Like many companies, CSX has committed to reduce its carbon emissions. It set a goal of a 37 percent reduction from 2014 to 2030.
Railroads CSX and Canadian Pacific Kansas City have said they’ll work together to develop hydrogen conversion kits for their existing diesel locomotive fleets.
The initial conversion work in the partnership will be performed at the CSX locomotive shop in Huntington.
““This exciting initiative will greatly benefit from the expertise of CSX’s advanced, large-scale facilities, where the locomotives will be built,” said Joe Hinrichs, CSX president and CEO.
Canadian Pacific has already converted one locomotive, which has undergone 1,000 miles of testing.
Hydrogen produces zero carbon dioxide emissions when burned. However, the production of hydrogen can have a carbon impact if it is made from fossil fuels.
They now have until Aug. 8 to submit comments instead of July 24.
“I am concerned that the EPA could only give us another 15 days,” she said in a call with reporters Thursday. “I mean, we asked for measurably more.”
The EPA seeks to require coal- and natural gas-fired power plants, beginning in 2030, to capture carbon dioxide emissions, switch to hydrogen or shut down.
Capito and Rep. Carol Miller of West Virginia have introduced legislation to repeal EPA’s pending rule, which is all but certain to be challenged in the courts by Republican-led states.
The EPA will require existing coal-burning power plants to install carbon capture technology if they are scheduled to operate beyond 2040.
The chief of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said new power plant emission rules will eliminate some coal use.
The EPA will require existing coal-burning power plants to install carbon capture technology if they are scheduled to operate beyond 2040.
Carbon capture is not yet in widespread use in the electric power sector. Yet, if implemented, the rules would require the largest, most frequently run coal plants to capture 90 percent of their CO2 emissions starting in 2030.
Speaking to a group of reporters before the announcement of the rules, Administrator Michael Regan said the rules will allow power companies to decide whether they want to invest in carbon capture at individual plants.
“What we know, and what our analysis projects, is that we will see some coal retirements,” he said.
Last year’s Inflation Reduction Act includes incentives to install carbon capture at power plants.
Power companies will also be allowed to use natural gas or hydrogen to meet lower emissions targets at coal plants. Plants could be converted to burn 40 percent natural gas if they shut down before 2040.
Certain plants that see less use may not have to make any changes as long as they shut down by 2032 or 2035.
The rules also require natural gas plants to have some system in place to lower emissions. They could use either carbon capture or switch to low-carbon hydrogen.
The U.S. power sector was already trending away from coal. While coal produced nearly half the nation’s power 20 years ago, it has fallen to less than 20 percent in the first quarter of this year.
Natural gas has mostly taken coal’s place, but renewables account for an increasing share.
The proposed rules are almost certain to be challenged in court.
Republican U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said Thursday that she’d introduce a resolution opposing them.
“It’s reprehensible that this administration would clamp down even further on domestic energy production while advancing policies meant to increase demand for electricity,” Capito said in a statement.
On Wednesday, her West Virginia counterpart, Democrat Joe Manchin, said he’d block every EPA nominee.
“We will do everything we can to make sure they do not jeopardize the grid system, the reliability of the power this country needs,” Manchin said.
In the briefing with reporters on Wednesday, Regan said the rules would not affect grid reliability or the affordability of electricity.
Another challenge could come from Republican state attorneys general, including Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia.
Last year, Morrisey brought a case to the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, an earlier attempt to rein in carbon emissions.
“The U.S. Supreme Court has placed significant limits on what the EPA can do,” Morrisey said in a statement. “We plan on ensuring that those limits are upheld, and we expect that we would once again prevail in court against this out-of-control agency.”
The court ruled that the EPA had limited authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate power plant emissions. The new rules were designed to withstand legal challenges, Regan said.
The new rules, which the EPA will announce on Thursday, are expected to be tough on coal-burning power plants, especially. They will also apply to new natural gas power plants.
Ahead of the rollout of new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency limits of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin says he will block every EPA nominee.
The new rules, which the EPA will announce on Thursday, are expected to be tough on coal-burning power plants, especially. They’re also expected to apply to new natural gas power plants.
Manchin says he opposes any effort to remove coal from the grid over reliability concerns.
“We will do everything we can to make sure they do not jeopardize the grid system, the reliability of the power this country needs,” he said Wednesday.
The U.S. power sector was already trending away from coal. While it produced nearly half the nation’s power 20 years ago, it has fallen to less than 20 percent in the first quarter of the year.
Natural gas has mostly taken coal’s place, but renewables account for an increasing share.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey was in the nation’s capital today to discuss an upcoming Supreme Court case.
Morrisey is leading a coalition of states challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
The Biden administration is expected to take action this year to limit carbon emissions from power plants, which could accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.
A federal appeals court ruled last year that the EPA has broad power under the Clean Air Act to regulate power plant emissions.
“This is not about the merits of climate change one way or the other,” he said. “It’s ultimately about, should we make sure that the balance between the legislative branch and the executive branch is consistent with how the Constitution laid it out.”
The Supreme Court will hear arguments in West Virginia v EPA on Feb. 28.
Wyoming traditionally has more coal production than West Virginia. The states are generally one and two nationally. But like the Mountain State, coal production in “Big Wyoming” has been on the decline for more than a decade. Even so, state leaders there are pinning their hopes on carbon capture technology.
The Carbon Valley podcast is a production of Wyoming Public Media.
Wyoming Public Media reporter Cooper McKim produced a nine-part podcast about the efforts in Wyoming. He spoke with Eric Douglas about what he learned.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Douglas: Tell me the basis for the podcast to begin with.
McKim: Coal production here has pretty much been on the decline since 2008. And job growth has gone with it. There have been several bankruptcies and the economy here relies on it for a majority of its revenue. Schools rely on it. It’s a little different than West Virginia, in that we get so many perks, basically from the minerals industry, it’s paid for so much, made the quality of life so good. And with that in mind, the primary effort has been keeping it going.
In 2008 there was this idea. A legislator from Gillette, our main coal capital, where all the mining is really happening, thought that carbon emissions, that carbon dioxide was the problem, but that if we could take care of that, maybe coal plants would stop going offline and coal demand would maintain. It didn’t really take off, because that recognizes climate change.
I wanted to take that idea, and just really explore how the idea of carbon capture took hold, because there’s this parallel of climate technology and keeping fossil fuels going. They seem like they’re going against each other, but they’re really not.
Douglas: It sounds like there was actually a program set up to encourage carbon capture projects. Was that funded by the state itself? Or where did that come from?
McKim: So there have been a bunch of different investments into carbon capture. And the main one was the integrated test center, which was basically a facility set up next to a coal plant here. And then they started a competition to be the first patent. The basis for the podcast was saying, let’s get a bunch of international companies to come to Wyoming and show that we can do this, to show that this is possible.
The investment was really into this facility. It was, I think, around $15 million. But there was also money from several utilities that went into it. And it was going to reward whoever produced the best technology. Carbon capture itself is trillions of dollars away from commercial viability.
Douglas: But it wasn’t just capturing the carbon emissions, it was trying to develop a system to capture the carbon emissions and then use the carbon as a byproduct as well. So you were trying to cut down on emissions, but also find a use for the material.
McKim: Yeah, so Gov. Matt Mead, the governor before our current one, had the idea that carbon capture and sequestration is great, but you’re just putting it underground. What are you doing with it? These things are expensive, so offsetting the cost by creating a different profit from another resource that it’s producing. Carbon capture utilization is sort of a sub industry of carbon capture. And that’s not trillions, but probably billions away from commercial viability. The only areas that it’s really working in right now is producing concrete from it and some are trying to produce sort of a renewable gas.
Douglas: So what did you find? What was the final result?
McKim: So what I found is that carbon capture is very different from how carbon capture helps coal. This industry itself could do very well and potentially affect net zero emissions. But the timeline for that is just different from the timeline for coal demand. That’s already been going down really fast. In Appalachia, it happened even sooner than it is here.
The reality is that things are moving really, really fast. And carbon capture is moving really, really slow. And so what this sort of exemplified is, we may not have enough time, and other people in the state want to look elsewhere to economically diversify in a way that is safer, is potentially a little bit broader, provides near term solutions, because it’s not providing jobs right now. Hundreds of people have lost their jobs in coal bankruptcies in the past few years. And there aren’t jobs being replaced by carbon capture yet. So the timelines are just off.
Douglas: What was your big takeaway at the end of the podcast?
McKim: Economic diversification can’t really be replaced by one industry. Whether or not you keep something going, it’s going to have to be larger than one industry. What I found is that there are other people who want to not just keep coal demand going, but diversify a little bit beyond that. And that’s not to say there aren’t efforts but the primary effort is to transform the city into a Silicon Valley for carbon products, whether that’s carbon dioxide or coal directly itself. And I think that’s going to be the primary effort and what I think I sort of found in the podcast is.
Douglas: What did you learn during the podcast that we haven’t touched on?
McKim: The podcast is actually very humorous. It follows a competition that involves an underdog doing carbon capture. We sort of build a friendship throughout the show. It talks about the grief of losing coal and coal plants. I lost my dad while reporting the story. And so I talked about that. There’s a lot of sentimentality and humor, and it tries to sort of get at this in a way that is not boring. So hopefully, it’s an interesting story. And I think there are a lot of parallels with West Virginia. So I hope that some of your audience might find it compelling.
The podcast Carbon Valley looks at carbon sequestration and alternative uses for carbon.
