Secretary Chu Announces $2.4 billion in Funding for
Carbon Capture and Storage Projects
Funds to Advance Research, Development and Deployment of Carbon Capture and Storage Technologies and Infrastructure
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Washington, D.C. – U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu today announced at the National Coal Council that $2.4 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be used to expand and accelerate the commercial deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The funding is part of the Obama Administration’s ongoing effort to develop technologies to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas and contributor to global climate change, into the atmosphere while creating new jobs.
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“To prevent the worst effects of climate change, we must accelerate our efforts to capture and store carbon in a safe and cost-effective way. This funding will both create jobs now and help position the United States to lead the world in CCS technologies, which will be in increasing demand in the years ahead,” said Secretary Steven Chu
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The Department is posting Notices of Intent to issue this funding, supporting the following initiatives:
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Clean Coal Power Initiative: $800 million will be used to expand DOE’s Clean Coal Power Initiative, which provides government co-financing for new coal technologies that can help utilities cut sulfur, nitrogen and mercury pollutants from power plants. The new funding will allow researchers broader CCS commercial-scale experience by expanding the range of technologies, applications, fuels, and geologic formations that are tested.
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Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage: $1.52 billion will be used for a two-part competitive solicitation for large-scale CCS from industrial sources. The industrial sources include, but are not limited to, cement plants, chemical plants, refineries, steel and aluminum plants, manufacturing facilities, and petroleum coke-fired and other power plants. The second part of the solicitation will include innovative concepts for beneficial CO2 reuse (CO22 capture from the atmosphere. In addition, two existing industrial and innovative reuse projects, previously selected via competitive solicitations, will be expanded to accelerate scale-up and field testing: mineralization, algae production, etc.) and CO
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Ramgen Modification ($20 million): funding will allow the industrial-sized scale-up and testing of an existing advanced CO2 compression project with the objective of reducing time to commercialization, technology risk, and cost. Work on this project will be done in Bellevue, WA.
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Arizona Public Services Modification ($70.6 million): funding will permit the existing algae-based carbon mitigation project to expand testing with a coal-based gasification system. The goal is to produce fuels from domestic resources while reducing atmospheric CO2 emissions. The overall process will minimize production of carbon dioxide in the gasification process to produce a substitute natural gas (SNG) from coal. The host facility for this project is the Cholla Power Plant located in Holbrook, AZ.
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Geologic Sequestration Site Characterization: $50 million will fund a competitive solicitation to characterize a minimum of 10 geologic formations throughout the United States. Projects will be required to complement and build upon the existing characterization base created by DOE’s Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships, looking at broadening the range and extent of geologic basins that have been studied to date. The goal of this effort is to accelerate the determination of potential geologic storage sites.
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Geologic Sequestration Training and Research: $20 million will be used to educate and train a future generation of geologists, scientists, and engineers with skills and competencies in geology, geophysics, geomechanics, geochemistry and reservoir engineering disciplines needed to staff a broad national CCS program. This program will emphasize advancing educational opportunities across a broad range of minority colleges and universities and will use DOE’s University Coal Research Program as the model for implementing the program.
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The funding from the Recovery Act is a direct investment in CCS-related infrastructure encompassing a diverse portfolio of research and demonstration among electric power and industrial facilities, academic institutions, and other organizations operating across the United States. DOE’s Recovery Act projects will stimulate private sector infrastructure investments due to the significant amount of cost sharing that will occur in all large-scale projects to be selected for implementation. These combined public and private investments will establish a proving ground for creating a safe, reliable, widely-available, environmentally-responsible, and affordable CCS infrastructure.
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In the coming few weeks, we may see some analysis of this breakdown of expenditures — from scientific, business, climate policy commentators, etc. It will be interesting to see what such reactions are.
As many people — like long-time coalfields activist Cindy Rank –have seen over and over, the use of basically “junk science” research to hold out bogus hope for “dealing with” an intractable externality of coal mining — take acid mine drainage, for example — has been par for the course, de rigeur, for decades.
But I have the impression that so much is at stake for humanity in climate change — including big, big blocks of long-term capital — that the CCS research being funded by DOE is not just “PR” expenditures, to delay doing something else.
I hope so!
I would hardly call the ongoing research into CCS “junk science.” Advances are being made, including in nations other than the US. Not spending the money to see if we can use America’s most abundant energy resource in a carbon-neutral way would be irresponsible. It is good to see that Pres. Obama is following through with his campaign promise regarding CCS and coal.
Phil
Tom can speak for himself, but I have a couple thoughts on this too…
I think one of the reasons that many folks are skeptical about CCS is that the coal industry has for so long tried to paint certain things as magic bullets that will solve the obvious externalities of mining — like acid mine drainage or greenhouse emissions. Or, for that matter, folks who argued we don’t need to reduce respirable dust standards for underground coal mines, because we can just come up with some fancy helmet miners can wear instead.
Those magic bullets are held out in a way that helps politicians and the public avoid having to make really hard decisions. And nobody likes to make hard decisions.
There are other factors at play here, too.
For example, the coal industry and some utilities are making out like there’s no way to deal with greenhouse emissions from coal because it’s just way, way too expensive. Of course, that’s what industries always say when confronted with new regulations aimed at dealing with their obvious negative consequences. Isn’t that what coal operators said about the 1969 mine safety act, the 1977 mine safety act and the 2006 MINER Act? Yes, it is.
But in all of those cases — as with most new regulations — smart folks within an industry find a way to comply and still make money.
On top of that, we have some lobby groups that are trying to make CCS sound like it’s easy and it’s just around the corner, when the reality is that’s simply not the case — if it were, then the UMW wouldn’t have to be arguing for relaxing the 2020 emissions limits to allow it to be developed and deployed.
Groups like the American Council for Clean Coal Electricity are doing this … I know the UMWA isn’t listed as a member of that group, but you all have worked with them on some of these issues.
It’s great that the UMWA is engaging on the issue, rather than sticking its head in the sand.
The key thing you said, though is that we need to be spending money “to see” if we can use coal in a carbon-neutral way.
There’s no guarantee right now that this is going to be possible of affordable — and places like Appalachian need to understand that so that we can plan for the possibility that CCS won’t work.
Ken.
I tend to agree with what Phil Smith says about the seriousness and utility of the CCS research that is being newly funded.
I will be interested to see what independent analysts and CCS experts, including skeptics, say about these research areas, now that some details are forthcoming.
As Ken Ward amplified, “more research” has been a cover for unconscionable delay by the coal industry — in many, many instances.
That history is one big reason why many people, perhaps unfortunately, see funding CCS research as just another example of “smoke and mirrors,” to avoid facing hard truths.
I don’t share that perspective. Nor do James Hansen and Al Gore, so I’m in the company of good eco-types, as well as the UMWA.
But it’s worth remembering and understanding the many reasons why some experts and many folks who have been around the coal industry, in good faith, have a skeptical perspective on CCS and its future.
People might look at the work of Vaclav Smil for starters, readily available on the internet.
Good dialogue here!