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Rivers are the West’s largest source of clean energy. What happens when drought strikes?

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Friday, April 26, 2024

In Washington, a dozen dams dot the Columbia River — that mighty waterway carved through the state by a sequence of prehistoric superfloods. Between those dams and the hundreds of others that plug the rivers and tributaries that lace the region, including California and Nevada, the Western United States accounts for most of the hydroelectric energy the country generates from the waters flowing across its landscape. Washington alone captures more than a quarter of that; combined with Oregon and Idaho, the Pacific Northwest lays claim to well over two-fifths of America’s dam-derived electricity. So when a drought hits the region, the nation takes notice. That happened in 2023 when, according to a recent report, U.S. hydroelectric power hit its lowest level in 22 years. While the atmospheric rivers that poured across California provided the state with abundant energy, the Pacific Northwest endured low summer flows after a late-spring heat wave caused snowpack to melt and river levels to peak earlier than normal. Though dam turbines kept spinning throughout the year — proving that even during a drought the nation’s hydro system remains reliable — last year offered energy providers in the West a glimpse of the conditions they may need to adapt to as the world warms and seasonal weather patterns shift. While models predict climate change will plunge California and the Southwest deeper into drought, what awaits Washington and Oregon is less clear. The Pacific Northwest will get warmer. That much is certain. But in terms of the rain that places like Seattle and Portland are known for, things get fuzzier. Read Next How does climate change threaten where you live? A region-by-region guide. Grist staff “Whenever you bring in water precipitation and you’re looking at climate model results, they go in all directions,” said Sean Turner, a water resources and hydropower engineer with Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The Evergreen and Beaver states could get drier or wetter — or both, depending on the time of year. Nathalie Voisin, chief scientist for water-energy dynamics at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, said much of the latest research suggests an increase in total annual hydroelectric power in the region, but, as Turner noted as well, uncertainties remain. “So as a trend, we see an increase” in annual precipitation, Voisin said, “but we also see an increase in variability of very wet years and very dry years.” Even during wet years, however, the water won’t fall in a gentle mist evenly distributed from new year to year end. The bulk of it, Voisin said, is expected to come from atmospheric rivers streaming overhead between fall and spring, with rivers running low in late summer as the snow and ice in the mountains that rim the region melt ever earlier and no longer keep the waters as high as they historically have. These are things that the Bonneville Power Administration — the federal agency responsible for selling energy from the 31 federally owned dams along the Columbia and its tributaries to utilities throughout the region — has a keen eye on. In a fact sheet detailing the agency’s plans to ensure its hydropower resources remain resilient, the administration wrote, “By the 2030s, higher average fall and winter flows, earlier peak spring runoff, and longer periods of low summer flows are very likely.” Those times of lower hydroelectric generation will coincide with periods when rising temps are expected to drive people to demand more from their thermostats to keep comfortable. The Grand Coulee Dam is seen through the windows of the dam’s visitor center. Don and Melinda Crawford / Education Images / Universal Images Group via Getty Images Given this, if Western states like California, Washington, and Oregon are to meet the 2045 goals for 100 percent clean energy they’ve set, their utilities are going to have to get creative. As it is, when hydropower fails to meet demand, methane, also known as natural gas, tends to fill the gap — even if power companies can’t say for sure that that’s their backstop. Seattle City Light, for instance, which provides electricity to over 900,000 people across much of the Seattle area, reportedly has been carbon neutral since 2005 thanks in large part to an energy mix that is nearly 90 percent hydropower — around half of which is supplied by Bonneville Power. But with its standard fleet of hydroelectric plants generating below average, Siobhan Doherty, the utility’s director of power management, said it has had to procure new sources of energy to ensure it can comfortably meet customers’ needs. A fair portion of that power comes from other dams in the area, but some of it is also provided by what Doherty called “unspecified” sources purchased from other providers. Across the West, when utilities like Seattle City Light purchase energy to cover hydropower shortfalls, most of it comes from gas-powered peaker plants, according to Minghao Qiu, an environmental scientist at Stanford University. As a result, emissions rise. Over the 20-year period examined in a study of how droughts impact grid emissions, Qiu and his colleagues found that temporary prolonged hydropower declines led to 121 million tons of carbon emissions. Qiu also found that the plants belching all that pollution often lay far from where the energy is needed. While the seemingly obvious solution to this challenge is to rapidly deploy wind and solar, Qiu found that this didn’t actually solve the problem. “So what really happened there is an implicit market that whoever can generate the electricity with the lowest costs are going to generate first,” Qiu said. This means that solar and wind will send all the energy they can because they’re by far the cheapest; hydropower then provides what it can, followed by fossil fuels like methane to plug any holes. “So when hydropower sort of declines,” Qiu said, “the wind power and solar power is already maxed out,” typically leaving gas plants as the remaining option. Nonetheless, in a bid to keep its grid carbon-free in the long term, Seattle City Light recently signed agreements to buy energy from two independent solar projects, each with at least 40 megawatts of capacity, and is negotiating other, similar arrangements. The fact Bonneville Power has seen a sharp rise in requests from renewable energy developers to connect to its transmission lines suggests other utilities in the region are exploring similar deals. While those solar farms, in a sense, address the demands that hydro alone can’t meet, the West’s dams help make utility-scale renewables work. Regardless of the inevitable expansion and improvement of turbine and photovoltaic technology, wind and solar will always be intermittent and weather-dependent. In those moments when the gusts stop blowing and the sun stops shining, something has to top off the grid. “Hydro does that better than anything,” Turner said. Many of the dams administered by Bonneville Power are already equipped to spin up or down as demand dictates, and their ability to meet these moments was perhaps no more apparent than during the lethal heat dome that gripped the Pacific Northwest for one blistering week in June 2021. As streets cracked and power lines melted, the region’s homebound populations drove electricity demand to record levels. To keep the grid going, Bonneville Power relied on the controversial dams along the lower Snake River. The agency released a statement a month after the heat wave, revealing how critical the four lower Snake River dams were during that disaster. At times, they provided well over 1,000 megawatts of power, which is roughly the average draw in Seattle. And while there are credible reasons to remove the dams, Bonneville Power said that without those resources it likely would have had to resort to rolling blackouts to ensure the system wasn’t pushed past its limits. That experience, and the many more like it that are sure to come, suggest that even as year-to-year dips impact the nation’s dams, the power they provide will long remain a critical component of a carbon-free future. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Rivers are the West’s largest source of clean energy. What happens when drought strikes? on Apr 26, 2024.

With rivers across the West running low, utilities must get creative if they are to meet demand without increasing emissions.

In Washington, a dozen dams dot the Columbia River — that mighty waterway carved through the state by a sequence of prehistoric superfloods. Between those dams and the hundreds of others that plug the rivers and tributaries that lace the region, including California and Nevada, the Western United States accounts for most of the hydroelectric energy the country generates from the waters flowing across its landscape. Washington alone captures more than a quarter of that; combined with Oregon and Idaho, the Pacific Northwest lays claim to well over two-fifths of America’s dam-derived electricity. So when a drought hits the region, the nation takes notice.

That happened in 2023 when, according to a recent report, U.S. hydroelectric power hit its lowest level in 22 years. While the atmospheric rivers that poured across California provided the state with abundant energy, the Pacific Northwest endured low summer flows after a late-spring heat wave caused snowpack to melt and river levels to peak earlier than normal. Though dam turbines kept spinning throughout the year — proving that even during a drought the nation’s hydro system remains reliable — last year offered energy providers in the West a glimpse of the conditions they may need to adapt to as the world warms and seasonal weather patterns shift.

While models predict climate change will plunge California and the Southwest deeper into drought, what awaits Washington and Oregon is less clear. The Pacific Northwest will get warmer. That much is certain. But in terms of the rain that places like Seattle and Portland are known for, things get fuzzier.

“Whenever you bring in water precipitation and you’re looking at climate model results, they go in all directions,” said Sean Turner, a water resources and hydropower engineer with Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The Evergreen and Beaver states could get drier or wetter — or both, depending on the time of year.

Nathalie Voisin, chief scientist for water-energy dynamics at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, said much of the latest research suggests an increase in total annual hydroelectric power in the region, but, as Turner noted as well, uncertainties remain. “So as a trend, we see an increase” in annual precipitation, Voisin said, “but we also see an increase in variability of very wet years and very dry years.”

Even during wet years, however, the water won’t fall in a gentle mist evenly distributed from new year to year end. The bulk of it, Voisin said, is expected to come from atmospheric rivers streaming overhead between fall and spring, with rivers running low in late summer as the snow and ice in the mountains that rim the region melt ever earlier and no longer keep the waters as high as they historically have.

These are things that the Bonneville Power Administration — the federal agency responsible for selling energy from the 31 federally owned dams along the Columbia and its tributaries to utilities throughout the region — has a keen eye on. In a fact sheet detailing the agency’s plans to ensure its hydropower resources remain resilient, the administration wrote, “By the 2030s, higher average fall and winter flows, earlier peak spring runoff, and longer periods of low summer flows are very likely.” Those times of lower hydroelectric generation will coincide with periods when rising temps are expected to drive people to demand more from their thermostats to keep comfortable.

The Grand Coulee Dam is seen through the windows of the dam's visitor center.
The Grand Coulee Dam is seen through the windows of the dam’s visitor center. Don and Melinda Crawford / Education Images / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Given this, if Western states like California, Washington, and Oregon are to meet the 2045 goals for 100 percent clean energy they’ve set, their utilities are going to have to get creative. As it is, when hydropower fails to meet demand, methane, also known as natural gas, tends to fill the gap — even if power companies can’t say for sure that that’s their backstop.

Seattle City Light, for instance, which provides electricity to over 900,000 people across much of the Seattle area, reportedly has been carbon neutral since 2005 thanks in large part to an energy mix that is nearly 90 percent hydropower — around half of which is supplied by Bonneville Power. But with its standard fleet of hydroelectric plants generating below average, Siobhan Doherty, the utility’s director of power management, said it has had to procure new sources of energy to ensure it can comfortably meet customers’ needs. A fair portion of that power comes from other dams in the area, but some of it is also provided by what Doherty called “unspecified” sources purchased from other providers.

Across the West, when utilities like Seattle City Light purchase energy to cover hydropower shortfalls, most of it comes from gas-powered peaker plants, according to Minghao Qiu, an environmental scientist at Stanford University. As a result, emissions rise. Over the 20-year period examined in a study of how droughts impact grid emissions, Qiu and his colleagues found that temporary prolonged hydropower declines led to 121 million tons of carbon emissions. Qiu also found that the plants belching all that pollution often lay far from where the energy is needed.

While the seemingly obvious solution to this challenge is to rapidly deploy wind and solar, Qiu found that this didn’t actually solve the problem.

“So what really happened there is an implicit market that whoever can generate the electricity with the lowest costs are going to generate first,” Qiu said. This means that solar and wind will send all the energy they can because they’re by far the cheapest; hydropower then provides what it can, followed by fossil fuels like methane to plug any holes. “So when hydropower sort of declines,” Qiu said, “the wind power and solar power is already maxed out,” typically leaving gas plants as the remaining option.

Nonetheless, in a bid to keep its grid carbon-free in the long term, Seattle City Light recently signed agreements to buy energy from two independent solar projects, each with at least 40 megawatts of capacity, and is negotiating other, similar arrangements. The fact Bonneville Power has seen a sharp rise in requests from renewable energy developers to connect to its transmission lines suggests other utilities in the region are exploring similar deals.

While those solar farms, in a sense, address the demands that hydro alone can’t meet, the West’s dams help make utility-scale renewables work. Regardless of the inevitable expansion and improvement of turbine and photovoltaic technology, wind and solar will always be intermittent and weather-dependent. In those moments when the gusts stop blowing and the sun stops shining, something has to top off the grid. “Hydro does that better than anything,” Turner said.

Many of the dams administered by Bonneville Power are already equipped to spin up or down as demand dictates, and their ability to meet these moments was perhaps no more apparent than during the lethal heat dome that gripped the Pacific Northwest for one blistering week in June 2021. As streets cracked and power lines melted, the region’s homebound populations drove electricity demand to record levels. To keep the grid going, Bonneville Power relied on the controversial dams along the lower Snake River. The agency released a statement a month after the heat wave, revealing how critical the four lower Snake River dams were during that disaster. At times, they provided well over 1,000 megawatts of power, which is roughly the average draw in Seattle. And while there are credible reasons to remove the dams, Bonneville Power said that without those resources it likely would have had to resort to rolling blackouts to ensure the system wasn’t pushed past its limits.

That experience, and the many more like it that are sure to come, suggest that even as year-to-year dips impact the nation’s dams, the power they provide will long remain a critical component of a carbon-free future.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Rivers are the West’s largest source of clean energy. What happens when drought strikes? on Apr 26, 2024.

Read the full story here.
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MIT conductive concrete consortium cements five-year research agreement with Japanese industry

The MIT EC^3 Hub, an outgrowth of the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, will develop multifunctional concrete applications for infrastructure.

The MIT Electron-conductive Cement-based Materials Hub (EC^3 Hub), an outgrowth of the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub), has been established by a five-year sponsored research agreement with the Aizawa Concrete Corp. In particular, the EC^3 Hub will investigate the infrastructure applications of multifunctional concrete — concrete having capacities beyond serving as a structural element, such as functioning as a “battery” for renewable energy. Enabled by the MIT Industrial Liaison Program, the newly formed EC^3 Hub represents a large industry-academia collaboration between the MIT CSHub, researchers across MIT, and a Japanese industry consortium led by Aizawa Concrete, a leader in the more sustainable development of concrete structures, which is funding the effort.  Under this agreement, the EC^3 Hub will focus on two key areas of research: developing self-heating pavement systems and energy storage solutions for sustainable infrastructure systems. “It is an honor for Aizawa Concrete to be associated with the scaling up of this transformational technology from MIT labs to the industrial scale,” says Aizawa Concrete CEO Yoshihiro Aizawa. “This is a project we believe will have a fundamental impact not only on the decarbonization of the industry, but on our societies at large.” By running current through carbon black-doped concrete pavements, the EC^3 Hub’s technology could allow cities and municipalities to de-ice road and sidewalk surfaces at scale, improving safety for drivers and pedestrians in icy conditions. The potential for concrete to store energy from renewable sources — a topic widely covered by news outlets — could allow concrete to serve as a “battery” for technologies such as solar, wind, and tidal power generation, which cannot produce a consistent amount of energy (for example, when a cloudy day inhibits a solar panel’s output). Due to the scarcity of the ingredients used in many batteries, such as lithium-ion cells, this technology offers an alternative for renewable energy storage at scale. Regarding the collaborative research agreement, the EC^3 Hub’s founding faculty director, Professor Admir Masic, notes that “this is the type of investment in our new conductive cement-based materials technology which will propel it from our lab bench onto the infrastructure market.” Masic is also an associate professor in the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, as well as a principal investigator within the MIT CSHub, among other appointments.For the April 11 signing of the agreement, Masic was joined in Fukushima, Japan, by MIT colleagues Franz-Josef Ulm, a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and faculty director of the MIT CSHub; Yang Shao-Horn, the JR East Professor of Engineering, professor of mechanical engineering, and professor of materials science and engineering; and Jewan Bae, director of MIT Corporate Relations. Ulm and Masic will co-direct the EC^3 Hub.The EC^3 Hub envisions a close collaboration between MIT engineers and scientists as well as the Aizawa-led Japanese industry consortium for the development of breakthrough innovations for multifunctional infrastructure systems. In addition to higher-strength materials, these systems may be implemented for a variety of novel functions such as roads capable of charging electric vehicles as they drive along them.Members of the EC^3 Hub will engage with the active stakeholder community within the MIT CSHub to accelerate the industry’s transition to carbon neutrality. The EC^3 Hub will also open opportunities for the MIT community to engage with the large infrastructure industry sector for decarbonization through innovation. 

Senators grill Haaland on Biden's energy strategy​​

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland faced intense scrutiny from senators regarding the Biden administration’s energy policies during her appearance before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.Michael Doyle reports for E&E News.In short: Sen. Joe Manchin accused the Biden administration of prioritizing politics over long-term strategy and criticized Haaland for a lack of progress on energy-related decisions.Republicans, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski, denounced recent Interior decisions that limit Alaska’s development, specifically in oil, gas, and mining projects.Haaland defended her policies, stating she provides vision and direction while others detailed specific issues, like the Lava Ridge wind energy project.Key quote: "The radical climate advisers in the White House have put election-year politics ahead of a thoughtful and achievable long-term strategy for the country." — Senator Joe Manchin.Why this matters: As the Biden administration aims to align energy policy with environmental goals, the scrutiny from senators signals a growing divide on energy and climate priorities and ongoing struggles to reduce greenhouse emissions. Read more: Natural gas vs. renewable energy — beware the latest gas industry talking points.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland faced intense scrutiny from senators regarding the Biden administration’s energy policies during her appearance before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.Michael Doyle reports for E&E News.In short: Sen. Joe Manchin accused the Biden administration of prioritizing politics over long-term strategy and criticized Haaland for a lack of progress on energy-related decisions.Republicans, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski, denounced recent Interior decisions that limit Alaska’s development, specifically in oil, gas, and mining projects.Haaland defended her policies, stating she provides vision and direction while others detailed specific issues, like the Lava Ridge wind energy project.Key quote: "The radical climate advisers in the White House have put election-year politics ahead of a thoughtful and achievable long-term strategy for the country." — Senator Joe Manchin.Why this matters: As the Biden administration aims to align energy policy with environmental goals, the scrutiny from senators signals a growing divide on energy and climate priorities and ongoing struggles to reduce greenhouse emissions. Read more: Natural gas vs. renewable energy — beware the latest gas industry talking points.

Clean energy in rural America gets another big boost of federal funding

The Biden-Harris administration is bringing clean power to America’s less populated – and sometimes overlooked – regions. On Tuesday, the Department of Energy announced $78 million for 19 clean energy projects in rural communities from Alaska to Alabama, for installing everything from solar and batteries to power…

The Biden-Harris administration is bringing clean power to America’s less populated – and sometimes overlooked – regions. On Tuesday, the Department of Energy announced $78 million for 19 clean energy projects in rural communities from Alaska to Alabama, for installing everything from solar and batteries to power lines and heat pumps. The funding is part of the Energy Improvements in Rural or Remote Areas (ERA) program, a $1 billion initiative created by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. This latest influx of funds to support rural communities, defined as having populations of fewer than 10,000, comes on the heels of the program’s biggest wave of funding so far: $366 million for 17 mostly larger-scale projects announced in February. All told, the funding to date covers 20 states and 30 tribal nations, according to Regina Galer, the ERA program manager at the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, a division of the Department of Energy (DOE). Last July, the office also awarded $6.7 million under the program to 67 winners of the Energizing Rural Communities Prize to develop clean energy partnerships and financing strategies. U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm feted the funding for rural communities in a statement: ​“Through these transformative investments, rural and remote communities from coast to coast are able to map a clean energy future that revitalizes local economies and cuts the pollution that is fueling the climate crisis and driving environmental injustice.” What clean energy means for rural communities Rural communities, with their small populations and isolation from larger electrical systems, grapple with unique energy challenges. These include high electric bills, high fuel costs, and unreliable energy supplies — or lack of access to electricity altogether. At the same time, rural communities have untapped potential for generating clean energy. The ERA funding is meant to help ensure a just transition away from fossil fuels in places that could most use the support; of the nation’s 318 persistently poor counties, 270 are rural. “We are trying … to help rural communities transition to clean energy where there has been a lack of resources to do that in the past,” Galer said.

Campaign to erect new city on Solano County ranchland submits signatures for November ballot

The tech titans backing the controversial project promise a livable, energy-efficient city in close proximity to the Bay Area.

A billionaire-backed vision to erect an idealistic new city on scrubby grassland in rural Solano County is one step closer to becoming reality.On Tuesday, the Bay Area tech leaders behind the campaign, dubbed California Forever, held a news conference to announce that they had turned over more than 20,000 voter signatures to the Solano County registrar in support of putting the issue before local voters. If the county validates at least 13,062 of those signatures, the measure would go before voters in November, seeking to amend zoning codes to allow the residential project to be built on agricultural land. “Solano voters have made their first decision, and they have made it loud and clear,” said Jan Sramek, a former Goldman Sachs trader who is chief executive of California Forever. “People from all walks of life, all parts of the county are all saying the same thing. They are saying, ‘Yes, we want to have a say in the future of this place that we love.’ ”John Gardner, the county’s assistant registrar of voters, confirmed his office had received the California Forever signatures Tuesday morning. Gardner said the endeavor marks the first citizen-led ballot initiative in Solano County in more than 30 years. His office has until June 11 to conduct a preliminary review to determine whether enough valid signatures were submitted to put the measure to a vote. Along with Sramek, backers of the project include LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, and Patrick and John Collison, who founded the payment-processing company Stripe. As part of their campaign, California Forever in March released an aerial view of the group’s plans for a community of tens of thousands of homes, surrounded by open space and trails, using renewable energy sources.Backers tout the project as an innovative way to create more affordable housing in close proximity to the Bay Area. The designs call for transforming 18,000 acres now dedicated to ranching and wind farms into a community of 50,000 residents that grows, over time, to as many as 400,000. The project promises 15,000 higher-paying jobs in manufacturing and technology, as well as parks, bike lanes and a solar farm.Even if the measure is certified for the November ballot and voters approve it, the project faces a number of challenges and regulatory hurdles. Chief among those are additional approvals, including from the federal government, and the specter of lawsuits from environmental groups that have signaled they intend to take the nascent effort to court.The project’s development began years ago with a series of mysterious land purchases by a secretive LLC called Flannery Associates. The group bought thousands of acres of farmland, totaling more than $800 million, over several years, raising concerns it was a front for foreign actors seeking to spy on nearby Travis Air Force Base.Instead, the group’s members were revealed not as spies but as titans of the tech industry laying the groundwork for a model city that California Forever and its supporters say will help recast California’s image. While environmentalists and other critics have questioned that claim, the outfit pledges that the city will be green, walkable and socioeconomically diverse.

House passes bill to study effects of abandoned oil wells in bipartisan vote

The House passed legislation sponsored by Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) Tuesday, that aims to address environmental hazards from abandoned gas and oil wells, in a 333-75 vote. The bill, the Abandoned Wells, Remediation, Research and Development Act, would direct the Energy Department to develop a research and development program for abandoned wells. Pennsylvania has the...

The House passed legislation sponsored by Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) Tuesday, that aims to address environmental hazards from abandoned gas and oil wells, in a 333-75 vote. The bill, the Abandoned Wells, Remediation, Research and Development Act, would direct the Energy Department to develop a research and development program for abandoned wells. Pennsylvania has the second largest amount of abandoned and orphaned wells of any state, surpassed only by Texas. Some 27,000 abandoned wells have been documented across the Keystone State. The measure, co-sponsored by Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.), previously passed the House Science Committee in a unanimous vote last July. Abandoned wells have been linked to the release of toxic air pollutants and carcinogens, including methane and benzene. They have also been linked to drops in property values and, due to historical practices of “redlining” in minority neighborhoods, disproportionately hurt the health of people of color. “[U]ntil Congress takes action to invest in the identification and remediation of abandoned wells starting with the House passage of my bipartisan bill, tens of thousands of people in my district and across Pennsylvania will continue to be exposed to toxins in their air and explosive gasses, and lower property values,” Lee said in a statement. Lee’s office highlighted that the measure is the first she has sponsored that has passed the full House since she took office in 2023. It comes the week after she won the Democratic primary for her seat by 20 points, a closely watched contest that marked the first involving a member of the progressive “Squad” of House Democrats this cycle. Environmental groups praised the bill’s provisions and urged the Senate to take it up as soon as possible. “Orphaned oil and gas wells threaten public health and safety, the water we drink and the climate,” Environmental Defense Fund director and senior attorney for energy transition Adam Peltz said in a statement. “This essential bipartisan bill will fund the research necessary to improve well plugging practices, find unregistered orphan wells in hard-to-reach places like streams, forests, farmland and backyards, and develop beneficial clean energy uses for end-of-life wells." "This bill will create jobs and benefit public health, particularly for communities overburdened by legacy oil and gas development – and now the Senate should take up this bill so that President Biden can sign it into law," Peltz added.

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