DOE announces 18 carbon capture projects

As part of a multi-year program of funding for the research and development of carbon capture and storage, or CCS, technologies, the U.S. Department of Energy has selected 18 projects to research innovative techniques that can help drive down the cost of capturing carbon from coal-fired power plants, the agency announced Nov. 7. Carbon capture is the first step in a CCS system, which also requires transportation of captured carbon dioxide gas to a suitable underground storage site and the injection of the gas into an underground rock reservoir.

Reducing the costs of a CCS operation to a point where the operation becomes economically viable is a major challenge.

“In the past four years we’ve more than doubled renewable energy generation from wind and solar power. However, coal and other fossil fuels still provide 80 percent of our energy, 70 percent of our electricity, and will be a major part of our energy future for decades,” said Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz when announcing the new research funding. “That’s why any serious effort to protect future generations from the worst effects of climate change must also include developing, demonstrating and deploying the technologies to use our abundant fossil fuel resources as cleanly as possible.”

The Department of Energy said that it will contribute nearly $84 million to the projects in a cost-sharing arrangement with industry, universities and other research institutions. The research will target carbon capture in traditional coal-fired power plants and from plants that involve the gasification of coal or other carbon-based feedstocks. The agency said that the Obama administration has so far invested $6 billion in clean coal technologies as part of the president’s all-of-the-above approach to U.S. energy.

—Alan Bailey