Jerry Brown was inaugurated today for his record fourth term as governor of California, and his address offered refreshing specifics on his environmental and climate goals:
In fact, we are well on our way to meeting our AB 32 goal of reducing carbon pollution and limiting the emissions of heat-trapping gases to 431 million tons by 2020. But now, it is time to establish our next set of objectives for 2030 and beyond.
Toward that end, I propose three ambitious goals to be accomplished within the next 15 years:
1. Increase from one-third to 50 percent our electricity derived from renewable sources;
2. Reduce today’s petroleum use in cars and trucks by up to 50 percent;
3. Double the efficiency of existing buildings and make heating fuels cleaner.
The 50% renewable standard by 2030 is the most striking of these recommendations, putting California on pace to lead the nation in renewable deployment (with Hawaii as a possible rival, given that state’s expressed goal of 65% renewables by 2030). As Berkeley and UCLA Law discussed in the November 2013 report Rewable Energy Beyond 2020: Next Steps for California, such a standard should be accompanied by a policy to ensure actual greenhouse gas reductions from the power sector. Otherwise, an increase in renewables could be offset by an increase in fossil fuel-based power, which might be needed to balance the intermittent renewables when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing — but demand remains high.
Governor Brown seems to acknowledge that risk when he called for specific measures to help ensure proper integration of these renewable power sources:
I envision a wide range of initiatives: more distributed power, expanded rooftop solar, micro-grids, an energy imbalance market, battery storage, the full integration of information technology and electrical distribution and millions of electric and low-carbon vehicles. How we achieve these goals and at what pace will take great thought and imagination mixed with pragmatic caution. It will require enormous innovation, research and investment. And we will need active collaboration at every stage with our scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, businesses and officials at all levels.
Battery and other energy storage technologies (also detailed in this 2010 Power of Energy Storage report) are vital to balancing renewables on the grid by storing surplus renewable power for later dispatch. California is making great progress on deployment so far. And an energy imbalance market, linking renewable sources across the Western United States, as well as “demand response” technologies that encourage energy usage during times of peak renewables, will also help decrease greenhouse gases from the power sector as well as increase grid reliability and decrease costs.
Finally, the governor’s electric vehicle and energy efficiency goals represent the two other critical pieces in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without having to return to the stone age. After all, it’s not enough just to clean our electricity sector — we need to electrify our transportation and be much more efficient with the energy we do use. All told, Governor Brown is reinforcing through policy the critical initiatives we need to grow the economy without overheating the planet beyond repair.
The next stage will be the administration’s goal for greenhouse gas reduction legislation for 2030 — a sequel to the AB 32 2020 goals. The governor set a timetable of March 2015 to unveil those targets, so we’ll stay tuned for that next big speech on the environment.
Here’s my take on the biggest environmental victories in 2014:
5. Continuing strength of the electric vehicle market. Sales are going well, new models are being introduced, and automakers are on notice that this trend isn’t going away. No technology is more important for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions than electric drives, so let’s hope the progress continues.
4. Transportation fuels stay under California’s cap-and-trade program. There was some debate about whether or not fuels would stay under the cap, given oil-and-gas industry machinations and legislative action. But the California Legislature stayed strong. Including fuels under the cap will mean more auction revenue for climate-fighting strategies and a statement that gas prices should include at least some of the cost of pollution. Nationally, it means California is showing how to make a cap-and-trade program work without hurting the economy, providing a model for other states and one day the nation.
3. EPA’s clean power rule. It was long overdue and probably too weak, but the Obama Administration developed a power sector rule that gives states flexibility to innovate in how they reduce emissions from power plants. That can include more renewables but also more energy efficiency (of course, all this assumes the plan doesn’t get gutted in the courts). As states respond, the price of renewables will decrease and states can start to share markets to make further reductions.
2. Continued solar energy boom. Prices of panels are falling, the efficiency is increasing, and solar is now becoming cost-competitive with fossil fuels in some areas. This technology is a crucial part of the solution to decarbonize the electricity supply and enable electrified transportation.
1. Climate agreement with China. While the specifics of the deal were very weak, it’s a major symbolic and psychological victory that can be improved over time. China is the major emitter of carbon in the world, and they have now committed themselves to reducing these emissions. That sets up Paris in 2015 for a potentially meaningful international agreement and also bolsters arguments to reduce emissions here in the United States.
Honorable mention: the advent of cost-effective, viable energy storage deployment in California.
Happy New Year! Let’s hope 2015 brings even more progress as we race against time on climate change.
The falling prices at the pump have been welcome news for drivers and consumers. It’s hard not to feel like gas prices are the ultimate determinant of our economic well-being. When they go up, the economy stalls, such as in the 1970s, early 2000s, and then the recent economic malaise following the Great Recession. And when they go down, the economy seems to hum, like in the 1990s and now with our increasingly robust economic recovery. Cheap energy underpins virtually everything we do, and transportation fuels are the key inputs for our industrial machine.
We know this industrial production and activity comes at an environmental cost. But is there reason to believe this time is different? There’s no doubt cheap gas means more pollution, at least in the short run. It’s encouraging less efficient vehicle purchases (SUV sales are up although electric vehicle sales so far are holding steady), more driving, and more economic activity that tends to produce more carbon emissions.
But there are environmental positives, some immediate and some more potential. In the immediate future, cheap oil means environmentally destructive oil and gas extraction methods, such as fracking, become too expensive to continue relative to the cheap global price of oil. The decrease in investment in these methods could have long-term consequences on supply, once this oil boom fades. And since these extraction methods often produce both oil and natural gas, the slowdown could drive up natural gas prices as a byproduct. That in turn could make renewables more cost-competitive and possibly discourage wasteful gas consumption, spurring efficiency overall.
The other long-term potential environmental good is that a booming economy is a big factor in making voters more likely to support environmental measures (the so-called “affluence hypothesis”). So as many people experience rising income or more disposable cash from cheaper energy, environmental leaders should take the opportunity to solidify environmental policies. In California, that would mean legislating 2030 and maybe even 2050 greenhouse gas reduction goals to extend AB 32 (the state’s climate law) authority beyond 2020. That could also mean switching from the gas tax to a vehicle miles traveled tax to develop a more stable source of funding to repair existing roads and pay for new transit, pedestrian and bike infrastructure. Legislators could develop a permanent funding source to help build more affordable housing near transit. And it could also mean reforming Proposition 13 to allow local governments to raise voter-approved revenue for transit with a 55% majority.
At the national level, a booming economy could undermine efforts to rollback EPA regulations to reduce pollution from power plants, while correspondingly lead to more support for a nationwide vehicle miles traveled tax to fund transportation. (I’d love a national policy on carbon, too, but I don’t think that even a booming economy could overcome the structural impediments that disproportionately empower rural, fossil-fuel dependent states in the federal decision-making process.) And maybe a booming economy could make it easier for the Obama Administration to negotiate a more meaningful international climate treaty in Paris next year.
So the potential upsides of cheap gas are huge, while the known immediate downsides may be unavoidable. Let’s hope our environmental leaders capitalize on this opportunity while they have it. Because if history teaches us anything, it’s that cheap gas never lasts.
The article covers the debates raging over siting these large projects in pristine desert regions:
These projects are so big, they create their own ecologies and economies. “We’re not talking about a small project, we’re talking about a city the size of San Francisco,” says David Lamfrom, who runs the National Parks Conservation Association’s (NPCA) California Desert Program. “You’d just plop down a city in the middle of the wildest parts of the U.S.”
And these new wind and solar farms—cities, call them, since they aren’t like any farm you’ve seen—are only going to multiply in the coming years. The need for clean energy is expected to increase dramatically in the next decade, particularly after the U.S. and China recently announced a historic agreement to lower greenhouse gas emissions in their respective countries. At the core of the pact are two sets of commitments: The U.S. will lower emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025 from the initial 2005 baselines, while China has agreed to set an emissions peak for 2030 and then commit to lowering emissions.
The piece also features some context-setting quotes from yours truly. Overall, I think it does a nice job describing what’s at stake, especially given the new international climate context.
Whoopsie. The Western States Petroleum Association accidentally let slip its strategy document detailing how the oil and gas lobbying front seeks to undermine clean energy laws, especially California’s effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2020:
Specifically, the deck from a presentation by WSPA President Catherine Reheis-Boyd lays out the construction of what environmentalists contend is an elaborate “astroturf campaign.” Groups with names such as Oregon Climate Change Campaign, Washington Consumers for Sound Fuel Policy, and AB 32 Implementation Group are made to look and sound like grassroots citizen-activists while promoting oil industry priorities and actually working against the implementation of AB 32.
It’s a similar strategy pursued by chemical interests, when they set up a fake firefighter group to keep in place California’s counter-productive flame retardant regulation, which retarded no flames while poisoning kids and firefighters alike when buildings burned.
It’s nice to see this approach exposed for everyone to see. The front groups have thankfully so far failed to motivate the public, but advocates should be wary of this tactic. In the right political climate, it could make a big difference in undermining public support for vital environmental laws. Here’s a hard-to-read chart from the slide deck of all the fake groups they fund (hard to read because they fund so many phony groups):
It seems counter-intuitive, but that’s what hot tub dealers like to say. They may have a point: after a long soak, the shower that follows will probably be quicker because you don’t need the warm water to warm you up in the cold winter months. And the water that gets dumped every six months or so can be used to irrigate nearby plants (provided the chlorine levels have dropped enough, if you don’t use bromine to keep it clean). And if you take regular baths, hot tubs are a much better substitute from a water conservation standpoint.
But when droughts hit, severe water rationing usually means that hot tub owners are encouraged not to fill their tubs (as happened in Santa Cruz recently). So if hot tub dealers feel the data are on their side in terms of water conservation benefits, they should study this issue to change policy decision-making.
In general though, hot tubs are an environmental negative due to the energy required to heat the tubs. Of course, if you have solar panels or live in some kind of eco-compound in the Rockies like Amory Lovins, then maybe you can be forgiven for indulging in warm water.
Either way, I’m up for doing a significant amount of research on this topic.
It’s commonly accepted that millennials (those born between 1983 and 2000) are driving less than previous generations, contributing to a multiyear drop in per capita vehicle miles traveled in the US. But why exactly are they driving less? And will the trend hold as they age? The answers carry huge policy implications, particularly for our transportation and land use decision-making. Both processes put in place infrastructure designed to last decades.
More fun than driving?
Emily Badger at the Washington Post tackles this question. Her basic conclusion is that it’s likely a mix of factors, from a down economy to the rise of technology (mainly smart phones) to a cultural shift about cars. And of course, more study will be needed to see how permanent the shifts are over time.
One interesting economic factor she cites is that the high cost of living may force millennials to cut back on transportation expenses. So could our restrictive local housing policies actually be creating a culture that demands more urban housing? There’s some irony in that outcome, if that’s the case.
While we have to take a wait-and-see attitude, one finding is already clear to have long-lasting import: millennials simply don’t identify cars with status like previous generations. Their whole attitude about driving seems markedly different, since they’ve never known cheap gas and only know traffic.
Policy makers should certainly take note of this cultural and generational shift — and design our urban spaces and transportation infrastructure accordingly.
The (aptly named) Union of Concerned Scientists released a report this week showing that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new power plant rule sets a national renewable energy target that is barely above federal business-as-usual projections.
This rule was supposed to be one of the Obama Administration’s signature climate change achievements, issued under the Clean Air Act pursuant to a 2007 Supreme Court decision requiring it. So what gives? As one of the study researchers commented:
“The EPA was obviously feeling pressure from Congress and states over the rule and wanted to come up with something they thought would be defensible,” Steve Clemmer, director of energy research at UCS, told ThinkProgress. “I think they ended up erring too far on the side of being conservative about renewables. When the EIA — not an agency that’s seen as being optimistic about renewables — says we’re going to pretty much get to that level without the Clean Power Plan, that’s pretty pessimistic and unrealistic really.”
Given that the rule is still in draft stage, there is time to improve it. The study authors recommend that EPA bump up the renewable goal considerably, noting that states can cost-effectively produce nearly twice as much renewable electricity as the agency calculated. And it’s worth keeping in mind that the renewable energy target is only one part of the rule, which also includes energy efficiency and other greenhouse gas-reducing measures.
Given the environmental weakness of this part of EPA’s draft regulation, it’s ironic that congressional Republicans are complaining that EPA worked too closely with environmentalists in crafting it. For my part, I certainly hope EPA will be more receptive to input on this issue from the environmental community going forward.
The UCLA/Berkeley Law webinar on repurposing electric vehicle batteries for grid storage is now on-line. The September 19th event discusses key recommendations from the new report “Reuse and Repower” and features Adam Langton, Senior Energy Analyst at the California Public Utilities Commission, and Randall Winston, Special Assistant to the Executive Secretary in the Office of Governor Brown.
You can watch the one-hour video here or below:
Electric vehicles in Hawaii should be a no-brainer. The limited island geographies make battery “range anxiety” either easy to solve through a few public charging stations or practically non-existent. The high gas prices make driving economically painful. And the abundant renewable energy there (solar, wind, and geothermal) means lot of potential for cheap, clean electricity.
But the U.S. Department of Energy “eGallon” website shows a critical disconnect. In most states, the equivalent “miles per gallon” of using electricity instead of gas for driving results in huge savings. The average U.S. gallon of gas costs $3.52, while the equivalent cost in electricity is $1.27. Pretty nice amount of savings, no?
Well, in Hawaii, we have an outlier result. The extremely high cost of electricity (most is generated from burning imported diesel), coupled with the high cost of gas, results in an unfortunate comparison: $3.79 for a gallon of gas vs. $3.75 in equivalent electricity costs. So you’ll save 4 cents per gallon going electric! Pretty weak.
That’s where rooftop solar comes into play. For residents of Hawaii with these systems, they can pay almost nothing in electricity through the state’s net metering program. This arrangement makes the savings from going electric probably greater than in almost any other state. In fact, in researching the report “Electric Vehicle Paradise” for Berkeley Law and Maui College last year, almost everyone I talked to who had purchased or leased an EV in the islands had rooftop solar. And they were motivated to go electric because they were producing too much solar from their roof.
That’s why our report recommended that Hawaii’s utilities, especially Hawaiian Electric (HECO), remove barriers to installing rooftop solar. At the time, the utility privately claimed to me that they really didn’t have any barriers, such as expensive interconnection studies. But shortly after we released the report they began clamping down aggressively on rooftop arrays with these studies.
But change is in the works. In response to an aggressive state public utilities commission directive, HECO now plans to go 65% renewable by 2030, which is great. But the utility wants to impose a fixed monthly charge of $55 on solar customers, which could undermine the economics of going solar. And HECO still needs to get rid of phony “interconnection studies” that can cost thousands of dollars for a property owner trying to install solar.
With rooftop solar, particularly in Hawaii, it’s not just about cleaning the electricity system — it’s about driving cleaner, too. Not to mention that more EVs ultimately boosts energy storage in the islands from repurposed electric vehicle batteries. So let’s hope HECO does the right thing, because the whole movement to a cleaner, cheaper energy system in Hawaii starts with solar.
