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In this election season, politics are inescapable, even at supposedly bipartisan conferences, such as the recent National Clean Energy Week Policymakers Symposium in D.C. What Net Zero Insider’s K Kaufmann heard in her coverage was Republican lawmakers talking about their support for clean air, clean water and the environment, but not saying a whole lot, if anything, about climate.
The conference’s panel on hydrogen provided a state-of-the-industry update, looking at cutting-edge projects underway and the reluctance of developers and investors to move ahead as they wait for the Treasury Department’s final rule on the Inflation Reduction Act’s 45V tax credit, K writes.
The looming election also seems to have supercharged the Department of Energy, which continues to roll out major announcements of awards funded by either the Inflation Reduction Act or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. James Downing has the story on the $1.5 billion from the IIJA that DOE is set to invest in four interregional transmission projects, backed up by a new National Transmission Needs Study that finds that the highest level of grid reliability can be maintained at the lowest cost by coordinating interregional transmission.
Meanwhile, in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a bill similarly aimed at accelerating new transmission by removing a requirement for state regulators to evaluate non-transmission alternatives such as demand-side management, correspondent Elaine Goodman reports.
And in Oregon, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has postponed its auction for offshore wind leases, scheduled for Oct. 15, because of a lack of commercial interest after significant pushback from tribal groups and state government, according to John Cropley’s update.
Hurricane Helene and its catastrophic impacts in Florida and across the Southeast grabbed many of the headlines in our curated content.
One of the main messages of the major hurricane that flattened Florida’s Big Bend Gulf Coast and inundated parts of Georgia and North Carolina is that inland cities like Asheville, N.C., can no longer be viewed as “climate havens,” according to a piece in The New York Times.
ProPublica digs in further, looking at the likelihood of climate “abandonment zones” ― areas in the South most vulnerable to heat and flooding. Research is pinpointing counties across the region where younger, more well-off residents are moving to safer, higher ground, leaving an older, less well-off population to face the intensifying impacts of climate change.
Not far behind Helene is the intersection of the U.S. election on Nov. 5, with the 29th U.N. Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP29), which starts on Nov. 10 in Azerbaijan. The New York Times reports that around the world, key climate negotiators are preparing to double down on their efforts to cut greenhouse gas pollution if Donald Trump is re-elected and again pulls the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement.
Back in the U.S., Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous counters the myths that a clean energy transition must mean sacrifice and high costs to consumers with an op-ed piece on the manufacturing renaissance, good-paying green jobs and public-private partnerships spurred by the incentives in the IRA.
An Energy News Network article profiles the Renewing Sovereignty Project, a Chicago-based program training formerly incarcerated people for solar installation jobs, with a focus on providing the “wrap-around” social support ― housing, transportation and child care ― that trainees need to complete the intensive 13-week program.
There are more stories below in this week’s Intelligence Report:
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