Clean Energy is Conservation

 Clean Energy projects generate conservation benefits that far exceed localized environmental impacts through prevention of pollution and climate change impacts of emissions of fossil fuel power plants. Using advanced climate impact assessment models (IAMs), it is now possible to project future climate impacts per ton of carbon emitted. In evaluating a clean energy project, the avoidance of such future impacts are benefits that are required by law to be weighed against potential negative local impacts of the project.

SLO county has two pending projects that are critical for meeting California’s clean energy transition goals: the Morro Bay Wind Energy Area (MBWEA) project and the Vistra battery energy storage system (Vistra BESS). IAMs project that carbon emissions avoided over the expected 30-year life of the MBWEA project will:

• save over 18,000 human lives from heat-related human mortalities; and
• save over 580,000 people from being exposed to unprecedented heat-related morbidity, food insecurity, and need to migrate.

In addition, the benefits of the Vistra BESS include saving over 6,000 human lives.

More immediate benefits come from the fact that the MBWEA project will preclude the need for 60 gas plants, most of which are located in disadvantaged communities. This will dramatically reduce the health issues caused by gas plant emissions including lung, heart, brain and nervous system, and other chronic and fatal conditions. Gas plants literally suck the life out of frontline communities. 

Another way to grasp the benefits of clean energy projects is to use official EPA programs to calculate the annual emission reduction equivalences. For example, per year the MBWEA will offset the emissions of 2.5 million cars, 1.4 million homes, 64,000 railroad cars of coal, and 27 million barrels of oil. It would have the same decarbonization benefit as 13.8 million acres of forest with additional pollution prevention benefits since forests and other plants only sequester carbon after it has been emitted as local air pollution.

Global climate disruption is accelerating due to the rapid buildup of greenhouse warming gases in the atmosphere. This is causing ever greater damage to our biosphere and shrinking the human sustainability niche. According to NOAA, 2023 was the hottest year on record with a global warming increase over 1.5 degrees Celsius.  This important global warming threshold arrived almost ten years ahead of schedule.  Alarmingly, this significantly moves up the timelines for major tipping points such as ice sheet collapse, coral reef and marine wildlife die-offs, permafrost thaw, rainforest diebacks, desertification of farmlands, and disruption of ocean and atmospheric currents that play crucial roles in regulating global climate and marine ecosystems. 

Fortunately, the clean energy transition is gaining momentum.  According to Yale Climate Connection, the consensus estimate is that the amount of solar and wind generation in the U.S. will nearly double between now and 2025 — and then nearly double again by 2030. Public support for clean energy is at an all-time high, with polls consistently showing that a majority of people believe climate change is a serious problem and support renewable energy development. Eighty percent of people in California support offshore wind.

Nevertheless, there is a looming threat to a successful transition: denials of the necessary permits for clean energy projects caused by opposition from local NIMBY climate-change denying groups across the country. The groups go looking for arguments to support their opposition and find a right-wing disinformation network eagerly waiting to supply them. The preposterous disinformation disseminated by this network includes false climate and clean energy claims and scare tactics concerning improbable environmental, economic, and quality of life catastrophes due to clean energy projects. The irony is that clean energy projects are the most critical conservation method available to ward off climate catastrophes for wildlife and the entire biosphere.

The benefits of climate change on our oceans are several orders of magnitude greater than potential negative impacts. A good example is the loss of over 7,000 humpback whales in the north Pacific due to an unprecedented marine heatwave event between 2012-2021 that decimated their food chain. Compare that to the deceitful sensationalism trumped up by the anti-OSW disinformation network surrounding a few dozen whale deaths in the “Unusual Mortality Event” that occurred off the Atlantic coast. NOAA has confirmed less than 80 whale deaths and autopsies show the cause of death has typically been fishing gear entanglement and/or collisions with ships. Not a single death has been attributed to OSW. In fact, BOEM has stated that they are not aware of anything involving OSW projects that would case whale deaths.

It is for all of these reasons that virtually all of the major environmental organizations support responsibly developed OSW, including Surfrider Foundation, Sierra Club, Oceana, Audubon, National Wildlife Federation, Greenpeace, League of Conservation Voters, The Nature Conservancy, NRDC, Ocean Conservancy, and others representing a total of over 30 million members.

Other Clean Energy Benefit Metrics

We can also use the emission reduction factors generated by the EPA program AVERT to calculate the carbon emission offset of renewable energy projects. Below we compare the estimated annual power output of several California RE projects against the average annual output of typical California coal, oil, and methane power plants as well as the average acre of California utility photovoltaics. For example, the MB WEA is shown to produce the amount of power equivalent to the output of 60 Californian methane plants. Thus, the MB WEA would eliminate the need for 60 methane plants.

Emission Reduction Equivalencies can also be calculated using the EPA equivalency calculator:

While the urgency to combat the climate emergency grows, the clean energy transition is indeed gaining momentum:

• Solar and wind power generation capacity is experiencing explosive growth. In 2022, solar surpassed coal to become the world's largest source of electricity generation capacity added.
• Investments in renewables are skyrocketing, with global investment reaching a record $1.3 trillion in 2021. 
•  Costs of renewable energy technologies continue to plummet, making them increasingly competitive with fossil fuels. 
• The UN International Energy Agency’s Electricity 2024 report forecasts that  renewable energy is set to overtake the world’s use of coal by early 2025 and will account for more than one-third of the world's total electricity generation. 
• Global clean energy investment reached a record $1.8 trillion in 2022, a 17% increase from 2021. This represents a significant shift, with every $1 invested in fossil fuels now met by $1.7 in clean energy. (BloombergNEF)
• Renewables lead the charge: Solar photovoltaic (PV) and electric vehicles (EVs) are driving much of this growth. Solar PV capacity installations are expected to double by 2025 compared to 2022 levels, and EV sales are projected to reach 50% of global car sales by 2030. (IEA– UN International Energy Agency)

References

     Global Warming

Year 2020 global warming increase estimates are from the NOAA Climate.gov article "What's in a number? The meaning of the 1.5-C climate threshold,” https://www.climate.gov/news-features/features/whats-number-meaning-15-c-climate-threshold

Death of 7,000 waves due to marine heatwave, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/7000-humpback-whales-may-have-starved-to-death-during-the-blob-heatwave-180983870/

      Legal Requirements of Clean Energy Benefits

Federal. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) focuses on identifying and disclosing the environmental impacts of a project, both positive and negative. The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) oversees federal agency implementation of NEPA's environmental impact assessment process. CEQ issued final guidance for federal agencies on considering the effects of climate change including both GHG emissions and reductions from the proposed action. See National Environmental Policy Act Guidance on Consideration of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change - Federal Register.

State. Environmental benefits be must be considered in a CEQA-mandated Environmental Impact Report including: effects of the project on local and regional energy supplies and on requirements for additional capacity; effects of the project on peak and base period demands for electricity and other forms of energy; and effects of the project on energy resources. See Public Resources Code section 21100(b)(3), and Appendix F of the California Code of Regulations Title 14.

      Disinformation Network

For information on the right-wing climate change and clean energy disinformation network, see “Right-Wing Think Tanks, and Fossil Fuel Shills Are Plotting Against the Clean Energy Transition - Inside the conspiracy to take down wind and solar power” by Rebecca Burns, March 12, 2024, published in partnership between American Prospect and Sierra Magazine, https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra

For the disinformation network aimed specifically at offshore wind energy, see “Against the Wind: A Map of the Anti-Offshore Wind Network in the Eastern United States”, by Brown University’s Climate and Development Lab, https://www.climatedevlab.brown.edu/post/against-the-wind-a-map-of-the-anti-offshore-wind-network-in-the-eastern-united-states

      Benefit Calculations

Benefit calculations based on the Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy Model, by William Nordhaus (used by the IPCC) and the Mortality Cost of Carbon supplement which calculates mortality resulting from carbon’s effects on the environment. See Bressler, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24487-w and “Death by Carbon,” Santa Lucian, official newsletter of the Santa Lucian Sierra Club, Volume 60 No. 6, page 5.

We use the emission reduction factors generated by the EPA program AVERT to calculate the carbon emission offset of renewable energy projects. Below we compare the estimated annual power output of several California RE projects against the average annual output of typical California coal, oil, and methane power plants as well as the average acre of California utility photovoltaics. For example, the MB WEA is shown to produce the amount of power equivalent to the output of 80 Californian methane plants. Thus, the MB WEA would eliminate the need for 80 methane plants.