DOE invests more than $444M into 16 American CO2 safe storage projects
Continuing a push to address some of the emissions forcing climate change, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) this week provided over $444 million for 16 selected projects working to improve infrastructure for CO2’s safe storage.
Pulled from the Investing in America Agenda, the funds will benefit work in 12 states, including large scale pushes of carbon management technologies at industrial operations and power plants. In order to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 – something increasingly unlikely by modern assessments of progress – the DOE noted that the United States would have to capture, transport and permanently store hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 annually. Currently, the country simply lacks the infrastructure.
“President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is about transforming our nation for the better—curbing pollution and providing economic opportunities in communities throughout the nation,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said. “Thanks to this historic agenda, DOE is investing in responsible carbon storage infrastructure to help slow the harmful effects of climate change all while revitalizing local economies and delivering cleaner air to the American people.”
Projects selected for this effort have the capacity to securely store 50 or more million metric tons of CO2 over 30 years. Of these, nine projects will undertake technical, economic and community assessments for potential CO2 storage complexes as part of the CarbonSAFE Phase II: Storage Complex Feasibility. Those projects include items such as a feasibility study from Battelle Memorial Institute to advance carbon capture and storage in the Southeastern Illinois Basin, a study by the Colorado School of Mines of a carbon storage reservoir in the Sacramento Delta and a University of Alaska Fairbanks-led evaluation of a CO2 storage complex for storing power plant emissions in the Cook Inlet Basin.
The remaining seven projects were selected for CarbonSAFE Phase III: Site Characterization and Permitting, and will undertake detailed site characterizations, planning and permitting stages of project development. They have already completed studies of subsurface conditions. This will include projects such as a commercial-scale geologic CO2 storage hub development in Louisiana state waters by Advanced Resources International, Inc. and a study for a proposed Pok Carbon Storage Complex near a natural gas power station in Polk County, Florida, care of Tampa Electric Company, among others.
All of these projects will be overseen by DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL).
