Released November 23, 2022 | SUGAR LAND
en
Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--California environmental regulators released a tougher climate action roadmap on November 16 that, they said, would enable the state to achieve economy-wide carbon neutrality by 2045. The proposed plan slashes greenhouse gas emissions 85% and oil usage 94%, chiefly through new regulations and building codes that prohibit gas use. Regulators also estimate the plan would create 4 million new jobs.
Under the final proposed 2022 Scoping Plan Update scenario developed by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) (Sacramento, California), the group said "impacts to economic and job growth would be negligible in both 2035 and 2045." However, the group also estimated that achieving the plan's targets would cost about $18 billion in 2035 and $27 billion in 2045.
CARB will vote on the final plan in mid-December. The plan is a huge effort to reorient a state--the world's fourth-largest economy--that has suffered extreme weather, droughts and natural disasters like wildfires, which have been made worse by a warming and drying climate.
The plan depends on moving the transportation sector off hydrocarbons and onto electricity or hydrogen. Transportation, including tailpipe emissions and fuel, reportedly accounted for about half of the statewide greenhouse emissions in 2019. It remains the largest single source of carbon emissions in California. The plan envisages a 25% reduction in vehicle miles traveled by 2030 and further reductions after that.
Kevin Slagle, a spokesperson for the Western States Petroleum Association (WPSA) (Sacramento, California), told Industrial Info that the group felt that plan "should have relied more heavily on technology-neutral, market-based approaches to achieve emission reductions." In comments filed in response to an earlier draft of the CARB plan, WSPA wrote, "WSPA continues to be concerned with CARB's reliance on a zero-emission vehicle-only approach in achieving the state's greenhouse gas (GHG) and air quality goals within the transportation sector. ... CARB's analyses fail to evaluate the cost-effective air quality and GHG reduction benefits that other technology options--such as near-zero emissions vehicles and low-carbon and renewable fuels--could deliver."
WPSA is a non-profit trade association that represents companies that discover, produce, refine, transport and market petroleum, petroleum products, natural gas and other energy supplies in California and four other western states.
The CARB plan put forward on Nov. 16 noted the broad and deep range of the changes it seeks: "California has never undertaken such a comprehensive, far-reaching and transformative approach to fighting climate change as that called for in this plan. Once implemented, it will place every aspect of how we live, work, play and travel in California on a more sustainable footing, with a focus on directly benefitting those communities already most burdened by pollution."
The plan "lays out the sector-by-sector roadmap for California to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 or earlier, outlining a technologically feasible, cost-effective, and equity-focused path to achieve the state's climate target," the agency said. "This is a challenging, but necessary, goal to minimize the impacts of climate change."
One key part of the Scoping Plan would be a policy opposing the construction of any new gas-fired power generation in the state. There are some questions about whether that policy would have the effect of a legal ban.
The plan, if approved by CARB, would become state policy. It does not appear to have the legal power to outlaw building new gas-fired power plants. Rather, it would show other state agencies, including the California Energy Commission (CEC) (Sacramento, California), which handles long-term energy planning, and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) (San Francisco, California), which grants approval to build power plants, that the state is opposed to building new-build gas plants. Those agencies have tended to oppose building new gas-fired generation, but years of summer power emergencies have led to calls by some to rethink the state's resistance to building new gas-fired generation.
This plan follows a law enacted this summer banning the sale of internal combustion engines in the state by 2035. That law was enacted to expedite the transition to electrified transportation.
Governor Gavin Newsom (D) said the CARB Scoping Plan was the world's first detailed pathway to carbon neutrality by 2045. No economy in the world, much less the fourth largest, has put forth such a comprehensive roadmap to reach carbon neutrality, his office said in a statement.
If adopted by CARB, Newsom's statement continued, this plan would be a critical component of his California Climate Commitment: A set of "world-leading actions to build out a 100% clean energy grid, achieve carbon neutrality by 2045, ramp up carbon removal and sequestration, protect Californians from harmful oil drilling, and invest $54 billion to forge an oil-free future while building sustainable communities throughout the state."
The estimated costs to implement this draft plan--$18 billion in 2035 and $27 billion in 2045--would be dwarfed by the estimated $200 billion in health-care savings residents would enjoy due to lowered pollution, the agency said.
The plan would allow existing gas-fired power plants to continue operating. It also would not affect the status of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Station, which will continue operating until 2030 after a law passed this past summer. For more on that, see September 7, 2022, article - California Backs Life Extension for Diablo Canyon.
The Biden administration on Monday awarded PG&E, owners and operators of Diablo Canyon, a grant of up to $1.1 billion to keep the two-unit nuclear plant running to 2030.
The CARB scoping plan calls for a dramatic expansion of the state's electricity generation. At least 45,000 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind generation is to be built by 2045, partly to power an increasingly electrified transport sector.
The plan's success "is predicated on the build-out of utility-scale wind and solar, having energy efficiency and making sure that there is the ability to connect those sources to points in California where that power is going to be needed," Rajinder Sahota, CARB's deputy executive officer for climate change and research, told The Los Angeles Times.
Carbon capture, use and sequestration (CCUS) also gets a boost in this plan, which calls for 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent to be captured or used by 2030, and 100 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent by 2045. There are no CCUS facilities operating in the state today. By embracing CCUS, California could benefit from strengthened Section 45Q federal tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), enacted this summer.
Most of the state's 17 oil refineries would be required to install CCUS by 2030, according to the plan. By 2045, all of the state's cement, clay, glass and stone facilities will be required to have CCUS technology.
The proposed CARB plan also would ramp up efforts to cut natural gas use from homes and businesses. So-called building electrification (BE) efforts in the Scoping Plan call for making 3 million homes "climate-friendly" by 2030 and 7 million by 2035. This would largely be driven by the installation of 6 million heat pumps by 2030.
Earlier, in a separate move, CARB announced a ban on new sales of natural gas heaters, water heaters and furnaces by 2030.
A significant ramp-up of battery energy storage systems (BESS) also is contemplated in the plan.
"California is drastically cutting our dependence on fossil fuels and cleaning our air--this plan is a comprehensive roadmap to achieve a pollution-free future," the recently reelected Newsom said in a statement. "It's the most ambitious set of climate goals of any jurisdiction in the world, and if adopted, it'll spur an economic transformation akin to the industrial revolution. While big polluters focus on increasing their profits at our expense, California is protecting communities, creating jobs and accelerating our transition to clean energy."
If approved, the plan seeks to achieve a 48% reduction of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) by 2030, surpassing the statutory mandate to reduce emissions 40% below 1990 levels in 2030. By 2045, GHGs would be 85% below 1990 levels.
In releasing the 297-page Scoping Plan, the governor's office also provided supportive comments from professors, an electrical union, hydrogen advocates, building electrification supporters, tribal leaders, environmental organizations and utility giant Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) (San Francisco), a unit of PGE Corporation (NYSE:PCG) (San Francisco, California).
"PG&E commends CARB for its robust public process to develop the Scoping Plan," said Carla Peterman, PG&E's executive vice president of corporate affairs and chief sustainability officer. "It establishes the right framework to achieve the Governor and the State's ambitious climate goals, while minimizing costs to customers. The Plan allows for a wide range of decarbonization strategies, and will help deliver carbon neutrality through significant economy-wide emissions reductions and carbon removal. It's aligned with PG&E's decarbonization strategy, and supports the nation's clean energy strategy."
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) platform helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking more than 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 trillion (USD).
Under the final proposed 2022 Scoping Plan Update scenario developed by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) (Sacramento, California), the group said "impacts to economic and job growth would be negligible in both 2035 and 2045." However, the group also estimated that achieving the plan's targets would cost about $18 billion in 2035 and $27 billion in 2045.
CARB will vote on the final plan in mid-December. The plan is a huge effort to reorient a state--the world's fourth-largest economy--that has suffered extreme weather, droughts and natural disasters like wildfires, which have been made worse by a warming and drying climate.
The plan depends on moving the transportation sector off hydrocarbons and onto electricity or hydrogen. Transportation, including tailpipe emissions and fuel, reportedly accounted for about half of the statewide greenhouse emissions in 2019. It remains the largest single source of carbon emissions in California. The plan envisages a 25% reduction in vehicle miles traveled by 2030 and further reductions after that.
Kevin Slagle, a spokesperson for the Western States Petroleum Association (WPSA) (Sacramento, California), told Industrial Info that the group felt that plan "should have relied more heavily on technology-neutral, market-based approaches to achieve emission reductions." In comments filed in response to an earlier draft of the CARB plan, WSPA wrote, "WSPA continues to be concerned with CARB's reliance on a zero-emission vehicle-only approach in achieving the state's greenhouse gas (GHG) and air quality goals within the transportation sector. ... CARB's analyses fail to evaluate the cost-effective air quality and GHG reduction benefits that other technology options--such as near-zero emissions vehicles and low-carbon and renewable fuels--could deliver."
WPSA is a non-profit trade association that represents companies that discover, produce, refine, transport and market petroleum, petroleum products, natural gas and other energy supplies in California and four other western states.
The CARB plan put forward on Nov. 16 noted the broad and deep range of the changes it seeks: "California has never undertaken such a comprehensive, far-reaching and transformative approach to fighting climate change as that called for in this plan. Once implemented, it will place every aspect of how we live, work, play and travel in California on a more sustainable footing, with a focus on directly benefitting those communities already most burdened by pollution."
The plan "lays out the sector-by-sector roadmap for California to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 or earlier, outlining a technologically feasible, cost-effective, and equity-focused path to achieve the state's climate target," the agency said. "This is a challenging, but necessary, goal to minimize the impacts of climate change."
One key part of the Scoping Plan would be a policy opposing the construction of any new gas-fired power generation in the state. There are some questions about whether that policy would have the effect of a legal ban.
The plan, if approved by CARB, would become state policy. It does not appear to have the legal power to outlaw building new gas-fired power plants. Rather, it would show other state agencies, including the California Energy Commission (CEC) (Sacramento, California), which handles long-term energy planning, and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) (San Francisco, California), which grants approval to build power plants, that the state is opposed to building new-build gas plants. Those agencies have tended to oppose building new gas-fired generation, but years of summer power emergencies have led to calls by some to rethink the state's resistance to building new gas-fired generation.
This plan follows a law enacted this summer banning the sale of internal combustion engines in the state by 2035. That law was enacted to expedite the transition to electrified transportation.
Governor Gavin Newsom (D) said the CARB Scoping Plan was the world's first detailed pathway to carbon neutrality by 2045. No economy in the world, much less the fourth largest, has put forth such a comprehensive roadmap to reach carbon neutrality, his office said in a statement.
If adopted by CARB, Newsom's statement continued, this plan would be a critical component of his California Climate Commitment: A set of "world-leading actions to build out a 100% clean energy grid, achieve carbon neutrality by 2045, ramp up carbon removal and sequestration, protect Californians from harmful oil drilling, and invest $54 billion to forge an oil-free future while building sustainable communities throughout the state."
The estimated costs to implement this draft plan--$18 billion in 2035 and $27 billion in 2045--would be dwarfed by the estimated $200 billion in health-care savings residents would enjoy due to lowered pollution, the agency said.
The plan would allow existing gas-fired power plants to continue operating. It also would not affect the status of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Station, which will continue operating until 2030 after a law passed this past summer. For more on that, see September 7, 2022, article - California Backs Life Extension for Diablo Canyon.
The Biden administration on Monday awarded PG&E, owners and operators of Diablo Canyon, a grant of up to $1.1 billion to keep the two-unit nuclear plant running to 2030.
The CARB scoping plan calls for a dramatic expansion of the state's electricity generation. At least 45,000 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind generation is to be built by 2045, partly to power an increasingly electrified transport sector.
The plan's success "is predicated on the build-out of utility-scale wind and solar, having energy efficiency and making sure that there is the ability to connect those sources to points in California where that power is going to be needed," Rajinder Sahota, CARB's deputy executive officer for climate change and research, told The Los Angeles Times.
Carbon capture, use and sequestration (CCUS) also gets a boost in this plan, which calls for 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent to be captured or used by 2030, and 100 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent by 2045. There are no CCUS facilities operating in the state today. By embracing CCUS, California could benefit from strengthened Section 45Q federal tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), enacted this summer.
Most of the state's 17 oil refineries would be required to install CCUS by 2030, according to the plan. By 2045, all of the state's cement, clay, glass and stone facilities will be required to have CCUS technology.
The proposed CARB plan also would ramp up efforts to cut natural gas use from homes and businesses. So-called building electrification (BE) efforts in the Scoping Plan call for making 3 million homes "climate-friendly" by 2030 and 7 million by 2035. This would largely be driven by the installation of 6 million heat pumps by 2030.
Earlier, in a separate move, CARB announced a ban on new sales of natural gas heaters, water heaters and furnaces by 2030.
A significant ramp-up of battery energy storage systems (BESS) also is contemplated in the plan.
"California is drastically cutting our dependence on fossil fuels and cleaning our air--this plan is a comprehensive roadmap to achieve a pollution-free future," the recently reelected Newsom said in a statement. "It's the most ambitious set of climate goals of any jurisdiction in the world, and if adopted, it'll spur an economic transformation akin to the industrial revolution. While big polluters focus on increasing their profits at our expense, California is protecting communities, creating jobs and accelerating our transition to clean energy."
If approved, the plan seeks to achieve a 48% reduction of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) by 2030, surpassing the statutory mandate to reduce emissions 40% below 1990 levels in 2030. By 2045, GHGs would be 85% below 1990 levels.
In releasing the 297-page Scoping Plan, the governor's office also provided supportive comments from professors, an electrical union, hydrogen advocates, building electrification supporters, tribal leaders, environmental organizations and utility giant Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) (San Francisco), a unit of PGE Corporation (NYSE:PCG) (San Francisco, California).
"PG&E commends CARB for its robust public process to develop the Scoping Plan," said Carla Peterman, PG&E's executive vice president of corporate affairs and chief sustainability officer. "It establishes the right framework to achieve the Governor and the State's ambitious climate goals, while minimizing costs to customers. The Plan allows for a wide range of decarbonization strategies, and will help deliver carbon neutrality through significant economy-wide emissions reductions and carbon removal. It's aligned with PG&E's decarbonization strategy, and supports the nation's clean energy strategy."
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) platform helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking more than 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 trillion (USD).
