The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy (FE) and NETL have issued a Notice of Intent (NOI) for a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to complete at least two front-end engineering and design (FEED) studies for commercial-scale carbon capture systems on coal and natural gas power plants. DE-FOA-0002058, Front-End Engineering and Design Studies for Carbon Capture Systems on Coal and Natural Gas Power Plants, will support FE’s Carbon Capture Program. FE anticipates that the FOA will support at least two projects. The objective of the planned FOA is to competitively solicit and award research and development (R&D) projects for FEED studies of at least two commercial-scale carbon capture power projects for retrofit at an existing domestic coal-fired power plant and for a coal or natural gas plant that generates carbon dioxide suitable for utilization or storage.   

An ambitious computational modeling project led by NETL identified membrane materials that will make carbon capture more affordable for coal-fired power plants, reducing the cost to less than $50 per metric ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) removed. NETL’s Jan Steckel, Ph.D., worked with Chris Wilmer, Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh, and NETL colleagues Olukayode Ajayi, Ph.D., and Samir Budhathoki to model the cost of carbon capture for more than 1 million hypothetical mixed matrix membrane (MMM) materials using powerful computational tools. Their work is highlighted in the latest edition of the high-impact journal Energy and Environmental Science.

ClearPath Foundation, a non-profit organization that specializes in developing policies and research that supports clean energy initiatives through small government, free markets, and American innovation will visit NETL in Morgantown, West Virginia, Tuesday, Dec. 4 to learn about the Laboratory’s work on carbon capture and storage, solid oxide fuel cells, systems engineering analysis, chemical looping, and hybrid performance – technology research areas with potential for advancing clean energy innovations. According to NETL Director Brian Anderson, Ph.D., in addition to advancing public policy initiatives in support of clean energy initiatives including carbon capture and storage research, ClearPath has helped fund the National Carbon Capture Center in Wilsonville, Alabama, which works to accelerate the commercialization of advanced technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from both natural gas and coal power generation. NETL has a history of working with the Center to install and evaluate promising carbon capture technologies for scale-up and future commercial deployment.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is announcing up to $30 million in federal funding for cost-shared research and development (R&D) under the second closing of the Office of Fossil Energy’s (FE’s) Novel and Enabling Carbon Capture Transformational Technologies funding opportunity announcement. Selected projects will support the development of solvent, sorbent, and membrane technologies to address scientific challenges and knowledge gaps associated with reducing the cost of carbon capture, supporting DOE’s goal to develop technologies that can significantly reduce the cost of CO2capture from coal fired power plants. Specifically, projects must address one area of interest, Development of Novel Transformational Materials and Processes, with the following three subtopics: Subtopic 1A: Novel Solvents for Lab-Scale R&D

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy (FE) has selected five additional projects to receive approximately $11.3 million in federal funding for cost-shared research and development. These projects are supported through the funding opportunity announcement (FOA) DE-FOA-0001792, Novel and Enabling Carbon Capture Transformational Technologies. Selected projects will support DOE’s Carbon Capture Program, which is developing transformational, step-change, low-cost capture processes and enabling technologies that will maximize the efficiency of our nation's fossil-based power generation infrastructure. The selected projects will join six other projects under this FOA chosen by FE to receive approximately $17.6 million in February 2018. The National Energy Technology Laboratory will manage these additional projects, and descriptions follow.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy (FE) has selected five projects to receive approximately $6.4 million in federal funding for cost-shared research and development projects. These projects will develop transformational technologies for carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and purification, from lab scale through bench scale, for coal gasification facilities. The funding opportunity announcement (FOA) DE-FOA-0001830, Transformational Pre-Combustion Carbon Capture Technologies, supports these projects.

The Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative (CCSI), led by the Office of Fossil Energy’s (FE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), released the CCSI Toolset as open source software. The CCSI Toolset is the nation’s only suite of computational tools and models designed to help maximize learning and reduce cost and risk during the scale-up process for carbon capture technologies. The toolset is critically important to perform much of the design and calculations, thus reducing the cost of both pilot projects and commercial facilities. The release makes the toolset code available for researchers in industry, government, and academia to freely use, modify, and customize in support of the development of carbon capture technologies and other related technologies. The toolset is hosted on GitHub. Since the release of CCSI’s first toolset in 2012, the initiative exceeded goals, and earned an R&D 100 Award – an "Oscar of Innovation" – as one of the top 100 technology products of 2016. The major capabilities of the CCSI Toolset include:

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy (FE) has announced up to $7 million in federal funding for cost-shared research and development (R&D) projects under the funding opportunity announcement (FOA) DE-FOA-0001830, Transformational Pre-Combustion Carbon Capture Technologies. Projects selected under this FOA will support FE’s Carbon Capture Program by advancing carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and separation systems to help meet overall fossil energy performance goals.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has selected six projects to receive $17.6 million in federal funding under the Office of Fossil Energy’s Novel and Enabling Carbon Capture Transformational Technologies funding opportunity announcement. This FOA will address the cost and operational challenges associated with current CO2 capture technologies that are commercially available for industry, providing for additional development to these technologies at coal-fired power plants. Some of the challenges that will be addressed include a need to improve the reliability and operational flexibility; reduce high capital costs; and reduce the high-energy penalty associated with operating existing technology.

A patented technology from NETL inventors offers a cost-effective way to enable low-carbon electricity generation and efficient fuel processing, among other benefits. This game-changing technology is a physical solvent that provides a way for chemical plants, power plants, refineries and others to separate carbon dioxide (CO2), hydrogen sulfide (H2S) from hydrogen (H2), carbon monoxide, (CO), and nitrogen (N2). The novel solvent selectively removes weak acid gases, such as CO2, from high-pressure gas streams composed of CO2 and hydrogen, such as those found in carbon capture, hydrogen purification, and natural gas sweetening applications. What makes NETL’s solvents unique is its ability to use waste heat rather than electricity to drive the solvent’s regeneration. This translates to cost savings realized by increased efficiency.