- Legislation could pave the way for underground CO2 storage.
- Michigan has vast geological areas for storage.
- The bills have bipartisan support.
- Supported by a coalition of business, labor & environmentalists.
Michigan lawmakers are considering bills that would pave the way for carbon capture and storage underground in Michigan to fight climate change. A newly formed coalition of business, labor, environmentalists, and academic experts is following the legislative package closely.
Because of its geological formations underground, it’s estimated Michigan has immense capacity for storing carbon dioxide.
“These early estimates showed probably more than 70 billion tons of CO2 storage is possible and that’s highly conservative because we haven’t looked at all the options yet,” said Autumn Haagsma, assistant director of the Michigan Geological Survey at Western Michigan University, during an online news conference held by the coalition, MI SUCCESS. ("Success" in the coalition's name is an acronym for Safe Utilization of Carbon Capture for Environmental and Economic Success.)
The bills are sponsored by Democratic Senator Sean McCann (SB 1131), Republican Senator Joe Bellino (SB 1132), and Democratic Senator John Cherry (SB 1133).
What does 70 billion tons of CO2 storage really mean?
“We can certainly tackle all of Michigan’s emissions for hundreds if not thousands of years. Nationally, similar studies have shown the same thing: from several hundred to thousands of years of storage possible. And that doesn’t account for the potential decrease in our emissions as our processes become more efficient,” Haagsma said.
One of the more obvious choices for storage is using depleted natural gas wells. The gas was held there for millennia. Now that it’s extracted, CO2 can be pumped into the space that the gas once filled.
There are also deep injection wells which are even further underground than natural gas deposits.
Other ways to store carbon
Those are not the only places where Michigan — or the world for that matter — can store carbon.
For example, concrete is plentiful. It’s second only to water in per capita daily usage.
“We are using anywhere from 2,500 to 4,000 pounds per person per year of concrete. And carbon dioxide can be added to those materials as a new ingredient and durably store it,” said Susan Fancy, associate director of the Global CO2 Initiative at the University of Michigan.
Putting CO2 in concrete might not seem as permanent as underground storage, but Fancy said in reality, unless you put that concrete into a furnace, that CO2 is not going to be released.
She says another way of containing CO2 is basically using it in some consumer products, keeping it in circulation instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.
A news release from MI SUCCESS said carbon capture, utilization, and storage technology will accelerate the decarbonization of manufacturing facilities. That, it said, will protect jobs, create new kinds of construction jobs, and incentivize new economic development investments in Michigan that could otherwise be lost to competing states. The group said many states are ahead of Michigan in developing the kind of legislation that it’s backing.
CO2 storage is not enough
While there’s broad support for carbon dioxide storage, environmentalists are quick to point out that’s just one piece of the puzzle to fight climate change.
“Carbon capture, utilization, and storage is one of a menu of options that we need to address the loads of greenhouse gases that we’ve put into our atmosphere. It doesn’t mean that we don’t also have to continue to aggressively reduce emissions every place we can,” said Richard Bowman, policy director for the Nature Conservancy, Michigan Chapter.
Bowman said reaching net zero carbon emissions is great, but more will be needed.
“We need to develop a lot of ways to pull some of this CO2 back out of the atmosphere and get it out of circulation, so to speak.”
At this point, though, the goal for the group is to encourage legislators to pass the bipartisan bills to make carbon storage possible in Michigan.
Michael Alaimo is the director of environmental and energy affairs at the Michigan Chamber of Commerce. He said the state of Michigan’s regulatory bodies, including the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Michigan Public Service Commission, have been working closely with the sponsors of the bills to make sure the regulations are enforceable. He’s optimistic about the legislation’s passage.
“We’ve been talking to legislative leadership and they are open and supportive of having this discussion through the end of the year. And so we are hopeful that we’ll be seeing a Senate Energy and Environment Committee hearing on these bills soon and then we can officially try to move this bill package down the field.”
It it does not get passed during this lame duck session of the Legislature, he suggested perhaps it will be approved early next year.
