Key to the development of the Aera DAC Hub-Kern project is a community benefit plan that ensures meaningful community and labor engagement through partnerships with community partners including organizations representing residents, businesses, labor unions and worker organizations, local government, emergency responders and communities with environmental justice concerns throughout Kern County.
Aera Federal LLC signed the DOE Assistance Agreement on May 23, 2024, as the prime recipient as specified in the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) instructions. The application was submitted for the Aera DAC Hub-Kern project including sub-recipients acting as project management, engineering, technology, and community subject matter experts.
Phase 0 feasibility and pre-FEED funding is part of the DOE’s Regional DAC Hubs Initiative, as outlined in the $3.5 billion FOA to accelerate the commercialization of CO2 removal via integrated capture from the atmosphere, processing, transport, and secure geologic storage and/or conversion. CO2 from DAC+S hubs will not be used for enhanced oil recovery.
The current project focus is to develop and establish the technical and business feasibility of Aera DAC Hub-Kern with the objectives of evaluating the technical and engineering integration required for a DAC+S Hub ecosystem as well as supporting infrastructure and resource requirements and the development of a community benefit plan. Aera DAC Hub-Kern will also demonstrate the feasibility of the CarbonFrontier storage site for permanent storage of at least 1 million metric tonnes (MMT) of CO2 per year for at least 12 years.
Tasks that will be performed for successful completion of the project include development of a Technology Maturation Plan (TMP), development of business and financial plans, selection of an anchor DAC technology, performing an integrated preliminary front-end engineering design (pre-FEED) study on the selected technology, performing a balance of plant (BOP) conceptual design for a 1-MTA hub, and performing a life-cycle analysis (LCA).