Rick Perry Orders a Staff Report Showing Renewable
Energy Harms the Electric Grid
By Laura Vecsey
Energy Secretary Rick Perry is cooking up a case to stifle
further federal support of renewable wind and solar energy. He’s ordered a dubiously sourced staff study that is aimed to paint renewables as an unreliable source for the nation’s electric grid.
The study, due June 23, seeks to determine whether federal tax and subsidy policies favoring renewable
energy have burdened “baseload” coal-fired generation, putting power grid reliability at risk.
It is
being spearheaded by Energy Department political appointee Travis Fisher, who’s
associated with a Washington policy group that opposes almost any
government aid for renewable energy.
Fisher wrote a 2015 report for the Institute for Energy
Research that called clean energy policies “the single greatest emerging threat” to
the nation’s electric power grid, and a greater threat to electric reliability
than cyber-attacks, terrorism or extreme weather.
What Rick Perry does with the grid study will be the real test.
With a campaign promise to “Bring Back Coal,’’ the Perry-ordered report could
be used to help rewrite the Clean Power Plan.
The man shepherding this process forward is Travis Fisher, Senior Adviser, Department of
Energy, Forrestal Building, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C.
20585.
You can also write Rick Perry at that address. His email:
The.Secretary@hq.doe.gov. Or you can Tweet at
him that advanced energy technology is already reliable.
The Institute for Energy Research and its
advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance, has been the “influential force in
shaping Donald Trump’s plans to dismantle Obama administration climate
initiatives,’’ according to Bloomberg News.
Headed by Thomas Pyle, a former director of federal affairs
for Koch Industries, IER has already delivered its fossil fuel industry wish list to the
Trump administration. It’s part of the “America First Energy Plan” that was
posted on the White House website on Jan. 20.
As a blueprint for quashing renewable energy research and
development, Perry’s call for the study immediately signaled alarm.
Chuck
Grassley (R-Iowa) slammed the study as “anti-wind.” University of Texas’ Energy Institute experts
called the question of whether renewables are killing coal “would be similar to
asking in the late 1990s whether email was killing fax machines and snail
mail.’’
A letter from Advanced Energy Economy, American
Wind Energy Association and Solar Energy Industries Association disputed the
administration’s premise:
“Policies supporting the deployment of these technologies are not playing an important role in the decline of coal and nuclear plants. Numerous studies have conclusively demonstrated that low natural gas prices and stagnant load growth are the principal factors behind the retirements in coal and nuclear plants.’’
Energy Department officials last week sought to reassure
members of its electricity policy advisory panel that a grid reliability study
“is gathering a range of viewpoints from experts at DOE’s national
laboratories,” reported E&E News, a Washington new organization
that covers energy issues.