Livermore Lab signs clean energy deal with China

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Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will work with China on clean energy research.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory signed an agreement with China’s Clean Energy Research Institute. They’ll work together to study and develop clean energy technology.

Huaneng Power International Inc. formed the research institute.

Under the deal — a memorandum of understanding — the lab and the institute will exchange data from various studies and will analyze that information together. The agreement is part of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center set up in 2010.

The parties will focus on work in carbon capture and sequestration, better ways to recover oil and shale gas and on power engineering.

Livermore Lab is particularly keen on carbon capture — a way to clean up the polluting plumes of power plants and factories. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that traps infrared radiation in the atmosphere and heats the planet, is removed and then compressed and stored deep underground.

For its part, Huaneng is running GreenGen, a huge coal burning power plant that uses carbon capture technology.

Read more in the San Francisco Business Times.