President Joe Biden wants to eliminate carbon pollution from the power grid by 2035, and his administration is pouring many billions of dollars into clean energy sources like solar and wind. But one of the year’s biggest trends in the power world is a growing clamor for a fossil fuel — natural gas. And nowhere is that more clear than in the Southeast. The region’s population is surging, electric cars and trucks are crowding onto the roads, and all the while, grid operators have to keep the lights on. Renewables are coming online, but three key electric utilities — including the country’s largest public power provider — want gas to be a bedrock fuel. That could complicate Biden’s climate targets, as I write today. A big build-out anywhere could threaten the fight to cut climate-warming emissions everywhere, even if gas is a less potent pollution source than coal. The Tennessee Valley Authority, Duke Energy and Georgia Power are eyeing record gas additions — totaling more than 12,000 megawatts — to replace coal-fired generation. In comparison, the U.S. added an estimated 8,600 MW of new gas-fired generation last year. Each of their plans is up for review by regulators this year. Simon Mahan, executive director of the Southern Renewable Energy Association, has reviewed utilities’ resource planning processes in the region for more than a decade. “They've never done anything like this,” he told me. Look to Georgia Power, and you’ll see what he means. The utility put out an update to its resource plan two years early, after its demand projections for winter 2030 soared by almost 1,700 percent (not a typo!). Georgia Power CEO Kim Greene said the shift is so pronounced because new industries are coming to the state — bringing with them “large electrical demands at both a record scale and velocity.” That’s actually partly because of Biden’s landmark climate law. The state ranks first among beneficiaries of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, having procured more than $15.3 billion in investments. And it’s welcomed numerous solar factories and electric automakers, which have driven up power demands. Gas is the main resource Georgia Power thinks it can get online fast enough to meet its demand projections, said Bryan Jacob, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy’s solar program director. But clean energy advocates and environmentalists say utilities have options beyond doubling down on fossil fuels, the main drivers of climate change. The utility should look at increasing transmission capacity in existing corridors, Jacob told me, “before we charge down the path of saying that these fossil-based resources are the only way.”
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