DOE to award more than $2.3B for initiatives to reduce CO2 emissions

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced last week plans to allocate more than $2.3 billion to three different initiatives to advance approaches that reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution.

One is a notice of intent for a $2.25 billion effort – funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — to accelerate geologic carbon storage projects capable of permanently storing at least 50 million metric tons of captured CO2. The other two are funding opportunities, which total $91 million, will increase the number of available CO2 storage sites and advance critical carbon management technologies.

“This past month, we saw the highest levels of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere in history, underscoring the fact that our efforts to tackle climate change will be inconsequential if we don’t act now to manage the greenhouse gas emissions that are currently putting public health and our environment at risk,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said. “The President’s budget commitments coupled with the investments from his Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will enable the U.S. to develop cutting-edge technologies to safely and efficiently capture, remove, and store CO2 while revitalizing communities that have powered this nation for generations.”

Enabling the development of carbon management approaches can help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and tackle their impact on climate change.

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) pathways, like direct air capture with storage, remove CO2 pollution directly from the atmosphere to draw down the concentration of CO2. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies mitigate CO2 emissions from point sources such as power plants and industrial facilities by capturing and storing the CO2 they produce. CCS and CDR have the potential to reduce and remove hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 emissions per year.

The $2.25 billion notice of intent issued by the DOE is called the “Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: Storage Validation and Testing (Section 40305): Carbon Storage Assurance Facility Enterprise (CarbonSAFE) Initiative: Phases III, III.5, and IV.” It will help address the feasibility, site characterization, permitting, and construction stages of CCS project development, including project siting processes that will emphasize active engagement of local communities and avoid the imposition of additional burdens on overburdened and underserved communities.

The second is a $45 million funding opportunity called “CarbonSAFE: Phase II – Storage Complex Feasibility” to improve procedures to assess onshore and offshore CO2 storage sites at a commercial scale.

The third is a $46 million funding opportunity called “Carbon Management” for technologies to remove, capture, and convert or store carbon dioxide from utility and industrial sources or the atmosphere.

The DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) will manage the three opportunities.