The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the launch of four programs that will help build a commercially viable, just, and responsible carbon dioxide removal industry in the United States.
These programs, funded with $3.7 billion from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will help accelerate private-sector investment, spur advancements in monitoring and reporting practices for carbon management technologies, and provide grants to state and local governments to procure and use products developed from captured carbon emissions. This, on top of federal Section 45Q tax credit for the capture and geologic storage of CO2, which received substantial complementary incentives through the Inflation Reduction Act ( click here )
The four new efforts are the following:
- Direct Air Capture (DAC) Commercial and Pre-Commercial Prize. Up to $115 million prize split among three separate but connected programs, each addressing a different phase of the commercialization DAC process: Pre-Commercial Energy Program for Innovation Clusters, Pre-Commercial Technology, and Commercial. Click here to know more about this prize. (And here to recall that Elon Musk is also offering a prize do Carbon Capture, other $ 100 million)
- Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs.
- Carbon Utilization Procurement Grants.
- Infrastructure Law Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF). Several programs such as Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies, Bioenergy Technologies, Wind & Solar Energy and Water Power Technologies, Geothermal Technologies, Vehicle Technologies, Energy Efficiency and Conservation, Building Technologies, Advanced Manufacturing etc.
Overall, the DOE’s Carbon Negative Shot initiative, calls for innovation in carbon dioxide removal pathways that will capture CO2 from the atmosphere and store it at gigaton scales for less than $100/net metric ton of CO2-equivalent.
Since January 2021, DOE has invested more than $250 million in 62 research and development projects and front-end engineering design studies to advance carbon management approaches that include carbon dioxide removal and carbon utilization projects. Click on the image below to know more. Or here https://www.energy.gov/articles/biden-harris-administration-announces-37-billion-kick-start-americas-carbon-dioxide .
