Hi, I am Nissa Darbonne, executive editor at large for Hart Energy. I'm visiting with Chad Zamarin, executive vice president, corporate strategic development for Williams. 

Nissa Darbonne, executive editor at large, Hart Energy: Thank you for joining us. So, Chad, in the session earlier, you talked about not giving up. Tell us more about how you're not giving up.

Chad Zamarin, executive vice president, corporate strategic development, Williams Cos: Yeah, I'm incredibly hopeful. I mean, we've proven in the United States that natural gas is the most powerful decarbonization tool. Over the last 15 years, it has been the largest contributor to reducing greenhouse gas emissions here, primarily through the displacement of coal and switching to natural gas power generation. But the fact of the matter is, the world burned more coal last year than in any year in the history of the planet. So I'm not giving up on our ability to further build out natural gas infrastructure, because if we want to drive down emissions further here at home and around the world—and we still have over 200 coal plants operating here in the U.S.—and I mentioned this in the panel, in just the last 12 months, China approved an additional 200 coal plants to be built. So we've got more to do to decarbonize and the most powerful tool, we've proven it, it's not a theory. We've proven that natural gas can be the most powerful tool in lowering emissions through displacing dirtier fuels. So I'm hopeful that we can build infrastructure. We're not giving up on the ability to reform our permitting landscape so that we can build infrastructure and keep delivering natural gas here at home and around the world.

ND: Thank you. The new Haynesville pipeline—there’s a CCS component to it. Where is the CCS component in it and how does it work? 

CZ: So the Haynesville is great. It’s in an area where we've got a large footprint. We now gather over 5 Bcf a day in the Haynesville, and that's 5% of the nation's natural gas supply. We actually have a production area of our own in the Haynesville. And it is an incredibly efficient supply basin for the United States and increasingly, to connect into LNG exports and for the rest of the world. 

What we want to do broadly across our system, and the Haynesville is a great case study, we want to be able to demonstrate from the production all the way through to the end use with credibility, the emissions benefits of natural gas and the natural gas value chain. And so we're building our gathering system out in Haynesville. We're building a pipeline from the Haynesville down to the LNG corridor. We're going to be taking CO2 and actually gathering it like we do gas in the Haynesville basin, putting it into that pipeline system, moving it down to a treating facility where we will remove the CO2 and then permanently sequester it below ground. So we're going to be able to demonstrate that this is the cleanest, lowest carbon emissions, natural gas value chain on the planet. And we want to be able to deliver with credibility cargoes to friends and allies around the world and demonstrate the emissions benefit, both of what we can do with that energy when we displace dirtier fields overseas, but also how we can decarbonize the existing value chain.

ND: It kind of brings me back—just one last question—[on] permitting reform. On permitting reform, how hopeful are you that this is imminent, or at least it'll happen in our century?

CZ: I'm an optimist, but I will tell you it's become really hard to build infrastructure in the United States. You know I mentioned earlier that you can argue it's because of a crisis. But in Europe, Germany from concept to completion built a regasification terminal in under 10 months. We've been trying to build a pipeline in the northeast for eight years. It's 94% complete, but it's taken eight years to try to complete a pipeline in the U.S. We've got to be able to build infrastructure again in the United States. If we want to achieve renewables, if we want to further accelerate electrification, if we want to deliver the benefits of natural gas here at home and around the world, we've got to be able to build infrastructure. And so I'm hopeful, but it has become extremely difficult to build infrastructure here in the United States. 

But I will say we've seen encouraging signs from this administration, from this new Congress—a  priority being put on permitting reform. And there are some very simple fixes, you know, fixing the water certification process under the jurisdiction, fixing the judicial review process so that you can't, without good cause, you can't slow down or stop an infrastructure project. We're going to need that to build out renewables. We're going to need that to further build out natural gas infrastructure, which by the way, we need to help support renewable infrastructure. We've actually seen on our systems, as renewables increase across our footprint, we’ve seen increases in peak gas demand because you need gas to be that backstop. So we may deliver less on average gas, but when the wind's not blowing and the sun's not shining, you're going to need the natural gas to pick up that load. And so, to reach our full potential as a country, we're going have to get back to building. So that's why I'm hopeful that permitting reform will get done.

ND: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thanks for sharing all of that with our viewers. To find out more, visit hartenergy.com.

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