Welcome to your Friday Rundown for the week ending April 20. Feedback is always welcome at info@clearpathaction.org.
PERRY PLUGS U.S. CLEAN ENERGY TECH IN INDIA
Energy Secretary Rick Perry and other senior Department of Energy officials trekked to India to argue for the purchasing of U.S.-led clean energy technologies, including carbon capture and advanced nuclear, rather than buying from China and Russia. “Look at us, look at what we are offering and then choose us over other countries,” Under Secretary of Energy Mark Menezes told The Economic Times.
Perry pledged full support to Westinghouse – which has been helping construct new nuclear reactors at Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle – as it aims to also build nuclear reactors in India. “Nobody in the world makes better reactors than Westinghouse,” Perry told reporters after meeting senior Indian energy officials in New Delhi, according to Reuters.
Perry at a Senate energy spending subcommittee hearing last week also said the partnership with India should include carbon capture technologies.
Worth watching his exchange below with Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), who touted the Project Tundra retrofit and other efforts in his state and elsewhere to promote U.S.-led carbon capture technologies.
Perry and Hoeven chat about selling U.S. carbon capture tech
AND INDIA IS SERIOUS ABOUT EXPLORING CARBON CAPTURE
ClearPath Founder Jay Faison blogged about meeting with India’s Secretary of Coal Susheel Kumar last fall at the International Energy Agency’s Post Combustion Capture Conference in Birmingham, and left impressed not only with Kumar personally but also that the Indian government is serious about exploring carbon capture technologies. India has threaded clean energy throughout its 2035 Technology Vision but also isn’t hesitating to expand its coal-fired power.
Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) have introduced the Promoting Hydropower Development & Jobs Act (S. 2655), which would streamline environmental reviews for qualifying non-powered dam projects. The bill would require a decision on a license within two years and require FERC, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Interior to develop a list of existing non-powered federal dams that have the greatest potential for non-federal hydropower development.
The bill is a companion to one the House approved in December from Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.). The Department of Energy estimates the U.S. non-powered dam power generation potential is equivalent to roughly two dozen large coal power plants.
NEWS NUGGETS
Closing four nuclear plants in Pennsylvania and Ohio will raise electric bills by hundreds of millions of dollars and risks thousands of jobs, according to a new Brattle Group report. Shutting down these reactors will amount to losing more power than is generated by solar and wind combined in the PJM grid. Specifically, the closures would increase annual CO2 emissions by more than 20 million metric tons, increase annual electricity costs by as much as $400 million annual for Ohio consumers and $285 million for Pennsylvanians, puts more than 3,000 direct jobs and thousands of secondary jobs at risk and would eliminate tens of millions of dollars in local tax revenues, according to the report. READ THE REPORT
The House and Commerce Energy Subcommittee approved a bill (H.R. 4606) from Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) that would allow expedited approval of small-scale shipments of liquefied natural gas. The bill now heads to the full committee.
ClearPath Executive Director Rich Powell sat down for the latest Titans of Nuclear podcast to talk about competition with China and Russia and the future of U.S. and global nuclear energy sectors. LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
SPEED READ
States are breathing new air into nuclear energy FORBES
