States, green groups urge DC Circuit to continue review of Clean Power Plan

By Robert Walton, Utility Dive.

Dive Brief:

• In separate filings, two dozen states, cities and environmental groups have urged the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to continue with its review of the Clean Power Plan, despite a request from the White House to hold the proceeding in abeyance.
• New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is leading the coalition of 24 states and cities; Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club, Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups filed their own motion to continue the case.
• President Trump last week signed an executive order directing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to review the Clean Power Plan and other power sector regulations. The agency then asked the D.C. Circuit to put the case on hold, but supporters of the emissions rule say that could delay the litigation indefinitely.

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State appeals court upholds California's cap-and-trade program

By Chris Megerian, Los Angeles Times.

California's controversial cap-and-trade program, a cornerstone of the state's battle against climate change, has been upheld by a state appeals court.

Two judges on the appeals court panel sided with state officials who argued that the program, which requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, fell within their authority to regulate industry. 

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Duke University eyes biogas, not fossil fuels, for new power plant

By Elizabeth Ouzts, Southeast Energy News.

In the latest twist on the controversial power plant Duke University proposed last spring, an influential group of students, faculty and staff says it should be fueled from methane captured from hog waste, not natural gas.

“Duke University is committed to the investment necessary to utilize a percentage of biogas in the [plant] from day one of operation,” reads a fact sheet distributed at a community meeting last week on Duke’s campus in Durham, North Carolina.

The statement is one of several that’s garnered consensus from a select panel analyzing the 21-megawatt combined heat and power (CHP) plant, which is on holdfollowing a firestorm of criticism from outside and within the Duke community about its purported climate benefits.

Throughout the controversy, the university has said it was a ‘long-range goal’ to convert the hyper-efficient plant from natural gas to biogas. But now the 23-member subcommittee says it should be fueled at least partially with swine gas from the outset.

“I think we can get enough biogas in this plant the day it fires so that it’s carbon neutral,” said the group’s chair, Tim Profeta, who also leads Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Solutions.

The subcommittee, which will report directly to the university’s board of trustees, has not yet finished its recommendations, and could do so as early as next week.

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Lawmakers Aim to Safeguard Renewable Energy Credits in Tax Overhaul

By Brian Dabbs, Bloomberg BNA. 

Democrats and many Republicans are pushing to preserve a pair of recently revived renewable tax credits in a potential comprehensive overhaul of the tax code, lawmakers told Bloomberg BNA. 

An energy specialist, however, said those tax credits would have to be on the chopping block in a full overhaul. And Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) told Bloomberg BNA all options are available to free up revenue offsets that would pave the way for a paid-for overhaul. 

The situation involving the tax credits is among the many indications that overhauling the tax code will be an extremely formidable task. The 2.3-cent-per-kilowatt-hour wind production tax credit will begin a phaseout in 2017 with a 2020 expiration, while a 30 percent tax credit for the solar industry will phase out from 2020 through 2022.

Because of the policy certainty provided by the wind phaseout, according to the American Wind Energy Association, 8 gigawatts of wind power capacity are now under construction or in advanced development. And the roughly 27 gigawatts of solar energy cumulatively installed in the U.S. at the end of 2015 are expected to reach nearly 100 gigawatts by the end of 2020, the Solar Energy Industries Association says.

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New EPA documents reveal even deeper proposed cuts to staff and programs

By Juliet Eilperin, Chris Mooney and Steven Mufson, The Washington Post.

The Environmental Protection Agency has issued a new, more detailed plan for laying off 25 percent of its employees and scrapping 56 programs including pesticide safety, water runoff control, and environmental cooperation with Mexico and Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

At a time when the agency is considering a controversial rollback in fuel efficiency standards adopted under President Obama, the plan would cut by more than half the number of people in EPA’s division for testing the accuracy of fuel efficiency claims by automakers.

It would transfer funding for the program to fees paid by the automakers themselves.

The spending plan, obtained by The Washington Post, offers the most detailed vision to date of how the 31 percent budget cut to the EPA ordered up by President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget would diminish the agency.

The March 21 plan calls for even deeper reductions in staffing than earlier drafts. It maintains funding given to states to administer waste treatment and drinking water. But as a result, the budget for the rest of EPA is slashed 43 percent.

The Trump administration says the EPA cuts reflect a philosophy of limiting federal government and devolving authority to the states, localities and, in some cases, corporations. But environmental groups say the Trump administration is answering the call of companies seeking lax regulation and endangering Americans’ air and water.

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Use of LNG as transportation fuel accelerates in B.C.

By Nelson Bennett, Business in Vancouver.

It may be a few years yet before any company starts exporting liquefied natural gas from B.C. to Asia. 

Meanwhile, B.C. producers are finding a small but growing domestic market for natural gas, in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and compressed natural gas (CNG), in the trucking and marine transportation sectors.

Last month, BC Ferries received its second purpose-built LNG ferry from Poland. That brings to four the number of LNG-powered ferries that will soon be operating in B.C. waters. Two belong to BC Ferries, two to Seaspan Ferries Corp.

One more purpose-built intermediate-class LNG ferry is still being built, and BC Ferries also plans to retrofit two Spirit-class vessels to run on LNG.

Meanwhile, more trucking fleets and public transit authorities, including TransLink, have also been making the switch from diesel to natural gas when they replace buses.

That’s a big benefit for Westport Fuel Systems (TSX:WPRT), which has supplied the natural gas engines for those buses.

BC Transit now has 74 buses in B.C. running on compressed natural gas, and another 46 are expected to be on the road by 2018. TransLink has 45 CNG buses on the road, and another 51 are expected to arrive by the end of this year.

Thanks to a surplus of new LNG plants, there is a glut of LNG on the market, which has historically been used mostly for thermal power generation.

But thanks to their low costs and low carbon emissions, natural gas and LNG are starting to replace gasoline and diesel as transportation fuels.

As of 2012, natural gas accounted for just 3% of the world’s transportation fuel, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), which estimates that share will grow to 11% by 2040.

The B.C. government is encouraging natural gas utilities like FortisBC and Pacific Northern Gas, which serves northern B.C., to try to develop these new domestic markets for LNG and CNG in transportation.

It recently amended its greenhouse gas reduction regulations to allow utilities to offer more incentives to the marine sector to convert vessels to LNG and invest in LNG fuel storage and in new sources of renewable natural gas.

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Bullish on Renewable Energy: Investors Argue Trump Can’t Stop the Revolution

By Leslie Kaufman, Inside Climate News.

For proponents of clean energy, the Donald Trump administration already seems like a nightmare. In the worst moment so far, Trump surrounded himself with coal miners and signed an executive order last week that aims to rescind former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan. That regulation would have continued to move the power industry away from coal-burning plants and toward wind and solar farms.

So is Washington trying to kill the renewable energy revolution? Jeff Tannenbaum and Jigar Shah don't believe that's possible. They were both involved with a company called sPower, which has built and operates 150 utility-scale solar and wind power projects across the U.S. and the U.K. It was sold in February to giant utility AES Corporation for $1.6 billion—one of the biggest deals ever in the green energy industry.

Tannenbaum and Shah say that deal is just one of many that prove the shift away from fossil fuels is inevitable, whatever the political climate and no matter who is in the White House.  

Tannenbaum is the founder of Fir Tree Partners, a private investment firm with $10 billion under management. His clients are endowments, pension funds and foundations, and he did not make his bet on sPower because he is an environmental activist. He said his primary goal is to make good long-term investments. Fir Tree acquired sPower three years ago for the most traditional of reasons—because Tannenbaum saw a potentially booming market for clean power companies.

In contrast, Shah, owner of a firm called Generate Capital, has been a renewables advocate for decades. His company provides financing for commercial-scale renewable energy generation projects, heating equipment retrofits, energy storage, urban farms and wastewater treatment technologies. He was a founder of solar energy pioneer SunEdison, is the author of the book "Creating Climate Wealth," and had been on the board of directors of sPower since 2014.

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House Republican tax chief to huddle with Democrats

By Reuters, via The Fiscal Times.

House Ways and Means Committee Chair Kevin Brady said the meeting with his panel's 16 Democratic members will focus on ways to simplify the U.S. tax code for individuals and stop U.S. companies from moving production and research facilities overseas - both key House Republican tax reform objectives. 

"At the end of the day, I don't want to make a prediction as to where that goes. But I think this engagement's important," Brady told reporters on Monday. "I'd love to have them bring their ideas on how we leapfrog America back into the lead as the most competitive place on earth for that new business." 

The meeting is expected to take place on Wednesday, according to House aides. 

A spokesman for Ways and Means Democrats had no immediate comment. 

Brady said the meeting has nothing to do with the healthcare debacle on March 24, when the Republican-controlled House pulled legislation to repeal and replace the healthcare law known as Obamacare when it became clear that Republicans would fall short of the votes needed. Trump blamed the failure on hardline Republican conservatives who opposed the bill and threatened to reach out to Democrats.

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Ontario's first cap-and-trade auction a sellout

By Kristin Rushowy, The Toronto Star.

Ontario’s first auction for greenhouse gas allowances was a sellout — with 100 per cent of current permits available snapped up by the province’s biggest polluters.

But Environment Minister Glen Murray said while the participation showed “a high level of confidence” among businesses, the real measure of success comes in curbing emissions.

“The participation rate — whether 100 per cent or 20 per cent . . . is not the success of the market,” he told reporters at Queen’s Park. “The success of the market is really based on our ability to reduce GHGs. We will not expect to get 100 per cent all the time.”

Results of the auction, held March 22, were released Monday afternoon. Some 25,296,367 allowances for 2017 were sold as well as 812,000 in future allowances — about a quarter of what was available for 2020 — bringing in a total of $472,031,155.

The next auction is scheduled for June 6.

Murray said he was pleased to see the trading price at $18.08, only slightly more than the minimum floor price. 

“One of the objectives of cap and trade is to manage the transition to a low carbon economy at the lowest-possible prices to Ontarians and Ontario businesses, so we didn't want to see early upward movement on that,” Murray said.

Gas purifying solution to drive down operational costs at landfill gas power plants

By Bioenergy Insight.

US based landfill gas industry O & M contractor and engineering company ENERGYneering Solutions Inc. (ESI) have signed a supply and service contract for Topsoe’s proprietary HiPerFuel landfill gas conditioning solutions. The HiPerFuel unit will deliver high-purity fuel gas for an ESI landfill gas power plant in Washington State.

The contract is the first deal signed for Topsoe’s HiPerFuel landfill gas conditioning solution. The new solution is designed to demonstrate the effects of high-purity landfill gas for power plants by driving down operational costs and downtime for landfill gas power plant operators.

“We are excited about the possibilities with this new solution from Topsoe. The solution Topsoe is offering is unique to the industry in that it offers high siloxane removal efficiency and long media life comparable with many of the regenerative systems on the market while avoiding the typically high capital and operating costs associated with dehydration of the gas and thermal oxidation of waste gases. We are very much looking forward to seeing the effects of running our engines on a siloxane-free gas,” said William Song, Director of Engineering at ESI.

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