DOE laboratories, ExxonMobil launch lower-emissions research effort

Two US Department of Energy national laboratories and ExxonMobil Corp. plan to invest as much as $100 million over 10 years to advance lower emissions energy technologies that could be brought to a commercial scale. The agreement involving DOE’s National Energy Technology and National Renewable Energy Laboratory is one of the largest between DOE’s labs and the private sector, DOE said on May 8.

“Finding meaningful solutions to address climate change is going to take everyone—governments, companies, and academia—working together,” said Vijay Swarup, vice-president of research and development at ExxonMobil Research & Engineering Co.

Initial work between ExxonMobil and the national laboratories will explore ways to bring biofuels and carbon capture and storage to commercial scale across the power generation, transportation, and manufacturing sectors, DOE said. It noted that the collaboration is a recent addition to a series of partnerships ExxonMobil has established for innovative lower-emissions research programs. ExxonMobil has spent more than $9 billion since 2000 developing and deploying lower-emissions energy solutions, DOE said.

Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].