Photo: Ethan Miller (Getty Images)
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND – the Republican climate delegation landed at the Climate talks in Glasgow. When 100,000 protesters took to the streets to Demand radical, transformative change, Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas, Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana, and Rep. John Curtis of Utah entered the convention center where negotiators are negotiating a climate deal.
Her pitch is definitely not transformative, although it is certainly radical. Instead of decarbonizing by expanding renewable capacities as quickly as possible, the company is advocating exporting more American natural gas and investing in expensive nuclear power and untested carbon capture technologies in order to cope with the climate crisis.
Earther happened upon the entourage as they wandered through the country pavilions where nations hold expert talks and advertise their climate compliance. Crenshaw paused at one point for a photo of one. close Art installation with polar bears wearing life jackets in the pavilion for Tuvalu, an island nation that is threatened with extinction due to rising sea levels, before inviting a meeting in the Danish pavilion. Then we could catch up with him.
“As a Republican delegation here, I would say in general [we’re here] to give all of this a more rational perspective, ”he said. When asked about the solutions the group wanted to promote here, he noted that this included nuclear power, including advanced modular reactors, carbon capture and Texas natural gas. “This is a more rational discussion of promoting nuclear power, promoting carbon capture, promoting US natural gas exports, which would displace coal around the world and have a much greater impact on reducing emissions than, honestly said to everyone else the goals that are being talked about here. … The reason Republicans advocate these types of solutions because they actually work. “
However, the rationality of these positions is a bit shaky, including how well they actually work. Let’s start with nuclear power, a vital source of carbon-free energy that is in serious danger. Many US plants are approaching or past retirement age. In New York Indian Point was closed this yearwhile in Illinois the state government recently threw a lifeline at the aging nuclear fleet to keep it online, which underscores the two very different options available.
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However, building new nuclear power plants has proven incredibly difficult. In the USA only one is currently under construction, the Vogtle nuclear power plant, which is years behind schedule and is now double the acquisition costs. Investing in nuclear power is certainly a path towards decarbonisation, but the challenges at Vogtle show that it is not a slam dunk and that enough nuclear capacity could probably go online in the required time.
So far, CO2 capture and storage or CCS was a pipe dream that has failed. This includes the formwork of the Plant Petra Nova in Crenshaws Texas earlier this year because it was too expensive and ineffective. (The trapped carbon was also used to make more oil, which is not exactly a benefit for the climate.) Crenshaw said this is a “pilot project” which in itself says a lot about the state of CCS. That’s not to say that this isn’t a worthwhile technology to invest in, and in fact it would buy the world time to cut emissions. But it is not a silver bullet or an important plan in the race to decarbonise the energy system.
Then there is the matter of natural gas. Gas is better than coal, yes. But it still releases methane. Even relatively “cleaner” gas from Texas poses a climate challenge. with volatile methane emissions which cause the planet to warm 80 times faster than carbon dioxide.
An important report from the International Energy Agency, which was founded in the wake of the oil crisis of the 1970s and is not exactly a cereal and hemp-loving group, Released earlier this year determined that new oil and gas exploration must cease next year. Crenshaw said he didn’t see the report, but “that’s not feasible at all.”
Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has over Reaching the 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degree Fahrenheit) target found that oil and gas consumption must decrease by 37% and 25% respectively by 2030. Crenshaw also said the Texas blackouts demonstrated the need for more natural gas and the risk of reliance on renewable energy. (Peer-reviewed science found that the power outages demonstrated the risk of not weathering the natural gas infrastructure.)
“There was a straw man argument like, ‘Oh, the Republicans say the wind turbines are frozen,'” he said. “Maybe some said that. I did not say that. There was a meme that said that on the internet. “
In fact there was a exposed meme. While Crenshaw didn’t share the said meme, he did tweet a thread about why the Texas grid went down, starting with “Frozen Wind Turbines” and that he would grapple with what happened “so we don’t rely on frozen wind turbines to heat our homes during a blizzard.” Again, this is not the main source of suffering for energy policy experts.
So the Republican vision for rationality in the UN talks essentially continues to rely on fossil fuels with some CCS and nuclear bells and whistles, which, while very important investments, are not enough to hold the tides off Swallowing places like Tuvalu.
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