DOE offers $2.1B to support CO2 transportation infrastructure
October 6, 2022
BY U.S. Department of Energy
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today began accepting letters of interest from applicants for loans under a new $2.1 billion Carbon Dioxide Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation (CIFIA) program. Enacted under President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CIFIA offers funding for large-capacity, shared carbon dioxide (CO2) transportation projects located in the United States. Appropriated annually through 2026, CIFIA will support shared infrastructure projects, including pipelines, rail transport, ships and barges, and ground shipping, that connect anthropogenic sources of carbon with endpoints for its storage or utilization. Carbon management technologies such as direct air capture, carbon capture from industry and power generation, carbon conversion, and CO2 transportation and storage technologies must be deployed at a large scale in the coming decades to meet the United States’ net-zero greenhouse gas goals by 2050.
“One giant challenge in deploying carbon management technologies to reduce emissions is to be able to transport the CO2 to where it is ultimately sequestered or used up,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “The CIFIA program will help industry overcome the challenges to accessing the upfront capital needed to build shared infrastructure projects that are essential to advancing our clean energy economy.”
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Investments to finance projects that build shared transport infrastructure to move CO2 from points of capture to conversion facilities and storage wells will help form a domestic interconnected carbon management ecosystem. Robust investments will be required to overcome barriers associated with deploying large common carrier CO2 transport infrastructure, including high capital costs and uncertain near-term utilization and returns as demand comes online.
Through a combination of direct loans, loan guarantees, and grants, CIFIA supports the buildout of shared CO2 transport infrastructure in the United States that will provide economies of scale and help form an interconnected carbon management ecosystem that will enable commercial deployment of carbon management technologies. The program is administered jointly by DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) and Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM). LPO lends extensive project finance and loan administration experience from the management of its existing $30 billion portfolio, while FECM provides technical and grant administration expertise.
While the Department is currently accepting letters of interest as outlined in the guidance document, DOE requests that potential applicants engage directly with DOE for no-fee, no-commitment consultations prior to submitting a letter of interest. For additional details on eligibility, priority considerations, and financial terms and conditions, visit the CIFIA website.
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Potential applicants may request a pre-application consultation by emailing CIFIA@hq.doe.gov with the subject line “CIFIA Pre-application Consultation.”
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