Rich Powell Testimony at House Budget Committee Climate Hearing

The House Budget Committee held a hearing on Wednesday, July 24 entitled, The Costs of Climate Change: From Coasts to Heartland, Health to Security.

WATCH RICH’S TESTIMONY

READ RICH’S TESTIMONY

E&E News ClimateWire reported on the hearing with the story Republicans promote emissions reductions, the GOP way from Thursday, July 25.

Excerpt: “Climate change is real, and we need to address it. The question is, how do we do that?" Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) said. "I think we should support all ways of decreasing emissions, from traditional renewables to cleaned-up fossil fuels to nuclear to innovative new tech like carbon capture. The other side often would make us think that there’s only one way to address it — solar, wind, the Green New Deal.”

Dan Meuser (R-Pa.): “We must look at trends and be data driven, realistic and also be economically feasible in our solutions. And that’s what we all should be trying to find — solutions.”

Fossil Energy RD&D Bill Includes LEADING ACT, Passes Through House Science

Wednesday, the House Science, Space & Technology Committee passed the Fossil Energy Research & Development Act (H.R.3607), legislation introduced by U.S. Reps. Marc Veasey (D-TX) and David Schweikert (R-AZ) through committee. The legislation will direct investments for carbon capture research and development as well as new research efforts aimed at improving carbon dioxide (CO2) storage and use and developing new CO2 utilization technologies.

During the markup, the recently introduced The Launching Energy Advancement through Innovations in Natural Gas (LEADING) Act was unanimously included on the bill as an amendment. The LEADING Act directs the Department of Energy to conduct critical carbon capture research and development for natural gas power plant applications. As part of that new effort, it lays out an aggressive goal of demonstrating up to five applications by 2025.

Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) Shows Bias Towards Nuclear Energy

Historically, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) has been a mechanism to support U.S. companies developing projects internationally at no cost to taxpayers. However, OPIC has had an outright ban on financing nuclear energy exports which was incorporated from the World Bank. Maintaining this prohibition is inimical to the larger U.S. strategy to both counter authoritarian governments’ influence and develop of low-emissions technology internationally.

Read more in a column from this week, Nuclear Industry Claims Embedded Prejudice in Finance Agency.

Check out this May 2019 ClearPath White Paper entitled “IDFC and Advanced Nuclear: The Perfect Pairing” that dives deeper on this important issue.

Carbon Lunch:
Economic and Environmental Benefits of Carbon Capture

On July 25, the Carbon Capture Coalition, Carbon Utilization Research Council, Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute co-hosted a lunch briefing, “The Economic and Environmental Benefits of Carbon Capture" featuring Senators John Barrasso (R-WY), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Shelly Moore-Capito (R-WV), and Rich Powell, Executive Director of ClearPath.

Rich highlighted findings from a recent report from the Carbon Utilization Research Council and ClearPath entitled, Making Carbon a Commodity: The Potential of Carbon Capture RD&D as well as recently announced carbon capture projects in response to last year’s updates to the section 45Q tax credit.

NuScale’s SMR Design Clears Phases 2 and 3 of NRC Review Process

Earlier this week, NuScale Power announced that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) completed the second and third phases of review of their small modular reactor (SMR) design. This milestone keeps the Utah Carbon Free Power Project on track for a mid-2020s deployment track.

RICH’S TAKE

“This is really exciting news meaning NuScale is one step closer to bringing the first SMR to market, putting the U.S. on a path to beat foreign competitors like Russia and China in a global SMR race. SMRs range from as small as 2MW (enough to power 1500 homes), up to 500MW (375,000 homes), while a traditional nuclear plant in the United States is 1,000MW. The modular part of SMR means that plants can add additional modules for more power, and also indicate that these reactors can be mass produced at a factory and shipped to the power plant site. On-site construction of large nuclear plants increases the cost significantly. If SMRs can be constructed on an assembly line like planes, cost will decrease. Many SMR designs include additional benefits such as scaling power output as necessary to integrate with renewables (known as being dispatchable or load following), as well as passive safety features.”

In the hearing room this week:

On Wednesday, July 24, the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Energy held a hearing on "Building America’s Clean Future: Pathways To Decarbonize The Economy".

On Thursday, July 25, the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on energy innovation.

THE PATH AHEAD

Stay tuned for any August recess events happening on energy innovation.

July 31 - ClearPath Founder Jay Faison will speak at the U.S. Chamber’s Global Energy Institute event EnergyInnovates: All In. The event will showcase innovators, projects, and technologies that have shaped today’s energy landscape -- and are laying the groundwork for the future. More information here

August 21 - The George Washington University is hosting a One-Day Professional Development Certificate Course for Mid-Career Professionals: The 21st Century Geopolitics of Energy: Risks, Vulnerabilities and Opportunities. For more information or to register click here

September 23 - 27: National Clean Energy Week (NCEW). National Clean Energy Week (NCEW) described by POLITICO as “a veritable who’s who of the Clean Energy World,” has announced key dates and speaker information ahead of its third annual celebration. Join ClearPath in celebrating and raising awareness for reducing emissions through clean energy technologies. As September quickly approaches, here are ways you can get involved now: