Carbon Storage drilling activity picks up in the Midwest, 8 Rivers supplies low carbon power

Carbon storage development activities have picked up in March compared in January and February.

• Announced in 2024, Heidelberg Cement plans to capture up to 2 million tons from their Mitchell Plant in Indiana. The company received up to $500 million from the DOE to support carbon capture and an additional $8 million to support carbon storage. Heidelberg Materials is current drilling their stratigraphic test well to confirm storage feasibility. If successful and the project FID’s, this will be first large scale cement decarbonization project in the U.S.

• DTE Energy, a Detroit based electric utility, is drilling a stratigraphic well under their subsidiary, Shakespeare Sequestration, in Putnam County. There has been no announcements or project details from DTE, Shakespeare, or the emitter - but due to locational proximity, the capture facility would be Poet’s plant in Cloverdale, Indiana.

• Tallgrass received 5 drilling permits for their Eastern Wyoming Sequestration Hub this week including 1 stratigraphic well (Fritz), Barberry (Monitor and Injector), and Cypress (Monitor and Injector).

PacifiCorp's Rocky Mountain Power and 8 Rivers awarded Wood an agreement for Pre-FEED activities at a jointly-developed Wyoming carbon capture project

• Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon approved $1.5 million in funding via the Wyoming Energy Authority’s Energy Matching Funds program to support this project.

• The initial MOU in 2024 provides for the companies to cooperate in identifying the preferred brownfield plant site in including the Wyodak coal-fired power plant near Gillette, or the Dave Johnston coal-fired power plant near Glenrock.

• The project will deploy 8 Rivers’ proprietary Allam-Fetvedt Cycle power cycle technology and direct-fired supercritical CO2 turbines the Company is developing with Siemens Energy. The captured CO2 will be used to drive the turbines and generate low-carbon power.

Heidelberg Materials announced funding partnership with the Government of Canada for CCUS project in Edmonton, Alberta

• Government of Canada’s Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) department has committed to finalizing negotiations on a Contribution Agreement for the world’s first full-scale application of CCUS in the cement sector.

• Project expects to capture up to 1 million metric tons of CO2 annually

• Phase 1: $49 million

• Phase 2: up to $226 million

Repsol received $223.5 million from the European Commission to support the development of the TarraCO2 project offshore Spain

• Project aims to store 54 million tons and inject up to 2 million tons per year

• The funds come the EU Innovation Fund that has allocated funding for 77 decarbonization projects.

• The storage facility intends to support decarbonization projects in Tarragona, Spain.

  

Summit Halts Permit Application For CO2 Pipeline In South Dakota

• Summit Carbon Solutions has temporarily suspended its permit application for a CO2 pipeline project in South Dakota following the signing of House Bill 1052, which bans the use of eminent domain for CO2 pipeline projects in the state.

• Summit had sought approval from the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) for a specific route and permission to conduct surveys along the proposed pipeline path. Physical surveys are required to prove the pipeline’s feasibility, but under the new law, Summit can no longer acquire land through eminent domain to conduct them. Summit argues this disrupts its timeline and makes the deadlines set by the PUC unfeasible. Summit has requested the PUC to halt the application process and extend the deadline indefinitely due to the law's impact.

• Summit’s $9 billion carbon capture project aims to transport CO2 from over 50 ethanol plants to an underground storage site in North Dakota, potentially qualifying for federal tax credits.

News Bites

• The New Mexico House of Representatives passed House Bill 457 by a vote of 48-15. If enacted, the bill would authorize the state to issue permits for Class VI wells. The bill now advances to the Senate for further consideration.

• Biomass-to-Hydrogen technology developer, Mote, raised $7 million to advance technology

• Ocean-DAC technology leader Capture6 announced a $27 million Series A to scale technology and develop their 4 announced projects in California, New Zealand, South Korea, and Western Australia.

• EDF Renewables partners with Skytree and Return Carbon as its partners for a DAC ‘technology park’ in Texas with aims up removing 500,000 metric tons of CO2 per year

European Energy has produced the first e-methanol at the Kassø Power-to-X facility

• The methanol was produced in the first methanol line out of two at the facility and was achieved using biogenic CO2 sourced locally at the Biogas facility in Tønder, Denmark.

• Facility is designed with 3 electrolyzers (52.5 MW total) from Siemens Energy and a total e-Methanol annual capacity of 42,000 tons

• The electrolyzers are powered mainly by the nearby Kassø Solar Park facility which is also developed and operated by European Energy

Rely and Verso Energy sign MoU to develop seven e-fuel production plants to develop a standardized methanol-to-jet production platform to reduce costs via standardization and replication

• Rely (joint venture of Technip Energies and John Cockerill) and Verso Energy sign an MOU to develop seven e-fuel production plants:

  • 4 in France: Petit-Couronne, Tartas, Golbey, Saillat-sur-Vienne

  • 2 in Finland: Oulu, Tornio

  • 1 in the US: Jessup

• The project plans to produce over 500,000 tons per year of SAF

• Rely is responsible for pre-final investment decision (FID) studies (Basic Engineering, pre-FEED, FEED) for each plant

• Platform will integrate Rely’s technologies and Shell CANSOLV™ (Technip Energies’ carbon capture technology).

REOLUM awards Técnicas Reunidas to provide engineering services for one of Europe’s largest green methanol plants

• Técnicas Reunidas and Siemens Energy awarded the FEED contract for am e-Methanol project in La Robla, Spain in addition to project partners MHI and Johnson Matthey

• The process combines biogenic carbon from a biomass cogeneration plant with renewable hydrogen to create e-Methanol

• The plant expects to produce 140,000 tons per year of renewable methanol.