THE LINK: JULY 2023 19 Senate Bill 48, which the governor has signed, includes a provision allowing private individuals to lease state lands — with trees, of course — and market the carbon offsets through the state, which will itself sell offsets from state forests. Part two of the carbon package, in Senate Bill 49 and House Bill 50, involves the leasing to companies of underground reservoir space for injection and permanent storage of carbon dioxide. This will come next year, and it has the potential of earning much more revenue for the state. That is because the potential volume of CO2 safely stored will be much larger and more easily measured for certification by buyers. But this will take time to develop because it is not yet clear where the carbon dioxide with come from. If the big Alaska LNG Project is built there will be a huge amount of C02 available for storage on the North Slope because the natural gas there is high in carbon dioxide, at least in Prudhoe Bay where most of the gas is located. This will be injected and stored in underused reservoirs there because the carbon dioxide cannot be shipped through the Ak LNG pipeline for the making of liquefied natural gas for export. Cook Inlet has ample potential for CO2 injection and storage, too, but where would this carbon dioxide come from. A potential rebuild and restart of the closed Agrium Corp. fertilizer and ammonia plant, with reasonably-priced natural gas delivered through Ak LNG, would be one source. Japanese companies are also interested in shipping liquid CO2 to Cook Inlet for injection and storage, and one company there has already contracted for construction of a specialized CO2 tanker, although is unlikely that this first vessel will be to serve Alaska, at least at first. A lot of work is also being done on the direct capture of carbon dioxide in flue gas, both from coal-fired boilers in Interior Alaska and gas-fired turbines on the North Slope and Southcentral Alaska. The capture in coal boilers is more easily done than in gas turbines. A lot of research is underway in this area aided by federal tax credits for greenhouse gas reduction. Industrial and power plant emissions could be sources of CO2, but the technology to capture them is still evolving. In Interior Alaska Usibelli Mines and the university are looking at the potential for injecting and storing CO2 in deep unminable coal seams. In Cook Inlet and the North Slope there are also prospects of using pore space in deep saline water aquifers, former state Natural Resources Commissioner Corri Feige says. In Southcentral Alaska those are too deep to have contact with drinking water aquifers, and there are no drinking water aquifers on the North Slope because of permafrost. — Tim Bradner
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