Gerald Gentleman CCS

The Gerald Gentleman Station carbon capture FEED and pre-feasibility study was led by the Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) in partnership with the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) under the US DOE CarbonSAFE program. The study evaluated retrofitting post-combustion carbon capture at the coal-fired Gerald Gentleman Station near Sutherland, Nebraska, which emits approximately 8.5 million tonnes of CO₂ per year. The preferred capture configuration uses amine-based solvent absorption, targeting capture rates between 65% and 90%, with a baseline design sized to capture about 2.0 million tonnes of CO₂ per year to meet the CarbonSAFE requirement of storing 50 million tonnes over 25 years. CO₂ would be dehydrated, compressed to supercritical conditions, and transported by a dedicated 75-mile pipeline to a saline storage complex in western Nebraska. Subsurface modeling identified the Cloverly Formation as the primary storage target, with an estimated need for approximately four Class VI injection wells to support long-term storage operations. Total integrated CCS costs were estimated at roughly $70 per tonne of CO₂ captured, including capture, transport, injection, and monitoring infrastructure. While technically viable, the project was not advanced beyond pre-feasibility due to economic and regulatory uncertainty in Nebraska