Big Sky Regional Partnership – Characterization Phase
Project # 41995

Primary Performing Organization
Montana State University

Big Sky is one of seven Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships created by DOE in 2003 as part of a national plan to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.  The Characterization Phase is the first of this three phase program.  The partnerships working together during this first phase will develop a technology framework for the subsequent validation and deployment phases.  The goal of this individual project is to identify the most cost effective, technically feasible, and publicly acceptable options for geologic and terrestrial carbon sequestration in a region composed of Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, South Dakota, eastern Washington and Wyoming.

In addition to informing community leaders and obtaining comments from the public, the principal objectives of this project are as follows:

• To identify and catalogue sources of CO₂ and promising geologic and terrestrial storage sites.
• To develop a risk assessment and decision support framework for the region’s carbon storage portfolio.
• To encourage market-based, voluntary approaches to carbon storage.
• To apply advanced greenhouse gas measurement technologies.

Benefits of this project will include providing a comprehensive evaluation of the sources and potential sinks for CO₂ in the Northern Rockies and Great Plains Region.  This data can be integrated with the data from other regional partnerships to provide a database covering the entire nation.

Contact:
Project Manager:  John Litynski, john.litynski@netl.doe.gov.

Related Papers and Publications:

• Big Sky Partnership Phase 1 Fact Sheet