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AEP to get federal funding for W.Va. CCS project
December 4, 2009 by Ken Ward Jr.
Gazette photo by Lawrence Pierce
The Obama administration is scheduled to announce early this afternoon that it is awarding American Electric Power $334 million in federal “stimulus” funding to expand its carbon capture and storage test project at the Mountaineer Plant in Mason County, W.Va.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu is expected to join Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Gov. Joe Manchin to make the announcement in a conference call with the media.
AEP’s Mountaineer Plant CCS project is among the most important tests of technology aimed at controlling greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants. But, the current test deals with an emissions stream equivalent to only 20 megawatts of the 1,300-megawatt plant. The federal funding would cover about half of the costs of expanding AEP’s chilled ammonia carbon capture process to cover the equivalent of 230 megawatts of the plant. (Still less than 20 percent of the overall facility).
DOE is awarding the money as part of the latest “Clean Coal Power Initiative” funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
Updated:
Here’s a link to the DOE news release, which includes a list of other funded projects and a link to the AEP press release.
I’ve also posted the audio of the conference call announcement: