Bipartisan Senate legislation expected Wednesday would set aside more than $160 million over five years for new technology to clean up abandoned oil and gas wells and use them for alternative purposes, including renewable energy.
Sens. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) teamed up to help remediate thousands of so-called “orphaned” oil and gas wells across the country that emit greenhouse gases and which companies have abandoned because they’re no longer economically viable. The idea would be to reuse the wells for activities such as carbon dioxide storage and geothermal power production.
The Abandoned Well Remediation Research and ...