Budget & Policy

The White House is asking federal agency heads to emphasize science, technology and R&D work in the upcoming Fiscal Year 2015 budget cycle despite what is expected to be a contracted funding pool.

The Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership recently kicked off CO2 injection operations into a basalt flow in southeast Washington state, a pilot researchers there touted as a pioneering effort that could provide data about a promising geology for carbon sequestration. 

The House of Representatives passed a bill Aug. 1 that would require the Department of Energy to sign off on whether major energy-related Environmental Protection Agency regulations could impact economic growth. 

The first of three planned public meetings on the Department of Energy’s draft solicitation for a batch of new loan guarantees for advanced fossil energy projects drew few attendees this week. 

New Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz assured National Energy Technology Laboratory employees this week that the Obama Administration is supportive of carbon capture and storage and other advanced fossil technologies despite recent claims from critics who say the White House is waging a “war on coal.” 

Newly confirmed head of the Environmental Protection Agency Gina McCarthy focused her inaugural public address as Administrator this week on countering the agency’s critics who say that upcoming climate regulations will hamstring job creation and economic growth. 

Senate appropriators unveiled a draft Fiscal Year 2014 Interior-Environment spending measure Aug. 1 that would slightly increase funding for the Environmental Protection Agency above the White House’s budget request. 

The total cost of Southern Company’s flagship pre-combustion carbon capture and storage facility now tops $4.7 billion after the utility’s parent company announced this week that shareholders would have to absorb another $450 million in order to complete the 582 MW integrated gasification combined cycle plant on time. 

As is our annual practice, GHG Monitor will be taking a summer break and will not publish for the next two weeks. The next issue of GHG Monitor will be published Aug. 23. As always, we will issue a special bulletin should any major news break in the interim.

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The Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (SECARB) has sequestered more than 75,000 tonnes of CO2 into a saline aquifer underneath an Alabama oilfield during the first year of injection operations, according to a project official. 

North Dakota has become the first state to apply for primacy to oversee the permitting of geologic sequestration wells under the Environmental Protection Agency’s Underground Injection Control program more than two and a half years after the well class was finalized by the agency. 

The Sierra Club is warning that recent well blowouts tied to enhanced oil recovery operations in Mississippi could be a possibility if regulators greenlight the $4 billion, 390 MW Hydrogen Energy California project west of Bakersfield, Calif. 

National Grid said results from early European Union-funded test drilling indicate that the western North Sea could be an ideal site for sequestering large quantities of CO2 captured in Europe. 

Duke Energy has faced a rocky start as it ramps up operations at its integrated gasification combined cycle facility in Indiana, events the utility is publicly brushing off as an expected part of operating a plant that utilizes new technology. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 8/23/13 IN CONGRESS The House voted earlier this month to bar the Obama Administration from instituting a price on carbon without prior approval from Congress. Attached to a measure that would require the legislative branch to greenlight all major executive branch regulations with an annual economic impact of more than $100 […]

The House Energy and Commerce Committee panel is planning a wide-ranging hearing on the Obama Administration’s actions to combat climate change Sept. 18, requesting officials from 13 agencies to testify as well as provide written answers to a broad array of questions about the government’s past, present and future actions.

A “cyber incident” that occurred at the end of July may have put the personal information of as many as 14,000 current and former Department of Energy employees at risk of theft, according to a DOE memorandum issued last week.

Low natural gas prices and regulatory uncertainty will continue to put new coal-fired power plants at a significant disadvantage, a new Department of Energy-funded report concludes, estimating that the price of natural gas would have to rise well beyond projected levels to make natural gas combined cycle plant more expensive than any type of coal-fired technology, even when carbon capture and storage costs are included. 

The phased approach to the development of carbon capture and storage technology the United States has taken over the last decade seems to have proven more effective at driving R&D breakthroughs and boosting public acceptance than the strategy of its European counterparts, a top European voice on CCS said here this week. 

A top Lawrence Livermore National Lab official has been tapped as the Department of Energy’s new clean coal chief, acting Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Chris Smith announced today. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 8/30/13 IN CONGRESS Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) will be hosting a Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee field hearing on the future of coal next week in Morgantown, W.Va. The Senator’s office said the hearing will gauge the current state of coal-fired electricity in the U.S., as well as the “challenges […]

New Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz is reconstituting the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, expanding a panel that was resurrected under predecessor Steven Chu. 

The current public comment period on a draft Department of Energy solicitation for advanced fossil energy projects is an attempt to gauge industry interest and learn from previous mistakes, according to the head of the DOE Loan Programs Office. 

Niche markets and venture capital dollars are helping the developers of direct air capture technologies move forward with scale-up work at a time when government grants are few and far between, according to some supporters. 

When Congressional lawmakers return to Washington Sept. 9 after the August recess, they’ll have to quickly begin work on a Continuing Resolution to fund the Department of Energy and other government agencies at the start of Fiscal Year 2014. 

Flexibility and the effective management of uncertainty are the biggest lessons learned after 10 years of CO2 injection and monitoring operations, according to several researchers involved with the Department of Energy’s Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships. 

The Department of Energy’s newly appointed clean coal chief vowed this week to not yet accept the idea of drastically lower funding for the Office of Fossil Energy’s coal R&D program. 

The National Energy Technology Laboratory is reaching out to the operators of existing facilities that could provide slipstream testing of bench- and pilot-scale advanced carbon capture and gasification technologies. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 9/6/13 IN CONGRESS Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) postponed a West Virginia field hearing on the future of coal originally scheduled for Sept. 4 to attend briefings on potential U.S. military action in Syria. Many lawmakers returned to Washington a week earlier than planned from the August Congressional recess after President Barack […]