The U.S. Department of the Treasury is finalizing rules that will determine which new clean hydrogen projects will receive the IRA’s generous 45V tax incentives, and whether those projects will deliver promised climate benefits.
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The Inflation Reduction Act provides a range of incentives for the development of clean energy resources in the United States. Highest profile among those incentives are hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits earmarked for new wind and solar power projects. Yet the IRA’s most aggressive incentives aren’t directed at renewables but at clean hydrogen, which is a fuel that is viewed as crucial to decarbonizing parts of the economy that aren’t readily electrified, such as steel making, air travel and shipping.

Over the past few months, the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service have been developing rules to define what will qualify as clean hydrogen, and what level of financial incentive hydrogen producers should receive based on the climate impact of the hydrogen they will make. Final rules are expected this year, and will ultimately determine whether clean hydrogen delivers on its climate promise.

Danny Cullenward, Vice Chair of California’s Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee and a Senior Fellow at the Kleinman Center, explores the climate stakes surrounding the Treasury’s 45V hydrogen production tax credit. Cullenward explains the draft clean hydrogen rules, and why certain interests would like to see those guidelines relaxed. He also explores what the final rules might mean for the pace of clean hydrogen growth, and for the ability of clean hydrogen producers to thrive after the incentives expire.

Danny Cullenward is a Senior Fellow with the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. He is also Vice Chair of California’s Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee, and a Research Fellow with the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University.

Related Content

Coordinated Policy and Targeted Investment for an Orderly and Reliable Energy Transition https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/coordinated-policy-and-targeted-investment-for-an-orderly-and-reliable-energy-transition/

Why the IRA’s Carbon Capture Tax Credit Could Increase Greenhouse Emissions (Podcast) https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/podcast/why-the-iras-carbon-capture-tax-credit-could-increase-greenhouse-emissions/

Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu.

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Each fall, the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy hosts a student blog competition, where students from any field of study can showcase their creativity, innovation, and passion for energy policy and sustainability. This year, we welcomed audio submissions, and we’re featuring our first-place audio blog here. This year’s winner is Benjamin Chen, a junior majoring in economics and minoring in computer science and environmental management. Ben’s winning audio blog is titled “Corporate Disclosure Law on Energy Policy”.

Benjamin Chen is a junior majoring in economics at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Loss and damage finance has made it onto the official COP agenda for the first time at Sharm El-Sheikh. An expert on small island states discusses why the issue has been so contentious.
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Experts from the University of Pennsylvania are on the ground at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. In this special series from Energy Policy Now, they share their observations from the global climate conference and insights into key issues under negotiation.

Stacy-ann Robinson, a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House, provides a brief history of loss and damage finance in global climate negotiations, and why the issue has taken so long to become an official part of the COP negotiating agenda.

Stacy-ann Robinson is a Lightning Scholar with the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House. Her research focuses on the human, social, and policy dimensions of climate change adaptation in Small Island Developing States. Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.ed

Energy Policy Now is produced byThe Kleinman Center for Energy Policyat the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visitkleinmanenergy.upenn.edu

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As net zero carbon targets become commonplace, strong governance will be needed to ensure climate benefits.
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This is the second episode in a three-part series exploring governance challenges surrounding the transition to clean energy.

In recent years a flood of net zero emissions targets have been set by companies, municipalities, and countries around the world. In fact, over-two thirds of the global economy is now covered by net zero targets that aim to zero out greenhouse gas emissions and slow and ideally halt the process of climate change.

Yet, while the quantity of net zero targets has multiplied, the quality of many of these targets is questionable. Many targets are voluntary and, too frequently, not subject to reliable oversight. At the same time, political realities can present steep hurdles to governments that might seek to establish robust, enforceable net zero targets at the national level.

Thomas Hale, associate professor in global public policy at the University of Oxford discusses the need for strong governance structures to ensure that net zero targets deliver the carbon neutrality that they promise. Hale explores what, exactly, constitutes a robust net zero target, governance frameworks for credible and enforceable targets and the hurdles, political and otherwise, to achieving robust governance.

Thomas Hale is an associate professor in global public policy at the University of Oxford and visiting scholar at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. His work focuses on the management of transnational problems, with a focus on environmental, economic and health issues.

Related Content 
Net-Zero Nevada: From Pledge to Action https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/net-zero-nevada-from-pledge-to-action/ 

Guidelines for Successful, Sustainable Nature-Based Solutions https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/guidelines-for-successful-sustainable-nature-based-solutions/ 

For Solar Geoengineering, Daunting Policy Questions Await https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/podcast/for-solar-geoengineering-daunting-policy-questions-await/ 

Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu

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The risk models that policymakers, insurers and communities rely on to predict the nature and frequency of weather-related disasters are becoming less reliable as climate change advances. A Wharton School climate risk expert examines how we might adequately, and equitably, prepare for future disasters. --- In 2012 Hurricane Sandy caused over $70 billion in damage along the U.S. Atlantic coast, leaving communities in desperate financial condition and pushing the National Flood Insurance Program, already financially stretched by a decade of severe weather-related claims, deeper into debt. In addition, coastal cities like Miami and Norfolk, Virginia now experience regular nuisance flooding, demanding huge investments in protective infrastructure to fend off rising seas. How will the U.S. pay for infrastructure needed to minimize the impact of future disasters even as population grows in increasingly flood-prone areas? Howard Kunreuther, Co-Director of the Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses the challenge of balancing support for communities at risk for natural disaster with the economic and political challenges to doing so. He also highlights how human psychology can make it hard for people to grasp the likelihood of future disasters, and the role this has played in pushing the national flood insurance program to the brink of insolvency. Howard Kunreuther is the James G. Dinan professor of Decision Sciences and Business and Public Policy at the Wharton School. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Distinguished Fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis. He has served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (Episode recorded on 5/25/17)

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How much should countries spend today to avoid climate change impacts that may be far into the future? A renown economist discusses the emerging discipline of climate economics and explores means of efficiently putting mitigation funds to work. --- How much will global warming cost future generations, and how much should we pay today to avoid the damage a warming climate will cause? Economist Per Krusell, a visiting scholar at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and member of the Nobel Prize for Economics Committee within the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, discusses the challenge of accurately pricing future damages expected to arise from climate change, and how future costs are reflected through the social cost of carbon. Krusell also highlights how climate economics attempts to guide policymakers toward strategies that make best use of limited climate mitigation funds. Per Krusell is Professor of Economics at Stockholm University. His research focuses broadly on macroeconomics, and the impacts that result from technological change and economic policy. He’s working on a long-term project on the interaction between climate change and the economy.

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Carbon Capture and Storage has the potential to dramatically reduce the carbon emissions from the burning of coal. Yet the technology’s boosters need to overcome high costs, and major infrastructure challenges, if they’re to make a dent in emissions. --- Carbon capture and storage offers the promise of slashing carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, and has been touted by some in the electricity industry as part of a basket of “clean coal” technologies that will dramatically reduce the fuel’s environmental impact and provide a lifeline to the U.S. coal sector. Yet CCS is the only clean coal technology that has yet to prove feasible at a scale, and existing CCS projects are few and far between. Kleinman Center for Energy Policy senior fellow John Quigley takes a look at efforts to reduce the technology’s cost and the relative lack of government support to date for CCS. Quigley also discusses CCS’s environmental promise and whether it can be deployed in time to make a positive climate impact. Guest John Quigley served as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection from January 2015 to May 2016 and as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources from 2009 to 2011. Quigley led some of the nation’s most advanced work on the potential of Carbon Capture and Storage under former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell. He is currently a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.

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Fossil fuel tax breaks cost the U.S. $4 billion per year. A former Treasury Department Environment and Energy official looks at whether that’s money well spent. --- The U.S. fossil fuel industry benefits from $4 billion a year in government subsidies, most in the form of tax breaks. But over the past decade debate over the need for subsidies has intensified. The energy industry argues that these subsidies promote the development of domestic energy and support oil and gas jobs. Opponents say there is little justification for subsidizing fossil fuels when government’s focus should be on clean energy and climate. And politicians from both sides of the aisle argue that the government could better use the money spent on subsidies elsewhere. Guest Gilbert Metcalf, Professor of Economics at Tufts University and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, takes a look at the real impact of subsidies on the economics of energy development, renewables and on the environment. Metcalf, who formerly served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment and Energy at the U.S. Department of Treasury, is a visiting scholar at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

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A senior member of the U.S. State Department’s 2015 Paris climate negotiating team explores the implications of a Trump administration pullback from the agreement. --- The Trump administration has offered conflicting messages around its intention to honor U.S. commitments under the 2015 Paris Climate Accord. Still in the early days of his presidency, President Trump has launched a range of efforts to roll back domestic climate protections, most notably his recent executive order to withdraw support for the Clean Power Plan, and his promise to weaken automotive fuel economy standards. Both are essential to the U.S. meeting its Paris climate goals. Yet some voices in the administration, and within the energy industry, have urged the President to “maintain a seat at the table” of global climate dialogue. Andrew Light, former member of the U.S. State Department’s Paris climate negotiating team, explores the outlook for constructive U.S. participation in the effort to combat climate change and the fate of a global, coordinated climate effort. Andrew Light is a Distinguished Senior Fellow in the Global Climate Program at the World Resources Institute and Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at George Mason University. From 2013 to 2016 he worked for the U.S. State Department, where he was Chair of the Interagency Climate Working Group on UN Sustainable Development Goals, and he served on the senior strategy team for UN Climate Negotiations. Earlier, he was Director of International Climate Policy at the Center for American Progress.

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The Trump administration is leveraging an array of legal and political tools to roll back environmental protections. A U. Penn environmental law expert takes a look a Trump’s strategy, pitfalls that await, and the potential for protections to endure. -- The Trump administration is doing its best to fulfill its campaign promise to reduce environmental protections related to the energy industry and wider economy. Rollback efforts are taking place through a variety of means, including the issuance of an executive order that notably targets the Clean Power Plan, the defunding of government agencies with environmental oversight, and the use of an obscure rule that allows Congress to overturn standards issued in the final months the Obama administration. Yet the success of rollbacks isn’t assured. In some cases environmental protections exist due to legal requirement, and where rollbacks create a regulatory vacuum, new rules must take their place. University of Pennsylvania law professor Cary Coglianese explores the administration’s options to pare environmental rules and the challenges each approach is likely to face. Coglianese also takes a look at possible routes to defend protections. Cary Coglianese is professor of law and political science at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of the Penn Program on Regulation. He specializes in the study of regulation and regulatory processes and has served as an advisor to the U.S. Department of Transportation and Environmental Protection Agency. He is the founder of The Regulatory Review, the flagship publication of the Penn Program on Regulation.

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Distributed energy technologies like rooftop solar are eating away at electric utilities’ business. Can utilities adapt, and at what cost to consumers? -- Rooftop solar attracts homeowners with the promise of electricity savings and environmental benefits. Yet every kilowatt hour of electricity generated at home translates into an equivalent amount of electricity no longer sold by a traditional electric utility. As utilities face the prospect of flat and even declining electricity revenue, concerns over their future economic health, and the reliability of the electric power supply we’ve long taken for granted, have been called increasingly into question. Sonny Popowsky, former Consumer Advocate for Pennsylvania and advisory board member of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy explores how utilities might adapt to the challenge of distributed energy and energy efficiency, and the costs their survival could bring to ratepayers. Sonny Popowsky served as the Consumer Advocate of Pennsylvania from 1990 to 2012. He served as the President of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) from 1996 to 1998 and was previously Chairman of the NASUCA Electric Committee. Mr. Popowsky served on the Board of Trustees of the NorthAmerican Electric Reliability Council (NERC) from 1997 to 2001 and the NERC Stakeholders Committee from2001 to 2006. In 2010, Mr. Popowsky was appointed to the Department of Energy’s Electricity Advisory Committee and was named Vice Chair of that Committee in 2012. Mr. Popowsky also currently serves on the Advisory Council of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the Board of Directors of the Energy Coordinating Agency of Philadelphia, the Executive Council of the Pennsylvania AARP, and as a pro bono member of the Certification Decision Committee of the Center for Sustainable Shale Development.

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Carbon taxation and carbon cap and trade have been implemented with varied success as greenhouse gas reduction strategies in recent years. Carbon taxes have gone into effect, seemingly counterintuitively, where the energy industry looms large. And cap and trade programs have operated broadly across Europe, and regionally in parts of the U.S. Energy Policy Now guest Jim Hines, Professor of economics and law at the University of Michigan, provides insight into the workings of cap and trade and carbon taxation, and explains the unique set of factors that may make one policy more politically acceptable than the other. Jim Hines is a professor of law and economics at the University of Michigan, and an editorial advisor to the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. His research is focused on various aspects of taxation. He is a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, and research director of the International Tax Policy Forum.

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In 2016 the first shipment of U.S. liquefied natural gas left by tanker from a terminal on the Gulf coast. In the year since, U.S. LNG has made its way to customers around the globe, increasing competition in the gas market and threatening to loosen the grip of some suppliers on captive markets. Guest Anna Mikulska, Senior Fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, talks about the globalization of the natural gas market, the competitiveness of U.S. exports and their implications for relationships abroad. Dr. Anna Mikulska is a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and nonresident scholar in energy studies at the Baker Institute’s Center for Energy Studies at Rice University. Her research interests center around European energy markets and energy policy. She has presented papers at numerous national and international conferences and co-authored articles in the European Journal of Political Research and the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, as well as a chapter in the “Introduction to American Government” textbook. Mikulska has served as a reviewer for numerous scholarly journals and was on the editorial board of the law review at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland.

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n January 2017 Canada’s oil-rich province of Alberta took the unprecedented step of instituting a carbon tax. Combined with a cap on greenhouse emissions from the Oil Sands, the bulk of the province’s economy is now party to one of the most encompassing efforts to date in North America to address global warming. Alberta’s senior diplomatic representative to the United States, Gitane De Silva, talks about the province’s climate goals and the process by which Albertan industry, environmentalists and government found common ground to get the tax passed. Gitane De Silva is Alberta’s Senior Representative to the United States. Prior to her current appointment, she served as Deputy Minister of Alberta International and Intergovernmental Relations. Before joining the Alberta Civil Service, Ms. De Silva was Consul General of Canada in Chicago.

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New energy storage technologies are increasingly connecting to the electric grid, but it’s not clear that current rules in electricity markets are designed to help storage and new distributed energy resources (DER) participate as fully as other generation. The federal government’s electricity market regulator, FERC, has issued a notice with proposed rules that could create new opportunities for deployment and investment but also raise questions for stakeholders to address.

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The airline industry accounts for two percent of global carbon emissions, and emissions are likely to increase as the popularity of air travel rises. Policymakers are increasingly working with airlines to find ways to limit emissions growth. But the diverse, global industry is difficult to regulate, and competitiveness issues abound. Megan Ryerson, professor of transportation at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert in environmental impacts of the air transportation system, provides insights into the airline industry’s environmental challenges and possible strategies to address its greenhouse emissions. Dr. Megan S. Ryerson is an Assistant Professor of City and Regional Planning and Electrical and Systems Engineering in the area of Transportation at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on the tradeoff between economic development and environmental impacts presented by the air transportation system and the design of resilient multimodal transportation system networks. She received her Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Learn more: http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now

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In recent years cyber attacks have targeted sensitive data of multinational oil companies, downed one country’s power grid and sabotaged another’s nuclear weapons program. Despite growing risks to domestic infrastructure, U.S. energy and electricity sectors remain ill-prepared to defend themselves against cyber threats. Bill Hederman, former senior advisor to the U.S. secretary of energy and a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center, discusses cybersecurity and the roles of industry and government in confronting security challenges. Guest Bill Hederman most recently served as senior advisor to U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, providing leadership on USDOE missions to Ukraine, the Baltics, and Germany.  He is the chief architect behind the analytic framework developed for DOE's groundbreaking Quadrennial Energy Review.  During the Enron and California crises, Hederman joined FERC and formed the Office of Market Oversight and Investigations, which has been credited with playing a major role in the restoration of confidence in electricity and natural gas regulatory oversight. Learn more: http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now

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Explosive development of shale resources has breathed new economic life into communities across the United States, current low gas prices notwithstanding. But how might individual states balance fossil energy-driven economic development with environmental protection? Former Pennsylvania DEP Secretary and coal-town Mayor John Quigley discusses his state’s political juggling of energy and environmental concerns, and the prospects for environmental progress should policymakers roll back fossil fuel regulations. Guest John Quigley served as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection from January 2015 to May 2016 and as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources from 2009 to 2011. He is the first and only person in Pennsylvania history to serve as Secretary of both of the state's natural resource agencies. Quigley also served as a two-term mayor of Hazleton, PA. He is currently a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. Learn more: http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now

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Twenty years ago Pennsylvania opened its electricity sector to competition and the promise of cheaper and more reliable service. Two decades later, competitive markets have mostly delivered, but with notable caveats. Former Pennsylvania Secretary of Policy and Planning and DEP Head John Hangar, and the Kleinman Center Policy Director Christina Simeone examine the benefits and shortcomings of two decades of wholesale and retail electric competition. Their findings appear in their recently published report, “A Case Study of Electricity Competition Results in Pennsylvania”, which is available for download at http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/electricity-competition . Guest John Hangar has held four public offices and was a Democratic candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania. He works in the private sector as a legal services attorney and is the founder of an environmental non-profit organization. Christina Simeone is the director of policy and external affairs at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. Learn more: http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now

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Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy weighs in on the fate of the Clean Power Plan, and the EPA itself, under current Administrator Scott Pruitt. --- These are challenging times at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In February of this year former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who had sued the EPA more than a dozen times to block environmental and health protections, became the agency’s Administrator. In the months since, he has called for cuts to EPA programs, sought to repeal the Clean Power Plan, and debunk science on climate change. How far will EPA leadership may go in rolling back climate protections? And, more fundamentally, can the EPA operate as an objective steward of the environment and public health in an era when politics, rather than science, increasingly appear to set its agenda? In this episode of Energy Policy Now the Honorable Gina McCarthy, Administrator of the EPA during President Barack Obama’s second term, weighs in on the EPA’s current policy direction, the Trump administration’s attack on climate science, and the practical impact of a Clean Power Plan rollback on carbon reduction. Gina McCarthy served as EPA Administrator from 2013 to 2017 under President Barack Obama. She recorded this podcast during her visit to the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, to receive the Center’s annual Carnot Prize in celebration of her contributions to environmental policy and to securing a sustainable energy future during her tenure with the EPA. She is currently Menschel Senior Fellow at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Related Content from the Kleinman Center Perry’s Regulatory Curve Ball to Bailout Baseload: http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2017/09/29/perry’s-regulatory-curve-ball-bailout-baseload Reconciling Subsidized Resources in PJM’s Competitive Electricity Markets: http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/reconciling-subsidized-resources Energy Storage in PJM: http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/energy-storage-pjm Hot Topics on Climate Change: http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/hot-topics-climate-change Zero Emissions Credits: An Overview: http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2017/08/31/zero-emissions-credits-overview Shot and Chaser: http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2017/08/21/shot-and-chaser The Carbon Tax: http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/carbon-tax

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Can tightly regulated coal mining help undo decades worth of environmental damage caused by the coal industry? A Pennsylvania DEP official, and a mining executive, discuss efforts to remediate water and land in the state’s Anthracite coal region. -- Pennsylvania’s economy has long been tied to its coal industry. In the 19th century the state’s pioneering coal companies fueled America’s industrial revolution, and thousands of mining sites opened over the decades that followed. Yet, over a century later, many of Pennsylvania’s coal mines have closed as the resource’s primacy has waned. John Stefanko, Deputy Secretary for the Office of Active and Abandoned Mine Operations at Pennsylvania’s DEP, and Greg Driscoll, Chief Executive of Blaschak Coal Company, look at the environmental damage that remains after mines have been abandoned, and on cooperation between today’s coal industry, and regulators, to clean up some of that damage. The focus is on the Anthracite coal industry of Northeastern Pennsylvania, where the remains of a once large coal industry attempts to find profits, while bearing costs for cleaning up the damage of past decades. John Stefanko is Deputy Secretary for the Office of Active and Abandoned Mine Operations at Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection. Related Content: The Carbon Tax: http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/carbon-tax Ending Fossil Fuel Tax Subsidies: http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/ending-fossil-fuel-tax-subsidies Comparative Pathways to Regional Energy Transition: http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/pathways Revitalizing Coal Communities: http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/paper/revitalizing-coal-communities

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The electric vehicle market seems poised to take off, with high demand for Tesla’s Model 3 and growing attention from big automakers. Yet challenges that stalled EV growth in the past, namely sparse charging infrastructure and high costs, persist. A Wharton School expert looks at the role policymakers can take to support, or sink, the EV renaissance. --- Thanks for joining the Energy Policy Now podcast for our first episode of Season 2. These are exciting times for fans of electric vehicles. Tesla, the Silicon Valley electric car maker, recently introduced its long awaited, relatively affordable Model 3, complete with a huge order backlog. Also recently, the governments of France and the UK announced their goal to phase out the sale of new gas and diesel cars within a generation, opening the door to electrics. Yet in the US the electric vehicle market has looked poised for breakthrough in the past, only to disappoint. In the 1990s General Motors developed a promising electric car, the EV1, that it subsequently sought to erase from common memory. And a century ago, around the time that Henry Ford introduced the Model T, electric cars were common. Yet they ultimately all but disappeared. John Paul MacDuffie, an expert on EV policy at the Wharton School, takes a look at policies that might help electric cars stick this time around, and at innovative government interventions that are already fueling EV markets abroad. John Paul MacDuffie is a professor of Management at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and Director of the Program on Vehicle and Mobility Innovation, an international research consortium focused on the global automotive industry. Related Content from the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy: Ending Fossil Fuel Tax Subsidies http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/ending-fossil-fuel-tax-subsidies Stalled: Make Big Trucks More Fuel Efficient http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/stalled-make-big-trucks-more-fuel-efficient Future Energy Demands on the Global Aviation Industry http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/future-energy-demands-global-aviation-energy

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The Trump Administration has framed regulation as a drag on the economy and jobs. Yet how much do we really understand about the true benefits and costs of protecting the environment? Two legal and regulatory experts weigh in. --- Early in his administration, President Trump vowed to focus on rolling back regulatory oversight of the energy industry and to lift the regulatory burden on business. Conspicuously absent from two of Trump’s early executive orders targeting environmental oversight, however, was any mention of the benefits that regulation has brought in the areas of environment and health. Regulatory experts Alan Krupnick, Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future, and Cary Coglianese, Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Program on Regulation, take a look at the benefit-cost equation underlying the development of regulations, and at the actual benefits, and costs, of key policies. Alan Krupnick’s work at Resources for the Future focuses on analyzing energy and environmental issues, in particular the design of pollution and energy strategies. He was a senior economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisors during the Clinton Administration, and president of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. Cary Coglianese is the Edward B. Shils Professor of Law, and Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in the study of regulation and regulatory processes and has served as an advisor to the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency. He is the founder of the Regulatory Review, the flagship publication of the Penn Program on Regulation.

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Recent financial bailouts of nuclear reactors in New York and Illinois highlight the conflict between states’ environmental goals and the integrity of electricity markets. As more states weigh subsidies, debate over their market impact and legality expand. --- In 2016 New York and Illinois became the first states to provide direct subsidies to the nuclear power industry, with the goal of keeping economically uncompetitive reactors operating within their borders. The states deemed the nuclear plants, which generate electricity without producing carbon dioxide, as critical to their efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. Yet the bailouts proved contentious in the two states, and the controversy over subsidies is now spreading to a handful of other states weighing similar bailouts. Opponents object to subsidies cost, and argue that they may discourage investment in other new forms of generation, such as natural gas and renewables. And the very legality of the bailouts is now being reviewed in court. In this episode, Christina Simeone, the Kleinman Center’s Director of Regulatory and External Affairs, and David Cherney, an energy industry advisor in the Energy & Utilities Practice at PA Consulting Group in Denver, will examine the roots of nuclear’s financial woes, and the widening debate around nuclear power’s role in decarbonization of the electricity sector. Christina Simeone is Director of Policy and External Affairs at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a past Director of the PennFuture Energy Center for Enterprise and Environment. She also worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and was Policy Director at the Alliance for Climate Protection. David Cherney’s work at PA Consulting Group spans public policy analysis, energy infrastructure investment, and utility strategy. He has also worked as an Adjunct Professor in Public Policy at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies and as a Teaching Fellow at Yale University.

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ProPublica's Alec MacGillis discusses his recent New Yorker magazine article on Germany’s protracted struggle to wean itself off of coal.
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Germany has earned a reputation as a leader in the effort to lower greenhouse gas emissions, and today counts some of the highest rates of renewable energy in the world.

Yet one of the continuing ironies of Germany’s energy transition is that the country remains very much dependent on coal-fired generation, which last year provided over a quarter of its electricity. In fact, as Germany pursues steep reductions in emissions, it also plans to continue mining and burning coal nearly to the end of the 2030s.

ProPublica reporter Alec MacGillis discusses his recent New Yorker magazine article on Germany’s challenging exit from coal, and the fuel’s sustaining, and uniquely destructive relationship with German communities.

MacGillis’ article, “Can Germany Show Us How to Leave Coal Behind?”, was published in the January 31, 2022 issue of The New Yorker, and on ProPublica.org.

Alec MacGillis is a reporter with ProPublica.
 
Related Content
Nuclear Energy Meets Climate Change https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/nuclear-energy-meets-climate-change/
 
Electricity Storage and Renewables: How Investments Change as Technology Improves  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/electricity-storage-and-renewables-how-investments-change-as-technology-improves/

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Rising global LNG demand points to a strong future for U.S. LNG exports. But ESG concerns loom.

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Over the past decade, fracking technology has driven unprecedented growth in American natural gas production. Gas now powers 40% of U.S. electricity generation, and is also the most important fuel for home heating. And the U.S. is on track to become the world’s number one exporter of liquified natural gas in 2022, as Asia and Europe compete to pay top dollar for shipments of LNG. 

On the face of things, the outlook couldn’t be better for U.S. gas producers. Yet, the industry’s dramatic growth coincides with an accelerating shift toward clean energy technology, growing investor ESG concerns around the use of natural gas, and political division over gas exports. Gas producers must now weigh near term market opportunity against these longer term risks.     

Robert Johnston, managing director of Eurasia Group’s Energy, Climate and Resources practice, and a research scholar at Columbia University’s Center for Global Energy Policy, discusses the complex range of domestic and global dynamics that are shaping the future of the U.S. natural gas industry.

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Leveraging Clean Energy to Alleviate Regional Water Stress https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/leveraging-clean-energy-to-alleviate-regional-water-stress/ 

Nuclear Energy Meets Climate Change https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/nuclear-energy-meets-climate-change/

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A financier discusses the challenge of managing clean energy investment risk.
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The transition to a clean U.S. energy system, including carbon-free electricity by the middle of the next decade, will be fueled by massive investment from government and industry and through the provision of green finance from banks and investors. 

Brian Lehman, the Head of Green Economy Banking at JP Morgan Chase, discusses the challenge of defining clean and sustainable investment in an age where uniform sustainability standards don’t yet exist. He also looks at how government policy might accelerate clean energy finance, and at the types of energy projects and technologies that are attracting attention from green financiers.

 
The Carbon Shock: Investor Response to the British Columbia Carbon Tax
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Beyond Prices and Quantities: Greening Policies Under Sectoral Reforms in Argentina https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/beyond-prices-and-quantities-greening-policies-under-sectoral-reforms-in-argentina/

Climate Tech for Real Estate: The Elephant in the Room. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/climate-tech-for-real-estate-the-elephant-in-the-room/

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A climate economist discusses why efforts to cool earth’s climate through solar geoengineering appear all but inevitable, and considers the policy questions and political battles to come.
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There is no overarching, national debate into the merits of solar geoengineering, which is process to artificially cool the Earth by reflecting sunlight back into space. The technology sounds fanciful, the stuff of science fiction. Yet earlier this year the National Academies of Sciences issued an urgent request to Washington to begin a federal research program into geoengineering. That request has, so far, largely fallen on deaf ears.

Climate economist Gernot Wagner believes solar geoengineering is inevitable despite the relative lack of attention the technology has attracted to date. In a recently published book he makes the case for this inevitability, and also presents a compelling argument for why much more research into geoengineering’s risks must be completed if is to be put into practice. In the podcast, he explores why solar geoengineering is fundamentally different from other strategies that address climate change, and why research programs into the technology must be tightly governed. He also discusses concern that solar geoengineering’s implementation, if inevitable, is likely to stoke fierce policy debate and, quite possibly, geopolitical tensions.

Gernot Wagner is a climate economist at New York University and author of the recently published book Geoengineering: the Gamble. He is also co-author of Climate Shock, which was chosen by the Financial Times as a best book in economics in 2015.

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Can We Measure Successful Climate Adaptation? https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/news-insights/can-we-measure-successful-climate-adaptation/ 

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https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/guidelines-for-successful-sustainable-nature-based-solutions/ 

Harvesting the Sun: On-Farm Opportunities and Challenges for Solar Development https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/harvesting-the-sun-on-farm-opportunities-and-challenges-for-solar-development/ 

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Who will pay for the electric grid of the future? The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission explores options to incentivize and finance a vast transmission network to support clean energy.

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Much of the fossil fuel generation fleet in the United States will be replaced by renewable energy resources as the country’s electricity system is decarbonized. Yet it remains unclear how the vast network of high-voltage transmission lines needed to connect clean energy resources will be planned and paid for. 

Marc Montalvo, president and CEO of Daymark Energy Advisors and former director of risk management and market development at ISO New England, looks at why existing means of planning electric transmission are not up to the task of delivering a low-carbon grid. He also discusses recent action by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the nation’s electric grid regulator, to explore ways to incentivize the construction of new transmission and support the expansion of renewable energy. 

Marc Montalvo is president and CEO of Daymark Energy Advisors. Marc has 25 years of market and regulatory experience in the electricity industry, including in senior roles at ISO New England. 

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The Opportunities and Limitations of Seasonal Energy Storage https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/the-opportunities-and-limitations-of-seasonal-energy-storage/

Why Is It So Hard to Build the Electric Grid of the Future? https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/podcast/why-is-it-so-hard-to-build-the-electric-grid-of-the-future/

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China’s leadership must navigate conflicting agendas, and threats to domestic political stability, as it seeks to rein in global warming emissions.

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China has adopted a relatively low profile of late when it comes to addressing climate change. At the COP 26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, the most notable headline concerning China may in fact have been the failure of its President, Chi Jinping, to attend or address the conference directly. The Chinese leader’s absence was remarkable given the country’s position as the top global emitter of greenhouse gasses, and also in light of the leadership role that China has taken at other global climate conferences over the past few years.

Scott Moore, Director of China Programs and Strategic Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, looks at factors that have contributed to China’s recent avoidance of the climate spotlight, including an ongoing energy crisis that threatens the nation’s economic growth. More broadly, he discusses the political vulnerabilities that the pursuit of a low carbon energy system presents for China’s governing powers, and how these considerations may shape the country’s future climate action, and the pace of its energy transition.

Scott Moore is a political scientist and Director of China Programs and Strategic Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania.

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The Essential Role of Negative Emissions in Getting to Carbon Neutral https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/the-essential-role-of-negative-emissions-in-getting-to-carbon-neutral/ 

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An unprecedented backlog of clean energy projects is in line to join PJM Interconnection, an electricity market serving one in five Americans. 
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PJM Interconnection, the largest wholesale electricity market in the U.S., is on the verge of going solar in a big way. The market, which encompasses 13 states from the mid-Atlantic shore, through fossil fuel-rich Pennsylvania and Ohio and as far West as Illinois, has a massive backlog of clean energy projects of all types that are waiting to be built, with solar foremost among them. In fact, the amount of clean energy in line to join PJM totals more than all of the generation capacity that exists in the market today.

Mike Borgatti, Vice President of RTO Services and Regulatory Affairs at Gabel Associates, discusses the unprecedented number of new clean energy projects that are lined up in PJM’s interconnection queue, and the policy and economic factors that are driving the shift to solar, wind and storage. He also takes a look at the decline in the number of natural gas projects waiting to enter the market, and what all of these developments may mean for the future power mix.

Mike Borgatti is Vice President of RTO Services and Regulatory Affairs at Gabel Associates, an energy, environmental and public utility consulting company.

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As Climate Concerns Rise, What Role Will Natural Gas Play? https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/podcast/as-climate-concerns-rise-what-role-will-natural-gas-play/

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A climate economist looks at the impact that the stranding of fossil fuel assets may have on communities, and at policies that might mitigate economic hardship. 
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As pressure builds to decarbonize the global energy system, much of today’s energy infrastructure is becoming obsolete. Over the past decade more than half of the coal fired power plants in the United States have closed as coal generation has been replaced by natural gas and renewables, while coal plants elsewhere, such as in China, increasingly operate at a financial loss.  

The value of certain fossil energy reserves has fallen too. The stock market decline of major energy companies such as ExxonMobil, once the most valuable company in the world, has come as expectations for future oil demand have fallen, making these companies’ vast underground oil reserves look less valuable today. And the natural gas industry faces an uncertain future as the role that gas can, and should play in tomorrow’s clean system is debated.  

What all of this means is that some portion of fossil fuel companies’ investments in reserves and infrastructure will lose its value, and become what economists call stranded assets. The prospect of stranded energy assets raises concern among investors, and policymakers who must juggle near term economic interests with essential climate goals. 

University of Southern California economist Matthew Kahn discusses the growing concern over stranded energy assets, and looks at some of the people and places that may suffer when the value of assets drops. He also explores policy solutions to address the problem of stranded assets while taking vulnerable communities into account.

Matthew Kahn is the Provost Professor of Economics and Spatial Sciences at the University of Southern California.

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Electricity Storage and Renewables: How Investments Change as Technology Improves https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/electricity-storage-and-renewables-how-investments-change-as-technology-improves/

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Hurricane Ida was the most recent storm to wreak havoc on Louisiana’s electric grid.  A legal expert discusses the struggle to provide resilient power in the state as weather and climate risks grow.

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The year 2021 has seen an unprecedented number of large-scale electric grid failures driven by extreme weather. Over the winter, severe cold led to the collapse of Texas’ electricity system, while in California an aging electric grid has sparked wildfires in a state that has endured two decades of drought. Most recently, Hurricanes Ida and Nicholas knocked out electric lines along the Gulf Coast, leaving tens of thousands of residents without power, many for weeks.

What all of these electricity system failures have in common, apart from the lives that they have cost, is that they are likely to be repeated unless the electric grid can be made more resilient.

Robert Verchick, a professor of environmental law at Loyola University in New Orleans, discusses the challenge of making the electric grid resilient in Louisiana, a state that arguably has the longest record of combating climate-related natural disasters and the electric grid destruction they cause.

Verchick explores why Louisiana has so far failed to adequately address the threat to its electric grid, and discusses recent initiatives in the state to develop a more robust, and greener grid even as resistance to such efforts continues.

Robert Verchick is the Gauthier-St. Martin Chair in Environmental Law at Loyola University New Orleans and president of the Center for Progressive Reform. He is also a member of Louisiana Governor John Bel Edward’s Climate Initiatives Task Force.

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https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/electricity-storage-and-renewables-how-investments-change-as-technology-improves/ 

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A leading energy economist explores the cost of electrifying home heating, the top source of energy demand and carbon emissions in American homes.
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Residential homes account for one fifth of America’s energy consumption, with the largest part of that consumption going toward home heating. In the U.S., more homes are heated with natural gas than any other fuel, a fact that has drawn the attention of policymakers as momentum builds to reduce fossil fuel consumption.  

Recently, a number of cities have sought to curtail residential gas use by introducing policies to promote home electrification and, more controversially, through bans that prohibit gas hookups in new homes. While it’s still too early to tell how politically viable, and ultimately effective these efforts will be, what is clear is that the urgency to electrify everything will only intensify as more municipalities, states, and the federal government set ambitious decarbonization goals for the years to come.

Lucas Davis, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, offers a look at the drive to electrify home heating. His recent research examines what motivates households to choose to electrify, how much Americans may be willing to pay in the process, and how this understanding could be used to focus policies that drive rapid and equitable electrification of American homes.   

Lucas Davis is an economist at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and a visiting scholar at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. His research focuses on energy and environmental markets.  

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Rare earth elements are essential to many clean energy technologies, yet their production can bring severe environmental impacts. A new report grapples with rare earths' environmental negatives and efforts to diversify supply beyond China.
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 In 2010 China withheld shipment of rare earth elements to Japan during a territorial dispute between the two countries. Rare earths, a grouping of 17 difficult to mine elements, are essential in the manufacture of goods such as cell phones and computer hard drives. They’re also a critical element in wind turbines and electric vehicle motors.
  
 Today, China is the source of 85% of the world’s supply of refined rare earths, a fact that has raised concern in the United States given the growth of Chinese-American diplomatic tensions and rising demand for clean energy technologies. Any future disruption in the supply of the metals, similar to that experienced by Japan a decade ago, could have a crippling effect on clean energy development in the U.S. and elsewhere.
  
 In the podcast, authors of the recent Kleinman Center report, Rare Earth Elements: A Resource Constraint of the Energy Transition, discuss the market for rare earths, explain why they are so important to clean energy, and examine growing calls to diversify global supply.  The authors, Amy Chu of Mills College, and Oscar Serpell of the Kleinman Center, also talk about the high environmental impact of rare earths production, a reality that is at odds with the environmental promise of clean energy.
  
 Amy Chu is an assistant professor of chemistry at Mills College.  Oscar Serpell is Associate Director of Academic Programming here at the Kleinman Center. Their report, Rare Earth Elements: A Resource Constraint of the Energy Transition, was funded by the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.
  
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Electric Vehicles in the City  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/electric-vehicles-in-the-city-the-relationship-of-ev-infrastructure-and-spatial-development-in-beijing/ 

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The head of the International Energy Agency’s gas division discusses the outlook for natural gas as global efforts to address carbon emissions intensify.

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Natural gas may be the most controversial of all fossil fuels. It has been heralded as a lower carbon alternative to coal as a fuel for electricity generation. At the same time, natural gas-fired generators have proven themselves to be a reliable backup for intermittent wind and solar power, and gas is viewed as an enabler of an increasingly renewables-based electric grid.   

Yet natural gas is nonetheless a fossil fuel whose global consumption is on the rise even as a growing number of countries have set out to zero out carbon emissions from their energy systems within the coming two decades.  

Peter Fraser, head of the Gas, Coal and Power Markets Division at the International Energy Agency, examines present and future demand for natural gas, and the growing perception of risk that accompanies investment in major natural gas infrastructure projects should demand for gas soften. He also discusses the technologies that must be developed to ensure the cleanest possible gas supply, and to enable a shift to non-gas alternatives.  

Peter Fraser heads the Gas, Coal and Power Markets Division at the International Energy Agency. His work includes the IEA Outlooks used by governments and industry to understand the direction of the global energy sector.

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America’s electric grid is ill-equipped to enable the low carbon energy system of the future.  A grid policy expert explores the policy and economic changes that will be needed to bring the grid up to date. 

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There is little doubt that the electricity system of the future will look very different from the system that we have today. In the U.S., a growing number of states and the federal government have set 100% clean energy goals for the middle of this century or earlier. The growing demand for clean energy is already evident in fact that wind and solar power now account for the overwhelming majority of new additions to the nation’s power generation fleet.   

Yet building an electricity grid to accommodate large amounts of renewable energy raises a host of challenges. The most important of these will be to manage the intermittent nature of wind and solar energy to ensure that reliable power is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

Rob Gramlich, President of Grid Strategies and a former economic advisor to the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, discusses strategies to manage all that clean energy, and the hurdles that will need to be overcome to expand the nation’s electric grid and allow wind and solar power to be reliably transmitted, often over hundreds of miles of power lines, to markets throughout the country. To reach this goal, existing frameworks used to plan and pay for electric transmission may need to be fundamentally reworked. 

Rob Gramlich is President of Grid Strategies, which provides engineering, economic, and policy analysis for the electric power system. Rob is also Director of Americans for a Clean Energy Grid, the Watt Coalition, and he is a former economic advisor to the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. 

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Congress has directed the nation’s regulator for natural gas and electricity infrastructure to be more responsive to community and environmental concerns. Will FERC’s new Office of Public Participation deliver on the promise of public inclusion?

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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission increasingly finds itself at the center of controversy as momentum in the United States builds for a cleaner and more sustainable energy system. 

As the regulator of the nation’s natural gas and electricity networks, the FERC’s job includes the review of applications for new gas pipelines and electric transmission, and FERC commissioners spend a great deal of time assessing the arguments of energy industry legal teams in favor of a given project.

Yet, some argue that the FERC has lost sight of what may be its most important role, which is to guard the public interest, including that of communities and landowners who are most directly affected by the development of energy infrastructure. In fact, community and environmental concerns often find it frustratingly complex, and expensive, to navigate the highly technocratic agency, with the result that public voices may not be adequately heard before the agency.

In response, in December Congress mandated that the FERC present a plan to establish an Office of Public Participation, with the goal to assist the public in taking part in complex FERC proceedings and ensuring that community and landowner concerns are taken into full account. Details of the plan are due to lawmakers by the end of June.

In the podcast Shelly Welton, associate professor at the University of South Carolina Law School, discusses the mandate of the Office of Public Participation, and the challenge of designing the office in a way that ensures that public views are not just voiced, but actively taken into FERC’s decision making process. She also explores why the public can find the FERC such a difficult agency to engage.

Shelley Welton is an associate professor of Law at the University of South Carolina Law School. Her work focuses on the impact of climate change on energy and environmental law.

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Heidi Binko, Executive Director of the Just Transition Fund, discusses the challenges coal communities face in adapting to a post-coal future, and strategies for economic transition.

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Over the past decade the number of workers directly employed in the U.S. coal industry has fallen by half, as coal has been replaced by cheaper sources of energy such as natural gas and renewable power. From the Appalachian mountains in the East, to the Powder River Basin and tribal communities in the West, the continued decline of the coal industry has been devastating, depriving workers of livelihoods, and towns of revenue to support essential services.

Yet coal communities often have a deep sense of place, and the drive to remain, reinvent, and rebuild is strong.

Heidi Binko, Executive Director of the Just Transition Fund, discusses the impact on coal-dependent communities when the industries that sustain them leave, and looks at efforts of the same communities to find new paths of development and create economically diverse and sustainable futures. She also offers a view of strategies that may help communities facing transition.

Heidi Binko is Executive Director of the Just Transition Fund, an organization that provides access to funding and technical assistance for coal communities.

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Rebalancing Renewable Energy Goals with Community Interests https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/balancing-renewable-energy-goals-with-community-interests/

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Sheila Oparaocha of the International Network on Gender and Sustainability discusses the global effort to ensure gender equality in energy access, as an essential foundation for economic development and public health. 

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One billion people around the world lack access to electricity, and three times as many do not have access to fuel and appliances that allow for clean and safe cooking inside the home. The lack of clean and reliable energy is a major barrier to economic development and an ongoing threat to human health in some of the poorest parts of the globe.

Sheila Oparaocha, the recipient of the Kleinman Center’s 2021 Carnot Prize for outstanding contributions in energy policy, discusses efforts to bring access to reliable, affordable and clean energy to areas in need, and ensure that energy becomes a foundation of economic development that is available to women and men alike.

Oparaocha is the International Coordinator of ENERGIA, the International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy. ENERGIA partners with governments and industry to provide women with access to finance, training and technical skills to build energy-based businesses. It also works with governments and other key actors to integrate gender-responsive approaches in energy policies, programs and projects.

Sheila Oparaocha is the International Coordinator of ENERGIA, the International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy.

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Mongolian Energy Futures: Repowering Ulaanbaatar https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/mongolian-energy-futures-repowering-ulaanbaatar-challenges-of-radical-energy-sector-decarbonization/ 

Balancing Renewable Energy Goals with Community Interests https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/balancing-renewable-energy-goals-with-community-interests/

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Nature-based climate solutions can play a major role in climate change mitigation and adaptation. But biodiversity risks, and community impacts, loom large.

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Technology often seems to be the focus when conversation turns to solutions to address climate change. Clean energy, carbon capture and even geoengineering dominate headlines and attract the attention of climate-focused investors. When it comes to protecting coastal communities, infrastructure projects like sea walls and raised roads likewise grab attention, particularly after extreme weather events.

Yet, nature itself is likely to play just as important a role as engineered solutions in our efforts to slow climate change and navigate its worst impacts. Today, scientists and some policymakers are aggressively exploring the potential of nature-based solutions to help us slow and adapt to climate change.

Nathalie Seddon, a professor of biodiversity at the University of Oxford, discusses the promise, challenges and potential moral hazards of nature-based climate solutions. Seddon explains what qualifies as a nature based-solution, and looks at the community and biodiversity impacts that need to be taken into account when putting nature-based solutions into action. She also looks at efforts to quantify the benefits of natural climate solutions as a means to accelerate investment.

Nathalie Seddon is a professor of biodiversity at the University of Oxford and founding director of the Nature-based Solutions Initiative.

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One-third of American households struggle to afford basic energy needs. The University of Michigan’s Tony Reames explores the role of policy in overcoming energy poverty.
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Energy justice and poverty have come to the forefront of public dialogue, and are part of long-standing inequities that continue to persist in the United States. In this country, one-third of households struggle pay for their basic energy needs. In response, federal and state agencies have turned increasing attention toward policies that might alleviate the energy cost burden.

Yet the success of these policies has been mixed, and in many cases programs that might reduce energy burden, such as through increased energy efficiency, have been shown to provide least benefit to communities that need them most. 

Tony Reames, leader of the Urban Energy Justice Lab at the University of Michigan and visiting scholar at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, discusses energy poverty in the United States and the challenge of effectively addressing the problem through public policy solutions. Reames also looks at the socioeconomic, racial and geographic underpinnings of energy poverty, and some of the historic factors that have contributed to inequities.

Tony Reames is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan, leader of the Urban Energy Justice Lab, and a visiting scholar at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. His work focuses on energy justice, and on disparities in residential energy generation, consumption and affordability.

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President Biden will rely upon regulatory agencies like the EPA to push his ambitious clean energy and climate agenda. Yet increasingly conservative courts could stand in the way of Biden’s plans.
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President Joe Biden has set an ambitious clean energy and environmental agenda that includes a $2 trillion infrastructure and climate plan, and a renewed commitment to the Paris Climate agreement. To achieve his climate goals, Biden is likely to rely on regulatory agencies, such as the EPA, to craft rules to limit the climate impact of the country’s energy, transportation and related industries.  

Yet Biden’s need for new, climate-focused rules arguably couldn’t come at a more inopportune time.  New regulations often face legal challenge in the nation’s courts. The most prominent of those courts, the Supreme Court, has turned increasingly conservative, and many legal experts expect it to be generally less supportive of environmental regulations argued before it.  

On the podcast, Cary Coglianese, Director of the Penn Program on Regulation at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, explores the challenge that a conservative Supreme Court may pose for President Biden’s clean energy and climate agenda. Coglianese also looks at how the legal philosophies of the court’s newest conservative members might guide their decisions on climate-related issues.  

Cary Coglianese is the Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and Director of the Penn Program on Regulation.

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Balancing Renewable Energy Goals With Community Interests  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/balancing-renewable-energy-goals-with-community-interests/

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Carbon Dioxide Removal is an industrial-scale strategy to hold climate change in check. Five experts weigh in on CDR’s potential, challenges and moral hazards.

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The global effort to slow the pace of climate change will require that two basic strategies be implemented on a massive scale. The first strategy is well known, and involves shifting away from today’s fossil-fuel dependent energy system, and toward a future where nearly everything will run on electricity produced by zero-carbon resources.

The second part of the effort to combat climate change has, until recently, attracted relatively less attention. Carbon dioxide removal is the process of removing carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere. CDR can be used to offset some of today’s CO2 emissions, and might some day even be able to turn back the clock, by lowering the concentration of atmospheric carbon to levels that existed on an earlier, less hot Earth. CDR will be a key part of any plan to reach net-zero carbon emissions by the middle of this century, as the United States, the European Union, and a growing number of countries have proposed to do.

In the podcast, five experts discuss CDR in its many forms, from cutting edge technologies to fundamental nature-based processes, and explore the complex, industrial-scale undertaking that will be required to remove CO2 at scale. The guests, whose research is available in the newly published, online CDR Primer, also look at potential moral hazards, equity challenges and unforeseen consequences of carbon dioxide removal.

Erica L. Belmont is Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wyoming.

Jeremy Freeman is Executive Director at CarbonPlan

Noah McQueen is a Ph.D. student in Chemical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania

Peter Psarras is research assistant professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania

Toly Rinberg is an Applied Physics Ph.D. Student at Harvard University

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Have We Reached Peak Carbon Emissions? https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/have-we-reached-peak-carbon-emissions/

The Essential Role of Negative Emissions in Getting to Carbon Neutral https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/the-essential-role-of-negative-emissions-in-getting-to-carbon-neutral/

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Corporate renewable energy deals equaled a quarter of total U.S. electric power additions in 2020. The Renewable Energy Buyer’s Alliance talks policies to accelerate clean energy purchasing.

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Corporate America’s appetite for renewable energy is booming. In 2020, large businesses signed deals for over 10 GW of new clean generation, equal to a quarter of the total electric power capacity added in the United States for the year. The growth in corporate deals for clean power comes as the price of renewable energy has fallen, and as companies have increasingly felt pressure from the public, investors, and their own employees to address their climate impact.  

Miranda Ballentine, CEO of the Renewable Energy Buyer’s Alliance, and Bryn Baker, REBA’s director of policy innovation, discuss the factors that are driving American corporations to make more, and bigger bets on clean energy. The pair also talk about how state and federal policy influences the rate of clean energy procurement, and policy changes that might accelerate development. The Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance is an industry association that represents the U.S.’s largest corporate clean energy buyers.

Miranda Ballentine is Chief Executive Officer of the Renewable Energy Buyer’s Alliance. Bryn Baker is REBA’s Director of Policy Innovation.

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Have We Reached Peak Carbon Emissions? https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/have-we-reached-peak-carbon-emissions/

Balancing Renewable Energy Goals with Community Interests https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/balancing-renewable-energy-goals-with-community-interests/

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The U.S. forfeited leadership in the global effort to combat climate change when it left the Paris Agreement. Now back, will the U.S. resume its former role?

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On Friday, February the 19th, the United States officially rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement, bringing to an end an extended period of national disengagement from the global effort to address climate change. As the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gasses, and today’s second largest emitter behind China, U.S. engagement is critical to the global effort to address climate change.

Yet the climate framework that the U.S. abandoned under the Trump administration looks different today. The U.S., rather than being a clear leader on climate issues, is embarking on an effort to rebuild trust and reassure the world that it will remain committed to addressing climate change, while the relative influence in of China, Europe and other regions has grown in global climate dialogue.

Joanna Lewis, Director of the Science, Technology and International Affairs Program at Georgetown University, discusses how the Paris Climate framework, and the global hierarchy of climate leadership, has changed in recent years. She also looks at the barriers that U.S.-China trade tensions may present to climate cooperation as the U.S. rejoins the Paris process.  

Joanna Lewis is Director of the Science, Technology and International Affairs Program at Georgetown University. She is also a Strategic Advisor to the China Energy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.

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It’s Ideology Stupid: Why Voters Still Shun Carbon Taxes https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/its-ideology-stupid-why-voters-still-shun-carbon-taxes/

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New research disproves the assumption that exposure to climate-related natural disasters motivates people to support climate policy.   

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A common assumption is that direct exposure to climate-related disasters such as severe wildfires and flooding motivates people to support policy to address climate change. Yet new research proves that this assumption doesn’t hold up in reality.

Matto Mildenberger, assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, discusses research, conducted in the aftermath of recent California wildfires, that dispels the notion that personal experience with climate-related disasters automatically drives support for policy-driven climate solutions. He also explores how efforts the inform people of personal climate risk can be counterproductive to climate action, and looks at alternate communications strategies that may prove more effective.

Matto Mildenberger is an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His work focuses on the political drivers of policy inaction in the face of climate change

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Climate Adaptation Strategies: How Do We “Manage” Managed Retreat? https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/climate-adaptation-strategies-how-do-we-manage-managed-retreat/

Balancing Renewable Energy Goals With Community Interests https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/balancing-renewable-energy-goals-with-community-interests/

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New Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has been tasked with combating climate change.  What climate action is the Treasury likely to take under her leadership?
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Joe Biden has made the fight against climate change a focus of his new administration. Consistent with that focus is his appointment of Janet Yellen, a former Federal Reserve chairman and an advocate for climate action, to the role of Secretary of the Treasury.

The Treasury Department is responsible for guarding the United States’ economic health. While much of its work during the early months of the Biden Administration will be to help the country to navigate the ongoing economic impacts of the COVID pandemic, economic damages due to climate change have become more apparent in recent years, and the need for the Treasury to take action on the climate front has also become clear.

Joseph Aldy, an energy and climate economist at Harvard University, explores the steps that the new Treasury Secretary can take to address climate change, including the tools that the economic agency might employ to set its own climate policies, and influence climate action in other areas of government. Aldy also discusses the Treasury’s power to influence global climate action as the country’s chief economic diplomat.

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Green Energy & National Security: A Fresh Perspective https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/news-insights/green-energy-national-security-a-fresh-perspective/

Innovation In Isolation: Islands And The Energy Transition https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/?exposed_related_research_area%5B%5D=331

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Hydrogen energy is a key part of Europe’s plan to zero out carbon emissions by mid-century. But can the bloc build hydrogen capacity, and demand, in time to reach its goal?

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In August the European Commission introduced its strategy to aggressively expand the market for hydrogen energy as part of its plan to go carbon neutral by the year 2050. The plan envisions using green hydrogen, produced mainly with wind and solar power, as an energy resource in a broad array of industries. In particular, the EU hopes that hydrogen will help it reduce carbon emissions in industries that are deeply dependent on fossil fuels, such as steel production and air travel, and for which there are few other decarbonization options.

Kirsten Westphal, a member of Germany’s National Hydrogen Council, discusses the challenge of growing clean hydrogen supply and demand quickly enough to create a carbon-neutral economy in just 30 years. Westphal also talks about Germany’s plans, as Europe’s largest economy, to finance and build hydrogen infrastructure, as well as the prospects for a truly international hydrogen market.

Kirsten Westphal is a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, and a member of Germany’s National Hydrogen Council.

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The Essential Role of Negative Emissions in Getting to Carbon Neutral  https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/research/publications/the-essential-role-of-negative-emissions-in-getting-to-carbon-neutral/

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