Department Of Energy Awarding $575 Million In Carbon Capture Research-And-Development Grants

WASHINGTON — The Energy Department said Tuesday it was awarding $575 million for carbon capture research-and-development projects in 15 states.

The experimental technique involves storing carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants and other sources underground, in an attempt to reduce pollution blamed for contributing to global warming.

"This is a major step forward in the fight to reduce carbon emissions from industrial plants," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "These new technologies will not only help fight climate change, they will create jobs now and help position the United States to lead the world in clean coal technologies, which will only increase in demand in the years ahead."

All told, he said, the department has invested more than $4 billion in carbon storage and capture, matched by more than $7 billion in private investments.

The newest money will fund 22 projects in 15 states, ranging from evaluation of geologic sites for carbon storage to development of turbo-machinery and engines to help improve carbon capture and storage. The projects, in states including California, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New York and Texas, are being funded from the economic stimulus law.

President Barack Obama wants a cost-effective deployment of carbon capture and storage within 10 years – despite questions about the technology and skepticism about its feasibility. He created a task force this year charged with coming up with a plan to overcome barriers to such deployment.

One issue identified by the task force was liability, because a sudden release of large amounts of carbon dioxide can kill by asphyxiation. The task force called for several options to be considered: maintaining the current legal framework; putting limits on claims; establishing an industry-financed trust fund to pay damages after a site is closed; or transferring of liability to the federal government following a site closure, under certain conditions.

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On the Net:

Full list of projects: http://www.energy.gov/news/documents/ICCS_Project_Selections.pdf

Comments

[Genders]

01:42 PM on 09/28/2010

Make coal pay for it's own research. It's wind solar and waste bio mas bio fuels that need our help.

[Bryan Seigneur]

01:17 AM on 09/21/2010

A carbon price is needed in order to determine if this approach would attract free market capital on its merits. Instead of accepting fines for polluting, the coal industry convinces its legislators to throw money at this pipe dream to see if it can work, allowing them to get money from coal for one more year. The general populous buys into this nonsense that shifting off antiquated fossil energy technology will be difficult. If money were taken from fossil fuel in the form of an yearly-increasing fee and fed back into the overall economy as a mirrored universal tax cut, energy security and minimization of the coming climate problem would occur in 10 years or less. CCS, nuclear, solar, wind--everything, would compete on economic merit, and our money would not be wasted.

[OkieMon]

10:48 AM on 09/10/2010

wasted money.....

[John Mainstream]

12:25 PM on 09/09/2010

Written by jmalin of Current TV: “A new technology exists that can turn CO2 into concrete and it's here now. This green technology solution can eliminate 100% of the CO2 pollution produced by a coal plant and turn it into concrete.

Calera, a California start up, is one of the few companies at the forefront of this new green solution. The process, in a nutshell, takes the CO2 that would normally be pumped into the air and pumps it into sea water. Through "mineralization via aqueous precipitation", the CO2 is turned into a substance that can replace Portland cement which is the key man made catalytic ingredient used to make concrete. So, instead of coal power plants pumping CO2 pollution into the air, perhaps they can create building materials!”

[Dr Juan]

11:48 PM on 09/08/2010

Such nonsense - based on a questionable premise that CO2 causes global warming. Other much more prevalent gasses in the atmosphere,like methane SO2, and particularly H2O, have a dominating effect compared to wisps of CO2. Besides CO2 that is generated is quickly absorbed by plants. The more carbon we burn, the faster global photosynthesis runs to absorb it. True, the equilibrium level creeps up as we emit more and more. But if we stopped burning anything, the CO2 level would plummet to pre industrial levels within a few short years. If there is a "problem" it is catalytic converters eliminating soot which itself has the beneficial effect of nucleating water drops that generate cloud cover.

[John Mainstream]

03:06 PM on 09/08/2010

"Clean coal" needs to reduce acid rain and Mercury released into our environment.

[John Mainstream]

03:04 PM on 09/08/2010

Instead of trying to store carbon as a gas, the key is to store carbon in solid materials.