Budget & Policy

A new atlas of North America’s CO2 storage potential released here earlier this week estimates that the continent has enough geologic storage space in saline aquifers, depleted oil and gas reservoirs and unmineable coal seams to sequester carbon dioxide emissions for at least 500 years.

Duke Energy Indiana and the state’s consumer regulatory group announced a settlement agreement this week over the utility’s Edwardsport power plant, potentially bringing an end to a case that has probed the financial and ethical underpinnings of the project and has stretched on for years.

Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Chuck McConnell continued to push for the utilization of captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery operations, saying this week that the CCS community should aim to bridge the gap between enhanced oil recovery and geologic sequestration.

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 05/04/12 AT HECA: SCS RESUBMITS PERMIT APPLICATION SCS Energy submitted an amended permit application for its Hydrogen Energy California (HECA) carbon capture and storage project to the California Energy Commission and the Department of Energy this week,. The submission now restarts the regulatory review process for the project, which switched owners […]

The respective versions of the Fiscal Year 2013 Energy and Water Appropriations bills approved by Senate and House appropriators this week restore some or all of the funding to Department of Energy Fossil Energy R&D programs that the Obama Administration sought to cut in its FY13 request.

In an exclusive Q&A with GHG Monitor, National Energy Technology Laboratory Director Anthony Cugini and NETL Strategic Center for Coal Deputy Director Sean Plasynski discuss the lab's carbon capture, utilization and storage RD&D efforts.

The University of Minnesota has sold intellectual property that merges geothermal energy production and carbon capture and sequestration technology to a South Dakota-based startup company, which will employ new technological concepts developed at the University that could help to mitigate prohibitive costs of CCS projects, according to project researchers.

The Electric Power Research Institute is moving forward on compiling a ‘state of the science’ assessment of the methods researchers are using globally to gauge the potential environmental impacts of amine solvents emissions once they degrade in the atmosphere.

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 04/27/12 AT KEMPER: MISS. PSC REISSUES RATE RECOVERY The Mississippi Public Service Commission voted this week to reissue $2.88 billion in rate recovery to Mississippi Power’s Kemper County carbon capture and storage project, the latest move in a legal and regulatory battle that has put the future of one of the […]

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 04/27/12 IN CONGRESS Two Republican Senators introduced a small omnibus bill this week that bundles several energy-related anti-regulatory measures that passed in the House but stalled in the Senate, including a provision that bars the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases emitted from coal-fired power plants. The “Western Economic Security […]

The House version of the Fiscal Year 2013 Energy and Water Appropriations bill increases funding for Fossil Energy R&D within the Department of Energy, restoring funding to a program that was ultimately scaled back in the Obama Administration’s February budget request. 

The Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management does not yet have concrete plans for opening up its land to private development for CO2 sequestration, one agency official said this week, and so far no entities have applied for permits to characterize the federally-owned land for that purpose. 

Carbon capture and storage technology on coal and gas units will likely be a central option for baseload electricity generation in California under the state’s low carbon emissions plan, a new report says, emphasizing that improvements in cost, capture efficiency and storage characterization work are likely needed before the technology can be widely deployed in future years. 

09/21/12 A Sept. 14 story in GHG Monitor (Vol. 7 Issue 37) incorrectly identified a well being drilled on the site of Archer Daniels Midland’s carbon capture and storage project in Decatur, Ill. Operators are not drilling an injection well, but a stratigraphic test well that will eventually be converted into a monitoring well. GHG […]

While some of the Department of Energy’s more high-profile carbon capture and storage demonstration projects like FutureGen 2.0 and Kemper County often dominate headlines when discussing the department’s large-scale portfolio, industrial capture projects located in Illinois and the Gulf Coast are quietly expected to become operational first. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 09/21/12 AT DOE Funding for the Department of Energy’s Fossil Energy R&D program will be cut by 8.2 percent—or $44 million—if Congress fails to reach a deal to thwart automatic spending cuts by the end of the year, according to the White House. In a report released Sept. 14, the Office […]

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 09/21/12 AT KEMPER: LOCAL COURT HEARS ARGUMENTS OVER PLANT CERTIFICATE A Mississippi court heard oral arguments late last week regarding the financial future of a carbon capture and storage facility under construction in the eastern portion of the state. Lawyers for Mississippi Power, the Southern Company-owned utility constructing the 582 MW […]

The U.S. government “significantly understates” the potential benefits of mitigating carbon emissions, a study published this week in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences contends.

A trio of senators introduced legislation this week that they said would tweak an existing federal tax credit to give enhanced oil recovery project operators more certainty moving forward. 

Coal industry and carbon capture and storage stakeholders are advocating for the government to incentivize CCS technology via an often overlooked mechanism folded into 2009’s Waxman-Markey climate legislation. 

The House of Representatives was expected to vote on a package of coal-related legislation Sept. 21 in an aim to block several key Obama Administration environmental regulations and bring the future of the fuel to the forefront of the national debate less than two months before the November elections. 

Denbury Resources signed a deal with late this week with Exxon Mobil Corp. that could pave the way for more carbon capture, utilization and storage projects for the pipeline giant. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 09/28/12 IN CONGRESS The Senate cleared a stop-gap spending measure Sept. 22 that would fund the federal government for the next six months at an annualized rate of $1.047 trillion. The upper chamber passed the six-month Continuing Resolution, which cleared the House earlier this month, on a 62-30 vote just eight […]

The Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory is rolling out a series of models meant to cut down on the time it takes to predict and quantify the potential risks associated with long-term CO2 storage. 

A “promising” CO2 utilization technology that could also produce zero-carbon electricity has been able to make only limited progress in recent years due to the lack of a price on carbon, researchers said this week. 

Senate appropriators put forward a draft FY2013 spending bill for federal Interior-Environment programs earlier this week that would slightly boost funding for the Environmental Protection Agency above the Obama Administration’s request and currently enacted levels. 

Researchers from the United Kingdom and China have found a material that can selectively capture carbon and sulfur dioxide without most of the energy and environmental penalties associated amine capture technologies, they report in the most recent issue Nature Chemistry. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 06/15/12 AT KEMPER: MISSISSIPPI POWER TO ASK FOR RATE INCREASE Mississippi Power is expected to ask the Mississippi Public Service Commission next week for a rate increase to help pay for its Kemper County carbon capture and storage project. The utility, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Southern Company, is expected to request […]

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 06/15/12 IN CONGRESS Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee continued to prod the Environmental Protection Agency for not yet providing information on the total cost of its recently-finalized Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS). In a letter sent to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson late last week, Committee Chairman Fred […]

The House cleared a stop-gap spending measure this week that would fund federal agencies through the end of March with slightly higher spending levels than those currently enacted.