A legislative task force heard last week from industry leaders aiming to counter south Louisiana residents’ widespread concerns about carbon capture and sequestration projects, reports The Center Square.
Tommy Faucheux, president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, told the Senate’s Task Force on Local Impacts of Carbon Capture and Sequestration on Thursday that Louisiana is “on the verge of a new golden age of energy production.”
Faucheux and Louisiana Oil and Gas Association President Mike Moncla touted the potential for thousands of new jobs and a multi-billion dollar economic impact for the state should the dozens of proposed carbon capture projects be approved.
Other testimony included an academic at Southeastern Louisiana University tasked with monitoring a project in Lake Maurepas, a researcher from John Hopkins University studying the social impacts of carbon capture and sequestration, the Energy Institute of Louisiana on technical aspects of the technology, and Greg Upton, a task force member and executive director for the Center for Energy Studies at LSU, who spoke about employment and investment trends in the oil and gas industry.
Prior task force meetings featured testimony from a wide range of local residents and officials who vehemently oppose carbon capture projects, though much of the focus centered on the Lake Maurepas project specifically.
Air Products is leveraging millions in taxpayer-funded business incentives to create what it describes as “the world’s largest permanent carbon dioxide endeavor to date” on the lake, where it plans to sequester carbon dioxide from manufacturing blue hydrogen in a pore space about a mile under the lake.
The task force is expected to compile its findings in a report with recommendations to lawmakers that’s due in February. Read the full story about the task force from The Center Square.
