By Charles Fridge
The Texas mystique grew out of the ambitious, frontier-conquering nature of our history and people, and the explosion of natural gas and oil as a generational wealth-creating machine plays a central role in that identity.
There are some who would like to see that go away for good, but there is an evolution happening right now that is changing the face of Texas energy, using the same skills and tools that drilled tens of thousands of wells from Spindletop to the deep offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s a fast-emerging business for the future that stands to benefit our state, its many industries and Liberty County.
Here’s the best part – Texas and Texans can again benefit from their mineral and land rights, using nature’s bounty to help lower the world’s carbon footprint. Once again, we have a special kind of geology under our feet. In this case, Southeast Texas has geologic formations ideally suited to safely store carbon – the same way Mother Nature has for thousands of years.
That future is in bringing carbon out of the ground and putting it back there. I founded Verde CO2 in 2019 to do just that. We are a pure-play carbon capture and storage company, built to collect emissions straight from industrial facilities before the carbon dioxide hits the air. We then transport it to a site, send it thousands of feet underground into secure, geologic storage – within tiny pores in the rock – far away from the water table. We then monitor the CO2 continuously to make sure it stays put. Our team is full of experts with decades of experience in the natural gas and oil industry, so we know the underground geology and how to navigate it safely.
Texas possesses enormous capacity for underground carbon storage, estimated to be enough to hold 661 million-2.4 billion tons of CO2. On the high end, that is the equivalent of storing a year’s worth of emissions from more than half of the world’s passenger cars. Here’s the other thing: while the technology may sound new to some, the tools we use to do our work have been used safely since the late 1970s.
Our proposed project in Liberty County will be located on private land with a history of energy development. That makes it attractive to us for not only carbon capture, but for another important tenet of how Verde operates – in partnership with the community, so our work causes minimal disturbance and creates clear benefits.
That is why Verde is in discussions and will work together with Liberty County, its independent school districts and residents to identify areas needed for our investment into the community. This could mean investment into infrastructure, such as libraries, schools, and recreational facilities, and other needs.
By helping clean the air, the project will also help preserve the natural environment of Texas, including Big Thicket National Preserve and Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge, so future generations can enjoy what Liberty County’s people and other Texans have enjoyed for decades.
However, people are right to have questions about something that may be new to them, and there is no shortage of outside activists who will doubtless descend on the county to spread falsehoods and fears about carbon capture.
It’s a safe bet they’ll start with fearmongering about that sinkhole in Daisetta. Verde is aware of that situation and the very real-time concerns it has created. However, this is an instance in which geology, science and engineering expertise matter, not the fact-free trash-talking that is the stock in trade of so-called activists.
The Daisetta sinkhole is a dissolving salt dome located 600 feet from the surface. Verde’s carbon storage zones are 4,000-8,000 feet deep inside the earth and far away from the water table to ensure it remains undisturbed. Besides being plain good sense, that is something the regulations and laws regarding CCS recognize and require.
Which is to say, there’s no messing with Texas underneath the ground, either.
Our natural resources have blessed Texans for as long as we’ve been a nation and later, a state. With carbon capture and storage, that legacy has a bright future.
Learn more about Verde CO2’s Liberty County projects at these upcoming open houses:
Tuesday, June 27, 2023
6-8 p.m.
Dayton Community Center
801 S. Cleveland St., Dayton, TX
Wednesday, June 28, 2023
6 -8 p.m.
Devers ISD
201 S. Chism St. Devers, TX
Response to June 9 opinion by G Fridge:
You lost out at your snide comment of “so-called activists” : We NEED diverse viewpoints in every aspect of civic or private-for-profit services, as that is what gets us to the best solutions for a community – not just the big companies. Your attitude on important questioning shows divisiveness that we have seen too much of, and an inability for nurturing negotiations to bring people together for safe outcomes.
Verde CO2 CCS, LLC and Qxy Low Carbon Ventures both leased from Henderson Partners, LTD. Oxy is 1PointFive DAC, ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions, Linde Engineering, Chevron/Talos/Carbonvert, Linde Post Combustion Capture, Denbury and Kinder-Morgan CO2 pipelines, et al, are all here. What’s your technology, where is your facility, disposal wells, TXRRC and Federal permits. Pollutions is bad, CO2 is plant food. Like using a bucket to empty the ocean. Daisetta sink hole and this technology is comparing apples to oranges. Nothing to do with piercement type salt domes.
Texas Gulf Coast, where the hydrocarbon/refining industry plans on spending billions to inject flue gas/carbon monoxide into subsurface geological structures, mainly saltwater reservoirs below our freshwater reservoirs. As with CO2 EOR for tertiary recovery of pressure depleted hydrocarbon production zones like the Gulf Coast Frio, Miocene and Yegua, all saltwater drive reservoirs. These finite geological structures pressured(carbonation) to capacity following the paths of least resistance to the fresh water reservoirs that humanity truly depends, becomes at the very least, toxic. Reminiscent of government mandated MTBE’s in gasoline. They are here from EXXON to Oxy to all the climate charlatans quick big money schemes for the dumbed down masses clamoring for their own extermination.
If it is so bad for our atmosphere, what one Earth are you planning now? There has to be some method to this madness.
“Carbon sequestration fails. It’s the newest story for the next old sucker. When they retire, it gets tried again.” Andrew Forrest, Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) Chairman
“The ocean generates 50 percent of the oxygen we need, absorbs 25 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions and captures 90 percent of the excess heat generated by these emissions. It is not just ‘the lungs of the planet’ but also its largest ‘carbon sink’ – a vital buffer against the impacts of climate change.” UN.org
Our aquifers are our most important natural resource. We’ve already been sold out to one families greed with Colony Ridge and the enabling Commissioners with apparently the next version near Devers. This combination of greed and ignorance has to stop.
I don’t want this in my county. If it is so good, let Houston and Harris County have it.