Erin Burns, Director of Policy at Carbon180, testified in front of the House Science Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy regarding the Fossil Energy Research and Development Act. Erin explains what it is and how it might play out. We also get a brief update on the USE IT Act, which Erin told us about last time she was on Carbon Removal Newsroom.
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hello and welcome to Carbon Removal Newsroom. I’m Ross Kenyon, lead strategist with the Nori Carbon Removal Marketplace. Today we have a Carbon Removal Newsroom veteran back with us, Erin Burns, Director of Policy at Carbon 180. Erin, you had the, I assume, pleasure of testifying in front of the House Science Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy. Congratulations. It looked like you were holding your own in there. What took place? What were you doing?
Erin Burns: Yeah, no, thanks for having me on again. Yeah, so last week I did testify. I will say it’s my first time testifying. I worked in the Senate for a long time, so I’ve prepared for a lot of hearings, never been on the testifying end, which is, I think, both more terrifying but a little more exciting. So I was there to talk about a bill that is going to be introduced soon called the Fossil Energy Research and Development Act. And this is a bill that was introduced last Congress. They’re about to reintroduce it and something we’re really excited about.
Ross Kenyon: What exactly does the bill do? What might be its outcomes? What is it trying to accomplish?
Erin Burns: Sure. So this bill reauthorizes the Office of Fossil Energy, which is the D. C. way of saying that it updates how the Office of Fossil Energy operates. And so at the Department of Energy, there are several different offices and they work on different types of technology. So there’s the Office of Nuclear and they work on nuclear. There’s the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. And you can probably guess what they work on. The Office of Fossil Energy isn’t named quite as appropriately, in my opinion. The vast majority of the work that they do is carbon capture.
That’s really great. They’ve done a lot of really fantastic work. But the last time the structure of the Office of Fossil Energy and their carbon capture work was updated was in 2005. Obviously, the world we live in, both broadly and energy-wise, is very different today than it was in 2005. So this bill would update the structure of the carbon capture work at the Department of Energy. And I think there are three really important things that this bill would do, things that we’re really excited about. One is that most of the carbon capture work at the Department of Energy to date has been really focused on carbon capture for coal plants.
That’s not the only place we’re gonna need carbon capture. And certainly in the US, we’re gonna need it a lot on natural gas plants, and even more so in the industrial sector. So things like steel and cement production, where we don’t have a lot of options to decarbonize these plants right now, and carbon capture is one really important tool. So this bill would have the Department of Energy’s carbon capture program work not just on coal applications of carbon capture, but also on natural gas and industrial applications. So that’s one really important thing.
The second thing that we’re really excited about is that it would establish the first ever carbon removal program at the Department of Energy. To date, the Department of Energy spent around $11 million ever, not in one year, ever. On direct air capture, that is a drop in the bucket, obviously, and we need a lot more funding, especially on the heels of the National Academies of Sciences report that came out at the end of last year. We shouldn’t, you know, I think we’re all really aware of how important an R&D component is for getting direct air capture technologies and other carbon removal pathways off the ground.
So this bill would establish a first ever carbon removal program and it would make sure that it was well funded. The third and final thing that I’ll mention is the Department of Energy does have a carbon use program, but a lot of that has been focused on algae applications to date, and it’s been funded at about $10 to $12 million ever. Again, I’m sorry, $10 to $12 million a year, not ever, so a little more than direct air capture. But that’s obviously not at the level that we’re going to need if we’re going to take full advantage of the opportunities around carbon use or what we call carbon tech.
So taking that carbon dioxide and turning it into commercial products or using it to produce commercial products. We have a report out there, my colleagues Rory and Matt authored a report that shows that there’s a $1 trillion total available market for carbon tech here in the US alone and nearly $6 trillion globally. So what this bill would do would be to about triple the amount of funding that the carbon use program spends at the Department of Energy. So those three things, opening up carbon capture work to work on natural gas industrial applications, There is a lot of exciting components to that.
Ross Kenyon: I’m wondering if we might be able to zoom out a little bit, Aaron, because I imagine some of the listeners don’t know, and I am not sure I fully understand how this works either. But how much of research I imagine this is, if nothing else, a very big signal that this tech is coming and it is a signal to private companies to go along in their own way as well. I loaded a lot in there. So you have your choice. You’re picking the litter.
Erin Burns: No, I think that’s a great question. I think that overall federal research is really, really important. So the Office of Fossil Energy, they do some lab scale research. The National Energy Technology Laboratory in my home state of West Virginia. They also have a Pittsburgh office, but the main one’s in Morgantown. They do the bulk of the carbon capture work. I’m sorry, the bulk of the carbon capture work is housed at that national lab, but other labs are involved. And they do a full scale set of research. So they do early stage research on cutting edge technologies, but they...
So the Petra Nova project, for example, which is a carbon capture project in Texas, is a commercial operating power plant right now. It still receives support from the Department of Energy. So I think, one, that the government does all of those sorts of things. And I think that we believe that the Department of Energy has a role in every single stage for new technologies because, again, There, you know, there’s a lot of research at the early stage on kind of new and cutting edge technologies. I think you hear a lot of interest in programs like ARPA-E.
The federal government is where a lot of that happens and federal government partnered with university research labs as well. But there’s also something called the valley of death where you need government support to get these technologies across the valley of death where you have kind of proof of concept. You might have a small scale pilot, but to move those up to full scale, commercial scale projects, We have tonnes and tonnes of examples where that has required government intervention. I mean, I think the kind of classic example of what the work that the Department of Energy does is solar panels.
So when solar panels, when they were first invented a long time ago, some folks thought they’re only going to be economical in space. That’s the kind of energy you need. That’s how much sunlight they’re going to need. And you can tell I’m not an engineer because this is how I’m describing the technology. I’m definitely just a policy person. But, you know, through government research, we improved the technology. But there were government programs like the SunShot program to bring down the cost of those technologies. And now we see them really widely deployed.
And so. The federal government does kind of all of those types of things. And this bill also includes research, not just at the national labs, not just at the lab scale or early stage. It also includes later stage funding for things like large scale pilots and demonstrations. And I’ll say the last thing is that Carbon Tech or the Carbon Youth Program, they work really closely with industry. And, you know, I mentioned that a lot of that is really focused on algae. They work really closely. We’re really close with companies and industry now to test out new technologies, to test out new pieces of things that might make technologies better, and to get those technologies scaled up.
Overall, the federal government has a role in all of those pieces.
Ross Kenyon: And this might be outside of your ken, Aaron, but I was wondering if you could explain if you know how this works with intellectual property. Does technology that’s developed in basic research that is government funded or operated, does that become open source and available for companies to run with? Or I imagine for some of these pilots and stuff they’re doing with companies, it probably doesn’t apply there, but there may be technology that’s free to use that people can riff on and innovate with. Yes?
Erin Burns: Yeah, so that’s a great question. I’m 100% not the expert in this, but my understanding is I think there are some bounds, but that it’s something that is also a little bit, there’s a little bit of flexibility on IP, but that there are some bounds about, you know, I don’t think it’s like you partner with the government and everything. You know, you have to make all of your technology public or anything along those lines. But yeah, I think those are typically and I think it also depends on where you are in the stage.
But if you’re thinking about like a later stage cost share program where you have a commercial company who wants to apply for a grant or cost share grant, you know, to deploy a commercial scale project that there’s a lot of negotiations that go into the IP process. But yeah, that’s a little something I’m not as familiar with.
Ross Kenyon: Okay. My mistake for asking questions that are somewhat extraneous, but interesting to me, intellectually, at least.
Erin Burns: It’s a great question.
Ross Kenyon: Well, thank you. Can you explain the mechanics of what will happen now with the bill? It’s going to be introduced soon, I understand. And then are there a number of co-sponsors already? Is it starting in the House? What might we expect?
Erin Burns: Yeah, so this bill will be introduced soon. Congressman Veazey, a Democrat from Texas, introduced it with the lead on it last year. He has confirmed that he will be leading it again this year. The full list of other members who might be co-sponsoring it hasn’t been released yet, and I think there’s still ongoing conversations. Last year it was led by Veazey and then a Republican, McKinley, who actually represents the district with the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown. This bill, so they have the hearing on the bill. Typically what will happen is they’ll go through a process where there’ll be what’s called a markup in the committee where the members will have a chance to vote on the bill, to offer amendments, and then once they go through that process, they’ll vote on full passage of the bill outside of that committee.
At some point in theory, it could go to the House floor, but there are a bunch of different pathways to get bills passed. Every bill that gets passed doesn’t get a vote on the Senate or House floor where every single member gets an opportunity to vote on it. There are lots and lots of different ways that bills get passed into law. I would say I’m optimistic about this bill moving. It was something that... It was introduced last year. Some members are familiar with it. It’s something that the staff who wrote this bill spent a lot of time on.
I’d like to say that every single bill out there, people spend a lot of time on them, but that’s That’s not always the case. And this is a bill that I would say spent about a year and a half on this bill, really making sure that not only was understanding the science and the logistics around updating how the Department of Energy works and how their carbon capture programs work, but also working with a lot of different key stakeholders in this space who care about these things to make sure that it incorporated a lot of feedback.
It’s just gone through a really, really great process. The other reason I’d say that we are optimistic about seeing some movement this year on the bill is that there is a similar bill that has been introduced in the Senate this year called the EFFECT Act with an E. It’s actually an acronym for a really long thing that I don’t remember. But it’s a similar bill to update the Office of Fossil Energy. It also would establish a carbon removal program for the first time ever. It’s a bipartisan bill that the Energy Committee and the Senate has already had a hearing on.
So there’s just a lot of enthusiasm. And I think that there’s a lot of enthusiasm for these issues, for carbon capture, for carbon removal. And I think there’s a sense that Typically, they like to update the structure and programs at the Department of Energy every 10 years or so. We’re rounding into year 15 here, so I think there’s this feeling of it’s time for them to go through this process again. So we’re hopeful that not only will we see introductions soon, but that we’ll actually start to see this bill move through the process.
Ross Kenyon: That was a mini civics lesson. So thanks. Thanks, Aaron. That’s good to know. Happy to have you back on sometime to talk more about this. For a similar thing that I’m going to ask you to do now, which is the previous time you came on, you were discussing the Use It Act. And I was wondering if anything interesting has happened with it since last time.
Erin Burns: That’s a great question. Yes, is the answer. So this is a bill that has been introduced in the House and the Senate, but also have more money for direct air capture and for carbon use. This bill went through the committee process in the Senate through the Environment Public Works Committee. It had a hearing and it’s actually been voted out of that committee. So we are continuing to talk to staff about how to move that forward and hopefully get it passed through the full Senate bill. You know, in the coming months or so.
So happy to keep you guys updated on what’s going on with the USIT Act. One other thing I would mention is there was another bill that was introduced. It got a little bit less attention, but it was introduced in the House and the Senate. And it’s called it’s an acronym again. We really have acronyms. USIT’s an acronym, Effect Act, something called the Sea Fuel Act, which is a bill that would have funding not just for direct air capture, but also for ocean capture. And all of that would be housed in the Department of Defense.
There are some places where they think there might be, I would say, first of all, on ocean capture in particular, the Naval Laboratory, the Naval Research Laboratory has done some research on direct ocean capture. There’s also some potential applications on things like aircraft carriers where you can have ocean capture, take the CO2, turn it into fuels. And not only is there a climate benefit, but also potentially a military readiness benefit. And I just want to mention that because it was a bill that kind of went under the radar a little bit compared to these other ones and is bipartisan in both the House and the Senate.
And I think it’s also reflective of the fact that this is an issue where we keep, you know, Congress after Congress, year after year, month after month, we see more and more interest from members on both sides of the aisle and how they can help incentivize these technologies about how they can be engaged in carbon removal and carbon tech. And so there’s just a lot of enthusiasm. I think you’re going to start to see or keep seeing more and more activity in Congress on these issues.
Ross Kenyon: Indeed. And one trend I’ve noticed, or at least have perceived myself noticing, though you could correct me here, is that a lot of the talk I’ve heard has previously been about carbon capture and use, things like fuel or being sited at coal power plants, etc. But in your testimony and the questions that you were being asked, a lot of them were about sequestration and true carbon removal. That seems to be new or newish. Is that correct?
Erin Burns: Definitely. I think, you know, we’ve run into challenges in the past where members aren’t super familiar with the carbon capture, but the ones who are are members who are interested from a coal perspective. I think that really started to change with the 45Q tax credit effort and members like Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island, who’s a known kind of climate hawk. He gives a weekly climate talk on the Senate floor. Members coming at it from very different angles. Part of the reason he was interested as well, you know, the climate angle, but also they have algae industries in his state.
And so I think that both as... Climate awareness for these technologies has been raising. I mean, I think in particular the 1. 5 degree report from the United Nations IPCC at the end of last year that showed that, you know, all 1. 5 degree C pathways, virtually all of them included some degree of carbon removal. I think that combined with the fact that you’re starting to see, you know, these projects, there was the Occidental Petroleum, I’m sorry, the Joint Oxy Petroleum. Carbon Engineering announcement of their half a million ton direct air capture plant.
As you see these come on board, there are 80-ish, I think, projects in the U. S. for carbon tech. As you start to see these industries ramp up, I think that combined with the kind of clear climate need for these things has really gotten the attention of Congress. I think the other thing I’ll say is, I think they also just think it’s cool, right? There are these machines where you can pull carbon dioxide out of the air and then you can turn it into things you can sell. And I think that kind of novelty factor is also really important.
Ross Kenyon: That seems correct to me, too. So I’m happy to be confirmed in my suspicions there. So great. Well, Aaron, thanks for joining us and giving these great updates. Congrats again on testifying.
Erin Burns: Thank you for having me. And I just wanted to have one shout out to make, which is just that we have a Carbon 180 newsletter and it recently got a makeover. It’s called The Carbon Copy Now. It is even more informative and better than before. And so at carbon180.org, you can subscribe to it. But shout out to Gianna and Elizabeth on our team who’ve done a really great job in updating it and making it, like I said, even better than before.
Ross Kenyon: And it’s a terrific resource. Be sure to check that out. We’ve represented that thing so many times. We love it. So please go subscribe to it. Check it out. And then also, Aaron, do you have Twitter handles or anything else that people should know where they can find more of your work?
Erin Burns: Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I’d love to plug my Twitter. I’m at Erin M, as in Marie Burns, on Twitter. And then you can always follow at Carbon 180. We are Carbon underscore 180.
Ross Kenyon: Great. Well, thank you again for being here. I’m sure it won’t be too long before we have you on again. And thanks for all you’re doing for carbon removal.
Erin Burns: No, thanks for having me.
