The U.S. Energy Dept. gave a boost to new alternative-energy projects on June 10 by announcing a $102-million conditional loan guarantee for a 22-MW geothermal plant in Oregon, the first for that technology. It also agreed to provide $663 million in grants for three other projects to test the capture and storage of CO₂ from industrial sources.

The Neal Hot Springs project in eastern Oregon, being developed by Boise-based US Geothermal Inc., would use advanced geothermal technology that is more efficient and can exploit lower-temperature underground heat sources, the company says. It estimates the total project cost at $119 million and says the facility will be in operation by 2012. The developer has already obtained a 25-year power-purchase agreement to sell all its electricity to the Idaho Power Co., Boise. DOE would not say how soon it expects to finalize US Geothermal’s loan guarantee, but a company spokesman predicts it will be shortly.

Separately, DOE said it would provide a total of $612 million in grants, funded through the federal stimulus program, to three companies to support carbon-capture and -storage projects at industrial plants in Louisiana, Texas and Illinois. The funds will pay for design, construction and operation of the facilities. Sponsoring companies will contribute a total of $368 million toward the projects.

One project—to be built by Leucadia Energy in Lake Charles, La.—would capture about 4.5 million tons of CO₂ per year from a methanol plant; the project is set to operate by April 2014. In Port Arthur, Texas, another plant would capture CO₂ from a steam methane reformer, which produces hydrogen and syngas from natural-gas and other petroleum precursors; that project is expected to be online in November 2012. A third project is set to capture CO₂ from an Archer Daniels Midland ethanol plant in Decatur, Ill., and store it at a nearby saline formation; the developer plans to have the facility running by August 2102.

DOE aims to use the projects to test large-scale carbon capture and storage from industrial sites, estimating that these facilities can capture and store a total of about 6.5 million tons of CO₂ per year.