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The Southwest Regional Partnership (SWP), was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy and its National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) as one of seven regional partnerships charged with evaluating available technologies to capture and to reduce the emissions intensity of greenhouse gases in the southwest region through a process known as carbon sequestration.
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Carbon Sequestration is a process of storing carbon in underground geological formations, through mineralization, or in soil and vegetation. |
The Southwest Regional Partnership is composed of a diverse group of experts in geology, engineering, economics, public policy, and outreach.
Member states include Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Utah, Kansas, Nevada, Texas, and Wyoming.
Individual partners represent state and federal agencies, universities, electric utilities, non-governmental organizations, coal, oil and gas companies, and the Navajo Nation.
The partnership is led by its Principal Investigator, Professor Brian McPherson. A science committee with members drawn from universities, agencies, and industry helps Dr. McPherson oversee all scientific activities of the Partnership. Professor McPherson wrote all proposals for the Partnership project, including the Phase I proposal in 2003, the Phase II proposal in 2005, and the Phase III application in 2006. Professor McPherson spent the first nine years of his career at New Mexico Tech, and was full-time at New Mexico Tech when he formed the Southwest Partnership in 2003. In 2006, he took on a faculty post in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, but he continues a part-time appointment at New Mexico Tech to facilitate contractual administration.
The SWP benefits from the built infrastructure and natural geologic formations that exist throughout the region. Our unique mix of pipelines and geology makes the southwestern United States an ideal location for carbon sequestration.
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