Please join Economist Impact and the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines as we welcome Payne Institute Energy Finance Lab Brad Handler, presenting Financing Carbon Capture: Beyond Project Finance at the Carbon Capture Summit on Thursday, February 2025 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Carbon capture offers the opportunity to speed up the green transition. Developing large-scale industrial projects, or expanding DAC and BECCS, faster, will reduce emissions and keep 1.5°C within reach. Overcoming funding, engineering, and policy obstacles will lead to success. In 2025, we will hold our first event on this topic to cut through the hype while bringing businesses, investors, and policymakers together to accelerate CCUS market development.

Please join the SPE Decarbonization Congress and the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines as we welcome Payne Institute Energy Finance Lab Director Brad Handler, presenting CCUS and Low Carbon Strategies at the Accelerating Decarbonization of E&P Operations​ Conference on Thursday, February 4, 2025 in Houston, TX.

Join us for a pivotal congress dedicated to tackling the challenge of reducing 5.1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in the Exploration and Production (E&P) sector of the Oil and Gas industry. This event aims to forge powerful connections among global and regional operational leaders, alongside emerging sustainability experts, fostering a collaborative environment to spearhead impactful environmental strategies.

Throughout this congress, participants will have the opportunity to exchange best practices and innovative approaches to decarbonization. We are committed to facilitating meaningful dialogues between suppliers, service companies, and operators, creating a unique platform where practical solutions and advancements in sustainability are shared and developed.

The themes of the congress include:

Upstream and midstream: The global oil and gas industry is responsible for generating over 5 gigatons of CO2e emissions annually. Routine and non-routine flaring, artificial lift, and processing facilities are among the top emitters in this sector. Stimulation operations contribute significantly to fuel, water, and chemical consumption. By deploying sustainable technologies, these emissions could be reduced or eliminated. In the first session, we will focus on key themes including quantification, reporting, modeling, and regulatory drivers. In the second session, the emphasis will be on flaring, venting, energy efficiency, operating efficiency, and electrification.

Methane: Methane is the single most significant source of emissions in the exploration and production space, and it requires our attention. As a potent greenhouse gas, addressing methane leaks and venting not only improves operational efficiency but also opens the door to additional energy resources. In this session, we will delve into all aspects of methane emissions in the exploration and production sector, including monitoring, modeling, cold venting, fugitive emissions, and gas-to-X technologies.

Emerging low carbon solutions for core applications: Oil and gas exploration and production entail energy-intensive operations. Processes such as artificial lift, stimulation, drilling, separation, and compression demand substantial energy inputs. At present, hydrocarbon-based fuels dominate our energy landscape within the industry. However, transitioning to more sustainable energy sources holds the promise of reducing the emission intensity associated with every barrel produced. In our upcoming session, we will delve into emerging low-carbon solutions, including hydrogen, geothermal energy, carbon capture and sequestration, and advanced storage/battery technologies. Additionally, we’ll explore the power of collaboration among operators, service providers, universities, and government entities.

Please join the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines as we welcome Cully Cavness, Co-Founder, President, and Chief Operating Officer, Crusoe, presenting a hybrid seminar titled An Energy-First Approach to Scaling AI Infrastructure on Thursday, January 16, 2025 in Golden, CO.

Crusoe is the industry’s first vertically integrated, purpose-built AI infrastructure provider. We take an energy-first approach to providing reliable, cost-effective, and environmentally aligned AI infrastructure. We harness large-scale clean energy, build AI-optimized data centers, and simplify the development of AI solutions.

Cully Cavness is the Co-Founder, President, and Chief Operating Officer of Crusoe. He works at the intersection of Crusoe’s energy and data center activities spanning hundreds of megawatts of power production, data center and cloud computing operations. Prior to co-founding Crusoe in 2018, Cully served in leadership and management positions in the upstream oil & gas industry and geothermal energy industry as well as in energy investment banking. Cully was named as a 2021 Entrepreneur of the Year by EY, has authored multiple issued patents, and has won awards for leadership as well as environmental and technology innovation.

Please join the Mines Applied Mathematics and Statistics Department as they welcome Dr. Anna Hodshire, Research Scientist, Colorado State University’s METEC, presenting Emissions Measurements are Not Drag and Drop (Yet): Reconciling Short-term Emissions Measurements with Annual Inventory Averages on Monday, November 18, 2024, in Golden, CO.

Emissions inventories of atmospheric pollutants such as greenhouse gases (GHGs) are used to identify emissions reduction targets, inform regulatory and policy action, and as inputs to broader chemistry and climate models. Methane is a potent but relatively short-lived GHG with an atmospheric lifetime of ~12 years, making it an attractive target for immediate emission reductions for climate action. Methane emissions from oil and gas (O&G) operations contribute to approximately 1/3 of global methane emissions. Since methane emissions from O&G are due to a combination of intentional engineering designs and unintentional engineering failures, reducing O&G methane emissions is the lowest hanging fruit for methane emissions reductions.

Emissions inventories of methane from O&G operations underpin regulatory and business decisions made around which engineering designs and failures to target for emissions reductions but measurement campaigns over the last decade indicate that methane emissions inventories do not match emissions realities. Most often, studies find that emissions inventories likely underpredict total methane emissions from O&G. The CSU Methane Emissions Technology Evaluation Center (METEC) group is heavily involved in several areas of improving methane emissions inventories and measurements, from measurement validation to field campaigns and statistical scaling for understanding region-wide emissions. I will highlight a few key projects and tools from METEC, with an emphasis on how we can combine “next-generation” measurements with “old-school” statistical modeling to improve emissions inventories.

Dr. Anna Hodshire is a Research Scientist at Colorado State University’s Energy Institute with the Methane Emissions Technologies Evaluation Center (METEC). Current projects include coordinating field campaigns for top down/bottom down surveys and basin-wide surveys of oil and gas emissions of methane. Prior to joining METEC, Dr. Hodshire worked at small companies focused on measuring properties of atmospheric aerosols for health and climate applications. She holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Atmospheric Science from Colorado State University.

Please the Ansell Lecture Seminar Series at the Colorado School of Mines as we welcome Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Dr. John Speer presenting An American Perspective on Green Steel on Thursday, November 7, 2024 in Golden, CO.

The global steel industry is intensely focused on decarbonization and production of green steel. In Shanghai, China in October, the Global Low-Carbon Metallurgy Innovation Forum 2024 was held in conjunction with the 9th Baosteel Biennial Academic Conference, hosted by BaoWu, the world’s largest steel producer. The plenary opening session included presentations related to sustainability by leaders representing worldsteel, JFE Steel (Japan), ArcelorMittal, and Professor Speer, who spoke on the topic Development and Challenges of Green Steel in North America. A modified form of this presentation will be provided in the MME Departmental Seminar, including some background, highlights of private and public efforts in the USA to reduce carbon emissions of the steel industry, and some activities of the Advanced Steel Processing and Products Research Center at Mines to support these objectives.

John Speer is the American Bureau of Shipping Professor of Metallurgy at Colorado School of Mines, and Director of the Advanced Steel Processing and Products Research Center (ASPPRC). He received a B.S. degree from Lehigh University in 1980, and a D.Phil. in Physical Metallurgy from the University of Oxford, UK in 1983, and served in various positions at the Homer Research Laboratories of Bethlehem Steel Corporation until he became a Professor in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at Colorado School of Mines in 1997.  John also served as Mines Associate Vice-President for Research. He is a Fellow of ASM International, an International Fellow of the Chinese Society for Metals, a Distinguished Member of AIST and an elected member of the US National Academy of Engineering. John served as President of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers and is currently an officer of AIST, the Association for Iron and Steel Technology.

Please join Benchmark Minerals Week as they welcome Dr. Morgan Bazilian presenting US Policy Dialogue: Critical Minerals & National Security on Tuesday, November 12, 2024 in Marina Del Rey, Los Angeles, CA.  

Join us in this session to hear about the Importance of building a Secure Critical Mineral Supply Chain for National Security.

Since 2016, Benchmark Week has been the leading gathering for the world’s lithium-ion battery supply chain and the wider energy transition.

This year, multiple content streams held simultaneously over three days will provide broader context of the opportunities and challenges facing clean energy supply chains, with in depth expert presentations & discussions alongside unrivalled networking, all hosted by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

Please join the Colorado Rural Electric Cooperatives (CREA) and the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines as we welcome Dr. Morgan Bazilian presenting Carbon Capture Usage & Storage and Direct Air Capture at the CREA Energy Innovations Summit on Monday, October 28, 2024 in Westminster, CO.  

On October 28, CREA will host the 15th Annual Energy Innovations Summit in Westminster, Colorado. Each year, the summit is CREA’s signature event where speakers from Colorado and around the United States provide the latest updates on the state of the power industry. Over the last 15 years, the summit has featured more than 450 speakers addressing a wide range of energy issues.

CREA initiated the Energy Innovations Summit in 2010 to provide an opportunity for the staff and board directors of our members — Colorado’s electric co-ops — to hear from experts on the trends and technologies that are changing the face of power supply and delivery. Over time, CREA expanded their list of invitees to include all stakeholders in the industry: municipal and investor-owned utilities, regulators, environmental groups, legislators, think tanks, and anyone else who has an interest in these issues.

Back in 2010, they read the tea leaves and saw that the electric power industry was on the cusp of extraordinary change. To some extent, those changes began in Colorado back in 2004 with the passage of Amendment 37 by Colorado voters. That ballot measure started the shift toward renewable energy, such as wind and solar, in the portfolio of all Colorado electric utilities.

Over the past 20 years, the shift toward more renewable power and more distributed power has steadily increased in Colorado. This energy transition culminated in legislation that was passed in the 2019 legislative session that required Colorado electric utilities to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from their power supply portfolio by 80% from 2005 levels. This will result in the closure of all coal-fired power plants in Colorado by the end of this decade and the installation of thousands of megawatts of wind and solar plants as a replacement.

The energy transition in Colorado has been driven not only by government policy — that is, legislation and regulation — but also by advances in technology and co-op business models.

Here are a few examples in Colorado electric co-op country:
Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, the power supplier to many of Colorado’s electric co-ops, developed a “bring your own resource” program that will allow Tri-State members to supply up to 40% of their needs with locally-owned renewable energy projects. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently approved this innovative program.

Fort Collins-based Poudre Valley REA was recently awarded $9 million through the USDA’s Powering Affordable Clean Energy Program. The funds will be used to construct two new solar and battery energy storage projects, which will add 3.5 megawatts of solar and storage, enough to power approximately 800 homes and businesses. U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced this award at PVREA on June 17.

After many years of study and negotiation, Gunnison County Electric Association, a co-op headquartered in Gunnison, has been planning a hydropower project at the Taylor Reservoir that will provide carbon-free power to members of the co-op. Upon completion, the project will include the largest single-phase power generator operating in the U.S., producing about the same amount of energy annually as a 2.5-MW fixed-tilt solar array.

United Power, a Brighton-based co-op, recently hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new battery energy storage system. The batteries will provide 798.3 MW and 313.34 megawatt-hours of storage capacity to United Power’s distribution system across multiple sites. The system will allow the co-op to incorporate local renewable energy more efficiently.

These are just a few of the many innovative and groundbreaking projects that have been developed and are underway in Colorado electric co-op territory.

Colorado’s electric co-ops are constantly thinking about new and innovative ways of providing power and meeting the needs of their consumer-members. For 15 years, CREA’s Energy Innovations Summit has helped support that mission.

Please join Mines Pathways Exploration as they welcome Dr. Elizabeth Holley presenting Should We Mine Battery Minerals in the US? on Wednesday, October 2 at Colorado School of Mines.  

Dr. Elizabeth Holley is an exploration and mining geologist who studies the processes responsible for ore deposit genesis, as well as the geologic characteristics that determine how ore bodies are developed, mined, and reclaimed. Her interdisciplinary work examines the intersections between technical and social risks in mining, and she is a fellow of the Payne Institute for Public Policy. Dr. Holley’s Mining Geology Research Group has been supported by the National Science Foundation, CDC NIOSH, the USGS, major and mid-tier mining companies, and philanthropic foundations. Dr. Holley has worked in the industry on five continents, and she contributed to the discovery of the White Gold deposit in the Yukon. She organized nearly 200 professional development short courses for the Society of Economic Geologists, is a fellow of the society, and served as the 2022 Society of Economic Geologists Distinguished Lecturer. She currently serves on the Committee on Earth Resources for the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine.

Please join the Houston Strategy Forum and the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines as we welcome Payne Institute Program Manager Brad Handler, presenting CCS Projects Strategy & Execution at the Carbon Summit on Tuesday, October 22, 2024 in Houston, TX.  

Summit Context

Carbon capture and sequestration projects are much more complex than traditional industrial projects.

The uncertainty around federal and global politics, policy and regulations, financing and investments, rapidly advancing and changing technology, supply chain newer requirements and challenges, and local politics make CCS projects particularly challenging.

CCS projects are not for the faint of heart. Yet, as it happens, in every great revolution, a few pioneers blaze the trail. We salute them and appreciate them. We want to be the support group for them. To be there for them in those challenging days when progress seems difficult to achieve.

We are looking forward to a powerful discussion with:

Panel Discussion

• Mr. Kris Roberson, Chief Operating Officer, CapturePoint

• Ms. Jan Sherman, Co-founder and Chief Development Officer, Carbonvert

• Mr. Brad Handler, Program Manager, Sustainable Finance Lab, Payne Institute for Public Policy

• Mr. Jon Grimmer, President, Verde CO2

Summit Format

The summits are intense discussions between speakers and attendees, with the goal of having 80% of the attendees contribute. That is a challenging goal, however, when it happens — it is absolute magic!

At the Houston Strategy Forum, we facilitate a closed door, no press, Chatham House Rules, safe zone for candid discussions. Real discussions — no fluff. It is a vigorous format unlike anything else.

Why Attend?

Engage with CCS leaders in a thought-provoking, intense discussion on the questions facing CCS projects. Let’s have the hard discussion and get all the issues on the table. Register now. Come share notes with these pioneering and risk-taking companies.