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While at least one event provided a platform for oil and gas industry greenwashing, others centered people directly affected by fossilfuel-driven climate change who are holding bad actors accountable. I had the honor of moderating one of the latter events, Scientists & Activists vs. FossilFuel Finance.
This year has brought new evidence of what major fossilfuel companies knew and when about the role their products play in climate change, as well as what they did in spite of what they knew. But these technologies are no substitute for sharp cuts in fossilfuels if we keep the goals of the Paris climate agreement within reach.
Some years ago, I began to feel the most important thing I could do was learn how to replace fossilfuel with renewable energy. For 30 years I have been an advocate for offshore wind development off New England’s coast and for the creation of institutions to support a transition from fossilfuels to renewable energy.
In an important win for climate accountability in the United States, the US Supreme Court decided that lawsuits filed in Colorado, Maryland, California, Hawai’i, and Rhode Island against fossilfuel companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, Suncor, and others will remain in state courts.
The world’s biggest fossilfuel companies recently released their 2022 earnings reports, revealing record-breaking profits last year; just five companies–ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, and TotalEnergies–reported a total of nearly $200 billion in profits.
Although the country’s federal energyregulator has had a disconcertingly nonchalant attitude towards these events.) The most promising and comprehensive solution is to meet grid reliability needs with clean resources rather than gas plants. However, that’s not what I’m going to focus on here.
As the year kicks off with a very cold January weather forecast, US power grid operators and the regulators who oversee them are paying close attention to ensure that the grid failures of several past extreme winter storms dont happen again. and would greatly facilitate transmission development on a reasonable timeline.
Bidirectional EVs Could Be the New Standard Electric vehicles (EVs) should be a clean transportation and a cleanenergy solution. Special session takes on big oil and wins The transition to clean transportation and away from fossilfuels is here. that need to be mined for new batteries.
The simple fact is that ditching fossilfuels for low-cost cleanenergy resources is good for the planet, good for the US economy, and good for public health. The studies the DOE reviewed also found that transmission investments would provide a host of benefits beyond access to cleanenergy. The good news?
The fabulous growth of wind and solar builds on states’ cleanenergy policy and corporate decarbonization targets. However, great opportunities for more new cleanenergy supplies to replace fossilfuelenergy need supporting grid investments. Where do we go for that modern infrastructure?
Replacing fossilfuels with renewable energy from wind and solar will depend on upgrading the electric power grid, which is currently plagued by planning delays and gridlock. The 2021 law allows, but does not require, PJM to plan ahead because various fossilfuel plants must reduce and then cease emissions by a specific date.
Renewable energy like wind and solar is a clear solution: generate more electricity from renewables, and you can use less gas, and minimize the range of harms that come with that gas. We can help those decision makers make good decisions about gas plants and carbon cutting by sharing our understanding about what needs to be in the picture.
This is exacerbating a crisis in energy insecurity that has only worsened during the pandemic, leaving many more families struggling to pay their bills, facing disconnection, or already shut off from their utility service. And such action cannot be influenced by fossilfuel interests and their policy proposals that we are seeing in Congress.
With the cleanenergy transition already under way, the US electricity mix is set to continue changing this year. Solar power is expected to make up about half of all additions of US electric generating capacity in 2023, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). I’ll start off with the good.
Three decades of deregulation allowed private companies, as opposed to public regulators, to make critical decisions about reliability. In many places state and federal utility regulators delegated decisions about energy supplies to the market. It’s a vicious feedback loop.
Codifying a floor for renewables in state law is helpful, but cleanenergy advocates must keep pushing utilities to move more quickly to incorporate higher levels of renewables not only to cut emissions faster, but also because renewables are the most cost-effective resources for ratepayers. What Still Needs to be Done?
Statement by Alienor Rougeot, Senior Program Manager, Climate and Energy, on Ontario’s claims regarding the federal Clean Electricity Regulations. The federal government’s proposed regulations to reduce emissions in electricity generation are achievable without breaking the bank.
With some notable exceptions, they’ve tended to drag their feet on the energy transition. The proposed CleanEnergy Standard is one effort to deal with this problem. A big shift to renewables could leave stranded assets — existing fossilfuel plants that the utility will no longer get paid for using.
As electric vehicle charging stations sprout like mushrooms along our roads and clusters of new wind turbines come online, these two cleanenergy solutions to the climate crisis are becoming more commonplace. The United States needs to speed its transition to cleanenergy in order to stave off even worse impacts of climate change.
And we know that as our climate warms further—driven by burning fossilfuels—the risk of large wildfires will only grow. This alarming finding clarifies the significant role and responsibility of fossilfuel companies to not only stop their harm moving forward, but also to address damage they have already done.
That’s because the case, which was about the nature and scope of EPA authority in regulating carbon emissions from existing power plants, turned on a rule that does not exist. Because while this decision does still recognize EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, it simultaneously sharply curtails the agency’s ability to do so.
You don’t have to look beyond the front pages of newspapers , or beyond rooftops in your neighborhood to know that we are in the midst of a cleanenergy revolution, with renewable energy technologies dramatically decreasing in price and increasing in availability.
We already have so many of the foundational technological building blocks of the cleanenergy transition at hand: renewables, energy efficiency, energy storage, and pathways to electrifying a vast array of energy end uses. Now we need to rapidly accelerate the cleanenergy momentum already underway.
Minnesotans are facing concurrent crises of climate change, high energy prices and inflation, and the inequitable public health impacts of fossilfuel air pollution. Renewable energy will help with all of that—but we need a grid that is designed for wind and solar instead of having to rely on expensive coal and gas plants.
Last year’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) included a clean hydrogen production tax credit (known as “45V”) that is one of a slew of new incentives intended to help catalyze the next and necessary phase of advancing the nation’s cleanenergy transition as a whole. The costs will be too great otherwise.
Prompted by a state law, California’s utility regulator has proposed to change the way electricity is billed by adding a fixed monthly charge to all rate plans and making a corresponding reduction to the cost for each unit of electricity used. The transition to clean transportation and cleanenergy is underway and we have to get it right.
5060 ), titled An Act Driving CleanEnergy and Offshore Wind, into law on Thursday August 11, 2022. DPU is directed to promulgate updated regulations in accordance with the legislation. Reduction of FossilFuels. Governor Baker signed the climate bill ( H.5060 The law keeps the required procurement total at 5.6
Permitting them to violate these critical regulations means taxpayers have to shoulder the cost of monitoring, remediation, and cleanup, if they happen at all. VY: Cleanenergy sources will be absolutely pivotal for an equitable and reliable grid. EN: What needs to be done to make the electric grid more equitable—and reliable?
In late December, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released proposed regulations for the Section 45V Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit. The tax credit, passed as part of 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act, provides a generous incentive for the production of clean hydrogen. the “three pillars”).
This is great news, considering the outsized impacts of fossilfuels on driving climate change. For Canada, a major oil and gas producing country, it is imperative to be prepared for the shift in the global energy market. We have the tools to support a fair phaseout of fossilfuels.
EPA on Thursday, June 30, 2022, curbing the power of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants across the country. The decision focuses on EPA’s authority under a specific section of the Clean Air Act. What does this mean for cleanenergy projects?
In December, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service proposed regulations governing implementation of the 45V Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit , passed as part of 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act. In particular, emissions loopholes related to biomethane and fugitive methane (i.e.,
Much of our electricity system is 50 to 70 years old, yet current plans for domestic manufacturing, electric vehicle fleets, community solar gardens and more cleanenergy all depend on a modern grid. Add the supply We have more energy-producing facilities than ever before, and the United States is producing record levels of energy.
It’s widely viewed as the “gold standard” for energy projections, even though there’s much debate in the energy community about the validity of the assumptions behind these projections. EIA has a tough time coming to these projections as it’s difficult to predict the events that cause changes to energy markets.
I’d be remiss not to mention that, ever since the August 2020 power outages, California policymakers and regulators have been pulling out all the stops to maintain grid reliability. The solar, wind, nuclear, hydropower, geothermal, energy storage and natural gas on the grid right now are the resources the state has this month.
This is despite the cleanenergy progress the power sector has experienced to date—and despite the groundwork laid for more progress from leading states, as well as the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). And more gas is slated to come. So what follows from that obligation?
Grid modeling tools have a significant real-world impact because utilities, grid operators, regulators and policymakers rely on these tools to make investment and policy decisions. Capacity expansion models are the ones that get all the glory these days because utilities, grid operators and regulators use them to make investment decisions.
The majority 6–3 decision sharply curtails the EPA’s authority to set standards based on a broad range of flexible options to cut carbon emissions from the power sector—options such as replacing polluting fossilfuels with cheap and widely available wind and solar power coupled with battery storage. The West Virginia v.
We need more electricity to transition our homes and cars off fossilfuels, but we can’t afford to let that electricity come from more gas power plants. Aging plants and state cleanenergy goals are certainly helping that trend. But we’ve also reached the point where the economics of renewables are just much better.
An ambitious law that promises to accelerate the state’s cleanenergy transition, CEJA provides a detailed framework for greater utility transparency and accountability to update electricity distribution infrastructure to ensure a cleanenergy future.
With an outsized credit for the lowest-carbon tier, the incentive’s aim is clear: Drive deployment of hydrogen production technologies that will be needed by, and aligned with , the nation’s overall cleanenergy transition. How do biomethane, lifecycle carbon accounting, and the tax credit interact?
Energy use accounts for the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions. The key to getting climate change under control is to rapidly decrease the user of fossilfuels. These facts make energy law central to one of the biggest issues now facing humanity. There are three interlinked reasons for the change. Climate change.
The US Energy Information Administration is forecasting the wholesale price of gas to reach its highest level since the winter of 2009-2010 in inflation-adjusted terms. Henry Hub is the national benchmark for wholesale gas prices (Source: US Energy Information Administration ). There are examples from across the country.
Following is a reaction from Tom Rutigliano , senior advocate with the Sustainable FERC Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council -- “The bill is suddenly due for an overreliance on fossilfuels and inadequate planning for a more affordable, diverse power grid in PJM. will be the ones who pay the price.
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