Climate Change

Climate Change

The U.S. Has Billions for Wind and Solar Projects. Good Luck Plugging Them In

The U.S. Has Billions for Wind and Solar Projects. Good Luck Plugging Them In.

Author: Brad Plumer

Wind and Solar Projects

An explosion in proposed clean energy ventures has overwhelmed the system for connecting new power sources to homes and businesses.

Plans to install 3,000 acres of solar panels in Kentucky and Virginia are delayed for years. Wind farms in Minnesota and North Dakota have been abruptly canceled. And programs to encourage Massachusetts and Maine residents to adopt solar power are faltering.

The energy transition poised for takeoff in the United States amid record investment in wind, solar and other low-carbon technologies is facing a serious obstacle: The volume of projects has overwhelmed the nation’s antiquated systems to connect new sources of electricity to homes and businesses.

More than [8,100 energy projects](https://emp.lbl.gov/queues) — the vast majority of them wind, solar and batteries — were waiting for permission to connect to electric grids at the end of 2021, up from 5,600 the year before, jamming the system known as interconnection.

PJM Interconnection, which operates the nation’s largest regional grid, stretching from Illinois to New Jersey, has been so inundated by connection requests that last year it [announced a freeze on new applications](https://insidelines.pjm.com/ferc-approves-interconnection-process-reform-plan/) until 2026, so that it can work through a backlog of thousands of proposals, mostly for renewable energy.

Fewer than one-fifth of solar and wind proposals actually make it through the so-called interconnection queue, [according to research](https://emp.lbl.gov/news/record-amounts-zero-carbon-electricity) from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The landmark climate bill he signed last year [provides $370 billion in subsidies](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/08/02/climate/manchin-deal-emissions-cuts.html) to help make low-carbon energy technologies — like wind, solar, nuclear or batteries — cheaper than fossil fuels.

But the law does little to address many practical barriers to building clean energy projects, such as [permitting holdups](https://thebulletin.org/2023/02/cutting-the-red-tape-for-cleaner-energy-the-pros-and-cons-of-permitting-reform/), [local opposition](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/30/climate/wind-farm-renewable-energy-fight.html) or transmission constraints. Unless those obstacles get resolved, experts say, there’s a risk that billions in federal subsidies won’t translate into the deep emissions cuts envisioned by lawmakers.

A potentially bigger problem for solar and wind is that, in many places around the country, the local grid is clogged, unable to absorb more power.

That means if a developer wants to build a new wind farm, it might have to pay not just for a simple connecting line, but also for deeper grid upgrades elsewhere.

These costs can be unpredictable. In 2018, EDP North America, a renewable energy developer, proposed a 100-megawatt wind farm in southwestern Minnesota, estimating it would have to spend $10 million connecting to the grid. But after the grid operator completed its analysis, EDP learned the upgrades would cost $80 million. It canceled the project.

A better approach, Mr. Gramlich said, would be for grid operators to plan transmission upgrades that are broadly beneficial and spread the costs among a wider set of energy providers and users, rather than having individual developers fix the grid bit by bit, through a chaotic process.

As grid delays pile up, regulators have taken notice. Last year, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission proposed two major reforms to [streamline interconnection queues](https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/news/ferc-proposes-interconnection-reforms-address-queue-backlogs) and encourage grid operators to [do more long-term planning](https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/news/ferc-issues-transmission-nopr-addressing-planning-cost-allocation).

If the United States can’t fix its grid problems, it could struggle to tackle climate change. Researchers at the Princeton-led REPEAT project [recently estimated](https://repeatproject.org/docs/REPEAT_IRA_Transmission_2022-09-22.pdf) that new federal subsidies for clean energy could cut electricity emissions in half by 2030. But that assumes transmission capacity expands twice as fast over the next decade. If that doesn’t happen, the researchers found, emissions could actually increase as solar and wind get stymied and existing gas and coal plants run more often to power electric cars.

By Abe Mazliach, ago

Everything you need to know about the wild world of heat pumps

technologyreview.comby Casey Crownhart

We’re entering the era of the heat pump.

The concept behind heat pumps is simple: powered by electricity, they move heat around to either cool or heat buildings. It’s not a new idea—they were invented in the 1850s and have been used in homes since the 1960s. But all of a sudden, they’ve become the hottest home appliance, shoved into the spotlight by the potential for cost savings and climate benefits, as well as by recent policy incentives.

The hero in a heat pump is the refrigerant: a fluid that moves in a circuit, soaking up and releasing heat as it goes. Electricity powers the system, pushing the refrigerant around the cycle.

As the refrigerant moves through the heat pump, it’s compressed and expanded, switching between liquid and gas forms to allow it to gather and release heat at different points in the cycle. (If this is enough detail for you, feel free to skip to the next question. Otherwise, join me on a journey inside a heat pump to understand how this all works.)

In the first stage of its trek, the refrigerant flows through a heat exchanger, past that outside air and warms up enough to start boiling, changing from a liquid to a gas.

The second phase of its journey is a trip through the compressor. The compressor squeezes the refrigerant into a smaller volume, increasing its pressure and boiling point (this will become important in a minute). This also warms it further, so by the time the refrigerant is past the compressor, it’s warmer than the room indoors.

The third leg of the refrigerant’s journey takes it through another heat exchanger. But by now, the refrigerant is a warm gas, above 100 °F, and it’s flowing past a relatively colder room. As it transfers some of that heat into the room with the help of a fan, it starts turning back into a liquid.

Finally, in the fourth stage, the liquid refrigerant will go through an expansion valve, releasing the pressure. Just as squeezing a material heats it up, expanding it allows it to cool down again, so now the liquid is back to a low temperature and ready to absorb more heat to bring inside.

There are heat pumps running everywhere from Alaska to Maine in the US. And about 60% of buildings in Norway are heated with heat pumps, along with 40% in Sweden and Finland.

Today, a mixture of chemicals referred to as R-410A is one of the most widely used refrigerants in heat pumps. In addition to being slightly less harmful for the ozone layer, R-410A has a lower boiling point than R-22, meaning it can absorb more heat at lower temperatures, boosting efficiency in the cold.

Other components have improved as well. New compressors used in heat pumps today can get refrigerants to higher pressures using less power. There are also new so-called variable-speed compressors that allow heat pumps to ramp their power up and down. Finally, the heat exchangers that transfer heat between the air and the refrigerant are getting bigger and better, so they can move heat around more effectively.

Heat pumps’ real climate superpower is their efficiency. Heat pumps today can reach 300% to 400% efficiency or even higher, meaning they’re putting out three to four times as much energy in the form of heat as they’re using in electricity. For a space heater, the theoretical maximum would be 100% efficiency, and the best models today reach around 95% efficiency.

Up-front costs for heat pumps are a major barrier to adoption: purchasing and installing a single unit today can cost between $3,000 and $6,000, and larger homes often require multiple units.

In the US, the Inflation Reduction Act offers a 30% tax credit on the purchase price of a heat pump, with additional rebates for low- and moderate-income households. For some households, the funding could cover 100% of the cost. Rewiring America has a calculator to help people determine what IRA subsidies they qualify for.

New designs, like self-contained window units from startup Gradient, could cut down on installation costs. Other companies, like Midea and LG, have also started offering small, portable units. These new options could allow heat pumps to break into new spaces, like older apartment buildings where installation might otherwise be expensive or impossible.

Global heat pump sales grew by 15% in 2021. Europe has seen some of the quickest growth, with 35% sales growth in 2021, a trend that’s likely to continue because of the energy crisis. North America still has the largest number of homes with heat pumps installed today.

By Abe Mazliach, ago

‘Face it head on’: Connecticut makes climate change studies compulsory

theguardian.com

December 17, 2022

Enshrining the curriculum in law insulates the subject from budget cuts and culture wars related to the climate crisis.

  • Author: the Guardian
  • Category: article
  • URL: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/dec/17/climate-change-studies-connecticut

Starting next July, Connecticut will become one of the first states in America to mandate climate change studies across its public schools as part of its science curriculum.

The new law passed earlier this year comes as part of the state’s attempts to address concerns over the short duration – and in some cases, absence – of climate change studies in classrooms. The requirement follows in the footsteps of New Jersey, which in 2020 became the first state to mandate K-12 climate change education across its school districts.

Connecticut state representative Christine Palm

who is vice chair of the Connecticut general assembly’s environment committee, first launched her legislative efforts to pass a climate education mandate in 2018. Through various surveys and petitions, Palm found that to many students and educators, climate change education is either not being taught at all in schools or not being taught enough.

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), a set of K-12 science content standards, are currently adopted by Connecticut and include standards pertaining to climate change studies which more educators will rely on as the requirement kicks in next year. So far, only 20 states and DC have adopted the NGSS.

A global survey conducted last year amongst 10,000 children and young people across ten countries, including the US, found that 59% of respondents were very or extremely worried about the climate crisis. Over 50% reported feeling emotions including sadness, anxiousness, anger, powerlessness and guilt. Seventy-five percent of respondents said that they think the future is frightening.

“We absolutely have got to face it head on, and it starts when children are very young. We need to arm them with the tools to be part of a solution to a problem they had no hand in creating.”

By Abe Mazliach, ago

Intact Forests in the United States: Proforestation Mitigates Climate Change and Serves the Greatest Good

  • Author: William R Moomaw, Susan A Masino, Edward K. Faison
  • Topic: Forests
  • Category: #articles
  • Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/
  • Article Date: June 11, 2019

Climate change and loss of biodiversity are widely recognized as the foremost environmental challenges of our time. Forests annually sequester large quantities of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), and store carbon above and below ground for long periods of time

Growing existing forests intact to their ecological potential—termed “proforestation”—is a more effective, immediate, and low-cost approach that could be mobilized across suitable forests of all types. Proforestation serves the greatest public good by maximizing co-benefits such as nature-based biological carbon sequestration and unparalleled ecosystem services such as biodiversity enhancement, water and air quality, flood and erosion control, public health benefits, low impact recreation, and scenic beauty.

Forests are essential for Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), and the CDR rate needs to increase rapidly to remain within the 1.5 or 2.0°C range (IPCC, 2018) specified by the Paris Climate Agreement (2015).

Alternative forest-based CDR methods include “afforestation” (planting new forests) and “reforestation” (replacing forests on deforested or recently harvested lands). Afforestation and reforestation can contribute to CDR, but newly planted forests require many decades to a century before they sequester carbon dioxide in substantial quantities. Globally, terrestrial ecosystems currently remove an amount of atmospheric carbon equal to one-third of what humans emit from burning fossil fuels

Existing proposals for “Natural Climate Solutions” do not consider explicitly the potential of proforestation. However, based on a growing body of scientific research, we conclude that protecting and stewarding intact diverse forests and practicing proforestation as a purposeful public policy on a large scale is a highly effective strategy for mitigating the dual crises in climate and biodiversity and ultimately serving the “greatest good” in the United States and the rest of the world.

Today, <20% of the world’s forests remain intact (i.e., largely free from logging and other forms of extraction and development). In the U.S.—a global pioneer in national parks and wildlife preserves—the percentage of intact forest in the contiguous 48 states is only an estimated 6–7% of total forest area

Identifying suitable forest as intact (for carbon sequestration, native biodiversity, ecosystem function, etc.) can spawn new jobs and industries in forest monitoring, tourism and recreation, as well as create more viable local economies based on wood reuse and recycling. Public lands with significant biodiversity and proforestation potential also provide wildlife corridors for climate migration and resilience for many species.

To meet any proposed climate goals of the Paris Climate Agreement (1.5, 2.0° C, targets for reduced emissions) it is essential to simultaneously “reduce greenhouse gas emissions from all sources” including fossil fuels, bioenergy, and land use change, and “increase CDR” by forests, wetlands and soils.

During the timeframe while seedlings planted for afforestation and reforestation are growing (yet will never achieve the carbon density of an intact forest), proforestation is a safe, highly effective, immediate natural solution that does not rely on uncertain discounted future benefits inherent in other options.

Proforestation provides the most effective solution to dual global crises—climate change and biodiversity loss. It is the only practical, rapid, economical, and effective means for atmospheric CDR among the multiple options that have been proposed because it removes more atmospheric carbon dioxide in the immediate future and continues to sequester it long-term. Proforestation will increase the diversity of many groups of organisms and provide numerous additional and important ecosystem services. While multiple strategies will be needed to address global environmental crises, proforestation is a very low-cost option for increasing carbon sequestration that does not require additional land beyond what is already forested and provides new forest related jobs and opportunities along with a wide array of quantifiable ecosystem services, including human health.

By Abe Mazliach, ago

U.N. climate talks off to tense start as nations feud over damage

By  Michael Birnbaum ,  Allyson Chiu  and  Sarah Kaplan

November 7, 2022 at 7:08 p.m. EST

The Washington Post

“We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator,” warned U.N. Secretary General António Guterres , as he opened two weeks of talks, known as COP27, in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh. “We are getting dangerously close to the point of no return,” Guterres said.

“Those who pollute the most should pay the most in order to get our planet off this track of climate crisis,” Senegalese President Macky Sall said.

By Abe Mazliach, ago

Pull investments from companies not committed to environment, pope says.

Pull investments from companies not committed to environment, pope says – VATICAN CITY (Reuters).

Pope Francis urged people to pull investments from companies that are not committed to protecting the environment, adding his voice to calls for the economic model that emerges from the coronavirus pandemic to be a sustainable one.

Francis spoke in a video message for an online event called “Countdown Global Launch, A Call to Action on Climate Change”.

“Science tells us, every day with more precision, that we need to act urgently … if we are to have any hope of avoiding radical and catastrophic climate change,” he said.

The pope listed three action points: better education about the environment, sustainable agriculture and access to clean water, and a transition away from fossil fuels.

“One way to encourage this change is to lead companies towards the urgent need to commit to the integral care of our common home, excluding from investments companies that do not meet (these) parameters … and rewarding those that (do),” he said.

He said the pandemic had made the need to address the climate crisis and related social problems even more pressing.

“The current economic system is unsustainable. We are faced with a moral imperative … to rethink many things,” he said, listing means of production, consumerism, waste, indifference to the poor, and harmful energy sources.

In June, a Vatican document urged Catholics to disinvest from the armaments and fossil fuel industries and to monitor companies in sectors such as mining for possible damage to the environment.

Other speakers and activists at the online event included actress Jane Fonda, Britain’s Prince William, former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

By Abe Mazliach, ago

Sir David Attenborough to 60 Minutes on climate change: “A crime has been committed”

For nearly 70 years Sir David Attenborough has been exploring the planet, taking hundreds of millions of television viewers on eye-opening journeys through the natural world. Jungles and island archipelagos, deserts and deep under the sea, no place has been too remote, no animal too elusive, for Sir David and his talented team of filmmakers to document.
Now 94, Attenborough has witnessed the evolution of the natural world more closely than most. Attenborough’s latest project includes a book and film both titled, “A Life on Our Planet.” The documentary premiers on Netflix on October 4.
He calls this latest project his “witness statement,” and on 60 Minutes told correspondent Anderson Cooper “a crime has been committed” against the planet. Attenborough says “our planet is headed for disaster and climate change is the greatest threat facing the plant for thousands of years. There could be whole areas of the earth that people could no longer safely live”. The World Wildlife Fund says 2/3 of the world’s wildlife has disappeared in the last 50 years.
He would tell world leaders that the time has come to put aside national ambitions and look for international ambitions of survival. “We don’t have an alternative but to be optimistic, if you love your children, if you love the rest of humanity”. It’s the young Sir David has hope for. “There is a huge movement around the world of young people who can see what’s happening to the world and demanding that their government take action. That’s the best hope I have. My generation failed”. We allowed it to happen despite being the smartest creatures that ever lived. We need more than just intelligence, we need wisdom. After all, this planet is all we have. There is no where else to go.
“We’re both in broadcasting, if you’re going be telling something as though it’s true, you better be sure it’s true,” Attenborough said to Cooper. “So I didn’t say anything much about the world being in ecological peril until I was absolutely sure that what I was talking about was correct.”
Attenborough no longer minces words nor leaves his viewers wondering where he stands on the issue of climate change. In the new film, he laments Earth’s decline and states emphatically, “Our planet is headed for disaster.” Despite his stark warning about the planet’s peril, Attenborough told Cooper it is not too late to salvage it, if countries work together and societies alter their behavior. The nonagenarian remains hopeful for the future.
By Abe Mazliach, ago