The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE), through its Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM), has awarded more than $13 million in funding to 23 projects across the United States focusing on research and development (R&D) in carbon capture, the agency announced Wednesday.
The funding, which was distributed in two rounds, will support carbon management technologies and applications aimed at reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to address the impacts of climate change.
Led by universities and private sector companies, the selected projects will seek to capture CO2 from the emissions of different industrial facilities, including power plants, or directly from the air and oceans, and then convert it into products such as fuels, chemicals, and building materials.
Under Round 1 of this funding opportunity four R&D projects were selected which will investigate technologies converting captured CO2 into long-lasting building materials like concrete, while at the same time looking to significantly reduce the overall emissions over the entire life cycle of the product and improving the cost efficiency of these processes. More detailed information about the projects can be found here.
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Round 2 included a total of 19 R&D projects which will support cost-effective processes for ocean-based carbon removal technologies and direct air capture (DAC) of CO2 coupled with carbon-free hydrogen to create carbon-neutral methanol — a chemical building block for many products such as fuels and plastics. More detailed information about the projects can be found here.
The selected projects will be managed by the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), an entity under the purview of FECM.
The current investment is expected to contribute to the efforts of achieving the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal of a net-zero U.S. economy by 2050, while at the same time securing high-quality jobs and economic opportunities for the local communities.
Since January 2021, FECM has invested more than $678 million in some 170 projects working to advance R&D and deployment of carbon capture, removal, transport, conversion, and storage solutions.
Read more: U.S. Carbon Capture Set For Liftoff According To DOE Report
