This story was originally published by Capital & Main and was republished with permission.
With the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act last year, Congress and the administration of President Joe Biden made a colossal bet on nascent massive-scale technological solutions to the climate change crisis.
Together, the laws dedicated more than $100 billion to atmospheric carbon reduction, including grants, loans and tax credits for renewable energy projects; hydrogen hubs; electric vehicle fleets; and carbon capture, utilization and sequestration, or CCUS. (Some prefer a simpler phrase: carbon capture, use, and storage.)
It’s that last category that has excited politicians in hydrocarbon-rich Texas because it involves cashing in on a new round of federal subsidies to scale up an activity that oil producers have already been doing for a long time: pumping liquefied carbon gas into the ground.
With expanded feder... Read more