Energy
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Essential energy industry news & intel to start your day.
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July 23, 2021
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A Portrait of U.S. Air Conditioning Use, and the Challenge of Cooling’s Spread
I grew up in Northern California, where very few people had air conditioning and there were only a few days per year that we missed it; we relied on closed curtains and a fan system if the temperature ever crept above about 80 degrees. And it seemed like most other households across the West Coast did the same.
But that has changed. My parents recently installed air conditioning in their house, and according to Morning Consult polling, they are among the 80 percent of people in the West who now rely on it as the region steadily gets hotter.
Inspired by their acquisition, my latest story dives into new data on the use of air conditioning — average temperatures, system preferences, etc. — in the United States. From there, I looked at the role AC use will play both at home and abroad as the planet continues to warm and more people find themselves uncomfortably hot.
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Top Stories
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Embattled utility FirstEnergy Corp. is set to pay a $230 million penalty as a part of a deferred prosecution agreement to resolve allegations of the company’s involvement in an Ohio bribery scheme resulting in a $1.5 billion legislative bailout of two nuclear plants owned by a FirstEnergy subsidiary. Upon FirstEnergy’s compliance with the agreement — which also compels FirstEnergy to develop a stronger ethics and compliance program, among other things — a related charge of wire fraud will be dismissed. (The Wall Street Journal)
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After a heated hearing, the Biden administration’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management, Tracy Stone-Manning, advanced through the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a 10-10 party-line vote, with Republicans opposed to her affiliation with an environmental activist group in the 1980s. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he would bring the nomination to a full chamber vote, saying she will “repair the damage of the last four years.” (The Washington Post)
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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and White House climate envoy John Kerry met with major international development banks on how to “maximize” private investment in climate change finance and rework the institutions’ internal practices on the subject, according to a statement from the Treasury. Yellen told them to come up with concrete plans and plans to reconvene the group to discuss them in October, alongside annual meetings of both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. (Reuters)
Correction: Morning Consult Energy on Thursday misidentified Sen. Mitt Romney’s party. He is a Republican.
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Events Calendar (All Times Local)
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| A MESSAGE FROM MORNING CONSULT |
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What Else You Need to Know
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Climate Change and Emissions
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Heat, Floods, Fires: Jet Stream Is Key Link in Climate Disasters
Laura Millan Lombrana et al., Bloomberg
Deadly weather as far apart as China, Germany and the U.S. reveal the devastating impact of a swinging jet stream.
Wildfires in U.S., Siberia are unusually intense, setting emissions records
Andrew Freedman, Axios
Wildfires across parts of the U.S. and Canada are burning unusually intensely and emitting larger amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than typical during midsummer, scientists say. Massive blazes in Siberia are also adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, while contributing to local air pollution.
National Weather Service Will Send Mobile Alerts for ‘Destructive’ Thunderstorms
Alyssa Lukpat, The New York Times
The agency hopes the alerts will get people to take shelter before a thunderstorm unleashes baseball-size hail or winds of at least 80 m.p.h.
New Extreme Weather Record? Not So Fast.
Mike Ives, The New York Times
California’s Death Valley recorded temperatures of 130 degrees Fahrenheit this month, a measurement that could be the highest ever reliably made on Earth.
Effort to fund racially diverse climate groups gets momentum
Haleluya Hadero, The Associated Press
Efforts to increase how much philanthropic funding goes to minority-led environmental organizations are gaining momentum, with one group’s push for transparency from the nation’s top climate donors drawing big-name support.
Is climate change happening faster than expected? A climate scientist explains.
Zoya Teirstein, Grist
One to 2 degrees Celsius of warming can do a lot of damage.
The climate tech SPAC boom is just beginning
Tim McDonnell, Quartz
The hype surrounding special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), may be cooling off after a year in which they were the hottest new thing on Wall Street. But the companies—which are designed to merge with or acquire a promising startup that needs quick access to a lot of capital without the expense, time, and regulatory hassle of a traditional initial public offering—are well-suited to tackling the climate change crisis. SPACs are just beginning to heat up for climate tech.
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Avangrid touts green hydrogen proposals under DOE initiative, raises 2021 earnings outlook
Scott Voorhis, Utility Dive
Avangrid is stepping up its research in the area of green hydrogen, having submitted a number of proposals in response to a request for information from the U.S. Department of Energy, CEO Dennis Arriola said on Wednesday during the company’s quarterly earnings call.
KKR’s big solar bet
Andrew Ross Sorkin et al., The New York Times: DealBook
KKR will announce today that it’s making a “significant” minority investment in Sol Systems, a U.S. renewable energy company that helps finance solar projects. The buyout giant, which has $367 billion in assets under management, is also committing to spending up to $1 billion in projects with Sol.
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Oil, Gas and Alternative Fuels
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Electric-Vehicle Sales Growth Outpaces Broader Auto Industry
Mike Colias, The Wall Street Journal
New plug-in models from Tesla, Ford, VW and others helped to boost demand, while hurdles still remain for the technology.
Climate Crisis Turns World’s Subways Into Flood Zones
Hiroko Tabuchi and John Schwartz, The New York Times
Swift, deadly flooding in China this week inundated a network that wasn’t even a decade old, highlighting the risks faced by cities globally.
Democrats in California and D.C. clash over how state’s high-speed rail should be powered
Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times
A key block of California lawmakers is feuding with the Biden administration over the state’s high-speed rail endeavor, arguing that conditions of a restored federal grant lock the project into what the group sees as an outdated technology for powering the bullet train.
Amazon-backed Rivian confirms plan for second U.S. assembly plant
Paul Lienert et al., Reuters
Amazon.com Inc-backed electric vehicle startup Rivian Automotive plans to build a second U.S. assembly plant that will also include battery cell production, according to four people familiar with the matter.
Next step for EVs: Design batteries to strengthen car, extend range
Paul Lienert and Ben Klayman, Reuters
Automakers and battery manufacturers are racing to develop new electric-vehicle batteries that can reinforce body structures and open the door to breakthroughs in driving range.
As EVs rise, automakers see money in charging
David Ferris, E&E News
Companies and governments want to electrify their fleets of vehicles, but they “ have no idea how difficult it’s going to be,” said Chris Nelder.
Mercedes-Benz going all-electric by 2025
Celine Castronuovo, The Hill
Mercedes-Benz on Thursday became the latest car manufacturer to unveil plans for a greater investment in electric vehicles, saying that it hopes to transition to solely manufacturing electric vehicles by 2025.
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Electricity, Utilities and Infrastructure
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In America’s least air-conditioned cities, brutal heat changes some people’s minds
Marc Fisher et al., The Washington Post
In Boise, Idaho, where the temperature topped 97 for a stretch of 14 out of 15 days this month, Sarah O’Keefe refuses to give in. With the mercury repeatedly soaring into triple digits, she started waking up hours earlier, added afternoon siestas to her routine and installed a sprinkler to cool her hot metal roof. The AC stays off.
NJ requiring public water systems to replace lead pipes in 10 years
Caroline Vakil, The Hill
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) signed legislation Thursday that will require public water systems to catalogue all lead pipes and replace them within 10 years.
American Clean Power and Energy Storage Associations Pursuing a Merger
Sonal Patel, Power
The American Clean Power Association (ACP)—a 2021-launched pan-renewables trade group—may be poised to merge with the U.S. Energy Storage Association (ESA) starting on Jan. 1, 2022.
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Environment, Land and Resources
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Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives
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The Economic Benefits of the New Climate Economy in Rural America
Devashree Saha et al., World Resources Institute
This paper discusses the rural economic impact of federal investment in the new climate economy, including measures to advance clean energy systems, remediate abandoned fossil fuel production sites, restore trees to the landscape and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire. This paper finds that federal investment could support 260,000 rural jobs each year over at least five years to create new economic opportunities in rural places while addressing climate change.
Macroeconomic Consequences of the Infrastructure and Budget Reconciliation Plans
Mark Zandi and Bernard Yaros Jr., Moody’s Analytics
Federal lawmakers are feverishly working on another massive fiscal plan, including a nearly $600 billion bipartisan infrastructure deal and a $3.5 trillion package of spending and tax breaks to support a range of social investments that the Biden administration and congressional Democrats hope to pass into law via the budget reconciliation process. Because the package includes a myriad of spending and tax initiatives, some of which are new and uncertain, implementing this legislation as intended and in a timely way will take deft governance. In this white paper, we assess the macroeconomic impact of both the bipartisan infrastructure deal and the reconciliation package.
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