NPPD Receives over $2 Million in Funding for Project with ION Engineering

NPPD Receives over $2 Million in Funding for Project with ION Engineering
World-Herald News Service
COLUMBUS - A NPPD project was one of seven to receive funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy. Nebraska Public Power says in a press release their project that is being funded is a "design and cost estimate for a retrofitted, 300-megawatt equivalent, commercial scale CO2 capture facility." The facility is located near Sutherland at the Gerald Gentleman Station and the funding will go to ION Engineering of Boulder, Colorado, who is working on the project, says the press release.

NPPD says, "Projects selected are expected to advance competitive operation of the country’s fossil-based power generation infrastructure by reducing energy consumption and capital costs associated with next-generation carbon capture systems."

NPPD says in the release that they will be contributing $250,000 through internal labor and expenses, in addition to $50,000 in cash from the District's Domestic Energy Initiative Fund. “We continue to be interested in this project and support it because our coal-fired generating resources bring significant value to our customers,” said NPPD Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Tom Kent. “It is important that we find technologies that can reduce CO2 emissions in a cost-effective manner.”

The project is expected to last 18 months, once it begins in April, and will work towards developing a budgetary estimate for the cost of capturing CO2 emissions from the Gentleman Unit 2 near Sutherland.

NPPD previously worked with ION in 2013, when they were able to develop a solvent that provided a potential low-cost solution for carbon capture, says the release. Contributing partners on that project also included the University of North Dakota Energy and Environmental Research Center and the University of Alabama Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.

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