In December 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy announced the selection of three new projects with a value of $3.18 billion to accelerate the development of advanced coal technologies with carbon capture and storage at commercial-scale. These projects will help to enable commercial deployment to ensure the United States has clean, reliable, and affordable electricity and power. An investment of up to $979 million, including funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will be leveraged by more than $2.2 billion in private capital cost share as part of the third round of the Department’s Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI).

The selections demonstrate technologies that:

  • make progress toward a target CO2 capture efficiency of 90 percent;
  • make progress toward a capture and sequestration goal of less than 10 percent increase in the cost of electricity for gasification systems and less than 35 percent for combustion and oxycombustion systems; and
  • capture and sequester or put to beneficial use an amount of CO2 emissions in excess of the minimum of 300,000 tons per year required by CCPI.

Clean Coal Power Initiative Round III selections include:

  • American Electric Power Company, Inc. (Columbus, OH) (Withdrawn)
    Project Title: Mountaineer Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Demonstration
    American Electric Power (AEP) will design, construct and operate a chilled ammonia process that is expected to effectively capture at least 90 percent of the CO2 (1.5 million metric tons per year) in a 235 megawatt flue gas stream at the existing 1,300 megawatt Appalachian Power Company (APCo) Mountaineer Power Plant near New Haven, WV. The captured CO2 will be treated, compressed, and then transported by pipeline to proposed injection sites located near the capture facility. During the operation phase, AEP plans to permanently store the entire amount of captured CO2 in two separate saline formations located approximately 1.5 miles below the surface. The project team includes AEP, APCo, Schlumberger Carbon Services, Battelle Memorial Institute, CONSOL Energy, Alstom, and an advisory team of geologic experts. (DOE share: $334 million)
    Project Bibliography 
     
  • Southern Company Services, Inc. (Birmingham, AL) (Withdrawn)
    Project Title: Southern Company Carbon Capture and Sequestration Demonstration
    Southern Company Services (SCS) will retrofit a CO2 capture plant on a 160 megawatt flue gas stream at an existing coal-fired power plant, Alabama Power’s Plant Barry, located north of Mobile, AL. The captured CO2 will be compressed and transported through a pipeline, and up to one million metric tons per year of CO2 will be sequestered in deep saline formations. Southern Company Services will also explore and utilize potential opportunities for beneficial use of the CO2 for enhanced oil recovery. In addition to SCS, the project team includes Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America, Schlumberger Carbon Services, Advanced Resources International, the Geological Survey of Alabama, EPRI, Stanford University, the University of Alabama, AJW Group, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. (DOE share: $295 million)
     
  • Summit Texas Clean Energy, LLC (Bainbridge Island, WA)
    Project Title: Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP)
    Summit Texas Clean Energy, LLC will integrate Siemens gasification and power generating technology with carbon capture technologies to effectively capture 90 percent of the carbon dioxide (2.7 million metric tons per year) at a 400 megawatt plant to be built near Midland-Odessa, TX. The captured CO2 will be treated, compressed and then transported by CO2 pipeline to oilfields in the Permian Basin of West Texas, for use in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations. The Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) at the University of Texas will design and assure compliance with a state-of-the-art CO2 sequestration monitoring, verification and accounting program. (DOE share: $450 million)
    Project Bibliography 
     

On July 1, 2009, U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that projects by Basin Electric Power Cooperative and Hydrogen Energy International LLC had been selected under Round III that will utilize funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

  • Basin Electric Power Cooperative (Beulah, N.D.) (Withdrawn)
    Post Combustion CO2 Capture Project - Basin Electric Power Cooperative will partner with Powerspan and Burns & McDonnell to demonstrate the removal of CO2 from the flue gas of a lignite-based boiler by adding CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS) to Basin Electric's existing Antelope Valley Station, located near Beulah, N.D. Powerspan's ECO2® ammonia-based technology will be used to capture CO2 on a 120-megawatt electric-equivalent gas stream from the 450 megawatt Antelope Valley Station Unit 1. The net result will be 90 percent removal of CO2 from the treated flue gas, yielding 3,000 short tons per day (1,000,000 tons per year) of pipeline-quality CO2. The ammonia based SO2 scrubbing system will also produce a liquid stream of ammonium sulfate that will be processed into a fertilizer by-product. (DOE share: $100 million)
     
  • Hydrogen Energy California LLC (Kern County, California) (Suspended)
    Hydrogen Energy California Project: Commercial Demonstration of Advanced IGCC with Full Carbon Capture - Hydrogen Energy California, LLC plans to design, construct, and operate an integrated gasification combined cycle power plant that will take blends of coal and petroleum coke, combined with non-potable water, and convert them into hydrogen and CO2. The CO2 will be separated from the hydrogen using the methanol-based Rectisol process. The hydrogen gas will be used to fuel a power station, and the CO2 will be transported by pipeline to nearby oil reservoirs where it will be injected for storage and used for enhanced oil recovery. The project, which will be located in Kern County, California, will capture more than 2,000,000 tons per year of CO2. (DOE share: $408 million)
    Project Bibliography


On March 9, 2010, U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that a project with Petra Nova has been selected under Round III that will utilize funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. 

  • Petra Nova Parish Holdings LLC (originally NRG Energy, Inc.) (Princeton, NJ)
    Post-Combustion Carbon Capture Demonstration Project: Petra Nova will construct a 60-megawatt carbon capture demonstration facility at the W.A. Parish Unit 7 in Thompsons, Texas. The project will demonstrate an innovative integration of several important advances in carbon capture and sequestration technologies, including the integration of highly efficient co-generation to provide the necessary steam and electricity. The captured CO2 will be used for enhanced oil recovery in one of the Texas Gulf Coast oilfields near the Parish plant. The project will show that post-combustion carbon capture applied to existing plants can be done economically, especially when the plant has the opportunity to sequester carbon dioxide in nearby oilfields. (DOE share: $167 million)
    Project Bibliography