There seems to be two schools of thought on energy- drill baby drill and end fossil fuels yesterday.
One destroys the environment the other the economy. The answer is transition. The war in Iran in my opinion is the death knell for fossil fuels. Effectively, the world depends upon waterways that are not easily defended, even against a third rate power. Asia is already moving hard in this direction. Petro-states including the US, will push back hard but progress pushes harder
It is almost always correct to move the ball forward and I am super not-receptive to arguments of the form "actually we could move the ball forward further if we instead do nothing, even though in the world where we do something we can still continue to move the ball forward."
This may in fact be good for renewable energy projects, but as the article indicates, it will also be "good" for fossil fuel projects. The authors cite to a study that forecasts that the bill will result in a reduction in "emissions" of 9% over 10 years. What constitutes "emissions" is not defined. Typically SO2, NOx, and CO2 are the core emissions tracked in the electricity generation sector (with mercury and some other things like HCL in a secondary position). To those who don't track this sort of thing, a 9% reduction may seem like a good deal. However, see this data from EPA: https://www.epa.gov/power-sector/progress-report-emissions-reductions. This indicates that from just 2023 to 2024, for power plants in the lower 48, there was a 24% decrease in SO2 emissions, a 15% decrease in NOx emissions, a 7% decrease in CO2 emissions, and a 17% decrease in Hg emissions—in just one year. Further, this reduction is part of a long decline in power plant emissions due to the burning of fossil fuels for decades. So a 9% reduction in "emissions" over 10 years is paltry.
Some of the justification for the authors' support is that we need more energy. Perhaps, but what is driving this need? In large part, that would be AI and crypto (note the EPA emissions decline starts to level out in 2022). Because the U.S. DOE has killed its effort to track the installation of AI data centers and crypto mining (and the emissions from them) we don't have a comprehensive understanding of the scale of the problem. However, some estimates conclude that By 2030, data centers are projected to account for 11.8% of total U.S. electricity use (https://datacenters.lbl.gov/modeling-forecasting). Crypto mining is not what it used to be, but the Biden Administration estimated it to account for 1.2% to 1.7% of total U.S. electricity consumption (https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/09-2022-Crypto-Assets-and-Climate-Report.pdf).
So, yes, I for one am open to permitting reform, but not based on the need to support AI and crypto mining, and certainly not without understanding the full environmental implications. Details matter.
There seems to be two schools of thought on energy- drill baby drill and end fossil fuels yesterday.
One destroys the environment the other the economy. The answer is transition. The war in Iran in my opinion is the death knell for fossil fuels. Effectively, the world depends upon waterways that are not easily defended, even against a third rate power. Asia is already moving hard in this direction. Petro-states including the US, will push back hard but progress pushes harder
It is almost always correct to move the ball forward and I am super not-receptive to arguments of the form "actually we could move the ball forward further if we instead do nothing, even though in the world where we do something we can still continue to move the ball forward."
This may in fact be good for renewable energy projects, but as the article indicates, it will also be "good" for fossil fuel projects. The authors cite to a study that forecasts that the bill will result in a reduction in "emissions" of 9% over 10 years. What constitutes "emissions" is not defined. Typically SO2, NOx, and CO2 are the core emissions tracked in the electricity generation sector (with mercury and some other things like HCL in a secondary position). To those who don't track this sort of thing, a 9% reduction may seem like a good deal. However, see this data from EPA: https://www.epa.gov/power-sector/progress-report-emissions-reductions. This indicates that from just 2023 to 2024, for power plants in the lower 48, there was a 24% decrease in SO2 emissions, a 15% decrease in NOx emissions, a 7% decrease in CO2 emissions, and a 17% decrease in Hg emissions—in just one year. Further, this reduction is part of a long decline in power plant emissions due to the burning of fossil fuels for decades. So a 9% reduction in "emissions" over 10 years is paltry.
Some of the justification for the authors' support is that we need more energy. Perhaps, but what is driving this need? In large part, that would be AI and crypto (note the EPA emissions decline starts to level out in 2022). Because the U.S. DOE has killed its effort to track the installation of AI data centers and crypto mining (and the emissions from them) we don't have a comprehensive understanding of the scale of the problem. However, some estimates conclude that By 2030, data centers are projected to account for 11.8% of total U.S. electricity use (https://datacenters.lbl.gov/modeling-forecasting). Crypto mining is not what it used to be, but the Biden Administration estimated it to account for 1.2% to 1.7% of total U.S. electricity consumption (https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/09-2022-Crypto-Assets-and-Climate-Report.pdf).
So, yes, I for one am open to permitting reform, but not based on the need to support AI and crypto mining, and certainly not without understanding the full environmental implications. Details matter.