The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy (FE) and National Energy Technology Laboratory today announced the availability of $12 million to advance new geological carbon storage projects that enable safe, cost-effective, and permanent geologic storage of carbon dioxide (CO₂).  Two funding opportunity announcements (FOA), under FE’s Carbon Storage Program, will advance the development and validation of storage technologies associated with enhanced oil recovery operations or injection into a saline reservoir.

Partnership for Offshore Carbon Storage Resources and Technology Development in the Gulf of Mexico ($8 million)

This funding opportunity will facilitate offshore geologic CO₂ storage in the Gulf of Mexico by combining the capabilities and experience of industry, academia, and government into one or more partnership(s).
The partnership(s) will develop and validate key technologies and best practices to ensure safe, long-term, economically viable carbon storage in offshore environments. The knowledge created by the successful partnership(s) will form the basis for planning offshore carbon-storage projects. 

Technology Development to Ensure Environmentally Sustainable CO₂ Injection Operations ($4 million)

This funding opportunity will address key knowledge and experience gaps in carbon storage technology. Advancing capabilities to assess CO₂ stored in the deep subsurface is critical in ensuring secure and verifiable storage, while reducing long-term operational cost.

This FOA seeks projects that will quantify the limits of detection and thresholds of uncertainty, and will develop modeling and monitoring methods, technologies, and tools to detect stored CO₂ and assess CO₂plume boundaries over time within a target reservoir. 

The Office of Fossil Energy funds research, development, and demonstration projects to reduce the risk and cost of developing advanced technologies to effectively use the nation’s fossil energy resources. To learn more about the programs within the Office of Fossil Energy, visit the FE website or sign up for FE news announcements.