Did Trump's assault on regs just knock out CCS?

E&E News

4 hours ago

The Trump administration is telling the world that carbon capture and storage at power plants is not ready for prime time, delivering a major setback to a technology that's struggling to find a foothold.
EPA proposed a repeal last week of the Biden administration's climate rule on electricity producers, which called CCS the 'best system of emission reduction' for long-running coal plants and new gas turbines.
In a new proposed rule, EPA said capturing 90 percent of carbon emissions at power plants hasn't been 'adequately demonstrated and its costs are not reasonable.' It's 'extremely unlikely that the infrastructure necessary for CCS can be deployed' by a 2032 compliance date set under the Biden rule, EPA said.
Advertisement
The Trump administration's proposed rollback — which EPA touted in a news release Friday with more than 50 supportive quotes from lawmakers and trade groups — comes amid scant deployment to date of carbon capture projects on U.S. power generation. Fewer projects in the electricity sector could impede broader CCS efforts nationwide, whether they involve storing carbon dioxide underground or using it to pump out more oil and gas.
'Power plants are large emitters, and sequestering CO2 from these facilities would have required significant investment in transport and storage infrastructure, most likely in the form of [carbon capture] hubs or clusters,' Brenna Casey, an associate at BloombergNEF, said in a recent note to clients. 'Other industrial emitters, like cement plants and petrochemicals producers, could have piggybacked on the infrastructure built to serve these power plants.'
In a report last fall, the Global CCS Institute — a think tank that supports the industry — said 19 commercial-scale CCS facilities were operational in the United States. Only one, the Petra Nova facility in Texas, is on power generation, the assessment showed.
Analysts offered mixed views on how much of a setback the proposed repeal of the Biden rule could deliver to power sector CCS — with some saying it could push plant operators to rethink investing in the technology or hold off on plans, while others said they didn't expect the Biden rule to speed up CCS deployment on fossil power plants.
Under the Biden rule, new combined-cycle natural gas plants that run more than 40 percent of the time would also have needed to curb their emissions by 90 percent by 2032.
EPA's repeal 'could be a large blow' to the U.S. CCS sector, Brendan Cooke, vice president for new energies at research firm Rystad Energy, said in a statement.
'A little over half of the announced capture capacity for the power sector is for plants that would be regulated under the rules put in place last year' by former President Joe Biden's EPA, Cooke said. 'For these plants, the absence of regulation, plus challenging economics, may be enough for operators to reconsider investments.'
Others, however, see a more muted effect from retracting the Biden rule, in part because of the current interest in developing natural-gas-fueled power plants known as peakers that typically only run during periods of high demand.
'Our original view was that the EPA regulations would not accelerate CCS deployment on power plants as we expect the majority of future gas plants to be peakers and expected the rule to cause coal retirements to accelerate rather than install CCS,' said Jeffery Jen, a senior analyst with Enverus Intelligence Research, in an email. 'Based off this, the repealing of the regulation should not materially impact CCS deployment on power.'
The 'most prominent business case' for CCS deployment on power plants is helping to give data centers 'clean' and 'dispatchable' baseload power, according to Jen.
In an analysis last June, the Rhodium Group research firm came to a similar conclusion, finding that fossil generation 'with carbon capture generally plays a small role on the grid in 2035.'
While there's been 'limited' announcements of CCS for new gas-fired power generation so far, 'the impact to potential growth in this area would be the most significant as all new baseload gas generation would have been mandated to install CCS,' said Cooke at Rystad. 'Without regulation we should not expect near term growth in this area.'
While the federal 45Q tax credit — the main incentive for CCS projects in the United States — has stayed relatively unharmed thus far in Congress' reconciliation package, high costs and difficulty building new pipelines to carry captured CO2 are also headwinds that have blunted deployment. The U.S. power sector is responsible for nearly a quarter of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions — behind only the transportation sector.
Last week, the Carbon Capture Coalition, a group that works to build federal policy support for carbon management projects, highlighted announced CCS plans in the U.S. power sector.
'Regardless of the administration's decision on how or if to regulate CO2 emissions from the power sector, carbon capture and storage technologies are here to stay,' said Jessie Stolark, the coalition's executive director, in a statement.
Still, Stanford University professor Rob Jackson said companies won't pay for CCS when they can pollute for free. Jackson is a senior fellow at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment, as well as its Precourt Institute for Energy.
Last week, Alex Bond, executive director of legal and clean energy policy at the Edison Electric Institute, said the group supports CCS technology but 'appreciates EPA's acknowledgment that carbon capture and storage technologies are not yet viable for widespread deployment.'
'Electric companies need standards for natural gas facilities that are attainable to plan and permit new facilities, along with flexible regulatory approaches that help maintain dispatchable generation,' Bond said in a statement.
In a statement Monday, an unnamed EPA spokesperson said the agency's regulatory agenda under Biden 'was to kill off the coal, oil and gas sectors with costly regulations and mandates.' The U.S. hit record oil and gas production levels during the Biden administration, however.
DOE didn't provide comments to POLITICO's E&E News on the outlook for the CCS industry.
The Global CCS Institute, however, said some customers will continue to look for low-carbon power, regardless of EPA's position, and will be interested in natural gas plants with CCS.
'Some states may also continue to promote policies that require or incentivize CCS, and the administration is prioritizing Class VI primacy, which will help states move forward where CCS is a priority,' the institute said in a statement.
'Strong market signal'
On Earth Day this year, the White House used the term 'cutting-edge' to describe CCS.
The emissions-trapping technology was on a list of sectors — including nuclear and geothermal energy — that the Trump administration said it supports in pursuit of greater energy production and 'environmental innovation.' The inclusion of CCS didn't go unnoticed among industry members or its proponents, including the developer of a major carbon dioxide pipeline project in the Midwest.
Since that April proclamation, however, the administration's mashup of policies around carbon capture has elicited both praise and disappointment.
One development cheered by CCS supporters has been EPA's push to grant top oversight of wells used for geologic storage of carbon dioxide to state agencies. This year, EPA has bestowed that authority to West Virginia and proposed doing the same for Arizona and Texas, clearing the path for those states to issue permits for CO2 storage wells instead of the federal government.
The Department of Energy, meanwhile, has announced its intention to remove carbon management from its Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management; proposed cutting the office's budget by about $270 million; and said its work would include 'promoting carbon capture, transport and storage with a focus on enhanced oil and gas recovery,' where CO2 is used to produce more oil.
In May, DOE terminated nearly $3.7 billion in awards — including several on carbon capture projects. Carbon management backers called the cancellations a 'major step backward' for national deployment.
Then came EPA's proposed rule last week, which said greenhouse gas emissions from fossil-fuel-fired power plants don't contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution.
Although it's 'disappointing to see the [Trump] administration send mixed signals on its support for carbon management, the industry has proven that it's still 'all in', including through an unprecedented number of announced projects and pending Class VI wells,' said Stolark at the Carbon Capture Coalition in an email Friday.
There's a 'strong market signal' for CCS deployment through the 45Q credit, as well as bipartisan support from lawmakers on Capitol Hill, Stolark also said.
Peter Findlay, director of carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) economics at research firm Wood Mackenzie, said the Trump administration's exact strategy on carbon capture isn't crystal clear. But he said it's one of three decarbonization target areas the administration backs, along with nuclear and geothermal.
As far as CCS can help to foster energy independence, the Trump administration 'sees it as favorable, but not invest vast sums in the technology development,' Findlay said.
While the United States remains a leader in operational CCS projects globally, Findlay said the potential is there for China to move past the U.S. if there's not sufficient federal support for early stage technologies.
The Trump administration hasn't prioritized carbon capture in terms of its budget, said Ryan Fitzpatrick, senior director of domestic policy for the climate and energy program at Third Way, a national think tank and advocacy organization.
'I think a lot of the support that it's had and the protection that it's had in things like the reconciliation bill has come from Congress,' Fitzpatrick said. 'But I do think the administration is missing the bigger picture here, that whether it's the U.S. or other countries, CCS is going to be deployed and equipment is going to be purchased, technology is going to be licensed.
'There is money to be made, and the U.S. is currently well situated to compete for that, but that's not guaranteed,' he added. 'We have to have public support for this as well.'
This week, the Senate Finance Committee's portion of the Republican reconciliation bill included some changes to the 45Q credit, including increasing the credit value for CO2 used in products or enhanced oil recovery.
Promoting CCS tied to enhanced oil recovery fits into President Donald Trump's focus on expanding oil production, Fitzpatrick said. Still, he said, if CO2 storage via enhanced oil recovery is how Trump can support carbon capture, that's not the worst thing, as that will still prove beneficial for the sector overall.
Project ups and downs
Despite the fanfare, the only operational CCS facility at a U.S. power plant has less than six years combined under its belt.
The Petra Nova project, which captures CO2 from a coal-fired unit at a power plant southwest of Houston, started operating around the beginning of 2017. While DOE put out a happy third birthday to the facility in January 2020, the CCS facility would soon shut down.
Beginning that May, Petra Nova took a hiatus of more than three years after low oil prices, induced by the Covid-19 pandemic, hurt the project's economics. The Petra Nova facility, which has cumulatively captured 5 million metric tons of CO2 since it started up, is owned by ENEOS Xplora, formerly JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration.
Meanwhile, at least one CCS project in the power sector is no longer moving ahead.
Project Diamond Vault — a CCS retrofit of a Louisiana plant mainly fueled by petroleum coke announced in 2022 — is no more.
'In 2022, Cleco Power announced it would be initiating a two-year study to explore retrofitting the company's existing Madison 3 plant to reduce carbon emissions' through CCS, the power company said in a statement this week. In 2024, Cleco Power 'discontinued the study because it was found that the project wasn't economic and in the best interest of our customers.'
But other projects are still working to join Petra Nova's ranks.
Those include a CCS project at a California Resources (CRC) gas plant in California's Kern County, which announced plans to start construction in the second quarter of this year and begin CO2 injection before the end of 2025. The project was hit with a lawsuit in November over allegations that Kern County officials didn't properly weigh its environmental risks.
On Monday, CRC spokesperson Richard Venn said construction of the CCS project is expected to begin in the next several weeks and will last roughly six months. That work includes well drilling, grading, trenching, foundations and installation of CO2 capture equipment, he said.
'CRC remains focused on advancing CCS as a critical tool for reducing emissions in California and supporting the state's ambitious climate goals,' Venn said in an email.
Other proposals to tack on CCS technology are further out on the horizon.
Developers of Project Tundra, which would add carbon capture to the coal-fired Milton R. Young Station in North Dakota, have declined to say when they could reach a final investment decision on the project. They failed to reach that milestone in 2024 and the project lost energy company TC Energy as one of its developers last year.
'We remain focused on Project Tundra and look forward to a final investment decision when the necessary conditions align, ensuring that the project fits our long-term goals,' said Ben Fladhammer, a spokesperson for Minnkota Power Cooperative, which operates the Young plant and is a developer of Project Tundra.
Fladhammer said the estimated cost of Project Tundra is now $2 billion, up from an earlier estimate of $1.4 billion. Minnkota had opposed the power plant rule finalized by EPA last year. Fladhammer criticized the Biden rule as 'unworkable,' pointing to 'aggressive timelines and requirements' that would 'push dependable power plants toward retirement at a time when electricity demand is rising and the grid is already under strain.'
'Project Tundra was initiated well before the current power plant regulations were finalized,' Fladhammer said, adding that the project 'remains an option under active evaluation as we assess technologies that can support reliable, lower-carbon energy production.'
Meanwhile, a natural gas power plant in West Virginia with CCS — the CPV Shay Energy Center — 'remains in active development,' said Matthew Litchfield, vice president of external and regulatory affairs at Competitive Power Ventures, in a statement Friday.
Announced in 2022 shortly after Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, the plant would have a capacity of about 2,000 megawatts. It's in the process of working through the interconnection process with regional grid operator PJM Interconnection, according to Litchfield. Construction on the plant is slated to begin in the fourth quarter of 2026.
'We look forward to continuing to advance the project and help the region address the critical need for more large dispatchable power projects like CPV Shay,' he said.
Meanwhile, utility Duke Energy is working on a front-end engineering and design study for a CCS project at the Edwardsport coal-to-gas plant in Indiana, and that's expected to wrap in the third quarter of 2026. Duke welcomed EPA's announcement last week.
'Last year's power plant rule unnecessarily puts pressure on customer affordability and grid reliability with little to no environmental benefits,' Duke spokesperson Angeline Protogere said in an email Friday. 'We appreciate EPA's ongoing efforts to address these concerns.'
Separately, Entergy said an engineering study for a potential CCS project at the Lake Charles Power Station in Louisiana is still ongoing and is expected to be completed this summer.
'While we are currently reviewing EPA's proposal for fossil fuel-powered generating plants, Entergy has long supported the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and we remain committed to transitioning to modern low- and zero carbon-emitting generating resources,' said Neal Kirby, an Entergy spokesperson, in a statement about EPA's proposed repeal.
In Florida, Tampa Electric spokesperson Cherie Jacobs said the utility currently has 'no plans to move forward with CCS,' but is planning to drill two test wells near the Polk Power Station in central Florida to better understand the area's geology.
Tampa Electric could decide to pursue CCS in the future 'if it's in the best interest of our customers,' Jacobs said.
This story also appears in Climatewire.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the timing of Project Tundra's cost increase.