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Discussing the factors that influence setting greenhouse gas emission reduction goals for New Hampshire and establishing a climate action plan.
University of New Hampshire students explore the science behind the underlying aspects of current issues under consideration at New Hampshire's State House.
From UNH Cooperative Extension, this is Relative to New Hampshire.
Step into the classroom and listen in while group of UNH students explore the underlying aspects of current issues under consideration at New Hampshire's State House. We pick apart those issues and connect with experts. All to share with you, insights from our scientific community that enhance our understanding of the biological world right here in New Hampshire, home of the greatest democracy in the world.
Anna: I’m your moderator, Dr. Anna Kate Wallingford.
Emily: I’m Emily Thompson. I’m a senior Environmental Sustainability and Conservation major.
Anna: Emily has taken on a Herculean effort here, in covering HB 172 establishing greenhouse gas emission reduction goals for the state and establishing a climate action plan. This bill was retained in committee by the end of the session, and a similar senate bill, SB 71, was laid on the table. So there will be no changes to the current energy policy in NH this year. While Emily followed this bill and attended public hearings, she reported back to the group in our weekly meeting about what she learned along the way. The group is a team of science liaisons made up of UNH students from a diverse array of departments in the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture, as well as my co-moderators Extension’s Public Engagement Program Manager, Nate Bernitz and Extension’s Public Affairs Manager, Lauren Banker. Let’s start with Emily’s summary following the public hearing.
Emily: We are talking about House Bill 172, which is establishing greenhouse gas emission reduction goals for the state of New Hampshire and establishing a Climate Action Plan. This bill wanted to get to net zero energy by 2050. Every five years there would be further goals implemented, they wanted to be 20% below 1990 emission levels by 2025, 50% below those emission levels by 2035. And then net zero by 2050.
A ton of people talked at the hearing. There were a lot of different concerns regarding the bill, but they were regarding different things. So a lot of public health concerns, property concerns with like seacoast property. They were mainly focused on what are the impacts of climate change? And what are those going to be on New Hampshire residents? A lot of people talked about their concern for climate change and how expressing it for this bill, they believe that this bill would be a solution to that. But then there was also the controversy associated with the installation of new technologies, raising taxes, green jobs, everything like that. So there was a ton of information there and a ton of people talked but that was like my main takeaways.
Anna: Ok, so there are a dizzying number of directions to take this and we had many discussion about all of the concerns raised in the public hearing, most of which had to do with direct impacts of climate change on New Hampshire residents, which there are many. As a group we labored over how difficult it would be to draw a direct line between energy use in the state and the global influence of carbon on all of these direct impacts on New Hampshire residents. So separate and aside from this discussion, Emily chose to focus her attention on the question of whether or not the goals of the bill were feasible within the timeframe…with the specter of cost hanging over her head at all times.
Let’s turn to the experts for some context. Emily spoke with Dr. Clayton Mitchell, a professor in UNH’s Department of Natural Resources & the Environment. He has decades of experience working in energy policy right here in New Hampshire, and happened to teach one of Emily’s favorite classes on alternative energy policy here at UNH.
Emily: So I’m in charge of looking at the environment and energy and agriculture bills going through and when I saw this one, I kind of jumped right on it after the class last fall. I was like I just took an entire class on this, so I know the perfect expert to ask.
If it were to get passed, do you think New Hampshire would be able to do that transition with wind, water and solar like do we have enough space for solar? I don't know if they talked about offshore wind. I know there's potential there.
Dr. Mitchell: Yeah, I definitely think that we have the capability of planning for and accommodating the deployment of renewable energy in this state. Some of the power plants that are along the coast have shut down, like Schiller is not running. These are potential connection points for transmission cables, if we were to do offshore wind off New Hampshire's coast, whether it's in our waters means or Massachusetts. You look at it regionally, there's plenty of places where there are power plants that have been decommissioned, that you have a lot of infrastructure in there that can support the inflow of power from offshore.
The bill itself is going to find resistance from folks that are that are convinced that, you know, these clean energy policies end up, quote unquote costing the ratepayers money. That's what that's what the public statement is going to be.
Emily: If it's 20% below 1990 levels by 25… It looked as though they were only going to start enforcing this in 2023. Would that 20% drop in 1990 levels, would that be that easy to make happen if it could happen within a matter of just a few years?
Dr. Mitchell: Yeah, it would be. Because in 1990, we were burning coal.
Emily: Oh, right, so emissions were high.
Anna: I’m going to pop in and interrupt Emily’s discussion with Dr. Mitchell and share our conversation about the diversity of sources our energy currently comes from.
Emily: Here in New Hampshire's primary sources, which is actually surprising, because our number one source is nuclear, from the Seabrook power plant with about 60% of our energy coming from there. After that it's natural gas, then the natural gas that we use comes from, I think it's two big power plants. And then you get more into the renewables, including primarily biomass and hydroelectric. Coal was at the like very bottom of it with about like, 2% coming from coal.
Anna: So do you know? With what the folks who are looking to change carbon emissions are looking to do? Are they trying to offset just that natural gas? Or are they also thinking about, like, kind of a resilience plan? Like something I'm thinking about with that 60% of our energy coming from nuclear? What happens if that goes away? For whatever reason, if it's because like, we decide not to have nuclear plants, or like, you know, like some horrible thing happens.
Emily: That's where, when people talk about the diversity of the grid, that's where that comes into play. So in case there was some sort of nuclear disaster or accident that happened, and that was cut off, what means would we have to combat that? A lot of people's past strategies for dealing with that has been coal. They're called peaker plants. They're plants that aren't run all the time. But if we have a higher demand for energy, for whatever reason, and we need extra energy quick, we can fire up these power plants. Going forward with this energy plan, if we wanted to get New Hampshire on the track to be towards like either carbon neutral, or net zero, that is where we would need more diversity with renewable energy. So not just solar, or not just hydroelectric, but multiple different sources that are available to implement when the time would call for it.
In New Hampshire too, I didn't realize this, but one of the main renewable sources that we use is biomass, which is just wood or materials that can be burned and used for energy. Having that as an option as well, increases our diversity of options.
Ella: So wait? Is burning wood considered to be a renewable source? I mean, obviously it renews itself. But isn't that still releasing a lot of carbon into the atmosphere?
Emily: Yeah. There’s a debate about it. So it's considered a renewable source by a lot of people. But a lot of ecologists have the argument of is it renewable? because if we burn all of it, it's still releasing the same carbon that we're having an issue with. And we would, in theory, run out of it eventually. But as of right now, it is considered by most people renewable just because we have so much available and you can grow more.
Nate: It's really interesting because nuclear energy is carbon free, but not renewable. Biomass is renewable, but not carbon free. And sometimes those terms are used interchangeably. But really, when someone's talking about renewable energy, don't they kind of mean that it's also carbon free? Just in terms of vernacular and what people mean, when they say something, we use those words interchangeably, but they aren't interchangeable.
Marissa: Yeah, renewables usually means that whatever resource you're using, can regenerate itself. So like, like oil, and coal is not usually considered renewable, because there's a finite amount of it. And it's not like something that's going to come back really quick. Like, it's taken like 1000s and 1000s of years to form and be there. But then something like wood where you can, you know, plant more trees and they grow up would be considered renewable.
Ella: I think that what Nate says said is important though, because I feel like when we talk about renewable energy, like colloquially, we mean sustainable, like in not changing the climate, but that's not what it actually means.
Anna: Well let’s take it back to the point of this particular bill that we're following, where the goal is to reduce carbon emissions. So as much as distinguishing between these different definitions is really, really important because a lot of people would argue that nuclear is not necessarily a clean energy or not necessarily, like Nate said, it's not renewable. But it certainly would achieve the goal of this bill, which you know, or has contributed to the goal of this bill, which is reducing carbon emissions, where wood burning doesn't.
Nate: Anna, you just brought in a third term, clean energy. And so clean energy, I think, is really interesting. I think you can argue that all energy sources have environmental impacts at some point in the supply chain. So it's all relative, there's nothing that's totally clean. Solar energy, you're dealing with the manufacturing and disposal of solar panels, with wind, you're dealing with huge wildlife impacts. But with nuclear energy, there's issues in the extraction of uranium. There's also always the potential of a nuclear disaster. Even if that potential is very, very small and insignificant, it's still as above zero. Where we always talk about the negative impacts of fossil fuels. But they all have negative impacts and where we have to balance them somehow. And it's really difficult to find unbiased ways of doing that, because everyone brings their ideologies into these conversations on what's important to them and what is not.
Anna: I am putting a link to the source for Emily’s information on where our energy comes from, which includes an interactive map where you can see the various powerplants in New Hampshire. You’ll also notice that the net interstate flow of electricity is negative, which means that we currently produce more energy than we use in New Hampshire. But back to the question at hand. What is the most likely approach to achieving the goals set out by this bill? Back to Emily’s conversation with Dr. Mitchell.
Dr. Mitchell: ..so you were talking net zero by 2050? Yeah, I think its going to be a mix of solar and offshore wind. We have a lot of opportunity still to install solar in ways that don't disrupt the environment. But it's kind of happening at a piecemeal approach, like, abandoned gravel pits, capped landfills, parking lots, buildings and roofs. The resistance to solar happens when there's a large scale project that's either chewing up farmland or cutting down trees, and that unfortunately, happens to be cheap land. It’s because we have a lack of policy to steer solar in a way that is less impactful, we end up with projects that get people, you know, worked up, right?
The second part of this bill is interesting to me, which is the state energy strategy, section three, where they start getting into what the state energy strategy should be, which I think is great. But it we should have a more comprehensive state energy policy. You've been following the emissions commission? They did a lot of work too. I'll send that to you. Okay. You see the very last section, section three of bill on the last page of 590. It modifies the existing state strategy statute. Yeah, so 172 is trying to take 590 and say alright, we need something with some teeth in it, and we need to start taking this stuff into account. Then we want our state energy strategy to reflect what we find here. That’s why I'm kind of in the position where I say - I don't know if this is going to pass. But it's what several other states are doing.
Anna: So Dr. Mitchel was correct in his assumption that this new legislation did not pass but it made us wonder what the current statute says.
Emily: This is the existing state energy strategy statute, which addresses the public utilities. So it's the New Hampshire energy policy in it just states that the general court declares that “it shall be the energy policy of the state to meet the energy needs of the citizens and businesses of the state at the lowest reasonable cost, while providing for the reliability and diversity of energy sources to maximize the use of cost effective energy efficiency, and other demand side resources, and to provide the safety and health of the citizens the physical environment of the state, and the future supplies of resources with consideration of the financial stability of the state's utilities.”
Anna: So what are you picking up from that?
Emily: It basically just says that energy needs to be provided to the consumers of the state of New Hampshire. It doesn't say how it needs to be provided. It doesn't say with renewable energies or without them. But the people of New Hampshire need to be able to have energy for a reasonable price. It can't be too detrimental to our state's environment, nor public health. And it needs to be able to give the people of New Hampshire all the energy that they need, it can't let it fall short for them.
Anna: It also says a diversity of energy sources too, which I don't know if that means just like, like an open marketplace, like you should be able to pick who supplies your energy, or if you if you really want to have a say in what kind of energy that you want to buy? I don’t know?
Emily: I know that is also a strategy for grid reliability. So that is a way to make our grid more stable so that if there we had all one source of energy, and then something happened…
Anna: So it sounds like, given current legislation, there is a mandate for the state to provide New Hampshire residents with a diversity of energy sources at the lowest cost possible. But the devil’s in the details!
Emily spoke with Chris Skoglund, who is the Climate & Energy Program Manager at NH’s Department of Environmental Services. He has some intimate knowledge about the history of this bill and others like it, as well as a better understanding for the potential for meeting this mandate with costs in mind. Emily started out by asking him whether or not the goals outlined in the bill were feasible.
Chris Skoglund: So while there's a technical feasibility of whether the state can get to greenhouse gas emission reductions by 2050, there's a planning component that was required of the state to figure out how we're going to do that. Our analysis was that we were required to have at least two more additional staff in order to undertake the planning that was required as the document was written. The reason for that is when we did the climate plan back in 2008 and 2009 - Clay was involved in that but I was the primary staff overseeing coordination - we had almost 12 New Hampshire DES staff that were working on it part time. We also had additional funding that had been made available to hire UNH-based consultants to do the kind of the feasibility analysis to help us determine where the greenhouse gas emission reductions would occur, what the economic costs would be, but also what the benefits would be. In the end, we were able to come up with a plan that said, well, we know where we think we can be in a cost effective fashion, in a way that would result in us having significant economic benefits to the entire state, and get 20% of the way to 2050. We would need to undertake a similar level of analysis to do so again.
One of the big things that we're hearing from the New Hampshire Business and Industry Association, sometimes just referred to as the New Hampshire BIA, they are concerned about what are the costs to implement this to the state if we were to transition the entire energy system. Some of that is going to come from energy efficiency. If you use less energy, you should have lower energy costs. But if we start to transition from oil, coal, natural gas, to other sources of energy - did those costs go up for those energy supplies? So even if I'm using less energy, does the per unit cost of energy actually go up so that if I use half as much energy but it costs four times as much to supply that energy, I'm still paying twice as much? Like those were the sorts of questions that they had. In order for us to undertake that, we would have needed to bring in the consultant.
Anna: I’m going to jump in here because Emily and Chris – a couple of alternative energy enthusiasts – got really into the weeds about all the potential new technologies on the horizon! The take home here is that decisions made here in New Hampshire are not made in a vacuum. Folks like Chris who really have their finger on the pulse of this stuff, have turned their attention to how all of our energy needs might be met with electricity. We’re obviously accustomed to using electricity to light our homes and run our appliances but the trends in technology are pointing us toward using electricity for things we’re accustomed to powering by burning stuff. Instead of burning gas to power our cars, we might plug it in at night to charge its battery with electricity from the grid. Instead of burning natural gas or wood to heat our homes, we would power heat pumps with electricity from the grid. All this to say, its really hard to gauge costs considering technology is changing so quickly. Estimates based on technology from 2008 – more than a decade ago - are wildly out of date. This might explain why you might come across such wildly different accounts of what these changes might cost the average consumer.
Chris: New Hampshire is not alone in this. We are part of a regional grid, there's been a lot of activity happening in other states. It’s basically just turned our generators off. Our coal plants are almost completely off. Our natural gas plants are running less and less. That does mean that, if we need to plug in more cars - or plug in cars at all because there's such a small percentage of the fleet now - and then plug in our homes to the grid, we need to be thinking how does it fit into the entire regional electric picture? How did the other five New England states, and then connections to Canada, and then to Pennsylvania? How does that tie in?
There's been a couple different studies that have come out. One from a team that's based in Princeton, they've been making estimates on how much more grid infrastructure are we going to need, even if we quadruple the size of our energy efficiency. So like, you know, homes that use electricity for electricity applications, what if we use a quarter of what we do now, the average rural or suburban home, you'd be getting two cars, maybe more, because you could have kids, then you'd also been taking your entire heat load. Even if we've got a heating system that uses half as much energy, give you the full amount of heat in your house. That's still all of that heat energy is coming from the grid. We’re going to need more energy generation, it has to come from clean energy sources. Then we may have to figure out how are we going to minimize the poles and wires that we build to distribute that.
So there are massive economic opportunities because of the investments that need to be made. But at the same time, there's very clear losers. If you own an oil, propane, or natural gas company, there's some implications here. When they hear climate planning, they hear economic destruction, right. And I completely empathize with that. So that's where when we do a climate plan, we also need to be thinking, not just how do we drive down emissions? But how do we make sure that we're trying to make people whole? Are there economic opportunities for those so that someone who is selling oil or propane and delivering it now, or installing or propane burning systems, do we help them get the funding and training they need to transition to a heat pump sales and installation company? You know, my neighbor, her heating oil system went down and I tried to talk her into a heat pump. She's like, well, the oil guy doesn't know anything about that, so I just had him give me what was in the back was because he had it right there and I need heat. It’s not just policies, we just need them to be like, this is what we do. How do we make them do that so it's not a threat to their 100 year old family company? I'm completely on board with how do we help them? There's a fairness and equity issue to that.
When you look at HB 172, what would have happened under ideal circumstances is that statute would have been the framework for a planning process that would have repeated itself every five years in the pursuit of those climate targets. The planning process, and having it be comprehensive with the supportive state staff and a consultant that can take the input from businesses from the environmental side from the social side, but from the public at large, and then help kind of feed that back and say, here's what happens if we do this. But here's this other path. If we follow this, this will happen and this other path. And if we don't do anything, here's what happens in all the other states. And here's what happens to New Hampshire. We can kind of have this baseline counterfactual to yeah, sure, we can say climate isn't going to do anything no matter what we do, because New Hampshire is a small state, but there's a cost to inaction.
Anna: Wow! So many things to consider…but the one thing I heard over and over was that we need a plan. No matter where you stand on climate change or alternative energy issues, we need to plan for responding to rapidly changing technology, changes being made to the grid in our region, changes being made nationally and internationally.
Thanks to Clayton Mitchell and Chris Skoglund for their help with understanding this topic and thanks to you for listening.
Relative to New Hampshire is a production of UNH Cooperative Extension, an equal opportunity educator and employer. All music is used by permission or by creative commons licensing. UNH Cooperative Extension is a non-partisan organization, the views and opinions expressed in this podcast are not necessarily those of the university, its trustees, or its volunteers. Inclusion or exclusion of commercial enterprises in this podcast does not equate endorsement. The University of New Hampshire, New Hampshire Counties, and the US Department of Agriculture cooperative to provide Extension programming in the Granite State. This podcast was made possible by the UNH Extension Internship program - if you’re interested in supporting great work like this for the future, learn more at www.extension.unh.edu/internships.
Music credit: airtone_forgottenland