More than $2.3 billion in funding will support three approaches to combat and reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution while also tackling climate change and creating jobs, the U.S. Department of Energy announced earlier this month.
President Joe Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) will provide $2.25 billion for speed development of carbon-storage projects; the DOE will issue another $91 million for increasing CO2 storage sites and the development of carbon-management technologies, the DOE reported May 5.
"Expanding commercial CO2 storage capacity and related industries will provide economic opportunities for hard-hit communities," the DOE states in the announcement, "and help deliver on President Biden’s goal of a achieving an equitable transition to a net-zero economy by 2050."
CO2 is the main component of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which have increased greatly during the last several decades. GHGs feed climate change and increase the likelihood of droughts and floods and risking food production, human health and water supplies, the DOE reports.
“This past month we saw the highest levels of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere in history," DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in the report, "underscoring the fact that our efforts to tackle climate change will be inconsequential if we don’t act now to manage the greenhouse gas emissions that are currently putting public health and our environment at risk."
DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) will manage the three programs that will receive the funding, according to the DOE, which reports also that the FECM has invested more than $210 million in 45 carbon-management initiatives since January 2021.
“The President’s budget commitments coupled with the investments from his Bipartisan Infrastructure Law," Granholm said in the announcement, "will enable the U.S. to develop cutting-edge technologies to safely and efficiently capture, remove, and store CO2 while revitalizing communities that have powered this nation for generations.”
