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OIL & GAS: A new study finds methane emissions from major oil fields are vastly underestimated, with more than 9% of produced natural gas escaping to the atmosphere in parts of New Mexico. (Associated Press)
ALSO:
CLEAN ENERGY: The Department of Energy estimates a rapid adoption of renewable energy could save Alaskans more than $1 billion on utility bills by 2040. (Anchorage Daily News)
CLIMATE:
TRANSPORTATION:
ELECTRIFICATION: Portland’s city council unanimously approves a ban on gasoline-powered leaf blowers that will be introduced gradually. (Oregonian)
SOLAR: Concerns about wildfires are driving opposition to a utility-scale solar farm in New Mexico. (Searchlight New Mexico)
NUCLEAR:
UTILITIES: Amid an effort to municipalize San Diego’s utilities, the city’s current investor-owned utility releases a report estimating the value of the city’s grid at $11 billion, but offers few specifics as to how it arrived at that figure. (KPBS)
POLICY: Pennsylvania’s governor reveals a climate action plan that would see the state operate a carbon pricing program and make utilities buy half of their power from mostly carbon-free resources by 2035. (Associated Press, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
FOSSIL FUELS:
OFFSHORE WIND: Barnstable, Massachusetts, officials says it’s “inexcusable” that they don’t have a seat on the state’s clean energy siting and infrastructure panel despite its offshore wind projects. (Cape Cod Times)
FINANCE: Climate activists say Maine’s public workers retirement system isn’t doing enough to divest from fossil fuel investments despite a state law mandating divestitment by 2026. (Portland Press Herald)
SOLAR:
GEOTHERMAL:
WORKFORCE: A new report from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center finds the state’s clean energy workforce has grown to 48,176 jobs, an 80% increase over 2010. (news release)
EMISSIONS: North Carolina’s new climate plan says that increasing support for low-income housing weatherization, upgrading energy efficiency in government buildings, and other measures to trim energy usage could get the state 60% of the way to its 2030 emissions reduction target. (Energy News Network)
ALSO:
OVERSIGHT: A South Carolina energy regulator resigns in protest of legislation to facilitate a natural gas-fired power plant that critics warn limits public engagement and offers a blank check to the power industry. (The State, Post and Courier)
BIOMASS: Wood pellet producer Enviva files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and plans to restructure after reaching agreements with creditors to significantly reduce its debt. (Wilmington StarNews, Associated Press)
CLEAN ENERGY:
SOLAR: Rural health centers in Tennessee consider applying for a federal grant to install solar microgrids to maintain critical services during power outages. (WPLN)
OIL & GAS:
GRID: An Arkansas electric cooperative receives nearly $50 million in federal funding to install hundreds of miles of power lines and fiber-optic lines. (Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
CLIMATE: A lawyer representing one of the landowners suing a Texas utility over a downed power line says damages from the enormous wildfires that resulted could exceed $1 billion. (KXAN)
UTILITIES: AES Indiana announces plans to convert its remaining coal units to run on natural gas and add up to 1,300 MW of renewables by 2027, becoming the state’s first investor-owned utility to stop burning coal. (Indiana Capital Chronicle)
ELECTRIFICATION: A GOP-backed bill in Minnesota to prevent municipalities from banning gas stoves gets a hearing in a Democratic-led committee, though its chances of advancing are unlikely. (Star Tribune)
POLITICS: A bipartisan bill would require more extensive federal national security reviews of certain real estate purchases by foreign countries of concern in response to a debate over a proposed Michigan battery manufacturing plant. (E&E News, subscription)
GRID:
PIPELINES:
OIL & GAS: A new study finds U.S. oil and gas producers may be emitting three times more methane than EPA estimates. (E&E News, subscription)
SOLAR: A northern Michigan utility signs a 20-year, $14.3 million contract to purchase power from a 140 MW solar project near Ann Arbor. (Record-Eagle)
CLIMATE: Iowa and South Dakota are among just five states that declined to participate in a federal program that will provide $4.6 billion to cities, states, and tribes to implement local climate plans. (CBS News)
BIOENERGY: An Iowa city explores partnering with a California firm to generate electricity from methane captured at a local landfill and sell the power back to the grid. (KYOU)
COMMENTARY: An electric vehicle rideshare company representative calls for federal incentives that encourage EV charging stations in cities and that cover both upfront costs and maintenance. (Utility Dive)
State legislation to halt expansion of natural gas infrastructure in Maine as soon as next year has been cut back into a package of studies that contemplate the role of gas in the state’s energy future.
Environmental advocates hope these studies will prove that continued reliance on gas is the wrong choice for public health, ratepayer pocketbooks and Maine’s climate goals, while the state’s gas utilities see the new version of the bill as a chance to explore roles for alternative fuels like hydrogen and biogas.
“The gas utilities are going to make a very strong case that they’re more part of the solution to climate change than part of the problem — [there is] a lot of skepticism about that,” said Bill Harwood, Maine’s Public Advocate for residential utility customers. “If they can’t make the case, then we will look at how we transition away from natural gas and toward wind, solar and electricity.”
Harwood wrote the initial proposal, which would have barred utilities from including the cost of new gas service lines and mains in residential and commercial customers’ rates starting in 2025 and would have told state regulators not to approve any expanded gas service.
This plan, which also included studies about the health effects of gas appliances and methane leaks and the economics of a climate-driven transition off it, quickly proved “very controversial,” Harwood said.
It drew opposition from the gas utilities, building trades, industrial sector and the Maine Governor’s Energy Office, which helps oversee the state’s climate plan.
Those stakeholders worked with environmental groups and Harwood’s office to craft a compromise amendment eliminating the proposed ban on gas expansions, which narrowly passed in a legislative committee last week.
The amendment proposes a state Public Utilities Commission inquiry on ways to plan and oversee utilities’ future gas investments in Maine; a Governor’s Energy Office study on the economic impacts of Maine’s existing gas service and its potential role in “supporting the transition to a low carbon future”; and a commission to study ways to ensure a just energy transition for Maine workers.
Jack Shapiro, the climate and clean energy director with the Natural Resources Council of Maine, which supported the original bill and worked on the amendment, said these studies should give legislators the evidence they need to start a real transition from gas and the industry’s favored alternative fuels.
“Our 2030 goals are six years away, and we’re seeing the impacts of climate change pretty starkly this winter,” Shapiro said. “We can’t go around and say, well, maybe this technology will evolve over time … we need to make sure we’re not chasing shadows here.”
The new version of the bill now heads to the full Democratically-controlled legislature for a vote and then potential signature by Maine Gov. Janet Mills, also a Democrat.
The Mills administration has been nationally lauded for pushing Maine residents to switch from heating oil to electric heat pumps, among other clean energy goals.
The Governor’s Energy Office declined to answer questions for this story about how the amended gas bill and their opposition to the original version align with state climate policy.
Maine’s targets include using 100% renewable electricity by 2040 and cutting greenhouse gas emissions 45% from 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% by 2050. Maine reached 51% renewable electricity in 2023 and was 25% below 1990 emissions as of 2019.
The Governor’s Energy Office is tasked with studying pathways to the renewable energy goal and is due to recommend one this year. The studies proposed in the amended gas bill would dig into the economics of where gas and pipelines may fit in.
Right now, Maine uses less gas than almost any other state, especially in the residential sector, where supply is concentrated mostly in the far southern part of the state. Federal data shows gas serves about 8% of Maine’s home heating needs, for example, while heating oil supplies 56%.
But Maine’s four gas utilities are growing. Analysis by Harwood’s office found they’ve installed more than 100 miles of new pipe, an 8% increase, and added more than 6,000 new customers, a 12% increase, since 2019.
“We don’t want the gas utilities to continue to expand, business as usual, and then turn around and present the bill to those ratepayers who are taking natural gas once the dust settles,” Harwood said. “What we were trying to do in the original (bill) was stop expansion, but not interfere right now with their (the utilities’) continued ability to deliver gas to those customers who have already made the investment.”
To state Rep. Sophie Warren (D-Scarborough), who sits on the legislature’s energy committee, the amendment marks a pragmatic but disheartening approach to getting anything on this topic passed.
“I feel in some ways ashamed to be voting for something that is so far from what could have been good and useful and necessary,” Warren said to fellow legislators on the committee before voting in favor of the amendment March 7.
Warren, who is in her second term and graduated from college in 2019, said in a later interview that she and others of her generation want to see more urgency and less incrementalism from Maine politicians on issues like this. She raised concerns about how much influence the gas industry had on the amendment, which she sees as in direct conflict with the need to go completely fossil-free to fight climate change.
“I really fear that we could be getting away from what science demands, what justice demands,” she said. “We can’t be, in this year of 2024, saying that natural gas is a partner in that. We have to understand that our goal must be far more ambitious.”
Alec O’Meara, the director of external affairs for Unitil, one of Maine’s gas providers, said the state’s outsized reliance on fuels like heating oil means lower-carbon gas can still aid in decarbonization.
“We have opportunities to help reduce (emissions) today,” he said, “and we see opportunities to use gas infrastructure to help deliver renewable energy in the future as well.”
The governor’s office study in the new version of the bill would be required to be consistent with state climate policy while considering ways to do that, including with green hydrogen (made from water using renewable energy), biogas from farms (sometimes called “renewable natural gas”), and district-scale geothermal electricity.
“We see our infrastructure really as a pipeline infrastructure,” said Lizzy Reinholt, a senior vice president with Summit Utilities, another of Maine’s gas providers. “Much like we focus on creating policy and regulatory frameworks to reduce the emissions intensity of the electrons running in the wires above us, we think it’s just as incumbent on the state to focus on how we reduce the emissions intensity of the molecules in the pipes.”
It’s not clear yet whether hydrogen or biogas would be considered “renewable” for Maine’s climate goals. But environmental groups have cast doubt on these fuels’ value as part of the state’s energy transition.
“We already know that alternative fuels, like hydrogen and renewable natural gas, are not economic, efficient or scalable climate solutions for heating,” said Emily Green, a senior attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation in Maine, another nonprofit that backed the original bill and helped with the amendment. “We are confident that the state’s (proposed) reports will reach that conclusion.”
A 2019 study from the American Gas Foundation found that Maine could produce about 19.6 trillion Btu of biogas per year if it maxed out production from farms, landfills and more. That would replace about a third of Maine’s already low yearly natural gas consumption, according to federal data.
Summit spent $20 million on an anaerobic digester in Clinton, Maine, that turns cow manure from dairy farms into biogas — enough to supply nearly half of the company’s residential load in Maine.
That customer base is a very small part of a small utility sector in the state. Compared to Unitil’s 27,000 residential customers, Summit has fewer than 5,000 in Maine — a third of what the company has built its system for, according to Harwood, who has sparred with Summit over its rates and growth in recent years.
Reinholt argued that Harwood’s original bill would have prematurely limited exploration of these and other approaches as potential “levers that we can pull” in Maine’s climate efforts.
Still, Harwood and others said the proposed studies in the amendment will take up precious time on the way to Maine’s climate goals and to scientists’ predicted future harms if emissions don’t decline sharply.
“Time is our enemy, and we’d all like to see these … decisions made sooner rather than later,” Harwood said. “But there’s only so much resources available in state government. This is the best we can get.”
A new North Carolina climate plan outlines actions that would help curb greenhouse gas pollution by nearly two-thirds by 2030 — surpassing a state goal and meeting scientists’ recommendations for how to avoid the worst impacts of global warming.
The state is already on pace to cut emissions just over 40% compared to 2005 levels. But the steps outlined in the new blueprint, crafted as part of the federal Inflation Reduction Act, would slash heat-trapping pollution even further.
If sustained over the ensuing decades, the measures would also bring the state closer to zeroing out its climate footprint by midcentury, though officials stress that doing so would require “significant will, funding, and effort.”
Finalized earlier this month after weeks of webinars, community meetings, and other forms of public feedback, the Priority Action Climate Plan covers six areas of the state’s economy: transportation, electricity, buildings, industry, waste, and lands. The action items are “implementation ready,” officials say, and not dependent on new state laws or policies.
By far, the biggest opportunity for curbing pollution is in the building sector. Ramping up support for low-income weatherization assistance, energy efficiency upgrades in government buildings, and other measures to reduce energy usage per square foot could account for 60% of pollution reductions anticipated by 2030.
“The buildings sector is one with a lot of low-hanging fruit that hasn’t been widely addressed to date,” said Sara Edwards, a spokesperson with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, which took the lead in crafting the action plan.
Edwards noted the state’s 2009-era residential building code, which is frozen in place until 2031 thanks to a law passed last year. “Even new housing stock coming online is not as energy efficient as it could be,” she said.
Many older commercial and public buildings lack up-to-date lighting and energy management systems, she added. “State agency buildings alone have identified over $200 million of energy saving projects that are waiting for funding to implement,” she said.
“The same types of projects could be implemented at public universities and community colleges, as well as schools and local government buildings, resulting in significant ongoing savings to [state] taxpayers,” said Edwards.
Phasing out direct combustion of fossil fuels in buildings, such as from gas furnaces, could achieve another 36 million metric tons of emissions, almost a quarter of the cuts.
Recommendations in the other five sectors combined could result in a fifth of the reductions, or a total of 29 million metric tons of carbon dioxide or the equivalent.
In the transportation sector, today the state’s largest source of greenhouse gasses, priority steps include facilitating transportation choices other than cars and increased deployment of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure.
To curb emissions from electric utilities, the plan focuses on boosting solar panels on homes, local government properties, and other small institutions, complementing a state law requiring Duke to ramp up larger-scale renewable energy investments.
The blueprint also outlines programs to increase industrial efficiency, better capture methane gas from landfills, and restore and protect peatlands and forests, vital for their ability to capture and store carbon.
North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality joined 44 other states in submitting its priority climate action plan, according to an announcement this week from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Charlotte, the Triangle, and the Eastern Band of Cherokees were among nearly 200 metropolitan regions and tribes around the country who submitted their own plans, as well.
The documents set the stage for the next phase of the federal Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program. With the blueprints as their guide, tribes, states, and large metropolitan regions will now work to apply for $4.6 billion in competitive grants for implementation.
As the Biden administration races to get Inflation Reduction Act funds out the door this year, the deadline for those proposals is April 1.
Meanwhile, the Department will take comments on the priority plan until June 3, which it says will inform yet another strategy document required under the Inflation Reduction Act: a comprehensive climate action plan, due in June 2025.
“Throughout this process,” Edwards said, “we’ve done public outreach and stakeholder engagement. That’s going to continue throughout. It’s not just like we’re going to drop this document and not take public comment.”
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A new Biden administration plan aims to build electric semi-truck chargers along high-traffic sections of highway across the country, largely in the Northeast, on the West Coast, and in Texas. (The Hill)
ALSO:
POLITICS: President Biden’s proposed 2025 federal budget includes more funding for community energy programs, transmission planning and permitting, and offshore wind siting and construction, among other clean energy programs. (Utility Dive)
CLIMATE:
GRID:
FINANCE: The U.S. EPA prepares to announce $20 billion for nonprofits to expand lending for climate and clean energy projects in low-income communities. (Politico)
UTILITIES: Over 1,000 victims of last year’s deadly Maui wildfires plan to sue Hawaiian Electric and other entities, alleging the utility’s equipment sparked the blaze. (Hawaii News Now)
MATERIALS: The closure of three U.S. aluminum manufacturing plants could threaten the transition to clean energy and electrification, experts say. (E&E News)
ELECTRIFICATION: Colorado restaurants say switching from natural gas to electric induction stoves and ovens has improved their food quality and the kitchen atmosphere. (Rocky Mountain PBS)
CARBON CAPTURE: A North Dakota electric cooperative is betting a $2 billion carbon capture project will allow a coal-fired power plant to comply with Minnesota law, but critics say the plan is absurdly complicated and expensive compared to alternatives. (MPR News)
OIL & GAS:
CLIMATE: Colorado climate advocates debate whether slashing fossil fuel demand, restricting oil and gas supplies or a combination of the two would be most effective in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. (Colorado Newsline)
ALSO: Washington state lawmakers allocate $30 million to provide fuel surcharge rebates to farmers and truckers not exempted from the state’s carbon cap-and-invest program. (Washington State Standards)
OIL & GAS:
SOLAR:
WIND:
CLEAN ENERGY: The Biden administration awards Mountain West tribal nations about $26 million to bring electricity to off-grid homes and fund clean energy systems. (KUNR)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A southern California port unveils the nation’s first all-electric tug boat and expects to begin operations next month. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
UTILITIES:
TRANSITION: A Navajo Nation nonprofit looks to convert a defunct rail line connecting a decommissioned coal mine and power plant in northern Arizona into a running and cycling trail. (Navajo-Hopi Observer)
ELECTRIFICATION: Colorado restaurants say switching from natural gas to electric induction stoves and ovens has improved their food quality and the kitchen atmosphere. (Rocky Mountain PBS)
COMMENTARY: A Montana advocate urges the federal government to stop leasing land to oil and gas companies, saying drilling will harm the state’s growing outdoor recreation economy. (Montana Standard)
HYDROGEN: Pennsylvania’s governor says at a divisive public meeting that the state is “all in when it comes to the hydrogen hubs,” but environmentalists say the hard-to-reach location of the meeting shows a lack of interest in community engagement. (WHYY)
FOSSIL FUELS:
SOLAR: In New York, Niagara County’s environmental coordinator says the county’s solar panel recycling law is improving end-of-life panel management, but not all solar projects are complying. (Union-Sun & Journal)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
GRID: New Jersey lawmakers mull the potential impact of two bills, which would codify a gubernatorial order to have all electricity sales involve clean energy by 2035 and spend $300 million on grid upgrades. (RTO Insider, subscription)
POLICY:
STORMS: Massachusetts plans to appeal federal emergency management officials’ decision to not issue a major disaster declaration over the severe flooding that swept through the state in September. (Associated Press)
CLIMATE: The president of the New York Farm Bureau says his farmers support climate action but worry the push for electrification comes before electric farm equipment can handle the long hours required. (Spectrum News 1)
TRANSIT: Two Somerville, Massachusetts, council members plan to introduce a resolution to remove “unnecessary” parking spaces from new developments to help meet climate goals. (Boston Herald)
GRID: An analysis finds Texas has experienced 263 power outages since 2019, the most of any state in the country, indicating its power grid is struggling under demand and extreme weather. (Houston Chronicle)
ALSO:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
STORAGE: Texas residents are worried about a developer’s plans to build a battery storage facility near a neighborhood and elementary school. (KTRK)
OIL & GAS:
COAL:
CLIMATE:
UTILITIES: Austin, Texas’ municipal utility pauses the process of reworking its resource, generation and climate plan while the mayor pushes to divest from a coal-fired power plant and environmentalists call for more renewables. (Austin Monitor)
GEOTHERMAL: A student team from the University of Oklahoma wins a competition for its design of geothermal wells to heat a 40,000-square-foot greenhouse operated by the Osage Nation. (KWTV/KSBI)
MINING: A Virginia company moves to reopen critical minerals mining and production facilities in the state, after having previously discontinued operations there in 2015. (Virginia Mercury)
COMMENTARY:
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