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ENERGY BATTLE TO WATCH IN IOWA: Iowa’s biofuel lobby is staking its future on carbon capture and sequestration. That’s why it’s issuing dire warnings this week to lawmakers in Des Moines who are considering putting new strictures on the construction of CO2 pipelines.
The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, which represents ethanol and biodiesel in the nation’s top corn-growing state, is lobbying against a Republican proposal that would introduce restrictions on the use of eminent domain for CO2 pipeline projects of the sort needed to transport captured carbon away from renewable fuel refineries.
Republicans in the state House of Representatives introduced the bill yesterday, leading IRFA head Monte Shaw to say lawmakers are threatening the “single most important technology we have to keep liquid fuels like ethanol competitive with electric vehicles in the rapidly growing low carbon transportation markets.”
The details: The legislation would require a CO2 pipeline project to acquire 90% of the needed route by voluntary easement before eminent domain could be authorized.
It would also prevent the state utilities board from granting a permit for CO2 pipelines unless it is in compliance with local zoning ordinances and permits.
Measures in the legislation have support from a variety of interests, including environmental groups like Sierra Club, as well as the Iowa Farm Bureau.
“I have an issue with other people’s property being taken for what is an economic development project, and I think that’s where we confuse public use for public benefit,” bill supporter and GOP Rep. Steve Holt said last week.
Iowa Renewable Fuels Association is pushing hard against the legislation. Shaw is at the state capitol today lobbying against it.
IRFA says the regulations would create a “de facto ban” against CCS projects and threaten the future of the ethanol industry, which is king in Iowa.
“Future CCS projects by ethanol producers or other industries would be at particular risk, as short feeder pipelines (leading from the new projects to existing CO2 pipelines) could be left at the mercy of literally one landowner,” the group said in a policy brief shared yesterday.
Consideration of the legislation comes after publication earlier this month of an IFRA-commissioned study concluded CCS to be a saving grace for ethanol in the age of the green energy transition.
IRFA is hopeful CCS can make ethanol a fuel of the future, one that can viably compete against electricity as more states adopt clean car regulations requiring a phasing out of new sales of vehicles powered by internal-combustion engines.
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BREAKING—EPA ORDERS NORFOLK SOUTHERN TO CONTROL CLEANUP: EPA ordered Norfolk Southern, the operator responsible for the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment, to conduct cleanup of the site and any soil and water resources contaminated by the chemicals it was transporting.
The agency’s order, announced this morning, also requires the company to reimburse EPA for costs associated with cleanup services offered to residents.
SENATE EPW TO HOLD HEARING ON OHIO TRAIN DERAILMENT: The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing on the derailment.
Chairman Tom Carper and Ranking Member Shelley Moore Capito announced the hearing on Friday, saying it will focus on the emergency response to the derailment and related efforts to clean up the toxic chemicals being transported by the train.
Both Democratic and Republican leaders representing the state have supported a tightening of rules governing the transport of hazardous materials following the derailment and subsequent release of toxic chemical release.
EPW has not scheduled an exact time and date for the hearing, but it’s being planned for early March, according to one committee source.
Buttigieg seeks tighter rules: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has been taking flak from the right and the left over the crash, is now saying that he will seek to tighten certain rules for freight trains.
In addition to increasing fines for violating safety regulations, the agency will seek further rulemakings on high-hazard flammable trains and electronically controlled pneumatic brakes. The first of those was called for by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and other state politicians. The second has been a focus of liberals who want Buttigieg to replace an Obama-era rule that was undone by the Trump administration.
AAR CEO Ian Jefferies said in response today that the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation into the causes of the crash “must continue unimpeded by politics and speculation.”
DEVELOPERS INSTALL ‘REVOLUTIONARY’ WIND TOWER DESIGN: Keystone Tower Systems and GE Renewable Energy announced the installation and operation of a novel wind tower design that developers trust can speed up the construction of commercial wind farms.
The two companies announced this morning that the first commercial spiral-welded tower has begun operation. Keystone, a manufacturing venture founded by MIT researchers, designed and built the 89-meter tall tower to support the 2.8-megawatt GE turbine.
Keystone won funding support from the Department of Energy to design and demonstrate its tower design, which was manufactured at a factory in Pampa, Texas, at the site of a facility that previously manufactured oil and gas drilling equipment.
The spiral welding technique requires only one machine to construct a tower section, allowing the manufacturer to produce towers up to twice as tall and 10 times faster using less steel than conventional steel towers, according to DOE, which said spiral welding is revolutionizing the wind sector.
They can also be manufactured on site, eliminating the difficulties associated with transporting such large equipment. Keystone is currently developing mobile factories that can support on-site tower construction.
Offshore wind news: The offshore wind sector had a strong year in 2022 despite immense supply chain and labor challenges that have stunted progress on active projects, according to a new industry report out today.
Investments in the U.S. offshore wind market tripled in size to $9.8 billion last year, the Business Network for Offshore Wind report found. Offshore wind-related contracts grew by 36%.
At least two commercial-scale offshore wind projects currently under construction in the Atlantic, Vineyard Wind and South Fork Wind, are expected to begin producing electricity later this year. They will be the first offshore wind projects of their size in the U.S.
‘WHALE LIVES MATTER’ POSES THREAT TO NEW JERSEY WIND FARMS: Hundreds rallied in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey, yesterday for a pause on offshore wind projects to allow for an investigation into the deaths of whales.
The crowd chanted “whale lives matter,” according to New Jersey 101.5.
“We demand to be heard and our deep concerns addressed — not trivialized, mocked or dismissed,” U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican, said at the event.
Smith said that administrations of President Joe Biden and Gov. Phil Murphy have ignored complaints from him and local mayors.
To review: 10 whales have washed up on New York and New Jersey beaches since December. Others have washed up on beaches in Virginia and Massachusetts.
Locals have raised the possibility that wind turbine construction activities have somehow led to the deaths of the marine mammals.
Murphy and the industry have rejected the complaints as misinformation.
New Jersey has seen an average of seven whale strandings a year over the past 20 years, according to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center. Since 2016, the Atlantic Coast has seen an unusual number of whales washing up dead, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Jeremy noted last week that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management did have to account for the possibility of danger to whales in its initial environmental analysis of the SouthCoast Wind Project, south of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.
The draft EIS notes research showing links between general maritime activities and whale deaths.
The developers’ plans provide that any of its vessels would stay more than 500 feet away from any North Atlantic right whale sighted – fixing shorter distances for other mammal species – and would closely control their speeds.
GRID ATTACKS UP AND EXPECTED TO KEEP RISING: REPORT: Physical attacks on the power grid rose 71% last year and are expected to increase further this year, according to a non-public study conducted by the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center that was reported this morning by the Wall Street Journal.
E-ISAC, a division of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, tracks incidents through both voluntary and mandatory reports, although it does not make the confidential reports public. It determined that physical incidents, such as ballistic damage from firearms and vandalism, involving power outages have increased 20% since 2020.
Authorities have attributed the rise in physical attacks and related threats to instances of domestic extremism, such as the most recent high-profile incident in Maryland, in which the FBI said the founder of a neo-Nazi group was caught planning to shoot five electrical substations in the Baltimore area.
NERC declined to share the specifics of E-ISAC’s findings with us, but a spokesperson said the increase in physical attacks on electric infrastructure illustrates a need “to reassess potential physical security vulnerabilities on the grid and to identify whether additional physical security controls are needed to more widely protect this critical infrastructure moving forward.”
NERC, at the direction of FERC, is currently studying cost-effective measures that utilities and grid operators can take to better protect against physical vulnerabilities.
The most commonly occurring physical security events are related to errant bullets from hunters, copper thefts, arson, and intrusion, the spokesperson said.
The Rundown
Reuters EU climate diplomacy deal on hold as nuclear dispute deepens
CBS News ‘Everything is at stake’: Inside Ukraine’s fight to keep the power on
MIT Technology Review How did China come to dominate the world of electric cars?
Calendar
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The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing in early March on the emergency response and cleanup effort related to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
