Welcome back to your Friday Rundown for the week ending Dec. 8. Feedback welcome at info@clearpathaction.org.
FUTURE OF CLEAN ENERGY: GRID-SCALE STORAGE
The future of clean energy will depend on scaling up technologies that can store massive amounts of both constant-running nuclear and intermittent renewable power.
In his latest video, ClearPath Executive Director Rich Powell tours various ideas to develop this grid-scale storage, from the typical ion battery to “rock trains” and “fire bricks.”
Each of these types of storage – chemical, gravity, pressure and heat – will need reliable federal investment to get to the finish line. But the potential return could radically transform the U.S. – and global – energy grid.
SAUDIS FOUND A NUCLEAR PARTNER IN CHINA, NOT THE U.S
Saudi Arabia is in the early stages of building 2.8 gigawatts of nuclear, including 16 reactors over the next two decades. They signed an MOU with China to explore high temperature gas reactor development and another with China’s leading state nuclear project developer to cooperate on uranium and thorium resources.
Saudi Arabia has since invited U.S. firms to take part in developing its civilian nuclear power program, Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said Dec.4. Westinghouse is in talks with other U.S.-based companies to form a consortium for a multi-billion-dollar project to build two reactors, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, China is looking to spend more than $3 billion to perfect a largely abandoned U.S.-created Cold War nuclear energy technology -molten salt reactors – to potentially power their warships and drones.
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U.S. Firms Invited To Bid For Saudi Nuclear Plants REUTERS
Coinciding with the release of the report. House Energy Subcommittee Chairman Fred Upton and Rep. Bill Johnson wrote Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Dec. 4 asking for an update on the pace of international civil nuclear trade authorizations. The pace “may be inhibiting nuclear commerce,” the two lawmakers wrote, citing the Nuclear Innovation Alliance’s findings that some authorizations took an average of 130 days in the 1990s but nearly 400 days in recent years.
The Department of Energy announced an availability of up to $30 million for advanced nuclear technologies. Initial applications are due Jan. 31 and the department will select proposals quarterly over the next five years. DETAILS
Kevin McIntyre was sworn in as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Dec. 7, giving the commission a full quorum for the first time since 2015. Democratic commissioner Rich Glick was also sworn in last week.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved two hydropower bills by voice vote. One from Rep. Larry Bucshon (H.R. 2872) authorizes FERC to grant an exemption for qualifying existing hydropower facilities at non-powered dams. A second bill from Rep. Morgan Griffith (H.R. 2880) would allow FERC to impose licensing conditions for closed-loop pumped storage hydropower only as necessary to protect public safety or at times when essential to protect fish and wildlife. Griffith has lauded the potential for pumped storage in Virginia coalfields.
Want a smart tax fix that can create jobs, help the economy and the environment? Green and labor teamed up for an op-ed on the on the jobs and climate benefits of a bipartisan Senate bill that would extend and reform the 45Q carbon capture incentive. THE HILL
Want to know the state and wide extent of U.S. carbon capture projects? Click below on Third Way’s map of the 53 projects in the U.S. alone (and 102 globally), which may surprise you:
