Overview: The Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership (BSCSP) is building a new energy future for Montana, Idaho, South Dakota, Wyoming, the Pacific Northwest and the nation. Led by Montana State University, BSCSP is one of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) seven regional partnerships. BSCSP is developing a framework to address carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that contribute to climate change and is working with stakeholders to create the vision for a new, sustainable energy future that cleanly meets the region's energy needs. Because energy is not an optional commodity, carbon sequestration will play an important role.

The phase I work of BSCSP clearly identified the geological similarities among Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Washington, and Oregon. There are similar land use patterns and cropland practices among these states and the Canadian provinces. Thus, as the project proceeds into Phase II, it has expanded to include the states/provinces with similar and contiguous geological and terrestrial sinks. This expansion is also justified by the common economic interests of these States, including many regional energy companies operating across State and Provincial lines.

Current Focus:
Investigation of Geologic Sequestration - The BSCSP region has a range of geologic sites for CO2 storage including depleted oil reservoirs, deep un-minable coal seams, carbonate saline aquifers, and mafic volcanic (basalt) formations (a distinguishing feature of the region's geology).

Investigation of Terrestrial Sequestration - The BSCSP region has extensive land mass that provides tremendous potential for greenhouse gas (GHG) offsets through terrestrial carbon sequestration in forests, range lands, and agricultural crop lands.

Outreach and Education - Public acceptance of carbon sequestration technologies and the operational capacity to deploy them is critical to the ability of (1) the BSCSP to successfully implement its proposed Phase II validation tests, (2) industry to commercialize sequestration technologies and (3) the region to economically and cleanly meet future energy demand. To those ends, the Partnership will develop a coalition that brings together industry, academia, environmental non-governmental organizations and regulatory and governmental officials to build dialogue, support professional development activities, organize events aimed at building public confidence and acceptance, and hold congressional forums to inform policy makers.

Management: John Talbott is the BSCSP Project Manager and is responsible for the day-to-day management of the internal operations of the BSCSP, including reporting requirements, assessing progress toward meeting the milestones, budget control, preparation of required BSCSP level reports, review of all deliverables and topical reports, and development of contractual agreements (in conjunction with MSU requirements). Internal programmatic questions and issues are first worked through the BSCSP Project Manager and the Management Team before presenting to DOE/NETL.