Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
4/10/2015
The use of captured carbon dioxide for activities such as enhanced oil recovery will serve as an important bridge to the full deployment of carbon capture and storage technology, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy for Clean Coal and Carbon Management David Mohler said during a keynote presentation at the spring meeting of the National Coal Council, held in Washington this week. Mohler was appointed to his current position in mid-March following the ascension of Julio Friedmann to the position of Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary within the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy. “Roughly 5 percent of US oil production is the result of enhanced oil recovery,” Mohler said. “That’s significant and I think that as we continue to look for more opportunities for that, enhanced oil recovery in my mind is one of the real opportunities as a bridge between where we are today and where we need to go in the future with ultimate storage of CO2.”
Mohler noted successes at several U.S. CCS and CCUS projects, including NRG Energy’s Petra Nova project outside of Houston, Texas, which broke ground in September 2014; the DOE-funded Air Products and Chemicals’ Port Arthur industrial capture project, also in Texas; and the Archer Daniels Midland Company’s large-scale industrial capture project in central Illinois. “There’s a very compelling landmark that we’re about to achieve and we will achieve by the end of the week and that is we will have safely injected 10 million tons of CO2 in deep geological formations across the U.S. in CCS projects and regional partnerships and demonstration partnerships that have all been supported by DOE. That’s a huge landmark in my mind,” Mohler said.
It is imperative that as the nation’s coal fleet continues to age that decisions are made regarding what do with plants nearing retirement, Mohler said. “We’re in an era where we’re replacing aging plants. We’ve got some key decisions to make around what do we replace with, and as we do that, how do we maintain a balanced portfolio and how do we actually improve our ability to manage our water, our air and our climate as we do that upgrading of facilities on the generation side?” he said.
United States Can Lead International Climate Efforts
He further noted that the United States in a good position to lead in the transition to a lower carbon energy system. “We’re also in an era where the developing world is energizing and they’re consuming more and more energy, burning more and more fuel. There are great opportunities in my opinion on a global basis to begin some very serious and significant partnerships that have actually [been] very much accelerated by [the U.S.-China] agreement on climate just a few months ago,” Mohler said. Under the agreement, the United States has committed to reducing net greenhouse gas emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 and China has committed to setting targets to peak CO2 emissions by 2030 and to increase non-fossil fuel energy production to 20 percent of its energy mix by 2030. Also under the deal, the two countries are set to launch a new joint carbon capture, utilization and storage project in China which will use captured CO2 for enhanced water recovery.
