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FIRST-TIME DECLINE IN GLOBAL COAL FLEET: The global fleet of coal-fired power plants shrank during the first six months of 2020, marking the first such decline on record, according to new analysis Monday by Global Energy Monitor.
The world’s coal capacity fell 2.9 gigawatts over the first half of 2020, in part due to the coronavirus pandemic slowing the development of new coal plants, according to GEM’S Global Coal Plant Monitor. The European Union also experienced record coal plant retirements, with those nations and the United Kingdom shutting down 8.3 GW over the last six months.
The United States saw the second most retirements during the first half of 2020, with 5.4 GW of coal plants shuttered, despite Trump administration efforts over the past few years to aid coal.
Prior to this year, the global coal fleet was growing around 25 GW every six months between 2000 and 2019, writes Christine Shearer, GEM’s coal program director, in Carbon Brief.
The China problem: While much of the rest of the world (even India) saw a decline in coal power, China’s coal fleet is still on the rise. Most new coal plant development in the first six months of this year happened in China, now home to half of the world’s operating coal plants, according to Shearer.
The International Energy Agency has previously projected coal use in China won’t plateau until 2022.
Nonetheless, as global officials see coronavirus recovery packages as a last best chance to get the world on track to meet Paris climate agreement targets, they’re beginning to ramp up pressure on China.
“There is no such thing as clean coal, and coal should have no place in any rational recovery plan,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last month, during remarks at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
“It is deeply concerning that new coal power plants are still being planned and financed, even though renewables offer three times more jobs, and are now cheaper than coal in most countries,” he added, according to a report from Climate Home News.
By GEM’s calculations, global coal use would need to decline by at least half by 2030 to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, the Paris Agreement’s target, and by nearly three-quarters to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the deal’s more ambitious goal.
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MARATHON CLOSES TWO REFINERIES, POSTS QUARTERLY LOSS: Marathon, the largest U.S. fuel maker, announced Friday it will not re-open two of its refineries that it idled in April, during the peak of the pandemic-fueled price crash.
Its refinery in Martinez, Calif., will be converted into a terminal facility for storage and loading and could be used to produce renewable diesel after facing pressure because of the state’s environmental and climate rules.
Marathon’s Gallup plant in New Mexico is also closing.
The company acknowledged job losses from the closures and said it plans to begin a “phased reduction” of staffing levels in October.
Marathon also reported Monday a second quarter loss of $868 million, a better performance than analysts predicted. It posted a $9.2 billion loss in the first quarter.
Gasoline and diesel demand have recovered in recent weeks as drivers return to the road, but jet fuel sales are still way down as people avoid flying.
HOUSE APPROVES SPENDING BILL FOR ENERGY AND INTERIOR: The Democrat-controlled House approved a six-bill, $1.3 trillion appropriations package Friday that rejects Trump administration proposals for cuts to clean energy-related programs.
The bill provides $49.6 billion in Energy and Water Development programs for fiscal 2021, an increase of $1.26 billion, or 3% above the fiscal year 2020 enacted level. It includes $2.85 billion for DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, an increase of $2.1 billion above President Trump’s request, and $435 million for ARPA-E, rejecting Trump’s proposal to eliminate the program that supports research on “transformational” clean energy technologies.
The legislation is “poised to be the most important climate change bill Congress passes this year,” said Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, chairwoman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development.
The White House objected to the topline spending levels in the bill, as well as a rider expanding the Shasta Dam in California, among other things, threatening to veto it. It also includes an amendment preventing the Trump administration from pursuing the Pebble Mine project, a controversial proposed gold and copper mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay. Another amendment would bar the administration from leasing space in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to foreign countries.
MANCHIN CALLS ON TRUMP TO REJECT PEBBLE MINE: Top Energy Committee Democrat Joe Manchin called on the Trump administration Friday to reject a Clean Water Act permit for the Pebble Mine.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a final environmental analysis last month saying the proposed mine, which would be the largest in North America, poses no serious risks, reversing a determination from the Obama administration that it would harm water quality and the region’s sockeye salmon that indigenous populations rely upon. The administration could approve the project by the end of the year.
“The Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Pebble mine did not come anywhere close to assuring me that this world-class, pristine treasure would be protected for generations to come. To jeopardize it would be gravely irresponsible and I cannot support the Pebble mine moving forward,” said Mancin, a centrist who represents a major mining state, West Virginia.
MORE PRESSURE ON PENDLEY: A coalition of more than 300 environmental, tribal, and civil right groups urged the Energy Committee Monday to reject Trump’s controversial nominee to lead the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, William Perry Pendley.
In a letter to committee members, the groups say Pendley’s “public record over decades both in and outside of government have made abundantly clear that he is abjectly unfit to lead.”
Pendley has been leading the Bureau of Land Management on a temporary basis for nearly a year, but he previously urged the sale of public lands and has made dismissive comments of climate change, the Endangered Species Act, and the Black Live Matters movement.
It’s the latest pressure play on Republican committee members such as Cory Gardner and Steve Daines, who are touting their conservation credentials from leading passage of the Great American Outdoors Act. Trump is hosting a signing ceremony Tuesday on that massive public lands law with Gardner and Daines by his side.
Committee Democrats have asked Lisa Murkowski to expedite a confirmation hearing for Pendley in order to allow for the opportunity “to hold him accountable for his record of undermining our public lands, clean water, and jobs that rely on both.” But Murkowski has suggested she is in no rush.
INTERIOR’S LATEST CHANGE TO THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT: The Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed Friday a new definition of “habitat” under the Endangered Species Act that environmental advocates say will preclude the agency from considering climate change effects on species.
Interior Department officials said the changes would create more consistency and transparency for Fish and Wildlife Service designations of habitats under the ESA. The proposal also responds to a 2018 Supreme Court ruling in a case involving a habitat designation for the dusky gopher frog. In that 8-0 opinion, the Supreme Court punted on whether a habitat could include areas that require modifications before they could support the species.
The proposed definition would resolve this question, defining a habitat as an area that has “the capacity” to support individuals of the species.
“This proposal will provide commonsense protections for endangered species without expanding beyond the habitat they actually depend on,” said Senate Environment Committee Chairman John Barrasso, who has spearheaded efforts in Congress to alter the ESA.
Environmentalists say the definition is short-sighted: “Restricting habitat to areas with existing attributes a species needs would exclude areas that would be suitable with minimal restoration or those areas that may be needed to recover species in the age of climate change,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, head of Defenders of Wildlife.
NEW BIPARTISAN PUSH ON CARBON CAPTURE RELIEF: GOP Rep. Jack Bergman and Democratic Rep. Lizzie Fletcher unveiled legislation Friday to allow carbon capture developers to receive federal tax credits directly as cash payments.
The bill gives carbon capture developers another avenue to secure direct pay, given uncertainty over whether Senate Republicans will take up the energy-related provisions, including direct pay for carbon capture and renewables, included in House Democrats’ infrastructure bill.
Direct pay would allow developers to speed up development of the more than 30 carbon capture projects in the pipeline in the U.S., said Brad Crabtree, director of the Carbon Capture Coalition. “The potential completion of these projects would represent a tripling of the number of commercial scale carbon capture facilities operating in the U.S. today,” he added.
TALLYING UP EPA’S USE OF CO-BENEFITS: Co-benefits — or the monetary benefits of reductions in pollutants not directly targeted by a regulation — have accounted for roughly 46% of all the monetized benefits of EPA air quality rules over the past two decades, according to new research from Resources for the Future circulated by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
In fact, for nearly half of the major rules the researcher reviewed, benefits wouldn’t have exceeded costs without considering co-benefits, they conclude.
The researchers also examine the validity of several criticisms of using co-benefits in regulatory cost-benefit analyses. That included whether the EPA should target directly pollutants such as fine particulate matter (reductions of which provide the most significant co-benefits), which the researchers say is not necessarily more efficient.
The research comes as the EPA has proposed a major overhaul of the way it conducts cost-benefit analyses that would preclude consideration of co-benefits to justify a regulation.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES STARTS FIRST NUCLEAR POWER PLANT ON ARABIAN PENINSULA: The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation announced on Saturday that the initial unit of the Barakah nuclear power plant in Abu Dhabi has been loaded with nuclear fuel and fired up, a major milestone in the yearslong process of the UAE harnessing nuclear energy, the Washington Examiner’s Zachary Halaschak reports.
The UAE aims to have four total nuclear reactors, including Barakah, up and running by 2023.
“We are now another step closer to achieving our goal of supplying up to a quarter of our nation’s electricity needs and powering its future growth with safe, reliable, and emissions-free electricity,” said Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation CEO Mohamed Ibrahim al Hammadi.
The Rundown
Wall Street Journal Refiners retrench as demand for gasoline, jet fuel shrivels
New York Times Marathon is selling Speedway gas stations to 7-Eleven’s parent for $21 billion
Axios How climate and business woes are sinking a natural gas project
Wall Street Journal Gas finds trigger a standoff in the Mediterranean between an isolated Turkey and rivals
Cincinnati Enquirer & Columbus Dispatch Ohio coal giant Murray Energy is $100K dark money donor ‘Company B’ in federal probe
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | AUG 5
10 a.m. 106 Dirksen. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee holds a hearing to examine the American Nuclear Infrastructure Act of 2020.
10 a.m. 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing to examine federal and industry efforts to improve cybersecurity for the energy sector.
4:30 p.m. OurEnergyPolicy holds a webinar entitled “Free Market Clean Energy Proposals for the Stimulus and Beyond.” Abby will moderate a conversation with Jigar Shah, co-founder and president of Generate Capital, and Rod Richardson, co-founder of the Clean Capitalist Leadership Council and president of the Grace Richardson Fund.
