U.S. Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) highlighted opportunities to grow North Dakota’s energy industry, and the importance of traditional energy sources, this week at the Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s annual meeting.
Hoeven has advanced clean coal projects in North Dakota and earlier this year secured $30 million for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) research.
“Our ability to provide low-cost, reliable energy drives the country’s economy and impacts families and businesses from coast to coast,” said Hoeven, who serves on the Senate Energy Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Energy and Water Development subcommittee.
“North Dakota is leading the way in developing some truly innovative technology, such as the Allam Cycle, Project Tundra and other clean coal projects, which will help our energy industry to produce more energy with better environmental stewardship and less emissions,” he said.
The Allam Cycle pilot project, through the efforts of Basin Electric and Allete Inc., focuses on creating zero-emissions technologies for new power plants where CO2 would drive turbines and create electricity.
Project Tundra, meanwhile, aims to develop next-generation full-plant scrubbing technologies to retrofit existing plants to capture CO2. Minnkota Power Cooperative, Allete, BNI Energy and the University of North Dakota partnered together to advance that project.
Hoeven has also urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to approve North Dakota’s application for regulatory primacy over wells used to store geologic carbon, and he recently introduced the CO2 Regulatory Certainty Act with U.S. Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT).
“We are working to ensure that the federal government has the programs and policies in place that industry needs to advance these projects and make this technology commercially viable,” Hoeven added.
The senator inserted language into the Senate’s fiscal year 2017 Interior and Environment funding bill to block implementation of the EPA’s Waters of the United States rule. In addition, he has co-sponsored multiple resolutions to repeal EPA regulations for new and existing coal generating power plants.
Furthermore, the bipartisan Improving Coal Combustion Residuals Regulation Act, which was introduced by Hoeven earlier this year, would boost coal ash recycling.