Exclusive: How the permitting bill could change the energy landscape
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The Senate permitting plan would cut emissions from power plants in the near term and help keep electricity prices down, a new analysis finds.
Why it matters: The study from scholars at Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan think tank, offers some of the most detailed independent modeling yet of the bill's effects.
- It will help inform lobbying and advocacy around the bill ahead of a test vote looming on Nov. 9.
Driving the news: The analysis models how the bill would affect the power sector compared with current law and policies. Among the findings from its central scenario:
- It would drive "robust" transmission expansion (see above), enabling "use of additional clean energy and existing resources of all types."
- Overall electricity system costs are an estimated 3.5% to 7% lower each year through 2041 compared to a no-bill baseline, saving over $350 billion total through 2050 in present-value terms.
- That should translate into lower electricity bills for people, co-author Kevin Rennert tells Axios, though the study does not directly model retail prices.
The bill would boost the build-out of renewables, partly enabled by expansion of transmission, with added clean energy displacing fossil fuels even though additions of gas-fired capacity still occur.
- CO2 from the power sector would initially drop as more coal is edged aside, and then climb over time — but remain below levels projected without the bill.
By the numbers: In 2028, there's roughly 60 gigawatts more clean energy capacity on the grid in the study's central outlook compared to a baseline of current law and policy.
The intrigue: The RFF analysis shows how it sees the bill initially pushing power plant emissions downward.
- Even that eventual upward trend is hardly guaranteed.
- This kind of study is by definition packed with assumptions and variables that the authors acknowledge — the future being the future and all.
- For instance, it uses a "high-electrification demand scenario to represent the rapid increase in demand from data centers and other sources."
Yes, but: The study — which uses a model developed by the Energy Department's National Laboratory of the Rockies — doesn't attempt to analyze every aspect of the wide-ranging bill.
- For example, it does not capture how changes in environmental laws would affect mining, pipelines, and various activities outside the power sector.
Catch up quick: There's a lot of other analysis flying around in the intense public and closed-door lobbying over the bill.
- A new White House study finds the bill would eventually boost GDP by $82 billion to $164 billion annually and provide substantial savings on power bills.
- And Punchbowl News reports that the Solar Energy Industries Association is circulating an analysis on Capitol Hill showing that under the bill, solar and wind would together provide over 37% of power generation in 2035 vs. around 20% under "obstructed permitting."
What we're watching: Emissions, renewables deployment, and costs are several factors in the permitting bill battle, but hardly the only ones as some environmentalists and other critics take aim at the bill.
- Other contested terrain includes the effect on consultation with Native American tribes, historic preservation, and more.
- The NAACP, for instance, is out with a new document strongly criticizing the bill.
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