Statement by Dr. S. Julio Friedmann

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Clean Coal 

U.S. Department of Energy

Before the

Committee on Energy and Commerce

Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations 

U.S. House of Representatives

Carbon Capture and Storage 

February 11, 2014

Thank you Chairman Murphy, Ranking Member DeGette, and members of the Subcommittee. I

appreciate the opportunity to discuss the Department of Energy’s (DOE) coal research and

development (R&D) activities, including carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Coal fuels approximately 40 percent of our domestic electricity production. As the Energy 

Information Administration (EIA) recently pointed out in the Annual Energy Outlook 2014

reference case, coal will continue to be one of the two most important sources of electricity 

generation through 2040. Because it is abundant, the clean and efficient use of coal is a key part of 

President Obama’s all-of-the-above energy strategy.

A major challenge to coal, however, is that it is a major source of carbon dioxide (CO2)

emissions. Therefore, it is critical that we promote currently available technologies and develop 

more economic and broadly available technologies to reduce those emissions from coal-fired 

power plants. To that end, the Obama Administration strongly supports the development of clean 

coal technologies, including carbon capture and storage, as a critical component to an energyrich, environmentally sound energy economy. In addition to the Administration’s annual budget 

requests, that support was made clear in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 

(Recovery Act), which provided $3.4 billion for CCS. This followed over 15 years of 

1
appropriations that have provided the science and technology foundation for CCS deployment in 

the US and around the world. It was also evident in the formation of the Interagency Task Force 

on Carbon Capture and Storage, which the President charged in February 2010 to develop a plan 

to overcome the barriers to the widespread, cost-effective deployment of CCS within 10 years.

On June 25, 2013, President Obama laid out a broad Climate Action Plan to cut carbon pollution 

in America, prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change, and lead international 

efforts to combat global climate change. A key component of that plan is an $8 billion loan 

guarantee solicitation, which was released on December 13, 2013. The solicitation covers a 

broad range of advanced fossil energy projects, and is designed to support investments in 

innovative technologies that can cost-effectively meet financial and policy goals, including the 

avoidance, reduction, or sequestration of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. 

As the President has made clear, fossil fuels – including coal – provide more than 80 percent of 

our energy today and they are projected to remain a large source of energy for decades. The fossil 

solicitation – in addition to the $6 billion the Administration has already committed to clean coal 

technologies – reflects the Administration’s commitment to an “all of above” energy strategy that 

develops every available source of American energy – a strategy that’s cleaner, cheaper, and full 

of new jobs.

Clean Coal Research Program

DOE continues to play a leadership role in the development of clean coal technologies with a focus

on CCS. The Clean Coal Research Program – administered by DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and

implemented by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) – is designed to enhance our

energy security and reduce environmental concerns over the future use of coal by developing a

2
portfolio of cutting-edge clean coal technologies. The Program is well positioned to help

overcome the technical challenges associated with the development of clean coal technologies.

The Clean Coal Research Program, in partnership with the private sector, is focused on maximizing

efficiency and environmental performance, while minimizing the costs of these new technologies.

In recent years, the Program has been restructured to focus on clean coal technologies with CCS.

The Program pursues the following two major strategies:

1) capturing and storing greenhouse gases; and

2) improving the efficiency and footprint of fossil energy systems.

The first strategy aims to remove emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fueled energy

systems. The second strategy seeks to improve the fuel-to-energy efficiencies of these systems,

thus reducing pollutant emissions, water usage, and carbon emissions on a per unit of energy

basis. Collectively, these two strategies constitute the Clean Coal Research Program’s approach

to ensure that current and future fossil energy plants can contribute to a safe and secure clean 

energy future.

Core Research and Development Activities

The Clean Coal Research Program is addressing the key challenges that confront the development

and deployment of clean coal technologies through research on cost-effective capture technologies;

monitoring, verification, and accounting technologies to ensure permanent storage; and

development of advanced energy systems. Research is focused on developing technology options

that dramatically lower the cost of capturing carbon dioxide from fossil fueled energy plants. This

research can be categorized into three technical pathways: post-combustion, pre-combustion, and

oxy- combustion. Post-combustion refers to capturing CO2 from the stack gas after a fuel has been

3
combusted in air. Pre-combustion refers to a process where a hydrocarbon fuel is converted to a

mixture of hydrogen and carbon dioxide, and CO2 is captured from the gas mixture before it is

combusted. Oxy-combustion is an approach where a hydrocarbon fuel is combusted in pure or

nearly pure oxygen rather than air, which releases energy and produces a mixture of CO2 and water

that can easily be separated to produce pure CO2. We pursue all three pathways today because all 

three pathways are comparable in terms of cost and efficiency, and all have engineering strengths.

Collectively, research in each of these technical pathways is exploring a wide range of technical 

approaches such as hydrogen membranes; oxy-combustion concepts; solid sorbents; catalyzed 

solvents; advanced gas/liquid scrubbing technologies; and advanced hybrid concepts such as liquid

membrane contactors.

These efforts cover not only improvements to state-of-the-art technologies but also development of

several revolutionary concepts, such as metal organic frameworks, ionic liquids, enzyme-based

systems, and chemical looping – a form of oxy-combustion that utilizes oxygen from metal oxide 

as an oxygen carrier for fuel combustion, or for making hydrogen by “reducing” water. In 

combustion applications, the products of chemical looping are CO2 and H2O as steam. Thus, once 

the steam is condensed, a relatively pure stream of CO2 is produced ready for sequestration. This 

work has also led to manufacturing breakthroughs in microfluidics, nanofabrication, and molecular 

design. Coupling these developments with other advances in efficiency improvements and cost

reduction from developments in gasification and turbines will help provide a technology base of

fossil energy systems integrated with CCS that will be widely adopted.

Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships

The Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships were created by DOE in 2003 through a

4
competitive solicitation. The Partnerships were designed to address a range of issues associated

with geologic storage of CO2. The Clean Coal Research Program has been performing CCS field

tests focused on injection, monitoring, verification, accounting and other aspects of geologic

storage for many years, and the seven Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships are critical to

this effort. These Partnerships are comprised of state agencies, universities, and private companies.

They represent more than 400 unique organizations in 43 States, and four Canadian Provinces.

Geographic differences in fossil fuel use and potential storage sites across the United States dictate

the use of regional approaches in addressing CCS, so each Partnership is focused on a specific

region of the United States and Canada that holds similar characteristics relating to CCS

opportunities.

Together, the Partnerships form a network of capability, knowledge, and infrastructure that will

help enable geologic storage technology to play a role in the clean energy economy. They

represent regions encompassing 97 percent of coal-fired CO2 emissions, 97 percent of industrial

CO2 emissions, 96 percent of the total land mass, and essentially all the geologic storage sites that

can potentially be available for geologic carbon storage.

During the Validation Phase of the program, Regional Partnerships drilled wells and injected small

quantities of CO2 to validate the potential of key storage locations totaling more than 1 million

metric tons of CO2 at 19 small scale injection projects throughout the United States and Canada.

Those tests helped to validate storage at a small scale to understand the fate of CO2 in different

depositional systems containing saline water, oil, and natural gas, and helped test and strengthen 

simulation and monitoring tools and approaches required for commercialization. The program is 

currently in the Development Phase, during which large-scale field testing involving at least 1 

million metric tons of CO2 per project will be injected. Tests are designed to not only investigate 

5
commercial-scale injection of CO2, but will also be used to understand the necessary regulatory, 

economic, liability, ownership, and public outreach efforts needed for successful CCS, and to 

develop the necessary human capital, knowledge base, and experience necessary to implement 

future CCS operations. Several of the large-scale tests are currently underway and one project has 

safely injected over 3.6 million metric tons and is being monitored for safe and permanent storage.

Over the course of these initiatives, DOE and the Partnerships are addressing key infrastructure

issues related to permitting, pore space ownership, site access, liability, public outreach, and

education. An important product of this work is a series of Best Practice Manuals on topics such

as site characterization, site construction, operations, monitoring, mitigation, closure, and longterm stewardship. These Manuals will serve as guidelines for a future geologic sequestration

industry in their regions, and help transfer the lessons learned from DOE’s Clean Coal Research 

Program to all regional stakeholders. The first editions of the Best Practice Manuals are available

on DOE's reference shelf 1and the Manuals will be periodically updated as lessons learned from

the large scale field tests are realized.

We have also pursued projects designed to develop technologies and protocols for the

monitoring, verification, and accounting (MVA) of CO2 storage in geologic formations as well 

as simulating the behavior of geologically-stored CO2. MVA of geologic storage sites is an 

important part of making geologic storage a safe, effective and reliable method of greenhouse

gas control. These activities will culminate in a set of best practices for the deployment of

carbon capture, utilization and storage technology.

In addition to this foundational science, technology, infrastructure, and practice, DOE and the

Partnerships continue to work closely with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and

1

http://www.netl.doe.gov/research/coal/carbon-storage/carbon-storage-infrastructure/best-practices

6

 
other Federal and state agencies in developing CCS regulatory strategies, which will provide

additional certainty for future CCS deployments.

Demonstrations at Commercial-Scale

The Clean Coal Program’s work is to meet the technical and economic challenges associated 

with the deployment of newer coal technologies. Commercial-scale demonstrations help the 

industry understand and overcome start-up issues, address component integration issues, and gain 

the early learning commercial experience necessary to reduce technology risk and secure private 

financing and investment for future plants.

The Department is implementing commercial-scale demonstration projects through the Clean

Coal Power Initiative (CCPI), FutureGen 2.0, and the Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage 

(ICCS) programs. These projects together cover a wide range of important technologies, settings 

and potential applications. These include pre-, post-, and oxycombustion projects; new builds and 

retrofits; saline formation storage and enhanced oil recovery; siliciclastic and carbonate 

reservoirs; coal and petcoke conversion; power sector and industrial sector applications; and the 

geographic diversity that represents regulatory and economic diversity nationwide. The portfolio 

of projects is designed not only for technical and commercial success, but also to maximize 

learning and value to the public.

The CCPI is a cost-shared partnership between the Government and industry to develop and

demonstrate advanced coal-based power generation technologies at the commercial scale. By

enabling advanced technologies to overcome technical risks involved with scale-up and bringing

them to the point of commercial readiness, CCPI accelerates the development of advanced coal

generation technologies integrated with CCS. The CCPI also facilitates the movement of

7
technologies into the marketplace that are emerging from the core research and development

activities.

The CCPI program received an additional $800 million from the Recovery Act which, in

combination with base funding, was used to fund four CCPI Round III projects, of which two precombustion (new builds) and one post-combustion capture (retrofit) projects are still active. In

addition, a CCPI Round II project, with Southern Company Services, was modified to demonstrate

CCS at a new integrated gasification combined cycle power plant. Having completed all design, 

planning, and environmental review requirements, this project began construction in 2010 and 

project construction is now more than 75 percent complete.

The FutureGen 2.0 Project intends to conduct novel large-scale testing to accelerate the

deployment of advanced oxy-combustion power production technologies integrated with CCS.

This project will be the first advanced repowering oxy-combustion project to store CO2 in a deep

saline geologic formation. On August 5, 2010, then-Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced an

award totaling $1 billion in Recovery Act funding to 1) The FutureGen Alliance and 2 ) Ameren

Energy Resources along with their partners ( Babcock & Wilcox and Air Liquide Process and

Construction, Inc.) to repower an existing plant with advanced oxy-combustion technologies.

Together, these two awards comprised the FutureGen 2.0 project for clean coal repowering with

CCS. On February 28, 2011, the FutureGen Alliance selected Morgan County, Illinois, as the

preferred location for the FutureGen 2.0 CO2 storage site, visitor center, and research and training

facilities. The Alliance has subsequently taken over leadership of both projects comprising the 

FutureGen 2.0 program.

FutureGen 2.0 successfully completed Phase I, which included identification of a sequestration site,

preliminary characterization and test drilling, and a commitment from the Illinois Commerce

8
Commission to cover the project’s output under its purchasing plans. Phase II commenced on

February 1, 2013. Last month, DOE issued a Record of Decision to provide financial assistance to 

the FutureGen Alliance for the project. The Department intends to provide approximately $1 billion of 

financial assistance for the project (the majority of which is authorized under the ARRA through 

cooperative agreements with the Alliance). 

In addition to the CCPI and FutureGen 2.0 projects, the Recovery Act has also helped fund more

than 80 additional projects, which includes three large scale ICCS demonstrations, 10 geologic site

characterizations, 43 university research training projects, seven CCS research training centers, six

ICCS projects focused on CO2 reuse, and 14 projects focused on accelerated component

development in the core research program.

2

 

Examples of progress on these projects include the Archer Daniels Midland ICCS project in Illinois, 

which will demonstrate an integrated system of CO2 capture in an ethanol production plant and 

geologic sequestration in a sandstone reservoir. This project is under construction and approximately

49 percent complete. In Texas, the Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. ICCS project recently began

capturing CO2 from two steam methane reformer hydrogen production plants for enhanced oil recovery 

(EOR) operations. This project is the first to capture CO2 at large scale from steam methane 

reformers used for hydrogen production, with the captured CO2 then utilized for EOR. In

December 2013, the Department issued a Record of Decision on the Leucadia ICCS project in 

Louisiana, completing the environmental compliance process. When operational, this project will 

sequester 4.5 million metric tonnes per year of CO2 for EOR.

2 Details about all of the Fossil Energy projects funded by the Recovery Act can be found here: http://energy.gov/fe/feimplementation-recovery-act.

9

 
It is important to understand that every large demonstration project matures through a series of 

stages, each of which requires important milestones and results. These allows the teams of 

managers at DOE headquarters and NETL to monitor progress, manage changing national and 

global commercial settings, and ensure appropriate use of public funds in support of the approved 

national objectives.

CO2 Utilization Technologies

The coal research and development program has supported research on CO2 utilization

technologies for more than a decade. When the Carbon Storage Program (formerly named the

Sequestration Program) was initiated in the mid-1990s, it was recognized that technologies such as

mineralization, chemical conversion to useful products, algae production, enhanced oil recovery

and enhanced coal bed methane recovery could play an important role in mitigating CO2 emissions.

Other than EOR, the CO2 emissions reduction potential of these approaches is limited, due to

factors such as cost and market saturation of salable byproducts. Even so, these approaches are

logical “first-market entry” candidates for greenhouse gas mitigation, due to their ability to

produce revenue from use of the CO2 that could be used to offset the costs for these “early

adopters.” Hence, these options provide a technology bridge and smoother transition to the

deployment of the large-scale, stand-alone geologic sequestration operations that will ultimately be

needed to achieve the much larger emissions reductions required to approach stabilizing greenhouse

gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

EOR represents the most near term and most commercially attractive utilization option for captured 

CO2. Over the history of the Department, the focus of CO2-EOR R&D has shifted from increased

incremental oil production to monitoring, verification, and accounting of geologically stored CO2

10
as part of a climate change mitigation strategy. As early as the 1970s, DOE-funded projects were

developing concepts to improve the effectiveness and applicability of CO2-EOR. Currently, most

commercial EOR projects have been strategically located near cheap sources of naturally occurring

CO2 or along pipelines from such sources. If research into reducing the cost of CO2 capture from

power plants proves successful, anthropogenic sources of CO2 may become readily available for

EOR projects.

The DOE’s 2012 Carbon Utilization and Storage Atlas of the United States projects a potential 

CO2 storage resource estimate of over 200 billion tonnes for oil and gas reservoirs in the United 

States. In the near-term, incremental oil produced via EOR using anthropogenic CO2 could help

offset the costs of CO2 capture. The prospect of relatively low-cost supplies of captured CO2 in

widespread areas of the country could, in turn, provide the impetus for a national re-evaluation of

the EOR potential in many mature fields. While conventional EOR is a widely-used process, CO2

capture and permanent storage is not yet widely used at power plants. Continued evolution of EOR

and transformational advances in development and deployment of CO2 capture from coal power 

could help realize the synergy between the coal/power industry and the oil industry. Utilization of

the CO2 in EOR will impart knowledge that will be instrumental in the Department’s continued

focus on R&D in other geologic storage formations such as saline that have a larger storage

potential for CO2.

Conclusion

Today, nearly three out of every four coal-burning power plants in this country are equipped with

technologies that can trace their roots back to DOE’s advanced coal technology program. These

efforts helped accelerate production of cost-effective compliance options to address legacy

11
environmental issues associated with coal use. CCS and related clean coal technologies can play a

critical role in mitigating CO2 emissions under many potential future carbon stabilization

scenarios. CO2 utilization technologies with salable byproducts are logical “first market entry”

candidates for greenhouse gas mitigation due to their ability to produce revenue from the use of

CO2. EOR will be the dominant utilization opportunity in the near term and will impart additional

experience that will be useful in the Department’s continued focus on R&D in other storage

formations, such as deep saline aquifers, necessary to address climate change. Nevertheless,

challenges remain to promote currently available technologies and develop more economic and 

broadly available technologies for deployment of CCS. The Department’s research programs and 

efforts have spearheaded R&D that would not have occurred otherwise and has successfully leveraged 

private investment in advancing the readiness of these emerging clean coal technologies.

Mr. Chairman, and members of the Subcommittee, this completes my prepared statement. I would 

be happy to answer any questions you may have at this time.

12