Energy Exchange

Clean Energy Conference Roundup: May 2016

By EDF Blogs / Published: May 2, 2016

Each month, the Energy Exchange rounds up a list of top clean energy conferences around the country. Our list includes conferences at which experts from the EDF Clean Energy Program will be speaking, plus additional events that we think our readers may benefit from marking on their calendars.

Top clean energy conferences featuring EDF experts in May:

May 5: Regional Plan Association Assembly (New York, NY)
Speaker: Rory Christian, Director, New York Clean Energy

Each year, RPA brings together more than 1,000 civic and business leaders from around the New York metropolitan area to discuss major issues affecting the prosperity and quality of life in the region. This year’s assembly includes preliminary recommendations of the Fourth Regional Plan: a long-range vision for the shared prosperity of the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut metropolitan region. It will also outline actions the region should take to ensure sustainability, good governance, and shared prosperity over the next 25 years.

Posted in Conference Roundup / Comments are closed

Finding a United Front as Methane Becomes Key Climate Battle

By EDF Blogs / Published: April 14, 2016

By Mark Brownstein and Steven Hamburg

Washington Post science writer Chris Mooney weighs in today with a deep-dive on rising methane emissions from America’s surging natural gas production, calling it “most important mystery about U.S. climate change policy.” This story is just the latest to highlight the need to address this urgent climate threat. It follows Bill McKibben’s compelling piece in the Nation exploring the same question and suggesting methane has overwhelmed the benefits of carbon dioxide reductions.

McKibben raises a crucial question, one we’ve spent a lot of time looking at ourselves. He’s right that methane is one of the most pressing fronts in the fight against disastrous warming, and one of the many reasons we need to speed the transition to clean energy. But we are more hopeful than Bill is about prospects for effectively addressing the methane problem in the meantime.

Big Problem, Critical Opportunity

Oil and gas methane emissions are a huge threat. But the very same properties that make methane such a danger to the climate also mean it’s an opportunity — a chance to reduce the rate of temperature increase in the next two decades while we simultaneously do the hard work of reducing CO2 emissions. Tackling methane is the single most impactful move we can make to alter the trajectory of climate change we experience now, even as we continue to accelerate the shift to low- and zero-carbon energy. Read More »

Posted in General / Read 2 Responses

Transforming the Electric System to Reduce Costs and Pollution

By EDF Blogs / Published: April 8, 2016

By: Beia Spiller and Kristina Mohlin

Electricity markets around the world are transforming from a model where electricity flows one way (from electricity-generating power plants to the customer) to one where customers actively participate as providers of electric services. But to speed this transformation and maximize its environmental and cost benefits, we need to understand how customer actions affect the three distinct parts of our electric system: generation, transmission, and distribution. Read More »

Posted in California, Electricity Pricing, Grid Modernization, New York, Texas, Utility Business Models / Read 7 Responses

Largest Methane Study to Date Confirms We Need to Do a Better Job Checking for Methane Leaks

By EDF Blogs / Published: April 5, 2016

By Matt Watson and David Lyon

Drive by an oil or gas well pad, and it may not look like much — a couple of storage tanks, some pipes, maybe a see-sawing pump jack. But fly over one of these facilities with an infrared camera and you might see something different: methane pollution.

We did exactly that for a new study accepted today in Environmental Science and Technology. In the largest sample size of any methane emissions study to date, we hired one of the nation’s most experienced leak detection companies to fly a helicopter over 8,000 well pads in seven regions across the country using infrared technology to capture images of methane and other pollutants. The goal was to better characterize the prevalence of “super emitters” – the large, enigmatic sources responsible for a big portion of industry’s methane pollution – so we could figure out how to stop them.

Posted in Air Quality, Methane, Natural Gas / Tagged methane studies, science | Read 4 Responses

To Keep Lights on in LA, State’s Aliso Canyon Action Plan Must Fix Energy Markets, Maximize Smart Energy Solutions

By EDF Blogs / Published: April 5, 2016

By Tim O’Connor and Lauren Navarro

Ongoing fallout from the catastrophic failure at the Southern California Gas Company’s Aliso Canyon storage facility is exposing a critical weakness in the state’s energy system. Overdependence on natural gas – and on one provider of that gas – means we don’t have the flexibility we need to cope if things go wrong. And now that they have gone wrong, because of SoCalGas’ mismanagement of the Aliso Canyon storage facility, a group of state agencies says the region could be facing power shortages this summer as a result.

A new report released today by the California Energy Commission (CEC), California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), California Independent System Operator (CAISO,) the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) and Southern California Gas (SoCalGas) describes the problem. While a separate report released by CEC, CPUC, CAISO and LADWP, begins to lay out the short-term response plan. (Some of the efforts already under way are documented here, here, and here). Read More »

Posted in Air Quality, Aliso Canyon, California, Clean Energy, Demand Response, General, Methane, Natural Gas / Read 4 Responses

Clean Energy Conference Roundup: April 2016

By EDF Blogs / Published: March 31, 2016

Top clean energy conferences featuring EDF experts in April:

April 4: Energy Power Dialog (Austin, TX)
Speaker: John Hall, Texas State Director, Clean Energy

Participate in a national dialog on energy being hosted at universities across the United States. The Power Dialog will engage approximately 10,000 students in face-to-face conversation with state-level regulators and policy experts in all 50 states about the federal Clean Power Plan (CPP), which requires 32 percent cuts in global warming pollution by 2030. At the University of Texas at Austin, EDF’s John Hall will co-lead the dialog that helps students understand the positions for and against the Clean Power Plan: Why does Texas oppose the CPP? Why should Texas support it? This is not a lobbying or advocacy event, but rather a way to engage students in an important learning opportunity.

Posted in Colorado, Conference Roundup, New York, North Carolina, Texas / Comments are closed