This Week in Cleantech is a new, weekly podcast covering the most impactful stories in cleantech and climate in 15 minutes or less. Produced by Renewable Energy World and Tigercomm, This Week in Cleantech will air every Friday in the Factor This! podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts.
This week’s episode features Ivan Penn from the New York Times, who wrote about how one of the country’s largest coal plants, located in Minnesota, is being replaced by solar and storage. It will be the largest solar farm in the Upper Midwest when completed, but some residents are worried about the change.
This week’s “Cleantecher of the Week” is President of rPlus Energies. Luigi recently called on his LinkedIn following to form a solar industry equivalent rallying cry of the “Got Milk?” campaign. He mentions that other industries have found a way to emotionally engage people, but the solar industry is lagging behind. Congratulations, Luigi!
1. Trump vows to pull back climate law’s unspent dollars — POLITICO
Trump recently vowed to revoke any “unspent” funds under the Inflation Reduction Act if he’s elected in November. He’s previously vowed to put the unspent money toward “roads, bridges and dams” to ensure money is not spent on, “meaningless Green New Scam ideas.” These comments have made the Biden Administration eager to get IRA funds out.
Trump also said he’s planning a national emergency declaration to increase U.S. energy supply, despite record domestic oil production under Biden. He said he plans to “cut energy prices in half or more within 12 months of taking office” and quadruple oil production.
Harris recently stated Trump’s agenda will “shrink the economy, undermine job growth, drive up inflation, explode the national debt, and raise taxes on the middle class.” The more the IRA becomes embedded into America’s business landscape, the more Americans will understand first-hand what they could lose if these popular policies are unwound.
2. America’s New Climate Delusion — The Atlantic
Gray Stream and his family are deeply rooted in Louisiana’s oil country, with land dedicated to oil and gas production. Now, Stream wants to become a family outlier and inject carbon dioxide underneath his family’s properties. The IRA is giving oil and gas companies a tax credit to capture and store their carbon underground, which makes this process easier for Stream. Plus, Louisiana’s geology is ideal for storing carbon.
However, carbon capture and storage has been criticized as a justification for oil and gas companies to continue operations. LNG plants create jobs, but they’re usually only temporary construction jobs. And the plants have forced coastal residents to move inland because of erosion, explosion risk, health issues from LNG terminals’ flaring, and rising sea levels, to name a few. Carbon capture and storage could at least help reduce carbon pollution from these LNG plants, but, nobody has done carbon capture and sequestration successfully at scale yet.
Now, Louisiana LNG terminals with carbon capture attached are being proposed. But, only a small fraction of the pollution from LNG terminals will actually be captured and stored underground, making this climate solution look more like a way for fossil fuels to keep producing, with Louisiana as the prototype.
3. Natural Gas Is Critical To Achieving Global Climate Goals. Here’s Why — Forbes
Coal pollutes twice the amount of CO2 that natural gas does, so LNG exports could actually cut carbon dioxide pollution if that gas is replacing coal. The idea is: First you get rid of coal, the highest-emitting fossil fuel, then petroleum, then gas. The coal-to-gas transition has already resulted in a 25% decrease in carbon dioxide levels in the U.S. since 2005.
But gas still pollutes. The reason we can’t make a full shift to renewables is because wind and solar are intermittent, and energy storage is young and expensive. For the time being, we still need gas to back it up. We also need to see infrastructure and grid upgrades before we 100% commit to renewables. Plus, there are regulatory and political challenges to renewables. So it might make sense to switch from other fossil fuels to natural gas while that shift happens.
Watch the full episode on YouTube
4. What If We Get Fusion — But Don’t Need It? — Heatmap
Once we figure out nuclear fusion, it’ll be a massive scientific achievement. Unfortunately, the economics of it might make it infeasible anyway. This all depends on how the grid looks in the mid 2030’s, when the first fusion reactors potentially come online. If competing tech creates at least a moderate market opportunity for fusion, we could see fusion capacity in the future. But if other tech outperforms or gets cheaper, it’s possible that no commercial fusion plants would get built.
Other experts think no matter the energy mix of the future, fusion might still play out since it is physically denser than solar and wind, and it takes up less land. Plus, fusion offers a reliable, large-scale energy source that isn’t limited by local factors like sunlight or wind, making it ideal for regions outside the U.S. with fewer renewable resources and rapidly increasing energy needs. Fusion might not play out to be a viable source of energy in the future, but that’s a risk some venture capitalists are willing to take. Venture capitalists have poured $6.7 billion into fusion since 1992.
5. Coal Power Defined This Minnesota Town. Can Solar Win It Over? — New York Times
The Minnesota town of Becker, which has a population just over 5,000, is home to one of the largest coal plants in the nation. Now, that coal plant is being replaced by thousands of acres of solar fields and a battery energy storage system (BESS) test — and not everyone is happy about it.
Xcel Energy’s Sherburne County Generating Station’s three coal units will be replaced by three solar sites on adjacent land. Once complete, it will be the largest solar farm in the Upper Midwest.
The coal plant operated for nearly five decades. At least half of the 240 jobs at the plant will no longer exist after the transition, but Xcel said it will not conduct layoffs.
