DOE Invests More Than $130 Million to Lower Nation’s Carbon Pollution
Source: https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-invests-more-130-million-lower-nations-carbon-pollution
The U.S. Department of Energy announced on January 30, 2023 that $131 million for 33 research and development projects to advance the wide-scale deployment of carbon management technologies to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution. The projects will address technical challenges of capturing CO2 from power plants and industrial facilities or directly from the atmosphere and assess potential CO2 storage sites, increasing the number of sites progressing toward commercial operations. Expanding commercial CO2 storage capacity and related carbon management industries will provide economic opportunities for communities and workers, helping to deliver on President Biden’s goal of equitably achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. “By deploying tools to capture, remove, and store CO2 emissions, we can dramatically reduce the air pollution harming our health and intensifying extreme weather events,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “The projects announced today will get us closer to achieving our climate goals while helping to revitalize local economies and deliver environmental benefits to communities too often left behind.” Increased carbon pollution is contributing to the heightened risk of droughts and floods and putting our agriculture, health, and water supply at risk. Carbon capture technologies manage CO2 emissions at the source, such as a power plant or industrial facility, by capturing and storing the CO2 they produce. Carbon dioxide removal pathways, such as direct air capture with storage, remove CO2 pollution directly from the atmosphere to draw down the concentration of CO2 and reduce the impacts of climate change. Both carbon capture and carbon removal have the potential to eliminate hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 pollution per year.