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Good morning and happy Friday,
This week, President Biden announced $7.3 billion in Agriculture Department grants to finance clean energy projects operated by rural electric cooperatives, and Phoenix had the unfortunate distinction of setting a record, exceeding 100 days with temperatures above 100 degrees.
Speaking of hot air, Donald Trump says he will halve energy costs in 12 months if elected, eliciting skepticism from industry experts. His campaign is playing a bit fast and loose with the facts around energy issues, and a 180-degree pivot away from renewables seems likely if the Republican ticket wins in November, so the White House is racing to lend billions in climate funds before the election.
And, anyone who’s spent any time in the wind industry knows that cats – not wind turbines – are far and away the biggest killers of birds, and buildings are the second leading cause of avian mortality. More than two dozen environmental groups have petitioned the USFWS to make buildings safer for our feathered friends.
Read on for more.
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Fasten Your Seatbelts
Hot off the presses, the latest Clean Power Quarterly Market Report from American Clean Power showcases “extraordinary growth and milestones” achieved in “a record-breaking second quarter” that saw the addition of 11 GW of new utility-scale clean power capacity. Here are some fast stats:
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One headline is that 2024 is well on its way to trouncing 2023, not only for Q2 (a 91% increase over last year), but also overall, setting the stage for “a second consecutive record-breaking year in 2024.”
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Storage is “surging,” adding 2.9 GW in Q2 and bringing total U.S. operating capacity to 21.6 GW. The pipeline of clean power projects is also up 13% relative to 2023, “with significant expansions expected in offshore wind in the coming months.”
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Indeed, wind is on a winning streak, with more than 14 GW of onshore projects under construction; it’s a similar story offshore, with more than 4 GW of capacity under construction, which is also a record.
⚡️ The Takeaway
Power to the purchaser. By the end of Q2 2024, more than 283 GW of clean power capacity was installed in the U.S., “enough to power almost 70 million American homes.” One driver of this growth is power purchase agreements – 17,821 MW of which were announced in the first half of 2024. Manufacturing to support utility-scale clean energy continues to boom, with 34 new facilities or expansions announced in 2024, and Texas “dethroned” California, becoming the state with the most utility-scale solar (nearly 22 GW, or 20% of the U.S. total).
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Clean Energy Irony
Technology startup CarbonCapture surprised a lot of folks recently by announcing it was “pausing” – read, “scrapping” – its plans to build a massive carbon removal project in Wyoming. The irony? The company says its main reason for doing so is that the clean power it was planning to use has been, er, sucked up by data centers and crypto miners. Here’s the scoop:
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CarbonCapture projected that Project Bison would begin operations in 2025, and ultimately scale up to pulling 5 million tons of carbon dioxide from the air by 2030. For comparison, Climeworks’ Mammoth facility in Iceland (currently the world’s largest) is capable of removing up to 36,000 tons of CO2 annually.
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Project Bison was intended to serve as a cornerstone to the Wyoming Direct Air Capture (DAC) Hub, which was initiated in 2023 with $12.5 million in DOE funding to a coalition led by CarbonCapture.
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The office of Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon indicated it plans to continue with plans for the DAC Hub, noting that “Carbon capture remains a vital part of the Governor’s policy to help maintain fossil fueled power plants” while also making the state “carbon negative.”
⚡️ The Takeaway
Not charging ahead. Bison’s backpedaling is the latest example of the energy consequences of the growth of AI, which is predicted to drive a 160% surge in energy demand by 2030. This has already created complications for tech giant Microsoft, which has “seen a 30% surge in its emissions while attempting to meet demand for AI services.” It also “highlights a critical need for better power options in the Mountain West,” according to the co-CEO of Frontier Carbon Solutions. “Clean, reliable power and safe sequestration go hand-in-hand as part of a strong carbon management strategy.”
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Permitting Polling
Last week we told you about findings from a survey commissioned by Heatmap that pertained to how large landowners participate in public processes related to clean energy projects. The same study also asked participants about their views regarding the permitting process.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the 5,000+ respondents didn’t feel they were sufficiently well-informed on this somewhat arcane topic to have an opinion – and even some of us in the industry might appreciate this cheat sheet from last year!
That said, “those who did feel confident answering largely said they were in favor of it,” with Republicans “somewhat more amenable to the compromise” than Democrats: “58% of GOP voters support the proposal, while only 47% of Democrats do.”
The latest proposal put forth by Senators Joe Manchin and John Barrasso would effectively “speed up the process of building climate-friendly infrastructure in exchange for concessions to the oil and gas industry.”
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Although the bill passed out of committee on a strong vote at the end of July, its prospects are shaky “amid a wildly unpredictable election year.” As E&E reported, “if Republicans lose the House in November, there’s a possibility they could be open to take what they can get in a Manchin-Barrasso package...(b)ut if they keep the House they might want to make even deeper changes to environmental laws, including easing state water permits for pipelines.”
One option for passage: “Manchin and Barrasso could try to attach the legislation to another must-pass bill, with the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act a prime target.” More intrigue amidst a busy and fraught election year!
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