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U.S. NEWS Friday 29 March 2019

Billionaire's climate-change fight includes Wyoming research

By MEAD GRUVER Carbon180 got the $1 mil- an extremely difficult thing
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A lion from a trust started by to pull off," Grantham said
British billionaire who's a ma- Jeremy Grantham, who in a speech last June at
jor contributor to environ- built his wealth as an inves- the Morningstar Investment
mental causes, including tor and co-founded the Conference in Chicago.
fighting climate change, Boston-based investment Grantham said he is "all in"
will fund carbon-capture firm Grantham Mayo Van on climate change and
research in Wyoming, the Otterloo. The Jeremy and toxic environmental dam-
top U.S. coal-mining state. Hannelore Grantham En- age and has 98 percent of
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gor- vironmental Trust reported his net worth in two foun-
don and Carbontech almost $200 million in assets dations dedicated to those
Labs announced Thursday to the IRS in 2016. causes. A person who an-
they're providing $1.25 mil- Those funded through the swered the phone at the
lion to help researchers find Wyoming program will test Jeremy and Hannelore
ways to turn greenhouse- their carbon-capture pro- Grantham Environmental
gas emissions from coal- posals at a coal-fired pow- Trust said the trust would
fired power plants into er plant in the Powder River not comment on the Wyo- In this July 27, 2018, file photo, the Dave Johnson coal-fired
power plant is silhouetted against the morning sun in Glenrock,
products that can be sold Basin, the top coal-produc- ming announcement. Wyo.
for a profit. ing region in the U.S. and Gordon, meanwhile, has Associated Press
"One of the opportunities home to several enormous been less than strident
here, from a policy stand- open-pit coal mines. on the issue of fossil fuels that have started to re- where the state gets its
point I think, is what is really, The initiative links two men and climate change. He cede," Gordon said. money.
truly going to remove car- who have very different declined to answer Thurs- Revenue from Wyoming's That in mind, state officials
bon from our atmosphere?" ways of talking about cli- day whether he thought coal, oil and natural gas have been keen to secure
said Gordon, a Republican. mate change. climate change was hu- industries provide a huge a viable future for its coal
Carbontech Labs, a re- "Fossil fuels will either run man-caused and an ur- share of the state budget industry roiled by several re-
search accelerator cre- out, destroy the planet, gent problem, though he — over half in some years. cent, major bankruptcies.
ated by Oakland, Cal- or both. The only possible acknowledged seeing its Lately wavering revenue Wyoming contributed $15
ifornia-based nonprofit way to avoid this outcome signs. from fossil-fuel extraction, million to build a carbon-
Carbon180, will provide $1 is rapid and complete de- "I have been a mountain- especially coal, has forced capture test facility at Basin
million. Wyoming is contrib- carbonization of our econ- eer all my life. I have seen state officials to make ma- Electric's Dry Fork Station
uting $250,000. omy. Needless to say, this is glaciers in our mountains jor cuts and reconsider near Gillette. q