A Small Step Toward Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Posted on October 10, 2014 by Jeff Bissonnette
Tags, Climate and Conservation, Legislative & Political, Utility Regulation
In 2013, CUB supported the passage of Senate Bill 844, a bill that allows gas utilities (NW Natural, Cascade Natural Gas and Avista) to conduct projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and deliver some other customer benefits. When they successfully reduce emissions and provide other benefits, the utility can receive some sort of additional financial benefit. Electric utilities (Portland General Electric, Pacific Power) chose not to participate.
Does providing an incentive for a gas utility to reduce greenhouse gasses take the place of a comprehensive climate policy? Absolutely not. But until either the state or the federal government actually adopts such a policy, (and we’re working hard on that front), we need to find ways to show how emissions can actually be reduced.
For most of this year, CUB has been working with other stakeholders – the gas companies, environmental groups, industrial gas users, and others – on developing the rules by which the new law will be implemented. We dealt with a lot of issues to determine how to measure emissions reductions, how to define customer benefits, how to keep project costs under control, and many others.
The rulemaking process is just about to finish and then we’ll start the discussions to identify specific projects. Some of the ideas that have surfaced have included replacing oil furnaces with high-efficiency gas furnaces, capturing methane from dairy farms, creating bio-gas to fuel fleets of company vehicles, and taking steps to prevent leaks in the distribution systems. It’s not clear yet which projects will actually be undertaken, and it will take some time to figure out what defines a good project and what defines a poor one.
The SB 844 rulemaking process provides interesting opportunities to discuss real-world options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It may provide some examples of how emissions can be reduced cost-effectively. That could be helpful in adopting the comprehensive climate policy I mentioned earlier. That is the most important action in the long run, but CUB believes it’s a good idea to get some practice in reducing emissions. Stay tuned for news as projects begin to be developed. Let us know if you have some ideas on what gas companies could do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The upcoming CUB Policy Conference, Changing Climate: Adapting to New Regulations, will touch on this very topic, in our first afternoon breakout panel session, SB 844: Utility Projects to Mitigate Greenhouse Gas Emissions. We will be releasing a follow-up blog after the event to give brief summaries of the topics discussed, so stay tuned (or better yet, register for the conference and join us in person!)
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04/24/17 | 0 Comments | A Small Step Toward Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions