The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will fund a direct air capture (DAC) with nuclear power study. The Joseph M. Farley plant, operated by Southern Nuclear, will be the location of the study that will receive around $2.5 million.
Global R&D organization Battelle, based in Columbus, Ohio will conduct a front-end engineering design (FEED) study on the DAC system developed by AirCapture.
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The nuclear power plant will power the direct air capture process that would remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The FEED will determine the performance and business-case options, as well as the system costs for separating CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it off-site.
Carbonvert Inc, Sargent & Lundy, Southern Company and the University of Alabama will all be collaborators to Battelle’s project. The air capture study is part of a DOE investment that totals $14 million and aims to scale up carbon capture and storage.
The Department of Energy has also previously funded Constellation and several partners with $2.5 million to study CO2 air capture in northern Illinois where the company’s Byron nuclear plant is located.
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For this air capture project, a chemical solution would be added to the water in the main condenser on the non-nuclear side of the Byron plant. The water would flow from the condenser to the cooling towers, which is where carbon dioxide would attach to the chemical solution and then be captured and isolated.
This technology has the potential to put CO2 into use for net-zero industrial processes such as creating sustainable aviation fuel or in the production of beverages.
