Biofuels could offer an important solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. Depending on the plant (or grease) feedstock, they can blend in with existing fuel or serve as separate liquid fuels to power airplanes, long-distance trucks, and other vehicles.
Today on Your Call on KALW 91.7 FM in San Francisco, we’ll discuss the prospects for more low-carbon biofuel deployment, as well as the potential carbon downside of some types of biofuels. Joining me will be:
- Daniel Kammen, Professor of Energy at the University of California, Berkeley, with parallel appointments in the Energy and Resources Group, where he serves as Chair of the Goldman School of Public Policy and directs the Center for Environmental Policy, and the department of Nuclear Engineering.
- Dr. Jeremy Martin, Senior Scientist and Director of Fuels Policy at Union of Concerned Scientists, where he evaluates the impact of biofuels and fuel policy.
You can stream it live or listen to 91.7 FM in San Francisco. Call in with questions or comments!
Pacific Gas & Electric, California’s largest investor-owned utility is about to declare bankruptcy, which could undermine the state’s climate goals. The utility faces massive liability for potentially causing the recent devastating Northern California wildfires.
If bankruptcy happens, California’s clean energy companies — from solar PV facilities to energy efficiency contractors to electric vehicle charging businesses — could soon lose one of their top customers and potentially see their existing contracts ripped up. And that means the state is losing a major investor in various climate programs.
Buzzfeed and E&E News [paywalled] covered this story in more detail, including some quotes from me.
Going forward, I hope the state and various local governments in PG&E service territory consider the following reforms:
- Break up PG&E’s electricity and gas divisions, with the long-term goal of phasing out natural gas use in the state. We mostly likely need to accomplish this phase-out anyway and move towards all-electric appliances and building. A breakup could hasten that progress.
- Buy out PG&Es assets and form municipal utilities. San Francisco is already exploring purchasing the “sticks and wires” in the city to form its own utility. Municipal utilities in the state tend to have cheaper rates and often more aggressive clean energy policies (such as Sacramento Municipal Utility District), so this could be a good move overall for ratepayers and the environment. Although it’s worth noting that PG&E is one of the cleanest utilities in California already.
- Revamp liability for wildfires going forward. Right now, whichever party is responsible for igniting a blaze is 100% liable for all damages. But what about property owners who failed to maintain and “fire-harden” their buildings? What about local officials that allow development in high-risk fire zones? What about polluting companies that caused climate change, which exacerbated the fires’ intensity? Liability should fall on these parties, too, giving them incentive to correct their actions going forward and hopefully reduce the severity of future wildfires.
These reforms would be a welcome outcome from an otherwise unfortunate situation. In the meantime though, it’s hard to foresee an outcome of PG&E’s death spiral that won’t at least temporarily slow our climate progress in California.
California needs to improve the energy performance of existing buildings in order to meet efficiency and greenhouse gas emission goals, as well as save property owners money on their utility bills. But owners of low-income, multifamily buildings face significant obstacles, including difficult access to capital, complex financing arrangements, and competing renovation needs. Furthermore, residents in these buildings experience a “split incentive” problem that limits owners’ financial interest in upgrades that primarily reduce residents’ utility bills.
To address these challenges, UC Berkeley and UCLA Schools of Law are issuing today a new policy brief based on two stakeholder convenings that identify policy solutions to address key barriers, increase access to energy efficiency incentives, and unlock environmental, financial, and quality-of-life benefits for owners and residents alike. Among the solutions:
- The Legislature or Public Utilities Commission could create a single, statewide “one-stop shop” efficiency program administrator for users to obtain information about available programs, determine applicability, submit all filings, manage participation, and receive technical assistance.
- The Legislature could create a long-term fund to support the one-stop shop Administrator and subsidize advanced efficiency measures, allowing owner/developers to plan efficiency projects in line with their long-term obligations.
- State energy regulators could create a comprehensive database to help prioritize retrofit projects and support Energy Commission energy data benchmarking and analysis efforts under AB 802.
You can access the policy brief here. A full-length report detailing the comprehensive findings will be released later this year.
Today California inaugurates a new governor, Gavin Newsom, and says goodbye to four-term governor Jerry Brown. Governor Brown made climate change a central issue in his last two terms. Here are (to my mind) his top achievements on this issue:
- Setting and signing clean energy goals: Some may take it for granted now, but when Governor Brown came into office, solar panel prices were almost 80% higher than they are today. By setting goals like 50% renewable energy by 2030 and now 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045, and then signing legislation to codify them, Governor Brown helped boost a global market for clean power that has dramatically reduced prices and helped California achieve its 2020 climate goals four years early. The progress also enabled countries and states around the world to take advantage of lower-cost renewable energy.
- Bolstering a low-level carbon tax through cap-and-trade: Governor Schwarzenegger originally launched the state’s cap-and-trade program before Gov. Brown took office, but Brown seized the mantle and put his political capital behind extending it through 2030 with a two-thirds legislative vote. While the program has its flaws, its minimum price floor guarantees something that approximates a low-level carbon tax, which produces billions of dollars for climate investments, from weatherization to high speed rail. It also strengthened the state’s image as a global climate leader in time for the 2015 Paris accord.
- Forging global climate cooperation: Gov. Brown’s senior advisor Ken Alex hatched the idea in early 2015 of a global pact of subnationals (cities and states) that wanted to take more ambitious action on climate change than their national governments. The movement took off, with California and the German state of Baden-Württemberg in the lead as founding members. Today it boasts a coalition of 220 governments who represent over 1.3 billion people and 43% of the global economy. It successfully pushed international climate negotiators to take stronger action on climate in 2015 and continues to be an important political and problem-solving force for climate on the world stage.
- Boosting zero-emission transportation: Much like renewable energy, zero-emission vehicles like battery electrics were very expensive when Governor Brown took office. But thanks in part to his leadership to boost incentives and mandates for these vehicles and the batteries that supply them, as well as the charging infrastructure to fuel them, battery prices have plummeted since he took office. This technological advancement has enabled longer-range, more affordable electric vehicles like the Chevy Bolt EV and Tesla Model 3. California is now home to roughly 50% of the plug-in electric vehicles nationwide, with home-state Tesla selling the majority of those vehicles in 2018. Progress on this technology is crucial, as climate policy will fail if we don’t reduce emissions from the transportation sector more generally.
- Setting long-term carbon neutrality goals: Governor Brown’s 2018 executive order calls for California to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045. It’s a bold goal that the legislature may soon codify, and it’s needed according to climate science. What it means is that the state will seek to offset whatever emissions it can’t reduce by 2045, possibly through technologies or practices that drawdown carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it in (or on) the ground. That type of technology will be an important next phase for climate action, as we seek to repair the damage done from historic emissions.
- Improving climate communication: Governor Brown never shied away from discussing climate change and made it a point to tell audiences about the dire threat and changes required to address it. At a time when political media generally stays away from climate coverage, Brown forced the issue to educate the public about the need for action. The most recent highlight was the September 2018 Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, which attracted major celebrities, activists, world leaders and media coverage for the issue.
Yet with all of these successes, Governor Brown leaves with one giant piece of unfinished business on climate change: achieving climate-friendly land use. In short, the governor was unable to ensure that most new housing and other real estate development in the state happen in the most climate-friendly locations (near transit and in existing urbanized areas) and types (i.e. multifamily, compact development). As a result, driving miles in the state are way up, as are emissions from transportation.
To be sure, the governor signed some helpful (though small-bore) legislation to address the challenge, and he achieved some reforms to the environmental review process that can hold up meritorious projects. But it was ultimately not nearly enough. It will therefore be up to the next governor and legislature to chip away at the local control that has has stymied this climate imperative. Increased sprawl and driving miles will otherwise undermine our emission reductions in other sectors.
On balance though, it’s hard to imagine California (or the world) having a more effective, focused and sincere advocate for action on climate change. For that reason, Governor Brown will be missed, though I look forward to seeing what he will accomplish out of office as a private citizen. He has left some big shoes for Gavin Newsom to fill — and a path forward on climate change for the rest of us to follow.
As 2018 nears its end, here are my Top 6 developments in climate & energy policy this year:
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- Worldwide greenhouse gas emissions increase. Let’s start with the bad news for 2018: emissions are rising like a “speeding freight train,” primarily due to more coal-fired power coming on line for India and China, plus more energy use in the United States. Emissions are expected to increase 2.7 percent in 2018, according to research published by the Global Carbon Project. Meanwhile, a U.N. report in October indicated that the world may have just about a dozen more years to get emissions under control enough to avert disastrous warming. These reports should be concerning to everyone.
- Solar PV hits policy and deployment bumps but with long-term growth potential. With declining policy support worldwide, including costly tariffs on solar PV in the U.S., solar PV leaders have seen a downturn in 2018, for the first time in recent memory. Globally, according to the Frost & Sullivan (F&S) report Global Renewable Energy Outlook, 2018, the world saw 90 gigawatts (GW) of new solar installations for 2018, which was a slight year-on-year decrease. Overall though, renewable capacity will see 13.3% annual growth in 2018. The report authors expect global investment in renewable energy for the year to be $228.3 billion, a slight increase of 0.7% over 2017. In the U.S., according to latest industry figures, the third quarter saw installed solar PV capacity experience a 15% year-over-year decrease and a 20% quarter-over-quarter decrease. However, total installed U.S. solar PV capacity is expected to more than double over the next five years. Overall, the picture is concerning but with a potentially positive long-term outlook.
- EV sales increase worldwide, with 1 million in the U.S. and the Tesla Model 3 finally unveiled. The chart below tells the largely encouraging story:
China leads the pack with 40% of all sales. Here in California, sales just reached half a million, with one million nationwide. Prices continue to fall, and the Tesla Model 3 became the #6 top-selling car in the U.S. in November. Of all the climate change news, this progress on vehicle electrification may be the most hopeful, although we’ll need to see even more rapid deployment over the next decade to get growing worldwide transportation emissions under control. - Electrification of transportation spreads to trucks, buses and scooters. The EV revolution has spread, with cheaper, more powerful batteries now making electric “micromobility” options feasible, such as e-bikes and e-scooters. 2018 was truly the year of the e-scooter, when it comes to city streets. And on the heavy-duty side, companies are unveiling previously unheard of electric models, such as Daimler Trucks North America making the first delivery of an all-electric delivery truck, the Freightliner eCascadia, while the California Air Resources Board last week enacted a new rule requiring transit buses to be all-electric by 2040. All told, it’s a positive development for low-carbon transportation.
- Movement to legalize apartments near transit in California and across the U.S. All the electrification we can muster on transportation won’t matter much if we don’t decrease overall driving miles. It’s a particular problem in the U.S., with so many of our major cities built around solo vehicle trips. So it was encouraging to see California attempt to legalize apartments near major transit with Scott Wiener’s failed SB 827 earlier this year (which started a productive conversation) and now a potentially viable version in SB 50. The movement is catching on around the country, as Minneapolis just voted to end single-family zoning. It’s long overdue and our only real hope to decrease driving miles.
- Trump rollback proposals increase but face judicial setbacks. Trump’s attack on environmental protections made news all year, particularly his attempted rollback of clean vehicle fuel economy standards. The only bright spot is that many of his regulatory rollbacks are sloppy and getting shot down in the courts, as my colleague Dan Farber noted in a report and recent Legal Planet post. And with Democrats set to control the House of Representatives next month, pro-environment legislators are set to have more negotiating power on everything from the budget to enforcement to policy oversight.
So the trends overall are uneven, with a lot for concern and also promising technology and policy momentum still in effect. 2019 could also greatly change this picture, with a potentially slowing economy and more private sector innovation on clean technology.
Overall, those who care about these issues have a lot to digest and ponder this holiday season, along with the cookies. See you in 2019!
Short answer: no. At least not the way they’re currently presented, as a single-track option for private vehicles with solo drivers. It’s the equivalent of building new roads on the surface: once you build them, traffic quickly increases to fill them.
However, if the tunnels improve their efficiency by squeezing more people into the vehicles, such as through shared rides or right-sized “pods” for individuals, then Musk’s tunnels could provide a significant benefit. But of course at that point they start to look exactly like a subway car, only with the cars replaced by Teslas.
Perhaps for this reason, many transit advocates are heaping scorn on Musk’s plan. They were also predisposed to resent Musk personally because he has criticized public transit in the past and has revolutionized passenger vehicles through battery electric technology, which some transit advocates mistakenly view as a threat to political support for expanding transit.
For my part, I don’t think it matters if Musk’s plan fails, since it’s a completely private venture. And if it succeeds, the public will benefit in multiple ways: from improved tunneling technology to new capacity to move people (albeit only those who can afford it) faster across town.
But I do have some “red lines” for my overall indifference to the venture:
- No public dollars should be spent on the project, unless there are commensurate public benefits. Essentially, the tunnels would have to be affordable to all and accessible to those who can’t afford a vehicle (i.e. function like traditional public transit).
- No public giveaways in terms of subsurface land rights. The tunnels should have to compete on a level playing field with public transit tunnels, in terms of these types of land costs. I’m otherwise okay with waiving some environmental review (i.e. transportation, aesthetic, and parking impacts, among others), as I would be with any other public transit tunnel.
- The tunnels should not interfere with public transit tunnels. That means the tunneling shouldn’t prevent future subway tunnel extensions, and the ingress and egress for the tunnels shouldn’t impede bus lanes and pedestrian access to transit, as well as critical transit-oriented development.
As long as the venture doesn’t cross those lines, I wish The Boring Company and Musk success and will hope for positive spillover for the general public. And I also wish that they fulfill the original vision of right-sized, shared vehicles in the tunnel that increase efficient use of space and decrease incentives for solo driving.
Given Musk’s commitment to averting climate change, that’s a vision I think he’d support.
A new report released today from UC Berkeley School of Law, Streamlining Sustainability: Regulatory and Permitting Improvements to Achieve California’s Freight Goals, offers state and local policy reforms for California leaders to increase the sustainability and efficiency of the state’s freight system.
Freight is responsible for hundreds of thousands of jobs in California and feeds commerce and agriculture throughout the state and the entire nation. But the trains, trucks, aircraft, and ocean vessels that ship goods throughout California are responsible for a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gas emissions and harmful air pollutants (such as nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide), particularly in disadvantaged communities near railyards and ports. A range of strategies and technologies, from electrified heavy-duty trucks to increasing the use of rail at ports, can modernize the system and reduce emissions. But these projects can be challenging to implement in the current legal and policy ecosystem.
To reduce these impacts and maintain competitiveness, UC Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) partnered with the Governor’s Offices of Planning and Research (OPR) and Business and Economic Development (GO-BIZ) to offer recommendations to increase the rate that cleaner freight technologies are integrated into the system, while helping the state achieve the goals in 2016’s Sustainable Freight Action Plan.
Top recommendations include:
- Convening sustainable freight “red teams” to conduct holistic analysis and clear local and state-level permitting roadblocks for high-priority infrastructure projects;
- Facilitating “tiered” review under the California Environmental Quality Act to comprehensively assess impacts and benefits of related freight projects; and
- Increasing the use of community benefit agreements and project labor agreements to earn the support of local communities and labor groups most likely to be affected by new projects or technological developments.
The report is informed by a stakeholder convening held in the Governor’s Office, organized and moderated by UC Berkeley School of Law. It describes a range of other measures, from a messaging campaign to raise public awareness about the freight system to pilot programs that allow industry members to securely share key data, that could increase support for sustainable freight from the policy, industry, and community and environmental advocacy spheres.
The implications of a sustainable freight system are significant. Freight is directly involved in approximately one third of the California economy, including both exports and imports. For example, California is the largest supplier of food to the rest of the nation and the point of entry for the vast majority of goods imported from Asia. California’s freight system leaders will need to maximize its efficiency to retain this position of prominence while protecting California residents and workers. We hope these recommendations will help California achieve its ambitious emission reduction, public health, and economic competitiveness goals.
To download the new report, click here.
California’s major urban regions are falling behind in getting people out of their solo drives in favor of walking, biking, transit and carpooling, according to a major report last month from the California Air Resources Board. In short, the state will not meet its 2030 climate goals without more progress on reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT):
This result comes despite the decade-old passage of SB 375 (Steinberg, 2008), which promised to reorient land use and transportation around reduced driving. The lone exception appears to be the San Francisco Bay Area, which has seen steadily increasing transit ridership and decreasing solo driving to work as a percentage, according to the report.
What are the stakes if California can’t start solving this problem in the next decade? A U.N. report on climate change recently concluded that limiting global warming to 1.5 C would “require more policies that get people out of their cars — into ride-sharing and public transportation, if not bikes and scooters — even as cars switch from fossil fuels to electrics.” In order to keep the world on track to stay within 1.5 Celsius, the report stated that emission reductions would have to “come predominantly from the transport and industry sectors” and that countries couldn’t just rely on zero-emission vehicles alone.
Yet as the report shows, California’s current land use policies are not helping with this goal. We need to discourage development in car-dependent areas while promoting growth close to jobs, as SB 50 would allow. And at the same time, we need to invest in better transit service. Otherwise, California and jurisdictions like it around the world will fail to avert the coming climate catastrophe.
Climate change exacerbates the droughts, floods, and wildfires that Californians now regularly experience, making them even more extreme and unpredictable. Gavin Newsom, California’s next governor, faces the urgent challenge of simultaneously preparing for inevitable disaster, improving the quality of life for residents, and minimizing the greenhouse gas emissions of a society of nearly 40 million people.
In that spirit, UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) and Resources Legacy Fund (RLF) have given Governor-Elect Gavin Newsom three detailed sets of actions he can take immediately to address wildfire and forest management; drought, flood, and drinking water safety and affordability; and the stubbornly high carbon pollution of our transportation systems.
Specific recommendations include:
- Creating comprehensive, data-driven maps that identify the highest-risk wildfire areas to help the state target investments in emergency response programs and vegetation treatment;
- Accelerating the consolidation of small water systems in disadvantaged communities that consistently do not receive adequate supplies of safe drinking water; and
- Giving local governments incentives to change commercial zoning to increase transit-accessible, affordable housing and reduce the number of miles people drive.
The report also recommends creating incentives for local governments to limit development in high-risk fire areas, designing a system that dedicates a volume of water for the environment to be managed for ecosystem recovery, and setting stringent housing, transportation and greenhouse gas reduction criteria for cities looking to expand or change their boundaries.
Each set of recommendations arose from separate, half-day symposia involving a dozen or more practitioners and experts with perspectives on wildfire, water, and the nexus of climate change, housing, and transportation. Experts included local government officials, former state agency heads, environmental advocates, industry leaders, and academic researchers.
RLF and CLEE organized the panels, moderated by me and Sacramento Mayor and former Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg. Despite often divergent perspectives, panelists worked to find agreement on near-term actions. After the discussions, CLEE and RLF distilled the top recommended actions with participant input.
RLF and CLEE delivered the recommendations to Governor-Elect Newsom, Chief of Staff Ann O’Leary, and Cabinet Secretary Ana Matosantos last week.
A few themes emerged in the discussions and recommended actions:
- Cities and counties hold primary authority for deciding whether people live in harm’s reach of wildfire, drought, or flood and whether they can get to jobs and services without long vehicle commutes. Wherever possible, the state should use incentives to spur local government actions that align with statewide goals such as reducing vehicle emissions or hardening communities against fire risk. But some situations – such as the provision of clean drinking water – warrant state regulation.
- The new governor should align the way state agencies spend money in order to achieve his priorities. Federal and state transportation dollars, for example, should be directed to projects that help reduce the number of miles people drive.
- Strong leadership and systematic coordination from the governor’s office are crucial to driving progress across departments toward a common goal. The new governor should appoint leaders in each area who can spearhead cohesive, rapid action across agencies and throughout state government.
The specific recommendations and panel members can be found here. Hopefully these recommendations will help the new governor and the public be better prepared for the environmental threats we face in California.
UC Berkeley and UCLA Schools of Law are today releasing a new report, A New Solar Landscape, which identifies key reforms for California to enact at the state, regional, and local level to increase the pace and optimal siting of utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) development. With the passage of SB 100 (de León, 2018), California now requires electric utilities to obtain 60 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045. To meet these goals, the report recommends that state leaders:
- Encourage development of county-level landscape plans by linking them to incentives like expedited review under the California Environmental Quality Act.
- Ensure that project benefits flow first to communities most immediately affected by development.
- Increase support for transmission infrastructure located in areas appropriate for solar development.
- Create a consolidated, statewide zoning and planning data resource.
The report is sponsored by Bank of America and informed by two expert stakeholder convenings facilitated by the law schools.
Utility-scale solar PV facilities—large panel arrays that generate power to sell into the electrical grid—are the most economical method of delivering the large quantities of power needed to satisfy California’s renewables portfolio standard (RPS). Solar energy is the most significant source of renewable energy in California, accounting for over one-third of all renewable power generated in 2017, and well over half of total generating capacity. As solar prices continue to fall, many experts agree that solar will play an even greater role in California’s achievement of future renewables targets, potentially constituting up to 95 percent of new generation.
But these projects, often located in rural areas, can face significant barriers to obtaining the local approvals necessary to begin development, potentially hindering climate progress. To address issues such as a lack of local buy-in to proposed projects and a lack of coordination among local and state planners, the report proposes policies such as:
- Quantifying the total amount of land needed for solar PV facilities in order to meet the state’s climate goals, and communicating this information to local communities where the facilities might be located;
- Preparing solar PV permitting guidebooks that clarify local requirements for developers and help residents understand the process;
- Increasing coordination between state and utility electrical transmission planners and local governments responsible for project approvals; and
- Encouraging community benefit agreements that guarantee local benefits in connection with new solar PV developments.
These recommendations, among many others described in A New Solar Landscape, can help California’s policymakers, local governments, and solar industry leaders develop a county-level landscape planning system that accounts for and promotes state renewable energy targets, environmental conservation and land preservation goals, and community development needs.
For more details, download the report here.
