Innovation & Infrastructure

Mississippi Power’s Kemper County Clean Energy Facility carbon capture and storage project is now expected to cost $7.01 billion, the utility said in its latest filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The plant, a new-build coal-fired power plant with a pre-combustion carbon capture system, was initially billed at $2.4 billion prior to construction […]

With little fanfare, NRG Energy on Tuesday announced the successful completion of its Petra Nova carbon capture and storage project near Houston, Texas. The project, which was completed on time and on budget, is the world’s largest post-combustion CCS project and the first operational commercial-scale CCS project in the U.S. “I’m really proud. I’m really […]

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California recently broke ground on a $9.4 million, 13,000-square-foot facility that will support the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear stockpile maintenance operations. The Advanced Manufacturing Facility is due to be finished by this summer, according to an NNSA press release. It will house two laboratories, each 5,000-square-feet in size: […]

SaskPower captured 792,533 metric tons of CO2 in 2016 at its Boundary Dam power plant Unit 3 carbon capture and storage project, just 7,467 metric tons shy of its goal for the year. That total could be made up in three days of typical operation at the plant, according to Jonathan Tremblay, spokesman for the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration said Thursday it had sealed follow-on agreements with three companies to complete its share of funding for their respective molybdenum-99 production projects. The deals ensure that SHINE Medical Technologies, NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, and General Atomics will each receive the full $25 million from the agency for development of technologies to […]

Veolia Nuclear Solutions has completed a technology demonstration for disposal of radioactive contaminated reactive metal waste. The company demonstrated the GeoMelt In-Container Vitrification process under contract to the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL), according to a Veolia press release. The company carried out the demonstration melts in August and September of this year at a test […]

The Department of Energy on Wednesday announced the first project that could be supported by its $8 billion loan guarantee for advanced fossil energy projects. The department has offered a conditional commitment to guarantee loans of up to $2 billion to Lake Charles Methanol LLC for the construction of the world’s first methanol production facility […]

Veolia Nuclear Solutions on Friday said it completed a technology demonstration for solidifying liquid radioactive waste bearing reactive metals. The company demonstrated the GeoMelt In-Container Vitrification process under contract to the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory, home to 1 million or so gallons of sodium-bearing waste. The company carried out the test at a test site […]

The Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded $10 million in Phase II funding to SHINE Medical Technologies as part of the agency’s program to promote a domestic supply of molybdenum-99 (mo-99). The funding is part of a cooperative agreement, which involved a 50-50 cost-sharing arrangement between SHINE and DOE. The recent award […]

To foster the deployment of carbon capture and storage throughout Scotland, the Scottish government should pursue development of the technology at a small scale while also taking preparatory steps to ready for larger rollout, Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage found said in a report Thursday. “Scotland can start capturing and storing CO₂ now through actions […]

Royal Dutch Shell remains hopeful that carbon capture and storage can get off the ground even after having to abandon its own U.K project due to a lack of government support. “The decision to withdraw support for the Peterhead CCS project was a huge disappointment. But I remain hopeful, if only because there is no […]

SaskPower’s Boundary Dam Unit 3 carbon capture and storage project in Saskatchewan ran into a few “hiccups” this year with its amine carbon capture system, CEO Mike Marsh said Wednesday. “The issue is amine degradation,” he told reporters. “We expect every year there’s going to be some amine degradation, that’s why we budget for it, […]

The Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded $10 million in Phase II funding to SHINE Medical Technologies as part of the agency’s domestic supply program for molybdenum-99 (mo-99). The funding is part of a cooperative agreement, which involved a 50-50 cost-sharing arrangement between SHINE and DOE. The recent award brings the total […]

Negative emissions technology will be necessary if the international community is to meet the Paris Agreement on climate change’s goal of keeping global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius, the independent German Institute for International and Security Affairs said in a report Monday. However, most climate policy frameworks, at the international and national level, […]

Just more than a year after its inception, the Bill Gates-led Breakthrough Energy Coalition appears to be putting its money where its mouth is. Gates and his fellow millionaire and billionaire investors announced Monday the formation of the Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund, a $1 billion fund committed to making “risk-tolerant investments in next generation technologies […]

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration on Wednesday awarded phase II funding to General Atomics for its molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) supply agreement with Sterigenics International subsidiary Nordion and the University of Missouri Research Reactor Center. Mo-99 decays into technetium-99m, which is used in imaging procedures for cancer, heart disease, bone disease, and kidney disease. […]

VIENNA — Governments, industry, and international organizations should work together to boost the cyber defense capabilities at nuclear facilities worldwide, according to a report from the nongovernmental Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), released at a Wednesday side event during the International Atomic Energy Agency’s International Conference on Nuclear Security. NTI’s Outpacing Cyber Threats report says traditional cyber defense methods at […]

In addition to six days of planned maintenance, SaskPower’s Boundary Dam Unit 3 carbon capture and storage project was taken offline for several days in November due to a compressor electrical failure, according to the utility’s latest monthly report on the facility. “Through the process, we were able to capture 47,113 tonnes of carbon dioxide […]

Mississippi Power’s Kemper County Clean Energy Facility carbon capture and storage project will likely not reach full operation until January 2017, the company announced Friday in a filing with the U.S.  Securities and Exchange Commission. The plant had previously been estimated to reach full operation before the end of this year. “Mississippi Power continues to […]

Teams in the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE competition will be able to use the CMC Research Institutes’ Carbon Capture and Conversion Institute (CCCI) in Canada under a partnership announced Thursday. “We are really excited to support of the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE process. CCCI, NRG, COSIA and XPRIZE are tackling one of the most critical […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy on Wednesday announced that 16 carbon storage projects across the nation will receive a total of nearly $45 million in funding. “CCS will play a very important role as the world moves toward a lower-carbon economy,” Lynn Orr, DOE’s undersecretary for science and energy, said in a […]

Shell Canada said Wednesday it had awarded its Quest Climate Grant for 2016 to three Canada-based clean energy technology innovators. “For Canada to achieve its climate change targets, our society will need bold new ideas and smart thinking from all Canadians. The exceptional young entrepreneurs receiving this year’s Quest Climate Grant have shown us that […]

Development of carbon capture and storage technologies would benefit from many of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promises related to coal, Jeff Erikson, general manager for the Americas division of the Global CCS Institute, said during a Monday episode of E&E TV. “I think that Mr. Trump’s emphasis on coal will encourage more carbon capture and […]

Mississippi Power’s Kemper County Energy Facility carbon capture and storage project last week generated its first electricity using syngas produced in its second gasifier. “This is a substantial step forward for the project,” Mississippi Power Chairman, President, and CEO Anthony Wilson said in a press release. “We are now closer to integrating all of the […]

Cement structures can be used to absorb carbon emissions, potentially offsetting emissions from cement production itself, according to a study issued Monday by researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the United Kingdom. The “natural carbonation process of cement materials represents a large and growing ‘sink’ of CO2,” the study says, but the […]

Earlier this year scientists in Iceland announced the ability to turn CO2 into rock in less than two years. On Friday, a different group of scientists confirmed the possibility. “After drilling a well in the Columbia River Basalt formation and testing its properties, the team injected CO2 into it in 2013. Core samples were extracted […]

The Department of Energy on Thursday issued a request for information on offshore enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes. “One place where captured anthropogenic CO2 could be stored is in depleted oil and gas reservoirs offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. Injecting CO2 into these reservoirs could also result in enhanced recovery of residual oil. The […]

MARRAKESH, Morocco — Just over a year ago, at the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a group of 20 countries launched Mission Innovation, an effort to accelerate the development and deployment of clean energy technologies worldwide. Now, at the 22nd COP, the United […]

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory technology used at the Hanford Site in Washington state this year received an R&D 100 Award, an annual contest by R&D Magazine sometimes called the “Oscars of Innovation.” The Department of Energy lab developed technology that allows scientists and engineers to remotely look at underground soil environments in real time, in […]

Several projects at National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) laboratories were among the winners last week of R&D Magazine 2016 R&D 100 Awards. The awards honor 100 innovative technologies from the past year. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California won an award for its GLO Transparent Ceramic Scintillator, which involves the nondestructive imaging of the 3D […]