Sanya explains her efforts to identify communities that are particularly likely to be harmed as the country moves to cleaner energy sources. She describes steps that the government can take to address these disparate impacts and how to allow affected communities to participate in developing solutions.
In the interview, Mike explains why dramatic cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions will require a massive build out of new zero-carbon power sources to 1) replace coal and gas power plants and 2) electrify the other parts of the energy system that currently depend on fossil fuels, such as gasoline for cars and natural gas for heating. Mike and Shelley explore how federal environmental statutes, especially the National Environmental Policy Act, are holding up new investment in renewable energy.
This week’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode is Part II of Arne Olson‘s discussion with David Spence on “Modeling Decarbonization in the West.” This two-part series covers Arne’s research on achieving a reliable transition to low-carbon energy on the West Coast. Today’s 15-minute podcast episode starts where the last one left off, focusing on California.
Arne describes why California may need to maintain some natural gas power to address wintertime shortages, unless it is able to develop significant nuclear power or long-term energy storage.
This Thursday’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode features Arne Olson talking with David Spence about his research on achieving a reliable transition to low-carbon energy on the West Coast. This week’s 18-minute podcast is the first part of a two-part series on “Modeling Decarbonization in the West,” and it focuses on the Pacific Northwest.
Arne and David’s discussion focuses on the reasons that natural gas may play a continuing useful role in the grid as it moves to lower and lower carbon emissions. Arne explains why the grid can decarbonize while maintaining natural gas power to ensure reliability during emergencies.
Leah and David discuss politically sustainable methods of accomplishing an energy transition, focusing on Leah’s research on the history of policies supporting renewable and zero-carbon technologies. She traces a trajectory for transition that begins with subsidies to nurture new technologies until they are politically potent enough to take on incumbent industries. Leah and David also discuss Texas’s support for solar and wind power.
Carey and David discuss several ways that transitioning to cleaner energy sources will change the economy. In particular, Carey notes that “lower carbon infrastructure tends to be higher capital cost relative to operating cost, implying less labor and lower employment” and explains how this could affect economic growth and inequality.
David, Joel, and Shelley discuss hot-button questions about net-metering, which effectively pays homeowners with rooftop solar the retail price for the electricity that they provide to the grid. This price is higher than that received by other power generators. Net metering offers environmental benefits but imposes costs on other electricity users. David kicks off the discussion by addressing the common question whether net-metering is regressive and segues into a discussion of the broad array of studies on the effects of net metering.
Another week, another EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode. This week, the University of Florida’s Amy Stein talks with David Spence about her research on “Maintaining Reliability in a Distributed Energy World.”
Amy and David explore the challenges of maintaining power grid reliability when an increasing amount of electricity is produced by distributed sources such as rooftop solar. Amy explains how energy storage and demand response can provide this reliability. And she describes how these “reliability resources” may be a poor fit with historical methods of utility investment and regulation.
The interview builds on Amy’s 2016 article on “Distributed Reliability,” which was published in the University of Colorado Law Review.
The Energy Tradeoffs Podcast can be found at the following links: Apple | Google
Frank explains different approaches to ensuring the reliability of the electric grid, including Texas’s approach of allowing very high prices during periods of peak demand to encourage sufficient power supply—an approach that has been repeatedly tested during hot weather in the past month. He also explains the other, more common, approach of a regulatory mandate to purchase reserves in advance, and the downsides of that conventional approach.
Frank also explains why Southern California’s solar creates ideal conditions to motivate short-term battery storage of electricity: a quick spike of lots of power for a short slice of the day that then ramps down quickly just as power demand peaks.
The Energy Tradeoffs Podcast can be found at the following links: Apple | Google
Tonight, CNN will air seven hours of back-to-back townhalls from the ten top Democratic candidates on their climate plans. So far coverage of these plans has focused on initiatives that would require Congress to pass new laws, such as various versions of the “The Green New Deal,” proposals to take over or clean up the power sector, and plans to spend trillions fighting climate change. None of these proposals would pass the Senate in anything like their proposed form.
If you want to understand what the candidates would actually
do on climate, you should focus on three things:
How they would change federal permitting of oil and gas extraction and transport;
How much they hope to spend on climate change; and
How they approach tradeoffs between climate regulation and the economy.
Here’s a guide to what the candidates have said on these
issues and the key questions that should be asked of their plans in coming months.
How Candidates Would Change Federal Oil & Gas Permitting
By far the most important question for the candidates on climate change is how they would use existing presidential authority—particularly through executive orders. The candidates can be held to these promises because they don’t require any action from Congress.
By contrast, all the candidates’ proposals for legislation would need to be passed by the Senate, which currently has a Republican majority. Even if the Democrats somehow gained a Senate majority next year, they would still need to win over moderate Democrats such as Joe Manchin who famously won his seat by shooting President Obama’s cap-and-trade bill to advertise his opposition to climate regulation. There are no such obstacles to executive authority so the most important question for candidates is how they’d use it.
The most important executive action proposed to date is Vice
President Biden’s plan to ban “new oil and gas permitting on public land and
water” by executive order on his first day in office. This would have three dramatic
effects:
It would ban new oil and gas leases across all federal land, including centers of the energy industry such as the Gulf of Mexico.
It would ban new drilling on existing leases, because every new oil and gas well needs a permit.
It would ban new oil and gas pipelines from Canada and to Mexico, because these require a federal permit. It would ban new liquefied natural gas exports to Europe and Asia. And it could even ban new domestic pipelines, because even intra-state pipelines typically cross federal streams and rivers, which a fully comprehensive permitting ban would forbid.
So Biden’s ban would entirely shut down the oil and gas
industry on public lands. And it would choke off the private energy industry by
cutting off the new pipelines and gas export facilities that it needs to get its
products to market.
The argument against Biden’s ban is that there are far less economically damaging ways to cut U.S. carbon emissions. As I explain in this new op-ed, this ban would cause serious economic pain to Americans. And a ban on new fossil fuel transport would cut off U.S. gas more than oil—oil can easily be shipped by rail, truck, barge, or tanker but gas can only be shipped on pipelines or as liquefied natural gas. And U.S. gas exports are bringing huge environmental benefits to the world by replacing dirtier fuel sources in places with air quality problems, so Biden’s ban could damage the global environment.
Here’s a chart of the Democratic candidates climate policies, ordered by their current standing in national polls. (This is drawn from the candidates websites and their responses to questions here and here.) As you can see, many of the top candidates also support a ban on federal oil and gas leasing, but many have not said whether, like Biden, they would ban all new permitting—including new wells on old leases and new international and domestic pipelines. This is the single most important issue for the candidates to discuss in tonight’s town halls and it should be the focus of savvy reporters’ questions moving forward.
I am keeping this chart updated as candidates and climate plans evolve. (Last Update 3/1/2020)
How Much Candidates Would Spend on Climate Change
Although new spending requires congressional action, Congress
must regularly reach agreement with the President to fund the federal government,
which gives a new President some leverage to spend money on his or her priorities.
The Democratic candidates have widely varying goals on climate spending, from Mayor
Buttigieg’s plan to spend $25 Billion per year on green research &
development to Senator Sanders plan to spend $16.3 Trillion to transform the energy
economy.
To understand those massive numbers, let’s put them in
context. There are 128 million American households. So Mayor Buttigieg is
planning to spend $219 per household per year and Senator Sanders is planning
to spend $127,344 per household. Vice President Biden’s plan to spend $1.7
trillion would be $13,281 per household.
It would be helpful to hear more about how the candidates
will prioritize their climate and environmental spending. If Congress will only
give them so much money, would they prioritize spending it on research &
development, on climate change projects abroad, or would they consider other
environmental issues such as improving air quality and removing lead from the water
and soil? This should be a secondary focus of reporters’ questions.
How Candidates Would Balance Climate Regulation
and the Economy
So far, the candidates have said little about how they would
balance their climate and economic goals, in part because media coverage has
focused on the Green New Deal, which asserts that there is no tradeoff between
environmental and economic goals. But a new president would make countless
decisions on how much to cut greenhouse gas emissions from cars, from power
plants, and from industrial sources using existing regulatory authority. So we
need to know what the candidates will do when their economic and environmental
goals come into conflict.
As I explain in this podcast with UCLA’s Ann Carlson, the fundamental innovation of the Green New Deal is that it promises to achieve environmental and economic goals simultaneously. It will remove 100% of greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector in ten years. And it will “guarantee[] a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States.” What it doesn’t say is what it will do when those goals come into conflict.
There are many possible ways to manage tradeoffs between the environment and the economy. Historically, environmental laws have often mandated the cleanest technology that is “available” or “demonstrated.” And government regulators have interpreted those standards as requiring that industry cut emissions as much as it can without risking plant closures or job losses.
Another way to manage environmental and economic tradeoffs
is with carbon pricing: a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system. These systems
make polluters pay for their greenhouse gas emissions. But if a product is so
valuable to society that consumers are willing to pay the cost of manufacturing
it plus its environmental cost, then they can still purchase it.
Almost all the candidates have said they support the Green New Deal, but they should be asked how they will balance their climate and economic goals. Will they use traditional standards that asks the fossil fuel industry to clean up but doesn’t shut it down? Or do they think that industries should only survive if they can pay the price of their carbon emissions? Or, like Vice President Biden, do they think that some industries should be shut down regardless of the cost? These questions arise every day for climate regulators so reporters should ask the candidates how they will manage these energy tradeoffs.
