Carbon Capture Coalition Responds to Department of Energy’s Request for Information on Carbon Storage Assurance Facility Enterprise 

The Carbon Capture Coalition recently commented on the Department of Energy (DOE)’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) Request for Information (RFI) on a mid-course evaluation of the Carbon Storage Assurance Facility Enterprise (CarbonSAFE). 

The US boasts some of the world’s most abundant geologic storage formations to safely and permanently store captured carbon dioxide (CO₂). Through private-public partnerships, DOE has been identifying and studying potential CO₂ storage sites across the country since the early 2000s. Thanks to these investments, the US is arguably the global leader in carbon storage research, development, and deployment. Carbon management technologies must remain at the heart of a national strategy for good jobs in clean American industries, and scaling available domestic carbon storage is central to these goals. 

The Coalition commends DOE for the success of the CarbonSAFE program, which has established US leadership in carbon storage through early subsurface geology characterization and research on carbon storage technologies, including advances in measurement, monitoring, reporting, and verification (MMRV) techniques, a critical component to ensuring the long-term security and safety of geologic storage. Thanks to carbon capture and storage projects supported by DOE and organizations worldwide, in 2019 alone, over 25 million metric tons of CO₂ were injected into appropriate geologic formations, demonstrating no negative impacts on human health or the environment.  

The Coalition supports DOE’s efforts to advance CarbonSAFE and the broader DOE Transport and Storage program, both essential for developing technologies to deploy commercial large-scale CO₂ storage sites. These initiatives will drive innovation, economic growth, and job creation while maintaining US leadership in carbon management technologies.  

To build on these efforts, in its comments the Coalition recommends that: 

• DOE prioritizes scaling available large-scale carbon storage sites in the near-term to advance the program’s large-scale geologic storage development goal. By prioritizing Phase II through IV projects, with additional funding and technical assistance expediting their deployment, the DOE can meet its objective of at least 65 million metric tons of domestic CO₂ storage per year. 

• Facilitating Class VI permit processes is essential to accelerating project timelines. Improved collaboration with the EPA and state regulators, combined with subsurface data from CarbonSAFE, can make injection site evaluations and approvals more efficient.   

• Address research gaps to enable carbon storage in basalt formations. These formations offer significant potential to expand CO₂ storage capacity and diversify domestic carbon storage locations. 

• Broaden the geographic reach of storage projects, focusing on high-potential regions like the Gulf coast and Appalachia Basin in the near-term while exploring offshore opportunities and underrepresented areas such as the Pacific Northwest. 

These recommendations for the CarbonSAFE program will strengthen available domestic carbon storage infrastructure, enhance the geographic diversity of carbon storage, and support carbon management technologies’ central role in a national strategy for good jobs in clean American industries. The Coalition looks forward to engaging with DOE on the specifics of the program design or related aspects of the CarbonSAFE initiative in the future to continue advancing carbon storage infrastructure in the US.  

###  

Convened by the Great Plains Institute, the Carbon Capture Coalition is a nonpartisan collaboration of more than 100 companies, unions, conservation and environmental policy organizations, building federal policy support to enable economywide, commercial scale deployment of carbon management technologies. This includes carbon capture, removal, transport, utilization, and storage from industrial facilities, power plants, and ambient air.