PACE in National Journal: The Energy Policy Debate We Should Have

Last week, the National Journal asked its group of energy and environment experts to size up Senator Jeff Bingaman’s plan for a Clean Energy Standard (CES). As a response, PACE Executive Director Lance Brown offered the following piece. To view the response from PACE and others online, click here.

In terms of moving toward an American energy future that emphasizes reliability and practicality, Senator Jeff Bingaman’s introduction of a new CES bill would seem to be a step in the right direction. While the specifics of the proposal are sure to change, a broad standard that includes a wider range of energy technologies, as opposed to earlier, more restrictive versions of renewable portfolio standards, provides significantly less sticker shock to the American electricity consumer.

The problem is a debate on clean energy, as opposed to a debate on renewable energy, is one that should have been had in earnest two years ago. Instead, in an effort to push politically popular technologies such as solar and wind, the congressional energy debate seemed to overlook technologies with much greater practical importance for America’s long-term energy future. This includes emission-free nuclear power, a technology made commercially viable by our nation that provides a key piece to the energy puzzle; fossil fuel technologies that have made coal-fired power production exponentially cleaner in the past twenty years, with the possibility through carbon capture of making even greater gains; and hydropower, an often overlooked technology that is capable of adding significant megawatts to the grid with little to no environmental impact.

The truth is that no American energy future exists without contributions from some combination of these sources. To keep pace with energy demand while maintaining the reliability and price that consumers deserve, the answer can’t simply be “all of the above”; it must be “more of the above.”

Today, without a CES, the first major development in American nuclear power is taking place in east Georgia with the construction of two units at Plant Vogtle. Soon, the Tennessee Valley Authority will commence completion of its long-mothballed Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in north Alabama. Without legislation incentivizing or demanding it, our nation might have taken its first steps toward a nuclear renaissance. Meanwhile, environmental controls have drastically reduced major emissions from our most abundant energy resource, coal, with major emissions down more than 65% from twenty years ago. Carbon capture technology, in only its very early stages, could reduce those figures far more.

Without a CES, efforts are being made across the country to develop new hydropower technologies. PACE recently visited with Free Flow Power, a firm pioneering underwater hydropower technology for use in the Mississippi River. Because of its energy source, this project promises clean power with reliability greater than other renewables such as wind and solar. In other words, the marketplace is actively developing solutions to tomorrow’s energy landscape, without the hands of Congress guiding the way.

Aside from refocusing the debate on more practical solutions, a CES is superior to earlier proposals such as RPS in another important way: it creates fewer regional disparities in energy resources. Earlier versions of portfolio mandates accounted poorly for regional energy resources, creating clear winners and losers depending on geography. At the least, a well-designed CES would be broad enough to allow multiple solutions to the same problem, rather than trying to turn the rest of the U.S. into California.

If the debate generated by a CES is to be an honest one, it must be a factual one. It must be a debate that acknowledges that American energy has become remarkably cleaner in the past twenty years; that the marketplace, not government mandates, are driving today’s ingenuity in the energy sector; that consumer cost and grid reliability are not of less concern than environmental goals; and that no sensible energy policy moves us forward by leaving nuclear and fossil fuels behind.