Energy Policy Now offers clear talk on the policy issues that define our relationship to energy and its impact on society and the environment. The series is produced by the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania and hosted by energy journalist Andy Stone. Join Andy in conversation with leaders from industry, government, and academia as they shed light on today's pressing energy policy debates.
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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. --- 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 Univer...
New research from Resources for the Future quantifies the Inflation Reduction Act's expected impact on clean energy development, energy costs, and emissions. --- The Inflation Reduction Act provides hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of incentives for clean energy, and is a key part of the U.S.’s effort to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. New research from Resources for the Future examines the extent to which the IRA may in fact incentivize the development of wind and solar power, and co...
West Virginia’s coal industry has out-sized influence in the state’s politics, and in Washington. But the industry’s power has come at a cost to West Virginians. --- The state of West Virginia has made headlines over the past year on the high profile of its senior senator, Joe Manchin, who has been the swing vote in the Senate on major energy legislation. Most dramatically, Manchin’s last-minute deal with Senate Democratic leadership in July allowed for the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act...
Green hydrogen hubs are being developed in some of the world’s most remote locations, to serve growing clean energy demand in Asia, Europe and the U.S. --- Alicia Eastman, President of Intercontinental Energy, discusses the nascent global market for green hydrogen and her company’s development of more than 100 gigawatts of hydrogen production hubs along coastal deserts in the Arabian Peninsula and Australia. Eastman explores the economic and policy factors, including the Inflation Reduction Act ...
A former senior U.S. diplomat to Saudi Arabia explores the kingdom’s effort to end its dependence on oil revenue, and the relationship between Saudi Arabia and global efforts to decarbonize. --- Saudi Arabia is the world’s leading exporter of oil. Yet it is also a country that is in the midst of an ambitious drive to end its dependence on oil revenue as the foundation of its national economy. Saudi Arabia’s effort to economically diversify follows a decade of oil market volatility that has added...
A prominent advocate for indigenous rights in Canada sees promise in clean energy. --- The Canadian province of Alberta is home to the Oil Sands, a vast subarctic region that is rich in crude oil, and which has been a focus of controversy for decades over the environmental and climate impacts of the fossil fuel mining that takes place there. Melina Laboucan-Massimo, a prominent indigenous rights advocate and member of the Lubicon Cree Nation, discusses her community’s ongoing struggle to overcom...
The United States’ electricity regulator has proposed two major electricity market reforms that could speed the pace of renewable energy development. --- In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of proposed clean energy projects in the United States. In fact, the amount of clean energy that’s waiting in line to connect to the nation’s electric grid is greater than the total installed generating capacity on the grid today. The prospect of so much clean energy in waiting is...
The fossil fuel industry is investing billions of dollars into projects that will use carbon dioxide captured from the air to produce more oil. What will be the climate impact? --- In April the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change identified carbon dioxide removal as an essential tool in the global effort to achieve net zero carbon emissions. One technology-based type of carbon dioxide removal known as direct air capture (DAC) has the potential to reduce net carbon dioxide emission by billi...
An expert in international trade policy discusses the Biden Administration’s use of the Defense Production Act, and tariff restrictions, to build a competitive US solar supply chain. --- In early June the Biden Administration invoked the Defense Production Act in an effort to rebuild America’s domestic solar energy manufacturing supply. Simultaneously, the Administration announced that it will prohibit for two years new tariffs on imports of solar cells from four Southeast Asian countries that a...
Advanced Energy Economy’s Leah Rubin Shen discusses energy spending priorities in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. --- In November President Biden signed into law the signature legislation of his Presidency to date, the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The bill includes more than $100 billion dollars in funding for clean energy technology, infrastructure and climate preparedness, making it the most significant fede...
Two experts on mining industry governance explore environmental and social challenges around the mining of cobalt, a critical material in EV batteries, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. --- This is the third episode in our series that explores governance challenges surrounding the transition to clean energy. The International Energy Agency forecasts that electric vehicles could account for a third of the global new car market by the end of this decade. While the prospect of a growing flee...
As net zero carbon targets become commonplace, strong governance will be needed to ensure climate benefits. --- 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 ...
Shuchi Talati, former chief of staff of the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy & Carbon Management, discusses the need for strong governance to balance the potential benefits of carbon dioxide removal technologies with environmental and social risks. --- This episode is the first in a three-part series that will explore governance challenges surrounding the transition to clean energy. In early April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest assessment rep...
Economist Lord Nicholas Stern discusses why traditional economics fail to capture the magnitude of threat presented by climate change, and how the discipline must adapt. --- In 2006 climate economist Nicholas Stern published the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, a report that offered the first systematic examination of the costs of addressing climate change and impacts on the global economy. The report marked a fundamental shift away from climate change being viewed primarily as a...
An expert in energy geopolitics discusses the war in Ukraine and its implications for European energy security and decarbonization. The episode was recorded in front of a live audience. --- Anna Mikulska, lecturer in Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert in European energy geopolitics, discusses the history of escalating energy tensions between Russia, Ukraine and the EU prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24. In the episode, which was re...
An energy activist highlights the opportunities, and challenges on the way to clean and equitable energy in the United States. --- The energy transition that is now underway in the United States holds the promise of delivering carbon free energy by the middle of this century. Yet often overlooked is a second critical opportunity to ensure that our future energy system delivers benefits, and shares burdens, much more equitably than has been true to date. Chandra Farley, chair of the Atlanta NAACP...
The transition to a clean energy economy will generate millions of new jobs. Unions are working to ensure that those jobs provide a living wage. --- Dramatic changes are underway in the ways that the United States produces and consumes energy, with major implications for the country’s workforce. Along the Atlantic shore, states are racing to establish large offshore wind farms and the manufacturing supply chains to support them. Automakers in the middle of the country have committed to shifting ...
ProPublica's Alec MacGillis discusses his recent New Yorker magazine article on Germany’s protracted struggle to wean itself off of coal. --- 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 el...
Rising global LNG demand points to a strong future for U.S. LNG exports. But ESG concerns loom. --- 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 th...
A financier discusses the challenge of managing clean energy investment risk. --- 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 sustaina...
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. --- 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 re...
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. --- 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 f...
China’s leadership must navigate conflicting agendas, and threats to domestic political stability, as it seeks to rein in global warming emissions. --- 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 ...
An unprecedented backlog of clean energy projects is in line to join PJM Interconnection, an electricity market serving one in five Americans. --- 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...
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. --- 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, ...
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. --- 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...
A leading energy economist explores the cost of electrifying home heating, the top source of energy demand and carbon emissions in American homes. --- 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...
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. —- 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...
The head of the International Energy Agency’s gas division discusses the outlook for natural gas as global efforts to address carbon emissions intensify. --- 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 increasingl...
This episode delves into the profound challenges of transforming America's electric grid to accommodate a 100% clean energy future. It highlights the necessity for dramatically expanded long-distance transmission, proactive planning, and a shift from local to national cost allocation mechanisms, given the grid's current design is ill-suited for distributed renewable resources. Expert Rob Gramlich discusses market-driven changes, the "triple hurdle problem" in planning, the dysfunctional interconnection queue, and the critical role of the Biden infrastructure plan and grid-enhancing technologies in achieving a resilient and decarbonized power system.
