Innovation & Infrastructure

A challenge brought against the Environmental Protection Agency concerning four Class VI injection well permits issued to FutureGen Industrial Alliance in August 2014 has been dismissed by a panel of judges of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The permits in question would have allowed the FutureGen Alliance to construct and operate four wells to […]

SCS Energy has pulled the plug on its Hydrogen Energy California (HECA) project, at least for now. In a March 3 filing with the California Energy Commission (CEC), the company officially withdrew the project’s application for certification (AFC). “Given the current uncertainty related to timing, the time that has passed since some of the analysis […]

Quebec-based carbon capture tech specialist CO2 Solutions has been selected to receive a $2.4 million (CAD) grant from Sustainable Development Technology Canada to support the deployment of the company’s enzyme-enabled capture tech. “The intention is for the Corporation to install a unit capturing carbon from a Quebec pulp mill, with the CO2 being reused in […]

The United States, Canada, Norway, and the United Kingdom have assumed leadership roles in carbon storage readiness, according to the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute’s Global Storage Portfolio, published last week. These countries have taken strides in the identification and assessment of storage sites, having established advanced understanding of the storage potential of their […]

Washington River Protection Solutions, the Hanford Site tank farm contractor, has helped Columbia Basin College (CBC) in nearby Pasco, Wash., purchase a state-of-the-art Q-Track simulator for its Nuclear Technology program laboratory. CBC is one of only two National Uniform Curriculum programs providing this equipment to train students in limiting their exposure to radiation. The simulator […]

The Energy Technologies Institute said Wednesday it will invest £200,000 in a nine-month project to study the effects of removing brine from undersea stores that could in the future be used for carbon storage. The study will be conducted by Heriot-Watt University in partnership with Element Energy, T2 Petroleum Technology, and Durham University. “This latest […]

The cost of Southern Co.’s Kemper County Energy Facility carbon capture and storage project in Mississippi continues to climb. The project, originally billed at $2.4 billion, now has a projected price tag of $6.644 billion after a budget overage of $7.4 million in January, the company reported Monday in a monthly filing with the Securities […]

Investing in early stage innovative technology will likely fall to the government for the foreseeable future, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said Tuesday at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Energy Innovation Summit. “I don’t think you’re going to see a big transition in terms of funding in the earlier stages of the innovation chain […]

The United Kingdom’s National Oceanographic Center (NOC) on Tuesday announced what it called a first-ever “deep-water experiment” that will simulate emissions from a carbon dioxide storage reservoir. The project, scheduled for 2018, is intended to provide additional demonstration of the safety of offshore carbon capture and storage projects, according to a NOC press release. It […]

Japan will launch a carbon capture and storage pilot project off the coast of Hokkaido at the northern tip of the nation, Bloomberg reported Sunday. The pilot will begin in April with carbon captured from a refinery operated by Idemitsu Kosan Co. and injected into deep saline aquifers. The project will be the first full-chain […]

Nuclear waste cleanup technology specialist Kurion announced Monday the completion of construction and acceptance testing for its prototype Modular Detritiation System (MDS). The company is touting MDS as the world’s first solution for removing tritium from sizable amounts of contaminated light water and enable the recycling or clean release of reactor cooling water at light-water reactors. […]

Researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington have discovered a process by which concentrated light, heat, and high pressures convert carbon dioxide and water into liquid hydrocarbon fuels. “We are the first to use both light and heat to synthesize liquid hydrocarbons in a single stage reactor from carbon dioxide and water,” said Brian Dennis, […]

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, said the design of the multibillion-dollar Uranium Processing Facility should be 90 percent completed by the end of 2017. That 90 percent design has been established as a critical milestone before the National Nuclear Security Administration can begin construction of […]

Southern Co., developer of the Kemper County Energy Facility carbon capture and storage project and manager of the National Carbon Capture Center, has taken over leadership of the Carbon Capture International Test Center Network (ITCN), the company announced Wednesday. Through the network, carbon capture test facilities share knowledge in an effort to accelerate commercial deployment […]

Securing a reliable source of inexpensive, clean energy is the answer to many of the world’s problems, Bill Gates said in his annual letter Tuesday. “If we really want to help the world’s poorest families, we need to find a way to get them cheap, clean energy. Cheap because everyone must be able to afford […]

GHG Daily 2/22/2016 The use of copper as an oxygen carrier in chemical looping processes could increase the efficiency of the process, according to research being conducted at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). “In our tests, a copper-based oxygen carrier was prepared and used in the chemical looping process,” NETL research scientist Ranjani Siriwardane […]

FuelCell Energy and Cenovus Energy on Tuesday announced a contract to study the potential use of carbonate fuel cells to capture carbon dioxide from the emissions of a 14-megawatt natural gas-fired turbine. Under the contract, the companies will complete preliminary front-end design and engineering (pre-FEED) for the project. The project will be located at an […]

Carbon dioxide stored in underground reservoirs can, due to interaction with host rocks, find multiple ways of escaping, according to research conducted by scientists at Penn State University. Researchers studied the interaction between carbon dioxide-saturated brine and sandstone or limestone. The researchers also considered how the mixture reacted with cement. “If this plume of carbon […]

The Obama administration is requesting $575 million in fiscal 2017 to continue design work and bolster other activities on the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee. The funding request is a significant bump-up from the current appropriation of $430 million. Based on Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz’s budget presentation, the […]

The California Energy Commission will meet March 7 to decide if the Hydrogen Energy California carbon capture and storage project’s application for certification (AFC) will be reinstated or terminated. Specifically, the commission will address a motion filed by project developer SCS Energy to reinstate the expired AFC and a motion by the Energy Commission Staff […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Daily 2/8/2016 While carbon capture and storage technology provides the possibility of a decarbonized fossil energy system, its potential role in the industrial sector must not be ignored, experts at the Global CCS Institute’s Americas Forum stressed Thursday. “We really think that this is an area that deserves a lot more […]

Alissa Tabirian NS&D Monitor 1/29/2016 The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Office of Emergency Operations revamped the agency’s mobile Emergency Communications Network (ECN) systems last year. The size of the ECN systems was cut by about 88 percent and the cost was cut by 60 percent, while communications pathways were increased by 300 percent, the […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Daily 1/27/2016 CO2 Solutions said Monday that its carbon capture demonstration project at Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, near Montreal, Québec, has concluded and met expectations. According to the results of the demonstration, the company’s proprietary enzyme, 1T1, performed in a stable manner and did not produce any toxic waste. Furthermore, the technology produced CO2 […]

Nuclear waste cleanup technology specialist Kurion on Tuesday announced that it had been selected for the 2015 Global Cleantech 100 list.   The annual list from the Cleantech Group recognizes the firms that “represent the most innovative and promising ideas in cleantech – the companies that are best positioned to tomorrow’s clean technologies challenges.” More than […]

GHG Daily 1/26/2016 Alberta, Canada’s, Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation (CCEMC) has extended to Feb. 1 the proposal submission deadline for its CAD$15 million funding completion for projects related to the innovative use of carbon dioxide, the independent, not-for-profit organization announced. The funding competition is the second round of CCEMC’s “Grand Challenge,” a three-round […]

GHG Daily 1/26/2016 The National Energy Technology Laboratory said last week it has granted a license to renewable energy systems developer CogniTek Management Systems for the use of two patented sorbent carbon capture technologies. “CogniTek plans to incorporate these sorbent technologies into its integrated biomass-to-biofuels conversion process with power generation. This innovative process includes carbon […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Office of Emergency Operations revamped the agency’s mobile Emergency Communications Network (ECN) systems last year. The size of the ECN systems were cut by about 88 percent and the cost was cut by 60 percent, while communications pathways were increased by 300 percent, the NNSA said in a Jan. […]

GHG Daily 1/25/2016 The Department of Energy is seeking pre-project planning submissions for efficient advanced combustion pilot plants with near-zero emissions. The department plans to award three to four projects a maximum of $3.33 million each. “Overall, these projects will accelerate the scale-up of coal-based advanced combustion power generation technologies capable of 90 [percent] CO2 […]

GHG Daily 1/25/2016 The National Energy Technology Laboratory and U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy have requested information regarding novel technologies for high value, high carbon uses for coal byproducts. “Of interest are processes that produce carbon products for emerging and new markets such as carbon fibers for transportation and infrastructure applications; carbon […]

Y-12 UPF Gets Permanent Federal Project Chief Dale Christenson, who has served as federal project director of the Y-12 site’s Uranium Processing Facility since last spring when John Eschenberg stepped down, has been named to the top position on a permanent basis following a months-long search. Steven Wyatt, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security […]