Publications: GHG Reduction Technologies Monitor

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/16/2014 Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is essential to achieving the 2 degree target necessary to avoid potentially devastating effects of global warming, a report published by the International Energy Agency Monday states. The report, the fourth volume of the agency’s Energy Technology Perspectives, states that barring significant changes the […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/9/2014 PITTSBURGH, Pa. — U.S. Energy Association Executive Director Barry Worthington said here last week that with cap-and-trade unlikely to be adopted in the United States, a carbon tax is more likely to be implemented in the next several years. “The cap-and-trade legislation came about the time of the financial […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/9/2014 Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) urged the Department of Energy late last week to support a $1 billion loan guarantee being sought for a new nitrogen fertilizer manufacturing plant to be built in his home state. The Cenex Harvest State (CHS) project would convert natural gas into ammonia for use […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/9/2014 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) this week blocked Senate Republicans from offering two amendments to an energy efficiency bill that would have targeted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed New Source Performance Standards. The EPA proposal would set emissions guidelines and largely mandate carbon capture and sequestration for […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/9/2014 PITTSBURGH, Pa.— Natural gas with carbon capture and sequestration is a viable, cost-effective option moving into a low-carbon future, John Thompson, Director of the Fossil Transition Project with the Clear Air Task Force, said here last week at this year’s Annual CCUS conference. In his plenary address, Thompson argued […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/9/2014 Carbon capture and sequestration runs the risk of being “a rich man’s solution” to addressing climate change unless costs are significantly reduced, Statoil President and CEO Helge Lund said this week during an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Without a global effort to develop less […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/9/2014 The National Climate Assessment released by the Obama Administration this week emphasizes the uncertainty of carbon capture and storage technology as a means to combat climate change, seemingly standing in contrast to the declarations from the Environmental Protection Agency in relation to regulations for new power plants that CCS […]

The following interview with Ken Humphreys,Chief Executive Officer at FutureGen 2.0, was conducted by GHG Reduction Technologies Monitor Reporter Abby L. Harvey on the sideline of this year’s Annual CCUS Conference in Pittsburgh PA.   With the Environmental Protection Agency in the midst of crafting rules that would all but require CCS for any new […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/9/2014 Swiss investment bank UBS downgraded Southern Company’s stock rating to ‘sell’ earlier this week, stating that trouble at the Kemper County Energy Facility could cause the “possibility for further project slippage and the use of the remaining contingency.” Kemper, a coal gasification and carbon capture project located near Meridian, […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/9/2014 Royal Dutch Shell’s Quest project, which has been in construction since September 2012, is officially beyond 50 percent complete and on track for its 2015 operational date. The project is a retrofit of capture technology onto Shell’s existing Scotford oil sands upgrader near Edmonton, Alberta. When completed, the project […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/9/2014 Swedish power company Vattenfall announced Tuesday that it would be discontinuing its carbon capture and storage research and development in an effort to “prioritize [their] R&D investments and choose whatever is most needed.” This comes only weeks after the company signed a Memorandum of Understanding on CCS knowledge and […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/9/2014 Stanford University has announced that it will no longer invest in companies whose primary business is the mining of coal for energy generation. The decision is the result of a recommendation by the university’s Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility and Licensing. According to a release from the university, the […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/9/2014 Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) this week introduced two bills aimed at supporting the advancement of carbon capture and sequestration and enhanced oil recovery technologies. One measure, the “Carbon Capture and Sequestration Deployment Act,” is intended to encourage the development of CCS technologies through programs, tax credits and loan guarantees. […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 5/9/2014 PITTSBURGH, Pa.—  A Mississippi state lawmaker suggested here last week that Denbury Resources grant smaller companies access to its Mississippi CO2 pipeline, suggesting that legislation might be necessary to prompt such action and renewing a debate with company representatives over pipeline usage rights.  “One of the things that I […]

GHG Monitor 5/9/2014 IN EUROPEAN UNION The European Commission said Monday that most heavy industry businesses that had been receiving free carbon permits would be likely to keep them. Under the European Union’s Emissions Trading System, power plants, factories, airlines and other large emitters are required to surrender a permit for every tonne of gas […]

IN THE STATES California’s cap-and-trade program is “well-constructed and strong,” according to a new analysis from the Environmental Defense Fund of the carbon market’s first year. The report’s conclusions include that “the successful state-run auctions are evidence of a well-constructed, strong and adaptive policy;” “the secondary market for California carbon allowances is robust and healthy;” […]

The soon-to-be Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, recently reaffirmed his support for carbon capture and storage technology and said that CCS technology could provide jobs for coal miners in the southwest region of the state, according to a Jan. 4 report from the Bristol Herald Courier.

Former National Energy Technology Laboratory Director Anthony Cugini was found dead earlier this week.

The Department of Energy will provide more than $250 million in cost-shared funding to Leucadia Energy, LLC for its planned petroleum coke-to-chemicals gasification plant in Louisiana that would be outfitted with carbon capture and storage technology, according to a notice published in the Federal Register late this week.

The total cost for Mississippi Power’s flagship Kemper County IGCC project has now reached more than $5 billion—more than $2 billion above the initial expected project cost of $2.8 billion—according to a monthly report the company filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Jan. 3 for the project’s costs through November 2013.

After more than a three-month delay, the Environmental Protection Agency’s New Source Performance Standards rule limiting carbon dioxide emissions from new fossil fuel-fired electricity generating units was published by the Federal Register Jan. 8, kicking off the 60-day public commenting period that will run through March 10.

Twin bills that take aim at the Environmental Protection Agency’s draft regulation setting CO2 emissions standards for new power plants were introduced in the House and Senate this week.

Only minor revisions were made to the final version of an Environmental Protection Agency rule that will conditionally exclude geologically sequestered CO2 from its definition of hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, according to the rule published by the Federal Register Jan. 3.

The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources once again took up the nomination of Chris Smith to be Assistant Secretary of Energy for Fossil Energy this week, reporting his nomination out to the full Senate.

IN THE INDUSTRY Combined cycle natural gas power plants emit less than half the amount of carbon dioxide as coal power plants per unit of energy produced, according to a recent study from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists. The study, accepted for publication in Earth’s Future, also found that, “as a result of the […]

This week the Government Accountability Office rejected a challenge over the new management contract for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which was awarded to a team led by Fluor Federal Petroleum Operations in September.

The Department of Energy will provide $1 billion of cost-shared funding to the FutureGen 2.0 carbon capture and storage project, the Department announced in a Record of Decision this week.

A subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a measure this week that seeks to roll back the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed regulation setting CO2 emissions standards for new power plants, and while debating the bill at markup, Republicans took aim at carbon capture and storage technology, essentially mandated for new coal plants by the EPA rule.

FirstEnergy, an Ohio-based group that is one of the nation’s largest investor-owned electric companies, will produce a report on policies it could adopt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in response to demands from its shareholders, New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli said this week.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy took tough questions from Republicans on a draft rule limiting greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants at a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee this week, which examined President Obama’s Climate Action Plan.