Budget & Policy

The Department of Energy appears to be “shortchanging” carbon capture and sequestration efforts in its recently released Fiscal Year 2014 budget request, Kurt Waltzer, carbon storage development coordinator at the Clean Air Task Force, told GHG Monitor this week. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 5/3/13 IN CONGRESS Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) announced May 2 that the panel will vote on the nomination of Gina McCarthy for Environmental Protection Agency Administrator next week. The committee business meeting will be held May 9 at 9:15 a.m., she said. “Gina McCarthy is a […]

President Barack Obama this week criticized the impacts of the sequestration funding cuts on federally-funded R&D efforts, saying that scientific research should not be subject to the whims of Washington politics. 

The United States would see a slight dip in energy-related carbon emissions if lawmakers continue current renewables and energy efficiency-related policies, according to new Energy Information Administration data released this week. 

CO2 injection work overseen by one of the Department of Energy’s Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships is nearing its halfway point in Illinois and is set to reach half a million tonnes stored by the end of the month, a project official said this week. 

The FutureGen 2.0 carbon capture and storage project could have potential “minor adverse impacts” on nearby groundwater, geology and air quality, but would likely have a “beneficial impact” on the surrounding area’s climate and greenhouse gas emissions, the Department of Energy has concluded.

The National Energy Technology Laboratory began moving forward this week with a new procurement for a set of support services contracts, launching a market research survey effort to identify companies that could potentially perform the work. 

The developer of a controversial $2.8 billion coal gasification facility in southwest Indiana said this week that it is halting most work on its Rockport project after state lawmakers passed a bill calling for a fresh round of regulatory review. 

North Dakota, along with a group of area coal companies and electric utilities, argued in federal court late last week that a Minnesota law barring electricity generation from new coal plants that do not mitigate greenhouse gas emissions violates the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. 

The Department of Energy announced roughly $1.8 million in new funding this week for a dozen carbon capture and storage-related energy technology projects run by small businesses. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 5/10/13 ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has committed $82 million in new federal funding to support 55 clean energy projects, including nearly $10 million for carbon capture and storage-related work. Following a May 3 tour of CO2 Solutions’ facility in Quebec City, Harper said the enzyme-enabled carbon […]

A planned petroleum coke-to-chemicals gasification plant in Louisiana that would be outfitted with carbon capture and storage technology through a stimulus-funded Department of Energy program would have “minor adverse” to “beneficial” impacts on the surrounding environment, the Department concluded this week. 

Permitting activity surrounding the planned Hydrogen Energy California gasification project will heat up this month as public hearings continue and state and federal regulators prepare to issue draft assessments of the $3.9 billion poly-generation plant. 

House appropriators expressed concern this week about proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget for Fiscal Year 2014, while others questioned the Obama Administration’s funding priorities moving forward. 

The nomination of Ernest Moniz to serve as the next Secretary of Energy is now set to be considered by the full Senate, after Majority Leader Harry Reid announced late this week that an agreement has been reached to allow a vote to proceed. 

Senate Republicans blocked a planned committee vote this week on the White House’s nomination of Gina McCarthy for Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, with the committee’s GOP members boycotting a planned business meeting set to be held May 9. 

Denbury Resources’ plans to establish its third major CO2 pipeline network have been shelved after Indiana lawmakers passed a measure late last month that blocked a gasification plant there that would have acted as the transport project’s only source of CO2. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 5/17/13 AT DOE Acting Assistant Energy Secretary for Fossil Energy Chris Smith called Air Products and Chemicals’ industrial carbon capture and storage project near Port Arthur, Texas a “groundbreaking” venture during the facility’s demonstration ceremony late last week. The DOE and industry cost-share project “demonstrates the potential to produce economic benefits […]

Carbon capture and storage legislation moved one step closer to being considered by the full California Senate this week after the chamber’s Appropriations Committee voted May 13 in favor of advancing the measure to its so-called ‘suspense file.’ 

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee narrowly advanced Gina McCarthy’s nomination to serve as Environmental Protection Agency administrator this week on a party-line vote, setting up what could be a contentious confirmation battle on the Senate floor. 

The top official in the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy said last week’s deal between Denbury Resources and Exxon Mobil Corp. is evidence that the market is starting to respond to the economic benefits of carbon capture, utilization and storage. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 10/5/12 CANDIATES EMPHASIZE SUPPORT FOR EXPANDED ENERGY PRODUCTION DURING FIRST DEBATE Both presidential candidates aimed to emphasize their support for expanding domestic energy production through sources like natural gas, oil and renewables during the first presidential debate held Oct. 3. While President Obama and Mitt Romney spent the lion’s share of […]

GE is moving forward with a combined heat and power technology in the U.S. that can utilize captured CO2 on a smaller scale to fertilize plants. 

A group of carbon capture and sequestration industry stakeholders is gearing up to release North America’s first consensus-based standards for CO2 storage in the coming weeks, with plans in the works to develop similar guidelines for the full CCS value chain on an international basis by 2014.

California’s air chief confirmed this week that the state is making final preparations before moving forward with its inaugural auction of CO2 allowances next month. 

Tenaska Energy officials said this week that the company is willing to be “patient” in order to obtain the federal financial support it says it needs to move forward on its $3.5 billion carbon capture and storage project in west Texas, though some at the Department of Energy have expressed doubt that the Department will be offering much new funding for CCS projects given the current budget climate. 

The Carbon Capture, Utilization and Sequestration Conference May 13 – 16, 2013 David L. Lawrence Convention Center Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania To view the Call for Papers, please click here. The 2013 Conference program again highlights the potential utilization of anthropogenic carbon emissions and the necessary requirement to develop commercially viable carbon capture technologies and infrastructure to […]

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 10/12/12 IN THE U.K. The U.K.’s Department of Energy and Climate Change this week announced it is committing £20 million ($32 million) to a carbon capture and storage R&D project in Scotland that will involve capturing CO2 from a combined cycle gas turbine. In a speech this week at a conference […]

Lindsay Kalter and Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 10/12/12 AT WA PARISH: RESIDENTS INQUIRE ABOUT CO2 PIPELINE AT PUBLIC MEETINGS Residents of two Texas towns southwest of Houston raised questions this week about the placement and safety of a pipeline proposed to connect NRG Energy’s W.A. Parish Generating Station and depleted oil fields near the Gulf […]

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 10/12/12 OBAMA, ROMNEY ADVISERS DEBATE CANDIDATES’ ENERGY, CLIMATE STANCES An energy adviser for the Obama campaign is criticizing the Romney camp’s plans for blotting climate change as “not sufficient.” During an Oct. 5 debate of the candidate’s energy and environmental policy plans, Obama campaign surrogate Joseph Aldy said that Republican presidential […]