Gas Currently Supports Solar and Wind Expansion But Must Reduce Emissions Further in Coming Decades to Meet U.S. Climate Goals
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Progressive Policy Institute released its latest “Memo to the President-elect” report on the urgent need for U.S. policymakers to both regulate and increase technologies incentives to reduce emissions from natural gas so that gas can continue to play an important role in long-term U.S. economic growth and decarbonization.
“In meeting his ambitious electricity decarbonization goals, President-elect Biden should both regulate methane reductions and increase incentives for carbon capture, enabling gas to achieve deeper emission reductions and continuing its complementary role in the expansion of renewable energy,” said PPI President Will Marshal.
The report finds that to achieve Biden’s goal of net zero electricity emissions by 2035, the U.S. should use natural gas to both enable and backstop the rapid deployment of renewable energy on the grid. Despite the role of natural gas in meeting climate goals to date, the political debate around energy and climate policy often presents Americans with a false choice between natural gas and renewable energy. The report details the way in which natural gas can make the clean energy transition, including the expansion of renewable energy, possible without making electricity more expensive and potentially less reliable, and therefore less politically feasible.
“The U.S. electric grid faces a dual challenge: meeting growing demand for power while also decarbonizing the energy it supplies, which is essential to avert catastrophic climate change,” said report author Clayton Munnings. “If the report recommendations are adopted, natural gas can continue to play an important role in meeting these challenges, and achieving President-elect Biden’s zero carbon emissions goal for the nation’s power sector by 2035.”
The report’s key highlights include:
- Natural gas can play an indispensable role in the expansion of renewable energy. Natural gas today already supports the expansion of renewable energy by providing an instantly dispatchable source of electricity. The unique flexibility of natural gas power plants to turn on and off within minutes, which coal and nuclear plants cannot offer, means gas quickly matches supply and demand even when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.
- Rather than trying to ban fossil fuel production, progressives should keep their eyes on the real prize: achieving net zero emissions. Uncertainties abound when it comes to nascent renewable and storage technologies and no one can precisely predict how long it will take America to decarbonize its economy. The U.S. should rely on natural gas to provide dispatchable energy to increase the chances of a successful clean energy transition.
- Federal policy should encourage the natural gas sector to make consistent progress toward zero carbon emissions. Washington should acknowledge and support the critical role of natural gas in exchange for industry’s commitment to make consistent progress toward zero carbon emissions. Such progress will require the rapid development of CCS technology and dramatic reduction of methane emissions throughout the natural gas lifecycle. Federal policy should invest more heavily in CCS and adopt and enforce ambitious goals for dramatically reducing methane emissions.
- American voters are pragmatic and support a balanced approach to energy. With some activists demanding fracking bans and climate deniers desiring continued U.S. reliance on fossil fuels, a 2020 poll commissioned by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) suggests that neither of these camps represent majority opinion. For example, seventy-seven percent of voters in Pennsylvania and Ohio support using natural gas and nuclear power to support the expansion of renewable wind and solar power, representing a pragmatic approach to energy and climate policy.
- Federal policy should aim at the dual objectives of high renewable energy deployment and low electricity prices. If not properly balanced, a transition to a grid powered by renewable energy will expose Americans to high electricity prices, create potential periodic energy shortages, and lead to premature or unnecessary destruction of good jobs in the natural gas sector. In particular, low electricity prices would enable further electrification of the transport and industrial sectors. Federal policy should take care that energy goals don’t create adverse consequences for consumers.
“Rather than trying to ban natural gas production, which is politically fraught, progressives should keep their eyes on the real prize: achieving net zero emissions,” said Munnings.
