Interest in carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (CCUS) technologies continue to gain momentum, as stronger climate targets and investment incentives emerge. In the United States, close to 50 new carbon capture projects in the energy industry and fuel transformation sectors were announced between January 2020 and August 2021 alone. CCUS technologies on a large scale have the potential to be an important component of reaching net-zero emissions while guaranteeing energy security. In order to ensure that CCUS is best integrated into the US energy landscape, the complex technical, political, and economic frameworks must be understood. This includes building effective transport and storage networks, realizing negative emissions technologies, examining challenging economics for retrofits and CCUS power plants, and analyzing carbon policy risk. During this colloquium, our panel of experts in research, policy, and technology will discuss the value of CCUS in the United States, highlighting opportunities and challenges in deploying these technologies in and around the Gulf Coast region to meet the nation’s energy goals.
Please join us for the National Academy of Engineering and Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences colloquium on Thursday, March 17, 2022 from 10:00 am – 12:00 pm EDT focused on carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration in the United States.
Webinar Participants
Panelists:
Emily Grubert, Ph.D., Deputy Assistant Secretary of Office of Carbon Management, DOE
Cindy Yeilding, Former Senior Vice President, BP America; Board Member of Denbury and the Center for Houston's Future
Akhil Datta-Gupta, Ph.D., NAE, Distinguished Professor of Petroleum Engineering, Texas A&M University
Joseph Powell, Ph.D., NAE, Principal, ChemePD LLC
Moderator: Lynn Orr, Ph.D., NAE, Professor Emeritus of Energy Resources Engineering, Stanford University
About the Panelists
Dr. Lynn Orr served as Under Secretary for Science and Energy at the US Department of Energy from December 2014 to January 2017. He was director of the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford from its establishment in 2009 to 2013. He served as director of the Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford from 2002 to 2008. Orr was the Chester Naramore Dean of the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University from 1994 to 2002. He has been a member of the Stanford faculty since 1985 and holds the Keleen and Carlton Beal Chair of Petroleum Engineering in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering, and was a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and the Precourt Institute for Energy. His research activities focus on how complex fluid mixtures flow in the porous rocks in the Earth's crust, the design of gas injection processes for enhanced oil recovery, and CO2 storage in subsurface formations. Orr is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He served as vice chair of the board of directors of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute until 2014 and rejoined that board in 2017. He chaired the Advisory Panel of the Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering for the David and Lucile Packard Foundation until 2014, rejoining that panel in 2017, and was a foundation board member from 1999-2008. He is a member of the ClimateWorks Foundation Board of Directors. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and a B.S. from Stanford University, both in Chemical Engineering.
Dr. Emily Grubert is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Carbon Management in the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM). In this role, she oversees FECM’s Carbon Management program, which focuses on minimizing the climate and environmental impacts of fossil energy through technology pathways, including carbon capture, carbon dioxide (CO2) removal, CO2 conversion into products, and reliable CO2 storage. Dr. Grubert is a civil engineer and environmental sociologist who studies and informs decision making regarding infrastructure systems, particularly related to justice-centering decarbonization of the U.S. energy system. Her expertise includes studying the life cycle and socioenvironmental impacts associated with future policy and infrastructure. Dr. Grubert is an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and, by courtesy, of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She holds a Ph.D. in Environment and Resources from Stanford, an M.S. in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering and an M.A. in Energy and Earth Resources from UT Austin and a B.S. in Mathematics and Atmosphere/Energy Engineering from Stanford.
Dr. Akhil Datta-Gupta is Regents Professor, University Distinguished Professor and holder of the L.F. Peterson ’36 Endowed Chair in the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University. Dr. Datta-Gupta’s research interests include high resolution flow simulation, petroleum reservoir management/optimization, large-scale parameter estimation via inverse methods and carbon sequestration and utilization. He is a Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Honorary Member and received two of the top three technical awards (Carll Award, 2009; Uren Award, 2003) given by the society for his contributions related to petroleum reservoir characterization and 3-D streamline simulation. In addition to his SPE awards, he is recipient of the SURA (Southeastern Universities Research Association) Distinguished Scientist Award (2019) and the U.S. Department of Energy Award for Outstanding Contributions to Basic Research in Geosciences (2008). Dr. Datta-Gupta has published over 100 peer reviewed articles and 4 books. He served as member of the Polar Research Board (2001-2004) and the Unconventional Reservoir Roundtable (2016-2018) of the National Academy of Sciences and the Technology Task Force of the National Petroleum Council (2007). Dr. Datta-Gupta was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas in 2012.
Cindy Yielding is a former Senior Vice President of BP America. Her previous roles at BP include numerous leadership and technical positions, including Vice President of exploration technology and assurance, Vice President of Gulf of Mexico exploration and appraisal, and global geoscience R&D Manager. As an exploration and research scientist, Cindy has developed and led geological courses, published technical papers, participated on panels and delivered numerous technical, leadership and keynote presentations for technical societies, universities and leadership forums. Cindy has served as a Distinguished Lecturer with the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), is a member of the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) Board of Directors, and serves on the Board of Directors of BP Exploration and Production. She is BP's executive sponsor for Princeton University, a member of the Greater Houston Partnership Board of Directors, and the University of Texas's Jackson School of Geosciences Advisory Council. Cindy serves as the executive sponsor of BP's women's network, and she is a member of BP's Million Women Mentors leadership council. Cindy has been recognized as one of Houston's Top 15 Business Women by the National Diversity Council, received a “2016 Women in Energy Leadership” award from the Houston Business Journal and was recognized as one of Houston's 50 Most Influential Women of 2016. Cindy earned her bachelor's degree in geology from Southern Methodist University and her master's degree in geology from the University of North Carolina.
Dr. Joseph Powell is Fellow and former Director of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and served as Shell’s first Chief Scientist – Chemical Engineering from 2006 until retiring at the end of 2020, culminating a 36-year industry career where he led R&D programs in new chemical processes, biofuels, enhanced oil recovery, and advised on R&D for energy transition to a net-zero carbon economy. Dr. Powell is co-inventor on more than 125 patent applications (60 granted), has received AIChE / ACS / R&D Magazine awards for Innovation, Service, and Practice, and is co-author of Sustainable Development in the Process Industries: Cases and Impact (2010). He chaired the U.S. Department of Energy Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technical Advisory Committee (HTAC) and was elected to the U. S. National Academy of Engineering (2021) after serving two terms on its Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology. Other roles include guest editor Catalysis Today Natural Gas Utilization, editorial board for Annual Review of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Crosscutting Technologies area lead and author for Mission Innovation Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (2017). He currently advises in energy and chemicals and process development (ChemePD LLC). Education: PhD U. Wisconsin-Madison (1984); BS U. Virginia (1978), both in chemical engineering.
Webinar Outline
The webinar will include opening remarks from the panelists, followed by the moderated discussion; there will be time reserved for audience questions.
Registration is available until the webinar begins. Contact Courtney Hill at chill@nae.edu for any registration questions.
The recording will be posted on our website as soon as it is available.