MONIZ VOWS TO SUPPORT CCS RD&D IF CONFIRMED

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
4/12/13

Ernest Moniz, the Obama Administration’s pick to lead the Department of Energy, repeatedly emphasized his support of carbon capture and storage technology during his confirmation hearing this week in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Moniz said April 9 that, if confirmed by the Senate, he would be “committed” to CCS RD&D work, rapidly moving ahead with planned large-scale demonstration projects and spending the remainder of the billions in federal funding previously allocated toward the technology’s development. “The President has said and [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Energy Initiative] studies have also said that we see coal as being a continuing, major part of the energy supply in the United States, and certainly in the world. We do think that as we go to a low-carbon economy, we really have to push hard on completing the investments that have been made—nearly $6 billion—on establishing CCS as a viable and cost-competitive approach,” he said.

Moniz said that in order for the technology to be widely deployed, the cost of carbon capture must be dramatically reduced through additional R&D work funded by the Department. “In a kind of a strange way, I take comfort and have confidence that there’s a lot of run room to get these [capture] costs way down, because we haven’t done very much yet, in terms of novel approaches to carbon capture, for example, or utilization,” he said. Moniz added that the other large hurdle for the technology is on the carbon storage end of the spectrum and winning public support of the process. He said longer-term, “decadal” large-scale storage and monitoring projects funded with money already set aside for the technology would likely hold the key. “That is essential for getting public confidence and getting a regulatory system in place,” he said.

Moniz Touts EOR Development 

Responding to a question from Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who notably said that CO2 utilization could be the “holy grail of energy” behind unconventional natural gas development, Moniz touted the United States’ current enhanced oil recovery industry, which he said produces 300,000 barrels of oil daily, as a sector that could grow dramatically if more CO2 is made available. “If we can do 3 million barrels a day of enhanced oil recovery from CO2 and pay the CO2 capturer $20 or $30 a ton and have that cost down, suddenly, we have a very interesting situation,” he said.

The nuclear physicist and director of MIT’s Energy Initiative is no stranger to CCS. Moniz has an extensive history of writing about the need for government to invest more in the technology as part of his role at MIT. He co-wrote two major studies in 2007 and 2009 that described CCS as a “critical enabling technology,” calling on the federal government to “dramatically expand” the scale and scope of utility-scale CCS commercial demonstrations and for the Department’s R&D program to increase research into coal retrofits, poly-generation, bio-mass co-firing and natural gas capture technologies.

Moniz Questioned on Previous Carbon Tax Support

Those reports also called for Congress to enact a price on carbon in order to incentivize clean energy technologies like CCS. But Moniz, who previously served as Under Secretary of Energy in the Clinton Administration and as an Associate Director for Science in President Clinton’s Office of Science and Technology, side-stepped a question from Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) about his previous support of a carbon tax. Lee was specifically referring to an open letter Moniz wrote ahead of the 2008 election calling for a price on carbon. Moniz admitted to supporting a price then, at a “time in which there were bipartisan discussions of cap-and-trade systems,” but also noted that the White House said last fall that it has no plans to propose a carbon tax. “The Department of Energy is not the locus of discussions about such fiscal policies. Our principal job is push the technology innovation to get the cost of the low-carbon technologies as low as possible,” Moniz said.

Wide Support from Committee Members

At the hearing, Moniz ultimately received few pointed questions from members of the Senate Energy Committee and appeared poised for an easy confirmation. He spoke of his support of natural gas as a “bridge fuel” to a low carbon economy, but also appeared noncommittal on the topic of natural gas exports. He spoke generally about his support of the President’s stated “all-of-the-above” energy strategy and outlined his desire to institute an Administration-wide Quadrennial Energy Review with DOE taking an executive secretariat role. Moniz also spoke about the need to address climate change by fostering a diverse and aggressive R&D portfolio of low carbon technologies that down the line could shift the economy away from emitting carbon into the atmosphere. Many of his questions from members of the committee focused on the Department’s environmental remediation activities of Cold War-era nuclear weapons production sites like Hanford.

Ahead of his questioning by committee members, Moniz was introduced by former energy committee chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, who vouched for the candidate’s credentials for the position. “I believe the President has chosen well with this nomination of Dr. Moniz to be Secretary of Energy,” Bingaman said in his introduction. “We’re fortunate to have a person with his outstanding qualifications willing to take on this very challenging job. I hope there will be very strong bipartisan support for Dr. Moniz in this committee and in the full Senate as well.” Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) quipped that Moniz had the “energy equivalent of a couple of NBA all-stars” vouching for his nomination.

Wyden and Committee Ranking Member Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) both noted the bipartisan support Moniz received from Bingaman and Scowcroft, who worked for two Republican presidents, as well as from members of the committee during their questioning, as “encouraging.” “You may very well prove to be this rare nominee, I guess, that generates that bipartisan support,” Murkowski said. While Murkowski stopped short of officially offering her support of Moniz, Wyden said he would vote to approve Moniz’s nomination. “You have the expertise and it is clear that you’ve built a lot of goodwill with senators on both sides of the aisle,” Wyden said, adding that he hoped the Senate could move on Moniz’s nomination “expeditiously.”