Utilities Are Promising Net Zero Carbon Emissions, But Don’t Expect Big Changes Soon

From an Article by Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News, October 15, 2019

One way to quickly assess the seriousness of a utility’s emissions-reduction plan is to look at how it deals with coal-fired power plants, which are the leading sources of carbon emissions from the power sector, said Daniel Cohan, a Rice University environmental engineering professor.

“Any plan that leaves a substantial amount of coal around isn’t a serious climate plan,” he said

Most of the country’s largest investor-owned utilities have released carbon-reduction plans in recent months, often in response to intensifying demands from shareholders and customers to address climate change. The announcements reached an inflection point last month when Duke Energy, the utility behemoth that generates more electricity than any other U.S. company, issued its plan to get to net-zero carbon by 2050. DTE followed a week later.

The plans tend to have ambitious long-term targets, but many of the utilities, like Detroit-based DTE, wait decades to make major changes rather than starting an ambitious phase-out quickly, and some expect to rely on carbon capture technology. That’s drawing criticism from analysts and environmental advocates.

DTE pledged to get its operations to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, yet it still intends to run the Monroe plant, one of the largest coal-fired generators in the country, until 2040.

Southern Company has said its system will be “low to no carbon” by 2050, but its Georgia Power subsidiary told regulators this summer that the corporate carbon pledge has played no role in the drafting of a separate plan for Georgia power plants.

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On the other end of the spectrum is Xcel Energy, which has used its net-zero carbon plan as the basis for proposals for power plants in Colorado and Minnesota. Xcel has an interim goal to cut its carbon emissions by 80 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. In contrast, DTE and Duke only aim for 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.

One reason Xcel can aim for such an ambitious interim goal is that it has done much of the work already. Its 2018 emissions were down more than a third from 2005.

Pace of Emissions Cuts Slowing?

The plans are statements about a company’s intentions. The more substantial commitments come in the form of long-term planning documents that utilities file with regulators in the states where they do business, showing which power plants would open and close over the next one to two decades.

“There’s always the risk that these targets will just be ignored, but having them announced is significant if it empowers citizens’ groups, regulators and others to hold these companies accountable,” Cohan said.

While companies often frame the plans as major progress, some of the plans actually slow the utilities’ pace of carbon dioxide emissions reductions, according to an analysis from Energy and Policy Institute, an environmental watchdog group.

Most utilities have significantly reduced their CO2 emissions since 2005. One reason was an economic shift as natural gas became a less expensive fuel than coal, leading to a boom in construction of natural gas plants and the closing of many coal plants. Natural gas plants also emit greenhouse gases, but they have lower CO2 emissions than coal.

To maintain this pace in the 2020s, companies would need to continue to close coal plants and also their older and less efficient gas plants, and replace them with renewable sources and energy storage. Many of the companies are not doing this fast enough, said David Pomerantz, executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute.

“I think they’re hoping they get plaudits for a nice-sounding goal and then people stop paying attention,” he said. “Once you start looking under the hood, you see some really big problems.”