Strategic Biofuels, which specializes in developing negative carbon footprint renewable fuels plants, has completed its Carbon Capture and Sequestration Test Well Program at the company’s Louisiana Green Fuels Project in Caldwell Parish, Louisiana, making LGF the first renewable diesel fuel project to achieve this milestone.
The goal of the test well program was to demonstrate that carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas generated during the fuel production process, can be safely and securely stored deep underground and that the storage reservoir has sufficient capacity to store all the gas produced over the plant’s lifetime. Completing the test well program is an essential pre-requisite for securing the permit for the EPA Class VI sequestration well.
“Carbon capture and permanent geologic sequestration is no longer a hypothetical scenario for Louisiana Green Fuels — successful completion of the test well is a major milestone that’s not been achieved by any other renewable diesel project,” said Paul Schubert, CEO of Strategic Biofuels.
“These results enable us to move forward knowing that combining CCS with conversion of sustainable forestry waste to renewable diesel at our project site will enable us to achieve our deeply negative carbon footprint goal. Deep carbon negativity greatly increases the potential carbon credit revenues from our fuel and vastly improves the project’s returns. What’s set us apart from other developers was recognizing that the de-risking we could achieve with the test well more than justified the multi-million-dollar expenditure for the program at this early stage,” he said.
The design and execution of the test well program was developed by chief operating officer Bob Meredith with help from Geostock Sandia, an international consulting firm that has worked with the Department of Energy on carbon sequestration wells for almost two decades. Notably the program used oil field workers and traditional oilfield equipment to advance this green energy project.
Strategic Biofuels is now moving into a phase of engineering design for the plant that will give even greater clarity on the overall, long-term costs of the project, while also applying for the required regulatory permits and putting third party contracts in place.
“It’s easy to get excited about what the success of this sequestration test well means to the economic development for Caldwell Parish and the State of Louisiana, but we still have a lot of work to do entering an aggressive capital raise,” added Meredith. “What we have been able to accomplish could very well be a blueprint for the renewable energy industry that is working to address our country’s carbon footprint far into the future.”
Although the data collection from the CCS test well is done, it will remain in place as a monitoring well once the plant is complete and carbon dioxide injection begins in its Class VI well. The current project schedule is for the plant to be mechanically complete in mid-2025 and achieve full commercial operation in late 2025.
For more information visit: www.strategicbiofuels.com
