Wyoming and Colorado Agree to Coordinate Carbon Storage Wells

Wyoming and Colorado signed an agreement on May 5 to work together on carbon storage projects. This comes as carbon capture technology gains attention as a way to limit carbon dioxide emissions, which could increase with rising energy demands.

The states will notify one another and coordinate when wells are within a mile of the shared state border. Projects like this aren’t happening yet, but state officials said they wanted to be proactive.

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“While state borders are fixed, the geological formations required for safe carbon sequestration are not,” said Lily Barkau, Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality groundwater section manager.

These carbon storage wells act like giant straws. They inject thousands to millions of tons of carbon dioxide into sealed-off rock formations deep underground, below drinking water aquifers.

An example of how carbon dioxide could be captured for sequestration purposes.

“Here in the Rocky Mountain region, we have very deep freshwater aquifers, so you're looking at between 10,000, 14,000 [feet],” Barkau said. “Wyoming has one Class VI well that has recently been drilled to 20,000 feet below ground surface.”

These pores that wells are drilled into can extend for miles underground, Barkau said. If they’re close to the border, that means carbon can be stored under communities in the neighboring state.

Now with the new memorandum of understanding, Colorado and Wyoming say they’ll work together to ensure carbon dioxide doesn’t cause contamination of drinking water sources. Officials say they’ll also protect private landowner rights and help to facilitate a public response from communities in both states.

This comes as the Rocky Mountain region becomes a hub for carbon storage initiatives. That’s in part because there’s not much tectonic activity compared to states like California, for example.

“We have really good storage opportunities in our geologic subsurface,” said Mark Seeley, the geothermal and carbon capture and storage supervisor with the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission.

State officials see carbon storage as one part of the solutions to rising energy demand. For example, some data centers say they’ll rely on natural gas, then pay to capture and store carbon to cancel out emissions. Critics argue data centers should rely on clean, renewable energy instead.

Others worry about the leaks and potential safety concerns that come with carbon capture technologies. Seeley said, while using carbon capture to reduce emissions is relatively new, the same kind of technology has long been used by the oil industry to extract more resources.

“It's been done safely for many decades, just in a different application,” Seeley said.

Seeley and Barkau said they haven’t had conversations with other neighboring states about similar agreements, but they could in the future.