(235i) The U.S. Department of Energy's R&D Program for Carbon Use and Reuse

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory has an active carbon capture and storage (CCS) program. A focus area within the carbon storage program is Carbon Use and Reuse. The objective of this area is to identify and develop a suite of technologies to beneficially use CO₂ to produce useful products excluding enhanced oil recovery technologies. A key challenge is to identify candidate chemistries and economically feasible approaches that utilize meaningful amounts of CO₂ as feedstock for in-demand products and yet have smaller greenhouse gas footprints than traditional pathways. Life cycle analysis (LCA) is being used to determine the environmental impact of CO₂ utilization projects. An open source LCA software, openLCA, is being used in the development of these LCAs. Current projects in the portfolio include cements/concretes, algae, and novel concepts.