Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
2/8/13
AT DOE
The Departments of Energy and Treasury announced Feb. 7 that they are making available an additional $150 million in tax credits to the manufacturers of clean energy technologies, including to those who produce carbon capture and sequestration-related equipment. The money for the Sec. 48C Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credits is technically left over from the initial $2.3 billion round of awards, DOE said. Producers of equipment for clean energy systems like CCS, solar, wind, geothermal and other technologies can apply for the competitively-awarded 30 percent investment tax credits through July, according to DOE. “Since 2009, the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit program has supported innovative American manufacturers that boost our nation’s competitiveness in the global race for clean energy,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement. “These new investments will continue that momentum, supporting the President’s commitment to American-made energy, increasing energy security and creating jobs.” DOE said projects will be chosen based on commercial viability, domestic job creation, technological innovation, speed to project completion and potential for reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
IN THE ADMINISTRATION
President Obama called on lawmakers this week to approve a package of smaller cuts to push back the implementation of across-the-board funding cuts known as sequestration and provide time to reach a final solution on deficit reduction. In remarks at the White House Feb. 5, Obama warned of the negative impacts of sequestration, which is set to go into effect in less than a month. “Deep, indiscriminate cuts to things like education and training, energy and national security will cost us jobs, and it will slow down our recovery. It’s not the right thing to do for the economy; it’s not the right thing for folks who are out there still looking for work,” he said. “Congress is already working towards a budget that would permanently replace the sequester. At the very least, we should give them the chance to come up with this budget instead of making indiscriminate cuts now that will cost us jobs and significantly slow down our recovery.” The sequestration process is set to involve a total of $1.2 trillion in funding cuts, equally divided between defense and non-defense funding, over 10 years unless similar deficit reduction legislation is approved. It is expected to slash the budgets for all discretionary programs by more than 8 percent, according to a September estimate from the White House. For DOE’s Fossil Energy R&D, which currently operates at a budget of $534 million, sequestration would mean a $44 million cut.
IN THE STATES
The country’s first carbon trading scheme announced plans this week to tighten its emissions cap 45 percent by next year. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) said Feb. 7 that the nine Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states participating in the regional cap-and-trade scheme will reduce the program’s cap of tradable carbon credits from 165 million to 91 million tons in 2014. The group said the cap would further decline 2.5 percent a year between 2015 and 2020. RGGI said the changes will lead to a cumulative emissions savings of 80 to 90 million tons of CO2 by 2020 and that the prices of allowances should increase “modestly” from $4 per credit in 2014 to $10 per credit in 2020. “Today, we are taking another significant step forward in realizing our common goal of reducing carbon emissions, driving energy efficiency investments, accelerating clean energy deployment and providing economic benefits to the region’s businesses and families,” Collin O’Mara, chair of the RGGI Board of Directors and Secretary of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, said in a statement. RGGI said the changes would increase the average electricity bill by less than 1 percent. The changes address a common critique of the 5-year-old scheme that the carbon prices are too low to generate much of a change in behavior from major emitters in the region.
ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT
Researchers at Newcastle University in the U.K. said that a process used by sea urchins could hold the key to carbon capture technology in the future. In a new report published earlier this week in the journal Catalysis Science & Technology, researchers conclude that the way sea urchins use nickel catalysts to convert CO2 in the ocean to grow their exoskeletons into solid mineral, calcium or magnesium carbonate could be a good alternative to current enzymes current being developed to capture carbon. A popular enzyme currently being used, carbonic anhydrase, is expensive and can only be effective for a short period of time, according to the report. But the nickel catalyst used by the sea urchins could be a better alternative, the reports’ authors argue. “The beauty of a Nickel catalyst is that it carries on working regardless of the pH and because of its magnetic properties it can be re-captured and re-used time and time again. It’s also very cheap—1,000 times cheaper than the enzyme. And the by-product—the carbonate—is useful and not damaging to the environment,” said lead author Gaurav Bhaduri, a PhD student in the University’s School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, in a statement. By converting the CO2 into calcium or magnesium carbonate, researchers could forgo the need to sequester the carbon dioxide underground, according to the report.
