Budget & Policy

Researchers at the University of Wyoming’s Carbon Management Institute will begin injection tests at the site of their underground storage project later this month using water, a compromise operators made after facing CO2 supply concerns. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 09/14/12 ROMNEY UNDERSCORES CLIMATE CHANGE REMARKS Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney underscored this week that mitigating climate change will not be a priority if he is elected in November. In an interview that ran Sept. 9 on the Sunday talk show “Meet the Press,” Romney reiterated a point he made during […]

Researchers began small-scale field work this week injecting carbon dioxide into a depleted natural gas well in eastern Kentucky as a way to both stimulate additional gas production and trap CO2 underground.

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 09/07/12 PARTY PLATFORMS EXHIBIT DIVERGENT ATTITUDES ON CLIMATE CHANGE, COAL As the 2012 election season enters its final stages, Democrats are looking to emphasize clean air regulations and environmental protections, approving a platform at their party convention in Charlotte, N.C this week that diverges sharply from the Republican Party, particularly surrounding […]

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 09/07/12 ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT International climate change negotiations hit a familiar snag this week as small developing nations sparred with large emitters for not having a strong enough commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. During the most recent round of U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change talks in Bangkok this […]

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 09/14/12 IN CONGRESS High-level Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are pushing for the panel’s Republication leadership to hold a hearing examining the impacts of climate change on the country’s electricity generation sector. In a Sept. 10 letter sent to Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Energy and Power Subcommittee […]

The cryogenic cooling of flue gas could help aid in the capture of carbon dioxide and other harmful emissions from pulverized coal-fired power plants at a cost competitive rate, physicists argue in a paper published recently in an American Physical Society journal. 

08/31/12 The following interview with George Peridas, a scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Climate Center who specializes in carbon capture and storage, was conducted by GHG Monitor Reporter Tamar Hallerman on the sidelines of the National Energy Technology Laboratory’s Carbon Storage R&D Project Review meeting in Pittsburgh last week. You gave a keynote […]

A Department of Energy-funded project that aims to capture carbon dioxide using algae and maximize biofuel production has entered its second phase, according to project officials. 

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 08/31/12 AT KEMPER: CO-OP TO TAKE 15 PERCENT STAKE IN PROJECT An electricity cooperative confirmed late last week that it will purchase a stake in Mississippi Power’s troubled Kemper County carbon capture and storage project. The South Mississippi Electric Power Association (SMEPA) said that it will purchase a 15 percent share […]

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 08/31/12 IN THE STATES Implementing a tax on carbon would raise $1.5 trillion in government revenues, according to a study released by Massachusetts Institute of Technology earlier this week. Researchers from MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Climate Change argued that putting in place a $20 per […]

A federal appeals court this week vacated an Environmental Protection Agency ‘good neighbor’ rulemaking that would have required states to sharply reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants. 

Sen. Jay Rockefeller is currently writing legislation aimed at accelerating the deployment of ‘clean coal’ technology in West Virginia, the senator’s office has confirmed. 

One of the Senate’s preeminent climate change skeptics has asked Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson to withdraw the agency’s greenhouse gas emissions performance standards for new fossil fuel-fired plants, arguing that the rulemaking relies on an “unprecedented and flawed” interpretation of the Clean Air Act. 

Carbon capture and storage technology will need to play a key role in the reduction of carbon emissions over the coming decades if electricity generation from fossil fuel continues at its current pace, according to a recent commentary piece authored by Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and former acting Under Secretary of Energy Arun Majumdar.

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 08/24/12 ROMNEY ENERGY PLAN FOCUSES ON OIL AND GAS, OMITS ‘CLEAN COAL’ An energy policy blueprint released this week by the Romney campaign pushes firmly for expanded domestic oil and gas development but does not mention advanced coal technologies like carbon capture and storage or climate change. In his most notable […]

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 08/24/12 AT TCEP: CHINESE OIL GIANT LOOKS TO INVEST IN CCS PROJECT A group that includes Chinese energy behemoth Sinopec Group is in talks to invest up to $1 billion in Summit Power Group’s Texas Clean Energy Project, the Wall Street Journal reported Aug. 15. According to the newspaper, the oil […]

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 08/24/12 IN THE WHITE HOUSE White House regulatory ‘czar’ Cass Sunstein announced Aug. 3 that he is leaving the Obama Administration to return to Harvard Law School. Sunstein was a controversial figure during his three-year tenure at the White House, receiving criticism from both the business and environmental communities alike as […]

As is our annual practice, GHG Monitor will be taking a summer publication break and will not publish for the next two weeks. The next issue of GHG Monitor will be published the week of Aug. 20. As always, we will issue a special bulletin should any major news break in the interim. 

A senior Democrat on the House’s tax-writing committee introduced carbon pricing legislation this week, setting up what he hopes to be a discussion of the issue during next year’s debate on tax reform. 

Deep divisions on the existence of climate change, its effects and possible mitigation options were on display this week as the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee attempted to wade back into the issue for the first time in three years. 

The energy statistics arm of the Department of Energy is projecting that coal-fired electricity generation will continue to nosedive in the coming years in the face of cheap natural gas prices, new environmental regulations and the flattening of electricity demand, leading to an estimated 27 GW of retirements by 2016. 

Despite critiques surrounding the high cost of the novel technology, it is critical to maintain support for direct air capture as researchers continue to search for and fine tune equipment that could be an invaluable part of the world’s climate change mitigation strategy, Columbia University researchers said in a commentary published this week. 

House Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) said this week that Congress will not likely move forward on Clean Air Act reforms until the Environmental Protection Agency and state regulators agree on a definitive list of problem areas that can be addressed by legislation.

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 08/03/12 AT KEMPER: MISS. SUPREME COURT DENIES RATE INCREASE TO PAY FOR CONSTRUCTION The Mississippi Supreme Court this week unanimously denied a request from Mississippi Power to temporarily raise electricity rates to help pay for the construction of its 582 MW Kemper County integrated gasification combined cycle plant. In an 8-0 […]

Tamar Hallerman GHG Monitor 08/03/12 IN CONGRESS A Continuing Resolution will fund the federal government through the first six months of Fiscal Year 2013 thanks to an agreement reached between Congressional leaders and the White House this week. Pushing debate on critical funding issues beyond the November elections, the deal struck by Senate Majority Leader […]

A House Republican introduced a bill this week that would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from finalizing greenhouse gas emission performance standards for new or existing fossil fuel-fired power plants until carbon capture and storage technology is deemed economically and technically feasible by at least three government agencies. 

The Environmental Protection Agency announced late last week that it will reconsider some of the technical information underpinning its Mercury and Air Toxics Standards finalized for power plants earlier this year. 

A group of international researchers has issued a new study that says adding iron to portions of the ocean could cause an algae boom that could eventually lead to the sequestration of carbon already emitted into the atmosphere.

The method by which the developers of the Indiana Gasification ‘clean coal’ project went about securing the plant’s emissions permit could set a sound pathway for other carbon capture, utilization and storage projects, an industry official said this week.