U.S. Congressman Dan Crenshaw Proudly Serving Texas’s 2nd Congressional District
Press Releases
Washington, July 18, 2019
Tags: Energy
WASHINGTON, DC – Representative Dan Crenshaw, joined by Representatives Cuellar (TX-28), Flores (TX-17), Gonzalez (TX-15), Lamb (PA-17), Lucas (OK-3) and Walberg (MI-7), introduced the Launching Energy Advancement and Development through Innovations for Natural Gas (LEADING) Act of 2019. The legislation prioritizes research and development funding for technology that captures carbon emissions by instructing the Department of Energy to utilize up to $50 million each year of existing funds. Ultimately, the bill seeks to develop more carbon capture technology to make it more accessible, resulting in widespread use and lower carbon emissions from power plants across the country. Yesterday, the Senate companion bill advanced out the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources with unanimous support.
“Carbon capture technology has huge potential to dramatically reduce our emissions,” said Crenshaw. “Our very own Net Power Plant, in La Porte, Texas employs this technology and has achieved zero emissions while burning enough natural gas to power 5,000 homes in the Houston area. This is an important step forward for green energy solutions that work towards our goal of lowering global emissions through clean, cheap, and exportable energy.”
“Clean, efficient, and affordable natural gas is a critical component of America’s energy portfolio,” said Science, Space and Technology Committee Ranking Member Lucas. “Modernizing energy production and reducing greenhouse gas emissions requires realistic solutions that don’t prohibit effective fuel sources and inhibit economic growth. This bill will expand early-stage research and development of carbon capture technologies to make natural gas an even cleaner energy source. I’m proud to cosponsor this bipartisan legislation that will help make carbon capture commercially viable and help strengthen and modernize America’s natural gas production.”
“We need an economically sensible solution to reducing greenhouse emissions and fighting climate change in the United States,” said Cuellar. “Carbon capture has been shown to be the best way to properly mitigate the effects of climate change, create more reliable, affordable energy, and increase economic growth. To obtain the full benefits of carbon capture, this legislation will encourage more investment and research so we can accelerate the development and commercialization of the cost-effective carbon capture technologies. I want to thank Representatives Crenshaw, Lucas, Flores, Lamb, Gonzalez and Walberg for working to tackle climate change in the United States.”
“Thanks to the dramatic increase in the use of cleaner burning natural gas and new innovations, the U.S. has the lowest emissions of any industrialized country while remaining the world’s largest economy and significant creator of jobs and economic opportunities,” said Flores. “The LEADING Act incentivizes research and development of carbon capture technologies, which will allow us to fully harness the environmental benefits of America’s vast natural gas resources and keep energy costs low for hardworking families.”
“Here in Michigan, we are leading the way on making a responsible transition to clean natural gas. This bipartisan bill would help get new innovative technologies out of the lab and into the market, providing more affordable energy options for consumers,” said Walberg.
The full text of the bill can be found here.
###
Carbon capture IMO is one of the most terrifyingly dangerous green technologies.
In 1986 Lake Nyos belched somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 tons of CO2, killing people up to 15 miles from the site of the belch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos_disaster
100,000 tons is a few weeks output from a large power plant.
Thankfully Lake Nyos was and is sparsely inhabited, probably because ever few centuries everyone near the lake dies.
If a similar disaster happened near a major city the casualties could be comparable to the death toll from the detonation of an atomic bomb.
Let the CO2 fly free, so it can do its job of being plant food, instead of creating hideously dangerous concentrations.
I don’t think he understands the issues. Undoing the Carter era rules on nuclear would have a much more positive effect, even if one is ignorant enough to buy into the “CO2 is the temperature knob” theme.
Net Power Plant, in La Porte, Texas…
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Experimental-Texas-power-plant-aims-to-make-13654087.php#photo-17003111
The phrase is “win-win”.
Can we send Crenshaw a couple of books to read? Do Congressmen or their staff read books sent to their offices?
The money would be far better spent in support of Modular Molten Salt Nuclear Reactor technology. Zero emissions, intrinsically safe, economic, reliable and, I believe, potentially capable of being partially fuelled by existing nuclear waste.
Meanwhile carbon capture and storage is technically a bit of a dead duck.
“Here in Michigan, we are leading the way on making a responsible transition to clean natural gas. This bipartisan bill would help get new innovative technologies out of the lab and into the market, providing more affordable energy options for consumers,” said Walberg.
LOL
Got a better idea, just vent the CO2 to the atmosphere and let the plants do the work that they have been doing for millions of years; they love the stuff and it wont cost anyone a plugged nickel.
OB
Yeah…right…
The spoon and fork made me fat.
Taking guns away from legal owners will reduce crime.
The dog ate my homework.
The government does things more efficiently and economically that the private sector.
Humans 1% contributions of Carbon Dioxide increases temperature where 99% of natural contributions don’t.
CCS is a colossal waste of energy and money.
There is no other way to put it.
But when you’re a Congressperson, spending OPM is what you do to get re-elected.
Sad.
“The legislation prioritizes research and development funding for technology that captures carbon emissions by instructing the Department of Energy to utilize up to $50 million each year of existing funds.
If DoE has $50 million to waste on CCS, then that’s $50 million too much in its budget.
He couldn’t get Al Green to co-sponser ?
😉
I have lived a long time and at one point in my life would have been outraged by such stupidity but thanks to wisdom that comes with age I just shake my head and say what a pile of excrement. I thought we were the intelligent species.
If it’s “bi-partisan” anything, run away.
Rather than on carbon capture, the time, effort, and money would be better spent on holding one’s breath.
The main, probably only, value of carbon-capture technology is that it can be used to make the green idiots think we are successfully addressing their concerns.
Yes, it’s a non-viable solution for a problem that doesn’t exist, but these people clearly enjoy being lied to and sometimes I feel like obliging them.
Another politician drinks the Kool-Aid.
OK as long as nothing in the bill is ‘cast in concrete’. I don’t believe anything along this line can be made to pencil out. The energy to put the carbon into storage will always exceed the energy obtained to release it. If a very cheap source of energy is found to do this it is better used to defer further ‘release’ of ‘new’ carbon.
No benefit to warming has yet been shown. In other words, if “X” megtons of carbon are ‘sequestered’ the temperatore will be ‘not increased’ by “Y” degrees to a reasonable certainty – ie it is not yet proven.
Why capture it? Let it free. I eagerly anticipate the day when our atmospheric concentration reaches 800 ppm and heralds a new dawn of agricultural and forest product abundance.
The EIA came out with a report a short while ago in their Frequently Asked Questions, “How much natural gas does the USA have and how long will it last. Check it out.
America needs a lot of energy produced if we are going to continue to live the lifestyles we are accustomed to. We believe America has to start looking at the future and what we have for energy and how we can best utilize that energy, and it will be good for all.
We have over 600 years of coal in the ground. Coal can be combusted clean. https://youtu.be/RQRQ7S92_lo
Natural gas should be used for building space heating and by industry to produce all those things we need every day. Coal should be used to produce our electricity. President Trump has the right idea of putting up a bunch of smaller capacity high efficiency low emission coal power plants. That will work much better for ramping to fill the gaps in solar and wind. Oil is for transportation.
It still requires that someone with deep pockets, any sceptical very rich men/women , or the Federal government, to prove that CO2
is a good and essential gas, with continues publication every week of that fact.
Remember Dr. Gobbles, “”Tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”.
Well the Greens do that all the time, so let us do it too.
MJE VK5ELL
Natural gas should be used to heat your house, not power electrical turbines. Some one stand to make a ton of dough off this farce, and it won’t the consumer. The consumer will pay through the nose, either in outrages power bills, or hidden in big tax increases to subsidize the whole scam.
This is very disappointing from a Republican congressman.
“Bipartisan” support for the carbon capture fraud? So republicans are coming out of the globalist closet? When will this madness end?
When we look at the big picture, it is very clear that the Earth is in a CO2 drought. This drought has the potential to bring about the next mass extinction. Fortunately, humans came along just in time to liberate the sequestered C and save the planet. But some humans want to thwart that!
I thought the cheapest and most efficient way to capture carbon is to replace old growth forest with new trees.
The reality is that there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and there is plenty of scientific rationale to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. So capturing CO2 will have no effect on climate. This effort also ignore’s another more potent greenhouse gas that the burning of fossil fuels creates, H2O. For those that believe in the radiant greenhouse effect, artificially sequestering CO2 will have no real effect on the total amount of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere which is dominated by H2O and the subsequent overall radiant greenhouse effect. The best way to sequester CO2 is to provide more plants that will turn it into hydro-carbon organic matter and O2. Currently adding more CO2 to the Earth’s atmosphere is better for life in general. A sudden release of sequestered CO2 could be very dangerous and lethal. If one is really serous about reducing the burning of fossil fuels one would be spending money on replacing old fossil fuel power plants with nuclear power plants.
CCS – An absurd, expensive, “solution” to a non-problem. “Carbon” isn’t the problem; carbonophobes is the problem.