Energy Exchange

What We Can’t See Can Hurt Us: New Study Provides Insights to Find, Fix Oil and Gas Pollution

By Jon Goldstein / Published: November 24, 2014

How do you detect a colorless, odorless gas? It’s an important question especially when that invisible gas is as damaging as what comprises oil and gas pollution. We are talking about hazardous air pollutants (benzene), ozone precursors (volatile organic compounds), and greenhouse gases like methane – a gas that is more than 80 times more damaging than carbon dioxide to the climate in the short term.

Widely available tools like infrared cameras and hand-held hydrocarbon detectors are very effective at detecting leaks from oil and gas equipment, but new technologies and new science are always welcome.

That’s what makes a new paper in the journal Environmental Science and Technology exciting. Led by experts from EPA’s Office of Research and Development, and co-authored by EDF’s David Lyon, this study uses a new technique to identify and measure methane emissions at oil and gas facilities.

Also posted in Air Quality, Climate, Methane, Natural Gas, Wyoming / Tagged methane studies, Natural Gas Policy, science | Read 1 Response

Clean Energy and Job Creation Go Hand-in-Hand in San Antonio

By Jim Marston / Published: November 21, 2014

Source: CPS Energy

While many are prophesizing the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) as doomsday for the electricity sector, Texas utilities are telling a different story. The CPP will limit – for the first time ever – carbon emissions from existing power plants. One utility in particular, CPS Energy in San Antonio, “has already embraced a low-carbon strategy that anticipates this rule,” making it the most well-positioned utility in the state, if not country.

Homegrown energy, literally

CPS Energy has excelled using its commitment to create local, clean energy jobs. In its Request for Proposal (RFP) for a 400 megawatt (MW) solar energy plant, the utility included a specification for the creation of local solar jobs. And it worked. Most recently, the utility announced the launch of the Mission Solar Energy Plant – a 240,000 square foot manufacturing plant that will employ upwards of 400 San Antonians. To assist with future expansions, CPS also helped create a program at Alamo Colleges to train its future workforce for clean energy jobs and, admirably, almost one out of every five employees is a veteran. Read More »

Also posted in Clean Energy, Clean Power Plan, Grid Modernization, Jobs, Renewable Energy, Texas / Read 1 Response

EDF Co-Hosts International Green Bank Summit on Catalyzing Private Sector Capital for Clean Energy

By Victor A. Rojas / Published: November 20, 2014

In order to fund the transition to a low-carbon economy at a pace rapid enough to prevent runaway climate change, the International Energy Authority has estimated that an annual $1 trillion will be required globally. What policies or mechanisms can be used to facilitate private capital engagement on so grand a scale?: Green banks, which are government-created financial institutions that use attractive interest rates and other incentives to leverage money from the private sector to fund clean energy projects.

Earlier this week, EDF co-hosted the first day of the two-day, second annual International Green Bank Summit in our New York City headquarters, bringing together green bank stakeholders from around the world. The summit focused on how green banks can better leverage limited amounts of public capital to engage and accelerate the deployment of private capital into essential energy efficiency, renewable energy, and climate change mitigation initiatives.

Green banks are catalysts

With one dollar of public finance leveraging about three dollars of private capital, global green banks have catalyzed nearly $20 billion dollars to date in clean energy projects around the world and expect to raise more than $40 billion over the next five years. So far, only a handful of countries have developed green banks. Read More »

Also posted in Clean Energy, Energy Efficiency, Energy Financing, New York, Renewable Energy / Tagged Green banks | Read 1 Response

ERCOT Report on Clean Power Plan Misses the Big Picture

By Jim Marston / Published: November 19, 2014

We knew this was coming. Everyone knew. The power sector is the single largest source of carbon pollution in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world, yet there are no limits on how much carbon power plants can emit into our air. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) for new and existing power plants is urgently needed, is well within Texas’ reach, and can ensure that Texas (more so than other states) forges a strong and prosperous clean energy economy.

But this week, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages roughly 90 percent of Texas’ power grid, issued a report that overestimates the challenges posed by the CPP to the state’s electric grid reliability. Furthermore, it failed to appropriately recognize key tools available to ERCOT and the state to meet the proposed CPP.

Here’s a breakdown of what the report missed: Read More »

Also posted in Clean Energy, Clean Power Plan, Energy Efficiency, Grid Modernization, Texas / Tagged ERCOT | Comments are closed

Two Years After Sandy, the Conversation Around Energy Resiliency Still Going Strong

By EDF Blogs / Published: November 17, 2014

By: Audrey Hornick-Becker

From left to right: Bruce Schlein, Director, Alternative Energy Finance, Citi; Vic Rojas, EDF senior manager, financial policy; Bryan Garcia, President, Connecticut Green Bank; Alfred Griffin, President, NY Green Bank. Source: Maria Jiang.

Last week, EDF co-hosted a successful first-of-its-kind Resilience Finance Symposium in New Jersey, attended by about 120 participants from a wide spectrum of public and private entities in the state, region, and country.

Held on November 12 with Governor Christie’s Administration and the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture + Design, the all-day Resilience Finance Symposium: Building Resilient and Sustainable Energy Solutions for New Jersey’s Key Infrastructure featured a series of panels on solutions that help keep the lights and heat on during critical times, like microgrids and energy storage, as well as innovative ways of financing resilient energy systems.

A main topic of discussion was the impressive progress New Jersey has made toward making the state’s energy infrastructure more resilient in the two years since Superstorm Sandy caused a massive weeks-long power outage. Panelists pointed to Sandy success stories – those instances when power stayed on even when the grid went down – and discussed the need to make these kinds of successes the norm rather than the exception. Read More »

Also posted in Clean Energy, Energy Efficiency, Energy Financing, Grid Modernization, Investor Confidence Project, New Jersey, Renewable Energy / Comments are closed

Wyoming’s Second Swing at Curbing Oil, Gas Air Pollution Could be Home Run

By Jon Goldstein / Published: November 6, 2014

Late last week Wyoming air regulators took a second crack at a proposed rule to fix a serious ozone pollution problem in the state’s Upper Green River Basin. To use a baseball analogy, this rule designed to reduce pollution from the oil and gas industry, is a solid double.

This proposal improves upon a version released in June. The updated rule extends inspection requirements to compressor stations to capture more of the leaks that create air pollution and the methane that is the industry’s main product. And it eliminates provisions that—in some cases–would have allowed companies to remove certain devices from well sites that we know reduce pollution.

Both changes are improvements that EDF and local allies have advocated for and the Mead Administration deserves praise for leadership in this area. Once finalized and implemented, this rule will form the backbone of the state’s plan to clean up the air in and around Pinedale, Wyoming, that has become dangerously polluted by harmful emissions from the oil and gas industry. Read More »

Also posted in Air Quality, Natural Gas, Wyoming / Read 2 Responses