Martin Schneider
GHG Monitor
3/14/2014
The Department of Energy’s FY 2015 budget request renames the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships, rebranding the program as Storage Infrastructure “to better represent the characterization and field activities that occur in the RCSPs and other small and large-scale field projects in a variety of geologic reservoirs in onshore and offshore settings.” Top-level funding details for DOE programs was released March 7, but full details of the request weren’t released until March 13. Overall, the Administration is seeking to slash funding for DOE’s coal research budget in FY 2015, proposing $302.4 million for the program, a 23 percent decrease from 2014 enacted levels.
Like every other clean coal program in the FY 2015 request, the Carbon Storage account that houses the Storage Infrastructure program was trimmed 26 percent to $80 million. For the Storage Infrastructure account itself, funding was cut to $60 million, down $11.7 million from current levels. Notably, the request notes that “no funding is planned in FY 2015 for CO2 storage in EOR fields or for improved EOR technologies to increase storage efficiency.” In FY 2014, 12 projects were selected to evaluate CO2 storage in EOR fields, but the FY 2015 request notes those projects will continue under FY14 funding. Additionally, the request states that FY 2015 plans include:
- Continuing implementation of eight large-scale field projects that will cumulatively inject 6 million metric tons of CO2 since 2009 to evaluate methodologies and validate technologies at the large-scale to demonstrating safe and permanent storage. In FY 2015, one additional large-scale project plans to initiate injection
- Continuing support to the three existing small-scale field tests to evaluate methodologies and technologies to ensure safe permanent storage of CO2.
- Issuing solicitation and selecting up to three offshore storage site characterization projects.
- Issuing solicitation and selecting up to three additional small-scale injection field projects or one large-scale field project to address key technical research issues (storage capacity, injectivity, and containment) associated with carbon storage.
