California has set an ambitious goal of being completely carbon neutral by 2045.
There was a ribbon cutting ceremony that took place Friday at the Calpine Los Medanos Energy Center in Pittsburg.
The celebration is for a $25 million pilot program called “Project Enterprise,” which developers say will capture 95% of all carbon emissions at the plant and store it underground.
Experts and state leaders at Friday’s event say if it works as planned. This could be a gamechanger in the fight to manage climate change.
“If this technology gets proved out reduce pollution, impacting local residents,” said California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot.
Calpine is the nation’s largest generator of electricity from natural gas, making it the perfect testing ground.
The pilot program will run for 18 months and Thad Hill, Calpine CEO, says the carbon capture capabilities look promising.
“The pilot at this project will take about 10 tons a day of Carbon dioxide co2,” he said. Colorado-based Ion Clean Energy developed the technology and provided this six-month timelapse of the pilot being built.
The goal is to use an 18-month test to work out any kinks with the intentions of rolling out the technology to larger power plants in the near future.
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“In this system, we’re just really looking to demonstrate the technology, a “catch and release” pilot. So, we’re really just looking to get empirical data on the performance of the technology,” said Jennifer Atcheson, Vice President of operations at Ion Clean Energy.
The U.S. Department of Energy is funding the project and hopes it will create a blueprint for similar carbon capture programs across the country.
“The ultimate goal is to reliably put carbon capture on natural gas power plants, which make up the largest which makes up the largest electricity in the country,” said Roger Aines, senior advisor for carbon dioxide removal, U.S. Department of Energy.
