National lab teams with China to develop clean energy

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Clean Energy Research Institute in China recently agreed to collaborate on R&D for clean energy. The institute is the research wing of Huaneng Power International Inc., the world’s largest power company. The two organizations will concentrate on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), enhanced oil recovery, and shale gas. Livermore scientists will contribute their expertise in CCS, material science, and energy-systems analysis. Huaneng operates GreenGen, the first large-scale coal-fueled power plant that uses CCS. The company also operates the largest CCS pilot plant. That plant uses 15 MW to capture about 120,000 tons of CO₂ annually. The company plans on scaling up CCS at the plant so it can sequester 2.5 million tons of CO₂ per year.

CCS separates CO₂ from the flue stream of industrial and power plants, compresses it, and stores it underground in deep geological formations, thus preventing it from entering the atmosphere.

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