Today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy (FE) announced plans to make $160 million in federal funding available to help recalibrate the Nation’s vast fossil-fuel and power infrastructure for decarbonized energy and commodity production. The funding, for cost-shared cooperative agreements, is aimed to develop technologies for the production, transport, storage, and utilization of fossil-based hydrogen, with progress towards net-zero carbon emissions.

By completing its “first fire” of a new natural gas infrastructure system, the National Carbon Capture Center (NCCC) is paving the way for testing of carbon capture technologies using actual natural gas-derived flue gas starting in early 2021. This achievement marks a significant milestone for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) NETL-sponsored facility as it expands the variability of carbon capture technologies for natural gas power generation, in addition to coal-fired power plants.

NETL researchers joined other innovators and industry experts from around the globe as they pitched cutting-edge technologies with commercial potential at the 2020 TechConnect Business Virtual Summit and Showcase, held virtually Nov. 19-20.

NETL inventions to separate carbon dioxide (CO2) from post-combustion flue gases and remove contaminants from water sources won at the recent 2020 TechConnect Innovation Awards for their ability to contribute to a more sustainable environment while providing potential economic benefits. Researchers David Hopkinson, Victor Kusuma and Surendar Venna earned an award for their development of “Crosslinked Polymer Blend Membranes for CO2 Separation” which builds upon previous work to capture greenhouse gases from the nation’s power plant fleet.

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy, in collaboration with the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Office of Science and NETL announced a request for information (RFI) about “enhanced weathering” research opportunities that could lead to advances in the capture and storage of carbon dioxide (CO2).

Photo Credit: Southern Company Photo The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy (FE) and NETL have renewed an agreement with Southern Company to operate the National Carbon Capture Center (NCCC), setting the stage for expansion at the DOE-sponsored facility into new areas of research to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-based power plants, and to advance carbon dioxide (CO2) utilization and direct air capture (DAC) solutions.

Next week’s DOE-NETL 2020 Virtual Integrated Project Review Meeting will feature the nation’s leading experts in the field of developing cost-effective carbon capture technologies for the fossil energy power-generation sector.

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and NETL have announced the award of approximately $72 million in federal funding to support the development and advancement of carbon capture technologies under two funding opportunity announcements (FOAs). Under this cost-shared research and development (R&D), DOE is awarding $51 million to nine new projects for coal and natural gas power and industrial sources. DOE is awarding a total of $21 million to 18 projects for technologies that remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, a process known as “direct air capture.”

NETL’s 2020 Compendium of Carbon Capture Technology, which provides a technical summary of the Lab’s Carbon Capture program, is now available for viewing online. The document allows stakeholders in corporations, small businesses, universities, other national laboratories, nonprofit organizations and government agencies to learn more about the activities of the Carbon Capture program.

NETL researchers have developed a method to custom-formulate low-cost membranes to more effectively separate carbon dioxide from nitrogen in a high volume of flue gas. This ability to achieve both high selectivity and high permeability during post-combustion carbon capture operations is one of the most difficult problems facing membrane researchers today.