Energy Innovation’s Chris Busch joined Southern California Public Radio for an interview on California cap-and-trade extension’s expected impacts

New revenue forecasting about California’s cap-and-trade market by Energy Innovation Director of Research Chris Busch is cited in a Utility Dive article discussing prospects for proposed legislation to extend the system past 2020.

Analysis from EI’s Robbie Orvis and Eric Gimon is featured in an interview with PJM CEO Andy Ott discussing wholesale market challenges and proposed reforms.

Smart grid technologies offer a range of potential benefits, but maximising the value of grid modernisation programmes is easier said than done. Mike O’Boyle of US-based think tank Energy Innovation describes the five-step framework his organisation has developed to help utilities and public regulators pursue grid modernisation in a way that benefits everyone.

Despite China’s plans to halt more than 100 new coal-fired power plants this year, new data suggests China’s energy companies will make up nearly half of the new coal generation expected to go online in the next decade. But China’s climate concerns have so far been driven by narrow concerns over local pollution, said Eric Gimon, a senior fellow at Energy Innovation. “For now, those concerns seem not to extend elsewhere,” Mr. Gimon said.

California environmentalists are outraged over speculation that the state’s governor is pushing the oil industry’s wish list in negotiations to extend the state’s cap-and-trade climate program. Chris Busch took a pragmatic view of the bill language being circulated by Gov. Jerry Brown’s office. “Given how hard the politics are, let’s get this politics part done, and then the regulation can be improved over time,” he said.

Governor Jerry Brown is drafting proposals for extending California’s cap-and-trade programme, attempting to gain a two-thirds majority vote while assuaging industry and environmental campaigners. “The outlines of the deal… sound very positive, and will leave CARB significant scope to continue to improve the programme over time,” said Energy Innovation’s Chris Busch.

Some of the fastest progress on clean energy is occurring in states led by Republican governors and legislators, and states carried by Donald J. Trump in the presidential election. From Georgia to the Dakotas, business and political leaders are embracing clean energy sources even as the Trump administration pushes for more exploitation of oil, gas and coal. Their leaders see tapping wind, and to a lesser degree the sun, as an economic strategy.

California Governor Jerry Brown is in China this week to promote action on climate change and clean energy. Amid the climate policy void left in President Trump’s wake after his announcement last week of the United States’ withdrawal from the world’s first truly global climate change agreement, Brown sees China as the remaining superpower that can steer the world onto a low-emissions path.

The United States no longer has a climate change target.