RNG NEWS
Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.Obama Administration Defends Limit to Power Plant Carbon Emissions
By Amy Harder and Brent Kendall, The Wall Street Journal.
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration on Monday offered a comprehensive legal defense of its signature climate-change regulation limiting carbon emissions from power plants, telling an appeals court that the rule is well within the bounds of its authority.
The Environmental Protection Agency, writing in a 175-page brief submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, said the regulation was critical to addressing what it said was the most important environmental challenge facing the U.S.
The Clean Air Act provides the agency “well-established authority to abate threats to public health and welfare by limiting the amount of air pollution that power plants pump into the atmosphere,” the EPA said.
How much did the world invest in clean energy last year?
By Ben Thompson, Christian Science Monitor.
A new report backed by the UN shows that 2015 had the highest global investment in renewable energy generation ever, but oil, gas, and coal are set to remain a major part of the world's energy infrastructure for years.
Renewable energy investments made in 2015 contributed more to global energy generation capacity than all other sources combined, according to a United Nations-backed report on global renewables investment released this week.
The report, released by the Frankfurt School - UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Centre and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), also found that energy generation based on coal and gas saw less than half the investment as renewable generation sources, a first for green energy and a sign of that sector’s growing adoption around the world.
Benefits of new GMP manure digester debated
By Joel Banner Baird, Burlington Free Press.
St. ALBANS - Digestion, as most of us know it, fares poorly when rushed.
So goes the pace of approval for an electricity-producing manure digester in St. Albans – a facility that also proposes to remove significant amounts of nutrient pollution from reaching Lake Champlain.
Challenges to the digester – some of them on environmental grounds – have firmed up since November, when Green Mountain Power applied to the Public Service Board for a Certificate of Public Good.
Your State Could Lose Big Bucks by Stalling on Clean Energy
By Nick Stockton, Wired.
Let's talk about climate change, for once without politics. Instead, money.
That’s right. Forget the red and blue, the heated tempers and rising rhetoric. Instead think about the coal factories that still power much of the country, and who pays for every pound of carbon they add to the atmosphere. Right now, your state is making bets on its future economy, by choosing whether or not to change those factories by acting preemptively on a contested emissions rule.
That rule is the Clean Power Plan, which is currently locked up in a Washington, DC circuit court pending legal review. The rules were set to go into effect in June, which would have required every state to submit their plans to cut emissions to the EPA by September 2016, or September 2018 with an extension. Last month, though, the Supreme Court decreed that states would not be obligated to comply with the rule until after it wins in court. And if it loses, never.
Shifting Clean Power Plan Deadlines 'Premature': McCabe
By Andrew Childers and Anthony Adragna, Bloomberg BNA.
The EPA will continue some work on its Clean Power Plan programs despite a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, but it has made no decisions on extending the rule's compliance deadlines as the litigation moves forward, the agency's top air official said.
“It's actually a little premature to be speculating specifically about the compliance dates in the Clean Power Plan,” Janet McCabe, the EPA's acting assistant administrator for air and radiation, said March 17 during the American Council on Renewable Energy policy conference. “We need to see how the litigation goes.”
Originally, states were required to submit their preliminary compliance plans to the EPA by Sept. 6, but that deadline is no longer in effect, McCabe said. The rule was intended to take effect in 2022 with emissions reductions being phased in through 2030.
The Flexible Way to Greater Energy Yield from Biogas
Biogas is an important energy source that plays a central role in the energy revolution. Unlike wind or solar energy, biogas can be produced around the clock. Could it soon perhaps even be produced to meet demand?
A team of international scientists, including microbiologists from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), scientists from Aarhus University and process engineers from the Deutsches Biomasseforschungszentrum (DBFZ), have been studying the feasibility of this kind of flexible biogas production. Among their findings, for example, is the discovery that biogas production can be controlled by altering the frequency at which the reactors are fed. If the intervals are longer, more biogas is produced, according to the researchers' paper in the Applied and Environmental Microbiology journal.
Duke Energy to use pork and poultry waste
CHARLOTTE, NC – Duke Energy will use captured methane gas from swine and poultry waste bought at a planned facility in eastern North Carolina to generate renewable electricity at four power plants.
The exact location has yet to be announced, but Carbon Cycle Energy will build and own the facility, and it’s expected to be in eastern North Carolina.
"It is encouraging to see the technological advances that allow waste-to-energy projects in North Carolina to be done in an environmentally responsible and cost-effective manner for our customers," said David Fountain, Duke Energy president - North Carolina.
Quebec and California holding next cap and trade auction in May
By Canadian GreenTech.
The governments of Quebec and California will hold their next cap and trade permit auction exactly two months from today, they announced this week.
The Ministère du Développement durable, de l'Environnement et de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques (MDDELCC), and the California Air Ressources Board (ARB), announced today that a seventh joint carbon market auction will be held on May 18, 2016.
Not so fast on FAA taxes
By Bernie Becker, Politico.
SO ABOUT THOSE EXTENDERS: Looks like we will still have a tax vehicle this year after all.
As our Pro Transportation colleagues Heather Caygle and Lauren Gardner reported, the Senate brushed aside the House’s plan to push FAA taxes until next March and synced the tax deadline back up with aviation policy — putting a deadline for both on July 15.
A spokeswoman for House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady said he would support the Senate proposal, essentially because he didn’t have any choice. The Senate passed its extension right before leaving for a two-week break, and won’t be back until after FAA authority expires on March 31. “While we believe a longer-term extension is in the best interests of American travelers, it’s clear that this is the only legislative option on the table since the Senate will be out of session until after the expiration of these programs,” the spokeswoman said.
If you’ll recall, part of the attraction for Brady to push the FAA taxes into next year is that advocates wouldn’t have a must-pass tax bill for attaching stray tax extenders — as for renewable energy — that expire at the end of this year. Lawmakers have made a habit of restoring those incentives after they expire, but Brady had made it clear that he doesn’t want to deal with them this year.
US EPA 'Analyzing' Potential Shift in RFS Obligation from Refiners to Blenders
By Herman Wang, Platts, McGraw Hill Financial.
The US Environmental Protection Agency is considering a request by several independent refiners to shift the responsibility for complying with the federal biofuels mandate to blenders, a top agency official said Wednesday.
But any such move would not be addressed in the 2017 Renewable Fuel Standard that lays out the coming year's required blending volumes, which are due to be finalized by November 30, he said.
"We are analyzing it," Chris Grundler, director of the EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, testified before two House of Representatives oversight subcommittees. "We decided that ... such a major change in the regulation and the law should not be part of this annual rulemaking process."
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