Trump administration halts $370 million in green energy grants; hydrogen, carbon capture projects hit

On FridayMay 30), the US Department of Energy announced on its official website that it would cancel 24 government-backed projects issued by the Office of Clean Energy DemonstrationOCED), with a total value of more than $370 million. The US Department of Energy stated in its statement that the department had conducted a comprehensive and financial review of each project and found that these projects "failed to meet the energy needs of the American people", "lacked economic viability", and could not bring a positive on investment to taxpayers' money. The press release specifically mentioned that among the 24 project contracts canceled, 16 were signed and approved by Biden between the day the last general election and January 20 (the day Trump was sworn in), and these projects mainly include providing funding for carbon capture and storage decarbonization projects. Source: US Department of Energy official website The Department of Energy claimed that by terminating these contracts, the department would immediately save $360 million for the Americans Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that the Biden administration had failed to conduct a thorough financial review before signing the agreement. The canceled projects include: $310 million for the project at ExxonMobil's Baytown refinery in Texas, $170 million for the Kraft Heinz clean energy project, $500 million the low-carbon cement project at Heidelberg Materials, etc. Two weeks ago, the US Department of Energy announced the initiation of an audit procedure for about $1 billion in energy grants from the Biden period. At that time, Wright stated that he would enhance accountability mechanisms and promote responsible management of taxpayer funds, and evaluate financial assistance on a caseby-case basis to identify whether funds were wasted. In addition, an internal proposal was made within the Department of Energy to close the Office of Clean Energy, which was for providing massive funding for clean energy technology projects such as hydrogen centers and carbon capture during the Biden administration. If this proposal is implemented, not only will the funding for thegen Center be cut, but also projects such as carbon capture and battery storage, and even the "Direct Air Capture" project that the Biden administration originally planned to allocate up to1.2 billion for and was contracted by a subsidiary of Western Oil Company will be affected.