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Trump administration moves to terminate $400M in energy grants in Oregon

News Feed
Friday, October 3, 2025

The U.S. Department of Energy is canceling more than $400 million in energy grants in Oregon, a move that will slow or halt major transmission upgrades, energy-efficiency projects, workforce development and clean technology manufacturing across the state. The list of terminated grants, published Thursday by Appropriations Committee Democrats – a group of legislators who are members of the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations – includes 18 grants in Oregon totaling about $402 million. By far the largest grant on the list is $250 million for Warm Springs Power & Water Enterprises, a tribally owned utility operated by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, that was slated to upgrade a 1960s-era transmission line on the Warm Springs Reservation in central Oregon. The line connects energy resources east of the Cascades to customers in the Willamette Valley. The Oregon cancellations are among $7.6 billion in energy grants that the Energy Department announced for cancellation nationwide on Wednesday night, targeting mostly Democratic states. The federal agency said the projects “did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs, were not economically viable, and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.” Critics have countered that the Trump administration is using the federal government shutdown to punish political opponents. The federal agency has not yet released an official list of affected projects nor has it notified grant recipients. The Oregon Department of Energy said it’s aware of the cancellations but could not confirm the details of individual projects or amounts. “Canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in energy projects in Oregon is a significant setback for reaching an affordable, reliable clean energy future,” said agency Director Janine Benner. “Between these actions, various supply chain issues, tariffs on components and federal agencies halting permitting even for projects not on federal lands, the federal government is making choices that may threaten reliability and will certainly increase costs for ratepayers.”According to the Appropriations Committee Democrats list, awards terminated in Oregon include several utility projects meant to strengthen the state’s aging transmission infrastructure. One of them is $50 million for Portland General Electric to deploy devices such as smart meters near homes and businesses to strengthen the grid against frequent severe weather events and deliver electricity more efficiently, leading to savings for customers, the utility confirmed.PGE’s $4.3 million grant for retrofitting buildings to lower energy costs and strengthen grid resilience, which was also to feature bill credits, cash back and free upgrades for customers, is also being terminated, as is its $4.5 million grant to upgrade parts of the Wheatridge wind-solar-battery project to maintain reliability and affordability.PGE said it’s aware of the termination announcement but has not been contacted by the federal agency. “The federal grants that PGE and partners have been awarded support critical investments in the reliability of Oregon and the region’s electrical system and help keep electricity prices as low as possible for customers,” senior vice president for strategy and advanced energy delivery Larry Bekkedahl said in a statement to The Oregonian/OregonLive. Other cancellations target clean hydrogen development in Oregon and across the region. They include $25 million to Portland-based Daimler Truck North America to develop, build and test a hydrogen fuel cell truck that significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions and pollution. Also axed: $29.8 million to Ballard US, a Bend-based hydrogen fuel cell maker to establish a hydrogen fuel cell manufacturing facility. Neither Daimler nor Ballard could be immediately reached for comment. Another canceled project on the list is a $3.5 million grant for the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance to pay for training rural Oregonians – including college students, HVAC technicians and home inspectors – to meet Oregon’s energy codes. The city of Portland also will see a $1.8 million grant disappear. The money was set to pay for a pole-mounted electric vehicle charging network in public rights-of-way to provide access to affordable charging for people who live in apartment complexes or who cannot afford to install a home EV charger. Additional Oregon-based grant recipients on the termination list include: Onboard Dynamics LLC, PacifiCorp, the Crater Lake Electrical Joint Apprenticeship and Training Trust Fund, New Buildings Institute, Earth Advantage, Oregon State University and Forth Mobility Fund. Also on the termination list: a $1 billion grant for the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Association to launch the region’s hydrogen hub, meant to jumpstart production and use of “green” hydrogen, which proponents said would create thousands of jobs and reduce emissions. Environmental groups decried the cancellations which come as the state is struggling to meet its aggressive climate mandates, including eliminating fossil energy by 2040. “Oregon needs more clean energy, not less, and taking money away from critical clean energy projects at a time of rising energy demand is bad for everyone,” said Nora Apter, Oregon Director of Climate Solutions, a Northwest-based nonprofit focused on clean energy. “It hurts our state’s ability to modernize our outdated electric grid and meet today’s rising energy demands with affordable clean energy, and Oregon families and businesses will be stuck with paying the tab.”Gov. Tina Kotek called the grant terminations part of the president’s history of prioritizing political posturing. “Once again, the Trump administration has chosen to abandon its commitment to clean energy and the American workers who depend on these promised projects, demonstrating the same shameful pattern of short-term thinking that is failing Oregon and states across the nation,” Kotek said in a statement. The U.S. Department of Energy said award recipients have 30 days to appeal a termination decision. If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

The cancellations will impact major transmission upgrades, energy-efficiency projects, workforce development and clean technology manufacturing across the state.

The U.S. Department of Energy is canceling more than $400 million in energy grants in Oregon, a move that will slow or halt major transmission upgrades, energy-efficiency projects, workforce development and clean technology manufacturing across the state.

The list of terminated grants, published Thursday by Appropriations Committee Democrats – a group of legislators who are members of the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations – includes 18 grants in Oregon totaling about $402 million.

By far the largest grant on the list is $250 million for Warm Springs Power & Water Enterprises, a tribally owned utility operated by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, that was slated to upgrade a 1960s-era transmission line on the Warm Springs Reservation in central Oregon. The line connects energy resources east of the Cascades to customers in the Willamette Valley.

The Oregon cancellations are among $7.6 billion in energy grants that the Energy Department announced for cancellation nationwide on Wednesday night, targeting mostly Democratic states. The federal agency said the projects “did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs, were not economically viable, and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.” Critics have countered that the Trump administration is using the federal government shutdown to punish political opponents.

The federal agency has not yet released an official list of affected projects nor has it notified grant recipients. The Oregon Department of Energy said it’s aware of the cancellations but could not confirm the details of individual projects or amounts.

“Canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in energy projects in Oregon is a significant setback for reaching an affordable, reliable clean energy future,” said agency Director Janine Benner. “Between these actions, various supply chain issues, tariffs on components and federal agencies halting permitting even for projects not on federal lands, the federal government is making choices that may threaten reliability and will certainly increase costs for ratepayers.”

According to the Appropriations Committee Democrats list, awards terminated in Oregon include several utility projects meant to strengthen the state’s aging transmission infrastructure. One of them is $50 million for Portland General Electric to deploy devices such as smart meters near homes and businesses to strengthen the grid against frequent severe weather events and deliver electricity more efficiently, leading to savings for customers, the utility confirmed.

PGE’s $4.3 million grant for retrofitting buildings to lower energy costs and strengthen grid resilience, which was also to feature bill credits, cash back and free upgrades for customers, is also being terminated, as is its $4.5 million grant to upgrade parts of the Wheatridge wind-solar-battery project to maintain reliability and affordability.

PGE said it’s aware of the termination announcement but has not been contacted by the federal agency.

“The federal grants that PGE and partners have been awarded support critical investments in the reliability of Oregon and the region’s electrical system and help keep electricity prices as low as possible for customers,” senior vice president for strategy and advanced energy delivery Larry Bekkedahl said in a statement to The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Other cancellations target clean hydrogen development in Oregon and across the region. They include $25 million to Portland-based Daimler Truck North America to develop, build and test a hydrogen fuel cell truck that significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions and pollution. Also axed: $29.8 million to Ballard US, a Bend-based hydrogen fuel cell maker to establish a hydrogen fuel cell manufacturing facility. Neither Daimler nor Ballard could be immediately reached for comment.

Another canceled project on the list is a $3.5 million grant for the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance to pay for training rural Oregonians – including college students, HVAC technicians and home inspectors – to meet Oregon’s energy codes.

The city of Portland also will see a $1.8 million grant disappear. The money was set to pay for a pole-mounted electric vehicle charging network in public rights-of-way to provide access to affordable charging for people who live in apartment complexes or who cannot afford to install a home EV charger.

Additional Oregon-based grant recipients on the termination list include: Onboard Dynamics LLC, PacifiCorp, the Crater Lake Electrical Joint Apprenticeship and Training Trust Fund, New Buildings Institute, Earth Advantage, Oregon State University and Forth Mobility Fund.

Also on the termination list: a $1 billion grant for the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Association to launch the region’s hydrogen hub, meant to jumpstart production and use of “green” hydrogen, which proponents said would create thousands of jobs and reduce emissions.

Environmental groups decried the cancellations which come as the state is struggling to meet its aggressive climate mandates, including eliminating fossil energy by 2040.

“Oregon needs more clean energy, not less, and taking money away from critical clean energy projects at a time of rising energy demand is bad for everyone,” said Nora Apter, Oregon Director of Climate Solutions, a Northwest-based nonprofit focused on clean energy. “It hurts our state’s ability to modernize our outdated electric grid and meet today’s rising energy demands with affordable clean energy, and Oregon families and businesses will be stuck with paying the tab.”

Gov. Tina Kotek called the grant terminations part of the president’s history of prioritizing political posturing.

“Once again, the Trump administration has chosen to abandon its commitment to clean energy and the American workers who depend on these promised projects, demonstrating the same shameful pattern of short-term thinking that is failing Oregon and states across the nation,” Kotek said in a statement.

The U.S. Department of Energy said award recipients have 30 days to appeal a termination decision.

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Duke Energy backs off renewables after North Carolina cuts climate goal

When North Carolina’s GOP-led legislature nixed a key decarbonization deadline for Duke Energy in July, critics feared it would upend the state’s transition to clean energy. Now, a proposal Duke just submitted to regulators shows they were right to worry as the utility, North Carolina’s largest, seeks to walk back…

Duke’s proposed blueprint largely aligns with how experts predicted the company would behave without the 2030 deadline to curb greenhouse gas emissions. ​“This is just about what we expected,” said Will Scott, Southeast climate and clean energy director with the Environmental Defense Fund. The plan also reflects the federal government’s increasing hostility to renewable energy — and its unrelenting push to accelerate fossil-fuel use. At the same time, Trump has tried to prop up coal — the nation’s most expensive and polluting source of power — including via a Monday announcement of $625 million for the industry. As Duke notes in its plan, the administration has also relaxed other rules around carbon emissions and toxic ash from coal plants, although a future president could reverse course. Duke is responding accordingly. The company now wants to keep 4.1 gigawatts of its coal fleet running longer than it previously planned, instead of investing in proven clean-energy technology, said Mikaela Curry, manager for Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. ​“It’s just so frustrating,” she said. “It’s clear that national political sentiment is making its way into this plan,” said Brooks. ​“I don’t know what else accounts for prolonging coal, because the economics are certainly not on its side.” Before the rollback of the state climate law, cuts to federal incentives for renewables, and Trump’s particularly vicious attacks on wind energy, Duke had planned to add 13.2 gigawatts of solar and 4.5 gigawatts of onshore and offshore wind by 2035, according to the state’s nonpartisan customer advocate, Public Staff. Now, the utility envisions 9.2 gigawatts of solar — and no wind at all until at least 2040. “That’s clearly a response to political winds and not our resource winds,” Brooks said. ​“In a rational world, we’re going to have wind development in North Carolina.” The Oct. 1 blueprint from Duke is a first draft. Now, clean-energy advocates begin the arduous work of combing through the utility’s modeling assumptions and dozens of portfolios. They and other stakeholders have six months to offer written responses. The state’s Utilities Commission has until the end of next year to approve or amend Duke’s plan. With increased reliance on gas and coal sure to hit customers’ pocketbooks, critics say they’ll put rate impacts front and center. ​“We’re very sensitive to any portfolio that leaves ratepayers exposed to unnecessary fuel volatility and supply risks,” said Brooks.

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Constellation Energy to Spend $340M to Improve Water Quality at Maryland's Conowingo Dam

Constellation Energy has agreed to spend more than $340 million to improve water quality from the Conowingo Dam that flows into the Susquehanna River and eventually ends up in the Chesapeake Bay

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Constellation Energy has agreed to spend more than $340 million to improve water quality at Maryland’s Conowingo Dam, which flows into the Susquehanna River and eventually ends up in the Chesapeake Bay, the nation’s largest estuary, officials announced Thursday. The agreement clears the way for the re-licensing and continued operation of the dam’s hydroelectric facility on the Susquehanna, which is the largest source of renewable energy in Maryland. “This agreement will lead to real improvements in water quality in the biggest tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, while securing the future of one of our state’s largest clean energy producers," Gov. Wes Moore said. The agreement marks an end to wrangling over who is responsible for addressing pollution in sediment that gets stuck in the dam and ends up being released downstream and into the bay.The Maryland Department of the Environment issued an initial certification for the Conowingo Dam in 2018, but legal challenges led to a 2019 waiver of that certification and a settlement that required Constellation Energy to invest in improvements valued at $230 million. The terms were dependent on the facility’s receipt of a 50-year federal license, which it got but that was challenged by environmental groups. An appeals court vacated that license in 2022 after siding with the environmental groups who argued that Constellation’s license should require the company to mitigate the dam's water quality impacts. The deal announced Thursday was negotiated in partnership with Waterkeepers Chesapeake and Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association to meet enforceable water quality standards, the governor’s office said.The terms include about $88 million for pollution reduction and resiliency initiatives, including shoreline restoration, forest buffers, fish passage projects and planting underwater grasses that produce oxygen, stabilize sediments and provide habitat for countless species. Another $78 million will be spent on trash and debris removal to add to efforts that already clear an average of about 600 tons of debris each year.It also includes funding to improve passages for fish and eels, a new freshwater mussel hatchery, invasive species management, and a study on the scientific and economic viability of dredging the dam to remove trapped sediment.A Revised Water Quality Certification will be filed with the federal government for the dam’s license to be renewed, the governor's office said. “Today’s announcement marks 16 years of tremendous effort and perseverance by our organization to assure Conowingo Dam is relicensed with proper conditions that protect the health of the Lower Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay,” said Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper and Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association Executive Director Ted Evgeniadis. Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

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Concrete “battery” developed at MIT now packs 10 times the power

Improved carbon-cement supercapacitors could turn the concrete around us into massive energy storage systems.

Concrete already builds our world, and now it’s one step closer to powering it, too. Made by combining cement, water, ultra-fine carbon black (with nanoscale particles), and electrolytes, electron-conducting carbon concrete (ec3, pronounced “e-c-cubed”) creates a conductive “nanonetwork” inside concrete that could enable everyday structures like walls, sidewalks, and bridges to store and release electrical energy. In other words, the concrete around us could one day double as giant “batteries.”As MIT researchers report in a new PNAS paper, optimized electrolytes and manufacturing processes have increased the energy storage capacity of the latest ec3 supercapacitors by an order of magnitude. In 2023, storing enough energy to meet the daily needs of the average home would have required about 45 cubic meters of ec3, roughly the amount of concrete used in a typical basement. Now, with the improved electrolyte, that same task can be achieved with about 5 cubic meters, the volume of a typical basement wall.“A key to the sustainability of concrete is the development of ‘multifunctional concrete,’ which integrates functionalities like this energy storage, self-healing, and carbon sequestration. Concrete is already the world’s most-used construction material, so why not take advantage of that scale to create other benefits?” asks Admir Masic, lead author of the new study, MIT Electron-Conducting Carbon-Cement-Based Materials Hub (EC³ Hub) co-director, and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering (CEE) at MIT.The improved energy density was made possible by a deeper understanding of how the nanocarbon black network inside ec3 functions and interacts with electrolytes. Using focused ion beams for the sequential removal of thin layers of the ec3 material, followed by high-resolution imaging of each slice with a scanning electron microscope (a technique called FIB-SEM tomography), the team across the EC³ Hub and MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub was able to reconstruct the conductive nanonetwork at the highest resolution yet. This approach allowed the team to discover that the network is essentially a fractal-like “web” that surrounds ec3 pores, which is what allows the electrolyte to infiltrate and for current to flow through the system. “Understanding how these materials ‘assemble’ themselves at the nanoscale is key to achieving these new functionalities,” adds Masic.Equipped with their new understanding of the nanonetwork, the team experimented with different electrolytes and their concentrations to see how they impacted energy storage density. As Damian Stefaniuk, first author and EC³ Hub research scientist, highlights, “we found that there is a wide range of electrolytes that could be viable candidates for ec3. This even includes seawater, which could make this a good material for use in coastal and marine applications, perhaps as support structures for offshore wind farms.”At the same time, the team streamlined the way they added electrolytes to the mix. Rather than curing ec3 electrodes and then soaking them in electrolyte, they added the electrolyte directly into the mixing water. Since electrolyte penetration was no longer a limitation, the team could cast thicker electrodes that stored more energy.The team achieved the greatest performance when they switched to organic electrolytes, especially those that combined quaternary ammonium salts — found in everyday products like disinfectants — with acetonitrile, a clear, conductive liquid often used in industry. A cubic meter of this version of ec3 — about the size of a refrigerator — can store over 2 kilowatt-hours of energy. That’s about enough to power an actual refrigerator for a day.While batteries maintain a higher energy density, ec3 can in principle be incorporated directly into a wide range of architectural elements — from slabs and walls to domes and vaults — and last as long as the structure itself.“The Ancient Romans made great advances in concrete construction. Massive structures like the Pantheon stand to this day without reinforcement. If we keep up their spirit of combining material science with architectural vision, we could be at the brink of a new architectural revolution with multifunctional concretes like ec3,” proposes Masic.Taking inspiration from Roman architecture, the team built a miniature ec3 arch to show how structural form and energy storage can work together. Operating at 9 volts, the arch supported its own weight and additional load while powering an LED light.However, something unique happened when the load on the arch increased: the light flickered. This is likely due to the way stress impacts electrical contacts or the distribution of charges. “There may be a kind of self-monitoring capacity here. If we think of an ec3 arch at architectural scale, its output may fluctuate when it’s impacted by a stressor like high winds. We may be able to use this as a signal of when and to what extent a structure is stressed, or monitor its overall health in real time,” envisions Masic.The latest developments in ec³ technology bring it a step closer to real-world scalability. It’s already been used to heat sidewalk slabs in Sapporo, Japan, due to its thermally conductive properties, representing a potential alternative to salting. “With these higher energy densities and demonstrated value across a broader application space, we now have a powerful and flexible tool that can help us address a wide range of persistent energy challenges,” explains Stefaniuk. “One of our biggest motivations was to help enable the renewable energy transition. Solar power, for example, has come a long way in terms of efficiency. However, it can only generate power when there’s enough sunlight. So, the question becomes: How do you meet your energy needs at night, or on cloudy days?”Franz-Josef Ulm, EC³ Hub co-director and CEE professor, continues the thread: “The answer is that you need a way to store and release energy. This has usually meant a battery, which often relies on scarce or harmful materials. We believe that ec3 is a viable substitute, letting our buildings and infrastructure meet our energy storage needs.” The team is working toward applications like parking spaces and roads that could charge electric vehicles, as well as homes that can operate fully off the grid.“What excites us most is that we’ve taken a material as ancient as concrete and shown that it can do something entirely new,” says James Weaver, a co-author on the paper who is an associate professor of design technology and materials science and engineering at Cornell University, as well as a former EC³ Hub researcher. “By combining modern nanoscience with an ancient building block of civilization, we’re opening a door to infrastructure that doesn’t just support our lives, it powers them.”

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California needs biomass energy to meet its wildfire goals. Its projects keep going South

California needs to burn vegetation both for wildfire mitigation and to generate power. So why do biomass energy projects keep leaving the state?

Arbor Energy is, essentially, a poster child of the kind of biomass energy project California keeps saying it wants.The state’s goal is to reduce wildfire risk on 1 million acres of wildlands every year, including by thinning overgrown forests, which is expected to generate roughly 10 million tons of wood waste annually. Arbor hopes to take that waste, blast it through a “vegetarian rocket engine” to produce energy, then sequester all of the carbon the process would generate underground.California has billed Arbor — and the handful of other similarly aimed projects it’s financed — as a win-win-win: wildfire mitigation, clean energy and carbon sequestration all in one.Yet, after Arbor initially won state financial backing for a pilot project in Placer County, the El Segundo-based company’s California ambitions fell through, like many biomass projects before it.Instead, it’s heading to Louisiana.California, biomass energy advocates say, has struggled to get past its distrust of the technology, given traditional biomass’ checkered past of clear-cutting forests and polluting poorer communities. Further, the state’s strict permitting requirements have given residents tremendous power to veto projects and created regulatory headaches.But many environmental groups argue it’s an example of California’s environmental and health protections actually working. If not done carefully, bioenergy projects run the risk of emitting carbon — not sequestering it — and polluting communities already grappling with some of the state’s dirtiest air. “When you look at biomass facilities across California — and we’ve done Public Records Act requests to look at emissions, violations and exceedances ... the reality is that we’re not in some kind of idealized pen-and-paper drawing of what the equipment does,” said Shaye Wolf, climate science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “In the real world, there are just too many problems with failures and faults in the equipment.”There are simpler and safer uses for this wood waste, these critics say: fertilizer for agriculture, wood chips and mulch. It may not provide carbon-negative energy but comes with none of the risks of bioenergy projects, they say. The Center for Biological Diversity and others advocate for a “hands-off” approach to California’s forests and urge management of the wildfire crisis through home hardening and evacuation planning alone. But fire and ecology experts say more than a century of fire suppression have made that unrealistic.However, the sweeping forest-thinning projects these experts say are needed will cost billions, and so the state needs every source of funding it can get. “Our bottleneck right now is, how do we pay for treating a million acres a year?” said Deputy Chief John McCarthy of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, who oversees the agency’s wood products and bioenergy program.In theory, the class of next-generation biomass energy proposals popping up across California could help fund this work.“California has an incredible opportunity,” said Arbor chief executive and co-founder Brad Hartwig. With the state’s leftover biomass from forest thinning, “we could make it basically the leader in carbon removal in the world.”A lot of wood with nowhere to goBiomass energy first took off in California in the 1980s after small pioneering plants at sawmills and food-processing facilities proved successful and the state’s utilities began offering favorable contracts for energy sources they deemed “renewable” — a category that included biomass. In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, the state had more than 60 operating biomass plants, providing up to 9% of the state’s residential power. Researchers estimate the industry supported about 60,000 acres of forest treatment to reduce wildfire risk per year at the time. But biomass energy’s heyday was short-lived.In 1994, the California Public Utilities Commission shifted the state’s emphasis away from creating a renewable and diverse energy mix and toward simply buying the cheapest possible power.Biomass — an inherently more expensive endeavor — struggled. Many plants took buyouts to shut down early. Despite California’s repeated attempts to revitalize the industry, the number of biomass plants continued to dwindle.Today, only 23 biomass plants remain in operation, according to the industry advocate group California Biomass Energy Alliance. The state Energy Commission expects the number to continue declining because of aging infrastructure and a poor bioenergy market. California’s forest and wildfire leadership are trying to change that.In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom created a task force to address California’s growing wildfire crisis. After convening the state’s top wildfire and forest scientists, the task force quickly came to a daunting conclusion: The more than a century of fire suppression in California’s forests — especially in the Sierra Nevada — had dramatically increased their density, providing fires with ample fuel to explode into raging beasts.To solve it, the state needed to rapidly remove that extra biomass on hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of acres of wildlands every year through a combination of prescribed burns, rehabilitation of burned areas and mechanically thinning the forest.McCarthy estimated treating a single acre of land could cost $2,000 to $3,000. At a million acres a year, that’s $2 billion to $3 billion annually.“Where is that going to come from?” McCarthy said. “Grants — maybe $200 million … 10% of the whole thing. So, we need markets. We need some sort of way to pay for this stuff and in a nontraditional way.”McCarthy believes bioenergy is one of those ways — essentially, by selling the least valuable, borderline unusable vegetation from the forest floor. You can’t build a house with pine cones, needles and twigs, but you can power a bioenergy plant.However, while biomass energy has surged in Southern states such as Georgia, projects in California have struggled to get off the ground.In 2022, a bid by Chevron, Microsoft and the oil-drilling technology company Schlumberger to revive a traditional biomass plant near Fresno and affix carbon capture to it fell through after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requested the project withdraw its permit application. Environmental groups including the Center for Biological Diversity and residents in nearby Mendota opposed the project.This year, a sweeping effort supported by rural Northern California counties to process more than 1 million tons of biomass a year into wood pellets and ship them to European bioenergy plants (with no carbon capture involved) in effect died after facing pushback from watch groups that feared the project, led by Golden State Natural Resources, would harm forests, and environmental justice groups that worried processing facilities at the Port of Stockton would worsen the air quality in one of the state’s most polluted communities.Arbor believed its fate would be different. Bioenergy from the ground upBefore founding Arbor, Hartwig served in the California Air National Guard for six years and on a Marin County search and rescue team. He now recalls a common refrain on the job: “There is no rescue in fire. It’s all search,” Hartwig said. “It’s looking for bodies — not even bodies, it’s teeth and bones.”In 2022, he started Arbor, with the idea of taking a different approach to bioenergy than the biomass plants shuttering across California.To understand Arbor’s innovation, start with coal plants, which burn fossil fuels to heat up water and produce steam that turns a turbine to generate electricity. Traditional biomass plants work essentially the same but replace coal with vegetation as the fuel. Typically, the smoke from the vegetation burning is simply released into the air. Small detail of the 16,000-pound proof-of-concept system being tested by Arbor that will burn biomass, capture carbon dioxide and generate electricity. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times) Arbor’s solution is more like a tree-powered rocket engine.The company can utilize virtually any form of biomass, from wood to sticks to pine needles and brush. Arbor heats it to extreme temperatures and deprives it of enough oxygen to make the biomass fully combust. The organic waste separates into a flammable gas — made of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane and hydrogen — and a small amount of solid waste.The machine then combusts the gas at extreme temperatures and pressures, which then accelerates a turbine at much higher rates than typical biomass plants. The resulting carbon dioxide exhaust is then sequestered underground. Arbor portrays its solution as a flexible, carbon-negative and clean device: It can operate anywhere with a hookup for carbon sequestration. Multiple units can work together for extra power. All of the carbon in the trees and twigs the machine ingests ends up in the ground — not back in the air.But biomass watchdogs warn previous attempts at technology like Arbor’s have fallen short.This biomass process creates a dry, flaky ash mainly composed of minerals — essentially everything in the original biomass that wasn’t “bio” — that can include heavy metals that the dead plants sucked up from the air or soil. If agricultural or construction waste is used, it can include nasty chemicals from wood treatments and pesticides.Arbor plans — at least initially — on using woody biomass directly from the forest, which typically contains less of these dangerous ash chemicals.Turning wood waste into gas also generates a thick, black tar composed of volatile organic compounds — which are also common contaminants following wildfires. The company says its gasification process uses high enough temperatures to break down the troublesome tar, but researchers say tar is an inevitable byproduct of this process. Grant Niccum, left, Arbor lead systems engineer and Kevin Saboda, systems engineer, at the company‘s test site in San Bernardino. Biomass is fed into this component and then compressed to 100 times atmospheric pressure and burned to create a synthetic gas. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) Watchdogs also caution that the math to determine whether bioenergy projects sequester or release carbon is complicated and finicky.“Biomass is tricky, and there’s a million exceptions to every rule that need to be accounted for,” said Zeke Hausfather, climate research lead with Frontier Climate, which vets carbon capture projects such as Arbor’s and connects them with companies interested in buying carbon credits. “There are examples where we have found a project that actually works on the carbon accounting math, but we didn’t want to do it because it was touching Canadian boreal forest that’s old-growth forest.”Frontier Climate, along with the company Isometric, audits Arbor’s technology and operations. However, critics note that because both companies ultimately support the sale of carbon credits, their assessments may be biased.At worst, biomass projects can decimate forests and release their stored carbon into the atmosphere. Arbor hopes, instead, to be a best-case scenario: improving — or at least maintaining — forest health and stuffing carbon underground.When it all goes SouthArbor had initially planned to build a proof of concept in Placer County. To do it, Arbor won $2 million through McCarthy’s Cal Fire program and $500,000 through a state Department of Conservation program in 2023.But as California fell into a deficit in 2023, state funding dried up. So Arbor turned to private investors. In September 2024, Arbor reached an agreement with Microsoft in which the technology company would buy carbon credits backed by Arbor’s sequestration. In July of this year, the company announced a $41-million deal (well over 15 times the funding it ever received from California) with Frontier Climate, whose carbon credit buyers include Google, the online payment company Stripe and Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook.To fulfill the credits, it would build its first commercial facility near Lake Charles, La., in part powering nearby data centers.“We were very excited about Arbor,” McCarthy said. “They pretty much walked away from their grant and said they’re not going to do this in California. … We were disappointed in that.”But for Arbor, relying on the state was no longer feasible.“We can’t rely on California for the money to develop the technology and deploy the initial systems,” said Hartwig, standing in Arbor’s plant-covered El Segundo office. “For a lot of reasons, it makes sense to go test the machine, improve the technology in the market elsewhere before we actually get to do deployments in California, which is a much more difficult permitting and regulatory environment.” Rigger Arturo Hernandez, left, and systems engineer Kevin Saboda secure Arbor’s proof-of-concept system in the company’s San Bernardino test site after its journey from Arbor’s headquarters in El Segundo. The steel frame was welded in Texas while the valves, tubing and other hardware were installed in El Segundo. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times) It’s not the first next-generation biomass company based in California to build elsewhere. San Francisco-based Charm Industrial, whose technology doesn’t involve energy generation, began its sequestration efforts in the Midwest and plans to expand into Louisiana.The American South has less stringent logging and environmental regulations, which has led biomass energy projects to flock to the area: In 2024, about 2.3% of the South’s energy came from woody biomass — up from 2% in 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Meanwhile, that number on the West Coast was only 1.2%, continuing on its slow decline. And, unlike in the West, companies aiming to create wood pellets to ship abroad have proliferated in the South. In 2024, the U.S. produced more than 10.7 million tons of biomass pellets; 82% of which was exported. That’s up from virtually zero in 2000. The vast majority of the biomass pellets produced last year — 84% — was from the South. Watchdogs warn that this lack of guardrails has allowed the biomass industry to harm the South’s forests, pollute poor communities living near biomass facilities and fall short of its climate claims.Over the last five years, Drax — a company that harvests and exports wood pellets and was working with Golden State Natural Resources — has had to pay Louisiana and Mississippi a combined $5 million for violating air pollution laws. Residents living next to biomass plants, like Drax’s, say the operations have worsened asthma and routinely leave a film of dust on their cars.But operating a traditional biomass facility or shipping wood pellets to Europe wasn’t Arbor’s founding goal — albeit powering data centers in the American South wasn’t exactly either.Hartwig, who grew up in the Golden State, hopes Arbor’s technology can someday return to California to help finance the solution for the wildfire crisis he spent so many years facing head-on.“We’ve got an interest in Arkansas, in Texas, all the way up to Minnesota,” Hartwig said. “Eventually, we’d like to come back to California.”

Energy
Agriculture
Climate

Trump administration spending $625m to revive dying coal industry

White House allocating 13.1m acres of public land to coal mining, which has been on rapid decline over past 30 yearsThe White House will open 13.1m acres (5.3m hectares) of public land to coal mining while providing $625m for coal-fired power plants, the Trump administration has announced.The efforts came as part of a suite of initiatives from the Department of the Interior, Department of Energy, and Environmental Protection Agency, aimed at reviving the flagging coal sector. Coal, the most polluting and costly fossil fuel, has been on a rapid decline over the past 30 years, with the US halving its production between 2008 and 2023, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Continue reading...

The White House will open 13.1m acres (5.3m hectares) of public land to coal mining while providing $625m for coal-fired power plants, the Trump administration has announced.The efforts came as part of a suite of initiatives from the Department of the Interior, Department of Energy, and Environmental Protection Agency, aimed at reviving the flagging coal sector. Coal, the most polluting and costly fossil fuel, has been on a rapid decline over the past 30 years, with the US halving its production between 2008 and 2023, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).“This is an industry that matters to our country,” interior secretary Doug Burgum said in a livestreamed press conference on Monday morning, alongside representatives from the other two departments. “It matters to the world, and it’s going to continue to matter for a long time.”Coal plants provided about 15% of US electricity in 2024 – a steep fall from 50% in 2000 – the EIA found, with the growth of gas and green power displacing its use. Last year, wind and solar produced more electricity than coal in the US for the first time in history, according to the International Energy Agency, which predicts that could happen at the global level by the end of 2026.Despite its dwindling role, Trump has made the reviving the coal sector a priority of his second term amid increasing energy demand due to the proliferation of artificial intelligence data centers.“The Trump administration is hell-bent on supporting the oldest, dirtiest energy source. It’s handing our hard-earned tax dollars over to the owners of coal plants that cost more to run than new, clean energy,” said Amanda Levin, director of policy analysis at the national environmental non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council. “This is a colossal waste of our money at a time when the federal government should be spurring along the new energy sources that can power the AI boom and help bring down electricity bills for struggling families.”The administration’s new $625m investment includes $350m to “modernize” coal plants, $175m for coal projects it claims will provide affordable and reliable energy to rural communities, and $50m to upgrade wastewater management systems to extend the lifespan of coal plants.The efforts follow previous coal-focused initiatives from the Trump administration, which has greenlit mining leases while fast-tracking mining permits. It has also prolonged the life of some coal plants, exempted some coal plants from EPA rules, and falsely claimed that emissions from those plants are “not significant”.The moves have sparked outrage from environmental advocates who note that coal pollution has been linked to hundreds of thousands of deaths across the past two decades. One study estimated that emissions from coal costs Americans $13-$26bn a year in additional ER visits, strokes and cardiac events, and a greater prevalence and severity of childhood asthma events.

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