Efforts to put carbon dioxide underground face less support in Trump's second term

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Putting carbon dioxide from power plants and industrial facilities underground where it won’t contribute to global warming could see less federal support and enthusiasm under President Donald Trump. But experts and industry advocates doubt demand for the technology will go away as long as utilities face state-level climate change goals.

Trump has vowed to “drill, baby, drill” for fossil fuels and ordered the U.S. to withdraw from the landmark Paris agreement to try to limit Earth's warming. Meanwhile, his new energy secretary, Chris Wright, has vowed to prioritize “affordable, reliable and secure energy” in a policy-setting order that criticizes zero-carbon goals and makes no mention of carbon capture.

Carbon capture's doubters include both conservative policy organizations and environmental groups . Even so, its outlook in the U.S. isn't all bleak.

Carbon capture got a $12 billion boost under Joe Biden through increased tax incentives and funding through the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. With projects scattered nationwide, including dozens in Republican states, there may be less appetite to include them in budget cuts, said analyst Rohan Dighe with the energy and resources research firm Wood Mackenzie.

But a broader trend away from “environmental, social and governance” investing, or ESG, could sap momentum for carbon capture, Dighe said by email.

“So even absent government rollback of funding, we could see fewer project announcements and movements due to lower interest in decarbonizing,” Dighe wrote.

Carbon capture involves separating carbon dioxide from the emissions of power plants and other industrial facilities and pumping it underground. The goal can be either to store it permanently so it doesn't contribute to climate change, or to pressurize an oilfield to help increase production.

Carbon capture has deep support in Republican Wyoming, home to projects including an ExxonMobil plant that separates CO2 from sour gas wells for use in aging oilfields and another experimenting with putting power plant CO2 underground.

In 2021, GOP Gov. Mark Gordon pledged to make the sparsely populated state — which exports 12 times more energy than it consumes — not just carbon neutral but “carbon negative.”

Carbon capture features prominently in that plan. In 2020, Wyoming, which contributed tens of millions of dollars for a carbon capture research facility at an operating power plant, became one of the first states to regulate underground carbon dioxide injection itself rather than through the EPA. That list now also includes Louisiana, North Dakota and West Virginia.

But there’s also growing skepticism in Wyoming, the nation's top coal producer. With Trump back in office, some question the need for greenhouse gas goals.

One state lawmaker recently proposed legislation titled “Make Carbon Dioxide Great Again” that would back off carbon capture including a 2020 state law requiring utilities to study how much it would cost to install at the state's fossil-fuel-fired power plants.

No other lawmakers supported the bill and it failed.

Meanwhile, Gordon is sticking with carbon capture to help protect Wyoming's coal industry. Eighteen states that account for almost two-thirds of Wyoming's coal market have renewable energy and carbon-neutrality goals, Gordon spokesman Michael Pearlman said by email.

"To keep that market, we have to use carbon capture," Pearlman wrote.

The billions of dollars in federal grants for carbon capture approved under Biden have aided dozens of carbon capture projections nationwide through the Department of Energy’s CarbonSAFE program. Seven are in Wyoming.

The future of the “45Q” tax credit for carbon capture projects especially worries the Carbon Capture Coalition, a group of more than 100 environmental groups, unions and companies. It recently urged Congress to uphold the credit, which was included in the Inflation Reduction Act.

To date, the Petra Nova facility outside Houston, whose CO2 is used to increase production at nearby oilfields, is the nation's only power plant that puts the greenhouse gas underground on a commercial scale. More could be coming eventually. Government support helped spur 270 carbon capture projects across the U.S. in the past few years, the coalition wrote to congressional leaders.

“We wanted to kind of put a stake in the ground,” said Madelyn Morrison, the group’s government affairs director.

Republicans have voted dozens of times, unsuccessfully, to repeal portions of the Inflation Reduction Act when they held a minority in the Senate, according to the Brookings Institution. Now that they control the Senate, House and White House, the bar to repeal is lower.

That would have support from the conservative Heritage Foundation, a longstanding opponent of carbon capture. Requiring carbon capture for coal- and gas-fired power plants would be costly just when electric vehicles are increasing energy demand, the group argued in a paper last year.

Others on the right say building out the network of pipelines and injection wells necessary for carbon capture threatens to trample on private property rights.

“Carbon capture and storage projects are nothing more than an opportunistic scheme to make vast sums of money from a problem that arguably does not exist,” concluded a January report by the conservative Heartland Institute that recommended abolishing the 45Q tax credit.

Earthjustice and other environmental groups oppose carbon capture largely because they see it as dubious cover to maintain fossil fuel production.

For the Carbon Capture Coalition, the technology is a middle ground recognizing that neither carbon-free energy production nor an end to burning fossil fuels will happen overnight. Even if Trump is all in for fossil fuels, U.S. consumers and the global market will demand the technology, the group says.

“In order for these American industries to really remain competitive, not only in domestic markets, but really in the global marketplace, their businesses really depend on investing in innovative solutions like carbon management,” Morrison said.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

FILE - Carbon dioxide and other pollutant billows from a stack at PacifiCorp’s coal-fired Naughton Power Plant, near where Bill Gates company, TerraPower plans to build an advanced, nontraditional nuclear reactor, Jan. 13, 2022, in Kemmerer, Wyo. (AP Photo/Natalie Behring, File)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Ahn Sung-ki, one of South Korean cinema’s biggest stars whose prolific 60-year career and positive, gentle public image earned him the nickname “The Nation’s Actor,” died Monday. He was 74.

Ahn, who had suffered blood cancer for years, was pronounced dead at Seoul's Soonchunhyang University Hospital, his agency, the Artist Company, and hospital officials said.

“We feel deep sorrow at the sudden, sad news, pray for the eternal rest of the deceased and offer our heartfelt condolences to his bereaved family members," the Artist Company said in a statement.

President Lee Jae Myung issued a condolence message saying Ahn provided many people with comfort, joy and time for reflection. “I already miss his warm smile and gentle voice,” Lee wrote on Facebook.

Born to a filmmaker in the southeastern city of Daegu in 1952, Ahn made his debut as a child actor in the movie “The Twilight Train” in 1957. He subsequently appeared in about 70 movies as a child actor before he left the film industry to live an ordinary life.

In 1970, Ahn entered Seoul’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies as a Vietnamese major. Ahn said he graduated with top honors but failed to land jobs at big companies, who likely saw his Vietnamese major largely useless after a communist victory in the Vietnam War in 1975.

Ahn returned to the film industry in 1977 believing he could still excel in acting. In 1980, he rose to fame for his lead role in Lee Jang-ho’s “Good, Windy Days,” a hit coming-of-age movie about the struggle of working-class men from rural areas during the country’s rapid rise. Ahn won the best new actor award in the prestigious Grand Bell Awards, the Korean version of the Academy Awards.

He later starred in a series of highly successful and critically acclaimed movies, sweeping best actor awards and becoming arguably the country’s most popular actor in much of the 1980-90s.

Some of his memorable roles included a Buddhist monk in 1981’s “Mandara,” a beggar in 1984’s “Whale Hunting,” a Vietnam War veteran-turned-novelist in 1992’s “White Badge,” a corrupt police officer in 1993’s “Two Cops,” a murderer in 1999’s “No Where To Hide,” a special forces trainer in 2003’s “Silmido” and a devoted celebrity manager in 2006’s “Radio Star.”

Ahn had collected dozens of trophies in major movie awards in South Korea, including winning the Grand Bell Awards for best actor five times, an achievement no other South Korean actors have matched yet.

Ahn built up an image as a humble, trustworthy and family-oriented celebrity who avoided major scandals and maintained a quiet, stable personal life. Past public surveys chose Ahn as South Korea’s most beloved actor and deserving of the nickname “The Nation’s Actor.”

Ahn said he earlier felt confined with his “The Nation's Actor” labeling but eventually thought that led him down the right path. In recent years, local media has given other stars similar honorable nicknames, but Ahn was apparently the first South Korean actor who was dubbed “The Nation's Actor.”

“I felt I should do something that could match that title. But I think that has eventually guided me on a good direction,” Ahn said in an interview with Yonhap news agency in 2023.

In media interviews, Ahn couldn’t choose what his favorite movie was, but said that his role as a dedicated, hardworking manger for a washed-up rock singer played by Park Jung-hoon resembled himself in real life the most.

Ahn was also known for his reluctance to do love scenes. He said said he was too shy to act romantic scenes and sometimes asked directors to skip steamy scenes if they were only meant to add spice to movies.

“I don’t do well on acting like looking at someone who I don’t love with loving eyes and kissing really romantically. I feel shy and can’t express such emotions well,” Ahn said in an interview with the Shindonga magazine in 2007. “Simply, I’m clumsy on that. So I couldn’t star in such movies a lot. But ultimately, that was a right choice for me.”

Ahn is survived by his wife and their two sons. A mourning station at a Seoul hospital was to run until Friday.

FILE - South Korean actor Ahn Sung-ki smiles for a photo on the red carpet at the 56th Daejong Film Awards ceremony in Seoul, South Korea, June 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

FILE - South Korean actor Ahn Sung-ki attends an event as part of the 11th Pusan International Film Festival in Busan, South Korea, Oct. 13, 2006. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)