A panel of environmental justice leaders advising the Biden administration has asked EPA to leave carbon capture and storage and hydrogen out of its upcoming climate rule for existing gas-fired power plants.
The White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council’s newest carbon management recommendations — which were adopted in June and posted to its website Tuesday after a lengthy delay — urge EPA to avoid basing the upcoming rule on technologies that would capture smokestack emissions for permanent storage or on burning high blends of hydrogen to displace gas.
“Carbon capture and storage and hydrogen co-firing should both be absent from the re-proposal of the rule focused on natural gas plants, and a cumulative impacts analysis and policy should be included when the rule is ultimately promulgated,” the panel recommended.
EPA proposed a standard last year that would have required new and existing gas plants to cut their climate pollution to levels consistent with using carbon capture systems or co-firing gas with hydrogen. But the agency only finalized a rule for future gas plants and coal generation, leaving existing gas plants unregulated for carbon until it proposes another rule. It’s not expected to occur before President Joe Biden leaves office.
