DOE Releases Report of the Mission Innovation CCUS Experts’ Workshop

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory released a report of the Mission Innovation Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) Experts’ Workshop held September 26–28, 2017 in Houston, Texas.  The Workshop, hosted by the United States in conjunction with Saudi Arabia, brought together 260 of the world’s leading CCUS experts from academia and industry.

The report was released at the Mission Innovation CCUS Roundtable today in Malmo, Sweden at the third Mission Innovation Ministerial (MI-3). Both Deputy Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette and Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Steven Winberg took part in discussing the role of CCUS technologies in global de-carbonization efforts.

Globally, power and industry account for about 50 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, and CCUS is among the few, key technologies that can prevent carbon dioxide (CO₂) from entering the atmosphere.  While initial development of CCUS technology primarily focused on decarbonizing the power sector, the technology has evolved to include energy-intensive industries such as cement, steel, chemicals, and many other manufacturing sectors.   

The Mission Innovation CCUS Experts’ Workshop discussed basic research and development (R&D) needs in CO₂ capture, CO₂ utilization, geologic storage, and cross-cutting CCUS topics. Experts created an international consensus on the most critical scientific challenges associated with CCUS, and they established a set of Priority Research Directions (PRDs), which have the potential to make a significant impact on CCUS technology performance.  The report includes 30 PRDs to guide future CCUS R&D.

Mission Innovation is a ministerial-level initiative, launched in 2015 with the goal to dramatically accelerate global clean energy innovation over the next two decades and beyond—a definitive time period for a future global energy mix that is clean, affordable, and reliable.  Mission Innovation intends to work closely with the private sector as it increases its investment in earlier-stage clean energy technologies that emerge from government research and development programs, as the private sector plays a vital role in the commercialization and cost-effectiveness of clean energy breakthroughs.

The report, titled Accelerating Breakthrough Innovation in Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage, can be accessed here.