes.
Mr. Babin. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, University of
Houston. And thank you, expert witnesses, for being here today.
I'm privileged to have this opportunity today to bring this
hearing down, help bring this hearing down to our great State,
where we get a chance to show off southeast Texas and see
firsthand the innovative new technologies that are
revolutionizing the way that we produce energy. Texas has
always played a huge role in America's energy economy, and I
believe that Houston is the epicenter of that.
I represent the 36th District. We have more petrochemical
refining facilities than anywhere else in the entire country.
So I think that there's not a better place to roll this new
technology out. We also have some of the busiest ports in the
world.
Mankind benefits so greatly when science can solve a lot of
our problems. For instance, turning an over-abundance of
production of CO2, and turn that into an advantage
to help produce more energy and have a cleaner environment.
So my first question is, how do we roll out these new
technologies here in Houston to improve the efficiency and
quality of our energy production? Specifically, what are the
technological barriers to commercialization, and how can the
Department of Energy effectively partner up with industry? As
briefly as possible. And, Mr. Kennedy, I'd like to ask that of
you first, please, sir.
Mr. Kennedy. Yes, sure. As I mentioned in my testimony, the
private-public partnerships are very important. The technology
is very, very expensive. So I think the effort today is to look
at the second- and third-generation of carbon capture
facilities without technology, look for ways to make those more
cost-effective for people to invest in them.
Mr. Babin. Right. OK, thank you.
And then Dr. Long?
Dr. Long. Yes. Again, we have ARPA-e to try to bridge this
gap. It's not enough. As someone working in fundamental science
making discoveries, it's really sad to see when no one
recognizes or takes up the challenge of how do we build
something out of that, something practical. That's not
something my lab does. We need partners. DOE should really
encourage that partnership of taking a quaint new discovery
just to the next step of a bench-scale engineered test. This
could be a kilogram of materials. But that step is missing. We
need more funding of that.
Mr. Babin. OK. Thank you very much.
Now I'd like to ask the next question. Carbon capture
technologies help us to more efficiently produce energy and
helps us to create cleaner energy, as we mentioned, but
addressing climate change is not a one-country problem. We see
time and time again when other countries, like China and India
for example, disregard the effects of their pollution. This is
a global issue, there's no question about it. Do you see
collaboration opportunities with countries like China and India
where we can profit off of our innovative technology while they
become cleaner countries at the same time? What collaboration
opportunities do you see?
I'd like to start over with Dr. Krishnamoorti.
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Well, in my testimony I talked about a
collaboration with Oil India specifically on the issue of
capturing CO2 and putting it for EOR. There are
other opportunities. For instance, we've developed some coal
gasification technology in this country that is remarkable. It
will probably never see the light of day here in this country,
but given the need for energy, given the need for doing it
environmentally conscious, how do we find a way to partner with
countries like China and India to really deliver that coal
gasification technology?
Mr. Babin. Absolutely.
Mr. Dewing, if I could ask that of you?
Mr. Dewing. We already have a project where we partner with
a Chinese company to gasify coal to make a synthesis gas. So
we're already working together. We have gasification
technology. We have CO2 capture technology. China is
showing an interest in CO2 capture and
sequestration. So a lot of that work is already in progress,
and Air Products is actively working with Chinese partners.
We have a project for dry reforming where we reform the
CO2. So that's with the research organization
Shanghai, and we're collaborating with them.
So I think there are lots of opportunities certainly in
China, and we're exploring India as well. So it's happening
already.
Mr. Babin. And then Mr. Jenvey, if you could add a little
bit to that as well?
Mr. Jenvey. Definitely. The United States, as I said in my
testimony, is a global leader in CCUS, so indeed there's a
marketplace internationally there for that leadership, both in
technology and capability, that's being built here. There are
consortium collaborations internationally on this already. The
Clean Energy Ministerial has now started to include CCUS within
its work and provide protocols and methodologies to include
CCUS within, of course, some of those international agreements
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So it's good to see those.
Mr. Babin. Yes, sir. Thank you.
I see my time has expired. It's amazing how fast 5 minutes
goes by. But thank you, and I yield back.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Dr. Babin.
We are pleased to invite some of our Houston colleagues who
are able to join us this morning. I'm very pleased to be able
to recognize Mr. Crenshaw, who is joining our Committee this
morning, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Chairwoman Fletcher; thank you,
Ranking Member Randy Weber, for having me. This is a huge
interest of mine, and I appreciate this Committee, by the way,
for allowing my bill, the Leading Act, which repurposes grant
money from DOE for carbon capture in the natural gas sector,
for adding that to legislation in this Committee.
This is a really important subject because the question is
not whether about supporting environmentalism or supporting
cleaner air. The question is about how we do it and what the
best way to do that is, and playing to our strengths as
Americans.
And that strength is innovation. That strength is
technology. We could do something like implement a Green New
Deal and ban fossil fuels, and we would take care of 15 percent
of emissions worldwide, OK? We would also destroy our economy,
and we'd have a negligible effect on the environment.
There are other ideas out there from leading Presidential
candidates to, say, ban fracking. That would be an interesting
shock to the economy and really put any of these ideas right
out of business.
It would also be interesting because, Dr. Krishnamoorti, as
you mentioned in your testimony, there's been a 20 percent
reduction in emissions per capita largely because of natural
gas. There was another study by DOE that showed if we replaced
China's and India's coal-burning oilers with natural gas, they
would reduce their emissions by 40 percent. You add carbon
capture to that mix, you're talking 90 percent reductions.
So focusing on what works is so unbelievably important, and
I want to get to that and what barriers are in the way, what
government needs to do to help this and actually get us to an
eventual net zero emissions.
Dr. Krishnamoorti, you briefly touched on this, and I saw a
little bit more of it in your written testimony, about
reclassifying CO2 as a commodity as opposed to a
waste, and that's interesting. Is there a regulatory barrier
there?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Yes. It is considered a waste item
today. It is considered not a commodity that can be
economically advantaged for a broad group of people, and
therefore cannot access common carrier pipelines. That is
perhaps the biggest challenge today to moving CO2
around.
Mr. Crenshaw. Is that an EPA (Environmental Protection
Agency) regulation?
Mr. Weber. [Inaudible.]
Dr. Krishnamoorti. I'm not sure. I can get back to you on
that.
Mr. Crenshaw. Mr. Kennedy, I'd like to go to you on
everything you all have done. I want to ask where you're at now
financially. I mean, we have to get companies like yours in a
place where you want to do it, where the financial incentives
work and it's viable. Are you at that place now?
Mr. Kennedy. I think as we've said before, the economics on
these projects are very, very challenging. So we eagerly await
the 45Q guidance that we're awaiting from the IRS, and we
continue to think that the technology providers need to drive
cost out of the project to make things more attractive to new
investors.
Mr. Crenshaw. So without the 45Q credits, you don't think
your project would be viable?
Mr. Kennedy. I think new projects are very, very difficult.
We're a little bit unique in the fact that we are vertically
integrated. We have an ownership interest in the oil field. I
think going forward you're going to see utility companies or
power plant owners want to do a fence-line sale of
CO22.
Mr. Crenshaw. Could you briefly talk about the new source
review regulations? Is there a reason you guys didn't retrofit.
You decided to build an entirely new facility. Is that because
of regulations like the new source review?
Mr. Kennedy. It did not play into ours. We were challenged
by the Department of Energy to demonstrate we could do this
without having an impact on energy prices. So as opposed to
being parasitic to the host coal unit and taking power and
steam from that unit, we opted to build the cleaner burning gas
co-gen facility. So that resulted in not only getting our power
and steam, we have excess power off that facility that we sell
into the grid. So we've actually added power supply.
Mr. Crenshaw. And as far as scaling up these technologies,
we've been talking about that constantly. We agree on a 45Q tax
credit, for instance. We agree on grant money from DOE for
pilot programs. Again, that's basically what my legislation is.
What else? What other barriers are there?
As we go to Mr. Dewing as well, or anybody really can
answer this, what other barriers are there that we need to get
rid of, and what do you need help with? Where is that light
touch of assistance that we need?
Mr. Dewing. I think the continued support, the DOE support,
the grants to get projects going, the 45Q helps. For EOR, we
can sell the CO2, so that helps. If no one needs the
CO2, then we don't get that money.
But the key thing to me is where do you put it. We need the
ability to put the CO2 somewhere, so we need the
pipelines, we need the connections, we need the storage
locations. So if you can have the infrastructure for
CO2, I think that would be a seed for lots of
smaller projects, because then they can see where that CO2
can go.
Mr. Crenshaw. OK.
Dr. Krishnamoorti, I want to go back to you. I mentioned
before that there's talk of actually banning fracking right
now. Could you just comment on what the consequences of
something like that would be, if it happened tomorrow?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. If it happened tomorrow, the growth in
the Permian that we anticipated going from 3.5 million barrels
a day to 7.5 million barrels a day would stop, and that's the
kind of thing that has not only given us energy independence
but has enabled us to be a net exporter of crude.
Mr. Crenshaw. What's the environmental impact, though?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. It can be done well. Fracking can be
done well, and we've seen that being demonstrated many, many
times.
Mr. Crenshaw. Let me be more specific. What would the
environmental impact be on emissions if we just stopped using
natural gas all of a sudden?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. We've got to find the energy somewhere.
We need a lot of energy. We would probably go back and re-start
coal-fired power plants. We might start to look at expanding
some of our nuclear power resources.
Mr. Crenshaw. Would there be most likely an increase in
emissions or a decrease?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Increase.
Mr. Crenshaw. Absolutely, an increase. That would be a
problem, because I don't think we all want that.
I'm not sure what my time is, but I'll keep talking as long
as I can.
Chairwoman Fletcher. It's 10 minutes.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Chairman, very much for indulging
me. Thank you all for being here.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you very much, Mr. Crenshaw.
As we've all noted, 5 minutes goes very quickly, so we will
probably do another round of questions.
But I'm very pleased to introduce another one of our
Houston colleagues who has joined us today, and I'm proud and
pleased to recognize Mr. Green for 5 minutes.
Mr. Green. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And I'll thank
my colleagues as well for allowing me to be an interloper
today. I'm not of this Committee of jurisdiction, but I do
believe that as a member of the Houston community and a Member
from Texas it is appropriate that I be here. So, thank you very
much.
Houston is known as the energy capital of the world. My
intelligence indicates that approximately a third of all of the
jobs are somehow connected to Houston. This is important, but
I'd like to talk about it from another perspective.
Houston also has the largest medical center in the world,
and this medical center is larger than the average city in the
United States of America. We have a space port. We are
consumers of energy as well, and I think that we have to look
at it also from how our institutions will be impacted if we're
not efficacious with our carbon management.
My question would go to you, and I trust that I will
enunciate it properly, Dr. Krishnamoorti. My question to you,
sir, is on the importance of carbon management solutions in
terms of preserving existing jobs. Houston employs a lot of
people. The port is here. We have two international airports.
Houston could be a greatly different city if we don't get this
right and manage the carbon capture properly.
So I yield to you for your sage advice.
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Thank you so much, Congressman Green.
Mr. Green. Thank you.
Dr. Krishnamoorti. It's a pleasure to have you here at the
University of Houston.
We talked about the issue of affordable, reliable energy
that drives the planet. But at the same time we have to address
climate change risk, and there is no better industry that can
deal with the carbon issue at scale than the energy industry,
and it must be done in partnership with that industry in order
for us to do it at the right scale and also do it where there's
an economic advantage.
We have focused a lot on two aspects: Carbon capture and
sequestration, both of which are costs, substantial costs. How
do we find value in this business; that's the part we're
focused on. How do we find utilization for CO2? How
do we make it an economically viable product?
It's in partnership with the industry. It's in partnership
with the National Labs, working with places like NETL to find
ways to make it a creative solution rather than just be a cost
burden on society. That's the only way it can be done, and
there's no better industry than the energy industry to do it.
Mr. Green. I want to thank you for your sage advice.
Madam Chair, as I explained earlier to you and I'll explain
to everyone, I really am in the middle of doing something else
someplace else, and I have to get back to what I've been
engaged in. But I think this is an important hearing, and I'm
honored that you would allow me to be a part of it today. I
thank you and my colleagues for allowing such.
My belief is that there is not a problem that Houston can't
solve. We have been innovators. We are the folk who decided
that a ship channel ought to be inland, so we built the ship
channel. Houston gets it done.
I thank you for this opportunity, Madam Chair, because you
are getting it done.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Green. We appreciate
you being here.
I really appreciate so many of our Houston Members working
together on this issue, and there seems to be a consensus among
the group that we have a lot more questions. I think we've seen
that from everyone. So thank you so much for joining us, Mr.
Green.
For those who are able to remain, we'll do a second round
of questions, and I'll continue to recognize everyone for 5
minutes as we go.
Certainly, several of the things you've said have given us
more questions, and, of course, my colleagues have also raised
some questions that I also have. So I'm going to go ahead and
start the second round for 5 minutes.
I really want to touch on two things. There's something
very specific that you raised, Dr. Krishnamoorti, that I want
to go back to. Several of us up here are also on the Committee
on Transportation and Infrastructure, so your comments about
the infrastructure for carbon dioxide were important and
interesting. I think that what we've seen is that there are
challenges with some of the sequestration sites. There's a need
for transportation.
I was interested in your written testimony about the
potential for dual-use LNG (liquified natural gas) and carbon
dioxide ships as an alternative transportation method. So if
you could just expand a little bit beyond pipelines or, A, what
does the pipeline need; and, maybe B, what innovative other
options do we have for transporting carbon dioxide from the
source to the injectionsite without adding large amounts of
carbon emissions in the process?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Thank you so much. So, we do ship LNG
and LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) out from the Gulf of Mexico
ports all over the world. There are countries like Korea,
Japan, which import a lot of this and do combust those fluids.
They do have incentives there for carbon capture, and they are
ready to capture that carbon and trade it. So it's a small
engineering feat that needs to be achieved, which is, can we
use those ships to reverse-transport CO2 back to the
U.S.? And the second part of this is, would that
CO2, because CO2 is a global challenge,
be something that would receive the 45Q credit? Because, again,
we have offshore--the Gulf of Mexico is a ripe target to
sequester CO2. We could do this with no additional
substantial transportation costs. That breaks down one of the
biggest barriers to doing this. We could do this from Europe,
we could do this from Asia. Both of these places are receiving
our LNG and LPG, and that would be a substantial effort to
really transform the way we think about sourcing
CO2.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Terrific. Thank you so much.
And then my next question, which will probably be my last,
I'm going to start with Mr. Jenvey and kind of work this way.
But I'm interested more generally--as I mentioned in my first
round of questions here, we sit up here as Members of Congress
wanting to know what we can do to further the goals that we are
talking about here today.
So, Mr. Jenvey, in particular, you talked a lot about what
we need to do to maintain our leadership position in the United
States around the world on this technology and these issues. Do
you know whether some of the things that we have already worked
on--for example, the Fossil Energy Research and Development
Act--take the right steps to maintain that goal? And what other
things, or maybe what are the priority things that you and
everyone on the panel would recommend to us to do to make sure
that we're continuing to advance in this area and remain the
world leader?
Mr. Jenvey. Thank you. So, definitely continue to do what
you're doing. The unwavering support that Congress has provided
over the last couple of decades really has, of course,
established this technology and capability the United States
has. I would say this is really probably the time. It's a
matter of timing, and now is the time to really now make sure
that this happens and double down on some of those research,
development, and demonstration support to help, indeed, the
valley-of-death technologies that you've invested in already,
to help them get to market.
There's a market evolving there, and particularly here in
Houston, along the Gulf Coast. We have already the world's best
CO2 storage geology sitting underneath our feet. We
have LNG plants, petrochemical facilities, other industrial
facilities here, and really if we can get this done here as a
cluster, it's a real shining light to the rest of the world as
well.
So I'd encourage you to, from a national Federal
perspective, double down on the R&D and really deliver the
value that it has that the previous investment has got to, and
also here locally in Houston work with the public-private
partnerships that already exist and are interested in doing
things to help them deliver something that will make sure that
Houston remains the energy capital of the world.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Jenvey.
Mr. Dewing, do you want to weigh in on what the
congressional priorities--what you think would be most helpful
for us to focus on?
Mr. Dewing. We'd like to see the continued support of our
projects. Port Arthur was successful because of funding. We
need that initiative, that funding to get things moving and
develop further. We're seeing it elsewhere in the world with
governments in Holland and the U.K. sort of discussing ways and
means of getting projects going. So I think you're already two
or three steps ahead, and we'd like to continue that.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you.
Mr. Kennedy?
Mr. Kennedy. Yes, I would agree also. We probably have not
stressed enough the role that the DOE has played in our
project. We're coming up on 10 years of a relationship with the
DOE on the Petra Nova project, and they have done a major
amount of not only helping us financially but just spreading
the word of the project. They've been responsible for hundreds
and hundreds of visitors internationally and domestically
coming to the site and spreading the information on technology.
So their ability to continue to build on what they've done and
continue to do the R&D work that's needed to advance the
technology would be very helpful.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. That's a great
segue over to Dr. Long.
Dr. Long. OK. Thanks. I would suggest that we need to up
our investment in the basic research side of things. There's
been huge advances in how we make porous materials and
membranes that can affect and impact and improve the way we do
energy in the future. Right now there's not enough support for
that science. Taking it, for example, and creating something
like an energy hub for carbon capture, I don't know why we
don't have this yet. We have one for solar fuels, we have one
for batteries. But things like that, long-term support of new
science, we've got to feed technologies into the pipeline for
the future.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Dr. Long.
Dr. Krishnamoorti?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Thank you so much. And just to follow
up, I would suggest that that hub needs to be carbon capture
and utilization.
Mr. Weber. And in Houston. Just saying.
Dr. Krishnamoorti. And in Houston, absolutely.
[Laughter.]
Dr. Krishnamoorti. We have already made that pitch.
The other one that I think we need to really be fostering
is disruptive technologies. For instance, something that Nigel
mentioned, modular distributed capture. Right now, 45Q does not
advantage that type of capture in any shape or form. One
hundred thousand tons a year is a lot of CO2. We can
find technologies that can be deployed at much smaller levels
that need to be advantaged.
The second point is the utilization side of the business
has not received as much interest from funding. That must be
made a priority.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Dr. Krishnamoorti.
I have once again gone over my time, so I will now
recognize Mr. Weber for 5 minutes.
Mr. Weber. Thank you.
Dr. Krishnamoorti, in your conversation with Dr. Babin you
said that gasification would never receive the light of day.
Was that coal gasification process?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Yes, coal gasification.
Mr. Weber. OK, thank you. I just wanted to clarify that.
Mr. Dewing, in your conversation with Dr. Babin you talked
about gasification, working with China, for example. In my
research I ran across an article from Science Direct about
China from 2014 where they talked about the amine-based post-
combustion capture, that it was a problem for China, these
coal-fired power plants. That's 5 years old. Has that changed?
Mr. Dewing. I don't know. I'm not sure whether that has
changed, but we're looking at converting, doing pre-combustion
capture.
Mr. Weber. This is post-combustion.
Mr. Dewing. Air Products' view is to convert the coal, the
hydrocarbon upstream, make hydrogen, which can be burned and
used in any way. It can be distributed. To capture the CO2
there.
Mr. Weber. OK. I wanted to clarify that.
A question for all the panel. Mr. Jenvey, we'll start over
here so you don't feel left out.
As I said earlier, we need to bring everybody along to
this: Industry, government, fossil fuel industry, clean energy,
everybody, our environmental industry friends. How do we do
that?
Mr. Jenvey. That's a very good question, how do we do that.
So, I've always believed that just sticking with the value that
this has to our industry and to society is the clearest way to
really establish----
Mr. Weber. When you say value, do you mean the monetary
value? Clean air, better environment, less climate change, if
you will, all the while maintaining a focus on energy and the
monetary part of that.
Mr. Jenvey. Yes, sir.
Mr. Weber. OK.
Mr. Dewing, do you agree with that?
Mr. Dewing. I think so, yes.
Mr. Weber. I'll make it real easy on you all. Mr. Kennedy?
Mr. Kennedy. I do as well.
Mr. Weber. OK. None of them will dare say no.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Weber. Dr. Long?
Dr. Long. [Inaudible.]
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Likewise.
Mr. Weber. Very good. As long as it's in Houston. You left
that part out.
[Laughter.]
Dr. Krishnamoorti. It's got to be in Houston because this
is the only place where you can solve it.
Mr. Weber. Absolutely.
So, let me keep going. Direct carbon capture from air, and
I'll start with you, Mr. Kennedy. Number one, how do we do
that? Are we able to do that? Very quickly; I only have about
2-1/2 minutes left. And is that competition for what you all
are doing?
Mr. Kennedy. So, probably my colleagues on the panel here
are much more versed in that technology than I am. I have been
really focused on Petra Nova technology. But I think from a
capital perspective, I think it's more capital intensive for
the CO2 benefits you get, so definitely a need to
continue to evaluate that technology and look for ways to try
to drive the cost down.
Mr. Weber. Right.
Dr. Krishnamoorti, I think you talked about the air--we
call them small modular reactors in the nuclear industry.
That's great, but how do you get that infrastructure to now
transport? Like I said, when life gives you CO2,
make it energy. How do you do that with SMRs, or whatever you
want to call them?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Deployment of direct air capture is
actually the easiest thing because they're small, they're
modular, and they use atmospheric air. So you're not trying to
go off a petrochemical plant or a refinery.
Mr. Weber. Right. So you put them over in a truck, you say
this truck is going down the highway, whether it's carrying
propane or whether it's carrying CO2, oxygen,
gasoline, whatever it is, and you can take them to a
centralized distribution point?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. The way we think about it, we go to a
producing oil field or a producing wind farm and set up a
direct air capture there. So you capture the CO2 and
then you pump it into the ground right there.
Mr. Weber. OK. At a wind field?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. A wind farm, because you get cheap
electricity.
Mr. Weber. And you pump it into the ground at the wind
farm?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Or you ship it to an oil field and you
pump it down.
Mr. Weber. There you go.
Dr. Krishnamoorti. All in pretty close proximity in west
Texas.
Mr. Weber. Dr. Long? I've got 45 seconds.
Dr. Long. Yes, it's absolutely true that it's a much more
energy intensive process to remove the CO2 at these
very dilute concentrations from air. This is a fundamental
science problem, how do we do that at maximum efficiency. We
need to invest in research to do that. I think no matter what,
it's an important issue.
Mr. Weber. That's a good point.
Madam Chair, I yield back 15 seconds.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Weber.
I'll now recognize Mr. Cloud for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cloud. Thank you. Again, this is a wonderful
opportunity for us all to work on this issue. I appreciate the
consensus and having a forward-looking approach to meeting
these challenges, and realizing actually that the world's
demand for energy growing is actually a good thing. That's
people coming out of poverty. That's people finding mobility,
being able to heat their homes for the first time and those
kinds of things. So I've always thought that the answer to that
is for America to meet the challenge, because we will always do
it a lot more responsibly than many of the other countries
across the pond, so to speak, who don't have our best interests
in mind.
Going along a little bit with what Mr. Crenshaw was saying,
I'd like to ask you, Mr. Krishnamoorti, if we were somehow to
constrict the fossil fuel industry, we understand the economic
impact it would have, the national security implications along
with that. Could you also speak to--you said this a number of
times, that it's the only industry really capable of addressing
this issue. Now, if that industry was not to have the economic
thriving that we currently see, what would that do to the
research and technologies currently being developed to answer
some of these challenges?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. I think, as you would probably have
noticed, most of the large deployments of carbon capture
projects are being done by the oil and gas industry, whether it
is Chevron, whether it is Oxy, whether it is Exxon Mobil.
Clearly, they see that this can be created for them to be a
part of the ecosystem.
I assert that this industry is critical because of the
scale of the problem. Thirty-six gigatons globally is not going
to go away when making plastics. You've got to make plastics.
We probably use about 2 percent of that, and that would satisfy
all the plastic needs of the world. If we're trying to make
cement, we'll probably use about 5 percent. If I make methanol,
if I make gasoline, I could use a substantial part of that 36
gigatons of CO2. That's the reason why this industry
knows how to make hydrocarbons. We know how to use natural gas.
We know how to use other light hydrocarbons in order to make
economically--still competitively, but economically you can
make hydrocarbon fuel.
Mr. Cloud. That's the most likely path forward is to
continue to advance these technologies to market viability.
Dr. Krishnamoorti. Absolutely.
Mr. Cloud. Mr. Jenvey, you mentioned that there's 12 other
projects going on around the world, 12 or 15 projects. I'm
curious from the U.S. remaining the competitive leader, and
also any national security implications. Could you give us the
lay of the land of what's going on globally and how the U.S.,
can stay ahead of that? And if any of you have anything to add
to what Mr. Jenvey says, please do.
Mr. Jenvey. Thank you. So, yes, those projects are in
different regions, a number in China, the Middle East, and in
Europe, of course. Australia has also had a number of projects
and has a couple of projects coming through into those advanced
stages of development, yet there definitely is a marketplace
out there.
I would say historically there has been these waves of CCUS
investigation and development. But a lot of the time,
unfortunately, the projects in those other regions haven't
actually materialized fruit to a final investment decision, as
opposed to here in the United States. So where those projects
are being developed globally, they then reach a final
investment decision. They then don't have the policy, the
supportive regulatory frameworks, or indeed the capability and
the backbone of the oil and gas industry and the rest of the
industrial infrastructure here in the United States. So they
do, then, hit a certain limit in their ability to actually do
these projects indeed at these large scales. But there are a
number of other projects globally.
Mr. Cloud. That's interesting.
Mr. Dewing. I can comment on some other projects. The Port
of Rotterdam is looking at putting in CO2 pipelines
so that a number of companies can feed into that CO2
line for sequestration. Norway is looking at two projects. The
U.K. has three or four that are being proposed at the moment
which are a consortium of companies, BP being a leading company
there. So there's a lot of interest, a lot of projects going
through, but whether they actually all come to something or not
will be interesting to see. One of them in Norway is an
interesting one, the Northern Lights. They're actually looking
at shipping CO2, so they've developed a ship design
that can take CO2 at minus 25+ C and move it as a
liquid around. So there's interest elsewhere now.
Mr. Cloud. My time is up. Thank you, I appreciate it.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Cloud.
Dr. Babin?
Mr. Babin. Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much.
Mr. Dewing, what sort of responses are you seeing from many
of the large-scale energy companies to the implementation of
these new CCUS technologies? What kind of responses?
Mr. Dewing. Very positive. I think we talk to large energy
companies, they want to work in joint ventures, they're
interested in the technology, especially the technology we've
developed at Port Arthur. That's a great reference for us. It
has new absorption technology we want to use again. So we are
trying to work very closely with Shell, with BP, with Exxon
Mobil, a number of companies.
Mr. Babin. That's good news, very good news.
Along the lines of what my colleague, Mr. Crenshaw, was
talking about, Dr. Krishnamoorti, what would be the result of
banning all new offshore drilling, as well as the fracking,
that several of the candidates running for president have
promised to do? Where would that leave our Lone Star State of
Texas?
Dr. Krishnamoorti. I think the problem is actually global,
because the issue has been we have ignored the offshore
industry production for a while. It can be done safely, it can
be done reliably, and safeguards can be put in place. There has
been a huge change in the offshore industry. We can take people
out of danger, doing it automated. There's regulatory issues
that prevent us from doing automated work in the Gulf of
Mexico. The North Sea, they're doing it today. We are falling
behind in those technologies already.
If we ban that, we will lose a huge source of hydrocarbon
energy that we will continue to need, not only in the U.S. but
also globally.
Mr. Babin. I hope our friends on the other side of the
aisle can hear that, because we may as well pack up and go home
here in the State of Texas. As you just pointed out, it would
have a global negative effect. A lot of the folks that are
now--someone mentioned a while ago--newly heating their homes.
The new energy sources that we're having and that are being
disseminated around the world would dry up. Thank you very
much.
Also, Mr. Kennedy, in your prepared testimony you described
how the carbon dioxide captured at your plant is, in turn, used
for enhanced oil recovery, or EOR. We talked about it a little
bit, but can you please explain for many of us exactly how the
EOR process works? As briefly as possible. And then what are
the benefits and limitations of this new technology?
Mr. Kennedy. Yes, sure, and I can be very brief because I
am not a reservoir engineer. Actually, the use of CO2
for enhanced oil recovery has been around since the 1970s, for
example. In the Permian Basin. What's unique about our process
is the source of CO2, not the use of the
CO2. So the CO2 is basically delivered at
injection pressure and injected into the reservoir. At West
Ranch we use a strategy called wagging, which is water
alternating gas. So they basically put water in, get pressure
in the reservoir up, put in CO2. CO2
uniquely interacts with the locked or blocked molecules of oil,
loosens those up, and allows us to push them through with water
for recovery. When you get the production fluids back you
basically separate the water, you reinject it, you separate the
gas, recompressurize it, and reinject it, and then you have the
oil available for market.
Mr. Babin. Great. If we did not follow this technology up,
CCUS, would we lose an enormous opportunity to be able to
produce more energy using waste products? One day maybe it will
be a commodity, but right now it's a waste product.
Mr. Kennedy. That's correct. Several have mentioned here
that there is a demand for CO2. So to the extent
that more CO2 supplies could be provided, it will
help that process.
Mr. Babin. Right. It's certainly an advantage, that's for
sure.
I will yield back, Madam Chair. Thank you.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you very much, Dr. Babin.
Mr. Crenshaw?
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Dr. Long, I want you to expand on the CCUS energy hub that
you mentioned. What exactly does that look like, and would that
solve some of the problems you said about fundamental science
needing to be focused on more?
Dr. Long. Yes. The tools that scientists are using today
are completely different from the tools that were used when our
current carbon capture technologies were discovered. We've made
advances in how to build materials and control absorption
within materials and diffusion through porous materials because
of those tools, because of advanced computational techniques,
and that's not being leveraged here for new carbon capture
technologies, and it's also not being leveraged for
utilization.
Mr. Crenshaw. Does that need authorization from Congress?
Dr. Long. I believe the energy hubs are approved through
this Committee. Having these hubs--what these hubs mean is
sustained long-term funding for scientists to think about how
do we do this in the most energy-efficient and cost-effective
manner, how do we create materials that will revolutionize the
future ways in which we do CO2 capture and perhaps
convert it into all kinds of products. That funding for
fundamental science to drive future technology, there should be
a lot more of it in this area.
Mr. Crenshaw. I understand.
Mr. Dewing, in your testimony you talk about the
retrofitting of existing hydrogen facilities, and I want to go
back to this New Source Review. Are you familiar with New
Source Review?
Mr. Dewing. I'm afraid not.
Mr. Crenshaw. OK, then I won't ask that question. We'll
just move on.
I will say it's nice to be in a hearing where we have a lot
of viable solutions, and we've discussed a few of them. We've
talked about energy hubs and the authorization needed for that;
interesting ideas like reclassifying CO2 as a
commodity. It's interesting because it really is. It's used in
EOR. You can make plastics. We could possibly one day make a
gasoline out of it. Maybe this gets back to something we should
research as a fundamental science and energy hub. I also heard
it can be used for agriculture, of course. I mean, you can talk
about a greenhouse that needs multiple times the CO2
that is present in normal air, algae farms, things like that.
There really are algae farms truck in CO2 every
single day. There really is a market for that.
It sounds like we need 45Q flexibility, additional
flexibility in that, to provide for the incentives to actually
capture CO2 and then utilize it. CO2
infrastructure, pipelines. We need to stop vilifying pipelines
in this country; that would be great. It would be great if the
northeast wasn't relying on shipping from Russia to get their
natural gas and heating in their homes. DOE grants have proven
to be a fundamental part, it sounds like, in incentivizing and
getting this technology off the ground.
Let me be clear, Mr. Kennedy. You guys are at a point where
you can operate in a stand-alone way; is that correct? Or do
you still need those grants and still need those tax
incentives? I mean, where are you?
Mr. Kennedy. Yes, economics continue to be challenging.
Like I mentioned, we're a little bit uniquely structured given
the way we are with the oil field and stuff. But the focus on
this next generation is hopefully driving cost down. But I
think any new project, regardless of first generation, second
generation, is going to need 45Q to support that.
Mr. Crenshaw. Right.
Mr. Kennedy. And government grants as well as additional
R&D.
Mr. Crenshaw. Yes, and that's great to hear, and these
aren't enormous costs on the economy. We can get you started,
we can maintain some kind of incentive structure, and as the
technology improves, there's a real market for CO2
where eventually you can stand on your own. When we're talking
about solutions--and again, I want to get back to this main
truth, which is that America is the innovation capital of the
world, and ignoring that or destroying that capability by
destroying the fossil fuel industry is actually bad for the
environment. It seems counter-intuitive, but it's really not,
and we've proven why today, because the rest of the world, and
especially countries that emit far more carbon dioxide than we
do, are relying on America to be the innovation engine of the
future. We can't ignore that, and we have to be doing exactly
what we've been talking about today to incentivize that and
really keep this miracle going where we can actually have our
cake and eat it too. I mean, that's a pretty great thing. We
can continue economic development, we can continue being the
greatest and richest country in the world, helping other
countries continue to develop, but also clean up the
environment, and I think that's a really cool thing.
So I just want to say thank you again for having me at this
wonderful Subcommittee hearing.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you so much, Mr. Crenshaw.
And thank you all for being here today and for your
testimony.
Before we bring the hearing to a close, I want to mention
just a few things and go back to what I said at the beginning
when we started the hearing this morning. I think we've seen
today that in this Congress, this Committee has a strong track
record of working together in a bipartisan way to solve
problems and to support science, and that is critically
important.
I think there is much consensus among my colleagues here
today about the challenges and opportunities before us and, as
always, the collaboration and cooperation amongst the
witnesses, amongst the research institutions, industry, and our
government agencies. What we've seen today and what we've heard
about I think is very encouraging and is certainly a critical
part of our path forward, and it's consistently what we see on
our Science Committee.
So I thank you for your work, I thank you for your work
together, and I thank you for your time here this morning.
The record of the hearing will remain open for 2 weeks, and
that means that Members can add additional statements or submit
additional questions, so we may have additional things coming
to you.
Certainly, we had a lot of great questions here today and
really appreciate your great answers, your time, and your
commitment on this issue.
So, with that, the witnesses are excused and the hearing is
now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:13 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix
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Additional Material for the Record
Presentation submitted by Dr. Ramanan Krishnamoorti
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
White Paper submitted by Dr. Ramanan Krishnamoorti
White Paper can be found at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/970b/
62daa17a329
a98f03bcd33233199f42c5bcf.pdf?_ga=2.85876569.1336167076.1574703669-
796248
402.1574703669
Report submitted by Dr. Ramanan Krishnamoorti
Report can be found at: https://uh.edu/uh-energy/research/ccme/
content/uh-energy-ccme-white-paper-series-03-2019-web.pdf
Presentation submitted by Mr. Nigel Jenvey
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]