RTI lands $168.8M federal grant for carbon capture project

Updated Sep. 8, 2010 at 6:57 a.m.

RTI lands $168.8M federal grant for carbon capture project

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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – Scientists at RTI International have landed a $168.8 million federal grant for an energy project linked to carbon capture.

The award represents nearly one third of the Department of Energy grants that were made on Sept. 2 and formally announced Tuesday.

An RTI spokesperson told Local Tech Wire and WRAL.com that it would issue a formal statement Wednesday about the grant.

Researchers in South Carolina also received $5 million for a CO2 project. (Read here for details.)

The RTI grant as described by the Department of Energy in its awards announcement:

“Scale-up of High Temperature Syngas Cleanup Technology

“The Research Triangle Institute will design, build, and test a warm gas cleanup system integrated with CCS at pre-commercial scale (30-50 megawatt electric equivalent [MWe]). RTI’s warm gas cleanup system will remove multiple contaminants (sulfur, mercury, arsenic and selenium) from coal syngas, building on successful field tests at pilot scale (0.3 MWe) using real syngas from Eastman Chemical Company’s gasifier.

“This project also includes:

(1) optimization of sour water gas shift for CCS applications,
(2) integration of CO2 capture using activated Methyl Diethanolamine solvent with warm gas cleanup to produce a sequestration-ready CO2 stream,
(3) CO2 compression and drying,
(4) deep well injection of CO2 for long-term geological storage, and
(5) measurement, monitoring, and verification of the CO2 storage.

“Successful warm gas cleanup combined with CCS has the potential to provide high-purity syngas from which up to 90% of the carbon has been removed, at significantly lower costs than current technologies. A number of industrial applications can benefit from this technology, including the production of hydrogen for use in petroleum refineries and petrochemical plants, production of chemicals and plastics, and for iron ore reduction.”

The DOE projects cover programs across 15 states.

The experimental technique involves storing carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants and other sources underground, in an attempt to reduce pollution blamed for contributing to global warming.

"This is a major step forward in the fight to reduce carbon emissions from industrial plants," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "These new technologies will not only help fight climate change, they will create jobs now and help position the United States to lead the world in clean coal technologies, which will only increase in demand in the years ahead."

All told, he said, the department has invested more than $4 billion in carbon storage and capture, matched by more than $7 billion in private investments.

The newest money will fund 22 projects in 15 states, ranging from evaluation of geologic sites for carbon storage to development of turbo-machinery and engines to help improve carbon capture and storage. The projects, in states including California, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New York and Texas, are being funded from the economic stimulus law.

President Barack Obama wants a cost-effective deployment of carbon capture and storage within 10 years — despite questions about the technology and skepticism about its feasibility. He created a task force this year charged with coming up with a plan to overcome barriers to such deployment.

One issue identified by the task force was liability, because a sudden release of large amounts of carbon dioxide can kill by asphyxiation. The task force called for several options to be considered: maintaining the current legal framework; putting limits on claims; establishing an industry-financed trust fund to pay damages after a site is closed; or transferring of liability to the federal government following a site closure, under certain conditions.

For more about the grants, read here.

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(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

Tags: Green Energy, Local Firms, RTI, Cleantech

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