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Production and combustion of fossilfuels imposes enormous costs on society, which the industry doesn’t pay for. A more promising alternative might be a clean-up tax on the fossilfuel industry. A carbon tax could cover the economy without the need for scores of regulations tailored to each industry.
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. These changes have dramatically reduced the amount of fossilsfuels burned for energy.
Although the country’s federal energy regulator has had a disconcertingly nonchalant attitude towards these events.) Even with the clean energy transition well underway, gas plants will be around for a while as we phase out fossilfuels.
For more than 50 years, we have pioneered new policies and ushered in new technologies to clean our air and protect our climate. We progress despite regular cries of impending doom from regulated industries and their enablers. Over its short lifetime, the program has already transformed many segments of the fuels market.
The bill, introduced by State Representative Supreme Moore Omokunde and State Senator Chris Larson, creates an enforceable timeline with specific objectives, allowing flexibility for discussions of the various technology and policy approaches to come later. billion in higher energy costs compared to cleaner alternatives.
I was invited to speak at a panel discussion last Wednesday as part of The Economist ’s annual Sustainability Week, titled “What technologies are needed to avert a climate disaster?” True to the theme, I was asked about which technological innovations would be necessary to save our planet. And yet, we aren’t.
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.
Yet, reaching net zero also means phasing out polluting fossilfuel energy, so the government developed rules to impose a pollution limit on electricity producers. The rules, known as the Clean Electricity Regulations (CER), were finalized in December 2024. So, do they do the job? Lets have a look. GW in 2023.
CARB’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) seeks to incentivize the production and sale of alternative, lower emissions transportation fuels in order to displace conventional fossilfuels. To identify which fuels should be promoted, CARB calculates the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions from transportation fuels.
This decision , reached with a 6-3 majority led by Chief Justice John Roberts, marks a significant shift in administrative law and has profound implications for environmental regulations and climate accountability. Successful court cases could limit the scope of future regulations. Worse, agencies may decide not to even try.
A big shift to renewables could leave stranded assets — existing fossilfuel plants that the utility will no longer get paid for using. In much of the country, those wholesale transactions are under the control of regional transmission organizations established by federal power regulators, but that’s not true everywhere.
Paul Arbaje is an energy analyst in the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists and an expert on electricity policies and reforms that reduce fossilfuel use and reliance. The energy enthusiast who owns their own homes can take further steps toward making their homes completely free of direct fossilfuel use.
In addition, we already have regulations in place to achieve methane reductions, so we are essentially subsidizing compliance with existing rules. million for other categories of support to fossilfuels. In some cases, these funds even went to paying companies to comply with existing regulations.
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 clean energy revolution, with renewable energy technologies dramatically decreasing in price and increasing in availability.
California’s transportation fuel policy is knee deep in cow poop, and it’s not a good look. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is considering amendments to its Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) regulation, but indicated they have no plans to address the problems caused by counter-productive subsidies for manure biomethane.
By Matthew Carroll, Penn State News Moving from fossilfuels to renewable energy sources like wind and solar will require better ways to store energy for use when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. over the existing technology. million in the United States and found it can improve efficiency by 9.5%
EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act (CAA) A. Investment and incentives for clean technologies under the Inflation Reduction Act. Nuclear power regulation D. FERC pipeline regulation (natural gas and hydrogen). California authority to regulate new vehicles D. Social Cost of Carbon D.
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.
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.,
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.
Utilities were famously set in their ways, using nineteenth century technologies to produce and deliver their products. The key to getting climate change under control is to rapidly decrease the user of fossilfuels. Technological changes. Only specialists really paid much attention. All that has changed dramatically.
The key word here is “ intensity :” Fossilfuel companies often focus on emissions intensity, meaning emissions per barrel of oil, rather than absolute emissions, which is a set number measured in metric tons. That means Exxon still plans to spend the vast majority of its funds on fossilfuel exploration and production.
In 2016 Monterey County voters passed Measure Z, a citizen initiative intended to bar the drilling of new oil and gas wells in the county and ban the use of fracking technology for existing wells in Monterey County. The oil and gas industry, led by Chevron U.S.A.,
For example, researchers at the Union of Concerned Scientists have directly linked fossilfuel producers’ Scope 1 and Scope 3 emissions to increases in ocean acidification , global temperature, sea level rise and North American wildfires. So how does the fossilfuel industry think it should measure emissions?
The article quotes a range of economists and other climate policy experts to the effect that subsidies and regulations are superior to carbon pricing because they can address equity issues, and that they can move investment in decarbonization technology more quickly than carbon pricing.
Some estimates suggest they could disappear by 2030 due to the climate change triggered by human fossilfuel use, which began less than 200 years ago. In Montana and around the world, glaciers support ecosystems, serve as year-round water sources, and regulate the climate, among other important ecological functions.
Renewable energy generation increases faster than any other technology. Generation from renewable technologies more than covers the increase in electricity demand, also making up for coal and nuclear plant retirements. Source: US Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook 2022 (AEO2022).
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 clean energy transition. But instead of meeting that straightforward aim, a series of implementation loopholes threaten to fully undermine it.
Canada needs to take more action to transition away from fossilfuels Statement from Aly Hyder Ali, Oil and Gas Program Manager Ottawa | Traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg People – We applaud today’s report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), which sends a clear signal: the era of fossilfuels is ending.
The Pathways Alliance spent millions of dollars misleading the public with ads about “greening” its fossilfuel production. We called them out to the Competition Bureau , the agency responsible for regulating false advertising, and the Bureau is now investigating Pathways Alliance for misleading claims. and ConocoPhillips.
March was a tight competition between fossilfuel pipeline, extraction, and oil and gas production companies for who could get the most face time with the federal government. Fossilfuel transportation firm Pembina Pipeline Company had the most lobby meetings in March. and Enbridge Inc. with 10 meetings each.
Permitting them to violate these critical regulations means taxpayers have to shoulder the cost of monitoring, remediation, and cleanup, if they happen at all. There’s a wide range of solutions, including integrating solar, wind and other renewable technologies; investing in new transmission; and reducing demand with efficiency measures.
Upcoming research from my colleague Dave Cooke shows that electric delivery trucks can reduce climate-warming emissions from driving by up to 92 percent and reduce lifecycle public health impacts by up to 85 percent compared to today’s average fossil-fueled delivery trucks.
The IRA gave us effective tools for cleaning up the power sector through dedicated support for the rapid and widescale deployment of renewable resources and the technologies that support them. Which means the consequences of these polluters unabashedly continuing to pollute aren’t just severe—they’re compounding.
California’s leadership on reducing truck pollution has been on full display the past few years, passing critical regulations requiring 90 percent reduction in smog-forming nitrogen oxide (NO X ) emissions from diesel trucks and requiring manufacturers sell an increasing share of electric trucks to move away from fossilfuels altogether.
Statement by Emilia Belliveau, Energy Transition Program Manager Ottawa | Traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg People – At today’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development (ENVI), Members of Parliament grilled the fossilfuel industry about their climate pollution. Jun 6, 2024.
Another actor with immense political power and influence played a role in this shift: the fossilfuel industry. Fossilfuel companies wanted to make sure that regulation of their products, and as a result the heat-trapping emissions that come from producing and using fossilfuels, were kept out of international agreements.
Even so, it is concerning that legislators included fossil gas in the definition of clean energy given the risk of continuing our reliance on fossilfuels and the impact of emissions from gas production, transportation, and combustion. What Still Needs to be Done?
An equitable and people-centered transition of this nature will require changes that go beyond the necessary technological shifts and must focus on overcoming significant social, institutional, and behavioral barriers. In other words, technological solutions are necessary but not sufficient. How do we make this transformation happen?
It highlights the most active fossilfuel companies and industry associations, as well as the Members of Parliament, ministries and ministers targeted for lobbying. The outcome for climate policy in Canada is that regulations have been diluted with loopholes or have been moving at a snail’s pace to the finish line.
Weifang Port’s “zero-carbon” certification was primarily achieved by transitioning away from fossilfuel use, according to China Electric Power News (CEPN). It has built a wind power system to provide green energy for its operations and deployed hydrogen-powered vehicles to replace fossil-fuel-powered trucks.
But the distribution system will be even more important when making a rapid clean energy transition, particularly considering the role distributed energy resources, such as rooftop solar, battery storage and electric vehicles, can play in helping Illinoisans dump fossilfuels.
However, it’s a disappointment to the initiative’s proponents and to a larger group of environmental advocates who seek to promote California’s quick transition from reliance on heavily-polluting and climate-damaging fossilfuels to renewable energy resources. Measure Z never took effect.
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