Articles by Joseph Romm

New energy proposal in California

California -- already a leader in intelligent utility regulations -- is taking aggressive steps to stay the leader. The California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) made the following remarkable proposal last month:

• All new residential construction in California will be zero net energy by 2020
• All new commercial construction in California will be zero net energy by 2030

In addition, the PUC established "a new system of incentives and penalties to drive investor-owned utilities above and beyond California's aggressive energy savings goals." Under this framework:

Earnings to shareholders accrue only when a utility produces positive net benefits (savings minus costs) for ratepayers. The shareholder "reward" side of the incentive mechanism is balanced by the risk of financial penalties for substandard performance in achieving the PUC's per-kilowatt, kilowatt-hour, and therm savings goals.

Kudos to the PUC for its aggressive strategy, which "puts energy efficiency on an equal footing with utility generation," as Commissioner Timothy Alan Simon put it. "It will align utility corporate culture with California's environmental values."

Even though utility regulations seem mundane, they are a core climate strategy, so here are some more details of the PUC's ground-breaking decision:

Regulatory reform of utilities could lessen the need for new power plants

Last week, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) announced that eight utilities "are committed to seeking regulatory reforms and approvals to increase their investment in energy efficiency by $500 million annually to about $1.5 billion annually."

The utilities -- Con Edison, Duke Energy, Edison International, Great Plains Energy, Pepco Holdings, PNM Resources, Sierra Pacific Resources, and Xcel Energy -- represent nearly 20 million customers. The extra efficiency effort would "reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 30 million tons" and "avoid the need for 50 500-megawatt peaking power plants."

What regulatory reform? Our former President offered "to try to explain it to you in my basic English" which I reprint here:

The energy department’s strategic unconventional fuels fantasy

The DOE's Strategic Unconventional Fuels Task Force has issued its surreal final report:

Responsible development of America's oil shale, tar sands, heavy oil, coal, and oil resources amenable to recovery by carbon dioxide injection, by private industry, supported and encouraged by government actions to reduce uncertainties and stimulate investment, could supply all of the Department of Defense's domestic fuels demand by 2016, and supply upwards of 7 million barrels [a day] of domestically produced liquid fuels to domestic markets by 2035.

Seriously.

How does the Task Force explain how one can have "responsible development" of resources to an extent that would spell certain doom for the climate?

Breaking the technology breakthrough myth

Do we need "disruptive clean-energy technologies that achieve non-incremental breakthroughs" to solve the global warming problem, as S&N (and Lomborg, and Bush, and his advisors) argue? Let's hope not -- for the sake of the next 50 generations.

Why? Two reasons:

1. Such breakthroughs hardly ever happen.
2. Even when they do happen, they rarely have a transformative impact on energy markets, even over a span of decades.

Consider that solar photovoltaic cells -- a major breakthrough -- were invented over 50 years ago, and still comprise only about 0.1 percent of U.S. electricity (and that amount is thanks to major subsidies).

Consider that hydrogen fuel cells -- a favorite technology of the breakthrough bunch -- were invented more than 165 years ago, and deliver very little electricity (and what little they do deliver comes only because of major subsidies) and no consumer transportation.

Consider fusion -- 'nuff said!

I know this seems counterintuitive, when we see such remarkable technology advances almost every month in telecommunications and computers. But it's true -- and I will explain why in this post.