Mr. Kenneth J. Nemeth began his service on April 15, 1972, and has served as the Southern States Energy Board’s Secretary and Executive Director since February 1975. He is responsible for the direction, formulation, development, demonstration, and implementation of all Board programs. He serves as the Principal Investigator for all projects in the SSEB Carbon Management portfolio, including the Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (SECARB), the largest of seven regional initiatives funded by the U.S. Department of Energy with over 100 participating organizations in an elite public-private partnership. Through SECARB, Mr. Nemeth led a team of U.S. companies, universities, partners, subcontractors, and others in the development of six carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) demonstration tests. One of these tests is a fully integrated CCS project at Plant Barry in Bucks, Alabama, that was the first CO2 capture project in the United States developed at a coal-fired power plant, and included a dedicated pipeline for transportation, and injection of captured CO2 into a saline storage reservoir. The project’s technical and demonstration plans were the basis for development and commercialization of Petra Nova near Houston, Texas. Under Mr. Nemeth’s leadership, the partners addressed many non-technical issues related to broader CCS/CCUS commercial deployment, such as the policies that could support development, business arrangements that are necessary to support a fully integrated system, risk assessment and mitigation approaches with multiple operators and landowners, and several first-of-its-kind permitting and regulatory obstacles.
During Mr. Nemeth’s tenure, the Board has undertaken initiatives in a wide range of energy and environmental policy and technology areas. These include the creation of international partnerships and coalitions for clean energy, environmental protection and economic development. His diplomatic and political skills have facilitated partnerships throughout the world. In the 1970s, he was responsible for developing a partnership with the state of Nuevo Leon, Mexico, to examine the potential for importing natural gas. From 1978 to 1982, he developed, organized, and funded the Southern Solar Energy Center through a grant with the U.S. Department of Energy. During the 90s, his leadership enabled the southern region to develop successful collaborative initiatives with the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Industrial Estates Authority of Thailand, and the Republic of Viet Nam.
Mr. Nemeth has participated in a stakeholder capacity on the International Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum since its inception in 2003 and served as a member of the National Coal Council and numerous boards, organizations, task forces and partnerships representing energy and environmental strategies and technologies. He has represented the Board on the State and Regional Policy Panel and the Future Nuclear Power Development Committee of the National Academy of Sciences. His service to the region is acclaimed with honors and awards throughout the country. Mr. Nemeth is a graduate of the Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, and holds a Doctor of Science degree honoris causa from the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Kentucky.
