The number of places in the world that have the right geology to store carbon dioxide underground are limited. One of those places is in Wyoming, and it lies far below another special place — the C.B. Irwin Ranch, where famed rodeo bronc Steamboat used to run.
The owner of the C.B. Irwin Ranch, Rowdy Petsch, is one of about 20 neighboring ranchers — just call them the Carbon Cowboys — who have come together in a company called Meriden Carbon, which wants to attract companies interested in parking their carbon dioxide emissions underground for long-term storage.
Collectively, their underground garage — pore space in oil and gas lingo — is 102,000 acres wide. And they’re going to call this underground garage far, far below the earth’s crust the Steamboat Carbon Storage Hub.
The company is led by fellow Wyoming landowner Jeff Kummer, a longtime member of North Dakota’s ranching community. Kummer also has a background in oil and gas with a petroleum engineering degree and started a successful company called Mineral Tracker in North Dakota, to help royalty owners track their minerals.
Kummer bought a small ranch near the C.B. Irwin Ranch about five years ago. When he and his neighbors were approached by companies hoping to lease their pore spaces, Kummer realized they might have something special if they all came together.
That led Kummer to suggest to his neighbors that they might be better off setting up their own company to develop their pore space as a block.
“When you start doing some math, just some simple napkin math, looking at the size of this asset, this could be one of the largest carbon storage assets in the country, and we’d have room to grow from here,” Kummer said.
They would also, as stakeholders in the company, have more say over what happens to their pore space in the future.
Wyoming Already Leads On Carbon Storage
Most of the spaces conducive to storing carbon dioxide underground are found in oil and gas places, Kummer said.
“That’s why Wyoming has been a hot bed for this activity, along with North Dakota and Colorado,” he said.
Not only that, but Wyoming has long been a leader when it comes to carbon storage, with decades of research behind it.
Wyoming Geological Survey, University of Wyoming and the Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute are among the entities that have already been working to identify ideal carbon storage spaces and best practices.
Geologic storage of carbon dioxide has been seen by some as one way to fight back and extend the life of coal-fired power plants, by capturing all the carbon dioxide emissions and storing them underground, making the businesses essentially CO2 emissions free.
More recently, some in the oil and gas industry are seeing the idea of carbon sequestration as a win-win for their industry. The carbon dioxide can be used for enhanced oil recovery, and a large portion of the carbon dioxide used that way stays underground.
That in turn could give them a way to market net zero — or even net negative — carbon barrels of oil and gas, by sequestering an amount of carbon dioxide equal to or greater than the amount of oil and gas production from a given well.
That’s a tack North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum has already challenged his state’s oil and gas industry to tackle.
Wyoming is still ahead of North Dakota on that front in some ways, though. It has an advantaged carbon dioxide storage hub thanks to both its geology and its previous attention to carbon storage and management.
Wyoming is one of few states that already has a pipeline corridor initiative to incentivize development of statewide and regional infrastructure that can transport and manage carbon dioxide.
The state also has 23 facilities that are eligible for federal tax credits involving carbon capture and storage, and it has a favorable regulatory environment.
Agriculture Has To Diversify to Survive
One of the things Petsch likes about the Meriden Carbon project is the chance to diversify his agricultural operation, potentially creating an entirely new revenue stream that won’t depend on the vagaries of the global commodities market.
“We have a block of land big enough that it creates value,” he said. “When you’re looking at agriculture and you’re looking to pass on your heritage, this is an opportunity to add some future value and accomplish that goal.”
It’s also an opportunity that the ranchers believe will have very little downside risk.
“It’s far enough under the ground that I don’t think, really, whatever kind of operation you have, just because of the depth and all of that, it’s just never going to affect what happens on the surface,” southeast Wyoming rancher Ron Rabou told Cowboy State Daily. “And at the end of the day, sustainability has everything to do with profitability. If a business can’t be profitable, it can’t be sustainable. Those two work in harmony with each other.”
Wyoming agriculture has some unique challenges, Rabou added.
“We are not in prime farm ground. We’re in great cattle ground,” he said. “It takes a lot of acres to make things work here in this state, and particularly in our area.”
With limited rainfall producing tough environmental conditions, secondary sources of income are all but essential to keeping agricultural operations viable.
“You really have to look at your operation and say, ‘OK, what exists here, what kind of assets do I have?’” Rabou said. “What kind of tools do I have in my chest where I can really add value to my operation for now, and also into the long haul?”
A carbon storage “garage” that’s all underground doesn’t do anything to affect the farm and ranching operation topside seems ideal, Rabou said.
“We can hopefully enhance the economics of our own operations, and really help put Wyoming on the map and a different sense that Wyoming agriculture, Wyoming energy, and some of these federal mandates could really work together in harmony,” he said. “If we can figure out how to put this together and help make it successful.”
Rabou added he doesn’t necessarily agree with all the rationales put forward by some groups when it comes to carbon storage.
“We might not agree with it,” he said. “For myself as a farmer, and as a cattle producer, I don’t necessarily think that I’ll ever eat meatless meat.
“But if there’s a consumer demand out there for plant protein, even though I’m a beef producer and a meat eater myself, I would be crazy not to embrace an opportunity where consumers are willing to pay for a product that they want.”
Next Steps
Kummer said he has already been studying all of the well logs that have been drilled in the area of the Steamboat Carbon Storage Basin and believes it will be worth progressing to the next step, where the company takes core samples and drills some test wells to characterize their pore space.
“That ensures that we have not only the reservoir to store the carbon, but also the seals to ensure it stays there forever,” Kummer said. “And that work will happen next summer.”
After that, the group will decide how best to move the business forward and what opportunities it does and doesn’t want to pursue.
“It’s been a long road, and we have a long road ahead of us,” Kummer said. “But we’re in it for the long haul, and because of the way we structured this we can take a long view.”
At some point, Kummer could see where there may be spin-off opportunities. Carbon, for example, is useful for enhanced oil recovery, and it can be used to make other things.
“I think there’s a wide variety of opportunities, not to mention what we may be able to do on the surface,” he said. “Particularly when you have a group that’s going forward with a capitalistic mindset. You never know what we might be able to gin up.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
