The Hawaii Supreme Court struck down the appeal by Hu Honua regarding PUC denial of their proposed power purchase agreement.

Justice Mike Wilson will be retiring soon and with his brilliant Concurring Opinion, he leaves a lasting legacy. It goes far beyond this permit and clearly states that the PUC has an affirmative duty to address the Hawaii Climate Emergency Declaration and its connection to the Public Trust Doctrine in our Hawaii Constitution.

Hu Honua attempted to limit their GHG emissions analysis to only comparing stack emissions from their biomass plant to fossil fuel generators. This court opinion says they had to compare their emissions to less polluting alternatives like wind and solar.

A Climate Emergency declaration means business as usual is over and the PUC needs to step up the pace of decarbonization.

The Court’s decison also means that attempts by certain pandering politicians are doomed to fail. Because of our constitutional protections and the imminent threat posed by climate change to our public trust resources like coral reefs, these would be struck down.

A better idea, and better use of ratepayer dollars?

Hu Honua, for instance, has been proposed for hydrogen generation but would need PUC approval. With this Supreme Court decision, that will not happen. Burning trees to split water and make hydrogen certainly isn’t green and isn’t cost-competitive because the energy required is too expensive and very inefficient.

A better idea would be to repurpose the Hu Honua location, and its large utility connection, for grid-scale BESS (battery energy storage) and the addition of solar and/or wind. No trees to burn, no pollution to abate.

The Sierra Club has been advancing its national “Stop Coal” campaign, in which many old power plant sites have been converted over to large-scale battery storage sites, enhancing grid stability at no cost to the environment and surrounding communities.

These cost effective power conversions enhance resilience and grid efficiency, and in effect, provide voltage support that keeps grid power smoothly flowing around the clock. There is also Federal financing available for these projects, generally referred to as ESSA or energy storage service agreements, which serve as utility power purchase agreements, and where prices are locked in for 20 years at no upfront cost and which plant maintenance is included at no added costs to ratepayers.

Large new federal incentives are driving huge investments, so money is now flowing into Hawaii.  New batteries like iron flow and iron air are also bringing costs down compared to more traditional lithium battery storage. In both cases, utility scale battery systems are self-contained (containerized) and ready for quick and easy installation and modular activation after delivery to the site. Equally important, these same modular systems are easily scale up to meet future expansion, if required, and in all cases, can be paired with clean and renewable energy, as in solar and wind power generation.

Lessons Learned

Hu Honua always had an archaic approach to energy production and would have driven customer bills up instead of down.

This Hawaii Supreme Court opinion further  supported the PUC’s inclusion of its cost performance analysis in their decision-making on remand during the latest appeal, and despite Hu Honua attempting to argue the opposite.

From the start, Hu Honua has sought preferential rates outside the mandatory competitive bidding process, requiring ratepayers to pay for power than market conditions would otherwise allow. The court saw through all of this, justice and the public interest in the Court’s decision, which further served as an important environmental law precedent.

It is a great victory and our thanks to Life of the Land, Tawhiri, the Hawaii Consumer Advocate, and the PUC Commission and staff for a job well done.

The energy future that we’ve long been waiting for is here.  Let’s take advantage of it.

We’ve known for decades that we should reduce the burning of fossil fuels and other materials to generate energy because of their harmful by-products on climate, health, and the global environment.  We’ve also known that solar, wind, and other clean and renewable sources are better energy options, but they were more expensive compared to most legacy energy systems.

Change is the great arbiter and in comes many forms. In this case it came in the form of new technology, Federal policy, and market forces each working to bring down the costs of clean and renewable energy.  Many of us have been waiting, and now the costs of solar and wind and battery storage have been reduced to such an extent that they are currently the least expensive and most equitable forms of energy now powering utility grids.

Although macroeconomic and supply chain issues influence costs, the overall cost of PV solar and battery storage continues to drop with technology and manufacturing improvements. and efficiency advancements.  New energy projects pairing solar with battery storage are being built across the nation.  A number of them are located in Hawaii, and more are being planned.

Reliable, resilient, and clean (zero emissions) renewable energy options continue to drive down electricity costs for ratepayers. Batteries now are now fulfilling the role as on-demand firm energy assets, once the exclusive domain of expensive to build, operate, and polluting combustion-based power plants.

The recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is projected to drive nearly $3.5 trillion in the Federal government investment of new energy supply and infrastructure onto the grid, the majority of which will be intermittent renewable resources backed by batteries. The ICF Climate Center estimates IRA incentives could drive down the cost of solar energy by as much as 35% and wind by as much as 49% by 2030. The potential beneficiaries of the IRA financial incentives include Hawaii’s residents and ratepayers, businesses, and Hawaiian Electric, the state’s largest and publicly-traded utility.

Often missing in the discussion of Hawaii’s transition to a clean energy economy are the direct and quantifiable benefits this transition is contributing to the state’s economy. Certainly, lowering the cost of energy production should translate into lower utility fees for consumers, but that is just one example of the direct economic benefits to the state.

Clean energy projects by themselves are significant contributors to the state’s economy and climate goals, as exemplified by the recent AES Solar + Storage project on Hawaii Island. This one project will not only deliver unprecedented low cost clean energy to HELCO at $0.09 per kWh, but according to AES has produced 200 jobs and generated a total economic benefit for Hawai‘i’s local economy estimated upwards to $47 million. This one solar project also is expected to replace over one half million barrels of imported oil annually, while meeting the over 7% of the electricity needs for Hawaii Island.

Hawaii is by no means standing still when it comes to clean and renewable energy.  Hawaii’s 100% renewable mandate by 2045 for energy powering the state’s two utilities may be a ways out, but challenges remain on the road to Hawaii’s 21^st century clean energy economy.  The good news is as a state we are moving forward.

In total, recent solar projects in Hawaii demonstrate an encouraging trend and progress, including; the Lawai Solar and Energy Project on Kauai, which was at the time the largest solar plus storage peak-power generator in the world.  It combines 28 megawatts of solar photovoltaic capacity with lithium-ion batteries capable of storing 100 megawatt-hours, while delivering electricity on demand at only 11 cents per kilowatt-hour.  The average electricity rate for Hawaiian Electric throughout the state (excluding Kauai) ranges from 38 cents to the current high of 44 per kilowatt-hour for Hawaii Island residents.

Mililani Solar I is another example, located on former sugar-cane fields inland from Pearl Harbor, generates 39 megawatts of solar power for only 9 cents per kilowatt-hour.  Other completed and low cost solar projects include Kawailoa Solar in Haleiwa, the Waianae Solar Project, Waiawa Solar Power, and Kauai Solar.   Other solar projects in the works across the state include:

• For Kauai, there is innovative West Kauai Solar Energy Project, the first integrated pumped storage hydropower, solar and battery project of its kind in the world.
• Oahu: Kaukonahua Solar, AES West Oahu, Hoohana Solar 1, Kapolei Energy Storage, Kupono Solar, Mountain View Solar, Waiawa Phase 2 Solar, Kalaeloa Home Lands Solar, and Palailai Solar.
• Molokai:  Kualapua Solar and Palaau Solar.
• Lanai:  Lanai Solar Project.
• Maui:  Lipoa Solar, Makawao Solar, Piiholo Road Solar, Waena Battery Energy Storage, AES Kuihelani, Kamaole Solar, and Paeahu Solar.
• Hawaii Island:  Kalaola Solar A and B, Naalehu Solar, Keahole Battery Energy Storage, Hale Kuawehi Solar, AES Waikoloa Solar

While solar power brings down costs for both utilities and ratepayers, the pairing of battery storage with solar panels turns this once intermittent clean electricity source into a reliable and on-demand power asset better suited to the uncertainties of a changing climate than traditional combustion power plants.  Facilities that generate electricity by burning fossil fuel — or any other form of dirty energy combustion are increasingly costly and obsolete, and the sooner they are replaced the greater the public benefits.  After all, consumers benefit from lower electricity rates, and the environment benefits from fewer greenhouse gas emissions is a win-win solution for the planet, humans, and the economy.

Clean, renewable energy is the future, and the future is here.  It’s time we fully embrace it.

Special thanks to members John Kawamoto, Melodie Aduja, and Mark Koppel of Hawaii’s Clean Power Task Force for their contributions to this article. And mahalo a nui loa to the Honolulu Star Advertiser for co-publishing this article; February 21, 2023, Island Voices section.

Hawaii’s remote location can no longer be considered to be a safe distance from what are now global climate change impacts.

Hawaii is facing climate changes ranging from subtle forms of increasing air and water temperatures to changes in traditional weather patterns, accompanied by the arrival of extreme weather events occurring with greater frequency and force.

Sea level rise and droughts are a fact of life residents of Hawaii now face, but such subtle changes too often fail to gain the general public’s attention. That said, there is nothing like an outsized storm to focus the public’s attention on changes now affecting historic and local weather norms.

The short scientific explanation of this climate-driven cause and weather effects: As average temperatures at the Earth’s surface rise, more evaporation occurs, which, in turn, increases overall precipitation.

A recent trip to Kauai was a reminder how global climate changes are driving local weather changes. The conditions were serene on Kauaʻi the afternoon of Dec. 17th, 2022, but that all changed by nightfall with the arrival of an unprecedented powerful cold front which moved across the entire island chain resulting in flooding and destruction to property and infrastructure. Roads and bridges at times were near impassable, and the island’s rural infrastructure did not fair well to the extreme weather. The airport was closed for a time with planes grounded, as word spread of a Hawaiian Air flight inbound from Phoenix encountering air turbulence so extreme that a number or passengers were hospitalized on arrival in Honolulu.

The atmospheric bedlam that erupted over eastern Oʻahu around sunset that same day was followed a few hours later with over five inches a hour of rain dumped onto Hawaiʻi Kai, which came pouring out of water-laden clouds accompanied by crashes with thunder and lightning.  The same cold front produced downpours across the rest of the state, engorging waterways, flooding roads,  and raising water in many streams by several feet in less than a hour.

By midnight, the thunderstorms and intense rainfall which followed, continued to whipped up torrents rain overall the islands and lower elevations. The Big Island leeward side did not escape the cold front which arrived with a non-stop cacophony of heavy rain, wind, thunder and lightning lasting most of Sunday night.

This was no normal storm, in fact it was a series of storms connected and driven by a massive cold front uncommon to the mid-Pacific region.

It was in fact the effect of a climate now in the process of global change — courtesy of our fossil-fuel emissions and legacy energy dependences.

Extreme weather caused 18 disasters in US last year, costing $165bn

The US endured a particularly painful year as communities wrestled with the growing impacts of the climate crisis, with 18 major disasters wreaking havoc across the country as planet-heating emissions continued to climb.

Storms, floods, wildfires and droughts caused a total of $165bn in damages in the US last year, $10bn more than the 2021 total and the third most costly year since records of major losses began in 1980.

Last year was “part of a trend of hyperactive disaster years across the US”, said Adam Smith, an applied climatologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), which released the data. Since 2016, there have been 122 separate billion-dollar weather and climate events that have, in total, killed more than 5,000 people and caused more than $1tn in damages.   “We are seeing several trends of climate-enhanced disasters,” said Smith, noting that the US is seeing longer, more intense wildfire seasons, severe rainfall events and the sort of huge, category four and five hurricanes in the past few years that Noaa has not documented before in its historical record, which stretches back to 1851.

Relentless rain, record heat: study finds climate crisis worsened extreme weather, but that’s no surprise …

Relentless drought in California followed by rivers of rain,  extreme rainfall in the UK, record heat in China – some of the most severe weather events that have occurred around the world in the past few years were made far more likely due to the climate crisis, new research has found.

The analysis of extreme events in 2021 and 2022 found that many of these extremes were worsened by global heating, and in some cases would have been almost impossible in terms of their severity if humans had not altered the climate through the burning of fossil fuels.

“The extreme nature of these events is very alarming,” said Stephanie Herring, a climate scientist at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

“We need to understand if these events are signs that things are getting hotter faster than we had expected. We know extreme heat is going to get worse, and additional research will help us better quantify future change.”

The fingerprint of climate change is being identified across the planet. The risk of extreme drought across California and Nevada was made six times worse by the climate crisis and a strong periodical La Niña climate event from October 2020 to September 2021, while, conversely, extreme rainfall that deluged parts of the UK in May 2021 was 1.5 times more likely due to global heating.

The world remained firmly in warming’s grip last year, with extreme summer temperatures in Europe, China and elsewhere contributing to 2022 being the fifth-hottest year on record, European climate researchers said on Tuesday.

The eight warmest years on record have now occurred since 2014, the scientists, from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, reported, and 2016 remains the hottest year ever.

The Nexus of Climate meets Weather

The American Metrological Society (AMS) annual climate report; “Explaining Extreme Events in 2021 and 2022 from a Climate Perspective” offers a plainly written recent as to cause-and-effect climate impacts and assessments of how human-caused climate change may have affected the strength and likelihood of individual extreme events.

AMS report link: https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/explaining-extreme-events-from-a-climate-perspective/

The report’s authors scientifically concluded:

• • “Human-caused climate change is an extreme disruption of the Earth system,” said Paul Higgins, associate executive director of the American Meteorological Society.
  • “We should expect it to lead to more extreme events, as this new research helps to show. We must do what we can to help people, and all life, thrive in spite of this danger.”

This was the eleventh edition of the report, offering a peer-reviewed analyses of extreme weather and climate across the world during the previous two calendar years. It features the research of scientists from across the globe looking at both historical observations and model simulations to determine whether and by how much climate change may have influenced particular extreme events.

The world’s oceans were the hottest ever recorded in 2022

More than 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions is absorbed in the oceans. The records, starting in 1958, show an inexorable rise in ocean temperature, with an acceleration in warming after 1990, demonstrating the profound and pervasive changes that human-caused emissions have made to the planet’s climate..

Sea surface temperatures are a major influence on the world’s weather. Hotter oceans help supercharge extreme weather, leading to more intense hurricanes and typhoons and more moisture in the air, which brings more intense rains and flooding. Warmer water also expands, pushing up sea levels and endangering coastal cities.

The temperature of the oceans is far less affected by natural climate variability than the temperature of the atmosphere, making the oceans an undeniable indicator of global heating.

• Last year is expected to be the fourth or fifth hottest recorded for surface air temperatures when the final data is collated.
• During 2022, we saw the third La Niña event in a row, which is the cooler phase of an irregular climate cycle centered on the Pacific that affects global weather patterns. When El Niño returns, global air temperatures will be boosted even higher.
• A severe hot spell in China in February 2021 was made between four and 20 times more likely because of human-caused climate change, while acute drought in Iran, which it experienced in 2021, is now 50% more likely because of the greenhouse gases humanity has pumped into the atmosphere.
• A swath of other severe impacts can be attributed, at least in part, to the influence of the climate crisis, including the weather that caused a dangerous wildfire in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2021 to be 90% more likely than if we had never heated up the planet and even the persistent cloudiness over the Tibetan plateau that reduced vegetation growth, caused, researchers say, by elevated global temperatures along with abnormal winds and localized pollution.

The compendium of research, presented by NOAA at a conference on Monday, draws together some of the latest examples of climate attribution, where scientists have managed to pinpoint the influence of human-induced climate change upon individual weather events and disasters.

Previously, scientists were very reluctant to talk about the climate change influence upon discrete events, preferring a more general probabilistic framing, but that this messaging has “evolved over time as the research has increased” into more exact attribution methods.

Using increasingly powerful climate models, along with historical observations, scientists are now able to provide more a precise, and rapid, assessment of the influence of the climate crisis on certain disasters. The heavy rain that caused devastating floods in Nigeria, Niger and Chad last year, for example, was made about 80 times more likely by the climate crisis, one study has found.

Herring warned that many of the temperatures now being seen are well beyond any modern historical norms and are pushing humanity into a new, dangerous state. A heatwave in South Korea in October 2021, for example, was so drastic, at almost 7F higher than normal, that it would be considered an event that would only happen every 6,250 years. But the climate models predict that this will become the new normal for South Korea by 2060 if planet-heating gases are not radically cut.

A subsequent study found the climate crisis made heatwaves 43 times more likely.

The same fate is well on its way to impacting temperature and weather norms across the Pacific region.

Human-driven climate change has set in motion massive ice losses in Greenland that couldn’t be halted even if the world stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, according to a new study published Monday.

The findings in Nature Climate Change project that it is now inevitable that the Greenland ice sheet will melt — equal to 110 trillion tons of ice, the researchers said. That will trigger nearly a foot of global sea-level rise.

The predictions are more dire than other forecasts, though they use different assumptions. While the study did not specify a time frame for the melting and sea-level rise, the authors suggested much of it can play out between now and the year 2100.

The new research projects a worse outcome than previous sea-level findings; first, by calculating how much ice Greenland must lose as it recalibrates to a warmer climate.

“Every study has bigger numbers than the last. It’s always faster than forecast,” William Colgan, a study co-author who studies the ice sheet from its surface with his colleagues at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, said in a video interview.

A one-foot rise in global sea levels would have severe consequences. If the sea level along the U.S. coasts rose by an average of 10 to 12 inches by 2050, a recent report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found, the most destructive floods would take place five times as often, and moderate floods would become 10 times as frequent, which is particularly bad news for Hawaii’s coastal population centers throughout the island chain.

Last year, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported the total ice loss from Greenland by the end of the century was projected to be round half a foot of sea-level rise from Greenland by the year 2100. That scenario assumed humans would emit a large amount of greenhouse gases for another 80 years, and even with advances with GHG reductions.

The study offers some hope.  Even if more sea-level rise is locked in than previously believed, cutting emissions fast to limit warming close to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) would prevent things from getting much worse.

Greenland is the world’s largest island and is covered with a sheet of ice that, if it melted entirely, could raise sea levels by more than 20 feet. That is not in doubt — nor is the fact that in past warm periods in Earth’s history, the ice sheet has been much smaller than it is today. The question has always been how much ice will thaw as temperatures rise — and how fast.

Originally published August 7th ––

With direct economic, social, and environmental benefits for Hawaii, the legislation, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, will slash America’s planet-heating emissions by about 40% by the end of the decade, compared with 2005 levels.

Hawaii’s residents and businesses will benefit first hand from the bill’s economic assistance within a number of practical areas, as it serves as a major economic enabler for the state in transitioning to a clean energy economy and achieving Hawaii’s statewide goal of a fossil fuel-free electric grid by no later than 2045.

The bill’s emissions cut enablers will further bring the US within striking distance of a goal set by President Biden to cut emissions in half by 2030, a target that scientists say must be achieved if effects of catastrophic global heating, triggering escalating heatwaves, droughts and floods, now on the increase are mitigated.

Senator Brian Schatz (HI), described the bill’s passage as … “by far, the biggest climate action in human history”.

Billions of Federal investment dollars will go towards investments into clean and zero emissions renewable energy; such as wind, solar, battery storage, and hydrogen. The bill’s passage also includes electric vehicle purchase rebates for low-to-moderate income working families and businesses seeking to buy electric cars and trucks, support for households to run on clean electricity, while adopting energy efficiency strategies and products.

Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer, on Passage of the Major Climate and Health Care reform bill – video link: https://youtu.be/LQmDwgvf49s

The Inflation Reduction Act in Summary

• The primary benefits of the bill will be a major reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by between 31% and 44% below 2005 levels by 2030, according to Rhodium Group, a non-partisan research firm. A separate analysis by Energy Innovation, another research house, has found a similar reduction, of between 37% and 41% this decade. In total, around 1bn tons of greenhouse gases, which is more than double the total annual emissions of the UK, would be eliminated within the next 10 years.

The range of estimates depends on factors such as future economic conditions, but experts say the bill will set off a cascade of positive impacts;

• pushing fossil fuels out of the energy grid,
• dampening America’s thirst for oil and
• further enable the wind and solar energy transformation of the electric grid by replacing the present day fossil fuel dependencies,
• A new system of fees will be imposed to stem leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas drilling operations.
• Consumer – Homeowner – Business Benefits (see below)
• The vast fleet of trucks used by the US Postal Service today will go all-electric.

“This bill will really turbocharge that transition to clean energy, it will transform markets where already solar PV, wind and batteries are in many cases cheaper than incumbent fossil fuels,” said Anand Gopal, executive director of policy at Energy Innovation.

“This is a dramatically large climate bill, the biggest in US history, when is passes in the House later this week, and is signed into law by President Biden. It doesn’t, however, mean the US won’t need to do more to achieve its emissions goals, but it will make a meaningful difference.”

The bulk of the bill is composed of tax credits aimed at unleashing a boom in clean energy deployment, along with payments to keep ageing nuclear facilities and other sources of low-carbon energy online.

The US is, following decades of political rancor and fossil fuel industry obfuscation, almost certain to make its first significant attempt to tackle the climate crisis. Experts say it will help rewire the American economy and act as an important step in averting disastrous global heating.

Independent analysis of the proposed legislation, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, shows it should slash America’s planet-heating emissions by about 40% by the end of the decade, compared with 2005 levels.  This cut would bring the US within striking distance of a goal set by President Biden to cut emissions in half by 2030, a target that scientists say must be achieved by the whole world if catastrophic global heating, triggering escalating heatwaves, droughts and floods, is to be avoided.

Consumer – Homeowner – Business Benefits

Blistering heatwaves, extreme storms, droughts, flooding, meltdowns in polar icecaps are just the beginning effects of global heating. Soon consumers will be able to do their part in the solution, while accessing Federal rebates of up to $7,500 for a new electric vehicle, or up to $4,000 for a used car, along with up to $8,000 to install a modern electric heat pump that can both heat and cool buildings. Further rebates are also on offer, such as $1,600 to insulate and seal a house to make it more energy efficient.

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund provides $27 billion in funding, of which $15 billion will enable low-income and disadvantaged communities to benefit from zero emission technologies and other greenhouse gas pollution reductions.

The Clean Vehicle credit, or 30D, gives a $7,500 credit for new electric vehicles and a $4,000 credit for used electric vehicles. This will help everyday Americans afford to get an EV and start saving money every month. Operating an EV costs $1/gallon, which is way more affordable than an internal combustion engine car. This incentive will make clean cars the default and affordable choice for everyday Americans.

The High Efficiency Electric Home Rebate Act (HEEHRA), included within the bill, provides $4.5 billion in direct rebates for low-and moderate-income households that install new, efficient electric appliances, using a framework proposed in our Appliance Rebate Plan. For instance, a low income household will receive a rebate covering the full cost of a heat pump installation for space heating, up to a cap of $8,000.

These actions would cut emissions while having other significant benefits.  In the national transition to a clean energy economy, the bill will add as many as 1.5m jobs  created within the growing clean energy sector, according to Energy Innovations.

Rewiring America forecasts that U.S. households that install, rooftop solar and drive an electric car will save $1,800 a year on energy costs, and for Hawaii state residents with the nation’s highest electric bills, that figure could be as high as $3,000 in annual  savings and households budgets.

The Energy Efficient Home Improvement credit, or 25C, allows households to deduct from their taxes up to 30 percent of the cost of upgrades to their homes, including installing heat pumps, insulation and, importantly, upgrading their breaker boxes to accommodate additional electric load. Upgrade costs include both equipment and installation/labor costs. These deductions are limited to $600 per measure, up to $1,200 per household per year—with one notable exception. Households can deduct 30 percent of the costs for buying and installing a heat pump water heater or heat pump for their space heating and cooling, up to $2,000.

The Residential Clean Energy credit, or 25D, re-ups an existing program allowing households installing solar to deduct 30 percent of the cost of the project from their taxes. This credit is guaranteed for 10 years, and now also includes residential battery storage systems.

The New Energy Efficient Home credit, or 45L, has received a substantial boost, providing up to $5,000 to developers to build homes that qualify for the Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Ready Homes standard. This applies to new single family, multifamily and manufactured homes, as well as existing homes that undergo a deep retrofit.

The Residential Clean Energy credit, or 25D, re-ups an existing program allowing households installing solar to deduct 30 percent of the cost of the project from their taxes. This credit is guaranteed for 10 years, and now also includes residential battery storage systems.

The Commercial Buildings Energy Efficient credit, or 179D, has been significantly expanded, offering $2.50 to $5.00 per square foot for businesses achieving 25 to 50 percent reductions in energy use over existing building performance standards.

The Rebirth of U.S. Manufacturing

The legislation also addresses the nation’s strategic current supply dependencies with China, which (in the last ten years) has become the world’s leading manufacturer of solar panels, batteries and other clean energy materials.

• There are billions of dollars in incentives for the US domestic production of wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, carbon capture and storage and other clean energy technologies. Most specifically, $30 billion is available as a production tax credit to accelerate U.S. manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and critical minerals processing in the U.S., and another $10 billion is allocated as an investment tax credit for building new facilities that manufacture these technologies.

Reinventing American Energy Dependency & Global Climate Creditability

The bill should change the way the US is viewed on the global stage and will encourage better pledges from other large emitters such as China and India, when fully implemented, experts estimate bill’s outcome benefits will be to keep temperature rise under 2C (3.6F).

Unfortunately, the world has passed the point of  its previous 1.5C cap on greenhouse gas impacts, which scientists now see as a stretch to reach this previous goal.

Some Climate advocates have criticized elements of the bill, specially Senator Joe Manchin’s successful insistence that oil and gas drilling leases in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico be included, along with a stipulation that millions of acres of federal land and water are opened up for fossil fuels if they are to be also accessed by solar and wind developers.

Energy sector researchers believe the clean energy benefits of the bill easily outweigh any extra emissions from new drilling, with every ton of new emissions offset by at least 24 tons of emissions avoided by other provisions. Yet the economics, social, environmental and climate benefits from today’s lower cost solar, wind, and storage energy increasingly  recognized by electric utilities, primary energy customers of fossil fuels outside of transportation, increasingly are choosing solar and wind options ahead of fossil fuels options, if for no other reason than cost, and the gap continues to grow in favor of clean and climate-friendly energy options.

Finally, the bill’s passage in the Senate represents the U.S. joining other large economies, in producing a long-term climate roadmap to sustainable and clean energy-driven economy.

“The Earth Can, and Will be Saved … If we work for a Sustainable Future, We will Achieve It.”

Elon Musk, Tesla (TSLA) shareholders meeting, August 4, 2022