U.S. DOE Commits $2.25B to Carbon Capture and Storage

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The U.S. Department of Energy intends to commit $2.25 billion for projects to store carbon dioxide underground and help fight climate change, it said on Thursday in a Reuters article.

The funding for carbon storage validation and testing over the next five years will come from the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed by President Joe Biden last year.

“The goal here is that at the end of the day, you do actually have commercially available facilities for storage,” said Emily Grubert, deputy assistant secretary for carbon management at the department.

Grubert said the money would come “quickly” but gave no further details on timing.

The program will look at storing carbon from projects including capturing emission from power plants and other industrial sites or removing carbon directly from the air. It will look at potential storage sites both onshore and offshore, such as at depleted oil and natural gas fields under the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico.

Capturing carbon emissions from power plants adds costs to the generation of electricity and companies typically want subsidies to help cover the expense. Grubert said advances in storing carbon underground on a virtually permanent basis without leaks can give companies confidence to move ahead with capturing the gas.