The Wyoming Energy Authority and the Energy Resources Council recommended three grant funding requests. Two requests are for carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) projects and one is for a hydrogen production project.
On March 20, the Wyoming Energy Authority opened a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the CCUS Deployment Project and received 17 proposals on October 22 when it closed. The Energy Resources Council approved funding for two projects during their meeting on January 18. A third project was also recommended for funding through the Economic Development Funds Innovation Subaccount.
The Wyoming Energy Authority plans to make progress toward the construction of a project deploying CCUS and enhancing the viability of Wyoming’s carbon-based energy economy. As such, these three projects leverage existing resources and infrastructure within Wyoming, test configurations of these resources and infrastructure to establish technical feasibility, and establish the economic viability of the projects, according to the energy authority.
The three projects considered at the meeting include Tallgrass Energy, “Eastern Wyoming Sequestration Hub,” which requested $4,109,990 for studying the potential to sequester CO2 in the Wyoming Denver-Julesburg Basin in support of the development of a commercial scale sequestration hub in eastern Wyoming. The information from this phase of the project will provide the basis for full implementation of a regional sequestration hub, which includes Tallgrass’s development of a multistate CO2 transmission system.
North Shore Energy and Starwood Energy Group’s Project Phoenix requested $4,262,500 for a joint exploration in the development of a state-of-the-art ammonia complex with on-site carbon capture and sequestration capabilities at existing depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs and processing facilities near Evanston, Wyoming. When fully developed, the project will be a very low-cost producer of low carbon ammonia, will permanently store CO2 underground, will re-purpose existing infrastructure, and retain and create new jobs in southwest Wyoming. Energy Resources Council recommended funding in full.
8 Rivers’ “The 8RH2 Process for Producing Clean Hydrogen with Autothermal Reforming and Carbon Capture” requested $150,000 to conduct a Pre-Front-End Engineering Design (Pre-FEED) study for a newbuild 8 Rivers Hydrogen (8 RH2) plant in Wyoming aiming for an eventual FEED study followed by project construction. The facility would use autothermal reforming to produce 100 million ft3/day of clean hydrogen with up to 99% carbon capture for sequestration in Evanston, Wyoming. Energy Resources Council recommended funding in full through the Economic Development Funds Innovation Subaccount.
The recommendations from the Energy Resources Council will be forwarded to the governor for final approval.
