Obama Seeks More for Clean Power

Funding for clean energy would rise to $7.4 billion under President Barack Obama’s proposed 2016 budget blueprint announced Feb. 1. The spending plan also includes a new $4 billion fund to help states reduce emissions and meet the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s pending rules to slash emissions from power plants.

The proposed $7.4 budget is almost $1 billion above the current year’s $6.5 billion authorized by Congress for alternative energy technologies. The budget’s $4 billion for its Clean Power State Investment Fund seeks to ease meeting the EPA rules to be finalized this summer, which seek to cut emissions from power plants 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

Obama’s upcoming spending plan also would make permanent the Investment Tax Credit offered to solar projects, which represents 30 percent of the developer’s capital investment. The credit is set to expire at the end of 2016. The Production Tax Credit, available to wind projects, would be revived and also made permanent under the President’s budget plan. It expired at the end of last year.

Traditional funding and tax benefits for fossil fuel projects would be reduced. * * * * *

Decarbonized gas sent through the existing utility natural gas pipeline system can be helpful in achieving California’s 80 percent greenhouse gas reduction target by 2050, according to a report released by the California Energy Commission last month.

Decarbonized gas could become a key fuel for heavy-duty vehicles and industries that cannot effectively electrify their operations, the report noted. It even could serve as a substitute for conventional natural gas uses, like cooking and heating.

Decarbonized gas can consist of biogas from farms, sewage treatment plants, and landfills. It also can be made with solar- or wind-powered electrolysis units that split the hydrogen and oxygen molecules in water. The hydrogen then is mixed with pipeline gas to lower its carbon content. —Elizabeth McCarthy & William J. Kelly