LUBBOCK, Texas (PRESS RELEASE) – The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) has selected Texas Tech University as one of nine university- and industry-led projects to receive $44.5 million in federal funding to advance commercial-scale carbon capture, transport and storage across the United States.

With a grant of just over $6.2 million, Texas Tech aims to implement and accelerate the equitable and environmentally sustainable deployment of storage-based carbon management projects in the Permian Basin. The team will provide technical and gaming support to stakeholders to develop a framework for establishing a carbon management center that utilizes carbon capture and storage (CCS) and achieves net-zero emissions.

“It’s a sense of achievement that six years ago we began looking at non-traditional research topics in the oil and gas sector – CCS is one of them – and that we made the effort to build a team and a level of technology that made us ready to tackle this type of research,” said Marshall Watson, department head of the Bob L. Herd Department of Petroleum Engineering. “What’s even more exciting is that this award aligns with our mission to serve the industry and the people of West Texas.”

Texas Tech is partnering with five universities, two national laboratories, a geological institute, a private company, and a number of regional stakeholders and local communities. These stakeholders have extensive technical, managerial, regulatory, and business expertise specific to carbon transport and storage in the Permian Basin.

Watson is the principal investigator (PI) on this project along with his co-PI, Qingwang (Kevin) Yuan, an assistant professor of petroleum engineering. They have also teamed up with William Keffer, a professor of energy law at Texas Tech School of Law, and Nikki Kantelis, an associate professor of energy trading and business administration at the Jerry S. Rawls College of Business.

“They will complete the legal and regulatory work with us,” Watson said. “We look forward to this multidisciplinary collaboration.”

CCS is already an integral part of the Department of Petroleum Engineering, which has filed two related patents in addition to this award. The department has also introduced a CCS certificate program that will be available to students graduating in May 2024 and has been expanded to include other energy areas such as hydrogen, geothermal energy, emissions detection/mitigation and produced water management.

“We in the oil industry are not at all against alternative fuels,” Watson said. “We are for producing a large amount of energy so that we can survive in an environmentally friendly way.”

The Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), under the supervision of FECM, will manage the Texas Tech project along with the other selected teams. A full list of the nine teams and a detailed list of their contributions can be found here.

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