DOE’s Carbon Capture Program, administered by the Office of Fossil Energy and the National Energy Technology Laboratory, is conducting research and development activities on Second Generation and Transformational carbon capture technologies that have the potential to provide step-change reductions in both cost and energy penalty as compared to currently available First Generation technologies.

The successful development of advanced CO2 capture technologies is critical to maintaining the cost-effectiveness of coal-based power generation. Today, there are commercially available First Generation CO2 capture technologies that are being used in various small-scale industrial applications. At their current state of development these technologies are not ready for widespread deployment on coal-based power plants for three primary reasons:

• They have not been demonstrated at a large enough scale necessary for power plant application;
• The energy required to support CO2 capture would significantly decrease power generating capacity; and
• If successfully scaled-up, they would not be cost-effective at their current level of process development.

The Carbon Capture Program goals are to achieve a capture cost of less than $40/tonne of CO2 captured for second generation technologies and less than $10/tonne of CO2 captured for transformational technologies. These goals are expressed in 2011 dollars and assume 90 percent CO2 capture. Given the significant economic penalties associated with currently available carbon capture technologies, step-change improvements in both cost and energy penalty will be required to achieve these goals.

The Carbon Capture Program’s approach to achieve these goals is to utilize a combination of developments in process chemistry, new chemical production methods, novel process equipment designs, new equipment manufacturing methods, and optimization of the process integration with other power plant systems (e.g., the steam cycle, cooling water system, carbon dioxide compression, etc.). Additionally, advances in boiler/gasifier technologies, materials of construction, process stream handling, heat integration, compression technologies, gas cleanup and separation, and power cycle technology under development within the Department’s Clean Coal Research Program provide synergistic benefits are also required to meet program goals.