Ft Worth Times

Several months ago, President Joseph Biden announced the 21 winners of the $1 billion Build Back Better Regional Challenge. One of those winners was the Greater New Orleans Development Foundation for its project H2theFuture, which received $50 million.

The goal of the project is to transform the regional hydrogen energy sector and shift the South Louisiana industrial corridor toward a net-zero carbon future. This will be done through the execution of projects across five workstreams—workforce, business development, testbeds, manufacturing, and public private partnership.

It is the testbed workstream that LSU is involved in, particularly its LSU Chemical and Petroleum Engineering programs. Specifically, LSU researchers will be working on the capture, utilization, and sequestration of CO2.

“This funding opportunity builds on the leadership of LSU in energy research and technology development and secures our continued efforts to support energy industry in the future,” said Robert Twilley, interim vice president of research and economic development. “Investment in research faculty and facilities is critical for LSU to remain competitive in supporting research, development, and demonstration.”

LSU Chemical Engineering, led by professor and chair John Flake, will work on carbon capture and utilization. LSU Petroleum Engineering, led by professor and chair Karsten Thompson, will utilize its Petroleum Engineering Research, Training, and Testing (PERTT) Lab to focus on transport and underground sequestration of carbon dioxide.

“On the [petroleum] side, we plan to add a new wellbore and a surface flowloop,” Thompson said. “These will both provide the kind of industry research, testing, and training that we already do at PERTT Lab but on CO2-related activities, which we cannot do now. Louisiana has huge plans around [carbon capture and sequestration], and LSU needs to be involved in ways to educate, provide workforce training, perform research, etc. This project adds infrastructure that allows for fairly unique research, testing, and training.

An additional aspect of the “testbed” workstream at LSU involves broadening outreach to K-12 institutions to educate students on hydrogen technologies and other STEMrecruiting activities.

“LSU is well positioned to be a world leader in CCUS research and education,” Flake said. “By well positioned, I mean we will have all pieces of the puzzle—an on-campus power plant; a CO2 capture system; a sequestration loop; CO2 electrolyzers; as well as a great university, faculty, industry, and geography conducive to sequestration.”

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