9 Carbon Capture Projects to Receive $44.5MM from US DOE

Nine carbon capture projects have been chosen to receive $44.5 million in federal funding to help them progress.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) announced the selection of nine university and industry-led projects to advance commercial-scale carbon capture, transport, and storage across the USA.

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The regional partnership projects will accelerate the understanding of specific geologic basins to enable the permanent storage of carbon dioxide emissions from industrial operations and power plants, as well as from legacy emissions in the atmosphere, the DOE said in a news release.

The partnerships will provide technical, informational, and educational assistance to stakeholders involved in DOE and private sector-based carbon transport and storage projects located throughout the country, as well as to communities where these projects are located, according to the release.

Selected projects will establish partnerships that include stakeholders with extensive technical, managerial, regulatory, and business expertise specific to carbon transport and storage.

The DOE said that the nine selected project teams will “perform technical assistance designed to reduce project costs and risks, improve monitoring effectiveness, build strategies for engaging with communities, and provide data to support permitting, policy development, and rulemaking”. They are Battelle Memorial Institute (Columbus, Ohio); Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University (Stanford, California); Carbon Solutions LLC (Okemos, Michigan); Texas Tech University (Lubbock, Texas); University of North Dakota Energy & Environmental Research Center (Grand Forks, North Dakota); The University of Texas at Austin (Austin, Texas); The University of Utah (Salt Lake City, Utah); University of Wyoming (Laramie, Wyoming); and Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan).

Each project will receive DOE funding of $5 million or an amount close to it.

“DOE is drawing on its extensive experience in geologic carbon dioxide storage to engage and support a wide range of stakeholders in the development of specific regional-scale projects,” Brad Crabtree, Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, said. “By providing valuable public information and tools, these interdisciplinary partnerships will advance the deployment of basin-scale carbon transport and storage that will enable reductions in carbon dioxide emissions throughout the U.S. economy”.

The DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), under the purview of FECM, will manage the selected projects.

Earlier in the month, the DOE said it plans to disburse a total of $24 million to 21 new projects aimed at expanding the clean energy workforce.

The funding, allocated through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will support training programs at unions, community colleges, and trade schools nationwide. A particular focus is on roles that do not require a four-year degree, the DOE said in a separate news release.

Over 40 percent of the funds will directly benefit union job training. The initiative will expand the existing Industrial Training and Assessment Centers (ITAC) network, formerly known as Industrial Assessment Centers (IACs). ITACs train workers to enhance energy efficiency in small- and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs).