Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership

Description:

MORE INFO Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership web site List of Partners [Leave Site] National Energy Technology Laboratory Information on Regional Partnerships

The Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership (Big Sky), led by Montana State University-Bozeman, represents Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, South Dakota and the eastern part of Washington and Oregon. Big Sky’s vision is to prepare its’ member organizations for a possible carbon-constrained economy and enable the region to cleanly utilize its abundant fossil energy resources and sequestration sinks to support future energy demand and economic growth. Big Sky will achieve this vision by demonstrating and validating the region’s most promising sequestration technologies and creating the supporting infrastructure required to deploy commercial scale carbon sequestration projects. Specifically, Big Sky will conduct a small-scale carbon dioxide (CO2) injection into the Columbia River flood basalts to address the critical technical issues associated with the transport and injection of supercritical CO2 in a deep basalt formation. Big Sky will also conduct a large-volume CO2 injection test in a deep saline formation to demonstrate the ability of a geologic formation to safely, permanently, and economically store more than two million tons of CO2. In addition, Big Sky will also conduct several terrestrial field tests to demonstrate and validate the technical and economic feasibility of carbon storage in the major terrestrial carbon sinks, implement monitoring and verification protocols, and assess the impacts to existing ecosystems. Big Sky’s efforts will also involve development of a geographic information system (GIS)-based economic and risk assessment tool, evaluation of regulatory and permitting approaches, and implementation of a robust public outreach and education program.