Energy Exchange

As SoCal Braces for Aliso Canyon-Related Blackouts, These Energy Programs Can Help

By EDF Blogs / Published: June 14, 2016

By Jayant Kairam and Timothy O’Connor.

Adding insult to injury, Californians learned this spring that the disastrous four-month methane leak at the sprawling Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility could result in a new problem: outages.

The failure at Southern California Gas Company’s massive storage site exposed a critical weakness in the state’s energy system. Densely populated Southern California is over-dependent on natural gas from a single provider.

As a result, a vast area stretching from San Diego in the south to Los Angeles and San Bernardino County in the east may face power and gas shortages during the hot summer and cold winter months, a recent report by a group of state regulatory agencies warned. Read More »

Posted in California, Demand Response, Electricity Pricing, Energy Efficiency, Gas to Clean, Grid Modernization, Methane, Natural Gas / Tagged Energy Storage | Authors: admin / Comments are closed

Mexico Methane Reductions: An Opportunity For North American Leadership

By Drew Nelson / Published: June 13, 2016

In partnership with Mexico’s Mario Molina Center and Canada’s Pembina Institute, EDF released a policy brief in Mexico City this week that illustrates that national action in the United States, Canada and Mexico could cheaply and quickly eliminate 232 billion cubic feet of methane from the North American oil and gas industry.

Titled “North American Climate Leadership: A road map for global action,” the brief synthesizes analyses included in ICF’s North American report and its research conducted in the U.S. (2014), Canada (2015) and Mexico (2015). All of ICF’s analyses found that reducing methane from the oil and gas supply chain is cost-effective and environmentally beneficial. Even at today’s historically low gas prices, the cost of capturing methane would add just one penny to the current price of gas, based on the cost of solutions and the ability to sell the recovered gas. Read More »

Posted in General, Methane, Natural Gas / Comments are closed

Industry Study Applies Own Numbers to EDF Study, Strengthens Our Case for Regulation

By Mark Brownstein / Published: June 3, 2016

The natural gas industry group Our Nation’s Energy (ONE) Future Coalition released a paper yesterday applying their own set of assumptions to an earlier analysis commissioned by EDF, which had shown that oil and gas methane emissions can be dramatically reduced for about a penny per thousand cubic feet of gas sold. Both analyses were carried out by ICF International.

We always welcome new points of view, but it’s important to note the new calculations change key variables in ways that boost the cost of reducing methane emissions while significantly understating benefits of these reductions. An even bigger problem comes when others in the industry public relations machine start to mischaracterize the study.

Despite these changes, the results still end up making what we think is a strong case for sensible regulatory standards to make sure that best practices become the standard practice industry-wide in order to reduce the oil and gas industry’s nearly 10 million metric tons of yearly methane emissions.

Even Slanted Figures Underscore Need for Rules Read More »

Posted in BLM Methane, Methane, Natural Gas / Read 1 Response

New York Takes a Major Step toward Rethinking Utility Economics

By Rory Christian / Published: June 2, 2016

NY Lights Bridge Throughout the United States, utilities earn a profit through a tried and true regulatory model that has worked well for over 100 years. This model was built on the assumption that customers would use ever increasing amounts of electricity, and it worked for some time. But, as the need to save power and make electric systems more efficient becomes essential to adapt to climate change, this and other assumptions no longer hold true. Without changing how utilities are compensated, we run the risk of experiencing a true irony: utilities, the cradles from which our modern civilization rose, may become the chains preventing us from advancing toward a clean energy future.

Last week, the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) – which regulates the state’s utilities – took action to transition to a new model aligned with Reforming the Energy Vision (REV), the state’s initiative to transform the electric grid into a cleaner, more efficient and affordable system. By issuing the “Order Adopting a Ratemaking and Utility Revenue Model Policy Framework,” the PSC is changing how New York’s utilities will be compensated, taking a major step to break the chains holding utilities back, and moving from a system where utilities get paid according to how much electricity they sell to one where utilities are compensated for producing environmental benefits aligned with the public good. Read More »

Posted in Grid Modernization, New York, Utility Business Models / Read 9 Responses

3 Key Energy Policies that Can Help Us Turn the Corner on Climate

By Diane Regas / Published: June 1, 2016

We know we need massive decreases in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 if 177 countries are to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement.

But before emissions go on a steep decline, we need to turn the corner. At Environmental Defense Fund, we have analyzed what it would take to turn the corner by 2020, and zeroed in on a few key actions that will halt the rise in global emissions and make them start to go down. For good.

Christiana Figueres, the United Nations official who led the Paris climate talks, rightly talks about technology, finance and policy – technologies to store and distribute energy, financing to scale the technology we have, and policies to reward innovators who deliver results. Read More »

Posted in Clean Power Plan, Climate, Electricity Pricing, Grid Modernization, Methane / Read 1 Response

Clean Energy Conference Roundup: June 2016

By EDF Blogs / Published: May 31, 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 June:

June 19-21: Citizens’ Climate Conference & Lobby Day (Washington, D.C.)
Speaker: Michael Panfil, Director of Federal Energy Policy and Senior Attorney

Citizens’ Climate Lobby is a non-profit, non-partisan, grassroots advocacy organization focused on national policies to address climate change. Attendees will hear speakers and receive training to speak on this issue on behalf of future generations. The conference’s keynote speaker is Dr. Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State University and director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center. In 1998, it was his research – conducted with Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes – that led to the famous “hockey stick” graph that shows the alarming rise in average global temperatures during the 20th Century.

Posted in California, Conference Roundup, Illinois, New York / Comments are closed