[Senate Hearing 116-377]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 116-377

              THE DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT OF LARGE-
              SCALE CARBON DIOXIDE MANAGEMENT TECH-
              NOLOGIES IN THE UNITED STATES, INCLUDING T
              ECHNOLOGICAL AND NATURAL CARBON RE-
              MOVAL, CARBON UTILIZATION, AND CARBON 
              STORAGE

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                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                      ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                     ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

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                             JULY 28, 2020

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[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                       Printed for the use of the
               Committee on Energy and Natural Resources               
              
        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
        
                              __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
41-401                     WASHINGTON : 2021                     
          
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               COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

                    LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska, Chairman
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming               JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho                RON WYDEN, Oregon
MIKE LEE, Utah                       MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
STEVE DAINES, Montana                BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana              DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
CORY GARDNER, Colorado               MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi        MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona              ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee           CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada
JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota

                      Brian Hughes, Staff Director
                      Lucy Murfitt, Chief Counsel
               Spencer Nelson, Professional Staff Member
                 Renae Black, Democratic Staff Director
                Sam E. Fowler, Democratic Chief Counsel
       Armando Avila, Democratic Senior Professional Staff Member
           Luke Bassett, Democratic Professional Staff Member
                     Darla Ripchensky, Chief Clerk
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

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                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa, Chairman and a U.S. Senator from Alaska....     1
Manchin III, Hon. Joe, Ranking Member and a U.S. Senator from 
  West Virginia..................................................     3

                               WITNESSES

Moniz, Hon. Ernest J., President and CEO, Energy Futures 
  Initiative, Inc................................................     5
Winberg, Hon. Steven E., Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy, 
  U.S. Department of Energy......................................    31
Angielski, Shannon, Executive Director, Carbon Utilization 
  Research 
  Council........................................................    44
Friedmann, Dr. S. Julio, Senior Research Scholar, Center on 
  Global Energy Policy, Columbia University School of 
  International and Public Affairs...............................    66
Mackler, Sasha, Energy Project Director, Bipartisan Policy Center    90
Hezir, Hon. Joseph, Principal, Energy Futures Initiative, Inc....   107

          ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED

Angielski, Shannon:
    Opening Statement............................................    44
    Written Testimony............................................    47
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   290
Friedmann, Dr. S. Julio:
    Opening Statement............................................    66
    Written Testimony............................................    68
    Response to Senator King.....................................   118
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   298
Hezir, Hon. Joseph:
    Questions for the Record.....................................   276
(The) John Muir Project:
    Letter for the Record........................................   318
Mackler, Sasha:
    Opening Statement............................................    90
    Written Testimony............................................    92
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   306
Manchin III, Hon. Joe:
    Opening Statement............................................     3
Moniz, Hon. Ernest J.:
    Opening Statement............................................     5
    Written Testimony............................................     7
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa:
    Opening Statement............................................     1
Westmoreland Mining LLC:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   325
Winberg, Hon. Steven E.:
    Opening Statement............................................    31
    Written Testimony............................................    33
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   278

 
THE DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT OF LARGE-SCALE CARBON DIOXIDE MANAGEMENT 
TECHNOLOGIES IN THE UNITED STATES, INCLUDING TECHNOLOGICAL AND NATURAL 
         CARBON REMOVAL, CARBON UTILIZATION, AND CARBON STORAGE

                              ----------                              


                         TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2020

                                       U.S. Senate,
                 Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:08 a.m. in 
Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Lisa 
Murkowski, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI, 
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA

    The Chairman. Good morning, everyone. The Committee will 
come to order as we meet this morning to examine the 
development and the deployment of technologies for large-scale 
carbon management, such as carbon removal, carbon utilization 
and carbon storage. This is something that I have personally 
been interested in for quite some time. I have had briefings 
over the years, including one very substantive one from one of 
our witnesses this morning, our former Secretary, Ernie Moniz. 
It is a subject that should captivate us all in terms of the 
potential, in terms of just the innovation that we are seeing 
take place at multiple different levels. So being able to 
explore that this morning is particularly welcome.
    We had actually planned to hold this particular hearing 
months ago, in March before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, so 
I am glad that we are able to return to it as carbon management 
will very likely prove to be an important option for reducing 
emissions and the impacts of climate change. Just a few years 
ago the concept of carbon removal was really focused on 
planting trees. It was not widely seen as a realistic approach 
that could be dramatically scaled. I do want to recognize that 
Senator Barrasso from this Committee has proposed a technology 
prize for direct air capture for over a decade now. He has been 
focused on this and has a vision to it as well.
    It is now becoming clear that technologies to permanently 
remove carbon dioxide from the air and the ocean are not only 
real but they are needed and they are certainly worth pursuing. 
When coupled with the increased deployment of low- and zero-
emission technologies, carbon removal options can help offset 
hard to abate sectors and could eventually even help reduce 
atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. To me, this is very, very 
exciting. The technologies range from direct air capture 
facilities which filter carbon dioxide out of the air to 
techniques that combine natural processes like photosynthesis 
and the mineralization of rocks while ensuring that carbon 
dioxide does not reenter the atmosphere. Another crucial aspect 
of large-scale carbon management will be to ensure that the 
infrastructure to safely transport and store carbon dioxide is 
readily available and affordable.
    Some companies are already making initial investments in 
carbon removal. Occidental Petroleum is partnering with the 
firm, Carbon Engineering, to build a large direct air capture 
facility in Texas that can utilize carbon dioxide for enhanced 
oil recovery. Other large companies, including Microsoft, have 
made significant commitments to invest in carbon removal 
technologies to physically offset their current and even 
historical emissions. A recent report from the World Resources 
Institute estimates that with enough investment across carbon 
removal technologies and infrastructure the United States could 
remove up to two gigatons of carbon annually by 2050. That is 
equivalent to 30 percent of our country's current greenhouse 
gas emissions. So it really puts it into context, the scale 
that we are talking about. It is also clear that much, much 
more research and development will be necessary before a 
variety of carbon removal technologies are commercially viable 
and able to operate at scale. I am excited to learn more about 
the policies that could support them whether it is new research 
and development or other approaches.
    I would point out that our Committee has already taken 
initial steps to support carbon removal technologies. Senator 
Manchin's EFFECT Act, which is included in our American Energy 
Innovation Act, authorizes R&D programs at the Department of 
Energy to make large-scale carbon management a reality, 
including programs focused on carbon removal, carbon 
utilization and carbon storage. While we will focus on issues 
that are solely within our jurisdiction for this hearing, it is 
clear that efforts to scale up carbon removal research and 
development cross many different agencies. In recognition of 
this, based on recommendations from some of our witnesses here 
today, I am introducing a new bill with Senator Kyrsten Sinema 
which we are calling the CREATE Act. This bill establishes an 
Executive Committee at the National Science and Technology 
Council to coordinate interagency efforts on carbon removal 
research and development. That effort will be crucial as we 
look to effectively deploy resources to advance carbon removal 
technologies, and I am already looking to build on it with some 
other measures.
    I am very pleased to welcome a great set of witnesses who 
are with us, in person and virtually, to tell us about the 
state of large-scale carbon management and what more we can be 
doing. I will introduce the panel after Senator Manchin gives 
his opening comments, but I do just want to acknowledge and 
thank you all for being here, again, at a hearing that I have 
been looking forward to for some months now, but really, it 
kind of came together late last year when Senator Manchin and I 
had an opportunity to meet with Secretary Moniz and really 
started to appreciate the immense potential of these 
technologies.
    Senator Manchin, I turn it over to you.

              STATEMENT OF HON. JOE MANCHIN III, 
                U.S. SENATOR FROM WEST VIRGINIA

    Senator Manchin. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for holding 
this hearing, and thank all of you for being here and all of 
you that are on virtually with us today also.
    Climate change is not a theme we have shied away from in 
this Committee, in this Congress. I am happy to have such a 
distinguished panel before us today to continue the 
conversation on climate solutions and to do a deep dive into 
the full array of opportunities for carbon dioxide removal. So 
I want to thank you, again, for being here.
    To frame our conversation today, we first need to agree on 
the facts, and I have always said this, ``We are all entitled 
to our opinion, we are just not entitled to create our own 
facts,'' most importantly that CO2 emissions are not 
just coming from the power sector. In fact, in 2018, the 
transportation sector accounted for 28 percent of the U.S. 
greenhouse gas emissions, the power generation sector was 27 
percent, industry was 22 percent, commercial and residential 
was 13 percent and agricultural was 10 percent. Those figures 
make it clear we can't just be focused on the electric sector 
and power plants. We need to be thinking more broadly in 
finding solutions across all of these sectors. Concepts like 
carbon removal include technologies that capture carbon from a 
power plant, but it also includes capturing CO2 
right out of the ambient air and engineering natural processes 
like mineralization. Direct air capture technology, once 
mature, will be able to be deployed anywhere and carbon dioxide 
removal will help offset the emissions from all of the sectors 
that I just mentioned. This is necessary, a complement to a 
work that needs to be done to reduce emissions across the board 
in order to achieve global climate goals.
    Leaders on climate policy and energy technology have noted 
that carbon capture, utilization and sequestration (CCUS) and 
CO2 removal are critical technologies needed to 
address climate change, and the U.S. is leading on this front, 
a position we need to maintain and further advance, including 
allocating resources for these important technologies to get 
them deployed broadly, both here at home and around the globe. 
That is why I introduced the EFFECT Act which I am proud was 
incorporated into our bipartisan energy bill, the American 
Energy Innovation Act. The EFFECT Act would advance each part 
of the carbon capture, utilization and storage, including 
direct air capture and other related carbon removal 
technologies. Each of these are integrated components and the 
bill would focus on enhancing research and development and, 
just as importantly, demonstration and deployment for each 
piece of the puzzle, and it is backed up with an authorization 
of over $5 billion, including authorization for carbon capture 
demonstration projects and to establish a direct air capture 
test center, to provide testing capabilities for innovative 
direct air capture and storage technologies. Now I call these 
pieces of the puzzle, because we only realize the full picture 
when they are all in place.
    Simply capturing the CO2 is not enough and we 
have got to do something with it and we have got to be able to 
move it. I believe that CO2 is a valuable element 
that we can put to good use in harnessing the economic systems 
to further bring down cost of addressing climate change. 
Scientists at the National Energy Technology Lab (NETL) in 
Morgantown, West Virginia, are working on novel ways of using 
CO2 as we speak both to extract more value from 
carbon dioxide but also to use it as a way to decontaminate PPE 
and medical equipment. We are seeing more and more 
opportunities for carbon dioxide use from commercial, 
industrial and defense purposes, to medical and pharmaceutical 
applications. This is where innovation can help the economies 
of fossil fuel-rich states like West Virginia while also 
helping to address our climate challenge. Capturing and 
transforming carbon dioxide that would otherwise be hurting our 
environment into valuable products, truly, is a win-win, plain 
and simple. It just makes good sense.
    I believe the United States can and should be the world 
leader in advanced climate solutions. We have the ingenuity to 
develop and deploy technologies that can put us on the right 
path to meeting our climate objectives while growing our 
economy in every state of the union. Given the right tools I 
know that we can get this done on the ground just as I saw West 
Virginians tackle SOX and NOX and 
particulate matter decades ago, and then we can export these 
emissions-reducing technologies around the globe because every 
country is in need of common solutions. We are all in this 
together. It is called ``global'' climate, not ``United 
States'' climate. Carbon removal would be a big part of the 
solution, and we need to have all of our options available to 
us.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today where we 
have focused our efforts to make that a reality. So thank you, 
Chairman Murkowski, I appreciate it.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Manchin.
    As I mentioned, we have a great panel before us today. We 
are joined this morning here, in person, by the Honorable 
Steven Winberg. Mr. Winberg is the Assistant Secretary for 
Fossil Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). We 
welcome him.
    Online we have a friend to the Committee who has been 
before us many times, the Honorable Ernest J. Moniz, who is now 
President and CEO of Energy Futures Initiative. We have worked 
with him in his former capacity as Secretary of Energy. It is 
good to have you with us, Secretary Moniz. The Secretary is 
also joined by Joseph Hezir, who is a Principal at Energy 
Futures Initiative, and we are going to do a little bit of an 
unorthodox situation with our schedule here this morning to 
accommodate individuals. Secretary Moniz is going to present 
his statement first as he has scheduling concerns, and then Mr. 
Hezir will be here and available to answer questions with 
regard to the testimony that they have shared from Energy 
Futures Initiative.
    Ms. Shannon Angielski is with us in person. She is the 
Executive Director for the Carbon Utilization Research Council 
(CURC). I think I mispronounced it. I believe it is Angielski. 
Okay, I will try harder on that one, thank you for being here, 
Ms. Angielski.
    Online we have Dr. Julio Friedmann, who is from the Center 
on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. We welcome him.
    Back here in the Committee room, we have Mr. Sasha Mackler, 
who is the Director of the Energy Project at the Bipartisan 
Policy Center (BPC). We appreciate your input.
    With that, we will go as I have indicated. We will start 
first with you, Secretary Moniz. You will provide your 
statement and then we will move back here to the Committee room 
and have Assistant Secretary Winberg speak.
    So welcome back to the Committee. We look forward to your 
comments this morning.
    Secretary.

 STATEMENT OF HON. ERNEST J. MONIZ, PRESIDENT AND CEO, AND THE 
 HON. JOSEPH HEZIR, PRINCIPAL, ENERGY FUTURES INITIATIVE, INC.

    Mr. Moniz. All right, Madam Chair, Ranking Member Manchin, 
members of the Committee, I share the pleasure of being back 
before you, and thank you for the opportunity to discuss carbon 
dioxide removal from the atmosphere and upper oceans. What may 
seem like a highly technical subject is, in fact, a central 
part of the portfolio needed to address global warming and 
provide optionality for mitigating its long-term impact, most 
especially in a state like Alaska that is exposed to major 
dislocations from a warming Earth. I'll reinforce many of the 
themes already put forward by Senators Murkowski and Manchin.
    We are moving toward decarbonization of the energy economy 
and work generally toward massive reduction of greenhouse gas 
emissions across the economy as a whole. Science and 
observation provide the motivation. Increasingly, countries, 
states and cities are adopting very ambitious goals of net-zero 
emissions by mid-century and eventually net-negative emissions. 
This will be possible only if negative carbon technologies, in 
other words, carbon dioxide removal, or CDR, are deployed at 
gigaton-scale. The CDR Innovation Program needs to be 
supercharged starting now if we are to have the necessary 
optionality in time. The necessity of CDR is highlighted by the 
fact that not just the electricity sector, but also the harder 
to decarbonize sectors--transportation, industry, buildings, 
agriculture--must be addressed. CDR enabled optionality is 
especially important for this.
    At the Energy Futures Initiative we laid out the research, 
development and demonstration program for the next decade. The 
cost to the federal RD&D program is just over $10 billion for 
this decade. Implementing such a program entails large-scale 
deployment over the next decades. The U.S. National Academies 
concluded that a ramp-up to 10 gigatons of CDR would be needed 
globally by mid-century to cumulatively constrain global 
warming. This would compensate for residual emissions that will 
be too difficult or expensive to eliminate in the necessary 
timeframe and will enable the possibility of eventually 
reaching net-negative emissions. The scale is daunting but 
possible. If all the removed CO2 were geologically 
sequestered in its supercritical phase, the sequestration 
industry would be two to three times the scale of today's 
global oil production industry. That's why we advocate for a 
much broader portfolio of CDR options, including utilization of 
CO2 in widely used commodities. We also support 
building the carbon sequestration industry now following carbon 
capture from concentrated sources such as power plants and 
industrial facilities. This can be jump started by the 45Q tax 
credit supported by this Committee and other Congressional 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
    There are many approaches to CDR. We bin them into three 
major categories: natural, such as afforestation; 
technological, like direct air capture; and technologically-
enhanced natural, such as development of new cultivars with 
very deep root systems or accelerated weatherization of 
minerals like basalt. Our analysis led to a portfolio with 27 
different elements as described in detail in my written 
statement for the record of this hearing. Considerable 
innovation is needed in this decade for economic scale-up by 
mid-century. This portfolio calls for participation by ten 
federal agencies and especially prominent roles in the 
Department of Energy, USDA and NOAA. About 45 percent of the 
funding would be assigned to DOE in our analysis.
    Achieving effective coordination and portfolio planning and 
budgeting in management and evaluation and in reporting to 
Congress, the scientific community and the public will be 
challenging. Our recommendation is to establish a committee on 
large-scale carbon management within the National Science and 
Technology Council. The committee would develop a technological 
CDR, RD&D strategic plan, oversee task forces for more detailed 
RD&D roadmaps, coordinate budget planning and review with OMB, 
identify CDR candidate technologies or timely large-scale 
demonstration and provide an annual report at Congress. Each of 
the lead agencies would organizationally support this all-of-
government initiative. In many parts of the portfolio, 
international cooperation through emission innovation would be 
effective in advancing our interests.
    We have been very encouraged by the Congressional 
initiative supporting a major CDR program, the EFFECT Act and 
the American Energy Innovation Act and the recent House Select 
Committee on Climate Change report support CDR. This 
Committee's leadership is very much appreciated and is very 
important. The CREATE Act that Chairman Murkowski just 
mentioned will be another very important part of establishing a 
multiagency effort.
    Again, thank you for the opportunity to offer these 
thoughts on CDR. My colleagues and I at the Energy Futures 
Initiative will be happy to elaborate further on any and all of 
the elements needed to advance a robust U.S. CDR program.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Moniz follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. Thank you, Secretary Moniz, and we appreciate 
your leadership in this arena. It is appreciated that you have 
taken the time to provide this this morning, and we will look 
forward to addressing our questions to Mr. Hezir with regards 
to your statement.
    With that, we will now turn to the Assistant Secretary 
Winberg to update us on all the exciting things that are 
happening within the Fossil Energy Department over at DOE.

 STATEMENT OF HON. STEVEN E. WINBERG, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR 
               FOSSIL ENERGY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 
                             ENERGY

    Mr. Winberg. Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Manchin and 
members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to 
discuss the Department of Energy's work to advance large-scale 
carbon management. The Office of Fossil Energy is focused on 
R&D to maximize the energy and value that can be responsibly 
extracted from fossil energy resources. That R&D includes our 
flagship carbon capture, utilization and storage program. The 
International Energy Agency (IEA) describes CCUS as a linchpin 
technology in the lowest cost transition to a low-carbon 
economy. The U.S. continues to be the world leader in 
developing CCUS technologies. DOE is committed to advancing 
CCUS across the U.S. economy which is why the Department asked 
the National Petroleum Council to develop a study outlining the 
necessary policy required and investments, both government and 
industry, that would be necessary to broadly deploy CCUS over 
the next 25 years.
    The actions recommended in the report which are consistent 
with the CCUS R&D happening at DOE would support major 
reductions in carbon dioxide emissions while supporting the 
growth of our economy. This year alone DOE has provided roughly 
$85 million for five projects through our CarbonSAFE initiative 
to develop geological storage sites that can hold a minimum of 
50 million metric tons of CO2 from industrial 
sources. We also plan to announce up to $46 million for 
engineering scale testing of next generation carbon capture 
technologies for coal and gas plants as well as engineering 
design studies for industrial sources and up to $12 million for 
technologies that directly capture CO2 from the 
atmosphere--DAC technologies.
    We're also conducting R&D on technologies to transform 
CO2 into valuable products. At the same time, our 
Coal FIRST initiative is developing coal power plant designs 
with carbon neutral and even net-negative emissions when coal 
and biomass are combined with CCUS. These plants will have the 
flexibility that allows them to support our evolving 
electricity grid and some will be able to produce hydrogen 
which can play a significant role for electricity production, 
manufacturing and transportation, especially in heavy duty 
vehicles. On average, producing hydrogen from fossil energy 
with CCUS is less expensive than production from renewables, so 
we're focused on coupling Coal FIRST plants with CCUS 
technologies to enable carbon neutral hydrogen production from 
fossil fuels. This is in addition to our longstanding hydrogen 
R&D portfolio focused on solid oxide fuel cells, gasification 
and reforming technologies, hydrogen transport infrastructure, 
hydrogen storage and technologies to use hydrogen for 
electricity generation, fuels and manufacturing.
    Through our ``coal to products'' R&D we're developing 
technologies to use coal to produce products including carbon 
fiber, roofing tiles, foam products and substitute lumber. This 
isn't just theoretical, so I brought along a few examples with 
me to show you what we can do.
    This is a decking material. This is a carbon foam material 
with a carbon fiber base on it. This can be used for fireproof 
wall material and aerospace applications. I also have a roofing 
tile made out of coal. Can you imagine building a house that is 
fireproof? With coal, that will be reality in the not too 
distant future.
    [Mr. Winberg displays various samples of products made with 
coal.]
    A recent DOE market analysis concluded that a mature coal 
to products manufacturing industry could employ hundreds of 
thousands of people and create over $1 billion in products, all 
from coal. Our coal R&D to expand coal's value chain is 
critical to realizing that potential.
    We're also focused on developing a domestic supply of 
critical minerals, including rare earths, from coal and coal 
byproducts. Our goal is to validate the commercial production 
of these minerals. To that end, last month we announced our 
intent to provide $122 million to establish coal innovation 
centers that will focus on manufacturing products from coal and 
developing new methods to extract and process coal-based rare 
earths and critical minerals.
    Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Manchin and members of 
the Committee, DOE is advancing clean energy technologies for 
carbon utilization and management across all of our energy 
resources. We appreciate the Committee's support for our 
efforts, and I look forward to answering your questions. Thank 
you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Winberg follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. Thank you, Assistant Secretary. That is a 
great update from the Department.
    We will now turn to Ms. Shannon Angielski, who is the 
Executive Director, again, of the Carbon Utilization Research 
Council. Welcome to the Committee.

  STATEMENT OF SHANNON ANGIELSKI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CARBON 
                  UTILIZATION RESEARCH COUNCIL

    Ms. Angielski. Thank you, Chairman Murkowski and Ranking 
Member Manchin for the invitation to participate in today's 
hearing and with my friends on this distinguished panel.
    By way of background, the Carbon Utilization Research 
Council is an industry coalition focused on technology 
solutions for the responsible use of our fossil energy 
resources. CURC's members span the entire value chain of the 
electric utility industry as well as state, university and 
technology research organizations, NGOs and labor unions. 
Members of CURC are at the forefront of their industries and 
partnering with the Department of Energy, or DOE, to develop 
and commercialize technologies that will transform the way the 
world uses fossil fuels. The reason we are participating in 
this hearing today is because international authorities 
recognize that fossil fuels will continue to be used both here 
in the U.S. and globally. It is how we manage the carbon 
dioxide, or CO2, produced from the use of fossil 
fuels that will determine whether we are able to cost-
effectively achieve mid-century emissions reduction goals and 
simultaneously enable all nations to prosper and benefit from 
economic growth and energy security.
    It's already been said that the U.N. modeling shows that 
carbon capture, utilization and storage, or CCUS, is a 
necessary part of that solution set. In addition, the 
International Energy Agency modeled the contributions of 
different technologies to meet that mid-century two-degree 
scenario, and it shows that CCUS accounts for approximately 100 
gigatons of needed global CO2 emissions reductions 
by 2060. To put this into perspective, this would be achieved 
by the operation of 1,100 carbon capture systems on the 
equivalent of 500-megawatt coal-fired units or 3,200 natural 
gas combined cycle units which would need to be operating for 
the next 30 years.
    So why is all of this important? CCUS is an ecosystem of 
several distinct processes, as Senator Manchin already pointed 
out. If there is one thing I want to leave you with today, it's 
to recognize the scale of infrastructure comprising the CCUS 
ecosystem, this includes the equipment necessary to capture 
CO2, the transport method to move CO2 to 
a storage site and the storage facility, whether the captured 
CO2 is used for enhanced oil recovery, converted to 
other valuable byproducts or stored in a saline reservoir. Many 
CO2 sources are not located near a storage reservoir 
so much of the CO2 will be transported by pipeline, 
but this is nothing new in this country. It's transported daily 
throughout the country with over 4,500 miles of pipelines in 
operation. However, for CCUS to be successful, it would be 
necessary to permit and construct additional pipelines. That's 
why legislation has been introduced, a bill sponsored by 
Senators Barrasso and Whitehouse, the Utilizing Significant 
Emissions with Innovative Technologies (USE IT) Act, that would 
ensure CO2 pipelines are eligible for review, 
permitting review processes established by the FAST Act of 
2015.
    The second take-away from my testimony today is that 
solutions for large-scale CO2 storage underpin the 
entire CCUS value proposition. Without large-scale 
CO2 storage, the climate benefit of CCUS, including 
direct air capture and bioenergy with carbon capture and 
storage, cannot be realized. The good news is that the U.S. is 
recognized as a global leader in CO2 storage with a 
mature U.S. oil industry and aided by DOE's world class carbon 
storage program. The U.S. has stored more than ten and a half 
million metric tons of CO2 in saline and other 
geologic storage reservoirs to prove out the capability of safe 
and effective CO2 storage. The regional carbon 
sequestration partnerships and the CarbonSAFE Initiative are 
two key components of the DOE program that will enable broad-
scale geologic storage in the U.S.
    CURC commends the Committee for advancing legislation that 
would support the entire CCUS ecosystem incorporated in the 
American Energy Innovation Act (AEIA), the EFFECT Act, 
sponsored by Chairman Murkowski and Ranking Member Manchin, 
will accelerate improvements to each of the critical components 
of CCUS that we have already described. CURC encourages passage 
of the AEIA and to continue efforts to conference the USE IT 
Act. I also want to point out that the U.S. is already paving 
the way for a CCUS industry. Approximately nine power sector 
projects are currently in different stages of development 
supported through grants provided by DOE. Many of these 
projects are being designed as the source of CO2 
that will be stored in CarbonSAFE projects, including like 
Project Tundra and the North Dakota CarbonSAFE project or the 
Basin Electric Dry Fork Station that will be coupled with the 
Wyoming CarbonSAFE project. In addition, approximately 14 non-
power projects have been announced that are in various stages 
of development and cover other industries that we've already 
described. One in particular, the Wabash Valley Resources 
project in Indiana, for example, will capture CO2 
from their gasification plant and store the CO2 in 
the Wabash Valley CarbonSAFE Reservoir. The project will be the 
first to produce zero carbon hydrogen from fossil fuels that 
will be used to generate electricity and produce hydrogen fuel 
for mobility.
    There are a few federal policies that I'd like to highlight 
that can continue to promote CCUS deployment amidst the COVID-
19 pandemic--two are enhancements to the Section 45Q tax 
credits. Many energy project developers do not have tax 
liability that enables the developer to benefit from tax 
credits and need to employ tax equity structures that create a 
revenue stream to the developer in return for tax equity 
investments into a partnership. Implementing elective direct 
payments would enhance monetization of those tax credits and 
allow project developers to elect to receive a direct cash 
payment from the Treasury instead of resorting to the tax 
equity market. There is precedent for providing this from the 
Recovery Act in 2009, but these payments were provided only for 
renewable energy projects. The other is that CCUS has only had 
a significant financial incentive in place since the passage of 
the FUTURE Act in 2018. While stakeholders are encouraged by 
the recent issuance of proposed regulations, the IRS did not 
propose regulations until June 1 of this year. Extending the 
commence construction deadline by another five years will 
greatly enhance project deployment, particularly in a post-
pandemic environment. Senators Capito, Whitehouse, Barrasso and 
Cramer introduced a bipartisan amendment to the American Energy 
Innovation Act to extend 45Q for five years, an effort 
supported by CURC.
    In closing, CCUS and carbon dioxide removal technologies 
have not been deployed at the rate needed to achieve targets 
set out by international authorities, and sustained and robust 
policy support particularly through legislation like the EFFECT 
Act and coupled with Section 45Q tax credits will allow the 
U.S. to maintain leadership in carbon management technologies. 
Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Angielski follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Angielski.
    We will now turn to Dr. Julio Friedmann, who is with us 
online. Good morning, Dr. Friedmann, welcome.

 STATEMENT OF DR. S. JULIO FRIEDMANN, SENIOR RESEARCH SCHOLAR, 
 CENTER ON GLOBAL ENERGY POLICY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF 
                   INTERNATIONAL AND PUBLIC 
                            AFFAIRS

    Dr. Friedmann. My pleasure. It is a delight to be here. 
Thank you, Madam Chairman, thank you, Ranking Member Manchin 
and thank you to the whole Committee.
    Let me start by saying that already there are enormous good 
provisions around carbon management and related technologies in 
the American Energy Innovation Act, as many have said. These 
strong and important provisions include the five demos by 2025, 
including two in natural gas plants, those would be the first 
in the world. They include additions of CO2 use and 
CDR to an innovation plan. They include the clean manufacturing 
provisions, reauthorizing ARPA-E for five years. These are all 
well worth doing. The provisions within the EFFECT Act, your 
leadership is extraordinary and welcome. In other committees, 
the Growing Climate Solutions Act, the LEADING Act, CITA, 
Carbon Capture Improvement Act, the enhancements to 45Q that 
Shannon Angielski just mentioned and, of course, the new CREATE 
Act introduced today by Chairman Murkowski. All of these are 
part of what we need to do. I cannot underscore enough that we 
simply are not where we need to be. We need to take greater 
actions and make swifter progress.
    You have my detailed testimony and technical appendix. I 
want to highlight a few key aspects of it. The most important 
is the understanding of what net-zero means as framing. Net-
zero is now the curve we're being graded on. It is the 
yardstick of merit, and net-zero is a clarifying concept. For 
any climate target of any kind at any stabilization level, any 
carbon taken from the earth must be returned to the earth. It 
must go back to the geosphere. This means, among other things, 
access to subsurface pore volumes as an essential component of 
the work. And again, things like the CarbonSAFE program that 
was mentioned by Assistant Secretary Winberg help provide that 
kind of insight and access.
    Net-zero means that any residual emissions must be balanced 
by removal, as Secretary Moniz said. It means that reduction of 
CO2 emissions and removal of CO2 
emissions are complementary but distinct actions and that both 
are necessary. The National Academies and the IPCC find that 
this must be done at enormous scale, exceeding the size of the 
global oil and gas industry today. We are not where we need to 
be to make this real. Toward net-zero, carbon management is the 
Swiss Army knife. Carbon management is versatile, flexible and, 
in many cases, it is the lowest cost option for CO2 
removal. We are working at the Center on Global Energy Policy 
to make this clear through a set of metrics called levelized 
cost of carbon abatement. That report will be coming out 
shortly.
    But in many markets, for many applications, carbon 
management is the fastest and the cheapest pathway forward. 
This is particularly true in heavy industry, including steel, 
cement, chemicals, for LNG export, for refining. It is simply 
the fastest, cheapest way to reduce emissions. It is also the 
case for making zero carbon hydrogen, as was mentioned by 
Assistant Secretary Winberg. Hydrogen is versatile and can be 
used for transportation, for heavy industry, for heating. Zero 
carbon hydrogen can be brought online quickly, in partnership 
with CCS. In the power sector, we recently did an analysis 
showing what kind of policy enhancements are necessary to get 
widespread deployment. They build on and move beyond the 
National Petroleum Council's recent report. You can find these 
at the Center on Global Energy Policy and in affiliation with 
Columbia University's new Climate School.
    I want to spend the rest of my time talking about 
CO2 removal, CDR. This is the climate counterstrike, 
and I ask the Committee to think about CO2 removal 
as the biggest market of all time. We need all approaches, both 
engineered systems which I'm happy to discuss in depth as well 
as the work in managed ecosystems. This proof creates a concept 
of working lands where the work is done above and below. It's 
on the surface and in the subsurface. Direct air capture is the 
simplest to scale. Although it is the most expensive today, it 
is the one that is best suited to an innovation agenda, and the 
Energy Futures Initiative and Rhodium Group recently published 
reports on this. Again, access to the pore volume is essential.
    I was pleased to hear Ranking Member Manchin discuss carbon 
mineralization. The U.S. has enormous reserves and opportunity 
and potential for this. Good work for the U.S. Geological 
Survey to consider. Bioenergy with CCS, BECCS, the United 
States is currently the leader on this worldwide and has 
opportunities to grow it and scale it dramatically in 
partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Forests, 
soils, also important, also worth pursuing and things within 
the purview of this Committee.
    I would ask the Committee in closing to consider these as 
export opportunities and industrial opportunities for the U.S. 
Bringing CCS and CO2 removal solutions to the world 
markets is good work that Americans want to take on. With that, 
I look forward to your questions and thank you for your 
attention.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Friedmann follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. Dr. Friedmann, thank you. I appreciate your 
analogy here, carbon management is our Swiss Army knife. A good 
way to think about it.
    We will now turn to Mr. Sasha Mackler, again, with the 
Bipartisan Policy Center. Welcome and thank you for the good 
work of the Center.

STATEMENT OF SASHA MACKLER, ENERGY PROJECT DIRECTOR, BIPARTISAN 
                         POLICY CENTER

    Mr. Mackler. Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Manchin and 
members of the Committee, thank you for convening this hearing. 
It's a pleasure to be part of such a pragmatic solutions-
oriented conversation, and I am delighted to be here this 
morning on behalf of the BPC to discuss large-scale carbon 
management technologies and the important role that they can 
play in a future low carbon energy system. BPC's energy project 
has a number of initiatives underway that relate directly to 
carbon management. My remarks today will focus mostly on 
natural solutions, but my written testimony focuses more 
broadly on the full set of options, natural and technological, 
that can remove carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere 
because it won't be feasible to eliminate all human-caused 
sources of greenhouse gases over the next few decades, we need 
to develop ways to pull carbon dioxide directly out of the 
atmosphere if we're going to successfully achieve net-zero 
emissions.
    Of course, technologies that reduce or avoid further 
emissions, including renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and 
storage, must be advanced aggressively together with carbon 
dioxide removal options to make the net-zero goal possible. And 
there are numerous policies that are required today to bring 
these systems to scale. And on that score, I really want to 
commend this Committee for its leadership in bringing forward 
the bipartisan American Energy Innovation Act which is really 
an important piece of legislation that includes many critical 
programs that will benefit carbon management. BPC oversees 
several efforts, including the American Energy Innovation 
Council, the Direct Air Capture Advisory Council and our new 
Farm and Forest Carbon Solutions Initiative that are focused on 
these issues and on behalf of all of our partners, we look 
forward to working with this Committee to help advance the 
American Energy Innovation Act and any additional legislation 
you develop to advance these nascent industries.
    I just also want to say that in addition to my work on 
energy policy at BPC, I spent the last decade in the private 
sector working first as a developer of carbon capture projects 
and then in the biomass energy industry. Through this 
experience I can offer a firsthand account, both of the 
challenges facing some of these approaches along with the 
enormous benefits that can come from deploying them at scale.
    Turning next to natural climate solutions, I'd like to make 
the following points. When it comes to agriculture and forestry 
policy, we like to say that what's good for climate can also be 
good for our farms and our forests. While climate change has 
been a deeply polarizing issue, especially in rural America, 
forestry and agriculture provide a unique opportunity to 
protect the climate, support the health of American lands and 
contribute to the economic vitality of rural communities. In 
fact, we can't solve this problem without the help of our 
farmers, our ranchers, our forest landowners and our public 
lands managers. Reaching net-zero by 2050 will require active 
participation from all of these stakeholders. In the U.S. 
forests already sequester the equivalent of about 15 percent of 
our national CO2 emissions. Agriculture, while 
contributing about 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, 
has enormous opportunities to sequester carbon and crop lands 
and in grasslands. Importantly, these actions also come with 
environmental co-benefits. For example, they make the land more 
resilient to extreme weather, to wildfire and other climate-
related impacts.
    Policies on natural climate solutions should focus on 
incentives and on markets and on technical assistance. This 
should be done in ways that encourages the private sector to 
invest in these solutions. In addition to value in carbon 
storage, policies that bolster markets for sustainable wood 
products and provide pragmatic approaches to carbon accounting 
should be prioritized as they are critical enablers for capital 
to flow into the space. New research programs are important for 
developing the information systems and the technologies so that 
soils, crops and forests can enhance their carbon uptake. And 
finally, restoration and management of our public lands will be 
important as we address the risks of climate change. Reducing 
the threat of catastrophic wildfires, looking for opportunities 
to reforest burned areas and improving the health of our 
rangelands are all critical parts of the solution.
    In closing, I want to thank this Committee, again, for its 
leadership and for the opportunity to testify and to lend the 
Bipartisan Policy Center's support to your efforts in 
developing large-scale carbon management technologies. Creating 
the industries of the future has always been America's 
superpower and will be especially critical here as we develop a 
strategy for addressing climate change. Carbon management is 
one of the best investments that we can make. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Mackler follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Mackler.
    We appreciate the contribution from each of you here this 
morning. Again, there is so much to talk about here, so I will 
just jump in. I will say though, as all of you have talked 
about the different areas that we can look to that are 
extraordinary opportunities for us, whether it is in the 
technologies or as you have ended with, Mr. Mackler, an 
emphasis or a recognition that our farms and forests can be 
these great carbon sinks as well. None of you have mentioned 
our oceans which, of course, occupy about, you know, I don't 
know what the percentage is, 70 percent of Planet Earth and 
this is an area, I know this is not jurisdictional to this 
Committee, but we have been looking into the opportunities that 
we find in seaweed and algae and kelp, particularly in Alaska. 
It is kind of exciting to think that we have available to us 
areas of--there is nothing innovative about kelp or sea grass, 
but to think that it can actually help us in how we are to 
sequester, accumulate, carbon is kind of exciting. So we are 
working on a blue carbon initiative with Senator Whitehouse, 
and again, an innovative, making things happen initiative out 
there.
    I want to start with you, Assistant Secretary Winberg. When 
we talk about our ability to innovate our way forward, we 
recognize that there are oftentimes barriers that hold us back. 
One is opportunity for capital investment. It is just tough in 
these innovative areas. The other, and this is something that 
we can control a little bit more directly, are some of the 
regulatory matters that these innovators, those that are 
looking to make a difference here, that they encounter. Are 
there some regulatory reforms that you can think of that either 
you have been working on within the Department or that could 
stimulate more predictable and consistent investment in some of 
these technologies that we have been talking about?
    Mr. Winberg. Thank you for the question.
    I think there are. In addition to the appropriations that 
we get that allow us to advance the R&D, and we are making 
great strides, the last time I talked to this Committee we were 
talking about a notional price of about $60 a ton for 
CO2. We are seeing prices now in the $40 range, and 
we think we can get down to $30. With respect to policy, the 
45Q is so very important and so making sure that the industry 
has the time needed to implement or to implement projects that 
can take advantage of 45Q, so extending out the sunset date for 
45Q, I think, is very important.
    And generally, the way I look at policy is carrots work 
much better than sticks, and 45Q is one of those carrots that 
will incent industry to move forward. Given the COVID-19 
situation that we have, the need for an extension, I think, 
becomes more acute because companies' balance sheets are not as 
strong as they were. Their earning statements aren't as strong 
as they were. And so, as they're looking out at their capital 
investments, they may delay projects that they would otherwise 
do. And so, that's a good reason for extending out the 45Q.
    The Chairman. Well, I appreciate you reiterating that. I 
think almost all of you have raised 45Q as one of those tools 
that we have. You have mentioned some of the good legislation 
that we have been working on, the EFFECT Act, we are looking at 
the CREATE Act. So there are measures that are out there, but 
really highlighting 45Q, I think, is something for us all to be 
considering.
    Let me ask a question to you, Mr. Hezir, and this is 
important for us to recognize that the work that is going on 
here is pretty critical, but we also want to know what others 
are doing in innovating in these areas. Senator Manchin and I 
had an opportunity, I guess it was now a couple years ago, 
maybe it was last year. We were at the University of Aberdeen 
and had an opportunity to go through a pretty exciting 
laboratory in terms of what they are doing to utilize the 
CO2 into value-added products. And Assistant 
Secretary Winberg, you know, the thought that we are making 
decking and roofing. We saw sheetrock when we were there, 
building blocks. It is pretty exciting to see.
    Mr. Hezir, can you share with us who--what other countries 
are really leading in this area that we are looking to for a 
little bit of inspiration or collaboration?
    Mr. Hezir. Yes, thank you, Senator, I'd be happy to do 
that.
    In our report last year, we devoted an entire chapter to 
discussing international efforts on CDR research. You singled 
out Australia and that is, kind of, an interesting country 
because they're doing work on CDR mineralization. They're doing 
work on geologic sequestration, and they're also doing work on 
blue carbon and oceans-related CDR. So they do have a very 
broad-based program. But if you look around the world, in 
mineralization there's work going on in the Middle East in 
Oman, in Iceland, South Africa. A lot of work in DAC is going 
on right now in not only the project in Canada but in a number 
of European countries, and also in terrestrial and in the 
biological and the bioenergy with carbon capture area, the UK 
is engaged in a major project. And so, we see a lot of 
opportunities for international collaboration and I think, as 
Secretary Moniz said, Mission Innovation we see as a potential 
platform for expanding that into collaboration in CDR.
    One final thing I would just mention. You brought up the 
concept of blue carbon, and the European Commission recently 
launched a four-year research initiative called OceanNETS 
involving six countries and, I think, 14 different 
institutions, including a few scientists in the U.S. that's 
going to be looking at a variety of oceans-related CDR and that 
would be just a wonderful opportunity for U.S. participation.
    The Chairman. Great. I appreciate that. We will look into 
it.
    Senator Manchin.
    Senator Manchin. Well thank you so much and all of you for 
your expertise here.
    A couple things that I was concerned about and this might 
be self-serving, but first of all, I was very disappointed 
about the Petra Nova plant in Texas. It stopped capturing 
carbon early this year due to the economic burden caused by 
plummeting oil prices. As we all know, the most common use for 
captured CO2 is for enhanced oil recovery. 
Unfortunately, such as in my state, we are now seeing 
diversifications critical for longevity of the CCUS projects 
that we need to ensure that there are ways to create value from 
capturing CO2 whether from power plants or from 
ambient air. So I would like to hear from the panel about other 
impacts of the pandemic on the deployment of CCUS and carbon 
removal technologies and what other tools are needed to help 
foster innovative valuable carbon utilization methods?
    Also, it would be helpful for more widescale deployment in 
states that don't have much oil to recover where we can put 
this, store this carbon. I am understanding with our saline and 
our mines that have been played out, there is a possibility of 
a tremendous amount of storage there that we can be putting 
CO2 in. So if Mr. Winberg and any of the panelists 
want to respond to this.
    Mr. Winberg. One of the areas that, I think, we have a bit 
of a shortfall here in the United States is the necessary 
infrastructure to move CO2. As you point out, not 
all areas are geographically or geologically suitable for 
CO2 storage.
    Senator Manchin. Well, especially those areas such as West 
Virginia that basically produce a lot of CO2 because 
of the tremendous amount of power plants that we have and this 
is not feasible for it to work there unless we have some other 
use for it.
    Mr. Winberg. Yes, absolutely.
    So two thoughts on that. One is building out a 
CO2 infrastructure system. Pipelines are becoming 
increasingly difficult to build here in the United States, but 
that doesn't take away the very real need for a CO2 
infrastructure so that we can move this CO2 to where 
it's needed to, in effect, commoditize it. And number two is 
the research that we have ongoing to find other uses for 
CO2 beyond enhanced oil recovery, to turn 
CO2 into a feedstock or a commodity to build out 
products whether it be fuel or other valuable products. So both 
of those are absolutely necessary if we're going to make 
significant reductions in CO2 emissions.
    Senator Manchin. One thing, if I can. The U.S. Geological 
Survey has estimated there is enough geological storage in the 
U.S. to store over 3,000 metric gigatons of carbon dioxide 
which is over 550 times the carbon dioxide that the U.S. emits 
in a year. But despite that vast resource for carbon storage, 
some of the regions of the country, like the majority of the 
East Coast, have little to no geological storage capability. We 
are looking for the most promising, existing solutions for 
this.
    Yes, ma'am?
    Ms. Angielski. Senator Manchin, you know, for those regions 
of the country that don't actually, like West Virginia, I mean, 
there is some storage potential, but it's a lot more expensive 
to store.
    Senator Manchin. Yes. Correct.
    Ms. Angielski. There's opportunities to look at, also, 
offshore opportunities. I know that the East Coast does have 
offshore potential, and I think that if we were doing more 
exploration there to understand how best to store 
CO2 offshore, that would be one opportunity. The 
other, as mentioned, CO2 you can convert into 
useable products already discussed, but I think that we, DOE's 
done a great job at financing projects to look at some of the 
research and developments needed. But I would recommend more 
increased funding for larger scale and testing at scale. Some 
of the challenges associated with CO2 utilization or 
conversion is the amount of CO2 that you produce 
from a power plant just overwhelms the amount of CO2 
that can be converted into the product. So we just need to be 
looking at broader scale storage opportunities there and 
funding those opportunities.
    Senator Manchin. If----
    Mr. Mackler. Senator Manchin, if I might respond to your 
question?
    Senator Manchin. Sure.
    Mr. Mackler. With respect to the impacts of COVID on all of 
this, it definitely has slowed things down. It has decreased 
the tax appetite for a lot of companies as Shannon had said 
earlier, this means that things like 45Q are not necessarily 
the only or best policy option. I would point you to other 
policy options like contracts for differences, rate recovery in 
the rate case. New York, for nuclear plants, has created a 
zero-emission crediting system, a ZECs, similar to the 
renewable RECs system. This is something that could also be 
done in the power sector. Interestingly, what we have also seen 
during COVID is that investment in CO2 removal has 
grown. Investment in CO2 reuse and recycling have 
grown. Investors see this as an important aspect of the future 
and there's a bit of a land rush into this space. Creating the 
policy, framework and the infrastructure, things like 
pipelines, to deliver this future is excellent and important 
work.
    Senator Manchin. Let me just say one thing because my time 
has run out. My concern has been this, that basically the 
states that have been energy producers and the country has 
relied on for quite some time, that they are not left behind. 
These people who have done this tremendously hard work all 
these years, all they are asking for is an opportunity. So as 
we develop these new technologies, I would hope that the tax 
credits would be mandated to be used in the areas where the job 
loss has come from, from energy. If we are replacing energy 
technology, we are moving forward, then those people should 
have an opportunity for another life, if you will, and a good 
paying job. And there is where we can direct our tax credits to 
make sure they are used in areas that had the job losses in 
energy production. I would hope everyone would be conscious 
about that because it is very difficult, very challenging. 
Thank you.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Manchin.
    Senator Barrasso.
    Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Ranking 
Member Manchin for holding this important hearing this morning. 
Thank you all for being here to testify.
    The COVID-19 pandemic and economic slowdown has really 
offered all of us an opportunity to reflect on the future of 
our energy landscape. I would also like to thank the witnesses 
who are joining us today because your research and outreach 
efforts are critical to informing not just lawmakers but 
everyone as we work together to develop policies and strategies 
to tackle climate change. Wyoming is a leader in carbon 
management. We have the integrated test center in Gillette 
where they are holding the competition that, Madam Chairman, 
you mentioned the trip, along with Senator Manchin, to 
Aberdeen, Scotland, in which I was involved. One of those 
researchers we met is now part of the finalist group working in 
Gillette, Wyoming, on the prize related to finding better ways 
to capture carbon and use it. This is located next to Basin 
Electric's Dry Fork Station. Researchers can test scaled up 
versions of their carbon capture technology. The University of 
Wyoming is dedicated to developing these technologies, 
educating the next generation of carbon management leaders and 
the Environment and Public Works Committee is going to be 
having a hearing in Gillette onsite on this coming up next 
month in August.
    I have strongly advocated for the research, development and 
implementation of carbon capture, utilization and storage, and 
Madam Chairman, it makes me think about ten years ago, hard to 
believe, but it was ten years ago that you and I introduced the 
GEAR Act, 2010, which stood for Greenhouse Gas Emission 
Atmospheric Removal Act, to do just exactly what we are talking 
about. Then the Chairman of the Committee back at that time was 
Senator Jeff Bingaman from New Mexico who co-sponsored with us 
and worked on this legislation. So we have been at this for a 
while, as you have. Since then, we have worked hard to enact an 
expansion of the 45Q tax credit. All of you who have mentioned 
that today, my current bill, S. 383, the Utilizing Significant 
Emissions with Innovative Technologies Act, the USE IT Act, has 
now passed the Senate for the second time as part of the Fiscal 
Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act. Senator Inhofe, 
he was a member and former Chairman of the Environment and 
Public Works Committee, made sure it was in the bill. So we 
look forward to having that as a policy for our nation soon.
    It is good to see some old friends back. Secretary Moniz, 
good to see you again. You and I have discussed the scale of 
carbon capture removal when you testified before the Committee 
last year. I think you noted that we have to think about 
removing carbon dioxide on a gigaton scale. Mr. Hezir, how 
quickly can we scale up current projects to reach, as Dr. Moniz 
described, a gigaton level of removal of carbon dioxide?
    Mr. Hezir. Senator, thank you for the question.
    In our report we had outlined a very rigorous, sort of, 
goal-oriented RD&D program that would really deliver the types 
of solutions that we need at scale within a ten-year period. 
And so, we would see the next decade as really being a decade 
of innovation leading into then a period of large-scale 
deployment. I think that the pace of the deployment ultimately 
will depend upon some combination of what future climate policy 
might be as well as future financial incentives. But right now 
what we see is the need to really develop the innovation agenda 
so that we have the types of solutions that we need that can be 
deployed at scale and can be not only that but also the range 
of solutions that not only include direct air capture, but also 
looking at other pathways like terrestrial and oceans and 
mineralization.
    Senator Barrasso. This is a question then for all or any of 
the witnesses because to achieve this kind of gigaton-scale, 
the world's largest CO2 emitters--India, China--they 
need to actively engage in carbon removal. What should we be 
doing to make sure that China, India and other major, global 
economies are serious about using large-scale carbon removal 
technologies? And anyone who wants to jump in on that can do 
that.
    Yes?
    Mr. Mackler. Thank you for the question, Senator.
    What I would encourage the Committee to think about as we 
think about large-scale carbon removal is that there are a 
portfolio of technologies available today, or in the pipeline, 
that will be available at some point in the future and the 
leadership of the United States in helping to advance all of 
that will really pay dividends to us as we look at the export 
market going forward. And there are things that we can do 
today, when, especially when it comes to natural sinks to 
enhance those natural sinks by developing technologies and 
creating markets so that the best practices and those 
advancements can go into the marketplace as we develop the more 
technological solutions like direct air capture and that will, 
and the scale will come from the innovation program being 
coupled with the right policy frameworks that can create the 
business models so that private capital can invest and actually 
deploy these technologies. And at that point, that's when we 
will have shown the technologies work and can then export them 
to the world.
    Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
    Mr. Secretary, I see you have removed your mask.
    Mr. Winberg. I think there are a number of forums that 
we're working in already, the carbon sequestration leadership 
forum, the CEM and those are international organizations, some 
working with IEA, some that are separate from IEA, but those 
are the opportunities where we can promote the U.S. technology 
because again, Senator, the U.S. is leading in the carbon 
capture space. The Integrated Test Center is just a spectacular 
site for small-scale testing of these capture technologies 
where, again, we're on the path to reduce the cost down to $30 
a ton, per metric ton. Nobody else in the world is where we are 
with respect to developing these capture technologies, getting 
them commercialized and especially getting the cost down.
    So I think that there are a lot of opportunities for us to 
take that technology and export it to other countries, and we 
are doing that through these forums that I mentioned.
    Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Barrasso.
    Let's turn to Senator Heinrich.
    Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman, and I want to thank 
you and the Ranking Member for having this hearing. It really 
is long overdue. A lot of work has been occurring in this space 
and now it is starting to really break into the news and into 
the popular imagination. I think we have an opportunity where 
there is a lot of interest on both sides of the aisle to really 
push this forward.
    My first question is to Mr. Hezir. There is now a growing 
consensus that we are going to need to remove carbon dioxide 
from the atmosphere because of how long we have delayed 
addressing carbon pollution, and we know that there are 
chemical technologies today that are proven that do this but 
they are all relatively expensive, quite expensive, compared to 
where we need them to be. How do we balance that portfolio of 
potential chemical processes, make sure we treat them fairly, 
but at the same time provide tools to, as rapidly as possible, 
drive that proven science down the cost curve the way that we 
have seen technologies like solar, distributed generation 
driven down the cost curve?
    Mr. Hezir. Yes, Senator, you're absolutely right. There are 
a variety of chemical methods starting out with some of them 
being borrowed from, you know, long experience in the 
petrochemical industry. In our report one of the things that we 
identified as the very early on opportunity for DOE is to start 
off by really doing a comprehensive technoeconomic assessment 
of the various alternatives out there and by doing so by 
including funding some of the operating and data collection 
costs from some of the existing pilot scale projects, but then, 
as a principal research priority should be focused on the 
objective of cost reduction.
    And there's three areas in our report that we identify that 
we thought were critical. One was the development of better 
sorbents, the second one was materials and structures for 
carbon capture systems, and then the third one is in 
manufacturing, being able to create engineered systems that can 
be manufactured at mass scale. And particularly in the first 
two areas, sorbents and materials, are areas where the national 
laboratories, in particular, can be extremely helpful in 
identifying innovative approaches for both of those.
    Dr. Friedmann. Senator, if I could add quickly to this?
    The thing--there are companies out there that deliver 
carbon capture solutions, direct air capture, in particular. 
The thing they need is customers. More than anything else, to 
get down the cost curve, we need to deploy. And in this context 
the government has always been the first purchaser of clean 
energy. They bought solar panels.
    Senator Heinrich. Yes.
    Dr. Friedmann. They bought windmills. They bought fuel 
cells. They bought batteries for military applications, for 
aerospace applications, for federal buildings. I would 
encourage the Committee to consider the government directly 
procuring direct air capture services.
    Senator Heinrich. That is a great point.
    I want to go on to hydrogen. We have heard a fair bit today 
about making hydrogen from fossil fuel sources, but if you look 
at the news right now and if you just follow the energy news, 
you are seeing an enormous amount of investment in renewable 
hydrogen, even though there is a cost increment. So you are 
seeing NextEra make an announcement in Florida for a $65 
million pilot solared hydrogen plant. You sre seeing Iberdrola 
investing in Spain. You are seeing Air Products and Chemicals 
investing in a plant in Saudi Arabia. Why is there an apparent 
disconnect where making hydrogen from fossil sources is cheaper 
today but clearly industry thinks that it may not be tomorrow 
because we are seeing a really substantial amount of investment 
in renewable hydrogen, green hydrogen directly from renewable 
sources?
    Mr. Winberg, you look like you want to answer that.
    Mr. Winberg. There is a lot of press these days about the 
so-called green hydrogen, but the fact of the matter is at 
about----
    Senator Heinrich. You said so-called. Why do you say so-
called?
    Mr. Winberg. I say so-called because with steam methane 
reforming using natural gas and CCUS, you can get 95 percent 
carbon capture and that's been given the color code of blue, 
but it's pretty clean hydrogen. You can also use coal with 
biomass and some waste plastics and municipal solid waste with 
CCUS and then you're not----
    Senator Heinrich. But obviously industry thinks that is not 
where we are going. I mean, if you just look at where the 
investment is headed. What do they know that you are missing?
    Mr. Winberg. I don't think----
    Dr. Friedmann. Senator?
    Mr. Winberg. I don't think that I'm missing anything, 
Senator. I think there's a lot of press coverage on the so-
called green hydrogen, but again, the fact is that we are 
continuing to produce the vast majority of methane around the 
world with natural gas and there are opportunities----
    Senator Heinrich. You mean hydrogen, not----
    Mr. Winberg. I'm sorry, hydrogen from methane.
    Senator Heinrich. Yes. They do produce a lot of methane. 
That is what we are trying to get away from.
    Mr. Winberg. Well, I don't know if it was Freudian but it's 
methane produced, or hydrogen produced from methane. What we 
haven't attached to that is CCUS, but we have one project and 
it's Air Products and they are producing blue hydrogen.
    Senator Heinrich. Air Products is also investing in 
renewable hydrogen in Saudi Arabia, but my point is simply that 
I think we should have some of those voices at the table 
because they obviously are keyed into a trend that I think we 
should all be aware of.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Heinrich.
    Let's now turn to Senator Daines.
    Senator Daines. Thank you, Chair Murkowski.
    Montana is uniquely situated to lead the nation in carbon 
capture. We have the largest reserve of recoverable coal. We 
have large-scale coal plants like the Colstrip Power Plant. We 
have easy access to geological storage and the potential use of 
carbon for enhanced oil recovery. We really check all the boxes 
in Montana.
    However, unfortunately and due to extreme litigation, 
Colstrip Units 1 and 2 were forced to close earlier than 
planned. We are also seeing an early closure of a coal plant in 
Sidney, Montana, on the eastern side of our state. Both sites 
could be perfect locations for DOE investment, specifically for 
a large-scale, DOE-funded CCUS demonstration project. The 
workforce is there. Transmission capacity, which is a very 
important component of all this, is there. It is already built, 
and the community is ready. All that is needed is for DOE to 
come out and work with Montanans to get this funding flowing.
    Assistant Secretary Winberg, DOE has a number of different 
funding streams for CCUS from beginning stage feasibility and 
engineering studies to full-scale demonstration projects. As I 
mentioned earlier, Montana and, specifically, the Colstrip 
Power Plant are prime areas for DOE investment. Could you 
provide an update on what funding opportunities would be 
available and how we might get this money out to a place like 
Colstrip?
    Mr. Winberg. Yes, Senator, I'd be happy to and thank you.
    So DOE did, we supported a CCUS study at the Colstrip Power 
Plant. We are also moving forward very quickly with our Coal 
FIRST program and so, I think there are opportunities for 
plants like Colstrip to host a Coal FIRST power plant which may 
very well produce hydrogen, might produce electricity, might 
produce both. And I think there's also an opportunity for 
Colstrip to avail themselves of the much talked about 45Q. 
There are a lot of developers out there that are looking at a 
variety of facilities to install CCUS to avail themselves of 
the 45Q tax credit, and I think Colstrip is uniquely situated 
to avail themselves of that.
    Senator Daines. So it is a huge issue for us in Montana, 
not only as Colstrip providing a lot of good high-paying jobs, 
it is an incredible part of our tax base there for Montana to 
support our education systems and basic government services, 
not to mention it provides baseload for the grid, very, very 
important. My request would be, would you commit to working 
with me and Montanans to find ways that DOE could invest in 
communities like Colstrip?
    Mr. Winberg. Absolutely, yes, sir.
    Senator Daines. Secretary Winberg, you know the 45Q tax 
credit is essential for companies to invest in and build CCUS 
technology. However, we have been waiting for years, it has 
been years, for finalized guidance and rules from Treasury. DOE 
has been intimately involved with Treasury on this guidance but 
we need a finalized rule. On May 28th, Treasury and IRS 
released proposed regulations. That is an important step, 
increasing certainty for companies investing in this 
technology, but these are large investments into--they need 
this certainty. However, these rules are subject to change or 
being revoked until they are, this is the important word, 
finalized. Could you give me an update on the release of a 
final rule and can you commit to me that DOE will work to get 
all those involved to get this done this year?
    Mr. Winberg. I'd be happy to give you an update, sir.
    The 45Q is out for comment. It closes on Monday and then I 
am quite confident that DOE will be working with the Internal 
Revenue Service as we have during this entire 2+-year period, 
working with them on the final rulemaking that will then 
provide the necessary guidance for the CCUS projects. And I can 
commit to you that we will do everything that we can to assist 
IRS not only to make sure that the rule accommodates projects, 
but does it as expeditiously as possible.
    Senator Daines. Yes, we need this finalized as quickly as 
possible. Thank you.
    Mr. Winberg. Yes, sir.
    Senator Daines. Last question, Mr. Winberg.
    DOE also administers a number of loan and guarantee 
programs, including the Advanced Fossil Energy Program, the 
Renewable and Efficient Energy Program and the Tribal Energy 
Program. It is my understanding that a large amount of the 
lending potential still remains unused. These programs seem to 
be a perfect fit to help companies that want to invest in CCUS, 
but they are struggling for capital, particularly during this 
COVID-19 pandemic. What do we need to do to get more of these 
loans out the door?
    Mr. Winberg. Well, I think first and foremost they have to 
be financeable projects and then they have to go through the 
phase requirement. I can tell you that the Secretary of Energy, 
Secretary Brouillette, committed and asked for a formal review 
of the program requirements to see what could be done to 
expedite the program. And sir, I know that that is underway. 
But we have been working with the Loan Program Office on a 
number of fossil energy projects and it is, a lot of times the 
hang-up is that they are not yet bankable projects and that 
creates some challenges.
    Senator Daines. Mr. Winberg, I am out of time. Thanks for 
your answer.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Daines.
    Senator King.
    Senator King. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for 
holding this hearing. I want to state at the outset that I 
think this is an incredibly important issue. We have these 
tremendous fossil fuel resources in this country, the problem 
is CO2 and so, to the extent we can find solutions 
to that problem, it would be good for the society, good for the 
climate, good for the planet.
    Mr. Hezir, the issue, it seems to me, is cost. As Senator 
Heinrich mentioned, solar and battery technology has diminished 
significantly in cost, dramatically in the case of solar over 
the last 15 or 20 years. The question I have is, is it 
realistic to expect that kind of downward cost curve in carbon 
capture or carbon removal? I am going to differentiate between 
those in a minute, but are we chasing something that is 
feasible and reasonable to chase or is this economically 
impossible?
    Mr. Hezir. Yes, Senator.
    I think it varies across the technology so obviously we 
know from experience that some of the chemically-based 
technologies, there are opportunities for innovation there and 
there's also opportunities for learning by doing, deployment at 
scale that can help with the economics there. So we do think 
that there are opportunities to bring down the cost there. I do 
want to just quickly add a comment on Senator Heinrich's 
question with respect to hydrogen. And there, I think that, 
clearly, I think that the industry is looking at the 
combination of innovation in electrolyzer technology as being 
also an opportunity for significant cost reduction. And when 
you compare that with cheap electricity such as one cent per 
kilowatt-hour solar, you can ultimately drive down the cost--of 
green hydrogen.
    Senator King. The idea----
    Dr. Friedmann. Senator King?
    Senator King. Yes, yes.
    Dr. Friedmann. If I could add to your question, we have 
seen the cost of CCS drop 50 percent in the past ten years. 
We're going to see it drop again, 50 percent in the next five 
to ten years and again after that. We are nowhere close to the 
engineering or thermodynamic limits of cost reduction. And the 
best way to get it forward is to create incentives for 
deployment and to get learning by doing in the market.
    Senator King. And by continued support for research and 
innovation.
    Dr. Friedmann. Absolutely essential. That makes it faster. 
It accelerates our pathway to cost reduction and 
decarbonization.
    Senator King. As an old energy guy in the energy business, 
I think in terms of cost per kilowatt-hour. Can anybody give me 
a figure on what $30 per ton of CC equals in per kilowatt-hour?
    Dr. Friedmann. I can give you those answers, but it varies 
a lot by plant type, by heat rate, by all these other kinds of 
things.
    Senator King. Sure.
    Dr. Friedmann. A good way to think about it is on the order 
of one and a half cents per kilowatt-hour for a coal--for a 
kilowatt-hour that's about what it would be on a gas plant. 
Retrofitted would be closer to two cents for a coal plant 
retrofit.
    Senator King. And that is at current cost, not projected 
hoped-for cost, is that correct?
    Dr. Friedmann. No, that's at $30 which is what you said, so 
at $30 cost. Sixty-dollar cost it's more like two and a half 
cents, which is what it is today.
    Senator King. Okay.
    Dr. Friedmann. But I would recommend that you think about 
this not just from the power sector. If you think about it in 
terms of dollars per ton steel made, or petrochemical 
production or hydrogen, it is way, way cheaper than every other 
option.
    Senator King. Other than that one cent solar power you 
mentioned.
    Dr. Friedmann. Even at one cent solar power, you're talking 
about a 25 percent capacity factor. In order for green hydrogen 
in the United States to be the same cost as blue hydrogen in 
the United States, it needs to be a half cent per kilowatt-hour 
at 25 percent capacity factor or it needs to be three cents a 
kilowatt-hour, 90 percent of the time.
    Senator King. So the tradeoff would be the capital cost to 
develop excess solar capacity that could be used for hydrogen 
production----
    Dr. Friedmann. That's an important part of it, yes.
    Senator King. ----as a kind of battery.
    Dr. Friedmann. That's one way to go, yes. And if you're 
thinking about power markets, that's a good thing to do. If 
you're thinking, though, about the infrastructure required for 
that, just providing U.S. steel with hydrogen made from green 
hydrogen, you'd need a 50 percent increase in the U.S. grid. 
There's just a lot that needs to be done.
    Senator King. I understand.
    Give me an idea of the cost differential between carbon 
removal and air capture. It is significant, is it not?
    Dr. Friedmann. Right. So today direct air capture is about 
$450 a ton. That's the cheapest plant that's operating. In 
2025, we expect the first million-ton-per-year plant to be 
operating. I expect that will come in below $200 a ton, and by 
2030, I expect it will be cheaper than $150 a ton.
    Senator King. And what is the price of capture?
    Dr. Friedmann. That's the all-in cost capture, 
transportation and storage from direct air capture. By 
comparison----
    Senator King. I am sorry, what is removal?
    Dr. Friedmann. That is removal.
    Senator King. I am looking for the differential between 
removal and capture.
    Dr. Friedmann. So the costs that I just gave you were for 
direct air capture. So that would be by 2030, maybe $150 a ton. 
For point-source capture, probably on the order of $30 a ton.
    Senator King. That is a 2030 estimate, that $30 a ton? That 
is the goal.
    Dr. Friedmann. Correct.
    I would say though that cash for clunkers is $400 a ton. 
What we pay for ethanol today is $500 a ton. The EV subsidies 
are $600 to $1,400 a ton. We already pay for this stuff.
    Senator King. Got it.
    Thank you. If you could follow up with the Committee with 
some of that analysis, the financial analysis, now, 2025, 2030 
estimated, I think that would be very helpful.
    Thank you.
    Dr. Friedmann. I would be eager to do so.
    Senator King. Thank you.
    [Information regarding financial analysis of carbon removal 
and direct air capture follow.]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator King and Dr. Friedmann, we 
look forward to that information.
    Let's now turn to Senator Cassidy, who is with us online.
    Senator Cassidy. Thank you all. It has been a very 
stimulating conversation.
    Now Dr. Friedmann, that kind of analysis in terms of the 
subsidy we are currently getting as opposed to the subsidy that 
would be required is, again, very enlightening. You had 
mentioned, obviously we have to sequester once we withdraw it, 
however we withdraw it. Now Louisiana has a lot of Class 6 
wells that could be used for this. We have other advantages as 
well. And so, I say, what can the Federal Government do for 
Class 6 wells and CO2 pipelines to make sure that 
the permitting is done in a timely manner, understanding the 
capital deployment depends upon that regulatory certainty?
    Dr. Friedmann. So let me say that the Gulf of Mexico, 
including Louisiana, is the Saudi Arabia of pore volume. It is 
the best global resource for storing CO2 anywhere. 
It is a terrific natural resource the United States should take 
the opportunity to maximize. In that, access to the subsurface 
is the most important piece. In a place like Canada or Saudi 
Arabia, the government owns the pore volume. That is not the 
case in the United States. So federal lands are places where 
the United States owns the pore volume. State lands are places 
where states own the pore volume. Getting access to the pore 
volume is actually the rate-limiting step. After that, in terms 
of the permitting, say for Class 6 wells, as you asked, it is 
worth revisiting the current requirements around Class 6. I 
spent a lot of time working on this under Secretary Moniz at 
the Department of Energy and we worked closely with the EPA to 
think about how to streamline and improve the Class 6 process.
    The most important thing we need to do right now, number 
one task, get more people. At the EPA today there is a half a 
person to permit Class 6 wells.
    Senator Cassidy. That is not good.
    Dr. Friedmann. There is not even one full-time employee, 
no. So one of the things they could do is hire more people and 
train them, not just at the EPA headquarters but also in the 
regional offices. So for Region 4, in Louisiana, getting more 
people familiar with how to permit these wells would be good.
    Senator Cassidy. Okay.
    Now, secondly, let me just ask because I think I know that 
for direct air capture, a humid environment is a better 
environment and I am sitting there thinking that is another 
reason why the Gulf Coast, of course, Louisiana in particular, 
would be a wonderful place for this investment because not only 
do you have the wells in which you could sequester and the 
industry located from which you could offload, but you also 
have the humid environment. Any thoughts about that?
    Dr. Friedmann. Sure----
    Ms. Angielski. Senator Cassidy, if I could?
    Senator Cassidy. Sure.
    Ms. Angielski. I would love to just share thoughts about 
that because the other aspect of this that we don't talk enough 
about is that the oil and gas industry expertise is going to be 
essential for CCUS industry to actually be catalyzed in this 
country. And we were talking about the effects of the pandemic 
and, of course, prior to that the oil industry was finding 
itself in distress for a variety of global issues. You have the 
expertise and the geology, the perfect geology in your State of 
Louisiana for this to be not necessarily a pivot or a 
transition, but a perfect opportunity for maintaining jobs from 
the oil and gas industry, but transitioning those jobs into a 
carbon capture industry. We can't do it without their ability 
to site and build and construct pipelines as well as inject 
CO2 in injection wells. So I think that this is a 
really unique opportunity for the State of Louisiana to 
capitalize on.
    Senator Cassidy. I agree with that. By the way, I discussed 
this with geologists. We already have our geology mapped. He 
said those wells don't work, they are too shallow. These wells 
work because they go so deeply. A lot of the work that would be 
required has already been done. So I am with you entirely on 
that.
    Now, that said, the economic challenge, Dr. Friedmann, you 
mentioned that we are already paying for this, the subsidy that 
would be required from the Federal Government, we are already--
you mentioned for ethanol it is $500 per metric ton or $600 and 
that direct air capture would be $400. Is that the all-in 
price, not just the capture, but the sequestration as well?
    Dr. Friedmann. So this is why we look at these things from 
a levelized cost of carbon abatement perspective. It has to 
have real capital costs, it has to have real operating costs 
and it needs to compare at an equal level. If you do that, 
direct air capture is already cheaper than sustainable aviation 
fuels today, like already cheaper, and it is well below the 
cost of all kinds of incentives that we provide for clean 
energy.
    Senator Cassidy. And that is an all-in, that----
    Dr. Friedmann. All-in costs, yes.
    And I want to be clear about this, those other incentives 
are extremely important and valuable. I'm not throwing shade at 
those other things. We want the EV incentives. We want solar 
rooftop incentives. We want all these things, but the cost in 
dollars per ton for those incentives in many markets exceeds 
the cost of direct air capture today.
    Senator Cassidy. Okay, well, thank you. I yield back.
    The Chairman. There were a lot who wanted to jump in on 
this. I saw Mr. Mackler wanted to dive in, Assistant Secretary, 
even Senator King. So we can continue this, although I do want 
to go to Senator Cortez Masto, but Senator King, if you wanted 
to----
    Senator King. No, no, that is okay.
    The Chairman. Okay, all right.
    Let's go to Senator Cortez Masto online.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. And to the Chair and 
Ranking Member, thank you and the panelists. This is a 
fantastic conversation that we need to have in this country.
    Let me jump back to a little bit on the workforce piece, 
because we have all been talking about CDR technology. 
Sometimes I think that scares people that there will not be 
jobs for the future, there will not be opportunities to take 
advantage of this new technology and what we need to do to not 
only transition existing jobs, but for our workforce 
development as well. So I would like to open it up to the panel 
and maybe Dr. Friedmann, start with you. Can you talk a little 
bit more about the workforce piece and what we should be doing 
here to continue to not only ensure that the jobs are available 
for the future but educating our workforce and particularly the 
existing workforce that they might already have the skills that 
are transferable to this new technology?
    Dr. Friedmann. Thank you.
    Three very quick points. First of all, chemical engineers, 
roughnecks, boilermakers and steel union makers, organized 
labor, these people already have a lot of the skills we need. 
So creating the industry for them to move into is part of the 
task. Second of all, we do need new human capital. It's exactly 
why Columbia University is creating the Climate School. We need 
to get those kinds of things up and running.
    I would point you to two other reports that are relevant to 
this, one of them is the recent Rhodium Group report I mention 
in my testimony that suggests that hundreds of thousands of 
jobs are waiting for us just in direct air capture alone. In my 
testimony I also point out the same thing is true for forests. 
The same thing is true for soils. The same thing is true for 
carbon mineralization. There are hundreds of thousands of jobs 
out there. The final report I'd like to point you to is 
actually one that Joe Hezir had an important role in managing--
the Energy Futures Initiative--wrote about, every year they 
write about the jobs in the clean energy industry that have 
begun to look at this topic and look to Joe.
    Mr. Hezir. Thank you, Senator, if I could just jump in on 
that. Thank you, Julio.
    I just want to add one other thing in addition to our work 
on the job survey. We've also, Secretary Moniz and President 
Richard Trumka, entered into an MOU back in April to set up the 
Labor Energy Partnership, and as part of that program we are 
doing more of a deeper dive on identifying job opportunities as 
part of the energy transition. And carbon capture and 
sequestration is one of the ten priority areas that we identify 
and as Dr. Friedmann said, the workers currently in the oil and 
gas industry really have the, kind of, the skill base to really 
move directly into carbon capture and storage opportunities, 
including in the various infrastructure. And so we're looking 
to identify, not only to quantify that, but also identify 
policies and programs that would help accelerate that effort.
    Mr. Mackler. Yes, Senator, if I might also jump in on this 
one?
    If we take a step back and look at carbon removal writ 
large, we see that there's, you know, as we've emphasized 
throughout this hearing, there are a number of different 
approaches that we can take to remove CO2 from the 
atmosphere and really when it comes to the arithmetic, we need 
to be doing it all. And the good news is that when it comes to 
the more nature-based solutions, forestry and agriculture in 
particular, those are labor intensive activities. And so we can 
actually start doing carbon removal today, scale it up on the 
natural solution side of things and put a lot of people back to 
work very quickly. As we build out the more advanced 
technologies like direct air capture and even biomass with CCS, 
which, by the way, is less technologically sophisticated than 
direct air capture, it's using technologies that are already 
available today and we can start to deploy those technologies 
using skills and expertise from the power sector that exist 
today to start removing CO2 from those facilities as 
we build out the technologies that do the more broad scale, 
direct air capture at some point in the future.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. Thank you. I notice my 
time is running low. I will submit the rest of my questions for 
the record.
    Thank you, again, for this incredible conversation.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Cortez Masto.
    I am checking to see if Senator Hoeven, excuse me, Senator 
Gardner would be next. I know he was going to be coming on 
virtually. We have also had votes started, so he may have gone 
to do that first and also Senator Hoeven, I think, was going to 
go to the vote first.
    So if I don't see their faces pop up, I am going to come 
back to questions here.
    When I first had the opportunity to ask questions, I kind 
of teed up the issue of blue carbon but didn't really give 
anybody much of an opportunity to elaborate on the benefits of 
coastal blue carbon removal options. So let me ask you, Dr. 
Friedmann, you have taken a look at this. Any comments on that 
that you might want to share with the Committee?
    Dr. Friedmann. Yes, and having grown up in the ocean state 
along with Senator Whitehouse, we've got a lot to say about 
this. Blue carbon is a real thing. It's a real opportunity. 
Most people think about it as coastal mangroves and in places 
like Florida that's a real undertaking and would provide 
resilience, would provide adaptation, buffering for coastal 
storms, all these kinds of benefits. But it is not restricted 
to that. It also includes things like kelp and in my own work 
we've been dealing with a number of companies that are seeking 
to expand and grow kelp in novel ways. The innovation is quite 
impressive and we can see opportunities to get hundreds of 
millions of tons or possibly more of CO2 removal 
through kelp cultivation and either conversion or destruction. 
The National Academies wrote about this in depth. It was a 
section of the Energy Futures Initiative report as well. The--
I'm glad that this is starting to gain people's interest. We 
need to stimulate and support the innovation and the 
industrialization of blue carbon.
    The Chairman. Well, thanks for that and you have, several 
have mentioned different places to be looking for that level of 
expertise, but we will certainly come back and circle in with 
you and your folks.
    Let me ask about the CCUS export potential. I liked the 
exchange that was had, prompted from the comments from the 
Senator from Louisiana, and a recognition there that what they 
have in Louisiana is truly a national asset and you are lucky 
to be blessed with both the geology as well as the humidity, I 
guess. I did not appreciate the humidity part of it. But about 
85 percent of all global carbon dioxide emissions come from 
outside the country. We have talked about that demand for coal-
fired power generation growing across much of Asia. So as we 
look to how we can make CCUS deployment a priority, I think we 
have an opportunity as a nation here to become the global 
supplier for some of these critical technologies. So how do you 
see our role, and I would turn to you, Assistant Secretary 
Winberg. How do you see our role in helping to facilitate that 
more broadly, because I do think it is an important part of the 
recognition that it can't just be the advancements in one 
country that are going to turn the tide here?
    Mr. Winberg. Yeah, well, thank you for the question and you 
were exactly correct, the rest of the world is going to 
continue using fossil energy whether it's coal or oil or 
natural gas and that's why we have moved forward quickly on the 
Coal FIRST program because it offers the opportunity to, for 
what I think of as 21st century coal. Right now, the Chinese 
own the space in power generation, coal-fired power generation. 
We have an opportunity to take technology and springboard over 
what the Chinese are building which is basically 1970s vintage 
technology that we built and then they now have improved 
slightly, but they're selling it around the world to countries 
that have coal under their feet and they're going to continue 
using that coal.
    But with the Coal FIRST program, we can move into power 
generation and we can move into hydrogen production because 
these countries also, as they build out their transport sector, 
may not do it the same way as developed countries. They may 
move more swiftly into hydrogen. And so there's an opportunity 
there to take our technology, using their natural resources 
that are under their feet, and produce zero-emitting power 
generation and zero-emitting hydrogen and perhaps even net-
negative hydrogen and net-negative electricity. And they can 
use that hydrogen in the transportation sector as well as the 
industrial sector. So I think there are opportunities for us, 
and we're availing ourselves of that.
    The Chairman. Well, it is that kind of leadership that, I 
think, really will make that difference and that has been 
mentioned here, not only by you, coming from the Department of 
Energy, but others as well.
    Senator Cantwell, we have had a fabulous discussion this 
morning on what is going on with the innovation, the 
technology, the leadership, the opportunity in so many 
different areas. So you are up.
    Senator Cantwell. Great, well, thank you for that.
    I wonder if two questions have been brought up. One, 
methane and what we need to do to stop more methane flaring and 
the use of natural lands as a way to reduce CO2. 
Obviously Alaska is a great example of helping us to reduce 
CO2, but I don't know if that was addressed so far 
today.
    The Chairman. We did----
    Dr. Friedmann. Senator, if I might start the conversation.
    Senator Cantwell. I know the Secretary was with us but 
left, former Secretary, is that right? So----
    The Chairman. Yes.
    Mr. Mackler. Yeah, thanks for the question, Senator.
    My name is Sasha Mackler, and I work for the Bipartisan 
Policy Center and we are doing a variety of things with respect 
to carbon removal and we also have a farm and forest natural 
climate solutions initiative that we're launching. So we're 
very much engaged in this issue of lands and how they can 
become a sink for CO2 over time. And we have had 
some discussion----
    Senator Cantwell. What compensates people for that?
    Mr. Mackler. Well, so, the development of markets for 
carbon storage in forests and in agricultural soils will be 
critical to actually encouraging the best practices and the 
development of the technologies and the flow of private capital 
into these activities which will be key. And so there are a 
number of things happening today that are beginning to 
stimulate activity in these areas, but more is needed, 
particularly on the measuring, the monitoring, the verification 
side of things and the establishment of credible accounting 
standards so that private companies, for example, know what 
they're investing in and they're pragmatic enough that they can 
be, you know, they can enable simple transactions.
    Senator Cantwell. So you don't think we have any price 
points today?
    Mr. Mackler. In terms of the cost of storage? I mean, we--
--
    Senator Cantwell. Or value.
    Mr. Mackler. Yeah, I mean----
    Senator Cantwell. Value as a solution juxtaposed to some--I 
mean, obviously when we are talking about technology, we kind 
of know what the development cycle looks like, the investment, 
the return that people might get, but has somebody put a price 
as to how that relates to how lands----
    Mr. Mackler. Sure, so there are things happening today in 
forests and in soils with respect to carbon offsets and we, 
kind of, know that those, they start at around $10 per ton and 
they go up from there. So there are, there's certainly activity 
in the offset market in soils and in forests, carbon storage.
    Senator Cantwell. So $10 right now.
    Mr. Mackler. Well, so that's, yeah, that's, sort of the 
beginning price. It depends on what activity you're looking 
for. But and then as you do more sophisticated activities and 
as you move from natural lands in the agricultural, the sort of 
the most simple to execute to some of the more complex, more 
labor intensive things, like forest restoration, those become 
more expensive, but they have a number of other co-benefits, 
for example, wildfire management, that are really, you know, 
quite vital to the local areas.
    Senator Cantwell. Yes, well, we definitely got very 
aggressive about that for that very, one of the reasons you 
just mentioned.
    Mr. Mackler. Yeah.
    Senator Cantwell. So----
    Mr. Mackler. Yeah.
    Senator Cantwell. And what about methane? We obviously 
tried very hard to get the Administration to understand that 
this is one of the lowest hanging fruits that you could deal 
with, and yet we still have methane flaring beyond what we 
should. What are your thoughts there?
    Mr. Mackler. Well, it's, it is an enormous issue and it's 
one that, you know, the good news is the technology exists to 
really control methane upstream and we really need to just 
figure it out. And I know the industry is working hard on this 
as well as, you know, my colleagues in the NGO community, as 
well as the Federal Government. We see signals that the cost of 
managing upstream methane emissions are manageable, and we also 
see some progress in the deployment of those technologies. As 
the regulatory frameworks get sharper and as the customers of 
natural gas in the utility industry or the direct customers 
start to account for the upstream burden of methane leakage in 
what they're looking to purchase, I think there's a big 
opportunity to start to cut those emissions out of our supply 
chain, but there's a lot of work that needs to be done there, 
no doubt about it.
    Senator Cantwell. But you consider it a low-hanging fruit 
that the applications we could do today and the reduction we 
could do today?
    Mr. Mackler. For the leakage and flaring of methane, I 
think that's absolutely true. The technologies exist. We just 
need to deploy them.
    Senator Cantwell. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Dr. Friedmann. Right, Senator, I would add to Sasha's 
comments. We've written a lot about this at the Center on 
Global Energy Policy. Rob Kleinberg has done a lot of work on 
the specifics of the technology, the cost, the opportunity size 
and we've done this in partnership with EDF. Happy to answer 
questions on the record as you ask.
    Senator Cantwell. Thank you.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Cantwell.
    Let's go to Senator Gardner, online. Welcome.
    Senator Gardner. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
    Mr. Hezir, both you and Secretary Moniz, both from your 
time at the Department of Energy, know how critical our 
national labs are across the country, obviously Colorado, home 
to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory which houses the 
Wind Technology Center, solar electric and fuel cell vehicles, 
smart homes, buildings, they have it all. In Colorado, NREL has 
a robust economic impact. The University of Colorado recently 
assessed that NREL had an economic impact of about $875 million 
in Colorado, $1.4 billion nationwide in Fiscal Year 2019 alone. 
And over the last several years, in fact, one of the things I 
am most proud of since I came to the Senate is that I have been 
able to help increase NREL's funding by nearly 50 percent over 
the last several years.
    I know you would agree that NREL is instrumental in this 
effort, talking about carbon capture, utilization and storage 
today as one of the many low-carbon technical options. But as 
the nation moves toward developing advanced clean energy 
systems, renewable energy will play a key role toward reaching 
that goal as well. My question is for you, Mr. Hezir. With the 
integration of high amounts of renewable energy proving more 
viable than previously thought and thanks to DOE and NREL's 
leadership in advancing this, how would carbon capture, 
utilization and sequestration fit an international portfolio of 
clean energy solutions and how does it, along with renewables 
and nuclear, fit into an all-of-the-above energy strategy and 
what can our labs, academia and industry do to help advance 
these low-carbon solutions?
    Mr. Hezir. Thank you for the question.
    We, obviously when Secretary Moniz was at the Department, 
advancing the work of the national laboratories was a major 
priority and not only that, he was instrumental in forming the 
Office of Technology Transitions, an office that was set up to 
actually accelerate the movement of new inventions and new 
innovation to laboratories into the marketplace. The current 
Administration now has picked up on it--invest in CDR--a major 
project----
    The Chairman. Mr. Hezir?
    [Distorted sounds coming through WebEx feed.]
    The Chairman. Mr. Hezir, can you hear me?
    Mr. Hezir. ----landscape.
    The Chairman. Okay.
    Mr. Hezir. And as part of that study we came up with 
criteria and some recommendations about, really, technology 
areas with breakthrough potential and clearly, CCUS and CDR 
were on the short list for that. And so, earlier in the hearing 
today we did talk about opportunities for innovation, 
particularly in direct air capture and some of the other 
technologies that involve innovations in materials, innovations 
in sorbents and things like that, areas of strengths for the 
national laboratories.
    And I would just add one final point that is relative to 
NREL and the other national laboratories, one of the other 
things that we did at the Department was to encourage more 
cross-cutting research initiatives across the laboratories. And 
I think the one that's been the most successful has been in the 
grid modernization initiative for which NREL was a major, was 
one of the co-leaders really, and we would think that we would 
like to see something like that occur as well in the areas of 
CCS and CDR.
    Senator Gardner. Thank you, Mr. Hezir.
    I know we are in the middle of a vote, so I don't want to 
go over time here. I would just point this out. I mentioned 
that we have increased funding at NREL by over 50 percent over, 
well, nearly 50 percent over the last several years, and I 
would note that the U.S. spends about 2.7 percent of its gross 
domestic product on research and development, but China is 
close behind us at 2 percent. In 2018, for the first time in 
fact, China actually surpassed Europe, the EU, in spending for 
research, spending $8 billion while the U.S. led by just a hair 
at $8.2 billion. So we have a lot more work to do in this 
space. We passed legislation in the American Innovation and 
Competitiveness Act a couple years ago, we are funding NREL, we 
have increased funding for NIH and others, but we have more 
work to do so that we can--this leadership because imagine if 
that next great breakthrough is somewhere else, all of those 
jobs go with it if it is not here in the United States. Thank 
you very much for your leadership.
    Madam Chair, I will yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Gardner.
    Senator Hoeven is on the line and will ask the next 
question and also the last question. Senator Hoeven, if I can 
ask you, at the conclusion of your remarks, you can adjourn the 
Committee virtually for us, if you will so that I can go vote. 
Our 30 minutes is up.
    But before I leave and turn it over to Senator Hoeven, I 
want to thank all of our witnesses, those of you who have 
traveled to be here in the office and those who are here 
virtually, thank you for your endorsement. I think each and 
every one of you spoke to the benefits of our energy bill, the 
American Energy Innovation Act. You have been positive about 
some of the legislative efforts that we have here, the EFFECT 
Act, the CREATE Act and we are working on more and reminded us 
of the benefits of the 45Q. So some good reminders here today, 
but I think the thing that I am leaving with, with the most 
inspiration is just the wide array of technologies that we are 
looking at, the innovation that we are looking at and just the 
momentum that we are seeing when we speak about various ways to 
deal with carbon and carbon removal technologies. So thank you 
for joining the Committee.
    Senator Hoeven, you can have more than five minutes if you 
want. The clock is yours, so thank you.
    Senator Hoeven [presiding]. Thank you, Madam Chairman, I 
appreciate it very much and thanks for holding this hearing. I 
will certainly be happy to adjourn the meeting once finished 
here with questions for the witnesses. I want to thank the 
witnesses for being here as well, and I will start with 
Assistant Secretary Winberg.
    Thank you, Secretary Winberg, for all your work on the 
whole gamut of energy issues there at the Department of Energy. 
I also appreciate you coming out to North Dakota to see what we 
are doing in North Dakota. My first question to you is, you 
know, you have been part of and you have worked very hard to 
get the 45Q regulatory guidelines in place, and that is very 
important, so that not only coal-fired electric plants but 
ethanol plants and others can utilize that 45Q tax credit. But 
my first question is what else can we do to enhance that tax 
credit so that we can really get these power plants capturing 
and sequestering CO2 and do it on an economical, 
viable basis.
    Mr. Winberg. Senator Hoeven, thank you for the question.
    I think there are a couple things that can be done. First 
of all, extending out the 45Q tax credit, I think, is extremely 
important because a lot of these companies have been teed up, 
ready to go for the last two years waiting on the 45Q 
finalization from the IRS. And of course, in the midst of this 
time or during this time period, COVID has hit our country 
quite hard and has had a profound, profoundly negative impact 
on balance sheets and income statements. So allowing companies 
to--extending out the timeframe for the 45Q will create some 
flexibilities for these companies that are in very much a 
recovery mode.
    Number two, we need to take a really hard look at how long 
it's taking to permit a variety of CCUS projects and we have 
CCUS projects with capture systems and also, as you well know, 
pipeline systems and getting permits for the capture system and 
the pipeline system and even for the wells, the injection 
wells, is just an incredibly long period of time and especially 
if you're doing a project that has commercial ramifications and 
implication to your bottom line, those long permitting times 
are just unsustainable. So I think that's a key to all of these 
across the CCUS value chain, shortening down the permitting 
times and then increasing 45Q, the length of time to utilize it 
so that these companies can, indeed, install these technologies 
and demonstrate to the world that they're commercially viable.
    Ms. Angielski. Senator Hoeven, could I just add to the 
enhancements? This is Shannon from CURC.
    Senator Hoeven. Yes, please do.
    Ms. Angielski. In my testimony I point out the fact that--
also for the reasons that Steve mentioned with the recovery and 
pandemic--currently, taxpayers have to go out to the tax equity 
market to try to get tax equity investment in the 45Q, and CCS 
projects has fully monetized the 45Q tax credits. Allowing a 
taxpayer to elect for what we term direct payment, which would 
be a direct cash payment from Treasury, as an alternative to 
resorting to the tax equity markets is another way of actually 
trying to bring more value of the 45Q tax credits into a 
project and get financing and it opens up the capital markets 
for that. So that's something that we've been an advocate for 
in trying to see if we could make a statutory or legislative 
change here in Congress.
    Senator Hoeven. So you would say then that it would be very 
important to have the direct pay option as well as the tax 
credit option, correct?
    Ms. Angielski. Well, we didn't want to eliminate the tax 
equity option at the moment, but I think the value would be in 
the direct cash payment and likely probably see more taxpayers 
elect for that as opposed to resorting to the tax equity 
market. Part of the reason for that might be in coming out of a 
recovery or going into recovery as it's still questionable how 
much tax liability even those big investment firms are going to 
have in the out years in order to actually be able to take 
advantage of tax equity structures. So I think it's really 
critical that we move forward with a direct cash payment option 
in this Congress but not close out any of the other options 
that are currently on the books.
    Senator Hoeven. Thank you, I agree.
    Dr. Friedmann, I am going to ask you two things. That same 
point which she just made, I want you to give me your opinion 
in regard to that direct pay option, but also I want to know if 
you have any other policy proposals that would bring 45Q in 
line with, you know, value wise with existing, other existing 
renewable tax credits. So if you could, kind of, touch on 
those--45Q direct payment but then also other ideas to 
enhance--increase its value, you know, more in line with what 
we would see in CCUS.
    Dr. Friedmann. Thank you, Senator, absolutely.
    First of all, I agree with Shannon. Under Section 1603, 
Direct Payment is an option that was done during the 2009 
stimulus for a bunch of renewable tax credits. We should create 
that optionality under 45Q given the current economic crisis as 
well. I also agree with prior testimony that we need to extend 
the timeline out at least five years in order to get more 
companies accepting and pursuing this option. That certainty is 
important.
    Our Center recently published an analysis in April on what 
it would take to enhance 45Q to get power sector uptake. We 
looked at coal plants and gas plants. We looked at utility 
ownership and we looked at merchants. And basically, to get 
uptake from utility-scale coal plants, something like $60 a ton 
gets you pretty close for saline aquifer storage. For gas 
plants if it's owned by a utility, it's more like $80 a ton or 
$85 a ton and for merchant plants, it's more like $110 a ton. 
People should realize though that the wind production tax 
credit at various times and in various context has ranged 
between $60 and $120 a ton. So this kind of incentive is well 
in line with other subsidies and incentives that we've provided 
in the past.
    Senator Hoeven. Thank you, Doctor. I think that is a very 
important point you just made. I appreciate it very much.
    Secretary Winberg, I would like to come back to you on 
those issues, direct pay and relative incentive--and get your, 
kind of, follow-up comment on that and then I want to shift for 
just a minute to the strategic petroleum issue.
    Mr. Winberg. I'm sorry, Senator, could you repeat the first 
one? You broke up a little bit.
    Senator Hoeven. Sure.
    I would like you to comment both in terms of your opinion 
on the direct pay option for--45Q and its importance that we 
should have that and then again, as Dr. Friedmann mentioned 
getting that incentive to the range that the----
    Mr. Winberg. Okay, sir, that's a very simple response from 
me. Yes, I do. We need to create more optionality for these 
developers and whether it's a utility or an independent power 
producer, the value that we have on the 45Q tax credit will 
work for some but not for a lot. So if we're looking for broad-
scale deployment of CCUS, we need to have flexibility in how 
they can avail themselves of the 45Q credit as well as the 
value that goes to them for the capture system.
    Senator Hoeven. Thank you.
    Is the Department continuing to advocate for authorizations 
as well as CCS funding through putting more oil in the 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
    Mr. Winberg. Yes sir, we are. We have asked Congress for $3 
billion. As you know, we opened up--we didn't get the $3 
billion in the first round of stimulus--so we opened up the 
SPRO and we are storing oil for private sectors, but we still 
have available sufficient capacity in the SPRO to purchase oil 
and put a number of oil field workers back to work producing 
that oil and storing it in the SPRO and then at a point in the 
future, Congress can have us sell that oil and we think that it 
will be a significant return on investment to the taxpayer 
because we'll be selling that oil at a considerably higher 
price than what we would buy it for.
    Senator Hoeven. Yes, I really appreciate that point.
    I do have one more question for you, Secretary, and that is 
on CarbonSAFE. Are you continuing to prioritize funding for 
CarbonSAFE and moving, advancing it, continuing to get your 
dollars out to those power plants that are undertaking that 
effort because that is critical in terms of enabling them to 
strip off that CO2----
    Mr. Winberg. Yeah, thank you for that. It's a great 
question. The CarbonSAFE program is a very necessary part of 
the carbon value chain. So we recently have five Phase III 
projects. One of them is the North Dakota CarbonSAFE Phase III 
project which is the University of North Dakota and EERC. 
That's a $25 million program that we have and we have four 
others as well moving into that Phase III. We also have other 
projects in Phase I and Phase II development. So we're very 
active in that and looking forward to moving those projects to 
the point where we actually create a sequestration field and 
each one will be at least 50 million metric tons that will 
allow a number of CCUS projects to inject CO2 into 
those CarbonSAFE projects. So we're very much active in that 
and looking forward to continuing that work.
    Senator Hoeven. All right.
    Mr. Hezir, I just want to express to you I truly enjoyed 
working with former Secretary Ernie Moniz when he was the 
Secretary of Energy. A true gentleman, obviously extremely 
knowledgeable with a tremendous record, but what a gentleman 
and if you would tell him I appreciate all the times he was out 
in our state and just give him my very best, if you would.
    Mr. Hezir. I will do so.
    Senator Hoeven. All right, sir, thank you.
    To all of the witnesses, thank you very much, we appreciate 
it, appreciate your time, appreciate your testimony today. With 
that, this hearing is adjourned. Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.]

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