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Let’s not work together to solve climate change
When the Paris Climate Accords were adopted in the waning days of the Obama administration, the predominant tone of coverage could best be described as unconvincingly hopeful. Informed observers understood that the agreement had significant limitations, among them the lack of any enforcement mechanism for its commitments. Nonetheless, it was widely trumpeted as the first serious effort by the international community to tackle climate change. Most important, it was the first truly global agreement, embraced by nearly every country on the planet, to deal with a truly planetary problem.
Then, within months of going into effect, the United States announced it would withdraw from the agreement. Given how difficult the original negotiation was, the rising tide of nationalism that the Trump administration exemplified seemed to presage doom for any follow-on accord, and perhaps for the Earth’s climate as well.
And yet, in the years before the U.S. officially rejoined the agreement under President Biden, the news on the climate front got dramatically better. Not that the problem of climate change was solved — it certainly wasn’t. We’re still overwhelmingly likely to face more warming than the 1.5 degrees Celsius that governments of the world agreed to in Paris, with many disastrous consequences. But the true worst-case scenarios are much less likely now, and the prospects for a successful transition to a net-zero world are far better than they were only a few short years ago. The hopefulness, in other words, is starting to get more convincing, even as the tide of nationalism continues to rise.
Is it possible that national competition could, ironically, be helping us solve a problem that seemed insoluble without intense international cooperation?
The most important reason why the worst-case climate scenarios have become less likely is the rapidly dropping cost of alternative energy, which have made a transition to a lower-emissions energy system much more achievable. But what has suddenly accelerated the transition timetable is not climate change but Russia’s war in Ukraine, which disrupted global energy markets and made abundantly clear the geopolitical risks of reliance on imported fossil fuels. While the immediate impact of the invasion was to boost the burning of high-carbon fuels like coal and wood, it has also sent renewables to the top of the European security agenda, prompted a serious reassessment of nuclear power, and bolstered the position of electricity producers like France — whose grid is 70% nuclear-powered — in intra-European energy negotiations.
That shift is likely to be enduring, and again, not only because of the risks of climate change. National security and economic prosperity simply have more political urgency than saving the planet. Thanks to Putin’s war, national and planetary concerns are now more aligned than opposed.
There are deeper ways in which a new atmosphere of national competition has bolstered the climate agenda, however. The increasingly nationalist turn of American trade and economic policy has been something of a double-edged sword for the energy transition. On the one hand, “buy American” rules have made it harder for the Biden administration to achieve its goals of building out wind and solar energy. But those goals are themselves part of an increasingly robust industrial policy driven by national economic security interests and backed by hundreds of billions in new spending.
Indeed, if the U.S. government hadn’t sought to build an American alternative-energy sector, national economic interests might continue to favor fossil fuels as a counterweight to relying on Chinese suppliers for solar panels, batteries, and other renewable parts. Meanwhile, if the United States does cut through the red tape that obstructs the building of many new energy projects (and new transmission lines), the primary reason won’t be to meet its goals under international climate accords, but to secure the country’s economic future.
If the world is to succeed in preventing catastrophic climate change, the same dynamic has to take root in China. As the energy transition has accelerated in Europe and America, China has emerged as by far the world’s biggest contributor to climate change, despite also being the world’s largest supplier of parts for solar and wind power generation. The primary reason is China’s addiction to coal, which is rapidly deepening in blatant contradiction of China’s own pledges. China’s frequently stated reason for this decision is national self-reliance and an emphasis on development at all costs.
In fact, though, new solar energy has gotten so cheap that it’s more economical than existing coal plants. China’s increasing investment in coal is well-understood to be a development dead-end, but it’s an important sop to provincial governments with high levels of employment in the coal industry. The risks of climate change are unlikely to spur Beijing to challenge these interests — but the prospect of being on the receiving end of climate-based tariffs might garner more attention, because they would pose a risk to other crucial industries like steel.
Even when it comes to the developing world, it may be possible to channel increasing competition between major powers in a climate-friendly direction. Countries like Tanzania and Ethiopia have an opportunity to leapfrog to a more sustainable energy system based on renewables and nuclear and an electrified transportation sector. As during the Cold War, both the United States and China have powerful incentives to subsidize that transition and thereby win influence in (and important contracts with) these developing countries.
China’s once-heralded “belt and road” initiative resulted in a great many boondoggles, but green energy (along with communications and surveillance technology) are among the areas where China’s efforts continue to expand. In a competitive international environment, the United States and Europe are sure to want to compete — and the climate could benefit.
None of this is to imply that international cooperation doesn’t have a vital role to play in combating climate change. At a minimum, an atmosphere of good communication and scientific cooperation is essential to understanding what is happening to the planet we all share. The adaptation agenda also absolutely requires assistance to flow from north to south. A major war, meanwhile, would certainly lead to a host of direct environmental harms, with the drive for victory taking precedence over all other considerations.
But international agreements can also be great forums for kicking the can down the road, while competition has a way of sharpening the mind and creating a sense of urgency. That urgency is something climate activists have always felt, but found difficult to inculcate in the populace at large. Every nation has an interest in preventing the worst consequences of climate change from coming to pass. If that interest can be aligned with other, better-recognized interests of national security and prosperity, the prospects for rapid progress on the climate front will probably look a lot rosier.
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A conversation with VDE Americas CEO Brian Grenko.
This week’s Q&A is about hail. Last week, we explained how and why hail storm damage in Texas may have helped galvanize opposition to renewable energy there. So I decided to reach out to Brian Grenko, CEO of renewables engineering advisory firm VDE Americas, to talk about how developers can make sure their projects are not only resistant to hail but also prevent that sort of pushback.
The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Hiya Brian. So why’d you get into the hail issue?
Obviously solar panels are made with glass that can allow the sunlight to come through. People have to remember that when you install a project, you’re financing it for 35 to 40 years. While the odds of you getting significant hail in California or Arizona are low, it happens a lot throughout the country. And if you think about some of these large projects, they may be in the middle of nowhere, but they are taking hundreds if not thousands of acres of land in some cases. So the chances of them encountering large hail over that lifespan is pretty significant.
We partnered with one of the country’s foremost experts on hail and developed a really interesting technology that can digest radar data and tell folks if they’re developing a project what the [likelihood] will be if there’s significant hail.
Solar panels can withstand one-inch hail – a golfball size – but once you get over two inches, that’s when hail starts breaking solar panels. So it’s important to understand, first and foremost, if you’re developing a project, you need to know the frequency of those events. Once you know that, you need to start thinking about how to design a system to mitigate that risk.
The government agencies that look over land use, how do they handle this particular issue? Are there regulations in place to deal with hail risk?
The regulatory aspects still to consider are about land use. There are authorities with jurisdiction at the federal, state, and local level. Usually, it starts with the local level and with a use permit – a conditional use permit. The developer goes in front of the township or the city or the county, whoever has jurisdiction of wherever the property is going to go. That’s where it gets political.
To answer your question about hail, I don’t know if any of the [authority having jurisdictions] really care about hail. There are folks out there that don’t like solar because it’s an eyesore. I respect that – I don’t agree with that, per se, but I understand and appreciate it. There’s folks with an agenda that just don’t want solar.
So okay, how can developers approach hail risk in a way that makes communities more comfortable?
The bad news is that solar panels use a lot of glass. They take up a lot of land. If you have hail dropping from the sky, that’s a risk.
The good news is that you can design a system to be resilient to that. Even in places like Texas, where you get large hail, preparing can mean the difference between a project that is destroyed and a project that isn’t. We did a case study about a project in the East Texas area called Fighting Jays that had catastrophic damage. We’re very familiar with the area, we work with a lot of clients, and we found three other projects within a five-mile radius that all had minimal damage. That simple decision [to be ready for when storms hit] can make the complete difference.
And more of the week’s big fights around renewable energy.
1. Long Island, New York – We saw the face of the resistance to the war on renewable energy in the Big Apple this week, as protestors rallied in support of offshore wind for a change.
2. Elsewhere on Long Island – The city of Glen Cove is on the verge of being the next New York City-area community with a battery storage ban, discussing this week whether to ban BESS for at least one year amid fire fears.
3. Garrett County, Maryland – Fight readers tell me they’d like to hear a piece of good news for once, so here’s this: A 300-megawatt solar project proposed by REV Solar in rural Maryland appears to be moving forward without a hitch.
4. Stark County, Ohio – The Ohio Public Siting Board rejected Samsung C&T’s Stark Solar project, citing “consistent opposition to the project from each of the local government entities and their impacted constituents.”
5. Ingham County, Michigan – GOP lawmakers in the Michigan State Capitol are advancing legislation to undo the state’s permitting primacy law, which allows developers to evade municipalities that deny projects on unreasonable grounds. It’s unlikely the legislation will become law.
6. Churchill County, Nevada – Commissioners have upheld the special use permit for the Redwood Materials battery storage project we told you about last week.
Long Islanders, meanwhile, are showing up in support of offshore wind, and more in this week’s edition of The Fight.
Local renewables restrictions are on the rise in the Hawkeye State – and it might have something to do with carbon pipelines.
Iowa’s known as a renewables growth area, producing more wind energy than any other state and offering ample acreage for utility-scale solar development. This has happened despite the fact that Iowa, like Ohio, is home to many large agricultural facilities – a trait that has often fomented conflict over specific projects. Iowa has defied this logic in part because the state was very early to renewables, enacting a state portfolio standard in 1983, signed into law by a Republican governor.
But something else is now on the rise: Counties are passing anti-renewables moratoria and ordinances restricting solar and wind energy development. We analyzed Heatmap Pro data on local laws and found a rise in local restrictions starting in 2021, leading to nearly 20 of the state’s 99 counties – about one fifth – having some form of restrictive ordinance on solar, wind or battery storage.
What is sparking this hostility? Some of it might be counties following the partisan trend, as renewable energy has struggled in hyper-conservative spots in the U.S. But it may also have to do with an outsized focus on land use rights and energy development that emerged from the conflict over carbon pipelines, which has intensified opposition to any usage of eminent domain for energy development.
The central node of this tension is the Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline. As we explained in a previous edition of The Fight, the carbon transportation network would cross five states, and has galvanized rural opposition against it. Last November, I predicted the Summit pipeline would have an easier time under Trump because of his circle’s support for oil and gas, as well as the placement of former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum as interior secretary, as Burgum was a major Summit supporter.
Admittedly, this prediction has turned out to be incorrect – but it had nothing to do with Trump. Instead, Summit is now stalled because grassroots opposition to the pipeline quickly mobilized to pressure regulators in states the pipeline is proposed to traverse. They’re aiming to deny the company permits and lobbying state legislatures to pass bills banning the use of eminent domain for carbon pipelines. One of those states is South Dakota, where the governor last month signed an eminent domain ban for CO2 pipelines. On Thursday, South Dakota regulators denied key permits for the pipeline for the third time in a row.
Another place where the Summit opposition is working furiously: Iowa, where opposition to the CO2 pipeline network is so intense that it became an issue in the 2020 presidential primary. Regulators in the state have been more willing to greenlight permits for the project, but grassroots activists have pressured many counties into some form of opposition.
The same counties with CO2 pipeline moratoria have enacted bans or land use restrictions on developing various forms of renewables, too. Like Kossuth County, which passed a resolution decrying the use of eminent domain to construct the Summit pipeline – and then three months later enacted a moratorium on utility-scale solar.
I asked Jessica Manzour, a conservation program associate with Sierra Club fighting the Summit pipeline, about this phenomenon earlier this week. She told me that some counties are opposing CO2 pipelines and then suddenly tacking on or pivoting to renewables next. In other cases, counties with a burgeoning opposition to renewables take up the pipeline cause, too. In either case, this general frustration with energy companies developing large plots of land is kicking up dust in places that previously may have had a much lower opposition risk.
“We painted a roadmap with this Summit fight,” said Jess Manzour, a campaigner with Sierra Club involved in organizing opposition to the pipeline at the grassroots level, who said zealous anti-renewables activists and officials are in some cases lumping these items together under a broad umbrella. ”I don’t know if it’s the people pushing for these ordinances, rather than people taking advantage of the situation.”