U.S. pledges $131M to reduce carbon dioxide pollution

Jan. 30 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Energy has announced plans to invest $131 million to reduce carbon dioxide pollution and help achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The Energy Department announced the funding Monday for 33 research and development projects in order to capture CO2 from power plants and industrial facilities for storage or conversion to fuel.

"By deploying tools to capture, remove and store CO2 emissions, we can dramatically reduce the air pollution harming our health and intensifying extreme weather events," Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in a statement.

"The projects announced today will get us closer to achieving our climate goals while helping to revitalize local economies and deliver environmental benefits to communities too often left behind," Granholm added.

DOE will invest $38 million in 22 projects under the "Carbon Management" funding opportunity to develop technologies that will capture CO2 and transport it for permanent geologic storage or for conversion into fuels and chemicals.

The carbon management projects include $2 million in funding for Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., to convert CO2 to make concrete and another $2 million for the University of Illinois to mineralize CO2 from industrial sources to produce fertilizer products.

Another $93 million will fund 11 projects awarded under the "CarbonSAFE: Phase II -- Storage Complex Feasibility." The projects will improve procedures to safely assess onshore and offshore CO2 project sites within a storage complex at a commercial scale. The goal is to store 50 or more million metric tons of CO2.

"Carbon dioxide removal pathways, such as direct air capture with storage, remove CO2 pollution directly from the atmosphere to draw down the concentration of CO2 and reduce the impacts of climate change," the Energy Department said in a statement. "Both carbon capture and carbon removal have the potential to eliminate hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 pollution per year."

"Expanding commercial CO2 storage capacity and related carbon management industries will provide economic opportunities for communities and workers," the department added, "helping to deliver on President Biden's goal of equitably achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050."