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EPA and Texas Railroad Commission Sign Memorandum of Agreement for Permitting Geologic Storage of Carbon Dioxide

LCG, April 29, 2025--Officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) today outlining the state’s plans to administer programs related to carbon storage wells, known as Class VI wells. The MOA signing is a required step in the RRC’s application to be granted authority to permit Class VI wells in the state of Texas. EPA is currently preparing a proposed approval of RRC’s primacy application.

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Calpine and ExxonMobil Sign CO2 Transportation and Storage Agreement for CCS Project in Texas

LCG, April 24, 2025--Exxon Mobil Corporation (ExxonMobil) announced yesterday an agreement with Calpine Corporation (Calpine) to transport and permanently store up to 2 million metric tons per annum (MTA) of CO2 from Calpine’s Baytown Energy Center, a natural gas-fired facility located near Houston, Texas. This is part of Calpine’s Baytown Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Project that is designed to add CCS for the facility’s CO2 emissions. The Calpine facility could then provide a 24/7 supply of low-carbon electricity to the Texas grid plus steam to nearby industrial facilities.

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Industry News

CPUC Approves 150-MW solar-Thermal Project in California

LCG, January 25, 2013--The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved a power purchase agreement (PPA) for PG&E Corp., the owner of California?s largest utility, to receive power from a 150-MW solar-thermal project in California?s Sonoran Desert.

The developer of the Solar Rice Energy Project is SolarReserve LLC., and the term of the PPA is 25 years, commencing June 1, 2016. SolarReserve originally announced the agreement with PG&E in December 2009.

The solar project will be constructed on approximately 1,500 acres of private land near Blythe. The project will use a concentrated solar power (CSP) design with molten salt storage technology from Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne.

Thousands of mirrors will focus sunlight onto a central tower containing molten salt, which is heated from 500 to over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. When electricity is needed, day or night, the high-temperature molten salt flows into the steam generator, as water is piped in from the water storage tank, to generate steam. After the steam is used to drive the steam turbine to generate power, the steam is condensed back to water and returned to the water holding tank, where it flows back into the steam generator when needed.

Once the hot salt is used to create steam, the cooled molten salt is then piped back into the cold salt storage tank, where it will then flow back up the receiver to be reheated as the process continues.

The molten salt system includes as much as 10 hours of energy-storage capability. The estimated cost is approximately $600 million, and construction may begin early next year, according to the CEO of SolarReserve.

In September 2011, SolarReserve began construction in Nevada on a similar project, the 110-MW Crescent Dunes Project, which is scheduled to be completed late this year.
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