Publications: GHG Reduction Technologies Monitor

GHG Monitor 3/13/2015 ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT Chinese officials last week reportedly vowed to cut coal consumption in the country by 160 million tons over the next five years. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang also vowed to put a ceiling on total energy consumption and increase the portion of energy produced by non-fossil sources in his […]

GHG Monitor 3/13/2015 An article in the March 6 issue of GHG Monitor incorrectly stated that NRG Energy reported a year end adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization [EBITDA] of $3.1 million, compared to a year end EBITDA in 2013 of $2.6 million. The correct figures are $3.1 billion and $2.6 billion, respectively. […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 3/6/2015 Innovate UK, the United Kingdom’s innovation agency, is making up to £5 Million available for conventional fossil fuel projects, including carbon capture and storage, through a solicitation opened this week. The solicitation calls for collaborative research and development projects, as well as feasibility studies that develop new innovative technologies […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 3/6/2015 The demonstration phase of the Callide Oxyfuel Project in Queensland, Australia has come to a close, project developers announced this week. The project, billed as the world’s first industrial scale demonstration of oxyfuel combustion and carbon capture technology, has been operating for more than two years, having launched in […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 3/6/2015 Due to a shifting internal focus to low carbon energy generation, NRG Energy is well positioned to face what CEO David Crane described late last week as the unmistakable early stages of a “technology driven disruption of historic proportions” of the energy industry. NRG has invested heavily in clean […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 3/6/2015 A group of environmental organizations, led by the Sierra Club, filed a formal request this week with the California Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission for the termination of Hydrogen Energy California’s (HECA) application for certification. The HECA project, should it go forward, will be a new-build, pre-combustion 390 […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 3/6/2015 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has called on states to reject the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon emission guidelines for existing coal burning power plant by not submitting state implementation plans for compliance with the rule. In an editorial published this week in the Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper, McConnell […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 3/6/2015 The Obama Administration’s proposed $4 billion “Clean Power State Incentive Fund” to help states go above and beyond the requirements of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon emissions standards for existing coal fired power plants came under fire this week during a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 3/6/2015 Southern Co. this week reported an additional $26 million in cost overruns at the Kemper County Energy Facility, being built by subsidiary Mississippi Power, bringing the total cost of the project currently to nearly $6.2 billion. The latest increase is due, in part, to a recent Mississippi Supreme Court […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 3/6/2015 While the European Union is on track to meets its short-term goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, the EU will not meet its 2050 goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80-95 percent, according to a new report released this week by the […]

GHG Monitor 3/6/2015 IN THE INDUSTRY An Alabama state court issued a temporary restraining order late last week against former Kemper County Energy Facility Project Manager Brett Wingo barring him from talking about the project. Wingo was sued by Southern Co. on Feb. 19 under accusations that he went back on a previous settlement ending […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 2/27/2015 Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) reintroduced legislation this week aimed at accelerating the commercial deployment of carbon capture and sequestration through a combination of loan guarantees, tax credits, multi-year R&D funding and government-industry cost-share projects. The bill, the Advanced Clean Coal Technology for Our Nation (ACCTION) Act, was introduced last […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 2/27/2015 States would still be required to submit action plans to meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon emissions standards for existing coal fired power plants even if lawmakers blocked the EPA from using Fiscal Year 2016 funds to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told lawmakers this […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 2/27/2015 A new bill introduced in the Illinois state legislature this week would direct the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to develop a market-based “cap-and-invest” program to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon emissions standards for existing coal fired power plants upon the rule’s finalization. The proposed EPA rule […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 2/27/2015 Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) this week re-introduced a bill that would require the purchase of carbon permits by covered sources and distribute the proceeds of these purchases to Americans in the form of a quarterly dividend. The bill is similar to legislation introduced by Van Hollen last year, […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 2/27/2015 The final version of the European Commission’s Energy Union Package, released this week, calls for a number of actions to be taken to drive innovation in carbon capture and storage technology. The package calls for, “A forward-looking approach to carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon capture and use […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 2/27/2015 In a set of Congressional hearings this week, lawmakers pressed senior Obama Administration officials on the implications of the Department of Energy’s decision to suspend funding for the FutureGen 2.0 carbon capture and storage project on the Environmental Protection Agency’s justification for qualifying CCS as a best system of […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 2/27/2015 Several states, including Kentucky and Maryland are beginning to plan for the implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon emissions regulations for existing coal fired power plants, dubbed the Clean Power Plan. The proposed rule, which is due to be finalized sometime this summer, requires states to develop […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 2/27/2015 The United Kingdom has run out of time to develop new technologies to meet its climate goals, but instead must invest in known but neglected technologies, such as carbon capture and storage, according to a report released last week by the Energy Technologies Institute, a U.K. public-private partnership. “There […]

GHG Monitor 2/27/2015 IN THE INDUSTRY The United Kingdom’s Carbon Capture and Storage Research Center (UKCCSRC) announced this week that its Pilot-scale Advanced Capture Technology (PACT) Facilities have become part of the International Test Center Network. The network was initiated by Norway’s Technology Center Mongstad in 2012 to facilitate the sharing of knowledge amongst the […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 2/20/2015 As the Environmental Protection Agency wades through the millions of comments received on its proposed carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants, various common themes concerning timeline, stringency, cost and reliability have been raised and addressing those comments will result in a more flexible final rule, EPA Administrator […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 2/20/2015 Mississippi Power plans to challenge a recent ruling by the Mississippi Supreme Court reversing rate increases approved by the Mississippi Public Service Commission to help pay for construction of the Kemper County Energy Facility, a new build coal plant that will employ carbon capture, utilization and storage technology. Under […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 2/20/2015 The Department of Energy’s initiation of a structured closeout of federal support for the FutureGen 2.0 project is not necessarily the last nail in the coffin for the project, which plans to retrofit a decades-old 200 MW oil-fired unit at a mothballed power plant in western Illinois with carbon […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 2/20/2015 The importance of the development of large-scale carbon capture and storage demonstration projects within the European Union is set to be included in the European Commission’s Communication for a Strategic Framework for an Energy Union to be presented next week, according to a Jan. 30 draft of the document […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 2/13/2015 The full-scale development of carbon capture and storage technology could be hindered by the perception that the technology is only intended to allow for the extended use of fossil fuels, a group of representatives from various non-governmental organization said last week during the Americas Forum hosted by the Global […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 2/13/2015 The deployment of bioenergy carbon capture and storage could offset emissions from gas and coal burning electric plants, according to a new study conducted by researchers at the University of California-Berkeley, the results of which were published In the journal Nature Climate Change this week. The study finds that […]