Get Energy Smart! NOW!

Let’s get some facts on the table first.

• Electrification of School Buses should be fast-tracked across the United States due to huge benefit streams
  • Improved student and community health due to
  • Significant reductions in diesel and particulate pollution with
  • a wide-range set of other benefits including
    • improved student performance outcomes;
    • reducing greenhouse gas and noise pollution;
    • safer and more comfortable bus transportation;
    • lowered operational costs;
    • real benefits in terms of environmental (and economic) justice; and,
    • enabling improved energy resiliency and power grid operations.
• While a ‘no-brainer’ path forward, significant obstacles exist for mass ESB deployments including
  • financial challenges of ‘who pays’ additional upfront costs;
  • business-as-usual ‘we’ve always done diesel’ incumbency, limited school district resources for decision-making, and risk aversion making introduction of ‘new’ difficult; and,
  • poor understanding of and discussion of how ESBs are one of the strongest multi-solving opportunities for a broad swath of the United States.
• Virginia is one of the leading states with potential for mass replacement of its diesel buses but, as per below, is
  • Is pursuing a sub-optimal path that
  • Will lead to higher-cost than necessary implementation,
  • Might well be driving sub-optimal solutions due, in no small part, to how it
  • Gives too much authority for public procurement and a public good to a private corporation.

In the Virginia legislature, on its last day, there is pressure to drive through Senator Louise Lucas’ SB1380. An honest short-hand of that legislation: it is Dominion Power-written legislation that maximizes Dominion Energy profits while minimizing the role and power of public entities in decision-making about the nature of a public project.

As Ivy Main put it, Electric School Buses Would Be Good For Virginia, But It Has To Be Done Right, and SB1380 simply doesn’t do it right.

• It mandates that ESBs are “in the public interest”.
  • While, in truth, ESBs are ‘in the public interest’ in a commonly understood manner for most people, this is a powerful term in Virginia law.
  • Using this term drastically constrains the State Corporation Commission’s ability to provide oversight of a program, puts projects directly into the utility rate base, and enables program management that maximizes (well past the point of reasonableness) profits.
  • E.g., while writ large, a program very much worth purusing, declaring it “in the public interest” will make almost certainly make this a significantly more expensive program than necessary and lead to higher costs for Virginians and higher (than appropriate) guaranteed profitability for Dominion for decades to come.
• Puts public decision-making directly into a private entity’s essentially unilateral control.
  • For example, Dominion has mandated that all school buses bought through its program must have seat belts.
    • While, superficially, this might sound like a tremendous safety move, the research about real-world experiences raises significant questions about whether — due to systems-of-systems’ impacts — there are actual safety benefits.
    • And, questionable (if any) seat-belt safety benefits come at a significant financial (ballpark of $10,000 per bus which means over $900 of guaranteed profits for Dominion year-in, year-out, for every ESB) cost along with significant operational implications (seat-belts reduce bus capacity and slow operations).
    • School bus seat belts are a public-policy issue that should go through government decision-making processes, weighing the public good, and not be mandated by a private entity whose profitability will be boosted via it’s unilateral (and opaque to the public) decision-making.

There are many other challenges with this bill, such as giving Dominion essentially unilateral control over ESB batteries in a way that makes clear that grid benefits (and Dominion profitability) are given prioritization over all other benefit streams.

To be clear, ESB deployment merit massive acceleration. While ESBs might have been hard to justify even a few years ago, plunging battery prices and other advances in the industry have made the financial case a ‘no-brainer’ (while massively reducing risks of what was an uncertain and unknown technology space).

And, involving electric utilities with such projects makes a tremendous amount of sense. (And, to be clear, that includes that utilities should be able to profit reasonably from their roles in and with ESB deployment and operations–reasonable, rather than excess, profitability.) Utilities can use their financial power to address the ‘upfront cost’ challenge (which is what they do, essentially every day, with power plant and transmission line investments). And, utility close interaction with ESB deployment can enable energy grid resiliency (the importance of which were just dramatically demonstrated in Texas) while easing a path toward significant deployment of V2G (vehicle-to-grid) technologies and systems for even greater grid (and vehicle owner) benefit streams.

It is past the 11th hour in the Virginia legislature.

Simply put, SB1380 should not become law. Its problems are just too serious and costly.

However, ESBs are a critical arena for making progress due to all the real and significant benefit streams — for all stakeholders (other than, for example, oil companies, diesel distributors, and diesel-engine manufacturers). Putting off ESB decision-making for yet another year, after failures in the 2020 legislature, simply is not “in the public interest”.

Thus, with the legislative clock at 23:59 with an end at midnight, a hope that the legislature can find a last-minute compromise to mandate a private-public research team (commission) to conduct a 90-day project to develop legislation that will better balance public-private interests. And, to have materials to inform legislators for a short special session in perhaps June where this could be passed into law for Governor Northam’s signature.

Note: Clean Virginia petition calling on House to reject SB1380.

President Biden has made clear that the Federal Government should (will) move to 100 percent clean (mainly electric) vehicle acquisition (“including vehicles of the United States Postal Service”) as quickly as possible.

Postmaster General DeJoy has made clear that, well, ‘frankly my dear, he doesn’t give a damn” with today’s announcement of the Next-Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV):

The vehicles will be equipped with either fuel-efficient internal combustion engines or battery electric powertrains 

While the press release emphasizes “either … or …”, the winning firm ( Oshkosh) was emphasized as the “gasoline” engine option in the years of the bidding process. Oshkosh is partnered with Ford and the NGDV is based on the Ford Transit which has a ICE drive train. Ford announced an electric Transit option in late 2020 for the 2022 model year.

Some saw, in late 2020, electric start-up Workhorse as the likely winner due its proposal being all electric. That a major firm (Oshkosh Defense) partnered with a major auto manufacturer (FORD) won over a small and unprofitable (essentially start-up) firm (Workhorse) and a small U.S. presence foreign firm for a $6B vehicle contract that will have, easily, a 30-year run life shouldn’t surprise anyone.

The existing fleet of postal delivery vehicles is in desperate need for replacement. These decades-old vehicles are, literally, spontaneously exploding in flames. They are expensive to maintain, unsafe, uncomfortable, and without 30+ years of advancements in automotive technology and design. The Oshkosh NGDV, with first deliveries as early as 2023, will be a leap-ahead for the Postal Service. All of this is true.

However, the Biden Administration should have (if it didn’t) worked to have the announcement delayed for a review to make this a 100 percent electric (clean) vehicle acquisition in line with President Biden’s executive order.  Putting aside climate reality and the necessity for rapid movement, there is a simple true: even if they cost more to buy (a differential dropping every day), it costs far less to own an electric vehicle. Considering these will be on essentially every single US street six times a week for perhaps the next 30 years, there is no economic and financial justification for not going with a 100% clean (and nearly 100% electric) fleet. Every single one (and of them) delivered with an internal combustion engine will be a wasted investment.

Note:
As a quick response to the USPS announcement, I did take the time to detail how this will improve the life of the postal worker (how much a better vehicle it is) nor the myriad of benefit streams and reasons to go all-electric. As to the last, David Roberts provided an excellent discussion in A no-brainer stimulus idea: Electrify USPS mail trucks Electric vehicles for the US Postal Service would reduce noise, air, and carbon pollution in every community.

Also, something to consider. While there is a clear potential that the chosen NGDV will end up primarily being an electric-vehicle, the base model is an ICE. Modifying an ICE-based designed vehicle for an EV-variant is a sub-optimal path compared to bottom-up design and development as an electric vehicle.

UPDATE:

The Zero-Emission Transportation Alliance (ZETA) has come out with a statement: ZETA Opposes DeJoy Move to Buy Gas-Powered Vehicles.

Republicans are outraged, outraged I tell you, about President Biden’s nomination of Representative Deb Haaland‘s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior. Putting aside the tone-deaf nature of white men whining about Federal control of land to a Native American leader, the truthiness nature of attack lines is both astounding — and, sadly, not surprising. Over the weeks since the nomination leading into and in today’s Senate confirmation hearing, an interminable litany of deceit has peppered (if not been central) to Republican explanations of their opposition to this historic nomination.

In today’s hearing, alone, the number of false claims that President Biden is pursuing job-killing (rather than truthful job creation) energy paths forward are too rapid to keep track of. But false attacks on clean energy jobs aren’t the only line of attack. As another (stunning) example: Montana Republican Senator Steve Daines claimed that President Biden’s policies were already boosting pollution loads (said without any facial signs of self-reflection on hypocrisy) with a key example: the tar-sands super-polluter enabling Keystone XL pipeline permit cancellation. Yup, never mind the gigatons of tar-sands pollution, how dare President Biden lift Keystone XL’s permit since it would be “net zero by 2030” and thus cancelling Keystone, according to fossil-foolish Daines, boosts pollution. Living in alternative realities can, evidently, boost one’s campaign war chest.

In opposing Haaland, Republicans are making clear that Trump’s Biggest Lie isn’t in our past but part and parcel of today’s Republican Party. Like Trump’s frequently false assertion that the Green New Deal would cost $100 trillion based on a biased and (seriously) flawed “analysis” (that focused on inflated costs, for example, while even larger ignoring benefits), Republicans are asserting that Rep. Haaland’s co-sponsorship of the Green New Deal is grounds for opposing her nomination. A letter from 15 House Republicans (about the lead author) explicitly makes this point and, in doing so, cites the exact same deceptive source that underpinned Trump’s Biggest Lie. From that letter:

The harmful effects of the Green New Deal are well-documented, but it includes eliminating air travel, responsible petroleum development, and the use of non-electric vehicles, costing each American family $65,000 and the United States $93 trillion annually.

So much deceit in just one sentence (benefits, not harm; poorly assessed rather than well-documented; benefits rather than costs; …), but the repetition of the “$93 trillion” lie merits serious pushback. Some points:

• The Green New Deal proposals have far more than direct climate action but address social equity and resiliency (health care for all, job guarantees, and otherwise). Climate action is only a fraction of proposed Green New Deal investments.
  • And, the total Green New Deal investment requirement over 30 years would fall below $100T and, as per below, have outsized benefits. These expenditures would be investments with returns for the nation.
• For real understanding, that analysis focuses on (and inflates) costs in total isolation to other issues:
  • What would costs be without the proposed investments?
    • Just in direct health care, the Green New Deal path would lower societal economic costs $16T over a ten year period. (The $93T cost assertion includes $36T for health care but ignores that BAU (business as usual) would be $52T and thus the GND proposed path would save, again, $16T.)
  • What would benefits be beyond ‘business as usual’?
    • For example, with reduced pollution, how much would American worker productivity and student performance improve and thus boost the economy?
  • In other words, quality policy analysis does not focus just on discussing and assessing “cost” but is “cost/benefit” (better term: investment/return) analysis that helps decision-makers (and those involved in the policy discussion) have an understanding of net costs or, more accurately, net benefits to support decision-making.

The attacks on Rep. Haaland’s nomination are filled with deceit. Some of this is patently (head-slapping) obvious and some requires digging to provide truth. Just as with echoing Trump’s Biggest Lie, much (most?) of this is part and parcel of the decades-long fossil-foolish Republican Big Lie fostering predatory delay and denying climate science. To the extent that sunshine disinfects, these lies should not be allowed to propagate without challenge.

As Texans battle through serious cold with serious shortfalls in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) region (about 90% of Texas’ electricity load), fossil fuel propagandists have been out hot and heavy to distort the situation. Much like happened in 2011, cold has driven thermal power (primarily fossil gas but also coal, diesel, and nuclear) plants offline while driving up demand. Roughly 90 percent of the power sources in ERCOT’s planning for a peak winter event are thermal plants but roughly 40 percent of that capacity wasn’t online. Also as per 2011, some wind turbines have frozen but wind has continued to contribute to the grid more or less as ERCOT had in planning. And, much like happened in 2011, you can search far and wide in ‘conservative media’ and Republican commentary without finding a truthful discussion of the situation. Rather than highlight the core combination (spiking demand plus fossil fuel plants going offline), Fox News pundit after OANN pundit, Republican politician after Republican operative is out there falsely (FALSELY) blaming “windmills” and the “Green New Deal” for freezing Texans.

While many journalists and news outlets have sought to provide truth here, this has been (at best) uneven and with often deceptive framing. Some of this is due to ignorance, some sloppy both-siderism, and, as Ketan Joshi has laid out, there is a bit of click bait journalism going on.

As with all major blackout events, the fact that a range of fuel type failures contributed to this will be obscured by an excessive focus on renewables, leading to the faulty perception that renewables share all of the blame.

Whether purposeful or inadvertent, many media outlets are advancing and enabling deceit.

Here are just a few examples:

• E&E News’ Energy Wire went heavy with bothsiderism emphasizing “partisan arguments about whether to blame renewables or fossil fuels”.
• The Washington Post went out of its way to do ‘horse race’ ‘there isn’t truth’ bothersiderism journalism with a tweet that “Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blames wind turbines, Green New Deal policies for outages. Critics call that “a lie.””
• Staying with the Post, read this paragraph from columnist David von Drehle: “While demand surged, supply fell. Solar farms lost juice as snow clouds filled the skies. Wind turbines froze in the bitter cold. Icing was evidently a problem at steam-driven plants, too, whether powered by coal or natural gas.” While the material in this paragraph is true and even factual, it is absolutely not truth nor truthful. Any reader will conclude that the problem was increased demand along with failing renewables and that, maybe, there were some ‘oh by the way’ problems with fossil fuel systems.
• Bloomberg Green tweeted out “Researchers at an Arctic test site in Sweden are learning how to keep wind turbines generating through the harshest winter weather. That knowledge would have come in handy in Texas this week” as if cold-weather packages don’t exist that keep wind turbines operating without problems in cold weather in North Dakota, Iowa, Canada, and else.
• Staying with Bloomberg Green, how about this tweet which seemed to put everything on an equal playing field for ‘fault’: “As temperatures continued to fall, gas pipelines began to seize up, wind turbines started to freeze, and oil wells shut in — just as homes and businesses raised demand for heating to record levels.”
  • NOTE: Bloomberg Green has done some excellent reporting even as their have been tweets and parts of articles that falsely frame the situation in Texas.
• Recharge News tweets out: “As millions of Texans endure frozen blackouts, a furious row erupts over the role of #windpower.”
• CNN’s headline on Texas started “Frozen wind turbines …”

This is a pervasive problem not just isolated to a few outlets and a few tweets. Even outlets with reasonable stories do things like illustrate with wind turbines (remembering that a picture is worth 1,000 words …)

The Texas situation is complicated (with many details to come out in the months to come) and it is an emergency (with people dying and millions at risk) but it is not a situation where wind turbines are at fault nor are they core to the crisis. Any reporting that suggests otherwise, even if paragraph seven provides excellent and accurate analysis and details, is deceptive and damaging to the public interest.

Think about fossil fuel interest objectives — to practice predatory delay and maximize their profiteering for as long as possible by delaying climate action. As per Genevieve Gunther, key to this to make people believe climate action will hurt and that they need fossil fuels. Falsely blaming wind turbines for freezing Texans is doing exactly that. Journalists and media outlets who facilitate (knowlingly or otherwise) that false messaging are complicit in enabling that fossil foolish predatory delay.

Amid a Polar Vortex slamming the central United States, Texas (and Texans) are facing an energy crisis — with greatly increased power (electricity demand) with lowered supplies (about 30 gigawatts of electricity production offline), massively peaking prices, and customers (users, homes … some four million or so) without power amid seriously cold weather (and thus potentially risking freezing due to lack of electricity heat).

Almost exactly the same thing occurred a decade ago.

The key points from a decade ago are true today:

1. The blackouts occurred due to cold-weather causing traditional power plants to go offline, starting with two of Texas’ largest coal power plants.  Water intakes froze, requiring the plants to shut down.  Natural gas lines faced risks due to moisture in pipelines, leading them to shut off.    …

2. Wind power production has met (and, it seems, actually exceed) its commitments to the Texas power grid — wind-power has been producing its promised electricity service, unlike coal and natural gas systems.  …

2. In line with Governor Perry’s dreams of secession, Texas’ electrical grid remains the most independent of the regional grids in the United States from the overall electrical system.  Other states’ power production [cannot] feed in to compensate for Texas’ inability to meet its own requirements and help keep Texans warm and out of the dark.

Today, just like a decade ago, fossil fools do not want people to understand what is really going on and are falsely blaming renewable energy and clean energy efforts for the outages. In Texas, today, natural gas power generation has gone down because of frozen pipes and other problems. There also gigawatts of coal and diesel generation that are offline. In addition, there are many wind turbines that are not producing power because of freezing frozen (perhaps 10-20 percent of the fleet) but the remaining turbines are outproducing the expected production and thus renewables are contributing more electricity than ERCOT had expected. The real story: fossil fuel systems are failing while renewables are delivering. Regrettably, that is unlikely to be the tweet you see or headline you read.

Click Bait Media At Play?

While much of this deception is due to fossil fuel propaganda and propagandists, there is an element of ‘click bait’ media culture at play. As Ketan Joshi makes clear in this twitter thread. (Update: broader Joshi article.)

It isn’t just about active fossil foolish propagandists but about passive and active collaborators — many either too lazy to get to the truth or too interested in clicks to care about it.

A decade later, the same conclusion

Now, the key takeaway from Polar Vortex Texas 2021 is exactly the same one from Polar Vortex Texas 2011:

While it will take awhile to track exactly what happened in Texas and why, the early honest lesson to identify is not a need to reject 21st century technology and double-down bets on an inadequate system but the importance of increased investment in American infrastructure, the need for intelligent interlinking of the national grid, and the value of a Smart Grid to help manage disasters — whether natural, man-made, or both.

Notes:

Painfully, those dealing with fossil-fuel propaganda have it easy in one way: the same falsehoods and misdirections are used time after time. Thus, debunkings don’t have to take a lot of energy to be modified to be accurate.

Regrettably, these falsehoods and truthiness talking points show up time after time because they work.

UPDATE Notes:

• There was also a 2014 event (here too) (and a somewhat similar event in January 2018) with fossil fuel thermal systems forced offline due to cold weather conditions — even as wind farms produced electricity. E.g., three major events in a decade with an eery similarity. Seems that Texas energy system (not uniquely) has a lot of resiliency investment required (including more anti-freezing investment in wind turbines as occurs in upper Midwest) in face of mounting climate-chaos challenges.

• After writing this piece, reports are out that wind fell below the production ERCOT planned for/relies on (while solar is overperforming). However, to be clear, ERCOT plans for thermal plants to meet about 90% of winter demand and wind for <10%. The thermal plant outages are far more serious than any wind production shortfalls. However, as per above, three severe weather events in a decade certainly indicate that Texas should be looking to ‘cold harden’ for resiliency its generating capacity (including wind turbines).

• An interesting public discourse overlap is to consider how Texas (Republican) politicians and conservative media pundits attacked California governance as a failure for electricity challenges in the face of massive climate-chaos driven wildfires but don’t have similar things to say about Texas’ governance as Texans risk freezing in their homes.

Compare that GOP and RWSM messaging with what you will hear from Democratic leadership.

4. Re ‘compare’, consider how Trump attacked California (Puerto Rico, …) when it faced climate-chaos worsened disasters and slow to no implementation of Federal Emergency with President Biden’s thoughtful words related to a rapid announcement of a Federal Emergency for Texas (Texans) and others suffering amid this massive cold blast. “Unity” isn’t about getting everyone to agree in Congress to weakened down legislation but having someone in the White House who works for all (ALL) Americans, whether or not they or their state voted for him/her.

5. For some good background discussion re ERCOT (and the huge price spiking going on), see Mark Sumner’s Messing with Texas: The Lone Star state’s power grid is working exactly as designed and (linked in discussion above) John Tinder’s Texas’ power grid crumples under the cold at Ars Technica. See also Brad Plummer’s A Glimpse of America’s Future: Climate Change Means Trouble for Power Grids, New York Times and, especially, Kate Aronoff‘s (typically) great Conservatives are Seriously Accusing Wind Turbines of Killing People at the New Republic.

6. The amount of (Republican) fossil-fueled hypocrisy and deceit (with implications for bad policy making) re what is going on with the Texas energy situation is hard to exaggerate.

Here are a few more examples:

• Senator John Cornyn – Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output, state’s electric grid operator says https://statesman.com/story/news/2021/02/14/historic-winter-storm-freezes-texas-wind-turbines-hampering-electric-generation/4483230001/

• Senator John Cornyn – Rolling blackouts in Texas and spiking gas and power prices amid a cold snap show the folly of eliminating natural gas—and coal. https://wsj.com/articles/a-deep-green-freeze-11613411002?reflink=desktopwebshare_twitter via @WSJ

• Sen. Kevin Cramer – Texas is a real-time example of why we need reliable sources of energy like coal, oil, nuclear, and natural gas. It’s a shame the Biden Administration appears hell-bent on weakening these industries, along with the safety, security, and economic benefits that come with them.

• Sen. Steve Daines – Texas is frozen solid as folks are left w/ no power to stay safe & warm.  This is a perfect example of the need for reliable energy sources like natural gas & coal.  These blackouts would be devastating to MT. No heat & no power simply are not options in the dead of winter.

• Rep. Lauren Boebert – Rolling blackouts from ND to TX have turned into lengthy power outages in freezing conditions. Biden needs to lift his oil & gas ban as we need reliable energy sources.  The Green New Deal was just proven unsustainable as renewables are clearly unreliable.

• Rep. Jeff Duncan – A true “Climate Czar” would be in Texas right now looking at the shortcomings of intermittent wind and solar power generation during a climatic event. Severe weather reiterates the need for an all-of-the-above energy strategy.

• Rep. Roger Williams – The blackouts caused by this extreme weather reinforces the need to maintain energy independence and increased Texas oil and gas production, not less.

• Rep. Guy Reschenthaler – Wind turbines throughout Texas are frozen and not producing the electricity needed to keep Texans safe and warm. This is a look into the future for all Americans if President Biden and radical environmentalists have their way.

For some reason, I suspect Brian was being just a little bit sarcastic here:

The Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) is about to release it’s annual energy outlook (AEO). AEO2021 provides forecasting about the U.S. energy and carbon emissions future in light of COVID19 impacts. Regrettably, as with so much of EIA’s forecasting, there is one thing with know with certainty before reading more than the promotional release statement: EIA is WRONG!

Now, first off, perfectly accurate forecasting really isn’t the relevant target but instead a reasonable objective is forecasting that helps decision-makers (of all natures and levels) understand factors influencing future developments and how they might shape or drive them. To a certain extent, EIA’s work has been useful in this fashion. Useful with, however, serious caveats. Through a rigorously consistent pessimism about future clean energy market penetration (always slower and smaller than what has actually occurred) and about prices (too slow decline, too high price), EIA has been telling decision-makers ‘don’t count on renewables to be economically viable competitors to fossil fuels for many years/decades to come (if ever). E.g., EIA’s highly pessimistic forecasting actually has been having (based on analytical discussions with government, private industry, and other strategic planners and decision-makers) a negative impact on the potential future deployment and price declines of renewable energy options. One might say: an effort to create a self-fulfilling prophecy?

In any event, as to AEO2021, what do we know is simply “wrong” based just on the announcement of its release?

• The baseline scenario has U.S. emissions increasing from 2035 through 2050. This will not happen.
• AEO2021 forecasts renewable energy to be 60 percent of the additions to the power (electricity) sector through 2050. This seriously understates what will occur.
  • Note: EIA forecasts wind and solar to be 70 percent of capacity additions to the grid in 2021. As renewables, with every passing day, gain price advantages over polluting energy sources, it is laughable to forecast that the share of renewables in new electricity generation will decline over time.
• Coal remains a meaningful portion of the U.S. power sector indefinitely. This will not be the case … likely with phase out of existing coal power plants essentially complete by 2035.

As has been discussed ad infinitum, there are many reasons for bad forecasting from EIA (and others) — some quite understandable and legitimate even as correctable and addressable. It is frustrating, however, to yet again be looking to open an EIA product with the accurate framing being “EIA is wrong”.

Notes

There is much good work out there related to faulty EIA (and IEA and …) forecasting. I would strongly recommend looking to Ramez Naam’s substantive and impassioned analyses, for example his May 2020 Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap. Ramez cites and links to many others (such as Auke Hoekstra) who have been fighting for better forecasting from the world’s energy analytical institutions.

Related posts here include:

• During #ClimateWeek, @EIAgov doubles down on forecasting climate catastrophe
• New EIA forecast subtitled: We are EFFed …
• Buried in @WhiteHouse staff report: Energy Information Administration planning for a 6C future
• Department of Energy’s “Annual Outlook 2015” is out: what do we know w/out reading it?
• .@WhiteHouse makes clear that @EIAgov does lousy fossil fuel forecasting, ignores that its #Solar and #Wind forecasting even worse
• When it comes to renewable energy forecasting, Japan’s forecasting follows world lead

:

President Biden’s first two weeks have been busy, productive, and exciting. Mehdi Hasan is not alone in concluding that “Biden’s first days in office were way better than I expected.” So many impressive (capable, ethical, experienced, passionate) appointees. Fair, but firm, engagement as to calls for “bipartisan” to undermine progress (as opposed to unity for moving ahead with the best policies possible for Americans). And, substantive executive order after executive order after executive order. It has been (and likely will be) hard to keep up with how the Biden-Harris Administration is flooding the zone to right the nation post Trump’s occupation of the Oval Office and to Build Back Better amid/from five (COVID, Unemployment, Equity / Justice, Climate, AND Democracy) crises.

In terms of keeping up, while breathlessly moving from one significant action and statement to another, it can be difficult to step back to consider broader implications from an Executive Order. For example, very few Americans have even heard of what could turn out to be one of the most critical items within President Biden’s executive orders: changing the charter of the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB’s) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). In a few words, OIRA has been the place for good things go to die — since the Reagan Administration. The first day in the Biden Presidency Modernizing Regulatory Review EO pretty much seeks to turn that on the head, to make OIRA a partner with the rest of the U.S. government with a “regulatory review process [structured to] promote public health and safety, economic growth, social welfare, racial justice, environmental stewardship, human dignity, equity, and the interests of future generations.” No longer backward-looking, inherently overly-conservative “cost-benefit analyses” to put breaks on good policy but developing ways to understand and foster multisolving as a tool to accelerate good policy and good program development and execution.

In a less obscure first day EO, President Biden revoked the Keystone XL pipeline’s permit. Putting aside the inevitable Republican fossil foolish lies and deceit about job implications, reading the justification for that EO makes clear that this isn’t about Keystone XL but, fundamentally, about the future of new (major) fossil fuel infrastructure projects across the country where Federal regulatory review is a (significant) part of the process. From that EO

the United States must prioritize the development of a clean energy economy, which will in turn create good jobs.  … the … pipeline would undermine U.S. climate leadership by undercutting the credibility and influence of the United States in urging other countries to take ambitious climate action.

(c)  Climate change has had a growing effect on the U.S. economy, with climate-related costs increasing over the last 4 years.  Extreme weather events and other climate-related effects have harmed the health, safety, and security of the American people and have increased the urgency for combatting climate change and accelerating the transition toward a clean energy economy.  The world must be put on a sustainable climate pathway to protect Americans and the domestic economy from harmful climate impacts, and to create well-paying union jobs as part of the climate solution. 

(d)  The Keystone XL pipeline disserves the U.S. national interest.  The United States and the world face a climate crisis.  That crisis must be met with action on a scale and at a speed commensurate with the need to avoid setting the world on a dangerous, potentially catastrophic, climate trajectory.  At home, we will combat the crisis with an ambitious plan to build back better, designed to both reduce harmful emissions and create good clean-energy jobs.  Our domestic efforts must go hand in hand with U.S. diplomatic engagement.  Because most greenhouse gas emissions originate beyond our borders, such engagement is more necessary and urgent than ever.  The United States must be in a position to exercise vigorous climate leadership in order to achieve a significant increase in global climate action and put the world on a sustainable climate pathway.  Leaving the Keystone XL pipeline permit in place would not be consistent with my Administration’s economic and climate imperatives.

The EO’s Section 6 is explicitly about the Keystone XL pipeline but actually is about so much more. With the exception of the referencing to the 2015 review of the pipeline advising against it, read those words and consider whether they would be relevant to essentially any other fossil fuel infrastructure project (pipeline, liquid methane (LNG) export terminal, gas power plant, …). The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) undercuts the ability for the U.S. to lead on climate change globally. Enbridge’s Line 3 is not “consistent with [the Biden] Administration’s economic and climate imperatives”. The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) “disserves the U.S. national interest.” Read the justification for revoking the Keystone XL pipeline’s permit makes clear that the game has changed for any and all fossil fuel projects that require Federal permitting for moving forward. While this doesn’t mean an end to all fossil fuel projects, it certainly makes clear that “interference” could put at risk (put an end to) many.

And, professionals are taking notice. For example, “Interference risks” to DAPL, Line 3, and MVP were raised by Fitch Ratings as having credit implications for involved firms. (E.g., investors and bankers take note!)

When it comes to Virginia, the MVP seems prime for the Keystone XL treatment.

• A questionable permit allowing carving through National Parks and forests (crossing the Appalachian Trail);
• Being built in difficult terrain where the risk — and reality — of accidents is high;
• Questionable business case justification, other than soaking up ratepayer payments for unnecessary infrastructure;
• Almost certain future stranded/minimally use asset status (as part of the pipeline bubble); and,
• Serious negative climate change implications.

All of the above were true about the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which Dominion finally retreated from last June. Regrettably, the Virginia government — which has the legal authority to do so — has been stoic in supporting unnecessary and polluting gas pipelines. While these pipelines are at odds with implementation of any serious Virginia climate plan and path forward, the glaring absence of leadership from Richmond might be taken care of by Washington as the Biden Administration examines egregiously fossil foolish infrastructure projects and decides which merit The Keystone Treatment. When it comes to this, the MVP has to rank as an MVP (Most Viable Project) to lose its permits.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) is a true Climate Hawk and has one of the few national-level politicians with an extended record of forcefully speaking about the urgent necessity for serious climate action. One element of this record will close out later today with an impressive record: 279 #TimeToWakeUp speeches to draw attention to the climate crisis and call on corporate American and Republicans in Congress to act. Senator Whitehouse has dealt with science, with science denial, astroturfing, threats to his state and the nation, jobs opportunity, and, among other things, how climate action relates to paths and opportunities to improve the economy, society, and lives — internationally, nationally, and locally.

Senator Whitehouse is putting the extended “time to wake up” oratory to rest because Americans and American has woken up. Polls showing an ever-increasing understanding of climate risks and opportunities — even among (especially young) Republicans. Politicians are speaking more seriously and, at all levels of government, taking moves to address climate (mitigation and adaptation). And, to cap it off, we have moved in January 2021 from the most anti-science and ignorant corrupt fossil fool to ever occupy the Oval Office to science defending and promoting President Biden who has made his first week of governance truly a Climate Hawk track record.

In a decision to put to rest what might be the longest series of (numbered) speeches by a single Senator focused on one critical issue, Senator Whitehouse is making a clarion call that the time to wake up to the problem and opportunity is behind us as we now take on the challenge of mitigating and adapting to climate change to create a healthier, more resilient, wealthier, and more equitable United States of American.

NOTE:  The speech should be livestreamed on twitter (@SenWhitehouse) and Facebook (@SenatorWhitehouse).

The United States has been through a massive roller-coaster over the past month. The events of Four Wednesdays in January have been momentous:

• Wednesday, January 6th: Insurrection: At the instigation of Donald Trump, insurrectionists assaulted the Capitol and put the survival of U.S. Democracy on a knife’s edge.
  • Of course, that first Wednesday began with the terrific victories in Georgia moving from two incompetent, unethical crooks to two uber-competent, ethical, decent, substantive Georgia Senators and coming Democratic Party control of the Senate.
• Wednesday, January 13th: Impeachment: A week after seditious Donald incited insurrection, Trump became the first President to be impeached twice.
• Wednesday, January 20th: Inauguration: With a huge security presence to dissuade and deter another Cult 45 assault on the U.S. government, President Biden was sworn in as the 46th President.
• Wednesday, January 27th: Innovation+: President Biden is to, after a week of executive orders/actions related to climate and a raft of Climate Hawk appointments throughout the Biden-Harris Administration, add even more executive orders related to climate. Expected actions include
  • Directing government agencies to
    • Set down the path for banning new oil and natural gas leases on federal lands — and, potentially, reducing existing leases.
    • conserve 30 percent of all federal land and water by 2030,
    • create a task force to assemble a governmentwide action plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions;
  • Will create new offices, commissions, and positions for arenas like environmental justice and environmentally friendly job creation (with at least some focus on helping displaced coal communities), and,
  • Declare the climate crisis a national security priority
    • though not likely to declare (yet) the climate emergency that Senate Majority Leader Schumer has called for.

It has been a momentous month (so far) and, of course, the four Wednesdays, the 4 Is, only begin to touch the surface of what has happened / is happening over the month (from COVID19 to unemployment to …). However, consider the four and it does say much about the moment and the potential for positive action to come.

The Insurrection, that first Wednesday in January, represented the nadir of the truly horrific Trump regime as his words and actions sparked a murderous crowd to attack the Capitol. After months of illegal surreptitious and overt efforts to overthrown the election and establish a Trump autocracy, Trump and his cult followers took to the streets with violence and murderous intent.

With Impeachment, the second Wednesday in January, a path toward accountability was set even Senator McConnell refused to allow a trial to go forward to remove seditious Trump and the odds of a conviction of the former occupant of the Oval Office seem dim in the face of Republican Senators’ continued fear of crossing Trump and the Cult45 Republican base.

Inauguration, the third Wednesday in January, brought signs of relief and cries of joy across the nation and the globe. Competence, sanity, ethics, and decency returned to the White House. Sane Americans went to sleep more at ease (even with COVID19, the climate crisis, unemployment, the domestic terror threat) than had been possible for the previous four years.

Innovation, the fourth Wednesday of January, provides a signpost that government has again become part of the solution and that the President will be leveraging all tools of governance (with the sad constraints of continued climate denier power in Congress ready to fight to stymie action) to address the imperative for serious climate action (along with other serious problems and opportunities).

Four Wednesdays … a journey from

• the nadir of thugs assaulting the Capitol to
• the painful necessity for accountability to
• the joy of positive chain in government to
• the promise that government will be there for us (the U.S.),

And, reason for hope that President Biden will be the Climate Hawk that the U.S. and the rest of humanity requires.

Amid the momentous events of today, President Biden has plans to exhaust his hand signing executive orders (see note below re broken link. note: that is a broken link) to reverse some of Donald Trump’s worse excesses and to start the process of righting the ailing Ship of State.

Among these is an item that will likely get minimal press attention but which is a truly momentous item to set the Federal Government on the path for serious climate action.

Re-establishing the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) and directing the issuance of an interim social cost of GHG schedule to ensure that agencies account for the full costs of GHG emissions, including climate risk, environmental justice and intergenerational equity

Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (or, as more often called, a Social Cost of Carbon: SCC) has been described, in the past, “as the most important number you’ve never heard of“. The Interagency Working Group was established in the Obama-Biden Administration (in 2009) with a “commitment to ensure that the social cost of carbon estimates continue to reflect the best available science and methodologies”.

A SCC places a figure on the value of the economic impact of CO2 emissions to use in everything from regulation writing to discussions as to carbon legislation. Set the price too high and the economy could take a near-term hit in terms of lost opportunity costs for more sensible investment choices. Set the price too low and, well, the devastating impacts of catastrophic climate chaos could result as the economy under invests in climate mitigation and adaptation. The Obama Administration figure was $50 even as much analysis suggested that figure was (significantly) too low. The Trump Administration lowered it to $7 while, in fact, essentially eliminating it for decision-making (thus, functionally, a $0 value if not positive valuation for CO2 emissions). Watching glaciers melt, species go extinct, fires across the nation, allergy sufferers suffer more, and other climate crisis impacts clearly shows a $7 figure is too low.

As of later today, the U.S. government will (again) be pricing (even if inadequately) climate impacts into analysis, decision-making, and expenditures.

To be clear, this is both substantive and symbolic action.

• Substantive in influencing and driving decision-making and action across the Federal Government.
• Symbolic in that — as with the also planned rejoining of the Paris Agreement — President Biden, on his first day in office, is taking tangible steps to Act On Climate. This is a downpayment for more serious action to come.

Notes:

• See after fold for the actual language from the Executive Order re the Interagency Working Group on Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
• The first link in the post is to material that was published on the BuildBackBetter.gov web site. After this was written, that site transferred to WhiteHouse.gov with President Biden’s swearing in but the actual BBB material doesn’t seem to have yet transferred over (as of last check). Here is the White House Actions site with a plethora of 20 January 2021 items. For a summary of President Biden’s first day executive actions, see this CNN story.