DOE Awards $100M for Fuel Cell R&D, $25M for Sequestration

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced it would make $100 million available to fund 25 hydrogen research and development projects.

The projects will be cost-shared and will seek to overcome cost and durability barriers associated with hydrogen fuel cell research. They will focus on fuel cell membranes, water transport within stacks, advanced cathode catalysts and supports, cell hardware, innovative fuel cell concepts, and effects of impurities on fuel cell performance and durability. Awards also include stationary fuel cell demonstration projects to help foster international and intergovernmental partnerships.

In another announcement, nine projects will receive a total of almost $24 million to develop cost-effective technologies to capture carbon dioxide produced in coal-fired power plants.

“The key to successful carbon sequestration is technology development, including technologies to capture greenhouse gases such as CO2 before they are released to the atmosphere,” said Samuel Bodman, DOE Secretary.

Even with advances in energy efficiency and the switch to less carbon-intensive fuels, the result is expected to be a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions – from 25,028 million metric tons in 2003 to 43,676 million metric tons in 2030 – and the potential for changes in the global climate, according to the Department of Energy, DOE.