Energy Exchange

As L.A. temperatures rise, so does interest in cleaner air and cleaner energy

By Irene Burga / Published: July 19, 2018

This blog was co-authored by Annie Cory, Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI) Intern for EDF’s Oil & Gas Program

Just like many cities that have experienced record high temperatures in 2018, Los Angeles was hit with a heat wave of record proportions in early July, with temperatures topping 113 degrees in several parts of the county. As air conditioners across the region struggled to keep up, the heat pushed our energy grid over the brink, with blackouts leaving at least 80,000 Angelinos sweltering without electricity.

Such elevated temperatures are not typical for Los Angeles. Yet weather events like these are becoming both more frequent, and more intense. Burning more fossil fuels, of course, only compounds the warming problem.

To put a dent in the causes and impacts of man-made climate change, cities, states and nations will need to implement a portfolio of solutions aimed at cutting carbon across the board and boosting the resiliency of our energy grid. By increasing the share of renewable energy used to power our homes and businesses, and incentivizing technology like battery storage while expanding focus on energy conservation, the threat of blackouts can be greatly diminished during hot summer days.

Posted in Air Quality, California, Clean Energy, Climate, Energy Equity, Methane, Natural Gas, Renewable Energy, Solar Energy / Tagged Community Solar, Energy Storage | Comments are closed

On pollution facts, don’t be fooled by rhetoric of oil and gas trade groups

By Colin Leyden / Published: July 13, 2018

Once again, a trade group funded by the oil and gas industry is trying to distort the facts on the industry’s pollution.

In a recent blog post, Texans for Natural Gas cherry picked government data in an attempt to argue against the need for policies that protect public health and the environment.

Posts like this – which take select pieces of data in order to make broad generalizations about industry’s progress toward reducing pollution – often fail to tell the whole story about the harmful emissions that warm the planet, jeopardize public health, and result in the massive waste of U.S. energy resources.

When reading industry-sponsored pollution assessments, there are a few crucial things to keep in mind.

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

The race to reduce emissions: Five takeaways from OGCI venture day

By Isabel Mogstad / Published: July 12, 2018

The day before the World Gas Conference – one of the energy industry’s largest – 10 companies competed for USD $20 million to fund solutions with the power to disrupt how methane is managed, measured, and reduced.

The money was provided by Oil and Gas Climate Investments, the billion-dollar investment fund tied to the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) – a consortium of 10 oil and gas companies sharing knowledge and resources to cut the greenhouse gas footprint of their industry.

OGCI’s investment team and technical experts from member companies provided expertise and consumer-driven insights to select the 10 companies competing at Venture Day from nearly 60 applicants. The goal was to highlight companies and concepts that aren’t just innovative, but scalable and disruptive – something BP CEO and OGCI Chair Bob Dudley made clear: “If a person in the field with a hard hat turning the valves doesn’t get it, it won’t work.”

Not only was Venture Day a moment to showcase how high-tech can be high-impact (despite the companies in the room, it felt more Silicon Valley than Houston), it also represented a noticeable shift in the philosophy around industry investment in the methane space. In what OGCI CEO Pratima Rangarajan dubbed “the year of methane,” Venture Day signaled an inflection point for increased transparency, enhanced coordination, and global vision.

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

A regionalized energy grid creates a home for California’s wasted renewables

By EDF Blogs / Published: July 11, 2018

By Andy Bilich, Lauren Navarro

These days, California’s renewable energy records are regularly broken.

During the summer solstice on June 21, California utility scale solar power set a generation record with solar producing equivalent to about 16 percent of all electricity consumed during the day.

And earlier this year, on April 27, California set two renewable energy records for both instantaneous solar generation: about 10.5 gigawatts), and instantaneous renewable generation: 73 percent of the state’s total electricity demand came from renewable energy.

With renewables deployment poised for more growth, it’s likely even these new records will be surpassed sometime soon. However, to ensure the state’s investment in clean energy is put to use, and not wasted, California has some work to do. Read More »

Posted in California, Clean Energy, Regional Grid, Solar Energy, Wind Energy / Comments are closed

How the conversation changed at this year’s World Gas Conference

By Ben Ratner / Published: July 5, 2018

For years, conversations at major oil and gas industry conferences focused on one thing: the shale revolution. Excitement about the surge in economical new supply of unconventionally produced oil and gas was palpable, as panelists spoke of the potential for shale to transform everything from the geopolitics of American energy supply to the price of hydrocarbons. With such an unexpected and seismic change, a supply side story carried the day, with a focus on “below ground” drivers of energy abundance.

But today, the shale revolution is simply the new normal and the conversation has changed. “Above ground” factors like increasing competition from renewables, greenhouse gas emissions, and social license to operate will affect demand for natural gas for years. How industry confronts such challenges – both in the United States and internationally – will have a lot to do with industry’s longevity in putting resources to productive use in a changing world demanding cleaner energy.

At last week’s World Gas Conference in Washington, DC, difficult questions swirled about whether industry has done enough to earn society’s trust and prove natural gas has a constructive role to play in the transition to a low carbon economy. The biggest buzz of all surrounded one key issue: methane emissions, a core strategic challenge for the oil and gas industry.

Posted in Methane, Natural Gas / Comments are closed

New science and technology uncover opportunities to speed up environmental progress

By Steven Hamburg / Published: July 2, 2018

This piece originally appeared on our EDF Voices blog.

Both science and environmentalism are changing – driven more and more by more collaboration and rapidly improving technology.

These developments offer tremendous opportunities, as they can reveal urgent threats much more clearly – as well as the paths to address them.

Posted in Energy Innovation, Methane, Natural Gas / Comments are closed