Published April 30, 2021 Danielle Ternes
The following is a contributed article by Ben Hertz-Shargel, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center.
Decarbonizing the nation s electric grid and transportation system is one of the chief aims of the Biden administration s new infrastructure plan. The plan calls for significant investment in clean energy resources, such as offshore wind, as well as electric vehicles (EVs) and their charging infrastructure.
Pundits initial focus has been on the jobs that the American Jobs Plan could create. Equally important, however, will be the returns on both public and private capital that the investments generate, and this will depend to a large degree on how well they are leveraged within power markets.
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Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken delivers remarks to employees at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on January 27, 2021. (State Department Photo by Ron Przysucha/ Public Domain)
Speaking from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Philip Merrill Center, US Secretary of State Tony Blinken delivered an address to usher in President Joe Biden’s Leaders Summit on Climate, which will begin this week on Earth Day. Secretary Blinken laid out the stakes of inaction on climate from sea level rise to more severe wildfires to other extreme weather events and detailed a range of efforts on climate adaptation and mitigation to address the challenges of a warming world.
Carbon capture in Germany: Long-overdue momentum is building
Reichstag Building in Berlin amid fall colors (Neirfy/Shutterstock)
It has been close to two years since German Chancellor Angela Merkel put carbon capture, removal, and storage back on the German policy agenda. However, for quite a while there was virtually no movement, even as Norway, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Germany’s own industrial giants moved ahead with funding and projects. The lack of progress was jarring, as the support for carbon capture technologies from the scientific community grew rapidly. Fortunately, over the past few months momentum has slowly built.
The Atlantic Council April 1 announced that Dr. Rita Baranwal, vice president of nuclear and chief nuclear officer at Electric Power Research Institute, has joined the Atlantic Council Nuclear Energy and National Security Coalition.
âI look forward to furthering awareness of and learning from the Coalition through the lens of EPRIâs global perspective,â said Baranwal in a statement. âMy career experience and ongoing engagement with the Atlantic Council lead me to believe that there is much to contribute from my new role in the areas of robust operation of the existing fleet, R&D, and innovating advanced technologies.â
Baranwal, who previously served as assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Energyâs Office of Nuclear Energy, brings a wealth of public and private sector experience advancing nuclear policy and technology in the United States and abroad, the release said.