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Fossil-fueled Power
Non-Fossil Generation
End-Use Efficiency
Electricity T&D
Carbon Sequestration
Non-CO2 Reductions
Other GHG Reductions

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Terrestrial Seq.
Carb. Capture&Storage
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 Carbon Capture & Geologic Sequestration
 
 Background


Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) is a process consisting of separation of CO2 from industrial and energy-related sources, transport to a storage location, and long-term isolation from the atmosphere. Capture of CO2 can be applied to large point sources. The CO2 would then be compressed and transported for storage in geological formations, for use in industrial processes, or in other long-term storage sites.

Large point sources of CO2 include large fossil fuel or biomass energy facilities, major CO2-emitting industries, natural gas production, synthetic fuel plants and fossil fuel-based hydrogen production plants.

Potential technical storage methods are: geological storage (in geological formations such as oil and gas fields, unmineable coal beds and deep saline formations), ocean storage (direct release into the ocean water column or onto the deep seafloor) and industrial fixation of CO2 into inorganic carbonates.

In many cases, injection of CO2 into a geologic formation can enhance the recovery of hydrocarbons, providing value-added byproducts that can offset the cost of CO2 capture and sequestration. Two of these value-added applications are discussed below: enhanced oil recovery and enhanced coal bed methane.
 

CO2 Capture

Carbon sequestration begins with the separation and capture of CO2 from power plant process or flue gas and other point sources. At present, this process is both costly and energy intensive; CO2 capture accounts for the majority of the cost of the CO2 sequestration system. Therefore, R&D goals for carbon sequestration have as a major focus improving the efficiency and reducing the costs of capturing CO2 emissions from coal-fired power generating plants.

Depending on the process or power plant application in question, there are three main approaches to capturing the CO2 generated from a primary fossil fuel - post-combustion, pre-combustion, and oxycombustion:

 

Post-Combustion Systems. Post-combustion systems separate CO2 from the flue gases produced by the combustion of the primary fuel in air. The flue gases, if controlled, would exit the power station into the surrounding atmosphere. These systems normally use a liquid solvent to capture the small fraction of CO2 present in a flue gas stream in which the main constituent is nitrogen (which comes from air used in the combustion process).

Pulverized coal (PC) plants, which are 99 percent of all coal-fired power plants in the United States, burn coal in air to produce steam. CO2 is contained in the flue gas at a concentration of 10-15 percent. This is a challenging application for CO2 capture because (1) The low pressure and dilute concentration dictate a high volume of gas to be treated; (2) Trace impurities in the flue gas tend to reduce the effectiveness of the CO2 adsorbing processes; and (3) Compressing captured CO2 from atmospheric pressure to pipeline pressure (1,200 - 2,000 pounds per square inch [psi]) uses a lot of energy and thus represents a large parasitic load.

The CO2 concentration in flue gas from a coal-fired IGCC turbine is about 9 percent and from a natural gas-fired turbine about 4 percent. The flue gas in these systems approaches ambient pressure, and thus the CO2 partial pressure of the gas is low, indicating that a very large volume of gas needs to be treated.

For a modern PC power plant or a natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plant, current post-combustion capture systems would typically employ an organic solvent such as monoethanolamine (MEA). Aqueous amines are the state-of-the-art technology for CO2 capture for PC power plants. Analysis conducted at the NETL shows that CO2 capture and compression using amines raises the cost of electricity from a newly-built supercritical PC power plant by about 85 percent, from 4.9 cents/kWh to 9.0 cents/kWh. The goal for advanced CO2 capture applied to PC systems is that CO2 capture and compression added to a newly constructed PC power plant increases the cost of electricity by no more than 20 percent, compared with a no-capture case.

 
 

Pre-Combustion Systems. Pre-combustion systems process the primary fuel in a reactor with steam and air or oxygen to produce a mixture consisting mainly of carbon monoxide and hydrogen ("synthesis gas") at high pressure. This is the technology used in IGCC plants. Additional hydrogen, together with CO2 , is produced by reacting carbon monoxide with steam in a second reactor (a "shift reactor"). The resulting mixture of hydrogen and CO2 can then be separated into a CO2 gas stream, and a stream of hydrogen. If the CO2 is stored, the hydrogen is a carbon-free energy carrier that can be combusted to generate power and/or heat. Although the initial fuel conversion steps are more elaborate and costly than in post-combustion systems, the high concentrations of CO2 produced by the shift reactor and the high pressures often encountered in these applications are more favorable for CO2 separation. The advantage of this type of system is the higher CO2 concentration (partial pressure), and thus the lower volume of gas to be handled resulting in smaller equipment sizes and lower capital costs. Energy penalties and costs for CO2 sequestration in a pre-combustion setting are significantly less compared with that from a pulverized coal combustion plant. Pre-combustion would be used at power plants that employ IGCC technology.

The state-of-the-art for CO2 capture from an IGCC power plant is glycol-based Selexol sorbent. Analysis conducted at the NETL shows that CO2 capture and compression using Selexol raises the cost of electricity from a newly built IGCC power plant by 25 percent, from 5.5 cents/kWh to 6.5 cents/kWh. The goal for advanced CO2 capture and sequestration systems applied to an IGCC is to raise the production cost of electricity by no more than 10 percent. The goal for IGCC is more stringent than for PC because the conditions for CO2 capture are more favorable in an IGCC plant.
  Oxycombustion Systems. Oxycombustion systems use oxygen instead of air for combustion of the primary fuel to produce a flue gas that is mainly water vapor and CO2 . This results in a flue gas with high CO2 concentrations (greater than 80 percent by volume) and some excess O2. The water vapor is then removed by cooling and compressing the gas stream. Oxycombustion requires the upstream separation of oxygen from air, with a purity of 95-99 percent oxygen assumed in most current designs. Further treatment of the flue gas may be needed to remove air pollutants and noncondensed gases (such as nitrogen) from the flue gas before the CO2 is sent to storage.


The U.S. Department of Energy currently funds a large number of laboratory-scale and pilot-scale research projects involving solvents, sorbents, membranes, and oxygen combustion systems (oxy-combustion). Efforts are focused on systems for capturing CO2 from coal-fired power plants since they are the largest centralized sources of CO2, although the technologies developed will be applicable to natural-gas-fired power plants and industrial CO2 sources as well. DOE's Carbon Capture Program collaborates with other Federal Government agencies, state and local agencies, non-governmental organizations, private industry, and international organizations, as appropriate, in areas of relevance to the program. These collaborative efforts play an important role in the continued development and success of the program. For example, collaborations with these potential partners could help leverage R&D funding dollars, expand the portfolio of technologies, address key technical and economic barriers, or identify new areas of research emphasis.

 

FutureGen

FutureGen is an initiative to build a first-of-its-kind coal-fueled, near-zero emissions power plant. The plant, to be located in Mattoon, Illinois, will establish the technical and economic feasibility of producing electricity from coal (the lowest cost and most abundant domestic energy resource), while capturing and sequestering the carbon dioxide generated in the process. The initiative will be a government/industry partnership to pursue an innovative "showcase" project focused on the design, construction and operation of a technically cutting-edge power plant that is intended to eliminate environmental concerns associated with coal utilization.

The project will employ coal gasification technology integrated with combined cycle electricity generation and the sequestration of carbon dioxide emissions. The project will be supported by DOE’s ongoing coal research program, which will also be the principal source of technology for the prototype. The project will be led by the FutureGen Industrial Alliance, Inc., a non-profit industrial consortium representing the coal and power industries, with the project results being shared among all participants, and industry as a whole.


Enhanced Oil Recovery

In some cases, production from an oil or natural gas reservoir can be enhanced by pumping CO2 gas into the reservoir to push out additional hydrocarbons, which is called enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The United States is the world leader in EOR technology, using about 32 million tons of CO2 per year for this purpose. From the perspective of the reducing greenhouse gas emissions, enhanced oil recovery represents an opportunity to sequester carbon at low net cost, due to the revenues from recovered oil/gas.

Oil and gas reservoirs are promising targets for CO2 sequestration for a number of reasons. First, oil and gas are present within structural or stratigraphic traps, and the oil and gas that originally accumulated in these traps did not escape over geological time. Thus these reservoirs should also contain CO2 , as long as pathways to the surface or to adjacent formations are not created by overpressuring of the reservoir, by fracturing out of the reservoir at wells, or by leaks around wells. Second, the geologic structure and physical properties of most oil and gas fields have been characterized extensively. While additional characterization – particularly of the integrity and extent of the caprock – may be needed, the availability of existing data will lower the cost of implementing CO2 sequestration projects. Finally, very sophisticated computer models have been developed in the oil and gas industry to predict displacement behavior and trapping of CO2 for EOR. These models take into account the flow of oil, gas, and brine in three dimensions; phase behavior and CO2 solubility in oil and brine; and the spatial variation of reservoir properties, to the extent it is known. These same processes are responsible for hydrodynamic and solubility trapping of CO2. 

CO2 could also be sequestered in two types of natural gas fields: (1) abandoned fields and (2) depleted but still active fields where gas recovery could be enhanced by CO2 injection. Abandoned gas fields are present in many parts of the United States. Deciding which abandoned gas fields could best be used in a CO2 sequestration program would require a comprehensive review of the current conditions in abandoned fields and the economics of their rehabilitation.

 
Enhanced Coalbed Methane (ECBM)

Coal beds typically contain large amounts of methane-rich gas that is adsorbed onto the surface of the coal. The current practice for recovering coal bed methane is to depressurize the bed, usually by pumping water out of the reservoir. An alternative approach is to inject carbon dioxide gas into the bed. Tests have shown that the adsorption rate for CO2 to be approximately twice that of methane, giving it the potential to efficiently displace methane and remain sequestered in the bed. CO2 recovery of coal bed methane has been demonstrated in limited field tests, but much more work is necessary to understand and optimize the process.

Similar to the by-product value gained from enhanced oil recovery, the recovered methane provides a value-added revenue stream to the carbon sequestration process, creating a low net cost option. For the electric power industry, another promising aspect of CO2 sequestration in coal beds is that many of the large unmineable coal seams are near electricity generating facilities that are large point sources of CO2 gas. Thus, limited pipeline transport of CO2 gas would be required. Integration of coal bed methane with a coal-fired electricity generating system can provide an option for additional power generation with low emissions.

 

Ocean Sequestration of CO2 

CO2 is soluble in ocean water, and through natural processes the oceans both absorb and emit huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. In fact, the amount of carbon stored in the ocean dwarfs the carbon stored in terrestrial ecosystems.

It is widely believed that the oceans will eventually absorb 80-90 percent of the CO2 in the atmosphere and transfer it to the deep ocean. However, the kinetics of ocean uptake are unacceptably slow, causing a peak atmospheric CO2 concentration of several hundred years. R&D on ocean sequestration of CO2 is intended to explore options for speeding up the natural processes by which the oceans transport CO2 and for injecting CO2 directly into the deep ocean.

  Enhancement of Natural Carbon Sequestration in the Ocean. One approach to enhancing export production of carbon to the deep ocean is via the addition of iron chelates (a micronutrient) to high nutrient, low chlorophyll (HNLC) regions, in order to increase the drawdown of CO2 as a result of stimulated phytoplankton blooms.  Another related technique would be the addition of nitrates and phosphorus (macronutrients) to low nutrient, low chlorophyll (LNLC) ocean regions.  The magnitude of these enhancements to the biological pump and the depth of vertical transport are unknown, and require additional research, as well as investigation into unknown biological consequences from such perturbations, e.g., eutrophication, or increasing number of unwanted events (toxic blooms).
 
  Direct Injection of CO2.Technology currently exists to perform the direct injection of CO2 into the deep ocean.  Ocean storage potentially could be done in two ways: by injecting and dissolving CO2 into the water column (typically below 1,000 meters) via a fixed pipeline or a moving ship, or by depositing it via a fixed pipeline or an offshore platform on the sea floor at depths below 3,000 meters, where CO2 is denser than water and is expected to form a “lake” that would delay dissolution of CO2 into the surrounding environment.

Ocean storage and its ecological impacts are still in the research phase, and the scientific understanding to enable ocean sequestration to be considered as a real option is not yet available. The knowledge base is inadequate to determine what biological, physical or chemical impacts might occur from interaction of this hydrate plume with the marine ecosystem. A small level of funding is provided by DOE to leading researchers in this area to develop the necessary scientific understanding of the feasibility of ocean sequestration. Work is focused on understanding the mechanisms of CO2 uptake in the ocean and assessing the environmental impacts of CO2 storage. Laboratory studies of the behavior of CO2 droplets and CO2/water hydrate structures in simulated ocean environments.

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 Power Partners℠ Projects

Basin Electric Power Cooperative, through its subsidiary, Dakota Gasification Company, owns and operates the Great Plains Synfuels Plant in Beulah, North Dakota, which gasifies lignite coal to produce valuable gases and liquids. The Synfuels plant began operating in 1984, and today produces more than 54 billion standard cubic feet of natural gas annually. Coal consumption exceeds six million tons each year. In addition, Dakota Gasification delivers about 8,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions daily to two Canadian oil fields for enhanced oil recovery and storage. CO2 emissions are expected to be permanently stored in the oil reservoir, which is monitored by the International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s) Weyburn CO2 Monitoring and Storage Project.   

Duke Energy is hosting a geologic CO2 storage field demonstration project at its East Bend generating station in Kentucky as part of the Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership. The purpose of the demonstration is to test the potential for permanently storing CO2 emissions in the geologic formations under the site.

Edison Mission Group (EMG) and BP are planning a $1-billion hydrogen-fueled power plant in California that would generate 500 MW of low-carbon generation. EMG and BP hope to bring the new power plant online by 2011. This project would eliminate four to five million tons of CO2 per year from the atmosphere by storing it underground. Petroleum coke would first be converted to hydrogen and CO2 gases, and about 90 percent of the CO2 would be captured and separated. The hydrogen gas stream would be used to fuel a gas turbine to generate electricity. The captured CO2 would be transported by pipeline to an oilfield and injected into reservoir rock formations thousands of feet underground, both stimulating additional oil production and permanently trapping the CO2.

CO2 Capture and Storage Test Centers 5-Megawatt Chilled Ammonia Process Capture Pilot is an integrated test center that captures actual power plant flue gas CO2 and stores it safely deep underground. This project is a crucial step to commercializing technologies that curb CO2 emissions. This project focuses on the first step leading to a test center. Initially, EPRI proposes to build and operate a CO2 capture pilot plant, treating approximately a five-megawatt (MW) equivalent of flue gas and focusing on a variation of solvent scrubbing using chilled ammonia. This process appears to show great promise for significantly lower energy penalties, and therefore costs, than solvent processes being investigated by others. The pilot will be a co-funded effort with ALSTOM, an international manufacturer of rail transport and power generation equipment, which will fund approximately half of the costs. Later, EPRI plans to pursue additional CO2 capture pilots using other technologies, and eventually will launch a test center that will capture, store, and monitor the capture and injection of half a million tons of CO2 emissions over a 10-year period (or a 10-MW equivalent).

NRG Energy, Inc. is undertaking a joint initiative with GreenFuel Technologies Corporation (Green-Fuel) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to study CO2 recycling. The technology takes the flue gas of a power plant and utilizes algae-bioreactor technology to recycle CO2 effectively into commercially viable byproducts. The process harnesses the photosynthetic processes of algae to consume waste gases and heat from a power plant’s air emissions stream, ultimately producing a high-energy biomass. This means that in the presence of light, the single-celled algae take up CO2 to produce the energy that fuels plant life – with a general rule of thumb being that two tons of algae remove one ton of CO2. Once the algae are harvested, they can be converted to generate commercially viable byproducts such as ethanol or biodiesel.

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 References, Sources, and Other Useful Data


Clean Energy Systems, Inc., "Kimberlina: A zero-emissions demonstration plant" (June 2007)
 http://www.cleanenergysystems.com/news/june_07.html

Clean Energy Systems Inc. (CES) has developed a zero-emissions power generation technology by integrating a component proven in the aerospace industry with conventional power plant equipment. Its most distinctive element (the third box from the left) is an oxy-combustor, similar to one used in rocket engines, that generates steam by burning a clean, gaseous fuel in the presence of gaseous oxygen and water. The clean fuel is prepared by processing a conventional fossil fuel such as coal-derived syngas, refinery residues, biomass or biodigester gas, or natural or landfill gas.

FutureGen Alliance, "Clean Energy Starts Here - FutureGen"
http://www.futuregenalliance.org/

FutureGen is a public-private partnership to design, build, and operate the world's first coal-fueled, near-zero emissions power plant, at an estimated net project cost of US $1.5 billion. The commercial-scale plant will prove the technical and economic feasibility of producing low-cost electricity and hydrogen from coal while nearly eliminating emissions. It will also support testing and commercialization of technologies focused on generating clean power, capturing and permanently storing carbon dioxide, and producing hydrogen. In the process, FutureGen will create unique opportunities for scientific exploration, education, and stakeholder engagement.

IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme
http://www.ieagreen.org.uk/index.html

IEA GHG is an international collaboration which aims to (1) evaluate technologies for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases; (2) disseminate the results of these studies; and (3) identify targets for research, development and demonstration and promote the appropriate work. The IEA GHG R&D Programme operates under an Implementing Agreement provided by the International Energy Agency (IEA). Its main activities concern methods of reducing GHG emissions, particularly CO2 from fossil fuels. Much attention has been given to the option of capture and storage or utilisation of CO2. This website is designed to provide details about IEA GHG, its main activities, and the conferences they organise. In addition, it provides reference material on issues such as climate change and the need for emission reduction which underpins our continued existence.

IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme, “IEA GHG Weyburn CO2 Monitoring & Storage Project”
http://www.ieagreen.org.uk/glossies/weyburn.pdf

This report provides a summary on the achievements on the first phase of this major international action to monitor injected CO2 in a depleted oil field. The project has been managed by PTRC in coordination with ENCANA. IEA GHG supported the technical programme of the project.
 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage - Summary for Policymakers” (September 2005)
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/srccs/srccs_summaryforpolicymakers.pdf

This extensive IPCC report was written by over a hundred experts from around the world, and provides a wealth of information on how to capture, transport and store CO2, as well as on costs and potential for mitigation of climate change. It also discusses which risks may be expected and whether CCS can be compatible with current legal frameworks. The Summary for Policymakers (SPM) was approved in a three-day process involving over a hundred governments. The complete final report is 443 pages, and was published later in 2005; it is available at http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports_carbon_dioxide.htm.

Kansas Geological Survey, “NatCarb: A National Look at Carbon Sequestration”
http://www.natcarb.org/

NATCARB is a project to explore geological sequestration of carbon through linking geological and emission databases from several regional centers into a single interactive mapping system. NATCARB, a project funded by DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, is an extension of MIDCARB, a project that linked databases from 5 state geological surveys in the Midwest. NATCARB allows each partner to retain ownership and control of their own data, while allowing visitors to explore data across partner boundaries.

National Coal Council, “Research and Development Needs for the Sequestration of Carbon Dioxide as Part of a Carbon Management Strategy,” (May 2000)
http://www.nationalcoalcouncil.org/Documents/Executive%20Report%20May%202000.pdf

The National Coal Council (NCC) is a Federal Advisory Committee to the Secretary of Energy. The NCC's sole purpose is to advise, inform, and make recommendations on matters regarding the coal industry, as requested by the Secretary of Energy. This NCC report focuses on CO2 sequestration opportunities and offers recommendations on needed research and development to bring cost-effective competitive sequestration technologies to the market. It is imperative that CO2 sequestration and generation efficiency become high priorities if the goal is to manage carbon in the atmosphere while providing low-cost, reliable energy to drive the national as well as global economy. The NCC proposes a three-part management strategy to accomplish this task. In order to successfully implement this strategy, research is needed to verify the feasibility of the numerous CO2 sequestration options available.

The Pembina Institute, "Carbon Capture and Storage: An Arrow in the Quiver or a Silver Bullet to Combat Climate Change — A Canadian Primer" ((Nov. 2005)
 http://www.pembina.org/pub/584

This 77-page PDF report reviews technologies to capture carbon dioxide from point sources, transportation of CO2 to injection sites and the potential for storage in deep saline aquifers, depleted oil and gas reservoirs and coal seams as well as its use for enhanced oil recovery. The risks of carbon capture and storage (CCS) are examined and its role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Canadian and global storage and sequestration policy and initiatives are described.

U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, and the National Energy Technology Laboratory, “Carbon Sequestration Technology Roadmap and Program Plan 2007,”
http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/carbon_seq/refshelf/project%20portfolio/2007/2007Roadmap.pdf

The Carbon Sequestration Technology Roadmap and Program Plan represents a general consensus to date on what major science and technology pathways have potential for achieving the goals of carbon sequestration. The implementation of these pathways—how the work will be accomplished—will be carried out by various stakeholders. The roadmap will evolve as more information becomes available from ongoing policy analysis and technology planning efforts.

U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), “CO2 Capture and Geologic Sequestration: Progress through Partnership" (Workshop Summary Report, 18 pages, Sept. 28-30, 1999)
 http://www.fossil.energy.gov/sequestration/publications/Project_Reports/Wkshp_Sum_Short_Version.pdf

The workshop was jointly sponsored by BP Amoco, the U.S. DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy, and the International Energy Agency’s Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (IEA/GHG). CO2 Capture and Geologic Sequestration: Progress through Partnership was a collaborative workshop to create new solutions to the challenge of CO2 capture and geologic sequestration.

U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), "Direct Ocean Sequestration Experts' Workshop", held at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) (Final Report, Feb. 27 - March 1, 2001)
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/sequestration/publications/Project_Reports/seq_directocean_wrkshop.pdf

The purpose of this Experts’ workshop was to present new results, and to plan important new opportunities, for research in this rapidly emerging field. The goal is to provide the fundamental science base for developing a significant national ocean carbon sequestration capability within the next decade. This workshop consisted of 19 invited presentations, and 3 targeted working groups that met to define R&D priorities, identify potential research participants and their capabilities, and develop a timeline for basic science and controlled field experiments. The result was a consensus on critical needs in the science of CO2 chemistry associated with disposal technologies; on oceanic mixing processes in dispersing the material and its entrainment in the global ocean circulation; and on essential biological studies for assessing the environmental impact.

U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, “Climate Technology: DOE Readies First Big U.S. Projects in CO2 Capture and Storage,” Fossil Energy Techline, August 3, 2007
 http://www.fossil.energy.gov/news/techlines/2007/07062-Phase_III_Sequestration_Projects_P.html

The Department of Energy (DOE) is preparing to commission this year America's first large-scale demonstrations of CO2 capture and deep geologic storage in fulfillment of a commitment announced last October to Phase III of the Carbon Sequestration Regional Partnerships Program. The projects could lead to a tripling of the world's present large-scale demonstrations.

U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, “Carbon Capture Research”
http://www.fe.doe.gov/programs/sequestration/capture/index.html

Examples of DOE activities in carbon capture include research on revolutionary improvements in CO2 separation and capture technologies, development of retrofittable CO2 reduction and capture options for existing large point sources of CO2 emissions, and integration of CO2 capture with advanced power cycles and technologies and with environmental control technologies for criteria pollutants.

U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, “DOE Announces Release of Second Carbon Sequestration Atlas,” Fossil Energy Techline, November 17, 2008
 http://fossil.energy.gov/news/techlines/2008/08060-DOE_Releases_Sequestration_Atlas.html
Interactive version at http://www.natcarb.org/
Print version at http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/carbon_seq/refshelf/atlasII/

On 17-Nov-2008, DOE announced the release of its second Carbon Sequestration Atlas of the United States and Canada, which documents more than 3,500 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) storage potential in oil and gas reservoirs, coal seams, and saline formations. Preliminary estimates suggest the availability of more than 1,100 years of CO2 storage for the United States and Canada in these geologic formations. The Office of Fossil Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory created the initial atlas and developed it in consort with the regional carbon sequestration partnerships, as well as the National Carbon Sequestration Database and Geographical Information System (NATCARB). DOE has published both print and interactive editions of the atlas. The interactive version is located at the NATCARB Web site and is frequently updated. The print version is available for viewing and downloading at the NETL website.

U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, “FutureGen Clean Coal Projects”
http://www.fe.doe.gov/programs/powersystems/futuregen/index.html

FutureGen is an initiative to build a first-of-its-kind coal-fueled, near-zero emissions power plant. The plant, to be located in Mattoon, Illinois, will establish the technical and economic feasibility of producing electricity from coal (the lowest cost and most abundant domestic energy resource), while capturing and sequestering the carbon dioxide generated in the process. The initiative will be a government/industry partnership to pursue an innovative "showcase" project focused on the design, construction and operation of a technically cutting-edge power plant that is intended to eliminate environmental concerns associated with coal utilization.

U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, “Geologic Sequestration Research”
http://www.fe.doe.gov/programs/sequestration/geologic/index.html

Carbon dioxide sequestration in geologic formations includes oil and gas reservoirs, unmineable coal seams, and deep saline reservoirs. The primary goal of the Energy Department's sequestration research is to understand the behavior of CO2 when stored in geologic formations. This information is key to ensure that sequestration will not impair the geologic integrity of an underground formation and that CO2 storage is secure and environmentally acceptable.

U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, NCCTI Energy Technologies Group, “CO2 Capture and Storage in Geologic Formations” (Revised Draft, 08-Jan-2002)
 http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/carbon_seq/refshelf/CS-NCCTIwhitepaper.pdf

On June 11, 2001 President Bush directed the Secretaries of Energy and Commerce, along with the Administrator of the EPA, to develop a National Climate Change Technology Initiative (NCCTI). This report is one of eight energy-related white papers produced in response to the guidance for the NCCTI white paper. This 34-page white paper, revised as of January 2002, covers the capture of carbon dioxide (CO2) from current and planned fossil energy systems and its direct sequestration in geologic structures.

U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, “Secretary Chu Announces Agreement on FutureGen Project in Mattoon, Illinois,” Fossil Energy Techline, June 12, 2009
 http://www.fossil.energy.gov/news/techlines/2009/09037-DOE_Announces_FutureGen_Agreement.html

U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu today announced an agreement with the FutureGen Alliance that advances the construction of the first commercial scale, fully integrated, carbon capture and sequestration project in the country in Mattoon, Illinois. Under the terms of the provisional agreement between the Department of Energy and the FutureGen Alliance, the Department will issue a Record of Decision on the project by the middle of July, with the following activities to be pursued from the end of July 2009 through early 2010.

U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, “Statement of Thomas D. Shope, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Fossil Energy, before the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality, Committee on Energy and Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives", March 6, 2007
 http://fossil.energy.gov/news/testimony/2007/070306-Shope_Testimony.html

Testimony discussing the general subject of carbon sequestration. Describes DOE's R&D program overview, regional activities, international activities, and achievements and challenges in the different program areas.

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