WRAP UP

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
11/9/12

AT EPA

A conservative-leaning D.C. newspaper reported earlier this week that the Environmental Protection Agency has devoted more than 50 staff members to finishing its greenhouse gas performance standards for new fossil fuel-fired power plants. Senior Editorial Writer Conn Carroll wrote in the Washington Examiner that the level of staff dedicated to the standards is “unprecedented” for a single rulemaking. He quoted an unnamed EPA official who said that the final regulations would be released at the end of the month. “EPA continues to develop a final rule and is working to address comments received during the proposal’s open and transparent comment period,” EPA said in a statement provided to GHG Monitor. In March, EPA released a draft rulemaking for the standards, which would require electricity generating units larger than 25 MW to limit CO2 emissions to 1,000 pounds of CO2 per MWh, roughly on par with the emissions level of an uncontrolled natural gas combined cycle unit. Proponents have said that the rulemaking would help guide the coal industry to a cleaner future and incentivize carbon capture and storage, while opponents have argued that the regulation would kill coal in the U.S. and draw utilities toward natural gas. EPA has yet to announce a date for when it plans to finalize the proposed rulemaking.

IN THE STATES

Michigan voters struck down a proposal this week that would have required the state’s utilities to generate 25 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025. Nearly two-thirds of the state’s voters opposed the measure, proposed as a constitutional amendment, Tuesday night. The effort would have doubled-down on an already existing renewable portfolio standard that required 10 percent of Michigan’s electricity to come from renewable sources like solar, wind and hydro by 2015, but a well-organized opposition effort argued that the new standard would be too rigid and expensive to implement. Following the vote, Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, estimated that opponents of the measure spent more than $35 million to defeat proposal, outspending supporters three-to-one. Twenty nine states and the District of Columbia currently have some sort of renewable-portfolio standard in place.

American Electric Power filed a petition with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission late last week for the regulatory body to approve a separation between its generation and delivery arms in Ohio. The Columbus-based utility, a heavy user of coal, needs approval from the federal regulatory body in order to move forward with the split, which would allow for electricity prices to be set more by market forces. “These FERC filings are an important next step in our transition to full competition in Ohio,” AEP President and CEO Nick Akins said in a statement. The move got approval from state regulators last month. AEP said that if approved, the split could occur in early 2014.

ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT

Foster Wheeler AG announced earlier this week that one of its subsidiaries secured a contract with the World Bank Group to provide carbon capture and transportation consulting services to Chinese government entities. The Swiss engineering and construction company said it will help share CCS and transportation know-how to the China Power Investment Corp., a state-owned power producer, as well as several other government institutions under the World Bank’s CCS Trust Fund, which aims to share knowledge about the technology to developing countries. The company did not disclose the value of the contract but said that its work should be completed by June 2013. China has rapidly grown its CCS industry domestically in past years and recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Summit Power Group for its Texas Clean Energy Project.