EEI panelists see more innovation and regulation on the road to zero-carbon
The days of tentative steps forward are over and it is now time for Washington to become more aggressive in the strategy to wean the United States off fossil fuels and settle into a carbon-free future, a panel of electric utility and environmentalist leaders concurred Wednesday at the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) Virtual Leadership Summit.
The process of replacing coal-fired power plants along with a large chunk of the nation’s natural-gas generation with renewables and other green technologies is well underway, but the federal government needs to increase its leadership role in order to speed up the process if the nation is going to meet Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s call for a “zero-carbon” electricity sector by 2035.
Reaching Biden’s goal, which was based on the controversial and more-aggressive “Green New Deal” resolution introduced in Congress last year, will require the nation to get busy in the 2020 decade and set clear regulations and market rules. Washington will also need to aggressively fund critical research and development projects so that ambitious new technologies that will help replace fossil fuels, such as hydrogen power, carbon capture, and energy storage will be ready for wide-scale deployment in the 2030s and beyond.
“That will be tough, but I am not going to write it off if this decade becomes a supercharged innovation decade,” said Ernest Moniz, former U.S. Energy Secretary under President Barack Obama. “It is a big lift, but we have got to push down on the accelerator now.”
Moniz was part of a keynote panel moderated by Dan Yergin, vice chairman of IHS Markit, that also included Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund; Gina McCarthy, president and chief executive officer of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Gerry Anderson, executive chairman of DTE Energy and vice chairman of EEI.
Anderson said that while the utility sector was indeed committed to slashing carbon emissions and was “moving faster on that front than we were four or five years ago.” Still, dramatic progress in technology development was needed to reach the finish line. “This is doable, but we have got to get after that R&D,” he said. “We had better have started that R&D yesterday.”
Anderson broke down the industry’s zero-emissions strategy into three decade-long “chapters,” which stressed “heavy investments” in renewables along with the retirement of coal generation in the 2020s, and the 2030s will feature the complete phase-out of coal and reduced natural-gas consumption. The final steps in the 2040s will be to reach net-zero – Biden’s lofty 2035 goal not withstanding – with a boost from hydrogen turbines, robust energy storage, and carbon-capture equipment added to the generation mix.
Yergin recognized the daunting scope of the task, remarking, “Those three chapters add up to a very big book.”
The consensus of the panelists was that it was no longer enough for politicians, climate activists and the general public to prod the electric utilities into voluntarily adopting more wind and solar power. It was recognized that there was now a need for nationwide regulations and policies since leaving it to individual companies to figure it all out with minimal government input was no longer feasible.
“We don’t have any choice,” said McCarthy, who was administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under Obama. “You have to think bigger because it’s not about one utility making this all happen.”
“There is going to be a role (for government) in setting standards and sending signals to the market,” she added.
Stoking a nationwide effort to reach net-zero emissions could conceivably get a push from the often-maligned Green New Deal. Utility leaders might find the deal’s concept of a completely carbon-free economy in 10 years to be a reach. Anderson called it “expensive and difficult to pull off.” But, the deal’s call for new jobs and healthier environments in low-income neighborhoods could expand public support for renewables and get more elected officials on board with increased regulation and funding.
“A lot of problems, including climate change, need government regulations,” said Krupp. “And politicians are more likely to adopt those changes if there is public support. It makes their jobs easier. So, there is a momentum that can be developed by groups of stakeholders.”
Utilities, however, will still have to shoulder a lot of the burden in the coming years since they will be responsible for the construction of new generating plants and transmission lines that will effectively bring down carbon emissions. “There is an imperative for the electricity sector to do more than the economy as a whole,” said Krupp, who added, “there is money to be made there.”
