The Department of Energy has awarded a $32 million grant to a team led by Dr. Manika Prasad to develop a carbon sequestration hub in Pueblo. Below is a brief description of the technical aspects and information on participants.
CarbonSAFE Eos, stemming from the Greek “Goddess of the Dawn,” signals a new day in clean energy deployment in Colorado. This innovation is represented in the joint technical and social objectives of the project: to progress development of a large sequestration site capable of holding at least 50 million tons of CO2 over 30 years and to incorporate principles of consent-based siting and two-way engagement for development planning. This will be accomplished by acquiring laboratory and field geophysical data and drilling stratigraphic test wells in two locations which will prove up the sequestration fairway. These technical results will be overlain with insight from landowner and community engagement to allow for incorporation of landowner preferences to plan for operations most amenable to stakeholders. The selected area is a prime example of a community in transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources. The Mines project success lies in creating a vibrant community engagement and participation.
The star Mines team includes: EDS Professor Jessica Smith and Petroleum Engineering Professor Yu-Shu Wu, co-investigators and Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Amy Landis, Economics and Business Associate Professor Ian Lange, Petroleum Engineering Research Associate Professor Philip Winterfeld, and Geophysics Professor Yaoguo Li, senior personnel. Partners include CarbonAmerica (Ashleigh Ross / Chris Cassle as lead) and LANL (Rajesh Pawar as lead). Jyoti Behura, who was instrumental in getting the proposal together has since moved on to work full time with his company.