2024 FECM / NETL Carbon Management Research Project Review Meeting

The 2024 Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) / National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) Carbon Management Research Project Review Meeting was held from 05 – 09 August 2024 in the steel city of Pittsburgh. This meeting provided delegates with the opportunity to share the knowledge and insights gained by more than 150 US Department of Energy (DOE) – sponsored research and development (R&D) projects from the following FECM R&D programs:  Point Source Carbon Capture (PSC),  Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), Carbon Conversion, and Carbon Transport and Storage (T&S). A spectrum of plenary, multi-topic breakout, and interactive poster sessions was conducted to share research results and provide opportunities for discussion and collaboration on research efforts.

The DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstration (OCED) will oversee over $20 billion in federal investments in clean energy projects. This represents a new phase that builds on DOE’s long-standing position as a global leader in clean energy R&D, expanding DOE’s scope to fill a critical innovation gap on the path to net-zero emissions by 2050.

The general plenary session on the first day highlighted the DOE’s ‘Energy Earthshots^TM’ initiative which aims to accelerate breakthroughs of more abundant, affordable, and reliable clean energy solutions within the decade. The Earthshot initiative includes:

• Carbon negative shot^TM: aimed to remove and store CO₂ at meaningful scales for less than $100/tonne CO₂-eq within a decade. 
• Hydrogen shot^TM: Accelerate innovation and spur demand for clean hydrogen by reducing the cost by 80%, to $1 per 1 kilogram of clean hydrogen within 1 decade. 
• Clean fuel and products shot^TM: focuses on decarbonising the fuel and chemical industry through alternative sources of carbon to advance cost-effective technologies with a minimum of 85% lower GHG emissions in a decade.

The FECM / NETL PSC strategic vision is to demonstrate first-of-a-kind carbon capture on power and industrial sectors coupled with dedicated and reliable carbon storage, that will lead to commercially viable nth-of-a-kind opportunities for widescale deployment, facilitating a carbon-free economy by 2050.

On the PSC breakout front, ~ 85 and 6 technical presentations and panel discussions were delivered on themes such as engineering-scale demonstration, modular and emerging capture technologies, mobile sources capture and AI application on capture technologies.

The keynote speaker of the PSC session, Niall Mac Dowell; Imperial College London + Barclays Bank discussed the status and future directions of PSC. Niall emphasised the unanimity among the IPCC, IEA and IRENA on the need for carbon capture and storage (CCS) and CDR, noting that the challenge lies in developing financeable business models. He noted that social license is not 100%, and this leads to delays and/or rejection along CCS chain, thus increasing costs. In terms of new opportunities, AI is driving demand for baseload, low/zero carbon intensity (CI) power, as well as process and control technologies to support flexible operations. Additionally, there is an increasing need for modular technologies and new materials that resist degradation and VOC emissions, reduce water consumption, and ensure the production of high-purity CO₂ streams.

ROTA-CAP™ is an innovative and intensified CO₂ capture process that integrates compact rotating packed bed (RPB) technology with cutting-edge solvent technology. This advanced system marks a significant breakthrough in minimizing the size, capital investment, and operational costs associated with CO₂ capture. Presented by Osman Akpolat from GTI Energy, the technology is designed for both power plant and industrial applications, capable of achieving over 95% CO₂ capture across a wide variety of flue gases and offering a cost reduction of 30-50% compared to traditional methods.

Tim Fout, Program Manager, PSC noted in his presentation that to minimise the cost of CO₂ capture, it’s crucial to achieve optimal conditions across all factors, Under the most favourable conditions including best ambient conditions, best construction costs, low NG cost, favourable financing mechanisms, and high-capacity factor, the cost of CO₂ capture could be as low as $41.9/tonne. This highlights the need for meticulous planning and favourable economic conditions to make CO₂ capture economically viable. It was further noted during the FEED session that TEA-based capital and recurrent cost estimates are not reflective of costs associated with actual project deployment conditions that deviate from the design, market or financial structure assumptions in any way.  

The final day of the meeting featured the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) FLExible Carbon Capture and Storage (FLECCS) annual program review. The objective of the FLECCS program is to develop CCS technologies that enable power generators to respond flexibly to grid conditions in a high-variable renewable energy (VRE) penetration environment, especially considering that renewables are often unable to meet demand during peak times. In 2019, the average number of starts for combined cycle plants was 39 per year, and this figure is projected to more than double to date. This highlights the importance of research into solutions for FLECCS, considering that these baseload plants were not originally designed to operate flexibly with a capture retrofit, which introduces significant technical challenges for integrated systems.

Unsteady state operations may result in off-spec CO₂ during transients. High capture rates under steady state operations could offset CO₂ emitted during transient operations and enable reaching CI goals under flexible operations. However, as the benefits of operational flexibility are relatively modest if enhanced flexibility comes at the cost of a significant increase in capital expenditure (>5–10%), it may not justify the cost. Reduction in overall capital costs is likely to be most determinative of future deployment.

Machine learning (ML) is being leveraged to improve the accuracy and efficiency of carbon capture processes, including predicting emissions from capture plants. These efforts also focus on addressing amine degradation during the CO₂ capture process and developing AI-based modelling software to manage emissions more effectively

The resounding message from the Carbon Management Research Project Review underscores that science works. In the spirit of the Olympic games, synonymous with pushing human boundaries, we should aspire to continue advancing the frontiers of decarbonising our economy.