The United States Department of Energy (DOE) announced the launch of four programmes to accelerate the Carbon Dioxide Removal Industry, which will be funded with $3.7 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Direct Air Capture Commercial and Pre-Commercial Prize
DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) has announced the Direct Air Capture Prize, which will provide support and prize awards totalling $115 million to encourage innovative approaches to direct air capture.
The Direct Air Capture Pre-Commercial Prize offers up to $15 million prizes to incubate and accelerate the research and development of ground-breaking direct air capture technologies.
The Direct Air Capture Commercial Prize offers prizes of up to $100 million to qualified direct air capture facilities that capture CO2 from the atmosphere.
Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs
The Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs programme is being introduced by the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) of DOE in collaboration with FECM. To build four domestic, regional direct air capture hubs, the DOE will invest $3.5 billion.
These hubs will each showcase a direct air capture technology or suite of technologies at a commercial scale, with the potential to capture at least 1 million metric tonnes of CO2 annually from the atmosphere and store that CO2 permanently in a geologic formation or through its conversion into products.
With additional funding opportunities anticipated in the upcoming years, the first funding opportunity announcement made public under this programme makes more than $1.2 billion available to start the conceptualising, designing, planning, constructing, and operating direct air capture hubs.
Carbon Utilisation Procurement Grants
The Carbon Utilization Procurement Grants Program will give grants to states, local governments, and public utilities to support the commercialisation of carbon emission-reduction technologies which FECM will manage.
Moreover, it will also purchase and use commercial or industrial products created from captured carbon emissions. The DOE intends to announce the first FOA issuance, which will provide grants totalling up to $100 million, and has just released a Notice of Intent informing interested parties of this.
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF)
DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions (OTT), in collaboration with FECM, will issue a Lab Call to advance measurement, reporting, and verification of best practices and capabilities to accelerate the commercialisation of carbon dioxide removal technologies, including direct air capture. In addition, OTT plans to award $15 million in grants to projects led by DOE National Laboratories, plants, and sites and supported by a wide range of industry partnerships spanning the emerging carbon dioxide removal sector.