|
News
|
LCG, April 29, 2025--Officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) today outlining the state’s plans to administer programs related to carbon storage wells, known as Class VI wells. The MOA signing is a required step in the RRC’s application to be granted authority to permit Class VI wells in the state of Texas. EPA is currently preparing a proposed approval of RRC’s primacy application.
Read more
|
|
LCG, April 24, 2025--Exxon Mobil Corporation (ExxonMobil) announced yesterday an agreement with Calpine Corporation (Calpine) to transport and permanently store up to 2 million metric tons per annum (MTA) of CO2 from Calpine’s Baytown Energy Center, a natural gas-fired facility located near Houston, Texas. This is part of Calpine’s Baytown Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Project that is designed to add CCS for the facility’s CO2 emissions. The Calpine facility could then provide a 24/7 supply of low-carbon electricity to the Texas grid plus steam to nearby industrial facilities.
Read more
|
|
|
Industry News
Sierra Club Loses Challenge of Air Permit Issued for New Gas-fired Power Plant in Texas
LCG, March 21, 2014 - The United States Environmental Appeals Board rejected on March 14 a Sierra Club petition for a review of an air permit issued to La Paloma Energy Center LLC for a gas-fired, combined-cycle power project in Harlingen, Texas. With the decision, an obstacle in the path towards construction is set aside. The project is being developed by Coronado Power Ventures, LLC and Bechtel.
Last November, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 6 issued the permit to La Paloma Energy Center, LLC (LPEC). The permit authorizes LPEC to construct and operate a 637-MW to 735-MW natural gas-fired power plant. In December, the Sierra Club filed a petition challenging the La Paloma permit on the grounds that the EPA erred or abused its discretion by failing to base the emissions limits for each of the plant's three gas combustion turbine (CT) units on the energy efficiency of the most efficient of three technologies proposed by the developer.
The Environmental Appeals Board stated in its March 14 order denying review of the prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) permit, "Sierra Club has failed to demonstrate that the Region clearly erred or abused its discretion in establishing the GHG permit limits for the combustion turbines at the proposed LPEC facility. The Board finds no support in EPA's Best Available Control Technology [BACT] guidance for Sierra Club's position that the three specific turbine models proposed by LPEC must be identified as separate control technologies throughout the Region's five-step analysis." The Board concluded that the Region had a rational basis for its determinations that all three of the permitted turbine models considered are comparably efficient, that the assigned BACT limits are substantially equivalent except for marginal differences attributable to capacity, and that the GHG emission limits for all three turbine models represent BACT for highly efficient combined cycle combustion turbines.
The Sierra Club also challenged the permit on the grounds the EPA did not require LPEC to consider a design incorporating solar thermal energy to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions because the Region incorrectly concluded that solar technology would redefine the source of the GHGs. However, the Board concluded, "Under the circumstances of this case, the business purposes and site-specific constraints described in the administrative record support the Region's conclusion that the addition of supplemental solar power to this facility would constitute redesign of the source."
|
|
|
|
UPLAN-NPM
The Locational Marginal Price Model (LMP) Network Power Model
|
|
|
UPLAN-ACE
Day Ahead and Real Time Market Simulation
|
|
|
UPLAN-G
The Gas Procurement and Competitive Analysis System
|
|
|
PLATO
Database of Plants, Loads, Assets, Transmission...
|
|
|
|
|
