Senator John Hoeven at the LEC Annual Meeting in 2017

Senator Working to Fully Fund CCS Research, Advance Project Tundra and Allam Cycle

WASHINGTON – At a recent hearing of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Committee, Senator John Hoeven secured a commitment from Energy Secretary Rick Perry to support pilot and demonstration projects for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies. Hoeven highlighted two projects in North Dakota, Project Tundra and the Allam Cycle, which are currently supported by private and state funding. Earlier this year, the senator invited Perry to visit the state to review local CCS efforts, and Hoeven continues working to fully fund the CCS research accounts at the Department of Energy (DOE) in the Fiscal Year 2018 funding bill.

“If we want to realize the benefits of CCS technology, we need to make it commercially viable, not just technically feasible,” Hoeven said. “That means moving the research out of the lab and into the field with pilot and demonstration projects. We have two innovative projects in North Dakota, and I’m working to ensure DOE has money in the budget to move these efforts forward.”

In addition, Hoeven recently secured approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of North Dakota’s application for regulatory primacy over Class VI injection wells, which are used for geological sequestration or long-term storage of carbon dioxide (CO2). The approval, the first in the nation, will empower companies in North Dakota to develop and deploy CCS technologies for both traditional and renewable energy sources. This effort has been in the works since 2008, when then-Governor Hoeven established the North Dakota CO2 Storage Workgroup, which was tasked with developing a regulatory framework for the long-term storage of CO2.