Climate 411

A coal train rolls through a town in West Virginia, which produces more coal than any other state except for Wyoming.

Nobody was surprised to hear political foes of President Obama and leaders from several coal-dependent states blast EPA’s proposal to limit carbon pollution from America’s power plants.

The Clean Power Plan, released June 2, represents a big change in the way America will generate and use energy in the coming decades. We understand: Big changes are scary.

So it’s interesting to ponder which political leaders in states dependent on coal-fired power will, in the end, seize this historic opportunity.

Who will use the flexible policy tools offered in the Clean Power Plan to diversify their energy economies and unleash innovation to help their states grow? Who will show political courage?

Clean(-er) power for Texas

Just imagine if a state like Texas, my home state, used the plan to fully leverage its robust natural gas, wind and solar resources. It would be a game changer.

Texas power plants, and the state as a whole, continue to lead the nation in carbon dioxide emissions.

Texas also leads the nation in producing more than 12,000 megawatts (MW) of wind energy. That’s impressive.

According to data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, however, this represents less than 1 percent of Texas’ onshore wind potential.

What’s more, Texas is at the top in solar potential, yet solar energy in Texas lags far behind wind at 213 MW of installed capacity. This spells tremendous opportunity.

So does Texas’ natural gas industry, which may be the biggest winner under EPA’s plan. The American Natural Gas Association predicts the new emission standards will increase natural gas demand by 45 percent – much of which will be produced by Texas with little impact to electricity prices.

In fact, the flexibility of EPA’s proposed plan offers Texas and other states dozens of ways to comply while improving public health and the state economy.

West Virginia: Rich in energy

Take West Virginia, where king coal has reigned for decades. It’s among several coal-producing states that got a break by the Clean Power Plan.

West Virginia only needs to cut emissions from power plants by 20 percent by 2030, when the overall target for all 491 plants nationwide is 30 percent, and some states face cuts of 40 percent or more.

This has not kept West Virginia from threatening to sue the EPA over the rules, even as several of the state’s utilities said they’re already well on their way to meeting EPA’s rules.

But amid such noise there’s also optimism. The West Virginia University College of Law has already teamed up with a consulting firm to analyze EPA’s plan and to develop strategies some West Virginians hope will help the state transition to a cleaner future.

“West Virginia has an abundance of energy resources – including coal, natural gas, biomass, wind, solar and energy efficiency,” noted James Van Nostrand, director of the university’s Center for Energy and Sustainable Development.

Finding the right mix, he said, will be the main challenge.

Meanwhile, other states enjoy a head start thanks to politically courageous decisions taken years ago. Colorado, a purple state and the seventh largest coal-producer in the country, is one such state.

Colorado blasts ahead

Voters in the Rocky Mountain State approved a renewable energy standard a decade ago and in 2010, the legislature adopted the “Clean Air, Clean Jobs Act.” It requires utility companies to get 20 percent of their energy from cleaner sources by 2020, speeding up the retirement of aging coal-fired plants.

Then in late 2013, Colorado became the first state in the nation to propose new methane limits for its oil and gas operations.

By reining in this highly potent greenhouse gas, and thanks to the steps it took over the past decade, Colorado may already be ahead of the curve when it comes to meeting EPA’s proposed standards.

And what does all this energy progress cost? According to one Colorado utility, Xcel Energy, the Clean Air, Clean Jobs Act will cost the company $1 billion, with an annual rate impact of only about 2 percent over the next decade.

Yet the benefits to Coloradans are significant: $590 million in averted health costs and 1,500 construction jobs.

My guess is that not even in states such as Texas or West Virginia will they be able to deny for long the billions in cost-savings, millions in health benefits, and hundreds of new jobs that the Clean Power Plan promises.

This blog post was co-authored by Lauren Navarro, California Senior Manager, Clean Energy and Kate Zerrenner, an EDF project manager and expert on energy efficiency and climate change.

On June 2, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made a historic announcement that will change how we make, move and use electricity for generations to come.

For the first time in history, the government proposed limits on the amount of carbon pollution American fossil-fueled power plants are allowed to spew into the atmosphere.

There are two clear winners to comply with the plan while maintaining commitment to electric reliability and affordability: energy efficiency and demand response.

We’re already seeing pushback from some of our nation’s big polluter states, such as West Virginia and Texas. But the truth is that while the proposed limits on carbon are strong, they’re also flexible.

In fact, the EPA has laid out a whole menu of options in its Clean Power Plan – from power plant upgrades, to switching from coal to natural gas and adopting more renewable energy resources. States can choose from these and other strategies as they develop their own plans to meet the new standards.

That said, there are two clear winners on the EPA’s menu that offer low-cost options for states that seek to comply with the plan while maintaining their commitment to electric reliability and affordability: energy efficiency and demand response.

Energy efficiency our lowest-hanging fruit

Simply saving energy is the most cost-effective way to reduce demand and carbon pollution from power plants. The cheapest, cleanest and most reliable electricity, after all, is the electricity we don’t use.

The benefits of energy efficiency are vast. It helps people and businesses save money, it boosts job creation (as many as 274,000, one source estimates), and it reduces harmful power plant pollution.

From a utility perspective, energy efficiency improves the reliability of our electric grid and lowers costs for infrastructure maintenance.

Plus, in states such as Texas and California, which face extreme drought, energy efficiency can save scarce water sources. Remember that coal-fired power plants are thirstyand less water is consumed when these plants are used less (or not at all).

Half of the states already have mandatory energy-efficiency targets, so we have the knowledge and experience across the country to advance this undeniably beneficial resource.

McKinsey & Co. estimates that by 2020, the United States could reduce its annual energy consumption by 23 percent by adopting energy-efficiency measures. This could save us more than $1 trillion dollars and cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than a gigaton—the equivalent of taking the entire U.S. fleet of passenger vehicles and light trucks off the road.

That’s why Environmental Defense Fund is working with policymakers, investors and utilities throughout the country to understand the full benefits of energy efficiency, and to explore paths for implementation, for when they’re crafting state plans under EPA’s new Clean Power Plan.

Demand response: everyone wins

Demand response is another way to introduce greater efficiency into the nation’s electricity system and help reduce carbon emissions. It’s an invaluable tool that can help conserve electricity when supplies run thin, and to bring more clean energy onto the grid.

On a hot summer day, for example, when electricity demand is high, utilities can ask permission of select customers to lower their thermostats a couple of degrees. In exchange, these customers receive credit on their next electricity bill.

It also helps utility companies better manage stress on the electric grid and it can help them integrate wind, solar and other renewables to replace aging coal-fired power plants.

Demand response relies on people, not power plants, to meet energy demand and reduce carbon pollution from our electricity sector.

Proven strategies

In Southern California, for example, they’re about to replace a large chunk of electric capacity – at least 550 megawatts – from the recently closed San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station with renewable energy, energy storage – and demand response. This will help minimize a need for gas-fired plants and other polluting facilities that might replace the nuclear plant.

Best of all, demand response is more affordable than building new power plants. In fact, if just 50 percent of Southern California Edison’s customers participated in time-of-use rates – a type of demand response program – energy demand would plummet so much that 66 percent of San Onofre’s former generating capacity would no longer be needed.

As a bonus, customers across the territory would also collectively see cost savings of $357 million, a 15-percent decrease.

As a result of smart decisions such as the one involving the San Onofre plant, California’s utility sector’s greenhouse gas emissions have and will continue to decline. This proves that demand response can and should be a core tenet in the nation’s push to diversify its energy mix and cut pollution in order to usher in a clean, sustainable and healthy future.

As EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy noted last week, these clean energy solutions are not new ideas. They’re based on proven technologies and approaches that “are already part of the ongoing story of energy progress in America.”

“We’re not doing cutting-edge work here, folks,” she said. “We are just opening the door to cutting-edge.”

This post first appeared on EDF Voices