Lara Abrams Communications

"Our key goals are, and have always been, to provide affordable, reliable and environmentally responsible energy. In that regard, doing our part to advance technological initiatives that may reduce CO2 emissions from our plants is a moral imperative," said David Crane, NRG’s President and CEO. "We are pleased to work with GreenFuel and NYSERDA and glad to dedicate the time and resources to make it happen," he added.

"NRG’s solid reputation in the energy industry and exemplary goals for environmental responsibility and performance make NRG a premier choice as one of our key power-industry partners," said Greenfuel CEO, Cary Bullock. "We appreciate NRG’s support for this project, along with the generous grant from NYSERDA. We look forward to a mutually beneficial, long-term relationship."

In field tests to be conducted at Dunkirk, GreenFuel will utilize a mini-bioreactor system to assess the technical and economic feasibility of its Emissions-to-Biofuel process that harnesses the photosynthetic processes of algae to consume waste gases and heat from a power plant’s air emissions stream, ultimately producing a high energy biomass. This means that in the presence of light, the single-celled algae take up CO2 to produce the energy that fuels plant life–with a general rule of thumb being that two tons of algae remove one ton of CO2. Once the algae are harvested, they can be converted to generate commercially viable byproducts such as ethanol or biodiesel.

"We are pleased to support NRG and GreenFuel as they study an alternative method for the capture and sequestration of CO2," said Peter R. Smith, President and CEO, of NYSERDA. "This project has the potential to not only benefit the air quality in the surrounding community, but to also continue our progress toward producing clean renewable energy here in New York."