A previous article advocated for an “All Hands on Deck” response to the global “climate emergency”. In coastal California, there is a wave of local climate action interest in “electrification”, i.e. meeting building heating needs with heat pumps powered by electricity. Most building heating needs are currently met with natural gas, the production, delivery and use of which releases greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. There is also is a rising wave of interest in “microgrids” to meet critical electricity needs when blackouts and “power safety shutoffs” occur.
The all hands on deck metaphor recalls a storm brewing and a need to change course, batten down the hatches and make all possible speed to safety. The pace and extent of building electrification and microgrid deployment in recent years has been slow even in temperate California; now it may accelerate. But rather than all hands on deck, these measures feel like sending a crew member above deck to trim sails to adjust course toward an end point over the horizon. Are they too little too late? Will they help?
They are timely and will help. Not quickly and conveniently in most cases. Not affordably for all. But they are important and aligned with navigating a climate conscious energy transition over the long term. And the sails really do need to be trimmed.
Policy-enabled action on two broad fronts, each accounting for about half of California’s climate action challenge, would feel more like all hands on deck.
First, action on the statewide front to decarbonize heavy industry, long haul ground transport, and embedded carbon in the goods and materials we use. Even action to change our economically vital agricultural sector from a GHG source to a carbon sink.
Second, action on the local front to protect vulnerable local economies while accelerating decarbonization. California has transformative climate action and adaptation policies. The cumulative effect of independent decisions by energy users and communities can turbocharge or impede progress toward radically lower GHG emissions.
Thanks to California’s “Community Choice”[1] movement and installation of a million plus solar electricity systems on California buildings and parking structures in recent years, California city and county attention tends to focus on climate action options listed in the left column of Figure 1. But climate action options involving gas fuel in the right column are comparably affordable and impactful. They may evoke negative reactions if associated with oil industry climate denial, fracking and carbon based fuels in general, but they are pragmatically and strategically appropriate and even urgently important.
FIGURE 1. LOCAL DECARBONIZATION AND RESILIENCE ENABLERS
Local climate action and adaptation is a relatively new planning consideration. Carefully planned and implemented, it can strengthen local economies, create local jobs, increase county and city tax revenues, and improve essential services. Local planning is essential because of local differences that cause large local deviations from statewide average energy usage patterns, transportation infrastructure, renewable resource opportunities, environmental concerns, and demographics.
Cities and counties can change the future course of local energy supply and usage. But they need to have a plan they are committed to implement. They also need energy expertise on staff. While analysis can be outsourced, planning must always be done people who will execute the plan. The plan needs to account for technology and cost shifts that open pathways for local action to decarbonize electricity and fuel supply and usage.
Timely progress requires strategies for affordable action, that is also beneficial to local economies because residents and businesses will be investing time, making decisions, and bearing the costs under post-COVID economic conditions.
Starting a decade ago many California cities and counties prepared and adopted Climate Action and Adaptation Plans (CAAPs). These plans anticipated targeted reductions in building energy use and opportunities to import low carbon electricity. Typically, no state or local funding was approved to implement them.
FIGURE 2. LOCAL DECARBONIZATION AND RESILIENCE PATHWAYS
Much has changed. Much is changing. Neither planning nor implementation is optional. Now cost-competitive renewable gas and electricity can be produced and distributed locally, helping insulate communities from risks of being cut off from regional energy delivery networks. More aggressive plans can be developed that consider both existing and emerging pathways. California communities already enjoy the strategic and resilience benefits of supply diversity. It will be best not to take them for granted.
As outlined in Figure 2, new action and adaptation pathways will be branching off from the old. Cities and counties can plan for rapid though still evolutionary changes in fuel sourcing, regional (Giga) networks that continue to handle high volumes of gas fuel and electricity, flexible local (Micro) and (Mini) networks, smarter building based (Nano) networks that inform and control end use equipment, and continuing proliferation of on-site (Nano) power plants working in concert with new and aging regional power plant fleets. In many cases tapping “community renewable” fuel and electricity sources will be foundational to local decarbonization and resilience.
Transitions from current natural gas sources to renewable natural gas and renewable hydrogen sources[2] require local as well as state attention, as will transitions to smarter and more localized energy delivery and exchange networks. Community based renewable gas and power plants will have a role in resupplying local vehicles with energy. As soon as possible, energy storage and production capacities of zero carbon vehicles must be adapted to reduce building energy costs and make building energy service more resilient.
In many cases local learning by doing will be the difference between safe and unsafe, and between energy that is affordable for all vs. just for some. The best resource mix and balance between locally produced and imported energy will be different for each city and county. In a recessionary period, no city or county can afford to waste money importing energy that could be produced and delivered locally and more beneficially.
Above all, local planning must be ever more holistic, collaborative and pragmatic.
Holistic, because renewable energy is now being produced both locally and imported from afar, and because resilience and decarbonization both rely on the same local systems and so must be considered together.
Collaborative, because there are major barriers to affordable local energy transitions. They result from outdated and overly prescriptive state laws and regulations. Local governments and utilities can overcome these impediments more quickly and cost-effectively if they work together.
Pragmatic, because urgently needed changes must also be affordable. In local energy transitions, pragmatic means both/and, not either/or, e.g. decarbonizing both gas fuel and electricity commodities and taking advantage of the synergies between them.
Pragmatic local climate action and adaptation planning will not be possible without supporting analysis of local trends and differences, modeling of current local energy systems, and forecasting of plausible substitution scenarios. Even sound, life cycle cost efficient plans will not be implemented unless energy managers on local government staffs are engaged and empowered to begin implementation when plans are improved. Implementation will fail or falter if progress is not routinely made visible to political leaders, along with recommended steps to remove roadblocks.
For specific guidance and references related to local CAAP development, please refer to the report: Local Fuel Gas Decarbonization and Resilience for Southern California.
[1] Locally governed wholesale electricity procurement
[2] Renewable hydrogen production requires either zero carbon electricity to electrolytically split water or chemical “reforming” of methane (separation of hydrogen from carbon in the methane molecule) plus carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) of the CO2 byproduct of methane reforming. CCS is not yet a standard feature of industrial hydrogen production around the world.