The Department of Energy has made available $8 billion in loan guarantee authority to support advanced fossil energy projects that avoid, reduce or sequester greenhouse gases.
Loan guarantees under this solicitation will help provide financing to support new or significantly improved advanced fossil energy projects — such as advanced resource development, carbon capture, low-carbon power systems and efficiency improvements — that reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gas pollution.
DOE Secretary Ernest Moniz says coal and other fossil fuels, which currently provide 80 percent of US energy, will continue to be a major part of the nation’s energy portfolio in the future. The loan guarantees will speed up the development of green technologies to make fossil energy projects cleaner, he says.
The first deadline for part I applications is Feb. 28, 2014. The first deadline for part II applications is May 30, 2014. Following these initial deadlines, there are rolling deadlines through January 2016.
As the Obama Administration continues to make the case — crucial for its carbon standards for power plants — that carbon capture is a bankable technology, arguments that carbon capture is unaffordable will likely be one of the biggest legal threats to the standards, analysts say.
Last month the DOE announced it would invest nearly $84 million in 18 projects to research second-generation technologies for carbon capture from coal-fired power plants.
