DOE

There is a lot of talk about the best way to meet the expected increases in U.S. power demand, driven by manufacturing growth and the rapid development of large-scale data centers, which has sparked renewed interest in nuclear power. The most recent reactors to come online were Units 3 and 4 at Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear power station, but they came in well over budget and far behind schedule. Still, the startup of those units is a significant milestone as they are the first new reactors to come online in the U.S. since 2016. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss the lessons learned from the Vogtle project and what they might mean for future nuclear development. 

The Biden administration’s recently announced decision to pause further action on new LNG export permits for at least several months sent shockwaves through the industry and shook up expectations regarding which projects will be hurt by — or benefit from — the pause. As we’ll discuss in today’s RBN blog, the decision is likely to put a number of Gulf Coast LNG export projects (one of them a real giant) in limbo, set back a Mexican project that would depend on Permian and Eagle Ford gas, and boost a couple of projects up in Canada. Oh, and there’s this: The pause also may help two avowed enemies of the U.S.: Russia and Iran. 

There’s no doubt about it: The Biden administration’s decision to pause approval of LNG export licenses  poses a new threat to a number of projects thought to be nearing a final investment decision (FID). The questions brought on by the move are profound: how big of a problem is this for U.S. developers, how does the timeout affect the projects now in limbo, and — over the longer term — what does the added uncertainty regarding incremental LNG exports mean for U.S. crude oil and natural gas production and what does it mean for the global energy landscape? In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the factors that led to the administration’s announcement — and the case to be made that expanded LNG exports are in the U.S.’s economic and strategic interest. 

The incredible growth in U.S. LNG export capacity over the past few years has been facilitated by a mostly predictable federal permitting process. It may sometimes be slower than developers like and leave them more open to pushback at the state and local level, but LNG export projects that enter the federal permitting process with both the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) are generally granted their authorizations and export licenses. And once they have them, they’ve been able to hold onto them — until now. Both FERC and the DOE had been granting extensions to these permits as their authorization windows were closing, meaning that projects that were authorized a decade ago and still not online have retained their authorizations and export licenses. But with a DOE rule change announced April 21, the era of repeatedly renewing authorizations appears to be over. The DOE is sending a clear message to LNG developers: Get your project across the finish line in a timely manner or get out of the way and make space for someone who can. In today’s RBN blog, we take a closer look at the DOE rule change and its impact on LNG projects currently under development.

The U.S. is gearing up to provide billions of dollars in financial support for a series of regional clean hydrogen hubs and had what amounts to an informal cutdown at the end of December, announcing that 33 project proponents had been formally encouraged to submit a full application this spring. Although the Department of Energy (DOE) didn’t name any of the projects on the “encouraged” list, we’ve been able to identify many of the proposals — and add five more in today’s blog — even though a lot of project details remain under wraps. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at the new projects on our list and examine the major factors that are likely to influence a project’s viability.

The U.S. has committed billions of dollars over the last couple of years to clean-energy initiatives, everything from advanced fuels and carbon-capture technology to renewable energy and electric vehicles. The “all-of-the-above” approach also includes clean hydrogen, whose development the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has deemed crucial to meeting the Biden administration’s goals of a 100% clean electric grid by 2035 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. As part of its efforts, the U.S. plans to provide generous financial support for the buildout of several hydrogen hubs — initial concept papers were submitted last year by dozens of applicants for the federal largesse, and the DOE recently provided formal “encouragement” to 33 proponents to submit a full application this spring, in what amounts to an informal cutdown, but declined to name them. In today’s RBN blog, we examine the 18 projects we’ve been able to identify that survived the trimming, what they tell us about the selection process, and how it compares to our previous expectations.

If clean hydrogen is not a significant contributor to the U.S. energy mix by the 2030s, it won’t be because Congress and the Biden administration didn’t try. First, last year’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided the Department of Energy (DOE) with up to $8 billion to support the development of several regional hydrogen hubs, plus another $1 billion to back efforts to halve the cost of producing hydrogen via renewables-powered electrolysis. Then, this year’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provided tax credits for investing in new production facilities and producing clean hydrogen — incentives generous enough to spur announcements for at least an initial round of multibillion-dollar projects. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss highlights from our new Drill Down Report on the variety of hydrogen-hub proposals the feds will be reviewing.

If clean hydrogen is not a significant contributor to the U.S. energy mix by the 2030s, it won’t be because Congress and the Biden administration didn’t try. First, last year’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided the Department of Energy (DOE) with up to $8 billion to support the development of several regional hydrogen hubs, plus another $1 billion to back efforts to halve the cost of producing hydrogen via renewables-powered electrolysis. Then, this year’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provided tax credits for investing in new production facilities and producing clean hydrogen — incentives generous enough to spur announcements for at least an initial round of multibillion-dollar projects. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss highlights from our new Drill Down Report on the variety of hydrogen-hub proposals the feds will be reviewing.

The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) $8 billion program to accelerate the development of regional hydrogen hubs is shifting into a higher gear. DOE in early November received an unspecified number of “concept papers” on prospective hubs and is now reviewing their merits, with plans to provide applicants with initial feedback within the next few days. By April 2023 — when full proposals are due — there’s a good chance that, based on DOE’s input, a least a few individual projects will be combined into a smaller set of stronger proposals. A case in point may be two competing but seemingly complementary hydrogen-hub plans in the Pacific Northwest. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss those proposals and the prospects for a clean-hydrogen build-out in the region.