DOE Names Regional Partners to Explore Best Approaches for Sequestering Greenhouse Gases

Key Part of Administration's Climate Change Initiative

The Regional Partnerships will span 33 states.

Washington, DC - The U.S. Department of Energy today named the seven partnerships of state agencies, universities, and private companies that will form the core of a nationwide network to help determine the best approaches for capturing and permanently storing gases that can contribute to global climate change.

Together, the partnerships include more than 140 organizations spanning 33 states, three Indian nations, and two Canadian provinces. In announcing the initiative last November, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham said the partnerships would become "the centerpiece" of expanded federal efforts to investigate the potential for carbon sequestration. The partnerships are a key part of President Bush's Global Climate Change Initiative.

"Carbon sequestration" is the term given to a family of methods for removing carbon gases from the exhausts of power plants or from the air itself, then securely storing the gases in geologic formations, in soils and vegetation, or in a variety of other environmentally safe forms.

In only the last five years, sequestration research at the Energy Department has risen from small-scale, largely conceptual studies to one of the highest priorities in the agency's energy research program.

The seven partnerships will develop the framework needed to validate and potentially deploy carbon sequestration technologies. They will study which of the numerous sequestration approaches that have emerged in the last few years are best suited for their specific regions of the country. They will also begin studying possible regulations and infrastructure requirements that a region would need should climate science dictate that sequestration be deployed on a widescale in the future.

The selected partnerships are: [Click on each link for more details]

• West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership led by the California Energy Commission, Sacramento, CA, and made up of representative organizations from Alaska, Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

• Southwest Regional Partnership for Carbon Sequestration which will involve the efforts of 21 partners in eight states coordinated by the Western Governors' Association and New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, NM,

• Northern Rockies and Great Plains Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership which will be headed by Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, and cover Idaho, Montana, and South Dakota;

• Plains CO2 Reduction Partnership which will extend across Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and two Canadian provinces. It will led by the Energy & Environmental Research Center at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND.

• Midwest Geologic Sequestration Consortium which will evaluate sequestration options in the Illinois Basin of Illinois, western Indiana, and western Kentucky. It will be led by the University of Illinois, Illinois State Geological Survey.

• Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership, headed by Southern States Energy Board, Norcross, GA, and involving Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina;

• Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership covering Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia and coordinated by the Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, OH.

The Department of Energy will provide approximately $11.1 million to support the partnerships over the next two years. Each group will receive up to $1.6 million, with participating organizations contributing another $7 million, or an average of nearly 40 percent of the initial funding.

At the end of two years, the partnerships will recommend technologies for small-scale validation testing in a "Phase II" competition expected to begin in late fiscal year 2005. The second phase will provide additional federal funding to continue progress in environmental permitting, public involvement and education, protocols and other infrastructure needs for ensuring that carbon gases can be safely and permanently sequestered.

The Regional Partnership selections mark the third major sequestration-related initiative taken by the Energy Department in recent months in support of the President's Climate Change Initiative, which calls for an 18 percent reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas intensity by 2012.

In February, the Administration announced plans for designing and building FutureGen, a highly efficient and technologically sophisticated coal-fired power plant that will incorporate carbon sequestration to help meet its near-zero emission goals. The Regional Partnerships will provide key regulatory, infrastructure, and site-related information for future deployment of FutureGen-based technologies.

In June, the Department of Energy coordinated the first meeting of the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum, an international effort to examine development and deployment options for carbon sequestration on a global scale. Along with the United States, delegations from 13 countries and the European Union attended the inaugural meeting held in Tysons Corner, VA.

- End of Techline -

For more information, contact:

• David J. Anna, DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory, 412/386-4646, anna@netl.doe.gov