Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Strong Interest in NE Wind Solicitation as Ørsted, Avangrid, CIP Bid

Experts are predicting strong participation in the New England regional offshore wind energy solicitation due to close today. Announced in October 2023, the program coordinated the next phase of wind energy projects between Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island and was designed to counter some of the pressures that slowed the industry’s progress in 2023.

Where companies including Ørsted were moving to withdraw from projects and canceling power purchase agreements in 2023, the same companies are now aggressively bidding for the next round of projects. Ørsted, Avangrid, and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners each announced their entries citing a long list of regional benefits and planned investments.

Reuters was quoting experts saying that other companies were likely to enter bids today. Engie is expected to make a proposal according to Reuters. Both BP and EDP are also in a position to possibly submit proposals. The regional, multi-state solicitation calls for as much as 6.8 GW of wind energy capacity.

Ørsted

Ørsted publicly announced the details of its proposal launching a new project called Starboard Wind which would work with Connecticut. They are proposing a project with a capacity of 1,184 MW which they said would provide the equivalent of power for 600,000 homes in Connecticut. They are promising the project with a long list of touted benefits for the state and its economy including saying it would result in more than 800 full-time jobs.

The project would expand the use of the New London State Pier for staging and assembly. The company highlights it has already invested more than $100 million in infrastructure improvements to redevelop the New London State Pier and says it would further the efforts to support this project if it is selected.

Ørsted highlights that with its partner Eversource they are currently building Revolution Wind, Connecticut’s first offshore wind farm, and marshaling the project out of State Pier. They are saying that Starboard Wind would build on Revolution Wind’s investments and accomplishments and advance the state toward its goal of 100 percent clean energy by 2040.

Onshore construction is underway for the 704 MW Revolution Wind project, with offshore construction to begin in the coming months. Revolution Wind will deliver 304 MW of offshore wind power to Connecticut and another 400 MW to Rhode Island, powering more than 350,000 New England homes. The project is expected to be in operation in 2025.

Avangrid

Avangrid, part of the Iberdrola Group, countered by submitting multiple proposals both for the regional approach as well as in the single-state procurements in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Repositioning for the multi-state approach, the company is rechristening its Park City Wind project as New England Wind with two phases. The first project would have a capacity of 791 MW and they highlight it is advanced in the federal approval process making it shovel-ready. The second phase would have a capacity of 1,080 MW. They said the new names reflect the regional approach to the industry offering a total of 1,870 MW.

New England 1 would be 30 miles south of Barnstable, Massachusetts, and border Vineyard Wind 1 which the group already has under construction. They are highlighting the project would provide power for approximately 400,000 homes and create more than 4,400 full-time jobs. As part of the project, Avangrid reports it has entered into an agreement with the City of Boston as the first to provide 15 MW of offshore wind power to the city. New England Wind 2 is the new name for the Commonwealth Wind project.

They highlight the use of the marshaling facility in Salem, Massachusetts, and their lease with Crowley Maritime as the facility’s anchor tenant. They are also saying they would utilize the New Bedford Foss Marine Terminal for construction logistics. They would also be using a purpose-built SOV from Edison Chouest Offshore and crew transfer vessels with one built locally by Patriot Offshore Maritime Services.

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners which manage funds that hold the leases and for which Vineyard Offshore serves as U.S. development partner reported that it is entering proposals in each of the state solicitations and an overall arching regional proposal for the multi-state approach. The group which is developing Vineyard Wind 1 reports it submitted a proposal for a 1,200 MW capacity project for the New England grid, providing enough to power more than 650,000 homes, starting in 2031.

There project would be 29 miles south of Nantucket with its export cable making landfall in New London, Connecticut. Among the benefits they highlight would also be the use of the Salem Offshore Wind Terminal for staging while O&M would be based at the New Bedford Foss Marine Terminal. The company say its proposal would support 3,800 job-years of employment across New England and source materials locally including secondary steel components for foundations from Rhode Island.

Last week, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced it was moving forward on the review of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners’ Vineyard North project which would be over 2 GW of wind power.

Ocean Winds, the partnership between Engie and EDP, is developing SouthCoast Wind off Massachusetts which would have a capacity of 2.4 GW and likely to also enter a bid.

Analysts are encouraged by the strong interest emerging in the New England solicitation. They said it demonstrates the industry is regaining momentum after the financial and supply chain challenges emerged in 2023.

Ørsted Green Lights Seventh US Offshore Wind Farm as it Gets BOEM Approval

The U.S. continues to push forward with its efforts to develop renewable offshore wind energy with the Biden administration highlighting that it has approved the seventh offshore wind farm. This comes as the latest in the series of rapid developments as the efforts reach the conclusion of the long permitting process and the administrations seek to add more opportunities into the pipeline.

The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management today issued the Record of Decision for the Sunrise Wind project to provide power to New York State. It is a key hurdle for the project that was first auctioned in 2013. BOEM's issuance of the Record of Decision formally concludes its National Environmental Policy Act review process and precedes the anticipated approval of Sunrise Wind's Construction and Operations Plan, expected this summer.

The lease area is located approximately 16.4 nautical miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and approximately 26.5 nm east of Montauk, New York. The project calls for a capacity of 924 MW which they report will provide power for the equivalent of 600,000 homes in New York State.

At the same time today, Ørsted and its joint venture partner Eversource have taken a final investment decision for the project meaning that they will now advance with some initial onshore construction activities. The companies highlighted that they have already given contracts for work including the installation of the underground duct bank system for the onshore transmission line and construction and steel manufacturing work.

These developments are especially significant as the project was in doubt just a few months ago as Ørsted began reassessing its U.S. portfolio and the partners said the power purchase agreement was no longer financially viable. New York State permitted them to cancel the old contract and selected Sunrise Wind for a second time in the recent solicitation. The companies are still working to finalize a new 25-year contract with the state.

As previously announced, Ørsted has agreed to acquire Eversource’s 50 percent ownership share in Sunrise Wind, becoming the project’s sole owner, subject to the signing of an OREC contract with NYSERDA, finalization of acquisition agreements, COP approval, and other relevant regulatory approvals. Eversource will remain contracted to lead the project’s onshore construction.

In issuing the Record of Decision, BOEM highlights that it revised the plans to reflect the comments received during its review process. Among the points, the decision altered the plan calling for fewer turbines. It approved the construction of up to 84 wind turbines within the lease area.

As the seventh approved project, BOEM reports it has now cleared 8 GW of offshore wind power capacity. They estimate this will power roughly three million homes.

Today’s action follows the release of guidance last week for the tax credits available to the wind industry under the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as launching the next phase of reviews for the Vineyard Northeast and Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind. They have also approved Empire Wind’s construction plan and moved forward on projects in the Gulf of Maine, the Central Atlantic, and the Oregon Coast. The administration has conducted a total of four lease auctions including the first off California and in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hornsea 3 Offshore Wind Farm Will Achieve an Energy Output of 2.9 GW

[By: Sarens]

The new wind farm, located 120 km off the Norfolk coast and 160 km off the Yorkshire coast, will be the single largest offshore wind project in the world with a surface area of 696 km2 and up to 231 turbines.

Sarens will work together with Aibel to assemble the two HVDC converter platforms at the Maptaphut facility in Rayong (Thailand), from where they will be transported to Haugesund to be equipped with Hitachi Energy's latest generation HVDC converter valve technology prior to final completion and commissioning.

The new Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm, located 120 km off the Norfolk coast and 160 km off the Yorkshire coast, will become, once commissioned in 2027, the largest offshore wind project in the world with up to 231 turbines, 696 km2 of occupied area and a clean electricity production of 2.9 GW, which will be enough to supply more than 3.3 million homes in the UK.

Sarens, world leader in heavy lifting, engineered transport and crane rental, is working with Aibel on the construction of the wind farm's two HVDC (high-voltage direct current) converter platforms at Aibel's facilities in Maptaphut, Rayong (Thailand). These units will be key to ensuring the performance of the wind farm, as they are the units responsible for transmitting large amounts of electricity over long distances, once the electricity produced by the wind turbines has been converted into alternating current.

This new facility, which will be operated by Ørsted, joins the two previous phases, which came on stream in 2019 and 2022 respectively. These two farms already contribute more than 2.5 GW of renewable energy to the UK grid, benefiting nearly 2.5 million homes.

For this operation, scheduled from January 2024 to the first quarter of 2025, Sarens transported two CC2800-1 crane units, each with a capacity of 600 tons, from its facility. Both cranes will collaborate in lifitng Section S210 weighing, 273 tons, and Section S220 weighing ,388.7 tons to their final positions, completing the module. As a preliminary step, the cranes were positioned on steel mats for crawl and stack the section on the surface , ensuring the operation’s security, precise crane movements, and preventing damage to both the material and operators in the vicinity.”.

When the wind farm comes online, Ørsted’s Hornsea trio – comprising Hornsea 1, 2, and 3 – will have a total capacity of in excess of 5 GW, making it the world’s largest operating offshore wind zone. The Hornsea zone will also include Ørsted’s Hornsea 4 project, which could have a capacity of up to 2.6 GW. Hornsea 4 received its development consent order from the UK government earlier in 2023 and is now eligible for forthcoming CfD allocation rounds.

Sarens has extensive international experience in the assembly and maintenance of wind farms. It has participated in various installations in France such as Fécamp, Saint Nazaire, Provence Grand Large in the lifting and transport work for the foundation bases of the new offshore wind farm in Saint Brieuc, located off the Brittany coast. During this project, Sarens successfully transported loads weighing over 1,150 tons. More recently, Sarens has worked in the receiving and loading out the monopiles and transition pieces for 176 turbines for the Coastal Virginia Offshore Windfarm.

US Research to Improve Aerodynamic Performance of Offshore Wind Turbines

The U.S. Department of Energy's Wind Energies Technologies Office plans to invest $5.1 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to support research and technology development to advance modeling and analysis for next-generation offshore wind turbine blades. According to the announcement, these efforts aim to facilitate the accelerated development and deployment of cost-effective offshore wind energy technology focusing on larger turbines with a capacity above 10 MW.

Wind turbine blades experience high loads when in operation, when stationary for installation or maintenance, and with the passage of extreme weather events. As wind turbines become larger, gathering data becomes challenging due to the large scale of the modern turbines.

To effectively design new offshore wind turbine blades, engineers however need to gather aerodynamic data that will help assess how a wind turbine blade responds in all weather conditions. The new project looks to help fill that gap.

They note in announcing this project that while simulation tools for large blades needed for offshore wind turbines can represent unsteady behavior when the turbine is in operation, they sometimes make inaccurate assumptions for conditions where the rotor is idling or stationary, leading to overly conservative designs or a risk of damage in certain wind conditions. Additionally, extreme weather events affect turbines in operation because the wind may come from any direction, and the loads generated on the blade and the resulting blade motion may be highly unsteady depending upon when and where the wind is blowing.

The goal of this research is to develop and validate improved modeling and simulation tools for the behavior of idling or stationary blades for large-scale wind turbines. They also look to enhance the methods for collecting and disseminating benchmark aerodynamic data to inform the design of large next-generation wind turbine airfoils and blades.

They look to provide the wind industry with accurate models to minimize the risks of developing and deploying large offshore wind turbines.

China and companies in Europe are working on these new generations of turbines which will increase the field and reduce the number of installations required for each project. Vestas Wind Systems previously announced a 15 MW turbine and China’s MingYang has demonstrated a 16 MW turbine including the longest blades yet built. Last year, the Chinese surprised the industry with an announcement that they were already working on a 22 MW turbine which they expect to complete between 2024 and 2025.

Italy Approves First Floating Offshore Wind Project

floating wind turbines — Italy granted approval for its first floating offshore wind turbines (file photo)

To help demonstrate the potential for floating wind and to jumpstart Italy’s efforts, the Italian authorities last week approved the country’s first floating wind farm. While Italy has several projects in the planning stage for offshore wind energy generation, the country has only commissioned one offshore wind farm in 2022.

Italian Ministry for Environment and Energy Security granted approval for a project known as 7SeasMed Floating Offshore Wind last week. They completed the environmental impact assessment approving the project which is being led by Copenhagen Offshore Partners and is owned by a consortium that includes GreenIT, the Italian renewable energy joint venture between Plenitude (Eni) and CDP Equity (CDP Group), and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.

The plan for 7SeasMed calls for a 250MW floating offshore wind project located just over 20 miles off the coast of Sicily. It will be positioned on the western side of the island near Marsala. The estimates are that it will provide around five percent of Sicily’s total electricity consumption, powering more than 70,000 homes.

Consortium's map of proposed offshore wind farms for Italy (CIP)

Approval of the EIA paves the way for the construction and operation of the offshore wind farm, which the partners said will use cutting-edge technologies. By utilizing floating platforms anchored to the seabed, 7SeasMed aims to unlock new opportunities for sustainable energy generation while minimizing environmental impact. By deploying state-of-the-art floating platform technology, the project aims to showcase advancements in offshore wind technology, driving innovation, and expertise in the renewable energy sector.

The investment consortium last announced a year ago reporting it had agreements to develop floating offshore wind projects in the Latium region and near Sardinia. They have grown their total portfolio to approximately 3 GW, making it one of the largest floating portfolios in Italy. In addition to 7SeasMed, they look to develop the Ichnusa (504MW, Sardinia) Tyrrhenian (500MW, Latium), Nurax (500MW, Sardinia), and Poseidon (1000MW, Sardinia) projects. Their goal is to start commercial operation between 2028-2031.

Phillips: Anti-Harassment Rules Will Help Keep Mariners in the Industry

U.S. Maritime Administrator Ann Phillips has many tasks on her plate, from MARAD's new training ships to the Ready Reserve Fleet, but mariner recruitment and retention is at the top of the list. Attracting enough people to the maritime industry will take a cultural shift, she said in a newly-released podcast from the American Maritime Partnership.

Since 2022, MARAD has been working with U.S.-flag carriers on a formal program to combat bullying, sexual assault and sexual harassment on board. 19 companies have joined MARAD's EMBARC program so far, Phillips says, and more are on the way. The initiative is now enshrined in law, thanks to text in last year's defense spending bill.

But MARAD is not just focused on rules and enforcement, she says. Getting bullying and harassment out of the industry would help meet a national security objective - the need to keep enough Americans in the business of seafaring.

"Without that, we're going to struggle with retention across the board, whether it's women, men, race or any other [factor]," Phillips said.

Women make up about seven percent of the American maritime workforce, she says, but the majority of the U.S. population is female - an obvious mismatch. Improving recruitment and retention of women is at top of mind for Phillips, and that could be good for everyone.

"It turns out often that policies that help retain women help retain men too, because they are things that are more focused on quality of life - on different options for people in their career paths," said Philips. "We really need to think through how today's young people want to view themselves and can view themselves in this industry, and how we can make changes to help continue their service."

Phillips understands what a seagoing career looks like, though she experienced it from a different angle. She was a career surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy for 31 years, including three in command of the destroyer USS Mustin. She retired at the rank of rear admiral in 2014. "I know what it's like to be at sea, and to face the challenges that mariners face broadly. And of course, mariners are all one community, particularly in times of crisis, safety, security," she said.

Spanish and Portuguese Navies Monitor Movement of Russian Ships

Portuguese Navy — Portugal along with Spain tracked the movement of three Russian Federation vessels (Marinha Portuguesa photos)

In a coordinated operation, the navies of Spain and Portugal have been monitoring the movement of three Russian Federation vessels during their transit of the countries’ territorial waters. The ships were first detected off the Spanish peninsular and they were tracked as they moved east into the Mediterranean.

Both countries stressed it was part of their routine maritime surveillance and security operations. Tensions have however remained elevated since the invasion of Ukraine and several previous reports of Russian incursions into the territorial waters of several western European countries. There were accusations in the past of Russian vessels surveying offshore assets in both the Netherlands and Belgium.

Span’s Defense Ministry reports the vessels were detected in the early hours of March 21 during a patrol by the Atalaya, a 1,200-ton patrol boat commissioned in 1992. During the maritime surveillance and security operation, three vessels were spotted in Spanish waters northwest of the peninsula. Spanish forces identified the vessel as a small tanker the Kola used for refueling operations which was sailing with the landing ship Ivan Gren and the Ropucha-class landing ship Aleksander Otrakovsky.

Ivan Gren a Russian landing ship (Marinha Portuguesa)

Russian refueler Kola (Marinha Portuguesa)

The Spanish patrol vessel continued to follow the three ships until they reached Portuguese waters. Marinha Portuguesa reports it dispatched its vessels the NRP Bartolomeu Dias and the NRP Viana do Castelo to take the handover from Spain early on the morning of March 22.

Portugal’s vessels then accompanied the Russian ships and further clarified the situation. They remained with the Russian vessels until shortly after dawn on March 24.

The Spanish patrol boat Vigi relieved the Portuguese ships in the monitoring of the group of Russian vessels. The patrol boat continued to accompany the Russian ships as they passed through the waters of the Gulf of Cadiz.

There were no incidents during the transit but Span highlights it is monitoring maritime traffic on a line that connects Cape San Vincent with the Strait of Gibraltar. Spain in 2021 detected two Russian Federation warships and denied them permission to anchor in the port of Ceuta on the northern coast of Africa to refuel and replenish supplies.

MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M

Colorado's bid to halt Kroger-Albertsons merger set for August hearing

Updated Mon, March 25, 2024

By Mike Scarcella

(Reuters) -A Denver state judge said on Monday that he will hear arguments beginning on Aug. 12 in Colorado's case seeking to block Kroger's $25 billion purchase of rival grocer Albertsons.

The order by District Court Judge Andrew Luxen puts Colorado two weeks ahead of a similar hearing before the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and other states' separate nationwide lawsuit challenging the merger.

"I make no promises about when my orders will be out," Luxen said. Colorado's attorney general, like the FTC, is seeking a preliminary injunction to halt the supermarket mega-merger. The judge said he would strive to rule "quickly."

Kroger and the FTC did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Albertsons declined to comment.

Luxen heard arguments for more than a hour on Monday about how and whether to accommodate Colorado's independent interest in challenging the deal amid the ongoing FTC case in Oregon federal court.

The FTC and eight states sued Kroger in February to stop the deal, saying it would increase prices for millions of Americans. Washington state is also separately challenging the deal, and a hearing in that case is expected to start on Sept. 16 in Seattle-based King County Superior Court.

Kroger and Albertsons have defended the merger, first announced in October 2022, and denied the claims it would lead to higher prices. The deal would strengthen Kroger's position as the second largest player in the US grocery market behind Walmart.

Kroger has proposed to divest 413 stores and eight distribution centers to C&S Wholesale Grocers, and said it may need to shed an additional 237 stores to gain regulatory approval.

An attorney for Kroger, Matthew Wolf, said during Monday's hearing in Denver that the company would be providing an "enhanced" new divestiture package "in the coming days."

Luxen said he would hold a permanent injunction hearing in the Colorado case on Sept. 30.

(Reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by David Bario, Rosalba O'Brien and Michael Perry)

Moscow shooting poses awkward questions for Russia's intelligence agencies

Reuters
Updated Mon, March 25, 2024

LONDON (Reuters) -Russia's security state has been ruthlessly effective at detaining Vladimir Putin's opponents but was caught off guard by a mass shooting near Moscow, raising questions about its priorities, resources and intelligence gathering.

Charged with hunting down Ukrainian saboteurs inside Russia, with keeping anti-Kremlin activists in check, and with disrupting the operations of hostile foreign intelligence agencies, the FSB, the main successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB, has its hands full.

That, say former U.S. intelligence officials and Western security analysts, helps explain why it may have overlooked other threats, including that posed by Islamist militants, such as ISIS-K, which claimed responsibility for the attack.

“You can’t do everything,” Daniel Hoffman, a former senior CIA operations officer who served as the agency’s Moscow station chief, told Reuters.

“You dial up the pressure on the locals and sometimes you don’t get the intelligence you need on a potential terrorist attack. That’s where they failed.

"It’s possible they’re overextended dealing with the war in Ukraine and dealing with political opposition. This one slipped through the cracks.”

The FSB has said Friday's concert hall attack was "painstakingly" planned and that the gunmen had carefully hidden their weapons.

Putin on Monday said that radical Islamists were the ones who had carried out the attack, but said that Russia still wanted to understand who had ordered it and said there were many questions for Ukraine to answer. Ukraine denies any involvement.

When asked on Monday if the assault represented an intelligence service failure, the Kremlin said that Russia's standoff with the West meant intelligence-sharing was not happening in the way it used to.

"Unfortunately, our world shows that no city, no country can be completely immune from the threat of terrorism," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Russia's intelligence services worked tirelessly to defend the country, he added.

Still, Friday's shooting, in which at least 139 people were killed and 180 injured, has undermined one of Putin's longstanding pledges to the Russian people: to ensure stability and security.

It has also shaken some residents of the Russian capital who have largely been insulated from the violence of the Ukraine war despite occasional drone strikes.

Putin, a former KGB officer who won another six years in power earlier this month, has weathered similar crises before and there is no visible threat to his grip on power now.

His response, judging from his previous behaviour and a statement on Saturday, will be to meet force with greater force.

Four of 11 men detained in connection with the attack have been charged with terrorism and appeared in court after being interrogated: one apparently with his ear missing and one in a wheelchair amid calls from some lawmakers for the death penalty to be re-introduced. Peskov declined to answer a journalist's question about whether they had been tortured.

MISSED WARNINGS?

Whether the men were tasked by Islamic State as the militant group and the West asserts, or whether there may have been some kind of Ukrainian connection as Putin has hinted - and Kyiv has flatly denied - there were warning signs which do not appear to have been heeded.

Security analysts said the manner in which the attack and escape were carried out was evidence of extensive reconnaissance of the venue beforehand and Russian media published CCTV footage of one of the gunmen visiting at an earlier date.

On March 7, the U.S. embassy in Moscow issued a security alert to Americans, telling them it was "monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts".

On March 19, three days before the killing spree, Putin delivered a speech to FSB chiefs in which he dismissed what he said were "provocative" Western warnings about a terrorist act.

"All these actions resemble outright blackmail and the intention to intimidate and destabilise our society," said Putin.

Nina Krushcheva, a professor of international affairs at The New School in New York, said the FSB appeared to have had Islamic State on its radar.

But she said Putin's view that Russia was locked in an existential struggle with a U.S-led West would have made it difficult for Moscow to take at face value a security warning from the United States.

"There's a lot of mistrust. It's not like America isn't involved in misinformation," she said.

"In Putin's world, where it is an existential battle between Russia and the West that wants to undermine Russia and demolish it, of course he wouldn't believe it because how does he know from his own KGB background that America is not creating its own false flag (operation)."

A false flag operation is an act committed with the intent of disguising the source of responsibility to pin blame on another party.

ISLAMIC STATE

John Sipher, who served a stint in Russia during his career in the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, said he believed the FSB may have dropped the ball because it was too busy focusing on political and other threats to Putin and his government.

“The (security services) are more about protecting the Kremlin than they are about protecting the people,” said Sipher, who predicted that Putin would now use the attack to justify some new action or against the West and Ukraine.

Another warning came on March 2 in southern Russia when FSB special forces killed six gunmen whom they identified as members of Islamic State.

Three of the men were on a federal wanted list and the militants had killed three policemen the previous year. The FSB found a weapons stash.

On March 7, the FSB said it had prevented an attack on a synagogue in Moscow that had been plotted by an Islamic State cell and that the attackers had been killed in a shootout.

Riccardo Valle, a researcher on jihadist movements, said the March 2 incident should have set off warning lights.

"I think the fact the security forces discovered that there is a network of Islamic State in Russia, and a strong one capable of acquiring weapons and putting up strong resistance against special forces - this should have raised the alarm in Moscow security agencies," Valle said in a phone interview.

"Maybe it did but they were not able to prevent the attack in time," said Valle, director of research at the Islamabad-based research and news platform The Khorasan Diary.

He said it was also clear from previous statements and attacks by ISIS-K, including on the Russian embassy in Kabul in 2022, that the group had Russia in its sights.

(Editing by Alison Williams)

Russia blames Kyiv, West over Moscow gun attack

AFP
Tue, March 26, 2024

Russia on Tuesday sought to shift blame for the Moscow concert hall attack onto Ukraine and its Western backers, despite the Islamic State group claiming responsibility for the massacre of at least 139 people.

The Kremlin's security services have been scrambling to explain how gunmen on Friday managed to carry out the worst attack in Russia in over two decades.

President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that "radical Islamists" conducted the bloody assault, but suggested they were linked to Ukraine, two years into the Kremlin's offensive on the country.

The head of Russia's FSB security agency Alexander Bortnikov said Tuesday that while those who had "ordered" the attack had not been identified, the assailants were heading to Ukraine and would have been "greeted as heroes".

"We believe the action was prepared both by the radical Islamists themselves and, of course, facilitated by Western special services, and Ukraine's special services themselves have a direct connection to this," Bortnikov was cited as saying by Russian news agencies.

Ukraine has fiercely rejected any accusations from Moscow that it was tied to the assault, with a top aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky saying the Kremlin was looking to cover up the "incompetence" of its intelligence agencies.

- Belarus undermines Kremlin narrative -

Russia's closest international ally, Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko, appeared to undermine the Kremlin's main narrative -- saying that the attackers tried to enter his country first before heading to Ukraine.

"There was no way they could enter Belarus. They saw that. That's why they turned away and went to the section of the Ukrainian-Russian border," he said.

The Kremlin has expressed confidence in the country's powerful security agencies, despite questions swirling over how they failed to thwart the massacre after public and private warnings from the United States.

Islamic State jihadists have said several times since Friday that they were responsible, and IS-affiliated media channels have published graphic videos of the gunmen inside the venue.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday said Paris had information that the jihadists were responsible and warned Russia against exploiting the attack to blame Ukraine.

The concert hall massacre was a major blow for Putin just over a week after he claimed a new term after one-sided elections the Kremlin billed as an endorsement of his military operation against Ukraine.

Putin on Monday said for the first time that "radical Islamists" were behind last week's attack, but sought to tie it to Kyiv.

Without providing any evidence, Putin connected the attack at Crocus City Hall to a series of incursions into Russian territory by pro-Ukrainian sabotage groups, and said they were all part of efforts to "sow panic in our society".

- Eighth suspect remanded -

A court in Moscow meanwhile on Tuesday remanded an eighth suspect in custody over the attack at the Moscow concert hall.

Moscow earlier announced it had detained 11 people in connection with the attack, which saw camouflaged gunmen storm into Crocus City Hall, open fire on concert-goers and set the building ablaze.

The court's press service said the latest suspect to be remanded was a man originally from the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan.

Officials said he was ordered to be held in detention until at least May 22, without detailing the exact accusations against him.

Four men charged on Sunday with carrying out the attack are citizens of Tajikistan, also in mainly Muslim Central Asia.

Three more suspects -- reportedly from the same family and including at least one Russian citizen -- were charged on terror-related offences on Monday.

A Turkish official said two of the Tajik suspects had travelled "freely between Russia and Turkey" ahead of the attack.

The two had both spent time in Turkey shortly before the attack and entered Russia together on the same flight from Istanbul, the official said.

All of those held in custody have been charged with terrorism and face up to life in prison.

The Kremlin has so far pushed back at suggestions the death penalty will be re-introduced after the attack.

Much of Putin's inner circle thinks Ukraine had nothing to do with the Moscow terror attack, badly undermining him, report says

Mia Jankowicz
Wed, March 27, 2024

Putin's inner circle isn't buying his claim that Kyiv is connected to the Moscow terror attack, Bloomberg reported.

Putin continues to say that Ukraine had a role in the attack, which was claimed by ISIS-K.

He thinks that pushing the theory is beneficial for galvanizing support for his war, per Bloomberg.

Many Kremlin insiders disagree with President Vladimir Putin's claims that Ukraine may be connected to last Friday's terror attack in Moscow, Bloomberg reported.

While Putin and some of his followers continue to publicly push the idea of Ukraine's role in the attack, behind the scenes few people in Moscow's top business and political circles support the theory, insiders told the outlet.

Ukraine has denied any connection to the attack, and no credible evidence has emerged for its involvement.

On Friday, armed attackers stormed the Crocus City Hall in Moscow, opening fire and killing at least 137 people during a rock concert. ISIS-K, a terror group based in Afghanistan, claimed responsibility.

Four suspects, who appeared in court on Sunday, were described in Russian state media as coming from Tajikistan.

Addressing the nation the day after the attack, Putin said that Ukraine had provided the attackers with an escape route at its border.

Making no mention of ISIS-K, he said: "They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border," NPR reported.

On Monday, Putin switched to blaming ISIS-K for the attack, but continued to allude to a Ukrainian connection.

"The United States, through various channels, is trying to convince its satellites and other countries of the world that, according to their intelligence data, there is supposedly no Kyiv trace in the Moscow terrorist attack," he said, according to CNBC.

But Putin's narrative was undermined even by Belarusian President Alexandr Lukashenko, a close ally, who said that the suspects had first tried to go to his country.

"There was no chance they could enter Belarus," he said, according to the state-run Belarusian Telegraph Agency. "So they took a turn and headed to the Ukraine-Russia border."

According to Bloomberg, Putin has been confronted with his inner circle's doubts.

Citing a person with knowledge of the situation, the outlet reported that Putin was in a meeting where officials agreed that Ukraine had no connection to the attack.

Even so, Putin was committed to the idea that it would help mobilize support for the war there, the person reportedly said.

Putin loyalists have continued to advance the theory without presenting any evidence.

Alexander Bortnikov, director of Russia's FSB security service, said on television that he believed Islamist radicals were aided by Western special services, and that "the special services of Ukraine are directly related to this," Reuters reported.

Asked whether ISIS or Ukraine was responsible, Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia's security council, said it was Ukraine, adding later that there were "many" indications of Kyiv's involvement, per Reuters.

Andrei Soldatov, an expert on the FSB and Russian intelligence, told Bloomberg that Russia's security services "know this was Islamic State, but after Putin's remarks they have no choice but to follow orders and prove that there was Ukrainian or Western involvement."

Biden administration officials announce battery apprenticeship guidelines in Michigan

Clara Hendrickson, Detroit Free Press
Updated Tue, March 26, 2024

Top officials in President Joe Biden's administration visited a United Auto Workers union hall in Michigan on Tuesday to tout their efforts to support clean energy jobs, announcing new training guidelines for apprenticeships to expand the country's battery workforce amid growth in the market for electric vehicles.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su characterized the latest initiative as a way to create a skilled workforce for the battery manufacturing sector and create an entry point to middle-class jobs. The government's guidelines were developed in partnership between manufacturers, community colleges and labor, according to a news release from the Energy Department.

"President Biden is leading a renaissance in American manufacturing, and nowhere is that more evident than with the rapid growth of investment in electric vehicle production," said Granholm in a statement.

"Workers benefit when unions are strong," U.S. Secretary of Energy and former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm said on Tuesday, March 26, 2024, as she talked about the future of the EV battery industry at the UAW Local 652 headquarters in Lansing.

"Good jobs have the power to change lives, and today we are expanding the pathways into those good jobs through Registered Apprenticeships in the fast-growing battery manufacturing industry," Su said in a statement.

The new U.S. Department of Labor-certified national standards for registered apprenticeships for battery machine operators will accelerate the timeline for initiating new trainings and open the door for public funding of workforce development programs in battery manufacturing, the Energy Department's news release states.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — who has made growing battery manufacturing jobs a key pillar of Michigan's economic development strategy — joined the Biden administration officials in Lansing for the announcement. UAW President Shawn Fain also attended the event held at the UAW Local 652 union hall near an Ultium battery manufacturing facility under construction. Fain cast the UAW strike against the Detroit Three automakers last year as a fight to ensure the transition to electric vehicles would not leave workers behind.

UAW President Shawn Fain speaks on Tuesday, March 26, 2024, at the UAW Local 652 headquarters in Lansing.

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Lansing, celebrated the announcement to support battery manufacturing apprenticeships as a way to maintain Michigan's economic edge in the auto industry as it evolves. "It's either Team America or Team China that will build the next generation of cars — and I want us on the job. I can't think of a better place than Michigan to roll out the standards that will shape our skilled workforce," Slotkin wrote in a tweet following the event.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Biden officials tout battery manufacturing apprenticeships

Biden Administration Announces $6 Billion To Slash Industrial Emissions

IT USED TO BE POLLUTER PAY

NOW ITS PAY THE POLLUTER

Chris D'Angelo
Mon, March 25, 2024

The Biden administration on Monday announced it will distribute up to $6 billion to curb planet-warming emissions in some of America’s most polluting industries, including chemical, metal and cement operations.

The awards, which the administration called the “largest investment in industrial decarbonization in American history,” are aimed at both advancing the administration’s climate goals and boosting domestic manufacturing.

Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm told reporters the investments target technologies that are scalable and will “set a new gold standard for clear clean manufacturing in the United States and around the world.”

“Put simply, this is good for our planet, it’s good for our economy, it’s good for our workers,” she said.

A total of 33 projects in more than 20 states are slated to receive federal funding, ranging from $20 million to $500 million. The administration expects to leverage an additional $14 billion in private-sector investment.

“These projects offer solutions to slash emissions in some of the highest emitting sectors of our economy, including iron and steel, aluminum, cement, concrete, chemicals, food and beverages, pulp and paper,” Granholm said. “Together, these industries make up roughly a third of our CO2 emissions of our carbon footprint. The projects that we’ve selected promise to make a significant dent in those emissions.”

Together, the 33 projects could eliminate 14 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually — equivalent to that of 3 million vehicles — and create tens of thousands of jobs, according to the administration.

A Cleveland-Cliffs steel plant in Riverdale, Illinois, is pictured in February 2023. The company was selected to receive federal funds to decarbonize operations at one of its facilities in Middletown, Ohio. Chicago Tribune via Getty Images

In Middletown, Ohio, Cleveland-Cliffs Steel will receive up to $500 million to swap out one of its blast furnaces for two electric furnaces, which is expected to reduce the facility’s greenhouse gas emissions by 1 million tons per year. In Lebec, California, the National Cement Co. of California will put $500 million in federal funds toward the production of carbon-neutral cement using biomass from agricultural byproducts like pistachio shells. And in Mansfield, Louisiana, the International Paper Co. will receive $46 million to use a new chemical separation technology to reduce emissions during pulp production.

During the application process, the Department of Energy received a total 411 concept papers requesting more than $60 billion in federal funds for energy efficiency projects, according to a senior Biden administration official. The $6 billion that’s being distributed includes $5.47 billion from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and $489 million from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.

Ali Zaidi, the White House national climate adviser, told reporters that the investments are a “massive deal” not only in the fight against climate change, but for environmental justice, noting that 79% of the projects are in disadvantaged communities.

“This is part of a government-wide strategy that looks at the industrial sector — the president often says, ‘When I think of climate, I see jobs’ — and sees both the climate opportunity and the massive jobs opportunity,” Zaidi told reporters. “Today’s historic announcement is a big step in that direction, both here for the United States of America but, frankly, for everybody around the world chasing a better future.”

US pledges up to $1B for two pioneering 'green steel' projects

Maria Gallucci
Tue, March 26, 2024

The Biden administration’s latest initiative to clean up heavy industries could usher in a new era for one of the dirtiest sectors of all: iron and steel.

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Energy announced up to $6 billion for commercial-scale projects that aim to demonstrate technologies for slashing greenhouse gas emissions at an array of U.S. factories. Two of the winners — the steelmakers Cleveland-Cliffs and SSAB — were each selected to receive up to $500 million for “green steel” projects that could transform how America turns iron ore into the ubiquitous high-strength metal.

Both companies are proposing to build low-emissions ironmaking facilities that run on clean hydrogen instead of coal or fossil gas. No such facilities exist yet in the United States, and only one worldwide is operating at a meaningful scale today: the Hybrit project in Sweden, in which SSAB is a partner. Before this week’s announcement, the only other hydrogen-focused projects in the works were based in Europe and China.

“Until a few days ago, it was feeling like the U.S. was really behind, and that we needed to be making some leadership investments in our first green steel plants,” Hilary Lewis, steel director at the advocacy group Industrious Labs, told Canary Media. “And that’s what we got today.”

Cleveland-Cliffs plans to install a “hydrogen-ready” ironmaking plant at an existing complex in Middletown, Ohio. SSAB would build a new facility in Perry County, Mississippi that exclusively uses hydrogen to turn raw ore into iron.

The manufacturers will each have to contribute their own sizable share of funding, and both projects are still subject to award negotiations. But green-steel proponents say government support is crucial to getting these first-of-a-kind facilities financed, given that banks and investors are generally reluctant to back potentially risky, capital-intensive projects.

Still, building less-polluting infrastructure is only the first step. In order to drive deep emissions cuts, companies using this ironmaking technique will also have to procure large quantities of “clean hydrogen” in particular — very little of which is available right now. Today, the vast majority of hydrogen is produced using fossil gas in an emissions-intensive process. The lowest-carbon alternative is to make hydrogen with water and huge amounts of renewable electricity; this is also called “green hydrogen.”

In that way, the quest for greener steel is bound up in the success of two broader efforts taking shape across the United States: dramatically boosting the production of clean hydrogen and drastically scaling up the nation’s clean energy capacity.
Striving toward cleaner steel

Globally, steel production generates as much as 9 percent of human-caused CO2 emissions every year — more than any other heavy industry.

Part of the reason is simply that manufacturers make so much of it: nearly 2 billion metric tons per year worldwide. The essential alloy forms the hulls of cargo ships and parts of airplanes. It’s found in buildings, bridges and roads, and it’s used in vehicles, appliances and cookware.

In recent years, the U.S. steel industry has made strides to curb its carbon footprint by increasing the amount of recycled steel used in end products, and then melting all of that scrap metal in electric-powered arc furnaces. Today, about 70 percent of America’s steel is made this way, while roughly 30 percent is produced in traditional coal-hungry mills. (Worldwide, the story plays out in reverse.)

But while recycled steel can satisfy some of the nation’s demand for the sturdy metal, it doesn’t fully replace the need for “primary” steel, which is essential for the high-strength components in vehicles. It also doesn’t diminish the need to clean up or replace the dirty facilities that still exist.

Right now, most primary steel is made using a blast furnace — by far the biggest emissions culprit — in what are known as integrated steel mills.

In blast furnaces, iron ore and purified coal (or “coke”) are dumped into a vessel, along with a sprinkling of processed limestone. A blast of hot air reaching up to around 2,800°F is blown into the furnace at high speeds, driving chemical reactions. Carbon monoxide bonds with oxygen atoms in the iron ore, forming CO2 that’s released into the air. The resulting iron flows out of the furnace like lava; from there, it moves into a basic oxygen furnace to become finished steel.

The United States still operates 13 aging blast furnaces, seven of which are owned by Ohio-based Cleveland-Cliffs.

This week, the manufacturer said it plans to replace one of those blast furnaces in Middletown, Ohio with a “direct reduced iron” plant that can run on hydrogen. Cleveland-Cliffs anticipates it will spend around $1.3 billion itself over a five-year period for the project, which could be completed by 2029.

The direct reduced iron (DRI) process involves dropping iron-ore pellets into a shaft furnace. The combination of hydrogen gas and heat causes the oxygen atoms in iron ore to combine with hydrogen and form water. DRI plants can be paired with electric arc furnaces to turn iron into finished steel using only electricity. But in the case of Cleveland-Cliffs, the company is building two electricity-powered melting furnaces that will feed the iron into its existing basic oxygen furnace.

The investments are expected to slash emissions at the Ohio facility by 1 million metric tons of greenhouse gases every year, according to the DOE.

“Hydrogen is the real game-changing event in ironmaking and steelmaking, and that’s our Cleveland-Cliffs pathway to the production of green steel,” Lourenco Goncalves, the company’s CEO and chairman, said on a January 30 earnings call.

DRI technology is decades old, and nearly 100 such facilities have been deployed worldwide to date — including three in the United States. But all of them use fossil fuels in the shaft furnace. Rather than using hydrogen directly, these facilities take fossil gas or coke-oven gas to produce a “reducing gas,” containing hydrogen and carbon monoxide, that removes the oxygen content from iron ore.

Cleveland-Cliffs said its new DRI facility in Middletown will have the “flexibility” to be fueled by fossil gas, which would reduce the carbon-intensity from ironmaking by more than half. The plant can also run on a mix of gas and clean hydrogen, or on clean hydrogen alone. The latter option would reduce the carbon-intensity of making iron by over 90 percent.

Meanwhile, the other big winner this week, SSAB, said it’s planning to skip gas altogether and go straight to using clean hydrogen in Mississippi.

The Swedish manufacturer was selected to build the world’s first commercial-scale facility using Hybrit technology, though it didn’t say by when. The existing Hybrit pilot plant in Sweden uses hydrogen to produce direct reduced iron. But unlike other DRI facilities, Hybrit has a proprietary design — one its developers say is optimized to run on only hydrogen, instead of fossil gas or a mix of fuels.

SSAB is also considering expanding its existing steelmaking facility in Montpelier, Iowa to make use of new clean iron supplies from its Mississippi plant. As part of the initiative, SSAB said it signed a letter of intent for Hy Stor Energy to supply green hydrogen and renewable energy in Mississippi. Hy Stor is developing a hydrogen “hub” in that state, where it plans to use on-site, off-grid renewable energy projects to produce hydrogen, which is then stored in underground salt caverns to deliver energy on-demand and around the clock.

Hilary Lewis said that, in light of this week’s news, “Green hydrogen developers should have their ears perked up and be reaching out to make sure that their projects are the ones supported by this huge new demand.”

Industrious Labs and other green-steel proponents will “be working on that as well, to make sure that they get the cleanest possible hydrogen for those facilities,” she added.

The 'clean cement' projects getting $1.5B in Biden admin funds

Jeff St. John
Wed, March 27, 2024

Cement-making accounts for roughly 8 percent of global human-caused carbon emissions — an enormous climate footprint that will take nothing short of a full transformation to curb.

This week, the U.S. cement industry got a big jolt of federal funding to help it along that path. On Monday, the Biden administration announced $6 billion in investment for 33 demonstration projects aimed at decarbonizing heavy industrial sectors. Among them, six projects set to receive a collective $1.5 billion are seeking to slash the carbon impact of cement — and each project is going about it in a different way.

That’s because cement — the gluey powder that’s mixed with sand, gravel and water to form concrete, the most widely used material on earth — represents a particularly complex emissions problem that no one technology on its own can solve.

About 40 percent of the industry’s emissions come from burning fossil fuels in kilns used to make cement. Scaling up cost-effective alternatives to reach the super-hot temperatures required is challenging in its own right, particularly for an industry that churns out more than 4 billion metric tons of product per year.

But the other 60 percent of emissions from cement-making come from the chemical process of breaking down limestone, the core precursor material for almost all cement made today, into its constituent parts of calcium oxide and CO2. That process can’t be decarbonized simply by switching fuels.

The U.S. Department of Energy — the source of this week’s industrial decarbonization grants — estimated in a report last year that roughly one-third of the cement industry’s emissions can be eliminated using established technologies and processes by the early 2030s. Major cement-makers in the U.S. and around the world are already using these approaches, which the DOE also estimates will actually help the industry save around $1 billion per year.

But the remaining two-thirds of cement’s emissions will be harder and more expensive to reduce, the DOE wrote in its report, requiring investments of a cumulative $5 billion to $20 billion by 2030 and between $60 billion and $120 billion by midcentury. For an industry that made just under $15 billion in sales last year and competes on very tight margins, that’s a hefty burden.

Eliminating that share of cement emissions will require alternative materials, alternative chemistries, alternative processing methods, or capturing and sequestering the carbon dioxide before it reaches the atmosphere — all viable pathways that face their own unique challenges.

That’s why government backing like that announced this week — which will be matched by equal or larger investments from the companies that won the awards — is vital to getting first-of-a-kind cement decarbonization projects off the ground.

Here’s a breakdown of the projects that won awards and the particular technology pathways they’re exploring.
Making ordinary Portland cement from different kinds of rocks

Nearly all the cement made today is Portland cement, a material invented in 1824 that relies on carbon-rich limestone as a key ingredient. But what if cement could be made from minerals that aren’t packed full of carbon that escapes into the atmosphere?

That’s the goal of Brimstone, an Oakland, California–based startup that’s developing a way to convert calcium-bearing silicate rocks into Portland cement. These rocks are rich in the key cement-making ingredient of calcium oxide but free of carbon atoms.

Brimstone was approved for a DOE grant of up to $189 million to build its first-of-a-kind commercial-scale demonstration plant for its technology. That plant will be capable of producing 140,000 metric tons per year of this carbon-free Portland cement, along with supplementary cementing materials — alternatives to clinker, the precursor material for cement, that can bulk up a cement mix — that will avoid more than 120,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year compared to standard Portland cement production.

Last year, Brimstone earned third-party certification verifying that its Portland cement is structurally and chemically identical to conventional supplies — an important finding for companies leery of replacing tried-and-true cement mixes with novel formulas.

But in an industry like cement, where almost all new facilities are financed by existing producers, “obtaining capital for a first-of-a-kind commercial-scale plant is challenging,” Cody Finke, Brimstone's co-founder and CEO, said in an email. The new DOE funding “greatly accelerates the path to market for our deeply decarbonized cement,” allowing the company to start building its first pilot plant in 2025 while it starts to plan and design its first commercial-scale plant in 2027 or 2028.
Making cement from electricity

Getting the carbon out of the minerals going into cement kilns is one way to cut carbon. Another way is to switch out fossil-fuel-burning cement kilns with a process that uses electricity to do the same work.

That’s the goal of Sublime Systems, an MIT spinout that’s developed an electrolytic technology similar to those used to produce clean hydrogen to make cement in a way that doesn’t emit carbon and runs at close to room temperature. Sublime’s electrolyzer uses electricity to extract calcium from calcium silicate materials and then precipitate that calcium in a form that can be used to make its final cement product.

Sublime has also earned an industry designation finding its product meets certain performance-based standards for hydraulic cement, and in late 2022, it finished a pilot plant that can produce up to 100 metric tons of cement per year. Its new DOE grant of up to $87 million will fund its first commercial-scale plant in Holyoke, Massachusetts, capable of producing tens of thousands of tons of its cement per year.

“Access to sufficient capital for industrial-scale demonstrations is the single biggest obstacle preventing breakthrough innovations from reaching the scale humanity needs to combat the climate crisis,” Sublime CEO and co-founder Leah Ellis said in a statement. “The Department of Energy has cleared this obstacle.” The company plans to begin construction of its Holyoke plant in 2025 and start producing cement in 2026.
Using clays to lower the carbon footprint of cement

Supplementary cementing materials (SCMs) that reduce the proportion of high-emissions clinker needed in cement mixes are the chief ingredient in the lower-carbon cement blends now available around the world. But the most commonly used SCMs today are fly ash from coal plants and slag from steel mills — two materials that are limited in supply, expensive to transport and expected to decrease in availability as the power and steel sectors decarbonize.

Calcined clays, a form of naturally occurring minerals, are a promising alternative SCM already used by major cement producers such as Heidelberg Materials, Holcim and Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies to reduce up to half of the clinker in certain cement blends. So-called LC3 (limestone calcined clay cement) can be produced with emissions up to 40 percent lower than Portland cement.

The challenge for introducing LC3 into new markets and for new uses is in testing the strength, durability and suitability of new mixes made from distinct sources of calcined clays available in different parts of the world. Two of the projects funded by DOE’s newly announced grants are aimed at expanding the scope of these cements in parts of the country where they aren’t yet in wide use.

Roanoke Cement Company in Troutville, Virginia was awarded up to $61.7 million to use locally available clay types to reduce carbon emissions and establish markets for LC3 cement in its region. And Summit Materials was awarded up to $215.6 million to build “calcination” facilities in Maryland, Georgia and Texas, with the goal of reducing 1.1 million metric tons of CO2 emissions per year.
Carbon capture and multitechnology approaches

Alternative chemistries, alternative cement-making methods and new sources of supplementary cementing materials are all valuable options for cutting cement’s carbon footprint. But even if they can compete on cost with standard Portland cement, it’s likely that construction-industry buyers will be slow to purchase them instead of old-fashioned Portland cement. The DOE suggests these alternatives could “face a ~10–20+ year adoption cycle to be accepted under widely used industry standards.”

The planet doesn’t have that long to wait to decarbonize cement production, however — and that’s focused many of the industry’s biggest players and government programs on carbon capture, utilization and sequestration (CCUS) as a vital near-term path. DOE’s Liftoff report cites industry and research studies indicating that CCUS could account for more than half of the industry’s potential to reduce carbon emissions by midcentury — if it can cost-effectively scale up to match the industry’s enormous emissions challenge.

CCUS is the focus of the two largest DOE grants for cement decarbonization projects, each up to $500 million. The first is for Heidelberg Materials, which is planning to capture at least 95 percent of the carbon dioxide — quite a high capture rate for today’s technologies — from its newly retrofitted plant in Mitchell, Indiana, one of the country’s largest cement production sites.

If successful, it would capture 2 million tons of CO2 per year from the plant and store it in geologic formations beneath the plant property.

One of the biggest challenges of CCUS is building the pipelines and wells needed to sequester carbon dioxide deep underground where it can’t escape back into the atmosphere. The biggest U.S. cement CCUS projects, such as the Mitchell plant and two projects with Holcim at plants in Florence, Colorado and Bloomsdale, Missouri, are conveniently nearby underground geological formations that could house large amounts of captured CO2 for centuries. These and other carbon-sequestration plans still face years of work to determine that they’re safe and to secure permits to undertake that work.

The second award of up to $500 million is for the National Cement Company of California, which is taking up a multitechnology approach to its goal of producing “carbon-neutral cement” at its plant in Lebec, California. That project will implement CCUS, and it will also use calcined clay to produce lower-carbon LC3 cement. It will also replace fossil fuels for its kilns with locally sourced agricultural waste such as pistachio shells, which embed the carbon dioxide that trees have previously absorbed from the atmosphere.

None of these awards are final yet — each project must go through contract negotiations, and the companies involved must commit to supplying an equal or greater amount of matching funds. Designing and building each project could take years. And each will need to secure commitments from buyers willing to use the cement it produces.

But if successful, these projects could help provide a blueprint for building a future with much lower-carbon cement — or even “net-negative” cement, as DOE’s announcement describes its longer-term vision.

Why Biden is spending $6 billion on green concrete and whiskey

Tim McDonnell
Wed, March 27, 2024

The News

The U.S. Department of Energy announced this week it will dole out $6 billion in grants to cut emissions from three dozen factories across a wide range of industries — including steel, cement, aluminum, even whiskey and pasta. The Biden administration’s climate strategy up to now has focused primarily on cutting emissions from the power and transportation sectors, particularly via wind and solar energy and electric vehicles. The new funding targets heavy industry, which accounts for one-third of the country’s carbon footprint but has seen much slower progress on decarbonization because the technologies involved are mostly new and have rarely been tried at commercial scale.

The combined emissions savings from all 33 projects would be equivalent to taking three million gas-fueled cars off the road, Kelly Cummins, acting director for the DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, told Semafor. And if all goes according to plan, that’s just a down payment on bigger cuts in the future.

“We want to make sure these are not just one-off projects,” she said. “The only way we’re going to meet our long-term climate goals is if we get replication from these demonstration projects.”

Tim’s view

It may be time to retire a climate cliché: Emissions from the sectors targeted in this program are sometimes called “hard to abate,” because many industrial processes require high temperatures from burning coal and natural gas that aren’t easily replaced by low-carbon electricity. But research and innovation over the past few years have delivered a range of technological solutions for high-carbon industries. Now, the biggest obstacle is getting factory owners, their customers, and their financiers to take a gamble on bringing those from the lab to commercial scale. The new round of DOE funding is meant to lower the stakes.

Of the roughly $811 billion invested by the private sector in climate tech since 2018, only about 5% has gone to low-carbon industrial processes, according to BloombergNEF data. Electric vehicles, by comparison, have captured 30%. For each of the projects in the DOE program, federal funding can supply no more than half of the total investment required, and in most cases much less than that, Cummins said. She expects the DOE’s $6 billion to draw in at least another $14 billion from private investors, with more to follow if the proof-of-concept works.

“We prefer ‘yet to abate’ now instead of ‘hard to abate’,” said Bryan Fisher, managing director for climate-aligned industries at the nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute. “All of these are near-proven technologies that just need to be demonstrated in a commercial environment. Somebody just has to do the first one, so we can get the second and third ones.”

Projects in the program include replacing coal-burning blast furnaces at an Ohio steel plant with alternatives that run on hydrogen and electricity, a super-efficient aluminum smelter that will be the first such smelter built in the U.S. in 45 years, and a gas-electric hybrid glass furnace in California to churn out low-carbon wine bottles. Some of the grants will benefit startups working on their first-ever commercial-scale facility. Others will benefit big incumbent emitters trying to clean up, including an ExxonMobil petrochemical refinery in Texas, a steel plant run by Sweden’s SSAB, one of the world’s largest steelmakers, and an effort by beverage giant Diageo to replace gas-fired boilers used in the production of Bulleit whiskey with electric ones. Big companies like Exxon may not be obvious candidates for federal climate funding, but they have the balance sheet and technical expertise to put a major dent in emissions if they can be convinced to opt for a lower-carbon alternative, Fisher said.

To actually get a check from DOE, all of these projects have to clear a few more rounds of due diligence, including proving they’ll create local jobs and that they have at least a few early customers lined up that are willing to pay a bit more for green products. Most likely, not all of these projects will pan out. But if even a few do, the return on investment — in terms of emissions reduced per taxpayer dollar invested — would be huge.

Room for Disagreement

DOE’s domino-effect thesis — that getting a first round of projects over the financing hump will tip off a wave of private investment — is far from a surefire bet. Many of the projects here will rely on a steady supply of low-carbon hydrogen, which is practically nonexistent today. There are familiar challenges around infrastructure permitting, as well as offtake contracts: It doesn’t matter if the technology works if customers aren’t willing to pay for it. And all of this is playing out against the rapidly ticking clock of climate change. “Trying to grow infant industries is a complex, multi-decade process,” said Todd Tucker, director of industrial policy at the Roosevelt Institute. “It’s not for people who want quick results.”

The View From Oakland

One of the program’s beneficiaries is Cody Finke, whose startup Brimstone was awarded $189 million to build its first commercial-scale plant producing low-carbon cement using a proprietary chemical process. The company pieced together its early investment from smaller DOE sources and venture funders, Finke said, but the commercial facility was too expensive for its main backers. “Banks don’t have a financing product that takes that much risk, and VCs don’t have a product that’s the right size,” he said. The larger DOE grant makes it much easier to draw in a broader pool of investors, he said, and brings the company closer to making a product that can compete directly with traditional cement on cost. “There are lots of technological solutions to climate change, but few actually will give someone enough profit to make it happen,” he said. “That is really the gating thing.”

Notable

Several of the largest grants in the program will go to companies headquartered in Europe, adding a new wrinkle to the climate tech tug-of-war between the U.S. and European Union.

As Texas students clash over Israel-Hamas war, Gov. Greg Abbott orders colleges to revise free speech policies

NO PRO PALESTINE RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH

Sneha Dey
Wed, March 27, 2024

Gov. Greg Abbott attends a community gathering in support of Israel at the Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin on Oct. 9, 2023. Credit: Evan L'Roy for The Texas Tribune

As the Israel-Hamas war continues to ignite tensions across Texas campuses, Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order requiring Texas higher education institutions to discipline what the governor described as “the sharp rise in antisemitic speech and acts on university campuses.”

Colleges are expected to include the definition of antisemitism in their free speech policies, as well as establish and enforce punishments for violating those policies. Expulsion from the college could be considered an appropriate punishment, Abbott said.

“Texas supports free speech, especially on university campuses, but that freedom comes with responsibilities for both students and the institutions themselves,” Abbott wrote in the executive order issued Wednesday.

The Israel-Hamas war has tested free speech policies at colleges in Texas and across the country. As pro-Palestine and pro-Israel students engage in protests and heated discussions, school leaders have struggled to strike a balance between their roles as moderators and facilitators of intellectual debate on campus. At the University of Texas at Austin, for instance, some students have called on university leaders to provide more support and protections for Palestinian students on campus. Around that time, Abbott urged university leaders to protect Jewish students.

In his executive order Wednesday, the governor also singled out Palestinian groups on campuses — including the Palestine Solidarity Committee and Students for Justice in Palestine — who he says have violated free speech policies and should be subject to discipline.

Per Abbott’s order, the chair of the board of regents at each college has 90 days to share documentation verifying revisions were made to free speech policies and evidence that those policies have been enforced.

The order comes after the state dismantled DEI offices, whose responsibilities included making universities more welcoming and inclusive to people of all cultures and backgrounds.

This is a developing story; check back for details.

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

Disclosure: University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment