California State University, Bakersfield hosted its second annual Carbon Management Technical Symposium on April 21 with industry, science and policy stakeholders joining to discuss the opportunities and challenges of carbon sequestration and other efforts to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The event — which was organized by CSUB’s California Energy Research Center (CERC), Climate Now and the Livermore Lab Foundation — started off with welcomes from university President Dr. Lynnette Zelezny, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Vernon Harper and Dean of the School of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering Dr. Jane Dong.
“Kern County’s legacy as the energy capital of California makes us uniquely suited to pioneer the effort to store carbon safely — for the benefit of our planet and workforce for generations to come,” Dr. Zelezny said in her welcome. “And we are ready to get started!”
Sessions for the event included discussions on carbon capture and storage (CCS), representing methods of capturing CO2, taking it from emission sites and our atmosphere and injecting it into geologic storage formations underground to mitigate climate change.
Speakers and panelists were open about what it would take to implement sequestration here in the Central Valley, from extensive planning to essential community buy-in. They also addressed concerns about the way sequestration efforts might affect the air and water quality of the places where it is done.
“Transparency is key to creating trust, and there’s no way that you can be transparent unless you have a way to see the data,” said Dr. Newsha Ajami from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in a panel with Amy Rutledge from Kern County Public Health. “It’s very difficult to tell people, ‘Trust us, we are doing the right thing,’ when they can’t really see what information you have and how you’re monitoring and which one of those data points you are sharing and what does that exactly mean to the community.”
Speakers and panelists talked about how CCS will be vital to meeting carbon reduction milestones in the coming year but that it is not a single panacea to solve all environmental problems.
“It’s not an ‘or’ game; we’re not saying, ‘CCS or bust,’ right?” said Alexei Vyssotski of Chevron New Energies. “It’s an ‘and’ game. CCS is one of the many tools that we need to make significant progress in the next decade.”
Vyssotski was part of a panel called “Business of CO2 Removal, Capture and Storage,” along with Ruth Ivory-Moore from Global CCS Institute, Bruno Salomon from National Cement, and Dr. Nyakundi Michieka, an associate professor of economics at CSUB.
“There’s a reason why we are all here, to talk about CO2,” Dr. Michieka said. “This is a global thing, and we need to find ways to get (CO2) out and back into the ground or somewhere safe. We’ve seen a lot of technological advancement; we need to get it out and we need to get it out carefully, and we need to hear from all stakeholders. It’s a problem we need to solve.”
Held in the CSUB Student Recreation Center gymnasium, the symposium included guests from Kern County and as far away as Memphis, Denver and Chicago. Dr. Anthony Rathburn, interim CERC director and chair of CSUB’s Geological Sciences Department, said the event was a great success.
“Speakers and panelists provided information and insights that will help move the region forward toward sustainable and safe carbon management solutions that work for all of us,” he said. “It is my hope that this symposium will strengthen existing collaborations, generate new partnerships, and expand our collective ability to meet the challenges of a changing energy landscape in our region and beyond.”
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