JAY FAISON: CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL, GREEN NEW DEAL ISN’T

In a new Fox News op-ed, ClearPath Founder Jay Faison lays into the Green New Deal as a technological and political pipe dream that doesn’t solve for the fact that global emissions are rising mainly because of China, India and other rapidly-developing nations.

But Jay also says Republicans and the public en masse must also address the elephant in the room: Climate change is real and industrial activity around the globe is contributing to it.

The solution must be innovation.

“Any real progress in addressing climate change, especially in divided government, will depend on a realistic agenda built on pushing better technologies around the world that can expand quickly and affordably, give us a balanced mix of low-carbon sources, perform better, and are cheaper than the alternatives, so that the rapidly developing world chooses them instead of more emitting technologies,” Jay wrote. “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather those technologies be developed, commercialized and exported from the U.S. than elsewhere.”
 

A lot about what’s happening in Louisiana – from its vanishing coastline and impact from rising sea level, to its booming natural gas industry and how Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) has the right perspective to lead Republicans on the new House climate select committee.
 

FORMER DOE, CEQ OFFICIALS JOIN CLEARPATH’S ADVISORY BOARD

ClearPath has added a trio of former senior Department of Energy and White House Council on Environmental Quality officials to its advisory board.

William Martin was deputy secretary of energy during the Reagan administration, as well as executive secretary of the U.S. National Security Council and special assistant to President Ronald Reagan.

Elizabeth Stolpe was associate director at CEQ under President George W. Bush, leading development and implementation of President Bush’s market-based national air quality initiatives and regulatory activity at the Environmental Protection Agency.

Marty Hall is former chief of staff at CEQ under President George W. Bush, lead White House liaison to the U.S. Senate during consideration of comprehensive 2007 energy legislation and deputy staff director for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

“Bill, Elizabeth and Marty bring immense insight to our efforts to address climate change in a way that is pragmatic and fully utilizes the full range of federal tools to facilitate clean, reliable and affordable technologies,” ClearPath Executive Director Rich Powell said. “Their deep resumes are also perfect complements to our vision of helping forge efforts that eschew top-down regulatory approaches in favor of collaborative efforts to spur U.S.-led innovation involving both government and the private sector.”
 

THE UNDERRATED ENERGY STORAGE TECHNOLOGY

A variety of existing and advanced energy storage technologies are going to be needed to ensure reliability in fully taking on expected growth of renewables and other clean power on the grid. We detailed a few of these recently in our Intro to Energy Storage.

But we wanted to particularly highlight pumped hydro as an underappreciated option. Not only is it the most prevalent current technology by a LOT, but it could end up being cheaper and less carbon-intensive than batteries and other next-generation options.

The International Energy Agency does predict that annual additions of stationary batteries are expected to overtake pumped hydro storage by 2023 due to rapid cost reductions and technology progress. But IEA also predicts that pumped hydro will increase by almost one-fifth in the next 5 years, mostly in China, which needs it for system flexibility, particularly to reduce wind power curtailment and optimize coal and nuclear plant operations.

And a group of German researchers suggested that pumped hydro could be far cheaper (particularly comparing the steel and concrete in pumped hydro vs. raw materials needed for advanced batteries), a better overall investment and even less carbon-intensive than battery cells and other storage options when comparing the possible raw materials and land needed (particularly if pumped hydro projects are part of a retrofitted existing dam).

This 2018 study was presented at HydroVision (the leading hydropower industry gathering), attracting the attention of the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy for additional research.

Congress last year approved legislation (H.R. 2880) led by Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) that would streamline the federal licensing process that can hold up the development of pumped storage hydropower facilities. Legislation this Congress from Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) (H.R. 537) would authorize use of Bureau of Reclamation reservoirs to expand pumped hydro storage development.

The bottom line: With all the attention on cutting-edge storage and the need to go beyond lithium ion, don’t forget about the old tried-and-true pumped hydro.
 

SCHWEIKERT SPOTLIGHTS NET POWER

Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) gave an enthusiastic explanation on the House floor last week of the “brilliant” Allam Cycle technology at the core of NET Power’s zero-emission natural gas demonstration facility near Houston. “This technology isn’t utopian, it’s already running,” he said.
 

NEWS NUGGETS

NuScale Power announced a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Societatea Nationala Nuclearelectrica SA, Romania’s sole nuclear power operator, to exchange business and technical information on NuScale’s small modular reactor technology. The goal of the agreement is to evaluate the development, licensing and construction of NuScale SMRs for a potential similar long-term solution in Romania. Nuclear power currently provides 20 percent of domestic energy in Romania.
 

THE PATH AHEAD

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