The development of carbon capture and storage technology will be vital to address climate concerns, but it will require government support to make it happen, according to a report by the National Coal Council.
The report was drawn up at the request of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who wanted recommendations on what can be done to encourage development and use of carbon-capture technology and how to level the playing field.
The council’s report said the Clean Power Plan rules have “severely tilted the energy playing field,” and that the incentives available for carbon capture and storage are too small to encourage commercial use. “Without commercial-scale deployment, developers have no history to understand technical risks, frequency and duration of down time, and other critical factors that become known only with operation,” the report said.
More: POWER Magazine
USDA Doles out $2.3B in Loans to Rural Co-ops
The Department of Agriculture is providing nearly $2.3 billion in low-interest loans to rural electric cooperatives for infrastructure improvements.
The loans, provided through the Rural Utilities Service Electric Loan Program, will go to 77 cooperatives and smaller utilities in 31 states. USDA said the loans will help build or improve about 12,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines. They will also finance $108 million for smart grid technology improvements, $41 million for renewable energy programs and $9 million for storm damage restoration.
More: Electric Co-op Today
McCarthy Must Testify in Murray Energy Case
A U.S. District Court judge ruled that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy must testify in a case pitting Murray Energy against the agency’s Clean Air Act regulations.
The coal producer’s attorneys argued that McCarthy was deeply involved in drafting the regulations, and Murray should be able to depose her about her analyses concerning possible loss of jobs caused by the regulations. EPA and the White House sought to block her appearance, saying the regulations are clear enough on their own and that McCarthy’s testimony is unnecessary.
Judge John Preston Baily of the District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia ruled that McCarthy’s testimony is material. “By statute, the administrator is responsible for conducting the evaluations in question,” Bailey wrote in his order, adding that “she has personally been involved with discussions about” the regulations.
EPA is considering an appeal.
More: The Hill
FERC Sets Tech Conference for ‘Connected Entities’ Rule
FERC has agreed to set up a technical conference to explore its proposed rule that would require ways to identify companies and individuals participating in wholesale energy market trades.
Several parties asked FERC for clarity about its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued in September that would require RTOs and ISOs to begin registering market participants through common alpha-numeric identifiers, including lists of their “connected entities” and a description of their relationships (RM15-23). The proposal would use a new system called Legal Entity Identifiers, which are already used by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission to track swaps trades. (See Are You Two Related? FERC Wants to Know.)
Several parties asked for either an extension of the Dec. 8 deadline for comments on the notice or a technical conference to clear up what they called “ambiguities.” FERC scheduled the conference for Dec. 8 and extended the comments deadline to Jan. 22.
More: National Law Review
Erosion of Solar ITC May Hit Midwest Hardest
Solar energy advocates and some legislators are warning that the upcoming reduction in the Investment Tax Credit for solar will impact customers and small businesses in the Midwest, where few state-level solar programs are in place to provide incentives in addition to the federal subsidies.
Ray Davis, president of OGW Energy Resources, an Ohio-based solar developer, said it is difficult for solar to compete without the subsidies. “As we are primarily a coal region, our grid kilowatt-hour costs are relatively low as compared to other regions,” he said. “Therefore the ITC truly is the part of the puzzle that makes solar fiscally feasible in the Midwest.”
Legislation extending the credit for wind and other renewables only — but not solar — was passed by the Senate Finance Committee earlier this year. Without an extension, the commercial tax break will decrease from 30% to 10% at the end of 2016, and residential support will be eliminated.
More: Midwest Energy News
US Coal Burn to Stay Steady Despite Retirements
Despite the retirement of 23 GW of coal-burning capacity this year, American power plants will burn the same amount of coal next year. Surviving coal plants will ramp up to meet demand and burn about 773 million tons of coal in 2016, according to the Energy Information Administration.
In addition to increasing generation to fill the void left by plant closures, coal is also expected to compete strongly next year as natural gas steadily becomes more expensive, EIA said. Coal prices are expected to remain fairly steady.
“You’ve got this big wave of retirements that you don’t get for the rest of the decade,” said James Stevenson, director of North American Coal at IHS Inc. in Houston. “That means after this, coal demand is pretty stable.”
More: Bloomberg Business
Obama’s Keystone Decision Elicits Yawn from 35% of US
Although the Keystone XL issue has dominated the news media, only about a third of Americans care one way or the other about President Obama’s rejection of the pipeline that would have delivered heavy crude oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast, according to a Reuters poll.
About 35% of 920 people polled said they didn’t agree or disagree with the president’s decision. Another 27% qualified their opinions with “somewhat.” Obama rejected the proposed 1,200-mile pipeline on Nov. 6.
More: Reuters
Wellinghoff: Pipeline Purchases May not be Wise for Utilities
While Eversource Energy, Duke Energy and Dominion Resources are betting big on natural gas pipelines, the volatility of the gas market in light of growing renewable and battery market power could leave those investments stranded, according to former FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff.
Wellinghoff told Bloomberg Business that spending billions on natural gas pipelines may look like good sense when coal plants are closing and natural gas-fired plants are sprouting. But he noted that renewable energy is growing, and battery storage technology is emerging quickly.
“These utilities are taking a risk that these will be stranded assets that ultimately their shareholders will have to pay off,” Wellinghoff said. “We will see regulators being more critical of these asset decisions as prices of renewables continue to go down.”
More: Bloomberg Business
Report: EVs Emit less Pollution over Life Cycle and Getting Cleaner
Electric vehicles generate half the emissions of gasoline-powered cars over their lifetimes, even when pollution from battery manufacturing is accounted for, according to a new study by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The study looked at the greenhouse emissions of conventional and electric vehicles during manufacturing, operation and end of life.
While electric cars generally exceed the global warming emissions of gasoline cars in production because of their use of large lithium-ion batteries, they make up for that within 18 months of driving, according to the report.
More: Union of Concerned Scientists
NRC Increases Oversight of TVA’s Sequoyah Plant
A series of unplanned shutdowns at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant near Chattanooga has spurred the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to increase its oversight of the plant.
NRC cited four outages at the plant’s Unit 1 in the past three quarters. “Overall, the Sequoyah plant is operating safely,” the commission said. “However, these shutdowns point to potential performance issues and we want to ensure that TVA addresses them appropriately.”
TVA spokesman Jim Hopson said the utility has taken steps to improve operations. “We’ve already placed initial corrective actions into place to improve overall performance,” he said. “We’ll continue to look at that. We’ll focus on trying to get Unit 1 back into regular oversight status.”