I recently became aware of a series of community workshops held in Cadiz and Wintersville by Tenaska. The topic was carbon capture and storage and the truths about the technology and impacts to communities. These sessions were well attended by inquiring local citizens as well as some folks not from Jefferson or Harrison counties. 

And so why would some fella from Houston care? 

I graduated from Wintersville High in 1973 and was raised on Meadowbrook Drive in the village, went to Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh and have spent the last 45-plus years in the energy markets, both domestically and internationally.

Some of my most important activities have centered around the technology referred to as CCS and how it has become internationally recognized as a lynchpin to providing energy that is reliable, cost-effective, resilient and environmentally transformative. 

I learned a long time ago when working summer jobs in the Mingo Junction steel mill and at the power plant in Toronto the importance of coal, oil and natural gas to the industries along the Ohio River and, although the landscape has changed quite a bit, these energy sources will continue to be a cornerstone of American energy security.

CCS is a technology to enable fossil fuels to continue to thrive and do it in a manner in which the carbon dioxide emissions are captured and not released into the atmosphere. 

For the climate? Yes. For customers that wish to have low carbon energy produced from the fuels that are abundant and affordable? Yes. To provide energy that is available 24/7 and not weather reliant? Yes —  that’s what CCS is about. It enables energy dominance in a sustainable manner. 

CCS captures the carbon dioxide (CO2) before it is emitted to the atmosphere and then stores it some 5,000-plus feet below the earth’s surface in geologic formations. These formations have been analyzed and through advanced technology and permit assurances, they provide the safe and permanent storage for the CO2. ( I spent three years at Battelle in Columbus leading the CCS technology team and that work has been successfully demonstrated throughout the country for the last 30 years.) The permitting process assures the safe and permanent storage of the CO2, the protection of underground drinking water and that the environmental footprint is not disrupted. 

The CCS industry has been projected to generate significant construction jobs, operations jobs and tax revenues to the states that will lead the broad deployment of this technology. Investment in the billions and jobs in the millions. It’s not a little — it’s a lot!

Ohio has the opportunity to lead in this period of energy transformation with data centers, AI and advanced manufacturing with CCS as a lynchpin to enable fossil fuels to be utilized in a cleaner and advanced means to meet the new customer demands of the future. It is a new business case, requiring new advanced technologies and this region is blessed with not only the raw materials but has particularly well-suited geology for this technology. These are demonstrated facts and not conjecture. 

CCS can make Jefferson and Harrison counties a leading region for not only Ohio but many other parts of the country. Believe the science and the demonstrated technology we have in this country and don’t be fooled by claims from outsiders that simply don’t care for coal, oil and gas. 

  (McConnell is the executive director of the University of Houston Center for Carbon Management. He served as the assistant secretary of Energy at the Department of Energy (2011-13) and oversaw more than $3.6 billion of carbon capture projects in that timeframe. Tenaska is a member of a CCS Consortia led by the University of Houston, the Southern States Energy Board and the U.S. Department of Energy. It is 80 organizations from industry, academia, legal, regulatory and policy across all the U.S. states.)