Energy Exchange

CalSTRS says climate is major portfolio threat, companies must walk the walk on net-zero

By Ben Ratner / Published: May 11, 2020

A few weeks ago, EDF’s Ben Ratner spoke extensively with Brian Rice, a portfolio manager at California State Teachers’ Retirement Systems about key issues in environmental social and governance investing.

CalSTRS is the largest educator-only pension fund in the world with roughly $243 billion in managed assets. EDF has been working closely with the firm on corporate engagement for more than five years.

This is the first of a two-part Q&A series with CalSTRS examining prospects on ESG and climate investing through the energy transition. This portion of the discussion explores the rise of ESG, the importance of policy, and what comes next for companies with net-zero commitments.

Posted in California, Climate, Methane, Methane regulatons, Natural Gas / Comments are closed

These two programs will help California reach its carbon-neutral goals

By Michael Colvin / Published: April 29, 2020

California is continuing its leadership on climate change by eliminating carbon from the economy and our daily lives. In fact, California has a law to create a carbon neutral electric grid by 2045.

This spring, our state took two important steps to support these efforts.

Decarbonizing our buildings

Approximately 25% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions come from residential buildings. Because these buildings come in all different shapes and sizes, we need different strategies to reduce their emissions.

Posted in California, Clean Energy, Gas to Clean, Solar Energy, Wind Energy / Tagged Energy Storage | Comments are closed

Groundbreaking clean truck initiative will reduce air pollution in California

By Lauren Navarro / Published: April 29, 2020

California recently released new details of a plan to bring more affordable electric trucks, vans and buses to market while also reducing harmful air pollution. The latest proposal reflects calls from California Air Resources Board members to increase the number of electric trucks sold under the rule and to ensure that the benefits of cleaner air they bring will reach disadvantaged communities.

If adopted, the state will require truck manufacturers to produce more electric or zero-emission vehicle options. Beginning in 2024, at least 9% of vocational trucks (like package-delivery vans and beverage-delivery box trucks) will need to be electric (or another kind of ZEV). By 2035, nearly 75% of these trucks will be electric or ZEV. The proposal sets similar schedules for other truck types.

Posted in Air Quality, California, Electric Vehicles / Comments are closed

Big step back: Changes in new EPA Greenhouse Gas Inventory mask methane emissions

By David Lyon / Published: April 28, 2020

For years, experts have urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to improve the way it estimates methane emissions from the oil and gas sector to reflect major advances in the peer-reviewed scientific understanding of how much methane is escaping from each link in the industry’s complex supply chain. Bringing agency methods into line with this science would yeild better, more accurate accounting, and it would almost certainly show that actual emissions are much higher than previously indicated.

Instead, EPA has gone in the exact opposite direction, making a million metric tons of methane pollution disappear from the books with the stroke of a methodological pen.

The EPA’s latest inventory released this month, incorporated data from a new study for the gathering segment, but this study uses “bottom-up” measurements that scientists say are likely to systematically underestimate emissions rather than incorporate “top-down” approaches that rely on atmospheric science, and which extensive research has shown to be far more accurate.

Posted in Air Quality, Climate, Methane, Natural Gas, PermianMAP / Comments are closed

Satellites and state regulators: New data spotlights extreme emissions and need for action in nation’s largest oilfield

By EDF Blogs / Published: April 22, 2020

By Jon Goldstein and Colin Leyden

This week a study drawing on nearly a year’s worth of satellite data revealed that Permian methane emissions are the highest ever measured from a U.S. oil and gas basin.

As the federal government continues its rollback of methane safeguards, public attention is now trained on policymakers and companies in Texas and New Mexico — two leading oil producing states that straddle the Permian Basin.

While New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham forges ahead on nation-leading rules to curb oil and gas methane waste and pollution, state leaders in Texas have yet to get serious about a problem that could undermine the industry’s viability in an economy that increasingly prioritizes cleaner sources of energy.

Posted in Air Quality, Climate, Methane, Methane regulatons, Natural Gas, PermianMAP, Texas / Tagged New Mexico | Comments are closed

It’s time for the Texas Railroad Commission to curb flaring to prevent waste, protect property rights

By Scott Anderson / Published: April 22, 2020

This piece originally appeared in the Houston Chronicle

The Texas Railroad Commission has a unique chance to save the state’s oil and gas industry from one of its own worst habits — setting fire to over 100 billion cubic feet of natural gas each year, transforming a valuable asset into waste and pollution with zero benefit to anyone. Now, as commissioners eye production cuts in response to collapsing oil prices, they also have an opportunity to stem the profligate practice known as flaring.

The measure under consideration is called proration. Last used in the 1970s, it allows the commission to set a monthly production ceiling equal to market demand, with shares allocated among the state’s producers based on a variety of factors. Often described as a way to raise prices by limiting supply, authority for proration actually comes from the commission’s statutory obligation to prevent the waste of natural resources and protect property rights.

Flaring, of course, is the very definition of waste. Since 2013, operators in Texas have burned off roughly a trillion cubic feet of natural gas — enough to meet the yearly needs of every Texas home three times over. In 2019, Permian operators alone flared almost 300 billion cubic feet of gas, sending over a million dollars a day up in smoke.

Posted in Air Quality, Methane, Methane regulatons, Natural Gas, Texas / Comments are closed