The ROD and cooperative agreement between DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy (FE) and Summit Texas Clean Energy, LLC (STCE) sets in motion continued federal cost-shared funding for the Summit Texas Clean Energy Project, to be built just west of Midland-Odessa, Texas. This project, managed by FE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), will be partially funded with $450 million from DOE’s Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI).

Of this, $211 million will come from American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds for CCPI. FE and NETL will administer the federal co-funding to the project as well as ensure adherence to programmatic goals and objectives embodied in the CCPI.

DOE says its action to issue the ROD complies with the National Environmental Policy Act, and was reached after considering the project’s potential environmental impacts (presented in the Environmental Impact Statement), the practicable options for mitigation of the impacts, and the importance of achieving the objectives of programmatic and legislative mandates.

The plant will produce power by converting sub-bituminous coal into hydrogen-rich synthesis gas (syngas) and CO₂. The syngas and high-quality steam will be fed to the combined-cycle combustion and steam turbine generator to produce electricity. The facility will integrate Siemens IGCC technology and Linde Rectisol acid-gas capture technology to capture 90% of the CO₂ from the plant’s syngas—about 3 million tons per year.

A portion of the captured CO₂ will be used to produce urea for fertilizer while most of it will be used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) with monitoring, verification, and accounting to demonstrate the permanence of geologic storage. The CO₂ will be transported through existing regional pipelines to the oilfields of the west Texas Permian Basin, the largest CO₂-EOR region in the world. About 200 megawatts of electricity will be put on the power grid. The plant will also produce sulfuric acid, argon, and inert slag as minor products for sale in commercial markets.

A combination of recycling, deep-well injection, and evaporation ponds will eliminate the release of process and brine water to surface waters. The plant is expected to provide the local economy with an average of 650 construction jobs during construction, with a peak of 1,500 workers. The project’s operational workforce is expected to be approximately 150 workers. Accounting for indirect and induced jobs, the total number of jobs resulting from the project would average about 1,000 during construction and 300 during operations.

The Department’s CCPI is a cost-shared partnership between the Federal government and private industry to stimulate investment in low-emission, coal-based power generation technology through successful commercial demonstrations.