After the collapse of national Cap and Trade efforts in 2010, an unlikely coalition of oil companies, small energy generators, and environmental groups came together in an attempt to save an orphaned piece of climate legislation: the 45Q tax incentive for carbon capture and storage (CCS).

At the time, NET Power, a Green Strategies client, was planning a small natural gas-fired power plant in La Porte, Texas, that would burn oxygen rather than air, thus emitting no carbon dioxide. This technique allowed the plant’s CO2 emissions to be easily collected and stored. Bill Brown, the CEO of NET Power, wanted to take advantage of the modified 45Q to build a larger power plant by 2021 using the U.S.-engineered process to store carbon dioxide or to use it to make low carbon fuel.

The coalition spent 8 years building support for 45Q, finally finding a home for the CCS incentive within the 2018 omnibus budget bill. Read the full story and Roger’s quote in E&E News.

Image: Financial Times

Change the Pallet, a national nonprofit disrupting the wood pallet monopoly, released a letter today signed by 15 universities, ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, the Assoc. for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, and endorsed by Army logisticians and Green Strategies’ Roger Ballentine. Lightweight corrugated cardboard pallets reduce shipping weight, and thus fuel emissions; are fully recyclable; and are safer for workers. Read more on the environmental and fiscal value of lightweight pallets in Roger’s GreenBiz article.

“The ability to reduce the carbon emissions from a [power] plant certainly is a de-risking factor, because I think most plant owners agree that the likelihood of some carbon control or carbon pricing is still very, very real…To get further to a deep decarbonization in the electricity sector over the next several decades, the natural gas sector needs to be decarbonized in a cost effective way.”

Roger featured in Utility Dive’s latest on carbon capture and the implications of extending the 45Q tax credit.

Read more

Image credit: NRG Energy

By Roger Ballentine and Jennifer Jenkins.

Outside the realm of climate change deniers, there is broad consensus that we need rapid and deep decarbonization of modern energy systems to have any chance of stabilizing global average temperature rise in the neighborhood of two degrees Celsius, the threshold widely viewed as critical for avoiding the most dangerous impacts of climate change.