The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) attended CERAWeek 2023. The annual conference brings global energy industry leaders, experts, government officials, and policymakers together to advance new ideas and solutions to the biggest challenges facing the future of energy, the environment, and climate.

FECM’s Assistant Secretary Brad Crabtree, along with Ryan Peay, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Resource Sustainability, and Noah Deich, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Carbon Management, participated in multiple panels and meetings to discuss how FECM is helping to advance a clean energy and industrial economy.

Partnerships Are Key to Achieving Climate Goals

During CERAWeek, Assistant Secretary Crabtree partook in meetings with government, industry, and stakeholders to discuss the advancement of domestic and global partnerships to meet current energy and climate goals.

As a part of these efforts, he hosted a natural gas roundtable with industry, non-governmental organizations, and government officials from different countries. The candid and productive discussions explored elements of a potential global framework for measurement and monitoring, reporting, and verification of methane and carbon dioxide emissions across the natural gas supply chain, both domestically and internationally. Read the statement Assistant Secretary Crabtree released following the roundtable on FECM’s website.

Assistant Secretary Crabtree also delivered closing remarks at Carbon Clean’s event on accelerating decarbonization strategies for hard-to-abate industries. He emphasized the ambitious commitments of energy companies that are reflected in the many projects under development in the Gulf Coast region, across the U.S. and around the world. Crabtree emphasized how federal funding in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and tax incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act create an unprecedented opportunity for U.S. industry to help drive down the cost of new, key technologies that decarbonize the current fossil fuel portfolio with things like carbon management and methane mitigation technologies and infrastructure—and to deploy them at scale.

Investing in Technologies to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Deputy Assistant Secretary Peay spoke on two panels. The first panel, “Repurposing Oil & Gas Infrastructure as Low-Carbon Assets,” highlighted how mature infrastructure is finding a new lease on life and what conditions make this emerging trend a viable option.

During his second panel, “Building Low-Carbon Liquified Natural Gas Value Chains,” he emphasized the need to ensure that natural gas supply chain is leak tight to reduce methane emissions.

“At the Department of Energy, we are committed to supporting industry and stakeholders as we work to achieve responsible natural gas production for domestic use and exports,” explained Deputy Assistant Secretary Peay. “We are focused on striking a balance between ensuring energy security for the United States and our allies, while providing domestic affordability as we work to achieve our climate goals.”

Accelerating a Diverse Carbon Management Portfolio

Deputy Assistant Secretary Deich participated in the panel “Hard-to-Abate Sectors: Technologies for the Tough Stuff.” During the panel, he discussed the need for investments across the whole carbon management portfolio to meet the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Initiatives such as FECM’s Carbon Negative Shot and Mission Innovation’s Carbon Dioxide Removal Launchpad illustrate the commitment by government, industry, academia, and other organizations to advance carbon dioxide removal projects. 

“Carbon removal is a key wedge of the broader net-zero portfolio,” explained Deputy Assistant Secretary Deich. “We have an opportunity to demonstrate how to deploy carbon removal responsibly to address climate challenges in the United States, with impact around the world.”

That’s a wrap on CERAWeek 2023! Be sure to sign up for news alerts and follow us on 
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