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ClearPath Action Rundown

August 9th, 2024

Happy Friday! We hope everyone is having a great August recess.

1. ClearPath brings Congressional staff to Washington state

L - R: Dr. Steven Ashby, Chrissy Harbin, Luke Bolar, Luisa Smith, Jake Kincer, Amanda Sollazzo, Eric Gustafson, Molly Ross, Jeremy Harrell, Emily Johnson, Dillyn Carpenter, Stacey Daniels, Ryan Mowrey, Ashley Higgins, Brian Hughes, Savvy Bowman, and Dr. Jud Virden.

This week, ClearPath brought a delegation of eight Congressional staff to Washington as part of its Clean Energy Innovation Academy

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(CEIA).

The delegation visited:

Energy Northwest’s Columbia Generating Station nuclear power plant,

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL),

Ebb Carbon and PNNL Marine Sciences Laboratory - Sequim Bay, and

Helion, a fusion energy company.

They also met with representatives from Framatome, Stripe, Omya, TerraPower, Twelve and Avalanche Energy.

Highlights of the trip included seeing a nuclear reactor, visiting the soon-to-be-dedicated Energy Storage Launchpad at PNNL, observing how carbon dioxide is removed from seawater, and viewing a next-gen fusion reactor up close.

Tour at Energy Northwest Columbia Generating Station Control Room Simulator

What’s clear: An all-of-the-above energy approach is needed to meet our energy goals and maintain grid reliability and affordability. To maintain American energy independence and meet growing electricity demand, it is critical the U.S. lead in the development and deployment of these innovative technologies.

2. World’s largest grid-scale battery system heads to Maine

When one door closes, a battery storage system opens… The Lincoln Pulp and Tissue mill in Lincoln, ME is set to open again as a clean energy battery storage center

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after a $147 million grant from DOE, in partnership with Form Energy. This first-of-a-kind project will:

Be the largest long-duration energy storage project in the world;

Continuously discharge energy for 100 hours, or just over four days;

Deploy an 85 MW energy storage project using Form’s iron-air technology; and

Help Maine's goal of 400 MW of energy storage installed by the end of 2030.

What’s clear: "A crucial aspect of the bipartisan infrastructure law I helped negotiate was the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships Program, which seeks to modernize our electric grid infrastructure, to allow for the deployment of energy storage and other innovative energy solutions," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).



3. WHAT’S NEW: Nevada’s Climate Innovation Plan

This week, Governor Joe Lombardo released Nevada’s Climate Innovation Plan

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. The Plan contains eight parts, each part detailing ongoing efforts across the state for energy and environmental climate resilience, including:

Regulatory reform by fostering resilient market-based solutions that will move the state forward at a faster pace than ones that are driven by regulation and attract new industries. This includes the support of federal energy permitting reform.

Pursuing a balanced, all-of-the-above approach to energy use and development by utilizing all available energy and storage resources, including natural gas, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, wind, hydrogen, energy efficiency, and energy storage projects.

Fostering domestic clean energy production, stating: "The State should not rely on other nations for... next-generation technologies such as enhanced geothermal, which are being piloted right here in Nevada."

What’s clear: “Nevada’s Climate Innovation Plan marks a significant step forward in our environmental strategy. By harnessing clean energy, improving energy efficiency, and fostering economic growth, we’re establishing Nevada as a leader in climate solutions,” said Governor Joe Lombardo.



4. Pacing with the power price surge

Increasing power capacity prices in the largest U.S. electricity market

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are the latest signal that the nation’s power grid will need some changes to keep pace with demand.

What’s driving up prices?

Retiring power plants continue to shrink the amount of existing supply resources.

A 2% increase

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in projected peak load, roughly 3.2 GW, or 2.6 million homes.

New market reforms reduced the capacity value of technologies to reflect their reliability.

What’s clear: As electricity demand places more pressure on the grid, streamlined permitting processes and breakthrough clean firm technologies are critical for the U.S. to produce reliable, affordable energy.

Plug in: Projects still in the queue are not expected

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to provide enough capacity with new market reforms, plus PJM has closed its interconnection queue until 2026 preventing new power plants from entering the market.



5. How the House is calling on EPA to address carbon storage



In a letter

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led by Reps. Brett Guthrie (R-KY) and Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) inspector general, Republican House members addressed the consequences of Class VI permitting delays on the buildout of carbon storage infrastructure, which is critical to the deployment of carbon capture technologies.

What they’re saying:

Delays and unpredictable timelines for reviewing and approving Class VI permits will hinder the development of carbon storage projects.

Access to carbon storage sites is needed for eligible entities to fully utilize federal resources, such as the 45Q tax incentive.

The Office of the Inspector General should consider the challenges posed by these delays as it continues its review of the EPA’s management of the Class VI program.

What’s clear: Carbon capture

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is helping companies and states meet their emission reduction goals. Sequestering the CO2 deep underground is a safe and effective way to achieve their goals and expediting Class VI well permits must be part of the equation.



6. Heirloom helping states house DAC Hubs



Heirloom and its partners, led by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, are exploring the feasibility of deploying a Direct Air Capture

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(DAC) Hub in Illinois and Florida. These projects were awarded $5.7 million in funding from DOE.

The goal in Florida is to capture at least 150,000 tons of CO2 initially, with the potential to expand to at least 1 million tons per year.

The goal in Illinois is to capture at least 1 million tons of CO2 annually.

What’s clear: Direct air capture is one of the vital carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solutions DOE is supporting through its innovation and demonstration programs. However, in order to ensure American competitiveness, a tech-inclusive approach is needed to bring down the cost and commercialize competitive CDR solutions.

Plug in: Learn more about other DOE programs beginning to support technology-inclusive CDR solutions

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.



7. New ARPA-E program to lower emissions from bio-feedstocks

The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announced $36 million for a new program

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to develop innovations that reduce emissions from U.S. agriculture and American farmers’ operating costs.

This program will aim to:

Reduce U.S. reliance on imports of foreign synthetic nitrogen fertilizer;

Lower carbon dioxide emissions from fertilizer production and nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer application; and

Focus on plant and microbial bio-design strategies that improve the efficiency of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer on corn and sorghum fields, while maintaining crop yields.

What’s clear: Nitrous oxide, like carbon dioxide, is a gas in the atmosphere that accounts for around six percent of U.S. emissions. In agriculture, more than 70 percent of nitrous oxide comes from soil management.

Plug in: To learn more about how the U.S. is using agriculture to lower emissions, check out our Agriculture Innovation

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page and Fertilizer Innovation 101

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.



8. ICYMI

ABOVE: Tour at Helion

Washington State granted fusion energy company Helion a license to operate its latest prototype

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, Polaris, which aims to demonstrate net electricity from fusion for the first time.

Check out C3’s latest white paper, which outlines what else Congress can do to further accelerate the commercialization of nuclear power

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in the U.S.

DOE invested

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$44 million to provide technical assistance in geologic basins targeted for carbon storage.

That's all from us. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

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