Subscribe today to the Washington Examiner magazine and get Washington Briefing: politics and policy stories that will keep you up to date with what’s going on in Washington. SUBSCRIBE NOW: Just $1.00 an issue!
DOUBTS ABOUT DAC – The Department of Energy earlier this month announced that they would be launching direct air capture hubs in parts of Texas and Louisiana – with the Texas project teaming with a carbon removal company, 1PointFive, that’s also a subsidiary of fossil fuels corporation Occidental Petroleum. And a lot of green groups aren’t happy about the announcement.
“I don’t feel super great about it,” said Alex Spike, a climate justice coordinator for Air Alliance Houston. “Giving industries that are climate change bad-faith actors a way out is an unserious solution to climate change.”
The DOE announced on Aug. 11 they would be investing $1.2 billion to advance the development of commercial-scale direct air capture facilities in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana and Kleberg County, Texas – with the aim to capture more than 2 million metric tons of CO2 emissions each year from the atmosphere. The projects would stand as the largest investment into carbon removal technology globally – competing against large-scale projects in countries like Iceland.
However, a number of environmental advocates argue that the latest announcement is an example of greenwashing, where fossil companies are given a loop-hole to continue their operations so long as their carbon emissions are accounted for. This underlines a potential political problem for President Joe Biden, who promised to “end fossil fuel” on the campaign trail and fight for disadvantaged communities.
“Most of what the Biden administration and the Department of Energy has done is a contradiction of the climate plan that needs to be done,” said Justin Solet, an organizing fellow of nonprofit group Healthy Gulf.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, the DOE recognized the industry “disproportionately and inequitably impacted underserved communities.”
“[DOE] is dedicated to ensuring that selected projects adhere to the principles of environmental justice and the Justice40 Initiative that serve as the bedrock of the President’s vision for a more equitable, clean, and just energy future.”
The two projects that were recently announced will not use the captured CO2 for “enhanced oil recovery,” a process that involves pumping gas into older oil wells to force up any remaining fossil fuel.
Still, a number of green groups expressed skepticism of the DAC technology at large, asserting the administration is banking on technology that’s unproven and expensive to fulfill the country’s climate goals.
Dana Johnson, a senior director of strategy and federal policy at WE ACT for Environmental Justice, stated there were a number of concerns surrounding the general efficacy of current direct carbon capture technology – with questions circling around if the technology is effective enough to capture carbon in “any meaningful way,” and the potential unforeseen consequences of storing the carbon underground.
“How it might contaminate our drinking water supplies, or how it might contaminate our soil and make communities inhabitable,” Johnson said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “I think those are some of the big concerns that people have.”
On the other side of the argument: There are groups that see real opportunity in the deployment of the technology, arguing that investment needs to be in place to launch the technology off the ground in order to reduce carbon levels at scale.
“Success in these first-of-a-kind commercial scale deployments is going to help build the momentum that we think we need to scale carbon removal to the degree that the scientific community is telling us we need,” said Sasha Stashwick, director of technology policy at Carbon180. “It’ll help build more durable political coalitions … and it’ll help us also get more policy support for this sector.”
Next steps: Although the Department of Energy has granted approval of these projects, the agency will still have to grant the states “primacy,” which will allow the state of the project to become the sole permitting and enforcement authority. Wyoming and North Dakota are the only two states to achieve primacy over carbon sequestration permitting and enforcement. Louisiana recently finished their primacy application.
Be on the lookout: The Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstration will be hosting an in-person community briefing in September about the Louisiana project in Lake Charles.
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers Nancy Vu (@NancyVu99) and Breanne Deppisch (@breanne_dep). Email [email protected] or [email protected] for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.
BLACKROCK DISTANCES FROM ESG: BlackRock is backing away from supporting shareholder proposals that embrace environmental and social themes, an indication that the GOP pressure campaign against ESG, or environmental, social, and governance regulations, might be making headway, our Zachary Halaschak reports.
An annual report revealed that BlackRock supported just 7% of nearly 400 shareholder proposals on environmental and social matters.That marks a notable decline from previous years. BlackRock supported nearly a quarter of such proposals in the previous cycle and 47% of environmental and social proposals the cycle before that.
“Because so many proposals were over-reaching, lacking economic merit, or simply redundant, they were unlikely to help promote long-term shareholder value and received less support from shareholders, including BlackRock, than in years past,” the report said. Read more on that here.
CRUDE OIL UPDATE: U.S commercial crude oil inventories decreased by 6.1 million barrels from the previous week, according to Oil & Gas 360, excluding inventories in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
At 433.5 million barrels, the country’s crude oil inventories are at about 2% below the five year average for this time of year. More on that here.
INDONESIA ISSUES CARBON MARKET RULES: Indonesia’s financial regulator has issued a set of rules on the creation of a carbon exchange, aiming to launch onshore carbon trading by the end of 2023, Reuters reports.
The move is part of Indonesia’s efforts – one of the largest carbon emitters globally – to cut its emissions by more than 30% by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2060.
The exchange will be allowed to facilitate cross-border trade, according to the rule that was made public this morning. The trading will use a cap-and-trade system where pollution levels are limited and allowances can be traded by businesses entities. The trading will also use a certificate to show the amount of GHG reductions taken place, quantified in one ton of carbon dioxide.
NEW OFFSHORE WIND: The Interior Department announced yesterday that it had approved the construction of a new offshore wind facility near Rhode Island, making it the fourth major commercial-scale project the administration has greenlighted as it looks to deliver on its goal of adding 30 GW of offshore wind power by 2030, Breanne reports.
Interior said in a statement that the Revolution Wind project will be located off of Point Judith, Rhode Island. Once operational, it said, the project will have an estimated capacity of 704 megawatts of clean energy, which is capable of powering nearly 250,000 homes. It will also create 1,200 local jobs during the construction phase of the process.
The news marks the fourth commercial-scale offshore wind energy project approved by Interior, following the Vineyard Wind project in Massachusetts, the South Fork Wind project off the coasts of Rhode Island and New York, and the Ocean Wind 1 project in New Jersey. Read more on that here.
ERCOT BRACES ITSELF FOR MORE DEMAND – Texas’s grid operator said Tuesday that it expects power demand to shatter forecasts for a second day in a row, an update that comes as temperatures continue to soar well past 100 degrees in many parts of the state.
According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which oversees the grid for roughly 90% of Texas, demand is projected to reach 86,120 megawatts on Tuesday.
ERCOT has so far shattered demand forecasts 10 times in a row, prompting some of the biggest reliability concerns since Winter Storm Uri, the 2021 storm that killed 246 Texans and left millions without power, though ERCOT said Tuesday that it expects to have sufficient supplies to meet demand.
The record-high projection comes just two days after ERCOT called on consumers to limit their power use over the weekend and urged residents to limit the use of all large appliances and reduce power consumption between the hours of 7 and 10 p.m. to avoid outages and threats to capacity. Read more from Breanne here.
On a related note: The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (otherwise known as MISO), a system that monitors the transmission systems of the southern regions and others, declared a maximum generation emergency alert for the entire MISO footprint on Tuesday. The alert was issued for the period between 12 p.m. EST to 10 p.m. EST. on Thursday, Aug. 24.
The reason for the alert, according to MISO, was due to a high forecasted load, above normal temperatures, and “additional resource uncertainty.”
RECORD HIGHS IN FLOODING: Eight locations along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts experienced a record increase in high-tide flooding days last year – a trend that’s expected to continue in 2024, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
According to a new report released on Tuesday, coastal communities are expected to experience three times as many high-tide flood days compared to two decades ago. The agency attributed these changes to sea level rise driven by climate change, and the strengthening of El Nino weather patterns.
The department predicts that between nine to 15 flood days are predicted for the Mid-Atlantic region, and seven to 14 days are predicted along the Western Gulf – an almost 350% increase since the year 2000. Increases are also expected for the Pacific Southwest and Northwest, with an expected increase of 100 and 150 percent since 2000 for the regions, respectively. Read more on that here.
The Rundown
Bloomberg Ex-EU Climate Chief Timmermans Vows to Accelerate Dutch Energy Transition If Elected
New York Times Greece Battles Its Most Widespread Wildfires on Record
