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Amid a massive American clean energy shift, grid operators play catch-up
Thirty states and Washington, D.C., have active renewable or clean energy requirements, and three other states have voluntary renewable energy goals, per the National Conference of State Legislatures. And major corporations — from Amazon, Target and Microsoft to Boeing and Google — are also increasingly becoming major green power consumers. That collective momentum has led to a flood of renewable energy development — thousands of projects, billions of dollars in capital and thousands of jobs — but getting that electricity to customers is more complicated than just building solar panels and wind turbines.
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Congress
Manchin’s pitch to energy leaders: IRA without permitting reform a missed opportunity
Sen. Joe Manchin pitched his permitting reform legislation to a crowd of global energy leaders and private sector executives as essential to achieving the full goals of the Inflation Reduction Act he helped craft. The West Virginia Democrat also told the crowd at the Global Clean Energy Action Forum in Pittsburgh that the Senate would start voting on the permitting legislation next week, likely on Tuesday. But the legislation faces stiff opposition in both parties. [ read more … ]
Transmission
Transmission development key to Inflation Reduction Act’s climate potential: report
The report shows how reaching the emissions reduction potential of the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in August, depends on increasing the pace of transmission development. The law could cut annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by about 1 billion metric tons a year by 2030, helping drive down carbon emissions by about 42% from 2005 levels, according to preliminary analysis released last month by the REPEAT Project. REPEAT stands for Rapid Energy Policy Evaluation and Analysis Toolkit. [ read more … ]
Inflation Reduction Act
‘Deploy, deploy, deploy:’ renewable sector energized but anxious about Inflation Reduction Act funding
The Inflation Reduction Act is “bigger, bolder and ultimately more transformative” for the U.S. energy sector than almost any other legislation ever enacted, Tom Starrs, vice president of government and public affairs for EDP Renewables, told attendees of the RE+ conference in Anaheim, California last week. While the clean energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act were many years in the making, the law’s creation “wasn’t a direct path, and it wasn’t inevitable,” said Alexander McDonough, a partner at political consulting group Pioneer Public Affairs. [ read more … ]
States
To land green energy plant, West Virginia lawmakers bypassed their own utility regulators
When developers joined with Gov. Jim Justice last week to announce a new solar power and industrial plant in Jackson County, they described the $500 million deal as the kind of clean energy project of the future so many West Virginians have been waiting for. “This project demonstrates how investing in clean energy can revive economies that have served our country’s energy needs for decades,” said Alicia Knapp, CEO of the renewables arm of billionaire Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy. [ read more … ]
Dodging Blackouts, California Faces New Questions on Its Power Supply
Despite adding new power plants, building huge battery storage systems and restarting some shuttered fossil fuel generators over the last couple of years, California relies heavily on energy from other states — the cavalry rushing over a distant hill. Sometimes the support does not show up when expected, or at all. That was the case this month, when millions of residents got cellphone alerts urging them to cut their energy use as the state teetered close to blackouts in blazing heat. As climate change makes extreme weather events more frequent, the peril has only increased. [ read more … ]
SCOTUS
Landowners ask Supreme Court to curb pipeline eminent domain
Months after the Supreme Court ruled against EPA’s authority to craft broad power plant regulations, landowners are asking the justices to place similar limits on pipeline developers’ ability to acquire private property for their projects. Cletus and Beverly Bohon, along with others living in the path of the Mountain Valley pipeline, filed a petition on Sept. 15 asking the justices to weigh in on a narrow question with broad repercussions for the landowners’ bid to block the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from delegating eminent domain power to companies that build natural gas infrastructure. [ read more … ]
Oil industry seeks SCOTUS lifeline amid mounting setbacks
The Supreme Court is poised to decide whether to wade into another fight between fossil fuel producers and nearly two dozen U.S. cities, states and counties suing the industry for climate change damages. At issue Wednesday — as the Supreme Court holds its first conference of a new term — is if the court will take up the industry’s request to move from state to federal court lawsuits that seek to hold fossil fuel producers financially liable for climate change. [ read more … ]
Commentary
Why we can’t just ‘bury the lines’
With hundreds of thousands of people still without power in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Fiona ripped through the island last week, it’s reignited the question here at home: “Why can’t we just bury power lines?” Multiple electric companies say that isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. [ read more … ]
We’re Drawing the Wrong Lesson From the Third Energy Crisis
In the midst of this third energy crisis, its the legacy of the first two — prompted by the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and the 1979 Iranian Revolution — that’s loomed largest. If history repeats itself, those swaggering figures of 1980s popular culture — the Gulf oil sheikh and Texan oil baron— suggest that such emergencies always result in a victory for petroleum and its producers. The lesson of the first oil embargo, according to Marino Auffant, a historian of the crisis, is that “the world emerged from it more dependent on Persian Gulf hydrocarbons than ever before.” That’s a compelling narrative — but it’s not true. Those geopolitical upheavals certainly didn’t result in the end of petroleum — but they dealt it a blow that it never really recovered from. [ read more … ]
EVs
For China’s Auto Market, Electric Isn’t the Future. It’s the Present.
While other E.V. markets are still heavily dependent on subsidies and financial incentives, China has entered a new phase: Consumers are weighing the merits of electric vehicles against gas-powered cars based on features and price without much consideration of state support. By comparison, the United States is far behind. This year, the country passed a key threshold of E.V.s accounting for 5 percent of new car sales. China passed that level in 2018. [ read more … ]
Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.