Groundbreaking Carbon Capture Solutions Meet Innovative Leadership: Introducing Carbon GeoCapture’s Advisory Board

By John Pope, President and Chief Executive Officer, Carbon Geocyle

Carbon GeoCapture is pleased to officially announce the formation of our advisory board, comprised of five individuals with decades of experience in the energy, climate, and engineering sectors. Each board member will use their respective expertise to further advance the role of carbon capture and storage to meet the world’s midcentury climate goals.

Carbon GeoCapture (CGC) is pleased to officially announce the formation of the organization’s advisory board, comprised of five individuals with decades of experience in the energy, climate, and engineering sectors.

Each advisory member will use their respective expertise to strengthen the company’s relationships with its customers and collaborate with policymakers, businesses, environmental groups, and academics to further advance the role of carbon capture and storage to meet the world’s midcentury climate goals.

“CGC’s advisory board consists of some of the brightest individuals in the field and will serve as a catalyst for furthering the understanding of the crucial need for increased use of carbon capture and storage technologies to mitigate climate change,” said John Pope, CGC President and CEO. “This would be done specifically through sequestration in unconventional formations, which our specific approach aims to show is a more effective sequestration method than traditional carbon capture and storage efforts.”

The company’s unique sequestration method has been developed through decades of intense laboratory and field work. It works by capturing carbon dioxide in water at relatively low pressures and then pumping the water into unconventional rock formations (such as shale), where it is absorbed by the rock’s structure as the water flows through it. The water is then gently pumped out and reused, without the carbon.

When the rock is nearly full of carbon dioxide, pure water is added on top to hold it in the ground. This method also is designed to avoid excessive water use and waste.

Among the benefits of carbon sequestration in such geologic formations is the “ability to do more, for less, and faster,” noted Pope. “We estimate that our process costs three times less to start and two to four times less to operate than conventional carbon capture and sequestration methods, which will enable carbon sequestration on a massive scale with lower regulatory, capital, transportation, and infrastructure barriers.”

Mitigating climate change is a complex issue that involves a range of methods.

The world currently is not on track to meet targeted midcentury climate goals using only existing technologies because many of these technologies “face constraints relating to cost, lack of supply and land use, and inadvertent other environmental impacts,” said CGC Board Member Jason Shogren. Such technologies, he added, include renewable energy sources, electric vehicles (EVs), and improving building efficiencies, and each fall short in terms of the drastic emissions reductions needed to halt climate change.

“Carbon capture is one of the best solutions we have to actually meet and achieve climate goals,” continued Shogren, the Stroock Chair of Natural Resource Conservation and Management in the Department of Economics at the University of Wyoming. “While fossil fuel use will exist for decades, carbon capture and storage technologies provide a way of limiting the environmental impact of the continued use of fossil fuels, while simultaneously helping restrain the cost of meeting emissions reduction targets.”

In 2001, Shogren was a lead author with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which was honored with a 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for its research establishing a connection between human activity and global warming.

All of CGC’s board members are passionate about using their combined experiences and skillsets to help demonstrate the company’s unique carbon sequestration method as a practical, efficient way to sequester carbon at a scale greater and cost lower than previously imagined.

“CarbonGeoCapture’s sequestration approach offers an opportunity to play a significant role in reducing carbon emissions by allowing existing energy infrastructure to be replaced at an economically viable pace and scale,” said Patric Galvin, an accomplished leader in the environmental and energy sectors and member of the CGC advisory board. “Unconventional geologic sinks are widely distributed, underlying about 75% of the world’s land mass, with the capability to remove between 5-10 gigatons of carbon per year, equivalent to the annual amount of CO₂ emissions produced by both China and the United States.”

The Carbon GeoCapture’s advisory board members are Patric Galvin, Mark Northam, Jason Shogren, Chris Walker, and Chris Varrone. Professional overviews of each board member are below:

Patric N. Galvin: Currently, Galvin serves as Founder of i3 Capital Partners, LLC, whose mission lies in helping companies grow and build top and bottom lines. Galvin’s business experience has tackled everything from small projects, developing billion-dollar opportunities, launching startup-teams, managing large companies, and providing ongoing advice and direction to numerous companies at the Board level. His career in the environmental and energy sectors spans over 40 years and 15 companies worldwide.
Mark Northam: Northam is a Mobil and ExxonMobil veteran, with 20 years of carbon capture and sequestration projects. He is the founding director of University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources. He also oversaw carbon management operations at Saudi Aramco.
Jason Shogren: Shogren currently serves as the Stroock Chair of Natural Resource Conservation and Management in the Department of Economics at the University of Wyoming. In 2001, Shogren was a lead author with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was honored with the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He has previously served as a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and professor to King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden as a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Chris Varrone: Varrone serves as a managing partner at Pickwick Capital Partners, and has been a consultant and banker to more than 50 cleantech companies over the past decade. He is the former Chief Strategist/Technology R&D at Vestas Wind Systems and a former management consultant with McKinsey & Co. Chris was a Fulbright Scholar in Norway and holds an M.A. in Economics (First Class) from Cambridge University.
Chris Walker: Walker has pioneered business partnerships and market initiatives to address climate change for over two decades. Previously, he served as Director, North America at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), where he engaged WBCSD’s 200 member companies. Prior, Walker was as a member of EY’s Climate Change and Sustainability Services, as well as Executive Officer of Carbon Trust, LLC, Managing Director of Greenhouse Gas Risk Services at Swiss Re, and Executive Director for North America for The Climate Group, where he conceptualized and implemented “Climate Week” as an annual event in New York City.

Members of Carbon GeoCapture’s advisory board are eager to connect with other individuals interested in learning more about or becoming involved with the company. Interested parties can contact the board via email. Further, make sure to follow Carbon GeoCapture on LinkedIn for regular updates and important news.