ADA-ES has signed a new contract with the Department of Energy (DOE) to continue development of clean coal technology to capture carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants and industrial sources.
ADA will be the main contractor for the $19m project to be administered by DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), which is providing $15m of the funding.
ADA expects $4m in co-funding and support from several major utility companies including Southern Company, Luminant and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).
The project provides funding to advance ADA’s commercialization plan for regenerable solid-sorbent technology, which is designed to capture carbon dioxide generated by coal-fired power plants.
In 2010, ADA began the first field tests of this technology on a $3.2m program co-funded by DOE, as well as several major utility companies.
Once captured, the carbon dioxide could be either stored underground (sequestration) or beneficially used in processes such as enhanced oil recovery.
This technology appears to offer potential cost and energy advantages over competing liquid-solvent-based technologies.
Work will begin immediately on this contract which is expected to run for 51 months to scale-up the technology to the 1MW level, a key step in the technology development process.