Google Carbon Capture Deal Paves Way for Greener Gas Plants

• Google's carbon capture facility in Illinois is the first in a series of projects to reduce emissions from gas plants powering the AI boom.
  

January 19 - Google in October signed a deal to purchase electricity from a 400 MW natural gas plant planned in Illinois that will feature carbon capture and storage (CCS) as it looks to secure a steady supply of low-carbon energy for its data centers. The Broadwing Energy Center will be developed by Low Carbon Infrastructure (LCI) at an existing industrial site operated by Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) where the agribusiness company has historically injected carbon dioxide underground from ethanol production. Google will procure the electricity from Broadwing and ADM will acquire the steam.

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Broadwing is the first project in a long-term collaboration between Google and LCI to develop future CCS facilities in the U.S. and demonstrate commercial-scale deployment, Michael Terrell, Head of Advanced Energy at Google, told Reuters Events. The plant will capture approximately 90% of its carbon emissions.

“Our long-term goal is to accelerate the path for CCS technology to become more accessible and affordable globally, helping to increase generating capacity while enabling emission reductions,” Terrell said.

“We view natural gas with CCS as a critical source of clean firm power and intend for this collaboration to fast-track technical and operational improvements, from continuing to raise CO2 capture rates to improving system performance and economics,” he added.

The partnership between Google and LCI comes as power-hungry Big Tech groups shift to an "all of the above” strategy to secure power for their data centers. Major tech companies have been huge buyers of clean power but the race to expand computing capacity has prompted them to also turn to gas-fired and nuclear power. Carbon capture will be key to limiting emissions going forward.

CHART: Forecast global carbon capture capacity by industrySource: Global CCS Institute, 2025. Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

Construction of the Broadwing facility is scheduled to start this year and the plant is slated to start producing power in 2029 followed by the carbon capture component in 2030. Broadwing can be replicated elsewhere because instead of relying on government funding, it will be funded through a traditional project finance model that is familiar to global banks, said Jonathan Wiens, CEO of LCI.

“We’re going to do this again, and again, and again and others will be doing it as well and that’s great ... it’s a new industry that is going to start bursting and growing, but you have to do the first projects and that will give others confidence,” Wiens said.

Cost challenge

CCS projects for power generation are high risk and costly because of the complexities of installing this early-stage technology and they need a lot of energy to separate, compress, and transport the CO2, as well as additional infrastructure, such as pipelines.

At present, JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Petra Nova CCS facility at a coal-fired generation facility in Texas is the only operational large-scale CCS project for power generation in the U.S.

Wiens forecasts the next projects combining gas-fired generation and CCS will be done in partnerships with hyperscalers or other large corporations. Learning by doing will lead to some design changes and some optimization as well as a more streamlined supply chain, which will lower costs, he said.

U.S. CCS developers have faced uncertainty over federal incentives that help to reduce investment risks and encourage the development of larger facilities. In 2025, the Trump administration cut over $23 billion in funding to more than 650 energy projects, including nearly $1 billion for 95 carbon capture projects, according to a Clean Air Task Force (CATF) report published in November.

On the positive side, Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill preserved tax credits for CCS projects that start construction before 2033 ($85/metric ton), which would boost the industry, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in July 2025.

The cogeneration of steam and power at Broadwing will help to reduce costs and this could be replicated on other projects, said John Thompson, Technology and Markets Director at CATF.

Texas is well positioned to develop a home-grown CCS industry as industries like power generation, cement, refining and petrochemicals produce over 367 million metric tons (Mt) of CO2 in the state annually, Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) said in a report in October.

Texas already hosts 2,325 miles of CO2 pipeline infrastructure, the report said, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in November granted Texas authority to issue permits for underground injection wells under the Safe Drinking Water Act, which could help accelerate CCS deployment in the state.

Gas growth

Gas-fired power stations are the largest source of electricity for U.S. data centers, data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows, and this will continue in the coming years due to their need for 24/7 power and as clean energy development is hampered by grid connection and policy challenges.

Meta is looking at different technologies to accelerate the decarbonization of the U.S. power grid, including enhanced geothermal, long duration energy storage and carbon capture, Urvi Parekh, Global Head of Energy at Meta, told Reuters Events in December.

Last month, NextEra Energy announced a partnership with ExxonMobil to develop gas-fired plants with carbon capture that will supply power to data centers. The companies plan to build a proof-of-concept facility near an ExxonMobil pipeline that transports carbon dioxide in the Southeast U.S.

“We've secured approximately 2,500 acres with advantaged access to high-voltage transmission and will jointly market this 1.2 GW site to hyperscalers in the first quarter of 2026,” a NextEra spokesperson told Reuters Events.

The project could lead to multi-site development opportunities, the company said.