Innovation & Infrastructure

The United Kingdom’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has awarded nearly £4 million in funding for industrial carbon capture and storage projects, two of which will involve the University of Hull, the university announced Monday. Meihong Wang, and his Process and Energy Systems Engineering research team, will work with consortiums led by Heriot-Watt […]

The Department of Energy on Friday announced the availability of $68.4 million in funding for projects under its Carbon Storage Assurance and Facility Enterprise (CarbonSAFE) initiative. In the two funding opportunity announcements, DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy said it “seeks cost-shared projects that will determine the feasibility of developing onshore and/or offshore geologic storage complexes […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has given its approval to Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) to move forward with plans for construction of a new administrative and support facility for the Pantex Plant in Texas, CNS announced last week. The new 343,000-square-foot Pantex Administrative Support complex will provide office space for roughly 1,100 employees of the […]

Engineers at Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering & Applied Science have discovered a new, cheaper way to capture carbon utilizing water. “The group found that reducing water quantities in nanoconfinement could promote CO32- (carbonate) ions to hydrolyze H2O into a larger amount of OH- (hydroxide) ions. This discovery also led the team to find a […]

Ten small businesses developing innovative fossil energy technology will receive roughly $1 million apiece under the Department of Energy’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, the department announced Thursday. Eight of the 10 projects selected focus on clean coal and carbon management. The two remaining projects involve oil and […]

The Moroccan Office of Industrial and Commercial Property (OMPIC), the French Institut National de la Propriété Industrielle (INPI), and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) have launched a call for applications for small- or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) based in and/or focused on Africa, interested in presenting their innovative technological solutions to address climate change at […]

Pointing to the Boundary Dam Unit 3 carbon capture and storage project in Saskatchewan, Canada, as proof that the technology is viable, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) promised to advocate for its continued development in a state energy plan released Tuesday. “Washington D.C. has not done enough to advance and support clean coal technologies. We’ll need both […]

Florida Power & Light on Monday moved to purchase a coal-fired power plant in Indiantown, Fla., that it in turn intends to phase out. “While many years ago it made sense to buy this plant’s power to serve our customers, we’re now able to purchase the facility and phase it out of service, preventing potentially […]

Underground pockets of CO2, where the gas has been securely stored for in many cases more than 1 million years, exist worldwide and can serve to expand knowledge of how to safely store anthropogenic CO2, according to a new report from researchers at the University of Edinburgh and University of Strathclyde in Scotland. “Lessons for […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has given its approval to Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) to move forward with plans for construction of a new administrative and support facility for the Pantex Plant in Texas, CNS announced last week. The new 343,000-square-foot Pantex Administrative Support complex will provide office space for roughly 1,100 employees of the […]

Carbon capture and storage projects are expensive, and investors know it, but that’s not the whole problem driving the lack of large-scale demonstration of the technology, according to United States Energy Association Executive Director Barry Worthington. The problem is that governments are not stepping up to do their part to drive the cost of CCS […]

The adoption of the Paris climate change agreement by member states to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change signaled a new era for development of carbon capture and storage, according to Julio Friedmann, former principal deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy. “It is easy to dismiss [the […]

Pursuing carbon capture and storage without a utilization component is a fool’s errand, former Assistant Secretary of Energy for Fossil Energy Charles McConnell said Tuesday. “I’m going to ask you to stop wasting time on CCS,” he told attendees at the opening session of the ExchangeMonitor’s annual CCUS Conference, taking place this week in Tysons, […]

The use of carbon capture and storage technology cannot and will not be limited to coal-fired energy generation, a panel of experts said Monday at the ExchangeMonitor’s annual Carbon Capture and Storage Conference in Tysons, Va. “What does the future hold for CCUS? It certainly holds the unknown,” said Jeff Erikson, general manager for the […]

In its fourth phase the CO2 Capture Project (CCP), a technology research collaboration of seven major energy companies, has for the first time begun to explore the separation of CO2 from natural gas extraction, according to the project’s Annual Report 2015, released last week. “Capture activity has in the past focused on three scenarios of […]

The ExchangeMonitor Publications & Forums’ 2016 Carbon Capture, Utilization & Storage Conference begins Tuesday at the Sheraton Tysons Hotel in Tysons, Va. Hundreds will attend this program to get updates from experts; hear case studies on emerging technologies and research in the industry; and to connect with one another on new ideas, research, and business […]

Scientists working on the CarbFix project in Iceland have discovered a process to turn carbon dioxide into stone, potentially solving the problem of possible leakage from CO2 storage sites. According to a study published Friday in the magazine Science, the researchers injected CO2 into basaltic rock, which is both highly reactive and very common worldwide. […]

NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes moved one step closer to producing molybdenum-99 Friday after winning three patents and one trademark approval from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. NorthStar plans to produce the medical isotope, used for imaging procedures for cancer, heart disease, infection, and inflammation treatment, at the University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR). Production is […]

An essential part of the scaled-down plans for the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant’s Uranium Processing Facility is to extend the life of some existing production facilities at the Tennessee complex in order to reduce the costs of new construction and keep the project’s overall price tag at or below $6.5 billion. The focus of those […]

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the University of North Dakota Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) got the go-ahead from the Department of Energy on Friday to launch DOE-funded enhanced water recovery demonstration projects. Like enhanced oil recovery, EWR pumps CO2 underground to extract the goal substance, in this case, brine. The two […]

The Boundary Dam Unit 3 carbon capture and storage project in Saskatchewan was online 67 percent of the time in May, less than in recent months, but still above the 61 percent 12-month average, operator SaskPower reported Friday in a monthly update. May is only the second month this year during which the plant did […]

The United States is teaming with Saudi Arabia to create an “international consortium” intended to stimulate research, development, and demonstration of supercritical carbon dioxide technology, the Department of Energy announced Friday. “The announcement underscores the commitment by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to increase government funding for clean energy technologies under the Mission Innovation Initiative […]

Southern Co.’s Kemper County Energy Facility carbon capture and storage project in Mississippi, originally billed at $2.4 billion, now has a projected price tag of $6.74 billion after a new budget overage of $19 million, the company reported Wednesday in a monthly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The price increase is “related to […]

A new carbon capture and utilization technology developed by United Arab Emirates-based Engineering Solutions Minerals DMCC (ENGSL) could capture up to 1.3 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, the Masdar Institute confirmed this week. The new technology, which mixes sodium hydroxide with CO2 from flue gas to create soda ash, could cost as much as […]

Occidental Permian’s carbon sequestration monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) plan has become the first ever approved under the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP), EPA announced Friday. The GHGRP has developed an accounting and monitor system to measure the amount of greenhouse gasses injected underground. EPA’s Office and Air and Radiation’ Associate Assistant […]

Using goal and sunlight, scientists at the National Energy Technology Laboratory have developed a process to turn carbon dioxide into fuel. The process, which uses gold nanoparticles, uses more CO2 than it emits, making it carbon negative, according to a Department of Energy blog post. The process can be powered by renewable energy. According to […]

A new mobile laboratory may help Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) better protect Hanford workers from exposure to chemical vapors at the tank farms. This spring, about 50 workers at the Energy Department’s Hanford site near Richland, Wash., received medical evaluations for possible exposure to chemical vapors. All are being released to return to work. […]

A problem with a “1960s-vintage” elevator in the Beta-2 facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex spawned a series of events in late April that created an oily mess and provided yet another example of the challenges resulting from the plant’s aged infrastructure. According to a newly released report by staff of the Defense Nuclear […]

Commercial scale carbon capture and storage technology is immature and expensive, but even without establishing new technologies, these issues can be overcome, according to a report out Tuesday by the United Kingdom’s Energy Technology Institute. “Our analysis strongly suggests that risk reduction through sequential deployments of existing technology in the UK can drive output energy […]

The world will need negative carbon technology, such as direct air capture, if there is any chance of limiting global average temperature rise to 1.5-degrees, Klaus Lackner, director of the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions at Arizona State University told Yale Environment 360 in a recent question and answer. Lackner notes that because carbon stays […]