Democrats’ push to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector is exposing a fundamental difference in strategy among members of the party and environmentalists: whether to rely solely on renewable energy or support other zero- and low-carbon resources.
Both sides of the debate feel their approach is essential to avoiding climate disaster. Left-wing activists and Democrats say anything less than a singular focus on building massive amounts of renewable energy undermines overall emissions reduction goals and jeopardizes the health of people who live near smokestacks, who tend to be poorer and minorities.
However, others say the United States won’t be able to achieve carbon-free power while keeping the lights on and electricity costs affordable without incorporating zero-carbon technologies that can run 24/7, such as nuclear power and natural gas plants equipped with carbon capture.
BIDEN INFRASTRUCTURE PLAN INCLUDES MASSIVE SPENDING AND REGULATIONS TO CURB CLIMATE CHANGE
The disagreements on strategy have begun to break out into the open as Democratic leadership advances policies that look beyond just renewable energy.
President Joe Biden and top House Democrats have both proposed clean electricity standard policies to achieve a carbon-free power sector by 2035. The approach sets targets for utilities to purchase a certain amount of low-carbon power, ratcheting up those targets each year until utilities are buying all carbon-free electricity.
Gina McCarthy, the White House national climate adviser, told reporters Thursday the administration thinks all carbon-free resources have a role in meeting the standard, including nuclear and carbon capture and storage. The House Democratic proposal takes a similar approach, and it allows natural gas, to a certain extent, to also contribute for a brief period.
Thus, to meet the clean electricity standard, utilities would be able to equip their natural gas plants with carbon capture or invest in building advanced nuclear reactors, for example, rather than strictly building out more wind and solar power.
Biden, in his more than $2 trillion infrastructure plan unveiled Wednesday, is also proposing significant investments in carbon capture and removal, advanced nuclear, and hydrogen, alongside federal incentives for wind, solar, and energy storage.
“When we say ‘clean,’ it means net-zero greenhouse gas pollution. It doesn’t prescribe any particular technology or policy,” House Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat, told reporters in early March, rolling out his sweeping climate bill.
Their thinking largely tracks with what utility companies have said — that all low- and zero-carbon energy resources must be available to zero out carbon emissions on the grid.
Nonetheless, a small but growing number of left-wing Democrats want to take on the fossil fuel industry with direct prohibitions on extraction and production. Natural gas and technologies such as carbon capture and storage, which Democrats see as a way to prolong the life of fossil fuels, should have no place in a climate bill, they argue.
Last year, several Democrats, including Green New Deal author Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and fellow left-wing lawmakers Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, rejected a broad clean energy bill from Democratic leadership because of provisions supporting carbon capture and storage.
With a slimmer majority in the House this year, and an evenly divided Senate, Democratic leadership can’t afford to lose the support of its own if it wants to pass climate legislation — especially since Republicans are unlikely to back any bill to eliminate power sector emissions by 2035, which they see as a far too aggressive timeline.
The political dynamics could give left-wing lawmakers leverage, and left-wing environmental groups are pressuring them to use it.
‘False solutions’
In an open letter to lawmakers in mid-March, more than 300 environmental groups raised alarm that the climate bill from top Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, known as the CLEAN Future Act, would allow “false solutions” such as natural gas, nuclear energy, biomass, and carbon capture to earn credit under the bill’s clean electricity standard.
“It really does matter what things qualify as clean because that really will dictate what projects are invested in and prioritized in the future if this were to become law,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the signatories.
Mitch Jones, climate and energy program director for Food & Water Watch, another signatory, said he expects lawmakers whose districts have experienced pollution damages from biomass plants and natural gas production “will oppose efforts to have a clean energy standard with such a broad definition of clean energy that it becomes almost meaningless.”
Generally, signatories on the letter argue supporting technologies that would allow for continued burning of fossil fuels would perpetuate the increased asthma and respiratory disease, missed school and work days, premature death, and other health damages that those living closest to smokestacks experience. Those groups have similar concerns with nuclear power, arguing the mining, milling, and enriching of uranium are carbon-intensive processes that also create radioactive and toxic waste.
The heart of the debate is “how do we achieve a ‘just transition’ towards decarbonizing our economy?” said Sarah Lutz, a climate campaigner with Friends of the Earth, another signatory. “I think there’s a way to do it, but giveaways and further entrenching fossil fuel interests and the way we’ve been doing business now is not how you get there.”
CARBON TAXES ARE OUT, AND CLEAN ELECTRICITY STANDARDS ARE IN
Nothing off the table
For other environmental groups, however, it is too soon to take any low-carbon energy tool out of use, especially given the immense scope of the transformation the electricity grid would need to undergo to be carbon-free.
In 2020, 60% of U.S. electricity generation came from fossil fuels, while the remaining 40% was carbon-free, according to the latest data from the Energy Information Administration. About half of that carbon-free generation was nuclear power. A little more than 8% of U.S. electricity came from wind power and a little more than 2% from solar power.
Conrad Schneider, advocacy director for the Clean Air Task Force, said it’s critical to preserve the existing fleet of nuclear power plants “because if we lose it, we’re going to be starting from behind the eight ball.”
Schneider added that there can be a short-term role for natural gas so long as it’s controlling leaks of the potent greenhouse gas methane to push dirtier coal-fired power plants off the system more quickly, a step that he noted would deliver air quality benefits, as well.
States, cities, and utilities have all recognized the need to leave the door open to all clean energy technologies as they adopt targets to reach 100% carbon-free power, said Lindsey Walter, deputy director of climate and energy for the center-left think tank Third Way.
Prior to 2016, just 10% of state, city, and utility clean energy targets were inclusive of technologies beyond wind and solar. After 2016, as officials ratcheted up the ambition of their targets, nearly three-quarters of them looked beyond just wind and solar.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“It’s not a coincidence that the closer these targets get to 100%, the more of them are technology inclusive,” she said. “It’s because the people who are really in the weeds on this understand that we need it to be tech inclusive because you can’t do it with wind and solar alone.”
