Gov. Doug Burgum said companies are now looking at investing in North Dakota for carbon capture projects, with value-added components.
Burgum told the Greater North Dakota Chamber policy summit in Bismarck companies that use the ESG investment criteria – Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance – have a lot of money to invest.
"We now have over $13 billion in identified deals in people that are wanting to come and invest in our state," Burgum said. "These are companies that are in carbon-based industries that want to help solve the carbon problem through innovation, not through regulation."
Burgum said studies have shown that in the Bakken, North Dakota has the ability to store the entire nation’s CO2 output for 50 years. He said the companies can then extract the carbon for other uses.
"People have said to me, 'How are we going to pay to become carbon-neutral?" Burgum said. "We are going to get paid."
Burgum said people are going to want to store their CO2, and North Dakota can store it for years, until companies decide we need more carbon to build build better roads, for example, or more airplane parts.
"We'll have a bunch of carbon," Burgum said. "They will pay us to take it, and we can get paid a second time for them to use it down-the-road."
Burgum called it an incredible opportunity for North Dakota.