Here are some of the highlights:

• Shortens judicial review timelines before, during, and after litigation on all types of federal authorizations for energy and mineral projects; Sets a 150-day statute of limitations from the final date of agency action on a project, requires expedited review of legal challenges, and sets a 180-day deadline for federal agencies to act.

• Sets a new goal to authorize 50 GW of renewable energy on federal land by 2030. Adds energy storage as an eligible project under Section 3101 of the Energy Act of 2020, including it in the scope of the Renewable Energy Coordination Office (RECO) programs.

• Accelerates leasing and permitting decisions on federal lands without bypassing environmental and land-use laws. Sets deadlines and doubles production targets for renewable energy permitting on federal lands. Streamlines environmental reviews for low-disturbance renewable, electric grid, and storage projects, modernizes geothermal leasing and permitting processes, and more.

• Requires the Secretary of the Interior to hold at least one offshore wind lease sale and one offshore oil and gas lease sale per year from 2025 through 2029, subject to minimum acreage requirements, without bypassing environmental reviews. At least 400,000 acres must be offered per year in sales. and the Secretary must establish a national goal of 30 GW for offshore wind energy production, set a target for achieving that goal, and periodically revise it as necessary.

• Reforms existing backstop siting authority for interstate electric transmission lines and requires interregional transmission planning. For more on the bill’s impact on electric transmission, check out John Engel’s write-up on POWERGRID International.

• Requires FERC and NERC to assess future federal regulations significantly affecting power plants, and offer formal comments to federal agencies on reliability. If FERC determines a rule, regulation, or standard proposed by another agency is likely to result in a violation of a mandatory electric reliability standard or resource adequacy requirement or process on file with FERC, NERC is required to conduct an assessment and report back to FERC.

• Allows FERC to extend start-construction deadlines for certain existing hydropower licenses by four additional years.

You can peruse a section-by-section breakdown of the bill here.

Reaction to the legislation

“It has long been too difficult to build some of the critical energy infrastructure America needs, and this bipartisan proposal provides a good foundation on which to build a comprehensive package of legislative reforms,” said Harry Godfrey, managing director of the national trade association Advanced Energy United. “Both parties agree that unreasonable timetables and fragmented planning processes are making it too difficult to invest and build, providing Congress a unique opportunity to pass legislation that unlocks America’s innovative industries and improves grid reliability and energy costs for households and businesses.”

“The United States of America is blessed with abundant natural resources that have powered our nation to greatness and allow us to help our friends and allies around the world,” said Chairman Manchin. “Unfortunately, today our outdated permitting system is stifling our economic growth, geopolitical strength, and ability to reduce emissions. After over a year of holding hearings in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, thoughtfully considering input from our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and engaging in good faith negotiations, Ranking Member Barrasso and I have put together a commonsense, bipartisan piece of legislation that will speed up permitting and provide more certainty for all types of energy and mineral projects without bypassing important protections for our environment and impacted communities. The Energy Permitting Reform Act will advance American energy once again to bring down prices, create domestic jobs, and allow us to continue in our role as a global energy leader. The time to act on it is now.”

“For far too long, Washington’s disastrous permitting system has shackled American energy production and punished families in Wyoming and across our country. Congress must step in and fix this process,” added Ranking Member Barrasso. “Our bipartisan bill secures future access to oil and gas resources on federal lands and waters. We fix the disastrous Rosemont decision so that we can produce more American minerals instead of relying on China. We permanently end President Biden’s reckless ban on natural gas exports. And we ensure we can strengthen our electric grid while protecting customers. This legislation is an urgent and important first step towards improving our nation’s broken permitting process.”

LULEA, Sweden (AP) — For hundreds of years, raging blast furnaces — fed with coking coal — have forged steel used in cars, railways, bridges and skyscrapers.

But the puffs of coal-fired smoke are a big source of carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gas that’s driving climate change.

According to the World Steel Association, every metric ton of steel produced in 2020 emitted almost twice that much carbon dioxide (1.8 tons) into the atmosphere. Total direct emissions from making steel were about 2.6 billion tons in 2020, representing around 7% of global CO2 emissions.

In Sweden, a single company, steel giant SSAB, accounts for about 10% of the country’s emissions due to the furnaces it operates at mills like the one in the northern town of Lulea.

But not far away, a high-tech pilot plant is seeking to significantly reduce the carbon emissions involved in steel production by switching some of that process away from burning coking coal to burning hydrogen that itself was produced with renewable energy.

HYBRIT — or Hydrogen Breakthrough Ironmaking Technology — is a joint venture between SSAB, mining company LKAB and Swedish state-owned power firm Vattenfall launched in 2016.

“The cost of renewable energy, fossil-free energy, had come down dramatically and at the same time, you had a rising awareness and the Paris Agreement” in 2015 to reduce global emissions, said Mikael Nordlander, Vattenfall’s head of industry decarbonization.

“We realized that we might have a chance now to outcompete the direct use of fossil fuels in industry with this electricity coming from fossil-free sources,” he added.

Last year, the plant made its first commercial delivery. European carmakers that have committed to dramatically reducing their emissions need cleaner steel. Chinese-owned Volvo Group became the first carmaker to partner with HYBRIT. Head of procurement Kerstin Enochsson said steel is a “major contributor” to their cars’ carbon footprint, between 20 and 35%.

“Tackling only the tailpipe emissions by being an electric company is not enough. We need to focus on the car itself, as well,” she said.

Demand from other companies, including Volkswagen, is also sending a signal that there is demand for green steel. Steelmakers in Europe have announced plans to scale up production of steel made without coal.

The HYBRIT process aims to replace the coking coal that’s traditionally used for ore-based steel making with hydrogen and renewable electricity.

It begins with brown-tinged iron ore pellets that react with the hydrogen gas and are reduced to ball-shaped “sponge iron,” which takes it name due to pores left behind following the removal of oxygen. This is then melted in an electric furnace.

If the hydrogen is made using renewable energy, too, the process produces no CO2.

“We get iron, and then we get water vapor instead,” said SSAB’s chief technology officer Martin Pei. “Water vapor can be condensed, recirculated, reused in the process.

“We really solve the root cause of carbon dioxide emissions from steel making,” he said.

Steel is a recyclable material, but demand for the alloy is expected to grow in the coming years, amid a push to transform society and build wind turbines, solar plants, power transmission lines and new electric vehicles.

“Steel is a superb construction material. It is also possible to recycle steel again and again,” said Pei. “You can reuse steel as many times as possible.

“The only problem today is the current way of making steel from iron ore emits too much CO2,” he said.

By the end of this decade, the European Union is attempting to cut overall CO2 emissions in the 27-nation bloc by 55% compared to 1990 levels. Part of that effort includes making companies pay for their C02 emissions and encourage the switch to low-carbon alternatives.

Sweden’s steel industry has set out plans to achieve “fossil-free” operations by 2045. SSAB in January brought forward its own plans to largely eliminate carbon dioxide emissions in its steel-making processes by the end of the decade.

“The companies are well aware of their possibilities and limitations in the current processes and that they have to do something about it,” said Helen Axelsson, director of energy and environment at Jernkontoret, the Swedish steel producers’ association.

But according to the World Steel Association, over 70% of global steel production takes place in Asia, where steel producers don’t have access to the same quantities of old scrap steel as countries that have been industrialized for a longer time. That’s another reason why average emissions per ton of steel are higher in the global south.

Filip Johnsson, a professor in energy technology at Gothenburg’s Chalmers University, said the vast amounts of renewable electricity necessary to make hydrogen and cleaner steel could make rolling out the HYBRIT process difficult in other parts of the world.

“I would say that the major challenge is to get loads of electricity and also to provide it sort of constantly,” he said.

The small Lulea pilot plant is still a research facility, and has so far produced just a couple of hundred tons. There are plans to construct a larger demonstration plant and begin commercial deliveries by 2026.