Investing in North Dakota Clean Coal Technology
As Chairman of the Senate's Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, Senator Dorgan added funding to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to advance carbon capture and storage projects, and he recently announced that Basin Electric Power Cooperative was competitively awarded $100 million of this funding to develop a carbon capture project at a coal-fired power plant near Beulah, ND.
The announcement for the funding was made at Bismarck State College with U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu and other officials from North Dakota. Dorgan said at the event, "North Dakota is an energy leader for the nation, and this investment by the Department of Energy demonstrates that our state is leading the way with cutting-edge energy technologies."
The demonstration project will happen at Basin's Antelope Valley Station Unit 1, which aims to capture 90 percent of carbon dioxide flue emissions.
The project will create jobs for North Dakotans while developing new technologies that advance a cleaner fleet of coal-fired power plants both in the U.S. and around the world.
Senator Dorgan has used his key energy committee positions to vigorously support clean coal and carbon capture and sequestration technologies. He believes coal will continue to play a big role in domestic energy production for years to come, but that we must find ways to use it in cleaner and more efficient ways.
