Department of Energy September 21, 2012 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

DOE announces the availability of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the W.A. Parish Post-Combustion Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Capture and Sequestration Project (DOE/EIS-0473D) for public review and comment, as well as the dates, locations, and times for two public hearings. The draft environmental impact statement (EIS) analyzes the potential environmental impacts of a project proposed by NRG Energy, Inc. (NRG), which was selected by DOE to receive financial assistance under the Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI) program. DOE's proposed action is to provide cost-shared funding to NRG under the CCPI. DOE proposes to provide NRG with up to $167 million of the overall project cost to support the construction and operation of NRG's W.A. Parish Post-Combustion CO2 Capture and Sequestration Project (Parish PCCS Project). NRG's proposed project would demonstrate the commercial feasibility of a retrofit, commercial-scale CO2 capture and compression system, coupled with use of the captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and ultimate sequestration. NRG would design and construct a system that would capture at least 90 percent of the CO2 in an up to 250- megawatt equivalent (MWe) flue gas slipstream of the combustion exhaust gases from the existing 650-megawatt (MW) coal fired Unit 8 at NRG's W.A. Parish Plant in Fort Bend County, Texas. The captured CO2 (up to 5,475 tons per day) would be transported approximately 80 miles in a new pipeline to be constructed by NRG. The CO2 would be used for EOR and ultimately sequestered at the existing West Ranch oil field in Jackson County, Texas.