A long and nerdy conversation with Congress's resident clean-energy expert about the crucial role the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will play in Democrats' climate aspirations -- and the need to quickly appoint a new commissioner.
I was stuck by something the rep said in passing, but seems rather critical and should be dug into. If I heard him right he seemed to assume that decarbonization would cause a wealth transfer from mostly rural and energy producing Republican represented areas of the country to mostly urban and energy consuming Democratic represented areas. While I can buy that a bit as it relates to distributed solar and particularly with off-shore wind near coastal population centers, it doesn't jive with analyses I've seen over the last few months arguing that most renewable energy potential is in districts represented by Republicans. I think it would follow that building transmission to connect those rural Republican districts with mostly Democratic population centers would at least maintain the current dynamic of rural areas producing energy and urban areas consuming, if not increasing the wealth transfer from urban to rural areas. Or it could be a win-win in which both urban areas save money from a more efficient grid and rural areas get increased revenue. Perhaps I'm confounding renewable energy potential with income from energy production, and that revenue from fossil fuels in these areas is greater than the potential revenue from renewables? Either way this seems like a critical question, and one which it is important to be careful in messaging. I'd appreciate if any experts in this area could enlighten me.
NY Times tonight on bipartisan agreement: "The legislation includes $73 billion toward improving and modernizing the country’s electricity grid, which would go toward building thousands of miles of new transmission lines to carry more energy produced by wind, solar and other zero emissions sources. And it would create a new office within the Energy Department to help with the permitting and financing of transmission lines." A grain of hope at the bottom of Pandora's box?
I was stuck by something the rep said in passing, but seems rather critical and should be dug into. If I heard him right he seemed to assume that decarbonization would cause a wealth transfer from mostly rural and energy producing Republican represented areas of the country to mostly urban and energy consuming Democratic represented areas. While I can buy that a bit as it relates to distributed solar and particularly with off-shore wind near coastal population centers, it doesn't jive with analyses I've seen over the last few months arguing that most renewable energy potential is in districts represented by Republicans. I think it would follow that building transmission to connect those rural Republican districts with mostly Democratic population centers would at least maintain the current dynamic of rural areas producing energy and urban areas consuming, if not increasing the wealth transfer from urban to rural areas. Or it could be a win-win in which both urban areas save money from a more efficient grid and rural areas get increased revenue. Perhaps I'm confounding renewable energy potential with income from energy production, and that revenue from fossil fuels in these areas is greater than the potential revenue from renewables? Either way this seems like a critical question, and one which it is important to be careful in messaging. I'd appreciate if any experts in this area could enlighten me.
NY Times tonight on bipartisan agreement: "The legislation includes $73 billion toward improving and modernizing the country’s electricity grid, which would go toward building thousands of miles of new transmission lines to carry more energy produced by wind, solar and other zero emissions sources. And it would create a new office within the Energy Department to help with the permitting and financing of transmission lines." A grain of hope at the bottom of Pandora's box?
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