⁍ The Petra Nova plant’s performance was seen as a major test of emerging efforts to capture planet-warming gases and store them below ground.

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⁍ The plant was designed to capture 33% of the carbon emissions from one of four units at the W.A. Parish coal plant.

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⁍ It pipe it 81 miles to the West Ranch oil field, where it would push more oil to the surface.

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– A $1 billion project to capture carbon dioxide emissions from a Texas coal plant suffered chronic mechanical problems and routinely missed its targets before it was shut down this year, according to a report submitted by the project’s owners to the US Department of Energy, Reuters reports. The Petra Nova carbon-capture facility was seen as a major test of emerging efforts to capture planet-warming gases and store them below ground, a technology considered crucial to companies and governments hoping to fight climate change. The joint venture project between NRG Energy Inc and Japan’s JX Nippon had received a $190 million grant from the US government. Before being mothballed, it was the only US project capturing carbon from a coal-fired power plant. Since Petra Nova started up in 2017, it suffered outages on 367 days, according to a technical report it sent to the DOE in March. Issues with the carbon-capture facility accounted for more than a quarter of the outage days, followed by problems with the plant’s dedicated natural gas power unit. The facility also missed its carbon capture targets by about 17%: It captured 3.8 million short tons of carbon dioxide during its first three years, shy of the 4.6 million short tons developers had expected. The plant was designed to capture 33% of the carbon emissions from one of four units at the W.A. Parish coal plant, and pipe it 81 miles to the West Ranch oil field, where it would push more oil to the surface. Department of Energy spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes said the department believes the project had been generally successful, and that NRG idled it “due to the pandemic and the low price of oil, not failed technology.” A rep for the Department of the company says, “It’s a testament to the fact that there is a lot, which is a testament to the fact, which, which, which which which which, which, which which which which which which which which, which which which which which which which which which which which which which, which which which which which which which which which which which which which which which which, which which which which which, which which which which which which which which which which which which which which which which which which which which which which