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ONE NOTE OF INTEREST FROM THE WINTER RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT: The kinds of problems with natural gas generation that were exposed in Texas during Winter Storm Uri and again in last year’s Winter Storm Elliott have not yet been resolved, regulators said yesterday—leaving two-thirds of U.S. residents vulnerable to a power outage this winter.
Who’s at risk: Pretty much everyone in the Eastern two-thirds of the continent (including large swaths of the U.S. and Canada).
According to NERC’s 2023-2024 Winter Reliability Assessment, natural gas generators have failed to undergo the weatherization upgrades recommended by regulators to help keep supplies online in the event of a cold snap or prolonged outage.
“Recent extreme cold weather events have shown that energy delivery disruptions can have devastating consequences for electric and natural gas consumers in impacted areas,” NERC said in its report.
Why gas is vulnerable: Natural gas in particular is susceptible to freezing just when needed to meet winter demand peaks, resulting in the shortage.
This can be solved by taking steps to weatherize natural gas plants, especially in the South.
But as made clear by yesterday’s report, this isn’t happening at a scale needed to keep up with peak winter demand.
More of the U.S. is at risk for outages this year than last, NERC said, and in fact, Texas’s grid is actually worse off than it was last winter, despite ample recommendations and warnings issued by federal regulators post-Uri.
ERCOT has failed to add resources necessary to meet demand growth in the state, increasing risk for times when demand remains high and solar output—which has seen a notable rise in the state—is near-zero (a common trend during winter peak periods).
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HALEY AND DESANTIS DUKE IT OUT OVER DRILLING: Republican presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis clashed on the Florida governor’s record on oil and natural gas, with Haley calling him a “liberal” on the environment and claiming he opposed fracking and drilling.
During the third presidential debate of the GOP primary, the former United Nations ambassador sought to tie DeSantis’s record on conservation to liberal climate change activism.
“He was praised by the Sierra Club. And you’re trying to make up for it and act like you weren’t a liberal when it comes to the environment,” Haley said of the Florida governor. “You were, you always have been. Just own it if that’s the case. But don’t keep saying you’re something that you’re not.”
DeSantis pushed back on the characterization, asserting that his energy policy plan requires a boost in fracking to increase domestic oil and natural gas drilling. However, the Florida governor defended his policies.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to drill in the Florida Everglades. And I know most Floridians agree with me,” DeSantis said.
The moment marked another attempt by Haley to portray DeSantis as insufficiently supportive of fossil fuels. At the second presidential debate in September, Haley claimed that during his second day in office, DeSantis “banned fracking, he banned offshore drilling.”
A reaction to the clash: “It is inherently conservative to responsibly steward our natural resources,” said Danielle Butcher Franz, CEO of the American Conservation Coalition. “The left does not own environmental conservation, and Governor DeSantis is not ‘liberal on the environment,’ as Ambassador Haley suggested, for investing in the Everglades and conserving the iconic Florida landscape. Presidential candidates must provide an America-first climate agenda to win the support of young people and Independents.”
A HEARING ON REVITALIZING LANDS FROM ABANDONED COAL MINES: The Senate Energy Committee is having a hearing today on the use of federal dollars for reclaiming and revitalizing abandoned coal mine lands — and examining any hurdles to the enactment of one of its programs.
The committee is examining the Abandoned Mine Land Economic Revitalization program, which works to address the hazards and environmental degradation imposed by legacy coal mines. The program uses fees paid by operating coal mining companies to revitalize lands with mines that were abandoned before 1977.
During his opening remarks, Chairman Joe Manchin called out the Biden administration for not nominating a director to the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, and highlighted delays states have faced in receiving project funding – citing specific examples of projects in states like Kentucky being delayed for more than 2 years.
“I fully support robust vetting to ensure that we are being responsible with taxpayer dollars, but I’m alarmed to hear how delayed the process has been,” Manchin said.
Ranking member John Barrasso criticized the Biden administration for hampering coal production, ultimately affecting the funding of the program.
“The Biden administration has worked tirelessly to kill coal production in Wyoming,” Barasso said. “This strategy will only make it more difficult to reclaim the sites that we all agree need to be cleaned up.”
BARRASSO CALLS FOR ETHICS REVIEW INTO DOE’S SHAH: Barrasso requested an ethics review of DOE Loan Programs Office Director Jigar Shah and his ties with the Cleantech Leaders Roundtable, a trade association he founded, calling it a “concerning relationship” in light of a $3 billion loan approval to a company that shares a board member with the organization.
Shah, a former clean energy entrepreneur, founded Cleantech Leaders Roundtable as a private networking group of climate technology leaders in 2017, before he was appointed to his position by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm in 2021. In September, the Energy Department approved a loan to solar energy company Sunnova, a group that shares a board member with the Cleantech Leaders Roundtable, Anne Slaughter Andrew.
“Such intertwining of personal, political, and professional relationships raises further questions about the impartiality of loan approvals and the susceptibility of the process to undue political influence,” Barrasso wrote in a letter to the DOE’s designated ethics official.
Along with an ethics review, the letter asked for a thorough examination of Shah’s adherence to the Biden administration’s ethics pledge, which bans agency appointees from participating in matters that involve parties related to employees or clients for a period of two years after the date of their appointment. The letter also asked for clarification on whether Shah has faced any recusal concerns dealing with the Cleantech Leaders Roundtable or related entities during his tenure at DOE or any internal complaints. Read more from Nancy here.
MAJOR SETBACK FOR SMALL MODULAR NUCLEAR: The first ever U.S. commercial small modular reactor project was canceled by NuScale Power on Wednesday, delivering a major blow to the advanced nuclear industry, E&E News reports.
NuScale and the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), a group of local electricity utilities that had previously decided to buy power from the project, both decided to terminate what was known as the Carbon Free Power Project. NuScale is the only developer with a design approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a small modular reactor.
The project was supposed to build out six 77 megawatt SMRs, with an expected capacity of 462 MWs with an expected-online deadline in 2029. The DOE had provided $232 million for the project since 2020, before a bipartisan infrastructure deal and sweeping climate bill had passed in 2021 and 2022 – and the department backed the deal with a $1.4 billion cost-share deal.
But substantial cost overflows and delays from its original 2026 operational date spooked utilities that are members of the UAMPS, leading several to backtrack from a 2019 agreement to buy 200 MW from the reactors once they were built.
Oregon-based NuScale said in a statement Wednesday that the project lacked enough subscribers, which is why the project could no longer advance towards deployment. However, the company’s president and CEO, John Hopkins, projected certainty that it will still be able to bring its SMR design into reality in the future.
“Our work with [the CFPP] over the past ten years has advanced NuScale technology to the stage of commercial deployment; reaching that milestone is a tremendous success which we will continue to build on with future customers,” Hopkins said in a statement. Read more on that here.
… RELATED, WHY NUCLEAR IS NEEDED: Citadel’s billionaire founder Ken Griffin is calling for the West to step up support for nuclear energy in order to decarbonize the world, Bloomberg reports.
“China is one of the few countries making a huge investment in nuclear again,” Griffin said at a Bloomberg economics forum in Singapore on Thursday. “We desperately need nuclear power in the West.”
The development of cost-effective atomic technology will be needed for a cleaner world, he added.
Furthermore, trade tensions between the U.S. and China threaten green energy, according to Griffin, who warned of the costs of severing relations with Beijing in light of U.S. decarbonization goals.
“Do you think we really come out ahead?” he said. “China leads in EVs, China leads in solar.” More on that here.
SHELL SUES GREENPEACE FOR $2.1 MILLION AFTER ACTIVISTS BOARD OIL SHIP: Shell is suing Greenpeace for $2.1 million in damages after a group of its activists used an inflatable boat to chase down and board one of the company’s oil ships off the Canary Islands.
The group of four used rope to hoist themselves aboard the moving oil vessel—which at the time had been sailing near the island chain off of Northern Africa— and traveled on it as far as Norway, Reuters reports. It had been destined for an oil and gas field in the North Sea.
Shell is reportedly seeking damages related to shipping delays and expenses for extra security, though the company did not confirm the exact amount.
Boarding a moving oil ship at sea is “unlawful and extremely dangerous,” a company spokesperson told Reuters.
“The right to protest is fundamental and we respect it absolutely. But it must be done safely and lawfully,” this person added. Read more here.
RUSSIA PREPARING TO LIFT ITS BAN ON DIESEL AND GAS EXPORTS: Russia is preparing to lift its diesel and gasoline export restrictions beginning next week, according to industry sources, ending a measure put in place in September as the country sought to combat a surge in domestic fuel prices and limited supplies.
Both the diesel and gasoline bans were implemented Sept. 21 and did not have an end date, injecting volatility into markets—particularly for diesel, since Russia is the world’s biggest seaborne exporter of the refined petroleum product.
The news reaffirms comments from Russian Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov, who said yesterday that Russia is considering lifting its export ban on some grades of gasoline. (It relaxed diesel exports slightly in early October to allow for piped exports.)
Three industry officials told Reuters that they were told the export restrictions would be lifted beginning next week, and have adjusted their schedules and refining plans accordingly.
2023 ‘VIRTUALLY CERTAIN’ TO BE WARMEST IN AT LEAST 125,000 YEARS: This year is “virtually certain” to be the warmest year in at least 125,000 years, European Union climate scientists warned yesterday, adding pressure on attendees of the COP28 summit.
According to a new report from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, or C3S, 2023 has yielded a global average temperature that’s 0.10 degrees Celsius higher than 2016, which was previously the warmest calendar year on record.
October also smashed expectations, with temperatures sitting at a whopping 0.4 Celsius above the previous October temperature record, set in 2019. The previous month’s temperatures have made it “virtually certain” that 2023 will be the warmest year on record, scientists said.
“When we combine our data with the IPCC, then we can say that this is the warmest year for the last 125,000 years,” C3S deputy director Samantha Burgess told Reuters.
“The difference between the temperature of this October and the average temperature of October in the last 30 years is extraordinarily large, much larger than the anomaly of any of the other years that were record-breaking,” C3S director Carlo Buontempo told Bloomberg. “We are already in uncharted territory. We are already experiencing a climate that we have never seen in our life or in our history.”
The Rundown
Bloomberg Big promise, little success: The precarious state of carbon capture
The Hill Many California cities are understaffed and unprepared to mobilize climate funds: report
CNBC ‘We need everything’: CEO on why natural gas infrastructure needs to be ready for clean hydrogen
