The stage is set for a new carbon storage economy to emerge along the Gulf Coast, according to a study led by The University of Texas at Austin, with the region offering ample opportunities to capture and store carbon, and recent state and federal incentives giving an added push to get started.
The stage is set for a new carbon storage economy to emerge along the Gulf Coast, according to a study led by The University of Texas at Austin, with the region offering ample opportunities to capture and store carbon, and recent state and federal incentives giving an added push to get started.
Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is a technology that keeps CO2 out of the atmosphere by capturing emissions and storing them deep underground. It can help fight climate change by lowering industrial emissions now while renewable energy sources are being developed, said Tip Meckel, a senior research scientist at the Gulf Coast Carbon Center, a research group at the UT Bureau of Economic Geology that has been studying CCS for the past 20 years.
“This is a viable way to reduce emissions in the near term,” Meckel said. “It’s feasible and has a reasonable economic structure that can support, retain and create jobs.”
The study, which was published in Greenhouse Gases: Science and Technology, provides a high-level overview of policy incentives for CCS and how Texas and Louisiana’s high concentration of industry and unique offshore geology make the region a particularly good spot to build up a carbon storage economy.
Read more at University of Texas at Austin
Image: The energy infrastructure along the Gulf Coast offers opportunities to capture and transport CO2 for storage. (Credit: Carol M. Highsmith/ Library of Congress)
