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For all of the mobility they offer, cars, in general, spend most of their time sitting still. The average American spends around an hour a day driving, according to AAA, and in a country with roughly one vehicle per person, that’s a lot of cars just sitting around doing nothing.
Electric vehicles create an opportunity to put that downtime to use. While EVs can already serve as a backup battery for homes, engineers have long been pursuing technology to tie all of those batteries to the grid, serving as a massive virtual power plant to help manage fluctuations in electricity production and demand.
This fall, Oakland, California’s school district is making that vision a reality.
The district recently announced it is replacing all of its diesel buses with electric ones equipped with vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology that will allow the buses to serve as a resource for utility Pacific Gas & Electric.
As Matt Simon of Wired explains, the buses provide an ideal platform. They operate on a predictable schedule, can charge during the day when solar power peaks and at night when demand is low, and are usually sitting idle during the evening, when solar generation plummets and the need for stored energy is highest.
For school districts, that also provides a new source of revenue, helping to offset the much higher cost of the buses.
So what about those millions of cars? That’s a little more complicated.
Willett Kempton, a University of Delaware professor, has been working on that problem for decades. While the concept is simple, a vast array of vehicles, charging configurations, and usage times can create a lot of uncertainty for utilities.
“When something’s pushing power onto the grid, they want to know what that is,” Kempton told Canary Media in February. “They don’t want to be like, ‘We’re 95 percent sure which car it is.’”
Kempton reached a significant breakthrough this year in developing a V2G standard that was recently adopted by SAE International, which provides guidance on universal standards for automakers on everything from tires to oil viscosity.
Major car companies are now rushing to produce models with V2G capability.
“This is a real thing,” an executive from a British V2G company told Reuters. “It’s no longer a theoretical, academic discussion.”
🚗 Speaking of electric vehicles: The Biden administration last week announced a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs, which some critics say could jeopardize climate goals; an editorial board says U.S. automakers have only themselves to blame for not being globally competitive. (E&E News, Los Angeles Times)
🔧 When getting there isn’t half the fun: As the Biden administration offers billions to ramp up hydrogen production, the fuel is dangerous and costly to transport and there are no clear rules for pipeline siting. (E&E News)
☀️ Solar’s staggering growth: The U.S. has surpassed 5 million solar installations, with more than half of those coming online since 2020, according to a new industry report. (Power Magazine)
🏭 Rust belt revival: Midwest states have received nearly $30 billion in private investments to boost clean energy manufacturing since Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in late 2022. (Inside Climate News)
👷 Green jobs: Community colleges around the country are offering training programs in clean energy technology, in response to a surge in job demand since the passage of federal climate legislation. (Associated Press)
🛢️ Questionable commitments: In separate reports, advocacy groups this week have called efforts to decarbonize air travel a “huge greenwashing exercise,” and said “there is no evidence that big oil and gas companies are acting seriously to be part of the energy transition.” (The Guardian)
⚖️ Energy justice: Advocates say Minnesota regulators should reinstate a moratorium on utility shutoffs after researchers found racial disparities in disconnections by Xcel Energy, even after accounting for income and other factors. (Energy News Network)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: The Biden administration is expected to announce new tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles this week, extending Trump-era policies aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing. (New York Times)
ALSO:
POLITICS: A $6.6 million fuel industry ad campaign is targeting President Biden and Democratic Senate candidates over support for tougher emissions standards for cars. (NBC News)
GRID:
TRANSPORTATION: U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg calls for developers to emulate the public-private, transit-oriented real estate approach behind a high-speed rail line under construction between Las Vegas and southern California. (E&E News)
CLIMATE:
SOLAR: A northern Maine community of around 11,400 homes and businesses was able to run on only solar power last week for about 12 cumulative hours, a first-ever occurrence for utility Versant. (Maine Public Radio)
To understand the stakes of cleaning up the most-polluting vehicles on our roads, look no further than Charlotte.
The largest city in North Carolina, it’s at the crossroads of two major trucking routes, with 17,000 trips per day spewing smog- and soot-forming pollutants that consistently rank the metro area among the nation’s 100 worst for air quality.
It’s also a burgeoning epicenter for electric vehicle manufacturing and research, home to many of the state’s 40-plus businesses that are already playing a role in the medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicle supply chain.
Clean transportation advocates say the air quality and economy in Charlotte and throughout the state stand to benefit from new Biden administration tailpipe emission rules for heavy-duty trucks, which account for an outsized share of the region’s climate emissions and air pollution.
“The Heavy Duty Rules are a critical step forward in establishing a ‘federal floor’ for clean trucks all across the country,” said Aaron Viles, campaigns director with the Electrification Coalition.
But they also say there’s still a need for other policies to usher in a new generation of electric trucks and buses, including a state-based rule scuttled by the GOP-controlled legislature last year.
The transportation sector is the largest source of global warming pollution and the country. Cleaning it up, experts say, means phasing in new electric vehicles of all shapes and sizes, reducing our use of passenger vehicles overall, and powering the grid with renewable energy.
The transition is not without hurdles. Would-be electric vehicle owners and fleet managers worry about a lack of charging infrastructure. And while the costs of electric-powered vehicles are falling steadily and the price of operating them is minimal, potential consumers still balk at their relatively high sticker price.
What’s more, many of the vested interests that revolve around gas and diesel vehicles prefer the status quo, and they extend well beyond the oil industry — including dealers who make money from oil changes and other routine repairs, fueling stations, and manufacturers of engine components.
But climate advocates say overcoming these obstacles has rewards beyond just reducing greenhouse gasses and avoiding catastrophic global warming. In North Carolina, that’s especially true when it comes to cleaning up heavy duty vehicles.
Though trucks, buses and the like make up a tiny fraction of all vehicles on the road, they account for over a quarter of the North Carolina transportation sector’s smog-forming pollutants and nearly a third of its soot-forming emissions, per state officials. Zero-emission vehicles would help curb this pollution.
The transition to heavy-duty electric vehicles could also benefit North Carolina’s economy, with dozens of industries across the state already invested in component production, assembly, or other aspects of the supply chain, according to a 2021 database compiled by the Environmental Defense Fund.
“When you look at where the electric vehicle supply chain investments are going, it’s really clustered in a number of leading states,” said Will Scott, Southeast climate and clean energy director with Environmental Defense Fund. “And North Carolina is among those.”
Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat who is term-limited after this year, had sought first to garner these benefits with the Advanced Clean Truck rule. Initiated with an October 2022 executive order, the measure requires manufacturers to sell increasing numbers of electric trucks, buses, and other large vehicles. California pioneered the standard, and it has been adopted by 10 other states.
But after prodding from the North Carolina Chamber, Republicans who control the General Assembly balked, passing a provision in the state budget to prevent the rule.
“Government mandates and intervention into the market would stifle… innovation and investment,” the Chamber wrote on its website after the budget language prevailed, “as well as increase costs in new trucks, on which nearly all of our members rely.”
The new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency measure, issued this spring, is less ambitious than the California one. But with the Advanced Clean Truck rule essentially dead in the state, advocates say the federal regulation is welcome.
“States that don’t have ACT will now have a federal policy that can support cleaning up our medium- and heavy-duty transportation sectors,” said Stan Cross, transportation director for Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
In an effort to mollify the industry, Biden officials made their rule “technology neutral,” meaning it would require manufacturers meet a certain tailpipe pollution limit rather than sell a certain percentage of electric vehicles.
The Electrification Coalition says that means the federal rule will result in lower overall electric sales for most classes of vehicles. For instance, the Biden rule is expected to result in as little as 5% of new tractor cab sales bring electric by 2032, depending on class on weight. The California standard, by contrast, requires 40% of all heavy-duty tractor sales to be zero-emitting – and most likely electric, though other technologies qualify.
Still, when it comes to less air and global warming pollution, cleaning up trucks and buses nationwide has an obvious advantage over a patchwork of states doing so. Overall, the Biden administration expects its rule to avoid 1 billion tons of greenhouse gasses.
There’s also value in Biden attacking transportation sector pollution nationally, piece by piece, Cross said. The administration has already promulgated similar rules for passenger cars and trucks, and standards for port equipment, off-road vehicles, and more are still forthcoming.
“They’re doing the math, and they’re thinking about these standards in a comprehensive and holistic way,” said Cross. “They can look at all of our ports, all of our marine traffic, all of our airports, all of our plane traffic, all of our off-road construction — and set standards that will get us where we need to be.”
In a state like North Carolina, home to several major interstates and their truck traffic, cleaning up trucks beyond state borders will also help reduce health-threatening air pollution. An American Lung Association analysis of states with major trucking routes, for example, found that if all heavy-duty vehicle sales were electric by 2040, the state could avoid over 1,700 premature deaths and hundreds of thousands of lost work days.
Those benefits would be crucial for Charlotte, which consistently ranks among the 100 most polluted cities in America for smog-and soot-forming pollution in the Lung Association’s annual State of the Air report.
“Charlotte advocates for clean air, which includes using electric transportation,” Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles said in a written statement praising the new rules.
And for North Carolina businesses in the medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicle supply chain, the prospect of a national market is clearly better than customers in a smattering of states.
Anything that accelerates the trend toward electric vehicles, Scott said, will come back to the state in the form of jobs and economic activity.
“North Carolina has put itself in a good position to capture a lot of those benefits,” he said.
Still, the nationwide rule has a major downside for fleet managers from North Carolina cities and corporations that have commitments to go all-electric. The supply of heavy-duty electric vehicles is still relatively low, and the states who have adopted the Advanced Clean Trucks Rule will get first dibs on it.
The problem could be especially acute in the near term, during which manufacturers can satisfy national requirements just by catering to the 11 states with the more advanced rule.
“ACT puts your state in pole position for the limited amount of zero-emission, trucks and buses that are going to be coming off of assembly lines,” Cross said.
Indeed, that’s part of why advocates supporting the federal standard say they’ll keep looking for opportunities to pass the Advanced Clean Truck Rule in the state.
And though it has little chance of passage, Cooper’s budget this year removes last year’s prohibition on the stronger clean truck standard and includes funding for electric vehicle infrastructure.
“We applaud the governor for taking these steps to end oil’s monopoly on our transportation systems,” said Anne Blair, the Electrification Coalition’s vice president of policy. “But there is still much more that needs to be done to ensure North Carolina and the country are not left behind as the world shifts to electric transportation.”
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Tesla reportedly lays off its entire 500-person supercharger team throwing into uncertainty an EV charging industry that had started to rely on Tesla’s technology. (The Information, subscription; E&E News)
ALSO: The developers of an electric truck charging corridor across the Southwest struggle to site remote chargers where they can connect to the grid. (E&E News)
GRID:
PIPELINES: Mountain Valley Pipeline officials say the cost of the nearly completed project has grown to $7.85 billion, more than $220 million higher than its previous estimate in February. (Roanoke Times, Cardinal News)
OFFSHORE WIND:
CLIMATE: Students at three universities file legal complaints alleging their schools’ fossil fuel investments are illegal and violate their commitments to climate action and research. (Guardian)
CLEAN ENERGY: Three Energy Department-funded research projects investigate whether seaweed can be mined for minerals critical to clean energy projects. (Hakai)
OIL & GAS: The U.S. House overwhelmingly passes a bill that would direct the Energy Department to research abandoned oil and gas wells’ environmental risks. (The Hill)
EFFICIENCY: The U.S. Energy Department institutes stricter energy efficiency standards for residential water heaters. (New York Times)
STORAGE: A 2,000 MW battery storage system under construction in southern California is expected to be one of the world’s largest such facilities when completed next year. (Whittier Daily News)
CARBON CAPTURE: A carbon dioxide removal startup has injected more than 2,000 metric tons of a carbon-rich biomass slurry for sequestration in subterranean salt caverns below Kansas as it scales up its operations. (Canary Media)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Rivian receives $827 million in state incentives to build the company’s mid-sized electric SUV in Normal, Illinois, and add at least 550 jobs over the next five years. (WIFR)
ALSO: North Dakota’s two U.S. senators sponsor legislation to eliminate federal tax incentives for electric vehicles. (North Dakota Monitor)
RENEWABLES:
CLIMATE: A public speaker, podcast host and environmental justice advocate discusses creating a bigger Black, Brown and Indigenous presence in the climate movement at a recent event in Chicago. (Energy News Network)
COAL:
SOLAR:
UTILITIES:
BIOFUELS: Updated federal guidance on a biofuel carbon credits program could provide a path to profitability for the developer of a large sustainable jet fuel plant in South Dakota. (South Dakota Searchlight)
MANUFACTURING: The developer of a low-emissions aluminum plant receiving $500,000 in federal funding is considering sites in Kentucky and surrounding states, which could mean a huge influx of jobs and nearby renewable energy development. (Grist)
WIND: Ameren shuts down a northeastern Missouri wind project to determine why a turbine broke apart and fell to the ground last week. (KTVO)
OIL & GAS: A pipeline leak releases about 10 barrels of oil into nearby waterways in western North Dakota. (Dickinson Press)
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s administration is seeking $189 million in federal Inflation Reduction Act funding to help implement the state’s first climate action plan.
The proposal, submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in late March, would establish a statewide fund to help electrify government fleets, retrofit public buildings, and install solar generation on city, county and state properties.
State agencies and local governments would be invited to apply for grants covering 100% of project costs in areas identified as local-income and disadvantaged. Elsewhere, grants would cover half of project costs, with the rest eligible for a subsidized, revolving loan program.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the Ohio Air Quality Development Authority chose to focus on direct, government investments because it’s an approach they think can achieve quick and substantial impacts without needing to cause widespread behavior changes in a state where public opinion is divided on policy actions to address climate change.
“Governments really control significant assets in terms of fleets and building stock across Ohio,” said Brooke White, an air quality evaluation and planning supervisor with the Ohio EPA.
Ohio is among 45 states and nearly 70 metropolitan areas competing for a share of up to $4.6 billion in federal funding as part of the U.S. EPA’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program, which has already distributed almost half a billion dollars to participating states and metro areas to develop or refine climate action plans.
That initial round of funding prompted Ohio to produce its first statewide climate action plan. The Priority Resilience Plan identified transportation electrification as the highest priority strategy for cutting emissions, followed by renewable electricity generation and building energy efficiency.
Electric power generation is Ohio’s largest greenhouse gas emissions sector, emitting 28% of the state’s total greenhouse gas emissions, according to the plan. Transportation comes in second at 26%. And direct fossil fuel emissions from buildings account for one-fourth of the total, although almost all electricity produced in the state winds up being used in buildings.
The plan also notes various measures that can help cut emissions from different sources, with transportation and buildings being a major focus. A more comprehensive plan will be due next year.
“The plan is the first statewide step for Ohio to reduce and mitigate the impacts of climate change,” said Nolan Rutschilling, managing director of energy policy for the Ohio Environmental Council.
States that submitted climate plans were invited to compete for implementation grants. Criteria include substantial reductions of greenhouse gas emissions and community benefits, particularly for low-income and disadvantaged communities. Policies and programs should also complement other funding sources. And they should be appropriate for scaling up across multiple jurisdictions.
Under the proposal, state agencies and local governments could apply for money to purchase electric vehicles or install or repair charging stations. Building projects could include things like adding rooftop solar or upgrading lighting or HVAC systems. Efficiency upgrades are “not the hottest topic, but they are sort of the biggest bang for your buck,” White said.
The state’s application estimates the transportation projects would avoid the equivalent of more than 4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. From 2025 through 2050, cumulative emissions reductions would exceed 32 million metric tons. The program also would provide technical assistance to agencies, counties and cities.
The grant program would direct 60% of its funding to low-income and disadvantaged communities. Other benefits for those areas would include improvements in air quality, as well as added jobs in fields related to electric vehicles, energy efficiency and renewable energy.
“We are not planning just environmental benefits. We are also creating socioeconomic benefits and building a workforce for market transformation,” said Laura Quiceno Waltero, an environmental specialist with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, speaking at the Ohio State Bar Association’s Environmental Law Institute last month in Columbus.
Another expected benefit: Lower energy bills can free up funds to provide better services overall for communities, “which is where we want their dollars going,” White said.
A 2022 report by Scioto Analysis for the Ohio Environmental Council and Power a Clean Future Ohio estimated climate change impacts would increase budget needs for the state’s local governments between $1.8 and $5.9 billion per year by midcentury.
Ohio’s emphasis on transportation and buildings is in line with other states’ priority climate action plans, according to an April 11 analysis from RMI, ClimateXChange and the Evergreen Collaborative.
The 47 plans submitted by states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia included descriptions of 186 measures to address transportation emissions. Colorado and North Dakota were the only states that did not highlight transportation, the analysis found. And all 47 plans had at least one measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings. Plans generally emphasized voluntary actions, with few including possible regulatory measures.
Ohio’s proposal has received enthusiastic support from environmental advocates in the state.
“We all need to be working hand-in-hand to bring more federal investment to our state,” said Crystal Davis, the senior Midwest regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association. She spoke on a panel about environmental, health and legal justice at the Ohio State Bar Association program.
The proposal for building efficiency is somewhat limited by its focus on public buildings, noted Rutschilling, of the Ohio Environmental Council. Yet he applauded the focus on benefits for low-income and disadvantaged communities, which will bear the brunt of climate change impacts. “We also appreciate the workforce development components, particularly the focus on job creation in Appalachia,” he said.
Power a Clean Future Ohio has already been working with local governments in Ohio on projects to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions. So far, 50 local governments are members. Ohio’s proposed program “could be transformative if done in a transparent and bottom-up approach” that lets communities set priorities based on their needs, said Joe Flarida, executive director for the organization.
“Resilience funding is climate funding, and it’s also smart city planning,” Flarida said. Yet, he added, “local governments are just the start of this work. It’s the tip of the iceberg.”
The U.S. EPA is expected to announce awards in July.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Global electric vehicle sales will hit a new record this year, and prices will be comparable to gasoline-powered cars by 2030, the International Energy Agency predicts. (Guardian)
ALSO: The United Auto Workers’ win at a Tennessee Volkswagen factory sets up another push next month at an Alabama Mercedes-Benz factory — and from there to auto factories in Georgia and South Carolina. (Politico; AL.com; Atlanta Journal-Constitution, subscription)
CLIMATE:
SOLAR:
NUCLEAR: A new report questions whether increasingly extreme weather could threaten the safety or viability of aging nuclear power plants. (Yale Environment 360)
PIPELINES:
GRID:
INDUSTRY: A Minnesota startup company wants to help customers convert diesel engines to burn ammonia, a potential climate solution whose benefits hinge on how the chemical is produced. (Energy News Network)
Electric vehicle factories are booming in the Southeast. Soon, unions could be too.
Chattanooga, Tennessee’s Volkswagen plant made history last week when 73% of its workers voted to join the United Auto Workers. It’s a big victory for the UAW in the historically hard-to-organize Southeast, and a win for two top Biden administration priorities: increasing union labor and domestic EV manufacturing.
“The union has broken the glass ceiling that unions could not organize in the South,” Harley Shaiken, a professor emeritus who studies labor issues at the University of California, Berkeley, told E&E News. “This could become a forerunner for the role that the UAW and unions will play in the transition to EVs.”
The UAW last year secured higher wages and other worker benefits from the Big Three automakers, and after that set its sights on EV makers that have started popping up in the South. Next up, the UAW will push for a union at an Alabama Mercedes-Benz factory that recently started making EVs, as well as a nearby EV battery plant. The UAW says so far, a “supermajority” of workers at those plants back a union.
John Logan, labor professor at San Francisco State University, told Reuters that Mercedes is fighting the union effort far more aggressively than VW did. But if the UAW succeeds at unionizing Mercedes, “I wouldn’t be surprised to see elections at Hyundai, Honda and Toyota over the next several months,” he said.
Tesla, BMW, and Nissan plants are also targeted as part of the union’s $40 million organizing campaign. And while E&E News notes the UAW doesn’t have plans to unionize any standalone battery plants yet, they could be next.
— Kathryn Krawczyk
☀️ Solar for all: The U.S. EPA announces $7 billion in grants for the first 60 projects in its Solar for All program, which aim to expand solar power access in low- and middle-income communities. (Associated Press)
🚘 Chargers take charge: The U.S. now has a fast charging station for every 15 gas stations after adding 600 new stations so far this year, as Tesla continues to build out its network and federal funding helps patch charging deserts. (Bloomberg)
🏭 Power plant rule change: Hydrogen industry leaders and environmentalists expect the U.S. EPA to exclude hydrogen from its final power plant emissions rule, leaving carbon capture as the only option for gas plants looking to reduce emissions to meet the regulation. (E&E News)
🕳️ Shortchanged on fossil fuel cleanup: The federal Bureau of Land Management’s newly calculated oil and gas reclamation bonds are based on faulty calculations, and won’t charge fossil fuel companies enough to cover eventual well cleanup costs. (Capital & Main/ProPublica)
⚡️ Rethinking the grid: Virtual power plants, dynamic line ratings, and other advanced grid technologies could open up space on the grid for more electricity while staving off the need for costly, time-consuming transmission construction, a new U.S. Energy Department roadmap finds. (Canary Media)
🌎 Climate action is cheaper: Unmitigated climate change and continued burning of fossil fuels would cost the world an estimated $38 trillion in damages by 2050, six times the cost of transitioning to clean energy and curbing warming, according to a peer-reviewed study. (Axios)
👷 Climate workers wanted: The White House launches a website that lists openings and accepts applications for the Climate Corps jobs and training program. (NPR)
🌊 Big turbines, big problems: GE Vernova’s cancellation of its plans to build one of the biggest wind turbines ever designed is one reason New York rejected several previously authorized offshore wind projects. (E&E News, Politico)
💧 Waste not: Improving wastewater treatment processes could save the U.S. $15.6 billion, reduce energy costs and slash the sector’s greenhouse gas emissions, a peer-reviewed study finds. (The Hill)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Amazon has installed more than 17,000 electric vehicle chargers at its warehouses over the last two years, making it the biggest U.S. private charging operator as it easily surpasses competitors’ clean vehicle goals. (Bloomberg)
ALSO:
OIL & GAS:
GEOTHERMAL: Geothermal has the potential to be a reliable, zero-emission source of energy that’s a natural transition from oil and gas drilling, experts say, if political tensions don’t derail its takeoff. (The Hill)
EFFICIENCY:
STORAGE: Dominion Energy sends a 1.5 MW metal-hydrogen battery to the historically Black Virginia State University to power a venue and become part of a hands-on laboratory and research project for its engineering program. (Energy News Network)
EQUITY:
CLIMATE:
SOLAR: California lawmakers introduce bills aimed at mitigating the effects of or revoking recent state policies slashing incentives for rooftop and community solar. (Canary Media)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: An appeals court upholds the U.S. EPA’s decision to allow California to set its own electric vehicle sales mandates and tailpipe emissions limits. (Reuters)
ALSO: A California program allowing electric and hybrid vehicle drivers to use carpool lanes without passengers is set to expire this fall, affecting more than 400,000 motorists if it isn’t renewed. (NBC San Diego)
ELECTRIFICATION: Berkeley, California advocates and professional cooks continue to work to electrify restaurant kitchens and homes after a court shot down the city’s natural gas-hookup ban. (Guardian)
UTILITIES: A Colorado county says Xcel Energy inadequately alerted the public to a planned outage aimed at reducing wildfire hazard during severe winds last weekend. (Colorado Sun)
OIL & GAS:
POLLUTION: The U.S. EPA proposes allowing Wyoming to amend a haze reduction plan to factor in the partial conversion of a coal plant to natural gas, which would settle a long-running dispute between the agency and the state. (E&E News)
TRANSMISSION: Arizona advocates, residents and tribal nations continue to challenge a segment of the SunZia transmission project under development through a river valley, saying it will harm ecological and cultural sites. (Inside Climate News)
WIND: Wyoming advocates and local officials push back on state lawmakers’ efforts to increase taxes on wind power generation, saying it would stifle the industry’s growth. (Inside Climate News)
SOLAR:
CLEAN ENERGY:
BIOFUELS: California researchers predict growing demand for aviation biofuels will drive land-use changes that could offset the fuels’ emissions benefits and take farms out of food production. (AgWeb)
CARBON CAPTURE: A California company proposes a pilot project at a Washington state port that would enhance ocean water’s ability to capture and store carbon dioxide. (Peninsula Daily News)
MINING: A company submits a plan to restart a long-idled uranium mill in southern Utah. (news release)
COMMENTARY: A Wyoming columnist praises environmentalists and climate deniers for their unsuccessful joint effort to kill a costly coal-friendly carbon capture mandate. (WyoFile)
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