Budget & Policy

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 6/26/2015 The House of Representative this week approved by a vote of 247-180 Rep. Ed Whitfield’s (R-Ky.) “Ratepayer Protection Act,” which is intended to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from enforcing proposed carbon emissions standards for coal-fired power plants. The EPA’s proposal, which is due to be finalized in August, […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 6/26/2015 The United States and China this week announced two new joint carbon capture and storage projects to be embarked upon in keeping with commitments made in November 2014 in the counties’ Joint Announcement on Climate Change. The counties announced the projects, an Ordos Basin CCUS-Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) project […]

As is our annual practice, GHG Monitor will not publish next week in observance of the July 4th holiday. The next regular issue will be in your inbox July 10. 

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 6/26/2015 SaskPower, in partnership with Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, unveiled a new Carbon Capture Test Facility in Estevan, Saskatchewan late last week. The center taps into the flue gas from the nearby Shand Power Station, enabling researchers to test equipment, chemical and engineering designs. Having been designed in a modular […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 6/26/2015 With the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants due to be finalized this summer, the agency is taking steps to ready itself for the task of implementing the rule, Janet McCabe, Acting Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation, said this […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 6/26/2015 CO2 Solutions has entered into an agreement with Ohio-based GasTran, a provider of high-intensity gas-liquid rotate packed bed (RPB) mass transfer technology, the company announced this week in a release. The companies will work to combine the GasTran RPB technology with CO2 Solutions enzyme-enabled carbon capture technology in hopes […]

Brian Bradley  NS&D Monitor  6/26/2015 If existing nuclear forces are not modernized, the U.S. will lose its existing deterrent capabilities in the 2020s and 2030s, the Pentagon’s No. 2 official said Thursday. “The choice that we’re facing quite frankly…is not [between] keeping the existing force or modernizing the force,” Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work said Thursday […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 6/26/2015 Members of both chambers of Congress this week debated the potential effects of the implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon emissions standards for coal-fired power plants on ratepayers during two separate hearings. The regulation in question, dubbed the “Clean Power Plan,” would require states to develop action […]

Alissa Tabirian NS&D Monitor 6/26/2015 The United States must ramp up spending on defense and nuclear weapons modernization to maintain technological superiority and counter increases in Russia’s defense budget and modernization efforts, according to Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC). “They continue to crank out new nuclear warheads and […]

Alissa Tabirian NS&D Monitor 6/26/2015 The modernization of U.S. nuclear forces will require an increase in defense spending that surpasses Budget Control Act limits but will drop to current levels after the execution of certain modernization programs, according to a report preview released this week by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The CSBA […]

GHG Monitor 6/26/2015 ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT California-based engineering firm Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has been selected to provide technical advisory services to the U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change’s Office of Carbon Capture and Storage. The two-year contract will be fulfilled from the company’s London office. Under the contract, Jacobs Group will review […]

Brian Bradley NS&D Monitor 6/26/2015 Integrating a smaller, shorter-range cruise missile into the both land-based and carrier-based dual-capable F-35s could help the U.S. offset a low global “nuclear threshold” inadvertently caused by U.S. conventional weapons superiority, according to a nuclear strategy and posture report released June 22 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 6/5/2015 The Environmental Protection Agency early this week sent its proposed carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review. The rule, which would require states to develop plans to meet federally set emissions reduction goals, was initially due to […]

The modernization of U.S. nuclear forces will require an increase in defense spending that surpasses Budget Control Act limits but will drop to current levels after the execution of certain modernization programs, according to a report preview released this week by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The CSBA estimates that “annual costs should […]

The United States must ramp up spending on defense and nuclear weapons modernization to maintain technological superiority and counter increases in Russia’s defense budget and modernization efforts, according to Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “They continue to crank out new nuclear warheads and maintain an advantage on tactical warheads […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee has delayed its hearing on pending nuclear waste legislation until Aug. 4. The bill was introduced by Committee Chair Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D- Wash.), along with Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), as an effort to overhaul the nation’s nuclear waste […]

A defense-only repository would prove cost effective and time efficient compared to comingling it with commercial waste, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said in a May 15 letter to House Energy leaders, released late last week. House lawmakers questioned the wisdom behind the decision to “de-comingle” the two waste streams, calling it a distraction for […]

Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton voiced her opposition late last week to Yucca Mountain, according to an interview she gave with the Reno Gazette-Journal. Clinton has long opposed the project going as far back to her initial presidential run in 2008, and she re-voiced those concerns last week. “I have opposed sending nuclear waste to Yucca […]

Nominee Grilled on EM Issues at Senate Hearing Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 6/19/2015 Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) plans to block a Senate vote on the nomination of Monica Regulbuto to be the next Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management Assistant Secretary, he said at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing to consider […]

Hearing First in Congress Since WIPP Events Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 6/19/2015 Members of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations called for Department of Energy oversight reform late last week after issues came to light following the February 2014 radiological release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The hearing marks the […]

Kenneth Fletcher NS&D Monitor 6/19/2015 A sufficient level of funding for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility project would top $1 billion per year, Department of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told South Carolina media this week. The Administration has emphasized increased costs in the MOX project since it first attempted to suspend the program in […]

Brian Bradley and Valerie Insinna NS&D Monitor 6/19/2015 The Senate passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2016 yesterday, voting 71-25 to send the $612 billion legislation to conference after this week senators did not consider any amendments related to the nuclear enterprise. The 74 percent affirmative vote is […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 6/19/2015 Appropriators from both chambers of Congress this week reported out interior fiscal year 2016 funding bills that include policy riders placing restrictions on the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. The Senate Interior, Environment and Related Agencies funding bill includes a provision that […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 6/19/2015 Loan guarantees awarded through the Department of Energy’s Loan Program Office’s Title XVII solicitations will serve to bring pilot stage technologies to a point of development where government funding is no longer needed, officials from the Loan Program Office said this week at a briefing hosted by the United […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 6/19/2015 The deployment of carbon capture and storage at a large scale is imperative in meeting global climate goals, according to a report released this week by the International Energy Agency. The report addresses what will have to be done to limit global temperature rise to 2 °C. To reach […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 6/19/2015 Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz voiced support for the development of carbon capture and storage as a means to ensure a role for fossil fuel use in a low-carbon future this week during a presentation at the Energy Information Agency’s annual conference. Earlier this year DOE choose to pull […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 6/19/2015 The European Union, through a number of policy, investment and coordination efforts, must work to accelerate the adoption of carbon capture and storage for the technology to contribute to larger climate goals, according to a report released this week by the University of Leeds, the London School of Economics […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 6/19/2015 The United Kingdom would benefit from boosting efforts to increase the use of CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery in the North Sea, according to a report released this week by Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage, an independent academic and applied research partnership of British Geological Survey, Heriot-Watt University, University of […]

GHG Monitor 6/19/2015 ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT Plans for Royal Dutch Shell’s Peterhead carbon capture and storage project were given the approval of the Aberdeenshire Council this week. The Peterhead project will retrofit CCS technology onto a 385 MW portion of an existing gas-fired power plant in Scotland, transporting the CO2 via the existing Goldeneye […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 6/19/2015 Two draft bills emerged this week that would amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to allow for the consolidation of spent nuclear fuel at interim storage facilities. Rep. Michael Conaway (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, plans to introduce a bill in the near future that would enable […]