Energy Department awards funding for Nebraska carbon capture project

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy recently awarded funding for a design and cost estimate for a carbon dioxide (CO2) capture facility at Nebraska Public Power District’s (NPPD) Gerald Gentleman Station near Sutherland, Nebraska.

The project aims to complete sufficient design engineering to develop a budgetary cost estimate for a retrofitted, 300-megawatt equivalent, commercial-scale facility, which would capture the CO2 emissions from Gentleman Unit 2. It also seeks to provide cost information to inform NPPD’s generation resource planning process.

ION Engineering of Boulder, Colorado will receive $2,797,961 for the project from DOE. NPPD will contribute $250,000 of in-kind support through internal labor and expenses and $50,000 in cash contributions from the District’s Domestic Energy Initiative Fund.

“We continue to be interested in this project and support it because our coal-fired generating resources bring significant value to our customers,” NPPD Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Tom Kent said. “It is important that we find technologies that can reduce CO2 emissions in a cost-effective manner.”

DOE selected seven projects in total to receive a combined $44 million in funding for cost-shared research and development into measures to reduce energy consumption and capital costs associated with carbon capture systems.

The Gerald Gentleman Station project is expected to begin in April and last approximately 18 months. Final results are anticipated by the fourth quarter of 2019.