Molasses & Feedstock Wyoming’s Next Carbon Capture Project

An unusual idea for "carbon capture" has surfaced in Campbell County Wyoming.

The company, Cowboy Clean Fuels, is conducting research in Campbell County and partnered with Tiger Transfer, LLC

The idea is to transport molasses and other feedstock from sugar beet refineries according to a story in the Gillette News Record.

The molasses is used as part of a "carbon capture" test.

Already 1,000 metric tons of molasses have been pumped into the ground.

Cowboy Clean Fuels, formed in 2020, combines highly durable carbon dioxide removal with the generation of carbon-negative renewable natural gas from depleted coal-bed methane wells in the Powder River Basin. (Gillette News Record).

Let's go step by step to see how this process is supposed to work.

1). They inject molasses into coal seams more than 1,000 feet below the surface.

2). The theory is that microbes in the coal seams will then consume the molasses.

3) This should produce methane and carbon dioxide.

4). The carbon dioxide is permanently captured and stored in the coal seams.

5). The gas is brought to the surface and used.

Early in January of 2024, the Wyoming Energy Authority provided $7.8 million in matching funds for the Triangle Unit project.

Cowboy Clean Fuels has been purchasing molasses from sugar beet refineries in Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, and Idaho.

Yet with the Trump administration coming into power in 2025, any matching funds for carbon sequestration projects are in jeopardy.

Under the Obama Administration EPA declared CO2 a "pollutant" back in 2009 and called it a major factor in "climate change."

The Trump administration has the opposite view on CO2.

Trump also wants to end subsidies to so-called "green energy" projects.

For this new Wyoming project to be successful it will have to become commercially viable, soon.