GHG Monitor
5/22/2015
IN THE INDUSTRY
Energy efficiency measures will be key to implementing the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon emissions standards for coal-fired power plants at a manageable cost, according to a report released this week by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. The proposed regulations would set state-specific carbon emission targets and require states to develop action plans to meet those targets. The targets are developed using four “building blocks”—efficiency improvements at the plants, switching to lower emitting energy sources, building additional zero emission generation and demand side energy efficiency. The new report analyzes six models of the implementation of the Clean Power Plan and finds that “all studies project that energy efficiency will be the most used and least-cost option to implement the plan. This general finding holds regardless of particular modeling assumptions, including the cost assigned to energy efficiency programs. The studies also show that the effect of energy efficiency is large enough that overall electricity consumption declines.”
ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT
The University of Calgary announced this week that it has been $1.65 million through the Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) initiative of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to train students in the development of carbon capture technologies. Chemistry professor George Shimizu will lead the project based in Calgary with partners in Vancouver, Ottawa and Edmonton. “A major outcome of the research is to connect, support and train the people that are working on this large challenge,” Shimizu said in a university release. “The goal is to produce people who can be the technology developers, technology implementers, and policy-makers who have a deep understanding of the many-fold challenges and who can then communicate them.”
Energy consulting firm Pale Blue Dot has been awarded £2.5 million to appraise known offshore storage sites in the North Sea and develop a portfolio of sites well equipped for the deep geological storage of carbon dioxide. The funding has been provided by the U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change’s Energy Technologies Institute (ETI). “This project will drive the appraisal and progression of five significant offshore storage sites which will put the UK on track to permanently store decades of emissions from many of its major power stations and industrial emitters. This will significantly de-risk and encourage the deployment of CCS technology in the years ahead,” Den Gammer, ETI’s CCS Strategy Manager, said in a release.
