Energy Exchange

For Colorado’s clean truck ambition, it’s time for action, not delay

By Larissa Koehler / Published: April 20, 2022

In March 2022, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis unveiled an ambitious and forward-thinking zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty truck strategy his administration said could reduce climate emissions from this sector at least 45% by 2050.

Gov. Polis is right: Colorado’s Clean Truck Strategy would build upon the state’s “national-leading climate and infrastructure goals.” But key pieces necessary to achieve that ambition have already stalled. Three state agencies (Colorado Energy Office, Department of Transportation, Air Pollution Control Division) want to push adoption of the Advanced Clean Trucks rule and the Heavy-Duty Omnibus (low NOx) rule — key policy drivers for this transition — to next year.

In response, EDF and a host of other environmental groups, environmental justice advocates and local governments filed a petition with the state’s Air Quality Control Commission to move forward with the ACT and low NOx rulemaking and adopt these regulations this year, rather than delay to 2023, and AQCC agreed to hear the petition on April 21.

In short, the AQCC should work with the Polis administration to move forward with adopting the ACT and low NOx rulemaking by the end of the year.

Posted in Colorado, Electric Vehicles, General / Comments are closed

An all-inclusive way to look at energy transition in New Jersey

By EDF Blogs / Published: April 11, 2022

By Elizabeth B. Stein and Cole Jermyn

Update: On August 17^th, the BPU voted to accept the final version of the Ratepayer Impact Study. The final version has the same limitations EDF and others identified in comments on the proposed study, including not accounting for the environmental and public health benefits of the energy transition, and failing to fully account for modernized utility practices that can minimize costs such as innovative price signals and grid modernization. But even with these limitations, the final study shows that electrification is the pathway to both lower costs and less greenhouse gas pollution.

By 2030, New Jersey ratepayers who adopt electric vehicles, electrify their buildings and improve their energy efficiency will see lower energy costs than both their fossil fuel-reliant neighbor and the average customer today. This is true for small and large commercial customers, residential customers and low-income residential customers. These results should be a wakeup call to ensure all customers can afford to deploy these technologies in order to meet the state’s environmental and energy affordability goals.

New Jersey, like many other states, has been hard at work developing a strategy to drastically reduce its own climate impact. The state’s residents are already experiencing more than their share of climate change. With 130 miles of coastline, including population centers near much-loved beaches, more frequent extreme weather events are an existential threat to the state.

The state’s Energy Master Plan identifies and coordinates efforts, in various parts of the economy, to achieve a sustainable pathway to substantial decarbonization by 2050. But a new study, proposed by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, that seeks to estimate the financial impact of these efforts to eliminate fossil fuels on gas and electric utility customers, is infected with methodological flaws and faulty assumptions that would put it out of step with the state’s energy and climate policy.

Posted in Clean Energy, New Jersey / Comments are closed

The twin crises of energy supply and climate have the same solution

By Mark Brownstein / Published: April 8, 2022

Today’s energy system has become a liability we can no longer afford. As dependence on oil and gas restrains the response to Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this week issued yet another urgent warning that society is running out of time to avoid dangerous climate change caused by fossil fuel emissions.

Politicians and pundits say we must choose which problem to solve — protect the economy or protect the planet. But the twin crises of energy and climate have the same solution: the fastest possible transformation of our global energy system.

To those who want to prioritize the energy crisis, they must contend with the reality that there are no big spigots likely to be opened. Pre-Covid, oil and gas production were near record highs. Recent company announcements offer only marginal bumps in production, not enough to replace Russian oil or change prices at the pump.

And despite their rhetoric, neither producers nor their financiers show any interest in making the massive investments necessary to change these fundamentals.

Posted in Methane, Renewable Energy / Comments are closed

Climate scientists agree: methane cuts are essential to limit global warming

By EDF Blogs / Published: April 5, 2022

By Ilissa Ocko and Tianyi Sun

A new report out this week from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is once again shedding more light on the climate crisis. According to the latest research, we’re on a dangerous trajectory that will result in significantly more warming than what policymakers aimed for.

As part of the Paris Climate Agreement — countries across the globe committed to try and limit future temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. This new report not only predicts that we are not on track to meet that goal, it also suggests that even limiting warming to 2 degrees C is highly unlikely based on our current emissions and policies.

A previous IPCC assessment released earlier this year brought into focus the unfortunate reality that we are already experiencing increasingly destructive extreme weather events, rising seas, melting sea ice, habitat loss and other severe impacts of a changing climate at a much faster rate than communities can adapt. The fact that we are not acting fast enough to avert much worse impacts is disappointing news.

Posted in Methane / Comments are closed

Hydrogen is booming: 3 things investors need to know to reduce their risk

By EDF Blogs / Published: March 17, 2022

By Jake Hiller

The U.S. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has set off a flurry of competition among states for a piece of the $8 billion in direct funding and tax credits the law provides for four “hydrogen hubs.” Last week, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas announced a joint bid, and New Mexico said it will also join the fray.

The role proposed for hydrogen in the EU’s climate transition plan lays the groundwork for a surge of investment there as well. China is in the race, too, with $20 billion in public funding already made available to projects.

A parallel rush to hydrogen is underway in the private sector. According to the Hydrogen Council and McKinsey, more than 350 large-scale projects worth $500 billion have already been announced, with hydrogen investments growing by roughly $1 billion per week. As Goldman Sachs recently wrote, “Policy, affordability and scalability seem to be converging to create unprecedented momentum for the clean hydrogen economy.”

How can investors boost the potential of their hydrogen stakes?

Hydrogen has a number of strengths as an energy carrier and decarbonization pathway. Its ability to generate both heat and electricity, its high energy content relative to its weight and its potential for storage either as a liquid or a gas make it particularly attractive for hard-to-abate sectors such as steel, cement, shipping and aviation. Read More »

Posted in General / Comments are closed

Quickly reducing methane along with CO2 could help save Earth’s sea ice

By EDF Blogs / Published: March 14, 2022

By Kelsey Robinson

New EDF-led research is bringing new hope to the prospect of preserving the Arctic’s summer sea ice, which has been declining rapidly due to rising temperatures.

Sea ice levels today are at their lowest point since record-keeping first began and at this current loss rate, summer sea ice could practically vanish by the time today’s toddlers become adults. This new research suggests that if we take swift action to reduce emissions of CO2 and the potent greenhouse gas methane – we could preserve summer sea ice well into the next century.

Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after CO2 and is responsible for more than 25% of current global warming. Over the following two decades, the methane we emit today will capture over 80 times more heat than an equal amount of CO2. This is why cutting methane now is so important to slow down warming and lower the risk of losing Arctic summer sea ice.

This study is one of the first to look at how practical methane mitigation affects critical parts of the climate system beyond temperature rise. According to the study, if we reach net zero CO2 emissions by 2050 (as motivated by the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement) and quickly enact methane reductions using all currently available solutions, the chances of saving our summer sea ice this century could increase from nearly zero without action to more than 80%.

Why preserving summer sea ice is so important.

A seasonally ice-free Arctic has significant implications for the global climate. According to recent research, if the Arctic Ocean is free of sea ice during the sunlit part of the year, it could generate the same heat as 25 years’ worth of human-caused CO2 emissions at today’s level.

Preserving sea ice maintains habitat for walruses, polar bears and other Arctic wildlife and it serves as a vital source for hunting and fishing among Indigenous Arctic communities. It can also help deter geopolitical complications that can arise from open access to Arctic waterways.

This study makes it clear that methane-cutting tools and technologies that are available today can make significant progress toward preserving Arctic summer sea ice and slowing the rate of global warming if we deploy them now.

Posted in Methane / Comments are closed