Remarks of
Robert S. Kripowicz
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy
U.S. Department of Energy
to the
Carbon Sequestration Workshop
in
Gaithersburg, Maryland
September 14, 1999

I want to join with Martha [Dr. Martha Krebbs, Director of the DOE Office of Science] this morning in welcoming you to Gaithersburg on a beautiful September day. At least today, the global climate is working to our benefit here in the Washington suburbs.

Let me say from the outset that I am very pleased to be opening this workshop jointly with Dr. Krebs. I think this is a perfect match, our combination of the Office of Science with my organization, the Office of Fossil Energy. It means that the Department of Energy is approaching this relatively new area of carbon sequestration research from the perspective of the entire research path - from its most basic principles to, hopefully, its most practical applications.

And I am also pleased that we have established close working relationships with other parts of the government - where there is clearly expertise that can benefit our efforts. We are pleased to be working with the Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service. We're pleased to have the strong capabilities of the U.S. Department of the Interior and especially the U.S. Geological Survey involved in this effort.

This is an effort we see as potentially dictating the long-term future of fuels that are today our energy mainstays. They are certainly the fuels that offer the United States and the world its lowest cost, most easily obtained source of energy.

I've often referred to fossil fuels as "future fuels" - because I believe their capability to contribute to our future is just as significant as their contributions have been to our past. But if we are going to approach the future of fossil fuels in a way that allows the world to tap their full potential - and to enjoy their full cost and supply benefits - then I believe the program we are defining here today and tomorrow is crucial.

You know the projections. By 2020, the world's appetite for energy is likely to be twice what it was in 1990. Without changes in energy and environmental policies or technologies - or both - global carbon emissions are forecast to increase by more than 80 percent from 1990 levels. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, are currently about 30 percent above pre-industrial levels and rising.

But when we talk about carbon sequestration, I believe we must look beyond a 20-year horizon.

I believe it is important that we recognize that the next 20 years is just a snapshot...a brief moment in time in the context of the globe's carbon cycle. Certainly, we must focus today on the potential ramifications of climate change and begin to take the first steps....but climate change is NOT a 10- or 20-year challenge. It is a challenge measured in generations rather than years or even decades.

By the time we approach the end of the next century, the world's population could be double that of today - and energy consumption could be TRIPLE today's levels.

Most - perhaps 90 percent - of this population growth is expected to occur in the less developed countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. That's why energy use will outpace population growth. And 80 percent of the CO2 emissions produced by the world's populations are associated with energy use.

That is why in our portfolio of actions, as Martha indicated earlier, we cannot focus solely on short-term options that reduce rates of smokestake or tailpipe emissions. We must concentrate on options that offer progress toward stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations on a global scale. That is the challenge, and it is enormous.

Even stabilizing atmospheric CO2 concentrations at double their current level would require cutting global emissions by almost 70 percent, compared to their 1990 levels.

Certainly some of that can be accomplished by greater energy efficiency - both in energy production and energy use. Greater use of low-carbon and non-carbon fuels can play an important role. But I don't think anyone - particularly anyone looking at the global perspective - would say that these options alone can achieve the kind of worldwide reductions that may be necessary.

That's why Secretary Richardson, when he spoke to a conference of the world's coal experts this past June, emphasized carbon sequestration as an important, third option in our climate action portfolio.

Among his other attributes, the Secretary is a pragmatist. He knows that the world is not going to turn its back on coal and other fossil fuels. He also knows that carbon sequestration is the only option that is completely compatible with the world's current energy infrastructure.

It is the only alternative we currently have that doesn't necessitate massive, almost certainly disruptive changes in our energy supplies or our national economies.

The challenge we face today is how to turn the pragmatic potential of carbon sequestration into pragmatic reality. Can we develop practical, affordable sequestration options - options that can function on a large scale, yet cost as low as $10 per ton of carbon avoided, equivalent to about three-tenths of a cent per kilowatt-hour (0.3 cents/kWhr) of electricity? And most importantly, can we give assurances to the public that these options will be environmentally safe?

We have reason to be optimistic.

For example, the ocean and the deep sea floor are among the largest potential sinks for CO2. Some 40,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide are in solution in the world's oceans. The 3.5 gigatons of net emissions currently released annually worldwide is both literally and figuratively, a "drop in the bucket." But there are still many unresolved questions that only sound science can answer.

I've used ocean sequestration as an example because it illustrates another key point that the Secretary made in his remarks. The issue of global climate change is just that....global. And so too must be the solutions.

In the past decade, Japanese researchers have explored the idea of pumping CO2 directly into the ocean. We have joined Japan, along with Norway and Canada, in a sequestration project to test the viability of pumping CO2 directly into the Pacific Ocean. By the summer of 2001, the researchers plan to conduct a small-scale test of injecting and diffusing CO2 in the ocean at roughly 3000 feet.

This international collaboration is the type of joint effort that will make the most effective use of our resources and our expertise. We want to see more of these partnerships - and there are many more opportunities for global collaboration.

We also see multiple opportunities for sequestration in geological formations. As most of you are well aware, the Norwegian oil company, Statoil, is injecting almost 1 million metric tons a year of recovered CO2 into a undersea saline reservoir in a porous sandstone formation. The International Energy Agency will be monitoring the results of this effort.

In the future, we may be able to inject carbon dioxide into coal seams and produce natural gas from the seams as an ancillary benefit. CO2 is already injected at 70 sites worldwide for enhanced oil recovery.

In the longer term, there may be biological sequestration options. Researchers are exploring new farming techniques and bio-engineering that could lead to crops that absorb more carbon and yield more products.

We are expanding our financial commitment to these efforts. A year ago, we provided funding to 12 innovative sequestration projects. Our objective was initially to see what was out there - what the technical community had to offer - and to gauge whether there were enough good ideas to warrant moving forward with an applied research program.

The answer we got was a resounding "yes." We received more than 60 proposals - very good proposals - probably some from many of you in this audience. We were able to fund only 12 of them - and this year, we narrowed those 12 down to 6 - because that was all the funding we had available.

But we had received a strong message from the research community. Carbon sequestration was no longer just a scientific novelty. Good ideas existed. Some of them still needed incubation time in the laboratory - and between Martha's and our programs, we want to assist these promising concepts. But many ideas were on the verge of crossing the threshold out of the laboratory and into engineering development and field testing.

Equally important, we have seen in the last year or so, the sequestration research community being backed by the true visionaries in the energy business who are beginning to see carbon sequestration as the core of 21st century corporate profit centers.

So, we believe we are on the right track. We can take a strong case to the Congress that this is an important climate change option that needs to be developed - one that still needs to have key questions answered - but one that has enormous potential.

And I believe Congress is listening. Our reception has been good in both the House and Senate appropriation committees. On both sides, the Chairmen and Members of these committees understand the value of scientifically sound research and development. They have recognized that sequestration research is not a "back door" approach to implementing Kyoto before they have ratified the accord. They understand that process of acquiring good, credible data cannot be done overnight - but if we are going to have answers they can use to make policy decisions, the research must begin today

This past summer, Senators Murkowski, Byrd, and others introduced the "Energy and Climate Policy Act of 1999" which included authorization for a major effort in carbon sequestration R&D.

So, support is building for an expanded carbon sequestration program. That is why we were able to move ahead in the last few weeks and issue two major new calls for sequestration proposals.

The first was targeted toward our National Laboratories with encouragement - and in one area, a requirement - to team with private sector partners.

We issued the second last week - a larger solicitation, offering up to $18 million for projects to begin moving sequestration over that threshold, from laboratory to practical reality. We've placed copies of our announcement on the table. As Secretary Richardson said in the announcement, we hope this funding will serve as a catalyst to encourage the global technical community - let me stress, the global technical community - to create new research partnerships and to join with us in fostering new, practical carbon sequestration ideas.

We have a remarkable opportunity here today. In the 20-plus years, I've been associated with energy programs - either on Capitol Hill or at the Department - I've seen a lot of new programs start. And I've seen a lot of programs begin with a lot of fanfare and then wither and die once the drumroll was over.

The reason - in almost every case - was because they weren't planned properly from the outset. They began in a vacuum - government people talking to government people and convincing themselves that something was the right thing to do.

Both the Office of Science and the Office of Fossil Energy are determined that this is a program that is going to get off and running in the right way. And that means involving the technical community and policy makers from the very start.

That's why we put a lot of our staff resources into creating the "State of the Science" document that many of you have seen. It is a document that is meant as a starting point - one that allows us all to begin with a general consensus -- inside and outside of government -- on where we are today, and where we need to go in the future.

We can - and probably will - debate some of the details of this report today and tomorrow. But I hope we will leave this workshop with general agreement on the points I've outlined on this viewgraph:

• Sequestration can, in fact, become a third option in our climate change portfolio, joining the more efficient use of fuels and the greater use of lower carbon fuels.

• Sequestration can provide spinoff benefits - oil or methane recovery in some cases, or more productive soils or perhaps heartier forests;

• Some sequestration options are available in the near-term; others will take much longer to understand and implement;

• Sequestration - as a climate change option - won't be accepted unless there is solid, sound evidence that it is safe, verifiable, and affordable.

• There is no one answer - the most promising sequestration options still have many questions unanswered - and that will require a broad portfolio of R&D; and

• Policy makers will need the tools to determine the costs and benefits of carbon sequestration approaches - and to determine how best to integrate sequestration into climate change management programs.

No one can predict today whether in 10, 20 or 30 years, carbon sequestration will be the answer - or one of the answers - to the problem of global climate change. No one can predict whether in 20 or 30 years, the world will embrace fossil fuels as future fuels, enjoying their benefits and discarding their concerns over their impacts on the world's climate.

But I hope we can agree today that this is an area with enough potential -- and enough significance to ultimately affect every person on this planet -- to warrant making our best effort to get it started right.

This is an area that deserves the attention of the best minds in the business - and I'm pleased to see that they have gathered in Gaithersburg this week. As Secretary Richardson said in his speech in June, work with us. Help us put together a program that makes sense. Help us do it right.

On behalf of the Secretary - on behalf of Dr. Krebs - and on behalf of the Department of Energy, let me again welcome you to this workshop.

Thank you.