US DOE awards $890 million to projects using carbon capture technologies

The US Department of Energy's Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations announced up to $890 million in funding for three projects that feature carbon capture and storage technologies as part of its Carbon Capture Demonstration Projects Program.

The program has $2.5 billion in available funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law that aims to support efforts to implement carbon management technologies.

The projects are located in Texas, North Dakota and California, according to a DOE statement released Dec. 14. Combine, the CCS projects have the potential to prevent 7.75 million mt of CO2 emissions from being released each year -- this equates to the annual emissions of 1.7 million gasoline-powered cars, according to the statement.

The DOE touts carbon capture as a necessary tool for meeting the Biden administration's plan for a net-zero emissions economy. The department has previously estimated that between 400 million and 1.8 billion mt of CO2 emissions would need to be captured and stored annually by 2050 to reach the net-zero goal.

The selected projects are subject to award negotiation and are as follows:

Baytown Carbon Capture and Storage Project in Baytown, Texas

• Plans to capture emissions from the Baytown Energy Center
• CO2 will be transported in new and existing pipelines and stored in sites on the Gulf Coast
• Plans to use greywater cooling to reduce freshwater use
• Aims to capture up to 2 million mt of CO2 annually
• Federal cost share is up to $270 million

Project Tundra in Center, North Dakota

• Plans to capture emissions from coal-fired power plant Milton R. Young Station
• Captured CO2 will be stored underground near the station
• Aims to capture up to 4 million mt annually
• Federal cost share up to $350 million

Sutter Decarbonization Project in Yuba City, California

• Plans to capture emissions from the Sutter Energy Center, a 550-MW natural gas combined-cycle power plant
• CO2 will be transported and sequestered underground
• Aims to be the first in the world to deploy air-cooling system over water-cooling system
• Aims to capture up to 1.75 million mt annually
• Federal cost share up to $270 million

The Baytown and Yuba City projects are led by electricity generator company Calpine. The company's representatives in a statement highlighted carbon capture as an important technology for decarbonizing the electricity sector.

"Facilities like Baytown will be part of our energy infrastructure for the foreseeable future, and now with CCS technology, we can decarbonize them," Caleb Stephenson, Executive Vice President of Commercial Operations at Calpine, said.