You’re out of free articles.
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
Sign In or Create an Account.
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Welcome to Heatmap
Thank you for registering with Heatmap. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our lives, a force reshaping our economy, our politics, and our culture. We hope to be your trusted, friendly, and insightful guide to that transformation. Please enjoy your free articles. You can check your profile here .
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Subscribe to get unlimited Access
Hey, you are out of free articles but you are only a few clicks away from full access. Subscribe below and take advantage of our introductory offer.
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Create Your Account
Please Enter Your Password
Forgot your password?
Please enter the email address you use for your account so we can send you a link to reset your password:
In an exclusive interview, the White House advisor tells Heatmap that rules around hydrogen, manufacturing, and aviation fuel are weeks away and offers a window into his thinking.
The rules governing virtually all of the remaining policies in President Joe Biden’s climate law — including some of its most important and generous provisions — will come out in the next several weeks, signaling a new era in the law’s implementation, a senior White House advisor told Heatmap in an exclusive interview.
Speaking on the sidelines of the United Nations climate conference in Dubai, the advisor John Podesta said that the Treasury Department will publish rules governing some of the law’s biggest remaining subsidies by the end of the year. The former White House chief of staff and veteran political strategist also offered a window into his thinking about the implementation of the policies, which he has been charged with overseeing since last year.
The upcoming subsidies include some of the most important tax credits in the law. They are aimed at boosting climate-friendly aviation fuel, low-carbon hydrogen, and new factories building EVs and other clean-energy equipment. Podesta said that guidance for all three tax credits will be published by the end of the year. When they are released, every active subsidy in the Inflation Reduction Act will be usable and open for business.
Get one great climate story in your inbox every day:
Podesta has spent much of the past year immersed in the tax code, the site of many of the law’s most sweeping policies. On Sunday, he walked Heatmap through his thought process behind some of the biggest unreleased rules.
He expressed particular worry about the rules governing “green hydrogen,” which is produced by using electricity to separate water into oxygen and hydrogen.
“This has been the most challenging piece of policy that we’ve had to contend with” while implementing the IRA, Podesta said.
Many energy scholars believe that hydrogen, which produces no climate pollution when burned, could potentially replace fossil fuels in many sectors. But the IRA’s tax credit is so generous — providing companies with up to $3 for every kilogram of hydrogen produced — that some experts have argued that exceptionally strong rules must govern it, so as to make sure it actually serves to reduce emissions.
Hydrogen “has the potential to pay enormous dividends in 2030 and 2040 in reducing emissions from the industrial sector, from heavy duty transportation, et cetera,” Podesta said. “But at the same time, not do it in a way that lacks environmental integrity.”
He described the White House’s work as trying to balance between two bad outcomes: On the one hand, it could stifle the production of green hydrogen so much that “blue hydrogen,” produced using natural gas and carbon capture technology, dominates; on the other, it could boost green hydrogen so much that it distorts electricity markets nationwide.
“We could kind of blow it in either direction, I think,” Podesta said. “We can either be in a context in which we’re not really driving deployment, and therefore driving innovation, particularly on the electrolyzer side, so that we end up kind of filling the gap with a lot of blue hydrogen rather than green hydrogen. On the other hand, if we go the other way, we sort of blow emissions on the grid.”
The big question confronting the Treasury Department is how to measure climate pollution produced from the electricity used to create green hydrogen. One sticking point is whether hydrogen producers will be allowed to buy power from existing zero-carbon power plants, like nuclear power plants and hydroelectric dams. That could be a boon for Constellation Energy, the country’s largest owner of nuclear facilities.
But researchers at Princeton and MIT have argued that if hydrogen companies aren’t required to bring new clean energy resources onto the grid to account for the power that they’re using to make hydrogen, then they will inadvertently increase climate pollution. That is because if a nuclear reactor stops serving homes and businesses and starts powering hydrogen production, then natural gas and coal plants will likely produce electricity to fill the gap, at least in the near term.
“You could see a world where all of the U.S. nukes pivot to supplying electrolyzers and just print money that way,” Dan Esposito, a policy analyst at the think tank Energy Innovation, told Heatmap earlier this year. “There’s just a lot of layers to how bad this can get.”
But speaking in Dubai, Podesta appeared to reject some of these more extreme scenarios.
“I think a lot of the model runs just have assumptions that are very, very — you know,” Podesta said. “Like, all nuclear power plants are not going to stop sending power to the grid and start making hydrogen. That is not going to happen. I guarantee you that.”
“So you can have an upside estimate of what that means, but to what end?” he added. “It’s tricky, because the [hydrogen] industry essentially does not exist. So we're making judgment calls about what we need to do to get the green side of the industry really going, in this decade.”
Podesta was more sanguine about the other two tax credits. “We’ve got a game plan on [the sustainable aviation fuel tax credit], and I think it’s going to be fine,” he said, although he added that it would require updating a key Department of Energy model that governs the policy.
“We’ll be able to both stimulate production but also create environmental integrity in that program,” he said.
That policy is expected in the middle of December. The last remaining tax credit, which will subsidize new factories in America to build clean-energy equipment, will be out next week, a Treasury Department spokesperson told Heatmap.
Once rules are written for those three programs, virtually all of the active subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act will be ready to use. The IRA contains another set of subsidies — “technology-neutral” tax credits that will boost zero-carbon power generation until the country hits certain decarbonization goals — that the Treasury Department has not yet written rules for. But that program will not go into effect until 2025.
Starting on January 1, a new era will begin in the law’s implementation, as the government moves to award the climate law’s more than $100 billion in grants, Podesta said. “It’s going from, ‘This money is available, please apply,’ to, ‘Here’s the money, go put it to work,’” Podesta said.
In the spring, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund — a new $27 billion in-house investment fund created at the Environmental Protection Agency — will begin distributing its funding, he added.
“I think that could be very, very powerful and important, not just from the perspective of reducing costs for consumers and reducing emissions, but in terms of the goal of deploying against the justice part of the president’s agenda,” he said. “That’s really where you can see the community impact happen.”
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
And more of this week’s top renewable energy fights across the country.
1. Otsego County, Michigan – The Mitten State is proving just how hard it can be to build a solar project in wooded areas. Especially once Fox News gets involved.
2. Atlantic County, New Jersey – Opponents of offshore wind in Atlantic City are trying to undo an ordinance allowing construction of transmission cables that would connect the Atlantic Shores offshore wind project to the grid.
3. Benton County, Washington – Sorry Scout Clean Energy, but the Yakima Nation is coming for Horse Heaven.
Here’s what else we’re watching right now…
In Connecticut, officials have withdrawn from Vineyard Wind 2 — leading to the project being indefinitely shelved.
In Indiana, Invenergy just got a rejection from Marshall County for special use of agricultural lands.
In Kansas, residents in Dickinson County are filing legal action against county commissioners who approved Enel’s Hope Ridge wind project.
In Kentucky, a solar project was actually approved for once – this time for the East Kentucky Power Cooperative.
In North Carolina, Davidson County is getting a solar moratorium.
In Pennsylvania, the town of Unity rejected a solar project. Elsewhere in the state, the developer of the Newton 1 solar project is appealing their denial.
In South Carolina, a state appeals court has upheld the rejection of a 2,300 acre solar project proposed by Coastal Pine Solar.
In Washington State, Yakima County looks like it’ll keep its solar moratorium in place.
And more of this week’s top policy news around renewables.
1. Trump’s Big Promise – Our nation’s incoming president is now saying he’ll ban all wind projects on Day 1, an expansion of his previous promise to stop only offshore wind.
2. The Big Nuclear Lawsuit – Texas and Utah are suing to kill the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s authority to license small modular reactors.
3. Biden’s parting words – The Biden administration has finished its long-awaited guidance for the IRA’s tech-neutral electricity credit (which barely changed) and hydrogen production credit.
A conversation with J. Timmons Roberts, executive director of Brown University’s Climate Social Science Network
This week’s interview is with Brown University professor J. Timmons Roberts. Those of you familiar with the fight over offshore wind may not know Roberts by name, but you’re definitely familiar with his work: He and his students have spearheaded some of the most impactful research conducted on anti-offshore wind opposition networks. This work is a must-read for anyone who wants to best understand how the anti-renewables movement functions and why it may be difficult to stop it from winning out.
So with Trump 2.0 on the verge of banning offshore wind outright, I decided to ask Roberts what he thinks developers should be paying attention to at this moment. The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Is the anti-renewables movement a political force the country needs to reckon with?
Absolutely. In my opinion it’s been unfortunate for the environmental groups, the wind development, the government officials, climate scientists – they’ve been unwilling to engage directly with those groups. They want to keep a very positive message talking about the great things that come with wind and solar. And they’ve really left the field open as a result.
I think that as these claims sit there unrefuted and naive people – I don’t mean naive in a negative sense but people who don’t know much about this issue – are only hearing the negative spin about renewables. It’s a big problem.
When you say renewables developers aren’t interacting here – are you telling me the wind industry is just letting these people run roughshod?
I’ve seen no direct refutation in those anti-wind Facebook groups, and there’s very few environmentalists or others. People are quite afraid to go in there.
But even just generally. This vast network you’ve tracked – have you seen a similar kind of counter mobilization on the part of those who want to build these wind farms offshore?
There’s some mobilization. There’s something called the New England for Offshore Wind coalition. There’s some university programs. There’s some other oceanographic groups, things like that.
My observation is that they’re mostly staff organizations and they’re very cautious. They’re trying to work as a coalition. And they’re going as slow as their most cautious member.
As someone who has researched these networks, what are you watching for in the coming year? Under the first year of Trump 2.0?
Yeah I mean, channeling my optimistic and Midwestern dad, my thought is that there may be an overstepping by the Trump administration and by some of these activists. The lack of viable alternative pathways forward and almost anti-climate approaches these groups are now a part of can backfire for them. Folks may say, why would I want to be supportive of your group if you’re basically undermining everything I believe in?
What do you think developers should know about the research you have done into these networks?
I think it's important for deciding bodies and the public, the media and so on, to know who they’re hearing when they hear voices at a public hearing or in a congressional field hearing. Who are the people representing? Whose voice are they advancing?
It’s important for these actors that want to advance action on climate change and renewables to know what strategies and the tactics are being used and also know about the connections.
One of the things you pointed out in your research is that, yes, there are dark money groups involved in this movement and there are outside figures involved, but a lot of this sometimes is just one person posts something to the internet and then another person posts something to the internet.
Does that make things harder when it comes to addressing the anti-renewables movement?
Absolutely. Social media’s really been devastating for developing science and informed, rational public policymaking. It’s so easy to create a conspiracy and false information and very slanted, partial information to shoot holes at something as big as getting us off of fossil fuels.
Our position has developed as we understand that indeed these are not just astro-turf groups created by some far away corporation but there are legitimate concerns – like fishing, where most of it is based on certainty – and then there are these sensationalized claims that drive fears. That fear is real. And it’s unfortunate.
Anything else you’d really like to tell our readers?
I didn’t really choose this topic. I feel like it really got me. It was me and four students sitting in my conference room down the hall and I said, have you heard about this group that just started here in Rhode Island that’s making these claims we should investigate? And students were super excited about it and have really been the leaders.