Budget & Policy

The credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded Southern Company’s rating outlook from “stable” to “negative” late last week due largely to the unfolding controversy surrounding the utility’s Kemper County gasification project in Mississippi. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 6/7/13 IN CONGRESS Leaders of a recently-formed Congressional Task Force on Climate Change called on President Barack Obama to spearhead an agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping on hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) during an upcoming meeting. In a June 5 letter, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse […]

A report released this week by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) touts the short and medium-term environmental benefits of switching from coal to natural gas in the power sector, but also warns that the broad deployment of renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage technology is central to achieving deeper greenhouse gas reductions in the longer term. 

The White House is asking agency heads to cut 10 percent from their Fiscal Year 2015 budget proposals. 

The U.S. government quietly increased its estimates that weigh the future social and economic costs of emitting a tonne of carbon late last week, tweaks that could have a significant impact on the cost-benefit analyses federal agencies undertake to vet proposed rulemakings. 

A group of energy researchers is circulating a standardized method of determining the cost of carbon capture and storage projects in order to eliminate data discrepancies and reduce confusion for outside parties. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 6/14/13 IN THE INDUSTRY Mississippi Power, the Southern Company subsidiary building the 582 MW Kemper County gasification facility in eastern Mississippi, named a new official to oversee the construction and development of the troubled carbon capture and storage project. The utility named John Huggins as the company’s vice president of generation […]

President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping finalized a new agreement over the weekend aimed at phasing down the production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons.

Edwardsport, a long-troubled 618 MW integrated gasification combined cycle plant operated by Duke Energy, is now in service in southwestern Indiana, the utility giant announced June 10. 

Akermin, Inc. is currently testing what the biotech company says is the largest and longest-running demonstration of an enzyme-based carbon capture system at the National Carbon Capture Center. 

Texas has long been touted as an ideal host for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) projects ... But whereas the last couple of years focused primarily on planning and laying the groundwork for an anthropogenic CO2 industry in the state, the final months of 2013 will likely prove to be critical in Texas as two of those projects make final investment decisions and the Governor mulls legislation that could further incentivize such ventures. 

A report released by the Department of Energy’s Inspector General this week says that SCS Energy’s Hydrogen Energy California project is “progressing,” but concludes that DOE is managing the large-scale carbon capture and storage project “at an increased risk level.

Lawmakers from coal-producing states questioned newly-minted Department of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz on cuts to the proposed Fossil Energy budget at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing this week. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 6/21/13 IN DOE New Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz has selected Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, to serve as his Chief of Staff, effective June 24. Knobloch has headed UCS since December 2003, and before then served as the group’s executive director for four years. Knobloch also […]

The Department of Energy should give its national laboratories more freedom to perform their missions, stripping away inefficiencies and bureaucratic hurdles that have had a “stifling effect” on innovation, according to a new report this week from three very diverse groups: the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the Center for American Progress and the Heritage Foundation. 

Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee challenged the Obama Administration’s recently-revised social cost of carbon estimates this week, arguing that the new figures were devised behind closed doors to advance the President’s regulatory agenda. 

The widening gulf between Democrats and Republicans on climate change was on full display earlier this week as the House Science Committee’s GOP members grilled new Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz on the science underpinning global warming. 

House Appropriators are looking to boost the proposed budget for the Department of Energy’s Fossil Energy R&D program to $450 million for Fiscal Year 2014, a $30 million increase above the White House’s request but a reduction from the program’s currently enacted funding levels. 

The Obama Administration and Senate Democrats appear set to unveil a broad set of regulations, guidance and legislation aimed at clamping down on greenhouse gas emissions in the coming weeks. 

A new study released this week by the National Research Council says that energy provisions in the current tax code ultimately have little net impact on the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. 

Babcock & Wilcox Co. is looking to take a “phase-by-phase” approach to the FutureGen 2.0 carbon capture and storage project in western Illinois.

Skyonic Corp. said this week that it has secured $128 million in funding to support the construction of its carbon capture and mineralization retrofit of a cement plant in San Antonio. 

A new report from the Congressional Research Service suggests that the Department of Energy’s carbon capture and storage RD&D program could prove to be successful in fulfilling its technological and deployment goals, but says that if large-scale demonstration projects start following the trajectory of FutureGen 2.0 that may not be the case. 

The Department of Energy said it plans to issue draft solicitations for comment for three National Energy Technology Laboratory support services contracts during latter half of 2013. 

Tenaska Energy pulled the plug on its two remaining carbon capture and storage projects late last week, acknowledging that cheap natural gas and renewables’ growing market share have diminished the business case for coal. 

The United States has the potential to store between 2,400 and 3,700 gigatons of CO2 in technically accessible sedimentary basins nationwide, the equivalent of more than 500 times the country’s annual energy-related CO2 emissions, according to a new report released by the U.S. Geological Survey this week. 

Separate House and Senate Energy and Water appropriations bills advanced this week on Capitol Hill, showcasing a $30 million difference in FY 2014 funding for the Department of Energy’s Fossil Energy R&D program, as well as diverging views about the program’s direction. 

Carbon capture and storage supporters and market analysts said despite soaring rhetoric from White House earlier this week touting the technology’s potential, the effect of the President’s new climate strategy on CCS RD&D could be limited. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 6/28/13 IN CONGRESS Long-time Democratic Congressman Ed Markey won a seat in the U.S. Senate representing Massachusetts June 25 in a special election held after John Kerry left the post to serve as Secretary of State. Markey, an outspoken supporter of climate action, defeated Republican Gabriel Gomez with 55 percent of […]

The U.S. Supreme Court said this week that it plans to review a lower court ruling that vacated the Environmental Protection Agency’s ‘good neighbor’ standards for power plants.