Karen Frantz
GHG Monitor
3/07/204
The Obama Administration slashed funding for the Department of Energy’s coal research budget in its Fiscal Year 2015 request to Congress this week, proposing $302.4 million for the program, a 23 percent decrease from 2014 enacted levels. Despite the proposal of a new program for natural gas carbon capture and storage demonstration projects, which was listed in the budget along with clean coal programs, every other coal program received cuts—with the budget for Carbon Capture trimmed 16 percent to $77 million and the budget for Carbon Storage cut 26 percent to $80 million. Funding for the Advanced Energy Systems program took the largest hit, with the request proposing a 49 percent decrease in funding to $51 million, followed by the NETL Coal Research and Development program, which was slashed 32 percent to $34 million. Funding for Cross Cutting Research was trimmed 16 percent to $35.3 million.
Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz stressed to reporters at a news conference this week that the budget reflected a commitment to climate and an all-of-the-above energy approach, and that despite the reduction in Fossil Energy funding, DOE will continue to have a strong focus on carbon capture, utilization and storage. “We want to emphasize that in addition to work that would be directly funded out of [the Office of Fossil Energy] in the FY ’15 request, in terms of new capture systems … we do want to remind everyone that the program continues to execute on the $6 billion committed to the large-scale CCUS demonstration projects, and in addition we have the $8 billion loan guarantee program focused on fossil fuels that reduce CO2 emissions,” he said. “So again, this is a major program in coal and fossil fuels more generally.”
Overall, the DOE’s budget for Fossil Energy Research and Development was slashed 15 percent to $475.5 million, when accounting for use of prior year balances, down $86.4 million from the FY 2014 enacted level. The only programs that received funding boosts were Natural Gas Technologies, at 70 percent, and Fossil Energy Environmental Restoration, at 34 percent.
Budget Proposes New Program for Natural Gas CCS Demonstrations
There was one bright spot for FE R&D, however: $25 million in funding for a new natural gas carbon capture and storage demonstration program “to support projects to capture and store carbon emissions from natural gas power systems.” Moniz hailed the program as the first-of-its-kind for DOE. “For the first time we are proposing to go to move to a demonstration of natural gas CCS because certainly if we look decades ahead for natural gas, as with coal, to be a major player in a very low-carbon world will require CCs technology here as well,” he said.
