National Carbon Capture Center

The National Carbon Capture Center is a project founded by the U.S. Department of Energy "to develop and test technologies to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal-based power plants."

Announcing the formation of the center in May 2009, the DOE also stated that it would be "managed and operated by Southern Company Services. "Southern Company will establish and manage the NCCC at the Power Systems Development Facility (PSDF) in Wilsonville, Ala. The NCCC will meet a critical need of the Energy Department by serving as a test center for emerging carbon capture technologies. The center will enable testing and analysis at a scale large enough to provide meaningful data under real operating conditions. The project not only promises advancements in technology, but it is expected to create or sustain nearly 170 jobs that will last the duration of the 5-year project," the DOE media release stated.

On of the project participants, Arch Coal, stated in a media release that the center "plans to conduct testing on both pre-combustion and post-combustion carbon capture technologies. Existing facilities at the PSDF will be modified to conduct the pre-combustion CO2 capture component of the NCCC project. New facilities to conduct post-combustion testing and evaluation will be on the site of Plant Gaston, a coal-fueled generating plant adjacent to the PSDF that is operated by Southern Company subsidiary Alabama Power."

Project Participants

 * DOE
 * Southern Company
 * American Electric Power
 * Luminant
 * Electric Power Research Institute
 * Arch Coal
 * Peabody Energy
 * Rio Tinto

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Carbon Capture and Storage
 * Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute