The Department of Energy to dole out $3.5 billion for carbon removal hubs

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The DOE launched a new program to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it away. Direct air capture, the technology that draws CO2 out of the air, is the focus of the program.

Each of the hubs is supposed to be able to store at least a million metric tons of CO2. That is a huge endeavor. The world's direct air capture facilities only have the capacity to capture about a million metric tons of CO2.

A notice of intent was filed today by the DOE that says they will be making a funding announcement related to those hubs. The funding comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that was passed last year. The Biden administration is billing this effort as part of its plan to reduce the United States' greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent this decade compared to 2005 pollution levels.

Projects have to meet certain criteria to be eligible for funding. They need to be able to store the CO2 permanently. That makes sure that the greenhouse gas doesn't wind up in the atmosphere again. The captured CO2 can't be used to produce more fossil fuels. The oil and gas industry uses a technique called enhanced oil recovery, which involves shooting captured carbon dioxide into the ground to force out hard-to-reach oil reserves.

The exact locations of the hubs haven't been decided yet, but the government hopes that by lumping different projects together into hubs, they can cut costs and scale up quickly. It would be great if different facilities were able to share the same infrastructure to transport captured CO2 to a location nearby.

The plan is for at least two of the hubs to be located in economically distressed communities with high levels of coal, oil, or natural gas resources. In its announcement, the DOE said it would consult communities that might be affected.

The DOE will be looking for areas with industries that are heavily polluted. This round of funding excludes similar technologies that scrub CO2 out of smokestack emissions instead of the ambient air, so sitting these different technologies near each other might allow them all to share the same pipelines to cut down costs. Since the oil and gas industry has experience with building pipelines, having that expertise nearby could come in handy during the build-out of these hubs.

The Gulf Coast has a long history of being a hub for oil, gas, and petrochemicals. There is speculation that oil and gas companies are eyeing the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico as a place to deposit captured CO2. We will likely learn more about the project in the funding announcement later this year.