Energy Policy Now

The electric vehicle market seems poised to take off, with high demand for Tesla’s Model 3 and growing attention from big automakers. Yet challenges that stalled EV growth in the past, namely sparse charging infrastructure and high costs, persist. A Wharton School expert looks at the role policymakers can take to support, or sink, the EV renaissance. --- Thanks for joining the Energy Policy Now podcast for our first episode of Season 2. These are exciting times for fans of electric vehicles. Tesla, the Silicon Valley electric car maker, recently introduced its long awaited, relatively affordable Model 3, complete with a huge order backlog. Also recently, the governments of France and the UK announced their goal to phase out the sale of new gas and diesel cars within a generation, opening the door to electrics. Yet in the US the electric vehicle market has looked poised for breakthrough in the past, only to disappoint. In the 1990s General Motors developed a promising electric car, the EV1, that it subsequently sought to erase from common memory. And a century ago, around the time that Henry Ford introduced the Model T, electric cars were common. Yet they ultimately all but disappeared. John Paul MacDuffie, an expert on EV policy at the Wharton School, takes a look at policies that might help electric cars stick this time around, and at innovative government interventions that are already fueling EV markets abroad. John Paul MacDuffie is a professor of Management at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and Director of the Program on Vehicle and Mobility Innovation, an international research consortium focused on the global automotive industry. Related Content from the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy: Ending Fossil Fuel Tax Subsidies http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/ending-fossil-fuel-tax-subsidies Stalled: Make Big Trucks More Fuel Efficient http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/stalled-make-big-trucks-more-fuel-efficient Future Energy Demands on the Global Aviation Industry http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/policy-digests/future-energy-demands-global-aviation-energySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Trump Administration has framed regulation as a drag on the economy and jobs. Yet how much do we really understand about the true benefits and costs of protecting the environment? Two legal and regulatory experts weigh in. --- Early in his administration, President Trump vowed to focus on rolling back regulatory oversight of the energy industry and to lift the regulatory burden on business. Conspicuously absent from two of Trump’s early executive orders targeting environmental oversight, however, was any mention of the benefits that regulation has brought in the areas of environment and health. Regulatory experts Alan Krupnick, Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future, and Cary Coglianese, Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Program on Regulation, take a look at the benefit-cost equation underlying the development of regulations, and at the actual benefits, and costs, of key policies. Alan Krupnick’s work at Resources for the Future focuses on analyzing energy and environmental issues, in particular the design of pollution and energy strategies. He was a senior economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisors during the Clinton Administration, and president of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. Cary Coglianese is the Edward B. Shils Professor of Law, and Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in the study of regulation and regulatory processes and has served as an advisor to the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency. He is the founder of the Regulatory Review, the flagship publication of the Penn Program on Regulation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Recent financial bailouts of nuclear reactors in New York and Illinois highlight the conflict between states’ environmental goals and the integrity of electricity markets. As more states weigh subsidies, debate over their market impact and legality expand. --- In 2016 New York and Illinois became the first states to provide direct subsidies to the nuclear power industry, with the goal of keeping economically uncompetitive reactors operating within their borders. The states deemed the nuclear plants, which generate electricity without producing carbon dioxide, as critical to their efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. Yet the bailouts proved contentious in the two states, and the controversy over subsidies is now spreading to a handful of other states weighing similar bailouts. Opponents object to subsidies cost, and argue that they may discourage investment in other new forms of generation, such as natural gas and renewables. And the very legality of the bailouts is now being reviewed in court. In this episode, Christina Simeone, the Kleinman Center’s Director of Regulatory and External Affairs, and David Cherney, an energy industry advisor in the Energy & Utilities Practice at PA Consulting Group in Denver, will examine the roots of nuclear’s financial woes, and the widening debate around nuclear power’s role in decarbonization of the electricity sector. Christina Simeone is Director of Policy and External Affairs at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a past Director of the PennFuture Energy Center for Enterprise and Environment. She also worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and was Policy Director at the Alliance for Climate Protection. David Cherney’s work at PA Consulting Group spans public policy analysis, energy infrastructure investment, and utility strategy. He has also worked as an Adjunct Professor in Public Policy at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies and as a Teaching Fellow at Yale University.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The risk models that policymakers, insurers and communities rely on to predict the nature and frequency of weather-related disasters are becoming less reliable as climate change advances. A Wharton School climate risk expert examines how we might adequately, and equitably, prepare for future disasters. --- In 2012 Hurricane Sandy caused over $70 billion in damage along the U.S. Atlantic coast, leaving communities in desperate financial condition and pushing the National Flood Insurance Program, already financially stretched by a decade of severe weather-related claims, deeper into debt. In addition, coastal cities like Miami and Norfolk, Virginia now experience regular nuisance flooding, demanding huge investments in protective infrastructure to fend off rising seas. How will the U.S. pay for infrastructure needed to minimize the impact of future disasters even as population grows in increasingly flood-prone areas? Howard Kunreuther, Co-Director of the Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses the challenge of balancing support for communities at risk for natural disaster with the economic and political challenges to doing so. He also highlights how human psychology can make it hard for people to grasp the likelihood of future disasters, and the role this has played in pushing the national flood insurance program to the brink of insolvency. Howard Kunreuther is the James G. Dinan professor of Decision Sciences and Business and Public Policy at the Wharton School. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Distinguished Fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis. He has served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (Episode recorded on 5/25/17)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How much should countries spend today to avoid climate change impacts that may be far into the future? A renown economist discusses the emerging discipline of climate economics and explores means of efficiently putting mitigation funds to work. --- How much will global warming cost future generations, and how much should we pay today to avoid the damage a warming climate will cause? Economist Per Krusell, a visiting scholar at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and member of the Nobel Prize for Economics Committee within the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, discusses the challenge of accurately pricing future damages expected to arise from climate change, and how future costs are reflected through the social cost of carbon. Krusell also highlights how climate economics attempts to guide policymakers toward strategies that make best use of limited climate mitigation funds. Per Krusell is Professor of Economics at Stockholm University. His research focuses broadly on macroeconomics, and the impacts that result from technological change and economic policy. He’s working on a long-term project on the interaction between climate change and the economy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Carbon Capture and Storage has the potential to dramatically reduce the carbon emissions from the burning of coal. Yet the technology’s boosters need to overcome high costs, and major infrastructure challenges, if they’re to make a dent in emissions. --- Carbon capture and storage offers the promise of slashing carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, and has been touted by some in the electricity industry as part of a basket of “clean coal” technologies that will dramatically reduce the fuel’s environmental impact and provide a lifeline to the U.S. coal sector. Yet CCS is the only clean coal technology that has yet to prove feasible at a scale, and existing CCS projects are few and far between. Kleinman Center for Energy Policy senior fellow John Quigley takes a look at efforts to reduce the technology’s cost and the relative lack of government support to date for CCS. Quigley also discusses CCS’s environmental promise and whether it can be deployed in time to make a positive climate impact. Guest John Quigley served as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection from January 2015 to May 2016 and as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources from 2009 to 2011. Quigley led some of the nation’s most advanced work on the potential of Carbon Capture and Storage under former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell. He is currently a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fossil fuel tax breaks cost the U.S. $4 billion per year. A former Treasury Department Environment and Energy official looks at whether that’s money well spent. --- The U.S. fossil fuel industry benefits from $4 billion a year in government subsidies, most in the form of tax breaks. But over the past decade debate over the need for subsidies has intensified. The energy industry argues that these subsidies promote the development of domestic energy and support oil and gas jobs. Opponents say there is little justification for subsidizing fossil fuels when government’s focus should be on clean energy and climate. And politicians from both sides of the aisle argue that the government could better use the money spent on subsidies elsewhere. Guest Gilbert Metcalf, Professor of Economics at Tufts University and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, takes a look at the real impact of subsidies on the economics of energy development, renewables and on the environment. Metcalf, who formerly served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment and Energy at the U.S. Department of Treasury, is a visiting scholar at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A senior member of the U.S. State Department’s 2015 Paris climate negotiating team explores the implications of a Trump administration pullback from the agreement. --- The Trump administration has offered conflicting messages around its intention to honor U.S. commitments under the 2015 Paris Climate Accord. Still in the early days of his presidency, President Trump has launched a range of efforts to roll back domestic climate protections, most notably his recent executive order to withdraw support for the Clean Power Plan, and his promise to weaken automotive fuel economy standards. Both are essential to the U.S. meeting its Paris climate goals. Yet some voices in the administration, and within the energy industry, have urged the President to “maintain a seat at the table” of global climate dialogue. Andrew Light, former member of the U.S. State Department’s Paris climate negotiating team, explores the outlook for constructive U.S. participation in the effort to combat climate change and the fate of a global, coordinated climate effort. Andrew Light is a Distinguished Senior Fellow in the Global Climate Program at the World Resources Institute and Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at George Mason University. From 2013 to 2016 he worked for the U.S. State Department, where he was Chair of the Interagency Climate Working Group on UN Sustainable Development Goals, and he served on the senior strategy team for UN Climate Negotiations. Earlier, he was Director of International Climate Policy at the Center for American Progress.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Trump administration is leveraging an array of legal and political tools to roll back environmental protections. A U. Penn environmental law expert takes a look a Trump’s strategy, pitfalls that await, and the potential for protections to endure. -- The Trump administration is doing its best to fulfill its campaign promise to reduce environmental protections related to the energy industry and wider economy. Rollback efforts are taking place through a variety of means, including the issuance of an executive order that notably targets the Clean Power Plan, the defunding of government agencies with environmental oversight, and the use of an obscure rule that allows Congress to overturn standards issued in the final months the Obama administration. Yet the success of rollbacks isn’t assured. In some cases environmental protections exist due to legal requirement, and where rollbacks create a regulatory vacuum, new rules must take their place. University of Pennsylvania law professor Cary Coglianese explores the administration’s options to pare environmental rules and the challenges each approach is likely to face. Coglianese also takes a look at possible routes to defend protections. Cary Coglianese is professor of law and political science at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of the Penn Program on Regulation. He specializes in the study of regulation and regulatory processes and has served as an advisor to the U.S. Department of Transportation and Environmental Protection Agency. He is the founder of The Regulatory Review, the flagship publication of the Penn Program on Regulation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Distributed energy technologies like rooftop solar are eating away at electric utilities’ business. Can utilities adapt, and at what cost to consumers? -- Rooftop solar attracts homeowners with the promise of electricity savings and environmental benefits. Yet every kilowatt hour of electricity generated at home translates into an equivalent amount of electricity no longer sold by a traditional electric utility. As utilities face the prospect of flat and even declining electricity revenue, concerns over their future economic health, and the reliability of the electric power supply we’ve long taken for granted, have been called increasingly into question. Sonny Popowsky, former Consumer Advocate for Pennsylvania and advisory board member of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy explores how utilities might adapt to the challenge of distributed energy and energy efficiency, and the costs their survival could bring to ratepayers. Sonny Popowsky served as the Consumer Advocate of Pennsylvania from 1990 to 2012. He served as the President of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) from 1996 to 1998 and was previously Chairman of the NASUCA Electric Committee. Mr. Popowsky served on the Board of Trustees of the NorthAmerican Electric Reliability Council (NERC) from 1997 to 2001 and the NERC Stakeholders Committee from2001 to 2006. In 2010, Mr. Popowsky was appointed to the Department of Energy’s Electricity Advisory Committee and was named Vice Chair of that Committee in 2012. Mr. Popowsky also currently serves on the Advisory Council of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the Board of Directors of the Energy Coordinating Agency of Philadelphia, the Executive Council of the Pennsylvania AARP, and as a pro bono member of the Certification Decision Committee of the Center for Sustainable Shale Development.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.