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The Inflation Reduction Act is dead (for now), and the climate community is in a tizzy. Its collective response is why I have as much distaste for industry advocates as I have for Washington. Neither is being honest.
There’s been a plethora of articles published about the impact: lost jobs, reduced energy security, and of course the environmental impact.
Of the three, I agree that jobs will be lost. How many is debatable, but it’s hard to imagine other segments picking up the slack from solar, at least in the near term.
As for the other two, they come with a high BS quotient.
Prior to the BBB’s passage, the solar industry attempted to pivot by positioning solar as critical to our energy security. I have a three-word response: load of crap.
If energy security was paramount, we would have continued to build as many gas-fired plants as possible. We have sufficient domestic fuel supplies. We also produce the technology domestically (GE) and have other friendly suppliers – or at least formerly friendly – in Germany and Japan.
Conversely, solar is dependent on our largest global threat: China. And as for catching up to China in solar, to quote Donnie Brasco: fuhgeddaboudit.
With or without the BBB, the path for solar was going to get harder. Curtailment is increasing and aging grids are becoming more problematic. Add in the increased unpredictability of the weather and growing maintenance concerns, and solar’s assault was going to slow, with or without the BBB.
But let’s get to today’s point: propaganda.
The Climate Brief emissions analysis, based on Princeton University’s REPEAT project, claims that the BBB will increase emissions by 7 billion tons by 2030.
I agree: emissions will increase in the short-term.
But is that how we should approach such a massive challenge? Or should we be attempting to identify the best path to solve climate change 50 to 100 years from now?
Full disclosure: I haven’t reviewed the full study, but I’m confident there are two flaws in the model:
It undoubtedly assumes the continued rapid growth of solar. Given the aforementioned issues, that’s dubious at best.
Second, it almost certainly doesn’t account for other technologies filling the gap – i.e. geothermal, and nuclear. Although you wouldn’t know it, the tax incentives for those technologies haven’t as yet gone away.
Granted, both nuclear and geothermal aren’t 2030 solutions, but what if both technologies gain momentum and are wildly successful?
Considering both nuclear and geothermal offer 24/7 baseload power, and fit the current grid architecture, what could emissions look like in 2050 and beyond versus the short, five-year horizon to 2030?
That’s the analysis I’d like someone to conduct. Unfortunately, the climate community has become shills for solar. That, in my opinion, is to the detriment of achieving net-zero.
#solarpower #renewables #emissions #netzero