DOE official accepts Hoeven’s invitation to learn about carbon capture technology in N.D.

U.S. Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) secured a commitment from a top U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) official to learn firsthand about advances around the development of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies in North Dakota.

Steven Winberg, Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy at the DOE, told the senator during a recent hearing of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that he will visit the state and learn about the work of the Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC) at the University of North Dakota and its industry partners.

Winberg oversees programs that directly benefit EERC projects, including Project Tundra, a post-combustion technology to retrofit existing power plants, and the Allam Cycle, which is technology for new coal and natural gas power plants that uses CO2 to increase efficiency and allow emissions to be captured.

“We appreciate Assistant Secretary Winberg’s willingness to come to the state, which will help us reinforce and expand the DOE’s support for these projects,” said Sen. Hoeven. “This support, combined with our legislation to make the economics of CCUS more viable, is an important part of keeping the projects moving forward and implementing this technology on a broad scale.”

Sen. Hoeven’s invitation to Winberg is another of his efforts to bolster the partnership between the DOE and EERC, according to his staff, which said the senator also supports several pieces of legislation during this congressional session to make legal, tax and regulatory reforms that could help make CCUS commercially viable.

“It’s one thing to demonstrate that CCUS is technically viable, but the goal is to make these technologies commercially viable,” Sen. Hoeven said. “The EERC and others are working to crack that code and realize the potential of efforts like Project Tundra and the Allam Cycle.”