This section is for other news that may directly or indirectly impact CCS deployment

CARBON MARKETS

• Integrity Council launches global benchmark for high-integrity carbon credits.  The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM or Integrity Council)  launched its  Core Carbon Principles and Program-level Assessment Framework, setting rigorous thresholds on disclosure and sustainable development for high-integrity carbon credits and establishing a pathway towards even higher ambition. The Core Carbon Principles (CCPs), developed with input from hundreds of organizations throughout the voluntary carbon market, set out fundamental principles for high-quality credits that create real, verifiable climate impact based on the latest science and best practice. The ICVCM is also publishing the first part of its Assessment Framework, which provides detailed criteria for assessing whether carbon-crediting programs (programs) are CCP-Eligible. 
• Some see these rules as disappointing, as being too little, too late. 
• Doubts on carbon-credit program in Peru forest.   The Cordillera Azul National Park on the eastern flank of the Peruvian Andes takes in a sweep of Amazon rainforest, mountains, and waterfalls in a territory about the size of Connecticut, so precious that tens of millions of dollars in carbon credits have been sold in a program that supporters said would protect its trees. But an analysis by independent experts and reporting by The Associated Press raises doubts about whether the project has delivered on its promise to counter-balance emissions by oil companies such as Shell, TotalEnergies and others. And the tree loss has more than doubled, according to satellite analysis. Experts say the Cordillera Azul project was flawed from the beginning, with far too many carbon credits generated and exaggerated benefits that allowed the nonprofit running the park for the Peruvian government to make more money — even as the tree canopy shrank. 
• Carbon markets are heating up. As a result, carbon dioxide is getting more valuable. Last year was the costliest yet to buy emissions permits in carbon markets, a new report finds. Increased carbon prices in Europe and North America drove a 13 percent rise in the value of carbon dioxide in 2022, according to a new report from Refinitiv, a British-based provider of financial markets data. Global carbon market transactions rose to $9.2 trillion, up from about $8.2 trillion in 2021. That’s despite a 20 percent decline in the number of transactions compared with 2021. 
• Successful first auction marks turning point in fight against climate change in Washington State.  Washington State held its first cap-and-invest auction on Feb. 28, marking a historic moment in its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to a clean energy future. Information from the auction is now published online in an  Auction Summary Report, following validation by staff at the Washington Department of Ecology and an independent market monitor. 

• Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.)  and Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) plan to put forth the  “Clean Electricity Transmission Acceleration Act of 2023”. The bill is a mix of older ideas and new proposals for speeding up permitting for renewable energy projects. It would rely heavily on giving new authorities to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, prioritizing emission-reducing initiatives, mandating input from front-line communities, and creating new offices to streamline the greenlighting of projects. It would draw from bills formally introduced by Senate Democratic leaders in the space, including Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. It would also include some of the intent of the sweeping “Environmental Justice for All Act,” which was just reintroduced in honor of its champion, the late Rep. Donald McEachin (D-Va.). 

• The Department of Energy (DOE) released  a report  entitled “ Evaluating Impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law on the U.S. Power System.”  The report states fossil generation with CCS could be economically deployed at levels reaching the tens of gigawatts if such technologies achieve projected cost and performance levels and the required supporting infrastructure is successfully developed. However, tempering the message is the current  substantial uncertainty around the future costs of fossil generation with CCS technologies, and in particular, the cost of retrofitting existing fossil generation facilities with CCS given the diversity in plant age, capacity, efficiency, existing emission controls, and siting, among other characteristics.

• The DOE  Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) states that technology  that uses a single step to capture carbon dioxide and turn it into methanol could decrease the cost of capturing carbon dioxide by as much as 23%.  For additional information, see the peer-reviewed  study and PNNL news release.  The study reviewed four carbon dioxide -Binding Organic Liquids, all water-lean solvents, where each presents promising options for energy-effective and low-cost carbon capture from point sources. 

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

• Researchers develop solution that could make carbon capture three times more efficient. In an "urgently needed" discovery that could revolutionize direct air capture, researchers from Lehigh University have found a way to potentially make the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere cheaper and more efficient. The novel process, published in the Science Advances journal, works with the standard direct air capture (DAC) machines used by companies like Climeworks, which suck in air before running it through filters and sorbents that extract the carbon dioxide. But in this case, the researchers introduced a new type of hybrid sorbent that contains copper and discovered that it has a carbon capture capacity "nearly two to three times greater" than any other sorbent used to date. 

• GE and Svante will collaborate to develop and evaluate innovative solid sorbent technologies for carbon capture from natural gas power generation.  The companies have announced a joint development agreement (JDA) to develop and evaluate solid sorbent-based carbon capture technology for natural gas power generation applications. In addition, GE  made an equity investment in Svante as a part of Svante’s US $318 million Series E fundraising round in December 2022. The JDA between GE Gas Power and Svante will focus on further development and commercialization of novel solid sorbent technologies “aimed at decarbonizing natural gas-fired turbines in a cost-effective, environmentally responsible manner.”  

• Path to net-zero carbon capture and storage may lead to ocean. Lehigh Engineering researcher Arup SenGupta has developed a novel way to capture carbon dioxide from the air and store it in the “infinite sink” of the ocean. The approach uses an innovative copper-containing polymeric filter and  converts carbon dioxide into sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda) that can be released harmlessly into the ocean. This new hybrid material, or filter, is called DeCarbonHIX (i.e., decarbonization through hybrid ion exchange material) and is described in a paper recently published in the journal Science Advances.  

STATES 

• ILLINOIS GLE begins engineering on Marquis Industrial Complex CCS. Gas Liquids Engineering Ltd. (GLE) has begun detailed engineering on a major carbon capture and sequestration project for Marquis Carbon Capture. The Marquis Industrial Complex houses Marquis Energy-Illinois, the world’s largest dry grind ethanol plant. 
• INDIANA U. S. Steel and CarbonFree combine on steel plant CCS. The companies have signed an MoU to jointly pursue the capture of Carbon Dioxide emissions generated from U. S. Steel’s Gary Works manufacturing plant using CarbonFree’s SkyCycle™ technology. If a definitive agreement is reached, the project is expected to capture and mineralize up to 50,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. 
• TEXAS Bayou Bend expands carbon capture project to onshore Southeast Texas . Bayou Bend CCS has expanded its project through the acquisition of nearly 100,000 acres onshore in Chambers and Jefferson Counties, Texas. 
• TEXAS Occidental company 1PointFive announces CCS hub plan in Texas. The 55,000-acre site has resource potential to store approximately 1.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide to provide a carbon removal solution for industrial facilities. 

UTILIZATION 

• Carbon capture might not work for all buildings. But some are giving it a try. At the Grand Tier, a 30-story apartment tower on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the carbon dioxide from its two giant gas boilers is captured, cooled to a liquid, and then trucked to a concrete factory in Brooklyn. There, the carbon is mixed with cement and sealed into concrete blocks, where it can’t heat the atmosphere.