05.11.15

Hoeven: UND, EERC Enter Into $2.5 Million Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy

Senator Brought Energy Secretary, EERC Together to Renew the Collaboration

WASHINGTON – Senator John Hoeven today announced that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has entered into a two-year Cooperative Agreement with the University of North Dakota (UND) Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) to conduct research and develop technologies to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels. The collaboration is funded through the Office of Fossil Energy and administered by the National Energy Technology Laboratory. 

Hoeven made the case for the EERC’s Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) research efforts with Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, including when the secretary was in North Dakota last summer. The senator arranged a meeting between Moniz and EERC Director Tom Erickson and Associate Director for Research John Harju to request the Collaborative Agreement, which the DOE announced today. 

“The work being done by the EERC on the UND campus will help to bring down the cost of CCS to help make it commercially viable,” Hoeven said. “The EERC leads the Plains CO2 Reduction (PCOR) Partnership, a collaboration of more than 80 U.S. and Canadian stakeholders that are working to take CCS out of the lab and into the field.”

The EERC will conduct basic fundamental and applied research that will assist the industry in deploying and commercializing efficient, low-carbon, nonpolluting energy technologies that can compete effectively in meeting requirements for clean fuels, chemicals, electricity, and water resources in the 21st century. The EERC will secure a minimum overall 20 percent cost share from nonfederal partners.

Work will be performed in five topical task areas that contribute directly to and programmatically fit with DOE Fossil Energy goals for future fossil energy systems:

  • Carbon storage research and development
  • Carbon capture research and development
  • Oil and gas research and development
  • Strategic studies, and
  • Support of Fossil Energy’s evolving mission.

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