American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009 Released by U.S. House

The U.S. House Appropriations Committee has released its draft of the $825 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009. The proposal contains grants and loans for the construction of new renewable generation capacity, research funding, grants and loans for energy conservation and efficiency projects for homes, industry, and institutions, investment in public transportation systems and new technologies, and funding for education and training related to green jobs. The proposed expenditures and program areas will ultimately have to be reconciled with the Senate and Presidential versions that have not yet been put forward. A House vote is expected before the end of February. The region should be assembling a strategy for capturing its fair share and more of the funds that will be available. The draft bill contains the following elements related to energy and green jobs:

Energy generation and transmission:

• Reliable, Efficient Electricity Grid: $11 billion for research and development, pilot projects, and federal matching funds for the Smart Grid Investment Program to modernize the electricity grid making it more efficient, secure, and reliable and build new power lines to transmit clean, renewable energy from sources throughout the nation
• Renewable Energy Loan Guarantees: $8 billion for loans for renewable energy power generation and transmission projects
• Cleaning Fossil Energy: $2.4 billion for carbon capture and sequestration technology demonstration projects

Energy conservation and conservation:

• GSA Federal Buildings: $6.7 billion for renovations and repairs to federal buildings including at least $6 billion focused on increasing energy efficiency and conservation
• Local Government Energy Efficiency Block Grants: $6.9 billion to help state and local governments make investments that make them more energy efficient and reduce carbon emissions
• Home Weatherization: $6.2 billion to help low-income families reduce their energy costs by weatherizing their homes
• Smart Appliances: $300 million to provide consumers with rebates for buying energy efficient Energy Star products to replace old appliances
• Energy Efficiency Housing Retrofits: $2.5 billion for a new program to upgrade HUD sponsored low-income housing to increase energy efficiency, including new insulation, windows, and furnaces
• Energy Efficiency Grants and Loans for Institutions: $1.5 billion for energy sustainability and efficiency grants and loans to help school districts, institutes of higher education, local governments, and municipal utilities implement projects that will make them more energy efficient
• Industrial Energy Efficiency: $500 million for energy efficient manufacturing demonstration projects
• Veterans Medical Facilities: $950 million for veterans' medical facilities, including energy efficiency projects
• Job Corps Facilities: $300 million to upgrade job training facilities serving at-risk youth while improving energy efficiency
• School Construction: $20 billion, including $14 billion for K-12 and $6 billion for higher education, for renovation and modernization, including technology upgrades and energy efficiency improvements

Research:

• Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Research: $2 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy research, development, demonstration, and deployment activities to foster energy independence, reduce carbon emissions, and cut utility bills.
• National Science Foundation: $3 billion, including $2 billion for expanding employment opportunities in fundamental science and engineering to meet environmental challenges and to improve global economic competitiveness
• Department of Energy: $1.9 billion for basic research into the physical sciences including high-energy physics, nuclear physics, and fusion energy sciences and improvements to DOE laboratories and scientific facilities; $400 million is for the Advanced Research Project Agency - Energy to support high-risk, high-payoff research into energy sources and energy efficiency
• NASA: $600 million, including $400 million to put more scientists to work doing climate change research, including Earth science research recommended by the National Academies, satellite sensors that measure solar radiation critical to understanding climate change
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Satellites and Sensors: $600 million for satellite development and acquisitions, including climate sensors and climate modeling
• Department of Defense Research: $350 million for research into using renewable energy to power weapons systems and military bases

Transportation:

• Advanced Battery Loans and Grants: $2 billion for the Advanced Battery Loan Guarantee and Grants Program, to support U.S. manufacturers of advanced vehicle batteries and battery systems
• GSA Federal Fleet: $600 million to replace older vehicles owned by the federal government with alternative fuel automobiles that will save on fuel costs and reduce carbon emissions
• Electric Transportation: $200 million for a new grant program to encourage electric vehicle technologies
• Alternative Buses and Trucks: $400 million to help state and local governments purchase efficient alternative fuel vehicles to reduce fuel costs and carbon emissions
• Diesel Emissions Reduction: $300 million for grants and loans to state and local governments for projects that reduce diesel emissions, benefiting public health and reducing global warming
• New Construction: $1 billion for Capital Investment Grants for new commuter rail or other light rail systems to increase public use of mass transit
• Upgrades and Repair: $2 billion to modernize existing transit systems, including renovations to stations, security systems, computers, equipment, structures, signals, and communications
• Transit Capital Assistance: $6 billion to purchase buses and equipment needed to increase public transportation and improve intermodal and transit facilities
• Amtrak and Intercity Passenger Rail Construction Grants: $1.1 billion to improve the speed and capacity of intercity passenger rail service

Training and Employment Services:

• $4 billion for job training including formula grants for adult, dislocated worker, and youth services with priority consideration to healthcare and "green" jobs (retrofitting of buildings, green construction, production of renewable electric power, etc.)

Click here for the entire press release from the U.S. House Appropriations Committee.

2008 Regional Energy Industry Workforce Summit

On June 5th and 6th, 2008, 3 Rivers Clean Energy and Duquesne University's Center for Competitive Workforce Development, with support from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, hosted a workforce development summit focusing on the energy industry in Southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia. One hundred and thirty two (132) participants from industry, education, government, philanthropy, and the nonprofit sector convened to address the industry's workforce challenge.

Following presentations and panels of industry representatives, participants worked in small groups to address issues of recruitment, training, and retention. The reports of these working groups, as well as general themes and concluding recommendations can be accessed here. It is our hope that the Summit Proceedings and appended materials will function as an effective map of the workforce challenges facing the energy industry, and that they will serve to provide practical directions in addressing these challenges.

$400,000 State Award for Clean Energy Industry in SW PA

On October 23, 2008, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry awarded $400,000 to the 3 Rivers Clean Energy Partnership to support efforts to expand the clean energy industry in the southwestern Pennsylvania region and transform it into a research, development, and clean energy technology leader. The partnership will combine efforts with the International Union of Operating Engineers, which has delivered green building operator training, energy conservation training, and on-site energy efficiency training to more than 500 individuals over the past three years. Combined with $350,000 in private matching funds, the total investment is $760,000.

"Southwestern Pennsylvania was at the heart of our nation's industrial revolution," said Labor & Industry Deputy Secretary for Workforce Development Fred Dedrick. "Through the outstanding efforts of the 3 Rivers Clean Energy Partnership, and organizations like it, this region will be at the heart of our nation's clean energy revolution. By investing in today's advanced technologies and by training today's workforce to use them, Pennsylvania is working to ensure its place as a leader in the clean, sustainable energy industry of tomorrow and for years to come," Dedrick said.

Press Release on the Grant Award to the 3 Rivers Clean Energy Industry Partnership

The Economic Opportunity of Carbon Capture and Sequestration

One of the major energy challenges facing the world is creating cleaner energy from coal. Concerns about global warming have led to demands for reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, particularly from coal-fired power plants. There is now broad agreement that it is impractical to eliminate or even significantly reduce the use of coal in the foreseeable future, and instead the priority should be finding ways to reduce the CO2 emissions that coal plants produce.

The most promising approach is what is called "carbon capture and sequestration" - capturing the CO2 before it enters the atmosphere, piping it to a storage location, and injecting the CO2 into the ground ("sequestering" it) permanently. The first two of these steps - capture and transport of CO2 - are already used commercially in other parts of the country for enhancing recovery of oil and gas from wells. The third step - sequestration - has been pilot-tested on a small scale, but not yet on the scale needed for a typical power plant. However, even long-term underground storage is not a new concept - there are already large underground storage facilities for natural gas both here and in other regions.

The region that pioneers the implementation of production-scale carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology will likely be the region that reaps the economic rewards of that expertise in the future if the U.S. puts limits or taxes on CO2 emissions and when countries like China and India finally seek ways to reduce CO2 emissions from their coal plants. Southwestern Pennsylvania is well-positioned to be that pioneer because of a unique set of assets: many of our thousands of former oil and gas wells are "underground brownfields" that can be reused for sequestration of CO2; the proximity of those storage locations to major CO2 generation sites minimizes transport costs; and we have some of the best energy and environmental expertise in the world at the National Energy Technology Laboratory, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, and West Virginia University.

However, as important as they are, these assets are not enough. State government needs to create a clear legislative and regulatory framework that enables private investors to pursue CCS projects. Two things are particularly important: (1) the state should enable the use of the geologic structures under state-owned gamelands and parks as sites for carbon sequestration; and (2) the state should provide a system for dealing with liabilities associated with sequestration, analogous to what the federal government did in the early days of the nuclear power industry. Other states are already working to put appropriate legislation in place, and the Pennsylvania General Assembly needs to move quickly if we are going to maintain a leadership position.

A detailed briefing paper on Carbon Capture and Sequestration and the opportunities for Southwestern Pennsylvania can be downloaded here.

Formation of the 3 Rivers Clean Energy Partnership

The 3 Rivers Clean Energy Partnership (3RCEP) was formed to bring together southwestern Pennsylvania companies that are part of the supply chain for the energy generation industry, with a particular focus on the members of the nuclear industry supply chain. The mission of the 3 Rivers Clean Energy Partnership is to ensure that the workforce needs of local energy businesses are met, and that the skills and talents of the workforce are developed such that the workers not only benefit as individuals, but that the workforce collectively serves as an economic engine to help grow and attract energy-related businesses. The 3RCEP works to accomplish this mission through:

• Coordination of worker training programs across strategic businesses and programs in southwestern Pennsylvania that participate in the energy generation or conservation supply chain
• Communication of industry challenges and development of strategies to address them in coordination with regional programmatic and policy initiatives
• Coordination with regional energy industry workforce initiatives, the other energy Industry Partnerships across the state, and the efforts of the newly created statewide energy industry consortium.

An industry partnership is a multi-employer collaborative effort that brings together management and labor around the common purpose of improving the competitiveness of a cluster of companies or organizations producing similar products or services and sharing similar supply chains, critical human resource needs, infrastructure requirements, business services, and/or retention/recruitment challenges. The purpose of partnerships is to concentrate attention and resources on particular clusters of industries that provide good wages and benefits, have the greatest potential for economic growth and/or which face serious challenges to growth or retention. By bringing together employers and their workers, the public sector can learn more about the opportunities and challenges facing a set of similar companies. Since 2004, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry has been developing industry partnerships in targeted clusters to organize workforce development strategies and focus training funds. Other partnerships include Advanced Materials and Diversified Manufacturing, Agriculture and Food Production, and Business and Financial Services.

Fact Sheet on the 3 Rivers Clean Energy Industry Partnership

The Demise of FutureGen: An Opportunity for the 3 Rivers Region?

Coal-fired generation represents about half of the electricity that is used in the United States and about 26% of the total world energy consumption, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The EIA predicts that coal consumption will increase by 2.6 percent per year on average from now until 2015, and then will slow to an average increase of 1.8 percent annually from 2015 to 2030. Coal's share of total world energy consumption is projected to increase to 28 percent in 2030, and in the electric power sector, its share is projected to rise from the current 43 percent to 45 percent in 2030.

Although coal currently is the second-largest fuel source of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions (behind oil), accounting for 39 percent of the world total in 2004, the EIA projects it to become the largest source by 2010. The two key factors underlying the increase are a more rapid projected growth rate for world coal consumption than for oil consumption, and the fact that carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy output are higher for coal than for oil or natural gas. In 2030, coal's share of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions is projected to be 43 percent, compared with 36 percent for oil and 21 percent for natural gas.

All of this tells us that not only is coal utilization here to stay, but that it will be growing into the future. The need to make coal clean, safe, and efficient has never been greater. It is unlikely that those countries whose coal usage is growing the fastest, such as China and India, will be investing in clean coal research and development, as their resources are being consumed in trying to keep up with the public infrastructure needed to support their exploding middle classes. So the burden for finding ways to reduce the problems caused by coal falls on the United States.

A recent Wall Street Journal article ("After Washington Pulls Plug on FutureGen, Clean Coal Hopes Flicker," February 2, 2008) says that "there is no way the U.S. will be able to meet a targeted 80% reduction in CO2 levels below 1990 levels by 2050 - the goal of major legislation favored by several presidential aspirants - unless it develops benign ways to burn coal." It goes on to note that more than 50 conventional coal-fired plants across the country were canceled or delayed due to concerns about the environmental impact or through fear that carbon legislation is coming that could make their output uneconomic.

FutureGen was conceived as a public-private partnership to build a first-of-its-kind coal-fueled, near-zero emissions power plant. It would combine advanced technologies related to coal gasification, electricity generation, emissions control, carbon dioxide capture and storage, and hydrogen production. Although the dual-turbine system used to create electricity from gasified coal (known as Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) technology) has been proven at commercial scale, the technologies listed above have yet to be put together and tested at a single plant - an essential step for technical and commercial viability. The FutureGen project was therefore intended to prove that it is possible to produce economical, coal-fueled electricity with carbon capture at a commercial scale. It should be noted that CONSOL Energy is a member of the FutureGen partnership.

The U.S. Department of Energy recently canceled the FutureGen project, but has indicated that it intends to support multiple, smaller demonstrations. This could represent a significant opportunity for the 3 Rivers Region. FutureGen was "the" demonstration project for clean coal, with plans to spend in excess of a billion dollars. If the federal government redirects the funds toward the advancement of the individual technologies, and this region, with its premier coal-related research assets, could be a major beneficiary. With coordinated advocacy and outreach, the 3 Rivers Region could become the center of the next generation of clean coal technology.

©2007, 2008 3 Rivers Clean Energy. All rights reserved.