The Carbon Sequestration Program involves three key elements for technology development: Core R&D, Infrastructure and Global Collaborations. Core R&D is driven by industry’s technology needs and segregates those needs into focus areas to more efficiently obtain solutions that can then be tested and deployed in the field.  The Infrastructure element includes the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships (RCSPs) and other large-volume field tests where validation of various CCS technology options and their efficacy are being confirmed. Global Collaborations benefits from technology solutions developed in the Core R&D and Infrastructure elements and in turn feed back lessons learned to Infrastructure and Core R&D from the international demonstration projects and partnerships. Lessons learned from the Infrastructure element are also fed back to Core R&D to guide future research and development of technologies.

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Core R&D element contains five focal areas for applied research and carbon sequestration technology development: (1) Capture, (2) Geologic Storage, (3) Monitoring, Verification, and Accounting, (4) Simulation and Risk Assessment, and (5) CO₂ Use/Reuse. Core R&D is driven by technology needs and is accomplished through laboratory and pilot-scale research aimed at developing new technologies and new systems for GHG mitigation.

The Infrastructure element includes large-scale projects and the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships (RCSPs), a government/industry cooperative effort tasked with developing guidelines for the most suitable technologies, regulations, and infrastructure needs for CCS in different regions of the U.S. and Canada. The RCSPs began the Characterization Phase in 2003, during this phase potential sites for pilot-scale testing were identified, and during the current Validation phase, pilot-scale CO₂ injections are being conducted. Beginning in 2008, the RCSPs began to move into their final Development phase, during which large-volume sequestration tests are scheduled, to begin to demonstrate the potential to store hundreds of years of CO₂ emissions.  Technologies are being validated at test sites in the United States and Canada, and ongoing data collection is confirming geologic and terrestrial sequestration capacity and effectiveness. The RCSPs are the mechanism used to develop the regional framework to progress the development of new technologies and benefits that will include human capital, stakeholder networking, regulatory and policy development, visualization knowledge centers, best practices manuals and public outreach and education.

Global Collaborations is the last element of the program and DOE participates in international projects and also in other international efforts to advance CCS such as the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF), North American Energy Working Group, and Asian-Pacific Partnership.  The CSLF is an international group that is focused on the development of improved, cost-effective technologies for the separation and capture of CO₂, transport of CO₂, and long-term safe storage of CO₂. The purpose of the CSLF is to make these technologies available internationally and to identify and address wider issues relating to CCS, such as regulatory and policy options. U.S. technological advances and expertise in sequestration are also being shared in initiatives such as the Australian Otway Basin project [PDF-3MB], the European Union funded CO₂SINK project in Germany, the Algerian In Salah industrial-scale CO₂ storage project, and the IEA GHG Weyburn-Midale CO₂ Monitoring and Storage Project in Canada.