Innovation & Infrastructure

Vegetation has sucked up more carbon dioxide from the air in recent years, causing the rate of C02 accumulation in the atmosphere to level off since 2002, scientists determined in research published this week in the journal Nature Communications. While human activity remains responsible for growing amounts of carbon emissions, and the full-year atmospheric concentration of C02 in 2015 […]

Australian National University’s X-ray microscopy laboratory has received a $3.8 million ($5 million AUS) update to increase its carbon dioxide storage research capabilities. The CTLab now features sophisticated X-ray microscopes that enable scientists to watch aquifer rocks trapping CO2, according to an ANU press release on Monday. Researchers will also be able to create precise, […]

The Department of Energy is calling on its national laboratories to submit proposals for field research on new materials for capturing carbon from fossil fuel-fired power plants. The research, according to the DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory’s Discovery of Carbon Capture Substances and Systems Initiative (DOCCSS), would  would focus on four “transformational material platform areas”: sorbent […]

Mississippi Power has pushed back the in-service date for its Kemper County Energy Facility carbon capture and storage project to the last day of 2016. The plant had previously been expected to reach full operations by the end of November. “The one-month extension is needed because on Wednesday, Nov. 2, Mississippi Power determined a maintenance […]

The United Arab Emirates is now home to the Earth’s first commercial carbon capture operation on a steel production facility, the Global CCS Institute announced Monday. The Al Reyadah project in Abu Dhabi is a joint venture of the Abu Dhabi National Coal. Co. (ADNOC) and Masdar, the emirate government’s clean technology and renewable energy […]

SaskPower said Thursday its Boundary Dam Unit 3 carbon capture and storage project in Saskatchewan, Canada, operated throughout the month of October. “In October, the process operated very reliably once again, capturing 82,355 tonnes of carbon dioxide during 100% of the hours in the month. This brings the total capture for 2016 to 686,700 tonnes, […]

A 50-megawatt-thermal supercritical CO2 turbine is being transported to La Porte, Texas, where it will be used in a supercritical oxy-combustion carbon dioxide power cycle generation system demonstration project under development by NET Power, Toshiba, developer of the turbine, announced Tuesday. “I am delighted to reach this milestone of successful shipment of the turbine, which […]

Canadian crown utility SaskPower said Monday its Boundary Dam Unit 3 carbon capture and storage facility has officially reached its goal of capturing 800,000 metric tons of CO2 in a year. “Now that we have proven the reliability of CCS technology this year, next year we will continue to ensure we meet our commitment to […]

Low clouds, which reflect incoming solar radiation and reduce outgoing thermal radiation, have helped to cool the Earth, but their effect cannot be relied upon to continue indefinitely, according to research conducted by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. “As the Earth’s surface warms, the net radiative effect of […]

If the world is to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, net negative emissions in some sectors must be established in the near future, Nicholas Stern, chair of the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said Friday during a presentation at the Royal Society. “Most pathways […]

The Kemper County Energy Facility is still expected to reach full operation by the end of November, but at a higher cost than owner Mississippi Power had anticipated as recently as last month. The carbon capture and storage project is now expected to cost $6.91 billion, according to an Oct. 28 monthly filing with the […]

ExxonMobil and FuelCell Energy said Thursday they plan to test their fuel cell-based carbon capture technology at the James M. Barry Electric Generating Station in Alabama. The plant is a 2.7-gigawatt mixed-use coal and gas station operated by Alabama Power. “The fuel cell carbon capture solution we are advancing with ExxonMobil could be a game-changer […]

Corporate partnerships, instead of venture capital, might be a preferable means to drive innovation in carbon capture and storage technology, according to developers of the zero-emission Allam Cycle power system. “Before the dot-com era, VC firms actually were in the business of providing domain expertise,” Bill Brown, CEO of NET Power, said Thursday during a webinar […]

There is a drastic difference between permanently storing captured carbon dioxide underground and using it in the production of things such as synthetic methane and chemical, which “merely delays the CO2 from being emitted,” the European environmental organization Bellona said Wednesday in a policy brief. “While there are methods of permanently storing CO2 by using […]

A team of industrial heavy-hitters announced Monday they would collaborate on a study to determine the potential to apply Japanese technology to carbon capture, utilization, and storage projects in Saskatchewan, Canada, and beyond. The “Japanese Consortium” partnership involves the Japan Coal Energy Center industry organization, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, along with […]

India will rely on coal as it spreads electricity to millions of citizens who today go without, ClearPath founder and CEO Jay Faison said in a recent commentary. This is a massive opportunity for the United States to provide environmental assistance in the form of carbon capture systems, he said. “If there was ever a prime […]

Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have built an observatory in an abandoned gold mine to study how rocks, such as those surrounding carbon stored in geological formations, fracture, the lab said Wednesday. “As important as the subsurface is for U.S. energy strategy, our understanding of how the subsurface responds to common perturbations, such […]

The United States Department of Energy said Tuesday it has partnered with Natural Resources Canada to open a new 1-megawatt thermal (MWth) pilot plant to test oxy-fired pressurized fluidized bed combustion (oxy-PFBC) carbon capture. “This project is a major step forward for CCUS,” Douglas Hollett, principal deputy energy assistant secretary for fossil energy, said in […]

The ExchangeMonitor Publications & Forums is seeking proposals for the next Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage Conference, which will be held in April 2017 in Chicago. This conference offers an opportunity for U.S. and international leaders, experts, and industry executives to gather and discuss efforts to decarbonize the energy and industrial sectors. Examples of appropriate […]

The Department of Energy said Monday it had awarded up to $80 million to the Gas Technology Institute (GTI), Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), and General Electric Global Research (GE-GR) to design, build, and operate a 10-MWE (megawatts electrical) supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) pilot plant test facility in San Antonio, Texas. Supercritical CO2 technology, which uses […]

Twenty-seven teams from six nations have reached the semifinals of a $20 million competition to convert carbon dioxide into useful products, the XPRIZE Foundation announced Monday. The NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE competition consists of two tracks: one testing developmental technologies on emissions from a coal-fired power plant and one that involves emissions from a natural […]

Allowing the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere to reach a level so high that it must be removed with negative carbon technologies in order to limit global temperature rise is a moral hazard, two researchers said in an article published Friday in the journal Science. If nations continue to emit carbon at today’s high […]

Approaching full operation, Southern Co.’s Kemper County Energy Facility carbon capture and storage project in Mississippi this week generated its first electricity using syngas produced in its gasifier. “After decades of research and years of hard work at the site, we are thrilled that the Kemper County energy facility, the world’s most advanced coal plant, […]

ExxonMobil, a founding member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Energy Initiative (MITEI), announced Thursday it will join the initiative’s Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) Center. “ExxonMobil’s collaboration with the MIT Energy Initiative has supported energy technology innovations and enables students to gain hands-on experience through sponsored research projects and internships,” MITEI Director Robert […]

Carbon capture is vital to decarbonizing the global economy, but simply pumping the collected material underground won’t be enough, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said Thursday at an event hosted by Columbia University. Carbon utilization will be vital as well, he said: “Clearly, geological sequestration is there and can take quite a bit, but the […]

Colorado-based ION Engineering said Wednesday it kicked off testing of its carbon capture system at the Technology Center Mongstad in Norway. “ION maintains a world class research and development organization and we look forward to working with the world’s largest and most advanced test facility. TCM is an ideal environment that allows us to validate […]

The United Kingdom’s Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) said Wednesday it has appointed engineering group SNC-Lavalin to develop a business care for a natural gas power plant with carbon capture and storage. “Stakeholders in CCS will need compelling evidence of the business case for a new power with CCS project which is why we are taking […]

Carbon Clean Solutions Ltd. is set to launch a commercial zero-emission coal-fired power plant near Chennai, India, the company announced Tuesday. The project will capture more than 60,000 metric tons of CO2 from a 10-megawatt coal-fired power station using technology recently tested at Norway’s Technology Center Mongstad. According to the CCSL release, the project will […]

The Wyoming Integrated Test Center said Wednesday it had selected Hladky Construction to construct the test labs at the facility. When completed, the test center will have six demonstration sites supplied with flue gas, power, and service water from the Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s Dry Fork Station power plant. These sites will be available for […]

The world needs energy, and thus it needs carbon capture and storage, Michael Crothers, president and country chair of Shell Canada, wrote in an op-ed published Sunday in the Globe and Mail. CCS has not matured as far as other low-carbon sources of energy, but that is no reason to ignore its importance, Crothers wrote. […]