Publications: GHG Reduction Technologies Monitor

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/2/2015 The Department of Energy this week returned to the U.S. Treasury Department $1.27 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds earmarked for carbon capture and storage projects. This sum consists of unspent money from four different projects, one that was shut down and three that were unable to […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/2/2015 Following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent announcement that his nation will institute a cap and trade program by 2017, members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works at a hearing this week questioned China’s commitment to the plan. The emissions trading system, announced during Xi’s visit to […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/2/2015 Climate change and the upcoming negotiations toward a global climate deal were hot on the tongues of several world leaders this week at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The 21st Conference of the Parities of the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, aimed at producing […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/2/2015 A House energy package that was reported out of subcommittee in July by unanimous vote took a turn this week when the addition of several partisan measures cost it the support of Democratic members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The two-day markup opened with the submission of […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/2/2015 NRG Energy and Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) have teamed up with nonprofit public competition organization XPRIZE to launch a $20 million carbon utilization innovation competition. The NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, which is open to the public, consists of two competition tracks, one that will test developmental technologies […]

GHG Monitor               10/2/2015 IN CONGRESS Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power, will not seek re-election at the end of his current term, the congressman’s office announced this week. Whitfield, a staunch opponent of the Obama administration’s climate change agenda, is serving his 11th term, which […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/25/2015 As world leaders prepare to negotiate a new global climate deal in December, it has become clear that meeting the commitments embedded in such an accord will be delegated largely to the world’s cities, Shelley Poticha, director of the Urban Solutions program with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/25/2015 A group of Senate Democrats led by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) this week released an energy bill that includes a provision that would add carbon utilization and storage efforts to a section of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct) that prioritizes fossil energy research and development efforts within […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/25/2015 The European Union can support progress toward the deployment of carbon capture and storage by optimizing existing policies and resources, according to a report released this week by the Zero Emissions Platform, an advisory group to the European Commission on the subject. The plan, developed by request of European […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/25/2015 Summit Power, developer of the Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP), will not meet the Sept. 30 spending deadline for $104 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding, a company executive acknowledged this week. TCEP was awarded a grand total of $211 million in ARRA funding and was able […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/25/2015 British power producer Drax said on Friday it has withdrawn from the White Rose carbon capture and storage project. The project is currently under development by Capture Power Ltd., a consortium of Drax, Alstom, and BOC. White Rose will still be located at the Drax power plant in Yorkshire […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/25/2015 Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday announced that his nation will have a national cap-and-trade system in place by 2017. The emissions trading system, announced during Xi’s visit to the White House to meet with President Barack Obama, will be wide-reaching, covering key industry sectors such as iron and […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/25/2015 Three new carbon capture processes are due to begin testing at Norway’s Technology Center Mongstad (TCM), according to a new release by Clean Carbon Solutions Ltd. (CCSL), a capture solvent developer and one of TCM’s new vendors. The other two vendors, Alstom and General Electric, are receiving funding through […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/25/2015 On the surface, adopting a price on carbon might seem like a costly and potentially risky move economically. However, when examining the possibilities presented by a significant new source of revenue, a carbon price becomes an economically viable option, Mark Reynolds, executive director of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby said […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/25/2015 What once seemed a very promising future for carbon capture and storage has fallen by the wayside due to a lack of market development, but all is not lost, according to MIT Senior Research Engineer Howard Herzog. “The number one reason for CCS not meeting the expectations of 2009 […]

IN THE STATES Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R) this week dropped his appeal of a 10th Circuit Court dismissal of a lawsuit filed in June challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants. The rule, which was finalized in early August, requires states to develop action plans to meet […]

GHG Monitor 9/18/2015 IN DOE The National Coal Council, an advisory committee to the secretary of energy, will hold its next meeting on Nov. 5 at the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Pittsburgh, Pa., according to a notice published this week in the Federal Register. Speakers will include Grace Bochenek, director of DOE’s National Energy […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/18/2015 A catalytic material known to show potential for capturing carbon can also be adapted for the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) into carbon monoxide (CO), a value-added product, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have found. The research focuses on adapting covalent […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/18/2015 To take advantage of the United Kingdom’s shale gas resources while also addressing the need to lower carbon emissions, revenue from a potential shale gas industry in the nation should be invested in the development of a carbon capture and storage industry, according to a report published this week […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/18/2015 The Department of Energy this week announced the selection of five projects to receive more than $7 million in funding to study the feasibility of enhanced water recovery (EWR). A relatively new process, EWR aims to use captured CO2 to extract brine from geologic storage sites. Through the management […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/18/2015 A comprehensive technical review of the CO2 storage plan for Shell’s Peterhead Carbon Capture and Storage project published this week finds that the plan is “robust and will provide for the secure long-term underground storage of CO2,” according to a statement by the British Geological Survey released with the […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/18/2015 The Environmental Protection Agency’s recently finalized carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants, dubbed the Clean Power Plan, picks winners and losers, leaving many states in a lurch while others will have do very little, Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.) said during a recent hearing of the House Science, […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/18/2015 A substantial group of U.S. and Chinese states, municipalities, provinces, and counties this week announced ambitious climate goals at the U.S.-China Climate-Smart/Low-Carbon Cities Summit in Los Angeles. The states of California and Connecticut, along with 15 U.S. cities and one county, joined the Chinese municipality of Beijing, provinces of […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/11/2015 Alberta’s Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation (CCEMC) will provide CAD$15 million in funding for projects related to the innovate use of carbon dioxide, the independent, not-for-profit organization announced his week. The funding competition is the second round of CCEMC’s “Grand Challenge,” a three-round program providing a total of […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/11/2015 In a brief two-paragraph order issued Sept. 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied two requests to stay the Environmental Protection Agency’s recently finalized carbon standards for existing coal-fired power plants. The court has ruled “the petitions be denied because petitioners have not […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/11/2015 The climate pledges being presented by member countries of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to the climate negations being held in Paris in December will not likely be enough to meet the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 2-degrees Celsius. For this reason, it is […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 9/11/2015 While significant progress has been made toward the wide-scale deployment of carbon capture and storage technology in the four years since the release of the last Quadrennial Technology Review, many opportunities for further learning and developing exist, according to the latest QTR, released this week. “The ability to take […]