2. Western Caucus Leading on Clean Energy

As part of National Clean Energy Week wraps, ClearPath Senior Research Director, Spencer Nelson presented findings from a recent report to Members of the House Science, Space & Technology Committee and staff from the House Western Caucus.
What’s clear: To keep emissions dropping, we urgently need policies to get new energy innovations to market.
What the report found: If natural gas prices stay low, because of high load growth, power-sector emissions will stop falling by 2026 and stall through 2050 – leveling at just 4% below where they are today.
- We modeled the impact of electric utility decarbonization commitments for the first time – and found that the commitments made so far can avoid this flatline.
- Even if utilities nail them, the entire power sector is on pace to emit over a gigaton of CO2 annually by 2050 — a gap we can’t close without more market-friendly policies boosting better technologies, or more utilities establishing targets.
- One cheap way to start — maintain existing nuclear reactors.
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