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Demonstrating carbon capture at scale
The US Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations is playing a key role in developing and scaling the technologies needed to bring about the energy transition
In early February, the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) announced up to $304 million in funding for four projects to “pilot transformational technologies designed to capture carbon dioxide emissions that would otherwise accelerate climate change and jeopardise public health.” Funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, these large-scale pilot projects — located at power and industrial sites in Kentucky, Mississippi, Texas, and Wyoming — have the potential to prevent more than 500 000 metric tons of CO2
emissions from being released into the atmosphere each year, says USDOE. As part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to advance environmental and energy justice in partnership with communities, the projects receiving awards will be required to implement a comprehensive Community Benefits Plan — which will be “informed by early and
meaningful community and labour engagement.” The four projects announced in early February as “having been selected for award negotiation” are part of the Carbon Capture Large-Scale Pilot Projects Program, which supports projects that implement carbon capture technologies at the pilot scale across the power and industrial sectors. The selected projects are “designed to pilot transformational carbon capture technologies and catalyse significant follow-on investments for commercial- scale demonstrations on carbon emission sources”, in support of meeting the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal of a net-zero emissions economy by 2050.
One of the proposed projects is at a pulp and paper mill (Vicksburg Containerboard Mill, Mississippi), one is at a refinery (Big Spring, Texas) and two are planned to be located at power plants:
Cane Run generating station, Louisville, Kentucky
The carbon capture pilot at Cane Run, led by PPL Corporation (PPL), will deploy a carbon capture system at unit 7 of PPL subsidiaries Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utility companies’ Cane Run generating station, a natural gas fuelled combined cycle power plant with 640 MWe capacity in Louisville, Kentucky. The project expects to capture 95% of the carbon dioxide from the unit’s flue gas using an advanced “heat- integrated” CO2
capture technology. Developed by the University of Kentucky (UK), this technology
aims to capture up to 90 000 metric tons of CO2 per year. The project team plans to partner with an off-taker which will purify the captured carbon dioxide for use as beverage-grade CO2
.
Natural gas fired power plants in the United States currently produce more than 1.7 billion metric tons of CO2
emissions each year.
The goal of the project is said to be to pilot safe and responsible carbon capture by designing, building, operating, and analysing the UK solvent- agnostic process to enable its replication at other natural gas fuelled combined cycle power plants. This project, with an anticipated federal cost share of up to $72 million, builds on concurrent DOE carbon capture research and development focused on the UK solvent-agnostic process through the DOE Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management.
PPL and its subsidiaries have a long-standing history of partnership with local community stakeholders surrounding the Cane Run power plant and the broader Jefferson County community. In collaboration with community stakeholders, the project team will investigate the potential for a Community Benefits Agreement. The team already employs workers from the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers, and the pilot project expects to create additional construction jobs. As part of its Community Benefits Plan, the project will expand existing training and internship programmes to create a project workforce development plan that involves collaborating with local community leaders and organisations and partnering with local colleges and universities, including a local Historically Black College and University.
Basin Electric’s Dry Fork power plant, top, and, below, Milton R Young station, location of Project Tundra
34 | March 2024|
www.modernpowersystems.com
Dry Fork power station, Gillette, Wyoming The carbon capture pilot at Dry Fork power station, led by TDA Research, in collaboration with SLB, with a federal cost share up to $49 million, will deploy a carbon capture system adjacent to the Wyoming Integrated Test Center located outside Basin Electric’s Dry Fork power station,
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