Advanced BioFuels USA

by Carlos Anchondo, Miranda Willson, David Iaconangelo, Niina H. Farah (E&E News) … The omnibus bill — which would fund the government at $1.7 trillion for fiscal 2023 — would provide $46.5 billion to DOE to “fund programs in its primary mission areas of science, energy, environment, and national security,” Senate appropriators said in an explanatory statement on the package. That’s an increase of roughly $1.7 billion from fiscal 2022 for the department.

The funds would support the department’s efforts to scale carbon capture and removal technologies, advance technologies aimed at boosting the resilience of the U.S. electricity system and reduce emissions from heavy industry like steel and concrete, among other initiatives.

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Under the plan, DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management would receive $890 million, a $65 million increase from fiscal 2022. The agency’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy would get $3.5 billion, a $260 million uptick from last year (E&E Daily, Dec. 20).

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Here are three ways the spending bill would affect energy:

Carbon capture and removal

The omnibus would provide $140 million for research, development and demonstration of carbon dioxide removal technologies across multiple offices — with DOE’s fossil office set to receive “not less than” half of that funding, according to the report from Senate appropriators.

Additionally, the bill calls for the creation of a pilot procurement program for the purchase of CO2 that’s been removed from either the atmosphere or the upper hydrosphere.

“Procurement of carbon removal services would be something that the government has never done before, but they are the biggest purchaser of goods and services in the world, so they have the capacity to contribute to a vision like that,” said Danny Broberg, a senior policy analyst for the energy program at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank.

Broberg said the funds would give DOE the flexibility to pull from existing authorizations to craft “a carbon removal procurement program.”

In addition to carbon removal, the omnibus encourages DOE to prioritize funding for carbon capture projects and research that “look to reduce the cost of these technologies for commercial deployment.”

The bill would provide at least $15 million for research and optimization of carbon capture technologies at industrial facilities and at least $20 million for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies for natural gas power systems, according to congressional documents.

The legislation also dedicated funding for front-end engineering and design studies, “including for the development of a first-of-its-kind carbon capture project at an existing natural gas combined cycle plant, large pilot projects, and demonstration projects,” the Senate report said.

Multiple proposals, including projects in Texas and West Virginia, are competing to be the first large-scale natural gas-fired power plant in the United States equipped with carbon capture technology (Energywire, Nov. 8).

Some groups, however, dismissed proposed spending on carbon capture.

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Along with funding for carbon capture, the spending bill would support research into developing scalable approaches for using carbon dioxide produced in biorefineries and other plans to produce “higher value fuels, chemicals, or materials.”

Outside of DOE, the omnibus would provide $5 million to EPA for continued work on its program related to Class VI wells, which are used to inject CO2 deep into underground formations for dedicated geologic storage.

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Transmission and the power grid

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Innovation

Several other technologies that are a priority for the Biden administration’s climate plans would benefit from increases in the measure.

DOE hydrogen programs, for instance, would get approximately $316 million in total, with $163 million and $113 million overseen by the renewable and fossil offices, respectively. For industrial decarbonization, DOE would receive $685 million under the plan.

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In the upcoming year, it is slated to announce billion-dollar selections for the country’s first hubs of clean hydrogen, long-duration storage, carbon capture and others.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, DOE’s lead arm for early-stage energy research and development, would get a $20 million increase over the current fiscal year’s levels, adding up to a total of $470 million.

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The spending package directs DOE to implement a road map announced in September with recommended emissions reductions in the industrial sector through strategies such as efficiency improvements, adopting low-carbon fuels and applying carbon capture and storage technology.  READ MORE

Disaster aid, ag climate program make it into year-end package (Agri-Pulse)

What’s in it for Ag in the New Spending Bill? (AgWeb)

Excerpt from Agri-Pulse:  Congressional leaders released a massive year-end bill Tuesday that would provide $3.7 billion in disaster aid for farmers and enact the Growing Climate Solutions Act to facilitate ag carbon markets.  READ MORE

Excerpt from AgWeb: Includes the Growing Climate Solutions Act, which authorizes USDA to oversee the registration of farm technical advisers and carbon-credit verification services

Wiesemeyer (Jim Wiesemeyer, ProFarmer policy analyst) says the swift passage of the spending package signals the coming farm bill might be easier to pass than some had previously thought, despite the new congress moving in next week.

“Congress put more than a few dollars in this for farm bill-related topics, especially food stamps and some of the climate change funding,” he says. “I think this really increases the odds that both the Senate and the house should get a new farm bill done in 2023.” READ MORE