Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)  and NETL have announced up to $30 million in federal funding for cost-shared research and development (R&D) for front-end engineering design (FEED) studies for carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture systems. The projects, funded by the Office of Fossil Energy’s Carbon Capture program will support FEED studies for CO₂ systems on both coal and natural gas power plants.

 “With the Department’s ongoing investment in advanced carbon capture technologies, we will ensure that we can continue using our abundant domestic resources to power the Nation in a way that’s environmentally sound,” said Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes. “Carbon capture plays an integral role in reducing emissions and safeguarding the environment, while simultaneously protecting our energy security.”

DOE is investing in R&D projects for transformational carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies because they are a critical component of driving down the cost of CCUS deployment. Supporting FEED studies for commercial carbon capture systems is necessary to fully understand the costs of these systems and the next step toward wide-scale deployment of the technology.

CCUS systems are proven to significantly reduce carbon emissions from power plants that use coal and gas. For example, the Petra Nova Project, which is supported by DOE and located near Houston, Texas, has captured more than 1 million tons of CO₂ per year since coming online in 2017. In fact, the facility captures enough carbon dioxide each day to remove the equivalent of 350,000 cars from the road.

Following on the success of the Petra Nova demonstration, projects awarded from this FEED study FOA could potentially be the next commercial CCUS projects built in the United States.

Read more details here.