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 unveiled during last year’s climate negotiations in Paris,” according to a DOE press release.
Under the Mission Innovation project, 20 nations have pledged to increase clean energy R&D by twofold in an effort to counter climate change and expand clean energy opportunities to consumers and businesses.
“Power cycles based on a sCO2 working fluid have the potential for higher thermal efficiencies, lower capital costs and overall reduction in electricity cost compared to steam-based power cycles,” DOE said. “These benefits present opportunities for the application of sCO2 power cycle technologies to numerous heat sources, including nuclear, concentrating solar, geothermal, waste heat recovery and fossil fuel power applications. For fossil fuel based applications these efficiency improvements can enable a power plant to generate the same amount of electricity from less fuel, thus decreasing CO2 emissions.”
The present risk of sCO2 power cycle technology development to private businesses requires preliminary government investment, the release says. Development so far has not gotten far beyond limited test loops and novel CO2-based systems “up to 6 megawatt-electric (MWe) scale undergoing development testing for waste heat recovery applications.”
The United States and Saudi Arabia are already both working to advance the technology.
“By sharing knowledge and best practices through the new international consortium, the collaboration between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia builds on the actions both nations are taking to advance sCO2 technologies to reduce the technical barriers and risks to commercialization of the sCO2 power cycle,” according to DOE. “In addition to the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, other countries that are pursuing sCO2 R&D, including the Republic of Korea, will be invited to join the new consortium.”
