Research underway/completed under the Midwest Regional Carbon Initiative (MRCI) was in the spotlight recently at the 16th Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies Conference (GHGT-16) in Lyon, France.
Hosted by the International Energy Association Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (IEAGHG), an international technology collaboration program established in 1991 that studies and evaluates technologies that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions derived from fossil fuels, GHGT-16 brought together researchers from across the world to discuss greenhouse gas mitigation, mainly through carbon capture, utilization, and storage. GHGT conferences take place every two years in the IEAGHG’s member countries, rotating between North America, Europe, and Asia.
The MRCI was well-represented throughout the four-day event, with both Principal Investigators and multiple team members representing the Initiative, which is one of four regional efforts by the DOE to promote CCUS acceptance and deployment across the US. The group attended networking events, chaired technical sessions, and made both oral and poster presentations. Additionally, team members participated in the opening night reception, individual organization-hosted events, and the Gala Dinner on Wednesday evening.
This was the first in-person GHGT for the MRCI team since the pandemic delayed and then shifted GHGT-15 to a virtual format.
“While I appreciate the efforts IEAGHG went through to even hold a conference during COVID, there is nothing like being able to fully immerse yourself in the atmosphere of a conference of this magnitude. There is a lot that we can learn from scheduled technical sessions, roundtables, and plenary talks, but so much of the magic of GHGT happens from those conversations you have in-between sessions or during receptions and evening events when you run into a colleague who works halfway around the world who you haven’t seen for a year,” says MRCI co-PI Sallie Greenberg. “That inter-personal connection that you gain, especially at GHGT, is invaluable.”
MRCI-related involvement in GHGT-16 included:
- Sallie Greenberg – chaired the Communications, Social Science and Capacity Building 1 session, and presented, “Projecting CCUS costs using the Illinois Basin Decatur Project as cost basis.”
- Ivan Wong of Lettis Consultants International, an MRCI partner organization, presented, “Toward large-scale characterization of induced seismicity potential and its impacts for CCUS in the central and eastern US,” a paper co-authored by MRCI Key Technical Challenges Task Lead Mark Kelley
- Battelle Subsurface Geoscientist Aubrey Collie made a technical presentation on, “Chemically-enabled CO2-enhanced oil recovery in multi-porosity, hydrothermally altered carbonates in the southern Michigan Basin” and presented the poster, “A geologic complexity ranking system for site selection for CO2 storage.”
- MRCI Outreach Task Deputy Lead Joy Frank-Collins presented the poster, “A case study in strategic CCUS communications across a 20-state region of the United States.”
- Battelle Subsurface Geoscientist Stuart Skopec presented the posters, “Assessment of storage systems in the Midwest Northeastern United States for large-scale CCUS projects” and “Development of acoustic emissions sensing techniques for tracing CO2 movement in Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS).”
- Battelle Reservoir Engineer Priya Ravi Ganesh presented the poster, “Developing infrastructure for carbon capture, utilization and storage – emerging issues.”
- MRCI co-PI Neeraj Gupta presented the poster, “Examining the government-funded initiative dedicated to accelerate deployment of carbon storage in the Midwest, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.”
- Battelle Environmental Engineer Deepti Krishnan Nair presented the poster, “Developing infrastructure for carbon capture, utilizations and storage – Examples from the Midwest Regional Carbon Initiative.”
“While many of the stakeholders for the MRCI get updates on our research and efforts regularly through our regular communications and meetings, conferences like GHGT give us the opportunity to share the progress we are making toward the mission of the regional initiatives by the Department of Energy to advance CCUS deployment with people working in capture and storage from across the world,” says MRCI co-PI Neeraj Gupta. “It is important as we are all working collectively toward a goal of global decarbonization.”
Check out our gallery of images from the conference!
