6. ENERGY TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND DEMONSTRATION

Meanwhile the Bioenergy Technologies Office targets RD&D through funding and partnerships to facilitate the advancement of innovative bioenergy technology, including biofuels, bioproducts and biopower from domestic biomass resources.

Lastly, the Fuel Cell Technologies Office undertakes early-stage RD&D efforts on hydrogen and fuel cell technologies for use in the transportation sector. Programmatic areas include hydrogen production, delivery and storage; fuel cells; and manufacturing research and development (R&D). Among its accomplishments, the DOE notes that its research efforts have brought down the costs of high-volume automotive fuel cells by 60% since 2006 and lowered the cost of producing hydrogen from renewable sources by 80% since 2002 (DOE, 2019m).

Fossil energy

The DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy is involved in a number of initiatives to promote techno-logical advances for the safe and affordable production and consumption of fossil fuels.

Office of Clean Coal and Carbon Management

The Office of Fossil Energy directs the Office of Clean Coal and Carbon Management, which promotes RD&D efforts that support the use of fossil fuels in more environmentally and economically advantageous ways. These RD&D efforts are designed to develop and demonstrate advanced power generation and CCUS technologies for both new and existing facilities. The near-term focus is to advance technologies that allow for greater efficiency and carbon capture at new facilities, while the longer-term focus is to enable these technologies for use in both new and existing coal plants, which will help preserve coal’s role in the country’s fuel mix in an environmentally sound way. Programme areas of focus under the Office of Clean Coal and Carbon Management include:

Advanced Energy Systems: promotes efficiency improvements at coal plants.

Crosscutting Research: serve as an intermediary between basic and applied research.

Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage Research: promotes safe, cost-effective carbon capture technologies, geological storage and carbon dioxide (CO2) usage.

Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage Major Demonstrations: partners with industry to develop and demonstrate advanced, commercial-scale CCUS technologies.

Systems Analysis: conduct systems analysis covering environmental issues, policy and regulatory frameworks, financing and economic analysis, and data and support tools.

International Engagements: works with international partners to undertake R&D on advanced CCUS technologies.

Advanced fossil energy systems

A large focus area for the Office of Fossil Energy’s RD&D efforts is developing and demonstrating advanced power generation technologies, including CCUS. Changes to the US electricity industry are forcing a paradigm shift in how the nation’s generating assets are operated. Coal-fired power plants optimised as baseload resources are being increasingly relied on as load-following resources to support electricity generated from variable renewables, as well as to provide critical ancillary services to the grid.

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6. ENERGY TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND DEMONSTRATION

In this regard, the United States launched the Coal FIRST (Flexible, Innovative, Resilient, Small, Transformative) initiative, which is aimed at developing smaller-scale coal-fired power plants that are capable of flexible operations, while improving efficiency and reducing emissions. The DOE expects that the fossil energy power fleet of the future will include the following attributes:

high overall plant efficiency (40%+ higher heating value at full load)

small (50 megawatts [MW] to 350 MW)

near-zero emissions including CO2 capture

capable of high ramp rates and minimum loads

integration with thermal or other energy storage

minimised water consumption

reduced design, construction and commissioning schedules

enhanced maintenance features including technology advances with monitoring and diagnostics to reduce maintenance and minimise forced outages

integration with coal upgrading or other plant value streams

capable of natural gas co-firing.

The initiative integrates advancements from all of the DOE’s R&D areas, including crosscutting (sensors, controls, water R&D and computational R&D); advanced energy systems (advanced combustion, gasification, turbines and advanced materials R&D); and CCUS technologies as appropriate. It performs new research that creates a fossil power generation system that meets most, if not all, of the above requirements that future power generation demands in the United States.

Carbon capture, utilisation and storage

The United States has been a leader on advancing CCUS technology for some time. The country has the largest number of large-scale CCUS facilities worldwide, which capture around 25 million tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) annually (the bulk of which comes not from coal generation plants, but rather natural gas processing plants and industrial facilities, including bioethanol plants). In particular, CCUS projects that direct CO2 into enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and have proven successful are expected to remain a driver for new investments in the field. The DOE funds a number of projects to support CCUS technologies, which have seen renewed focus over the past two years.

The DOE’s Office of Clean Coal and Carbon Management, in collaboration with the National Energy Technology Laboratory, administers the Carbon Storage Program, which has been in place since 1997. The programme focuses on supporting applied research projects to advance and disseminate CCUS knowledge. As part of the Carbon Storage Program, the DOE runs the Carbon Storage Assurance Facility Enterprise (CarbonSAFE) initiative, which helps achieve commercial-scale geological storage (over 50 MtCO2) to support CO2 emissions reductions. The DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy selects geological storage sites under this programme, with six projects currently undergoing feasibility studies. Beyond this, a number of small-scale projects are also under way throughout the country.

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