Tulsa was once known as the oil capital of the world. John Satterfield with Summit Carbon Solutions said the oil and gas industry wants to lead the way in reducing emissions through carbon capture technology.
“Whether you agree with it or not, we’ve moved into an era of a lower carbon economy. Reducing our carbon emissions is important to preventing further climate change from negatively affecting our crops, our populations, the intensity of storms and other weather events,” said Satterfield.
Summit has partnered with Big Elk Energy Systems, based in West Tulsa, to use decades-old technology in a new way -- reducing emissions from ethanol production.
Big Elk Founder and CEO Jeff Hager said he’s excited about the partnership.
“We’ve been a manufacturer for a number of years, of equipment that’s used in energy infrastructure, so pipeline systems and things like that. And now, the equipment that we make gets to be used for the purpose of carbon capture,” said Satterfield.
Satterfield explained how they will use compressors, pipelines and injection pumps to transport and permanently store the captured carbon.
“Instead of oil and gas, we’re moving CO2 gas. And we’re capturing it, preventing it from being emitted to the atmosphere. We’re compressing it down. We’re going to pump it through the pipeline system, and we’re going to inject it into a hole, into permanent formations for sequestration, for permanent storage,” said Satterfield.
Satterfield said the amount of carbon removed is equivalent to the emissions from 2.6 million cars trucks and vans. Aside from reducing emissions, they say the new project will be an economic boom -- creating 11,000 jobs to construct the pipeline and more than a thousand jobs to keep it maintained.
The project should be completed by the summer of 2024.