New Climate Technology and Clean Energy Innovations

New Climate Technology and Clean Energy Innovations

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FASKIANOS: Welcome to the Council on Foreign  Relations State and Local Officials Webinar.   I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president for the  National Program and Outreach here at CFR.  CFR is an independent and nonpartisan  membership organization, think tank,   educator, and publisher focused on U.S.  foreign policy. CFR is also the publisher   of Foreign Affairs magazine. As always, CFR takes  no institutional positions on matters of policy. 

Through our State and Local Officials Initiative,  CFR serves as a resource on international issues   affecting the priorities and agendas of state  and local governments by providing analysis on   a wide range of policy topics. Thank you all for  being with us today. As a reminder, the webinar   is on the record. The video and transcript  will be posted on our website after the fact   at CFR.org. And we’re excited to have more than  400 participants confirmed for today’s discussion   from forty-seven states and U.S. territories. So we're pleased to have Varun Sivaram with   us to discuss technology and clean energy  innovations. We've shared his bio, but Dr.  

Sivaram is a senior fellow for energy and climate  here at CFR, and director of CFR's new Climate   Realism Initiative. Prior to joining CFR, he was  chief strategy and innovation Officer at Ørsted,   a $25 billion Fortune Global 500 company that  is the world's largest producer of offshore   wind energy. He served in the U.S. Biden-Harris  administration as U.S. special—as the managing   director for clean energy and innovation for  Secretary John Kerry. He served in state and local   government as senior advisor to the mayor of Los  Angeles and to the governor of New York. He has   also authored several books, including Taming the  Sun, Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power   the Planet, Energizing America: A Roadmap to  Launch a National Energy Innovation Mission,   and Digital Decarbonization: Promoting Digital  Innovations to Advance Clean Energy Systems. So,   Varun, thank you for being with us today. I thought we would begin the conversation  

just first about the recent devastating fires in  Los Angeles, which are still running their course,   and across the West Coast. And if you can  talk a little bit about the relationship   to climate change and other climate impacts  that we're seeing on U.S. cities and states   that may be coming in the future, and how SL  officials can prepare for these disasters.  SIVARAM: Absolutely, Irina. And thanks  for having me. It's such a pleasure to be   here with state and local officials. As Irina  mentioned, I was a state and local official.  

I've served the New York state government. And  I started my career actually in Los Angeles,   and that's why these fires are personal for me.  The first official act I made as senior advisor to   the mayor was to inaugurate a solar installation  at a car wash in the Pacific Palisades. It has   since burned down. So my heart goes out to  everybody who's lost their homes and lives.  I think the Los Angeles wildfires, which,  as you mentioned, Irina, actually last   night we saw a fire in the Santa Clarita region.  Fortunately, that seems to be better contained.  

Another one break out in your Bel Air. I think  it is a vivid reminder of a couple things. First,   that state and local officials, all of you, are  the ones on the front lines of the impacts of   climate change. And I’ll go into in a moment  why I personally think that the attribution   of these impacts to climate is relatively clear  and will become clearer over time. But second,   it’s the whole reason, Irina, that we’re  creating at CFR a new strategic initiative   called the Climate Realism Initiative. It’s not  the climate initiative. It’s the Climate Realism   Initiative. And the reason we need to be realistic  about this is saying, look, a lot of what we talk   about in the climate world—I am guilty of this—is  fantasyland. We talk about a fantasyland where we  

control temperatures to 1.5 or two degrees  Celsius. We’re not in that fantasy world.  We’re in a world with three degrees or more of  warming by century end. And we better get ready   to prepare for this world, even as we prepare  America and our local communities to compete in   the changing energy landscape with China, and  to do our best to avert even more catastrophic   climate change than three degrees of warming. But  very briefly, I’ll just say, just to answer your   question, Irina, of course, this has to do with  climate change, but in a nuanced way. Many of  

the factors we’re seeing that have contributed  to these Los Angeles wildfires may or may not   have been affected by climate change. It's  unclear whether the strong Santa Ana winds   this particular season are climate-related, right? But what is clear is that the underlying trend is   that Los Angeles is about three degrees Celsius  warmer right now than preindustrial levels. What   is clear is that changing precipitation patterns  suggest that we’re going to have more of these   cycles of extremely wet and then extremely  dry climate whiplash seasons, where you have   vegetation drenched and therefore growing, and  then bone-dry conditions—like what we have right   now for the last six months. This weekend will be  the first rain in months for Southern California.   And of course, all of this is compounded by the  fact that we have ourselves shot ourselves in   the foot by having insurance markets that don’t  fully expose the residents of these communities   to the risk-adjusted costs of living there.  Which means you have economic development in  

areas that should have less economic development. That’s hard for a state or local official to stop   because you always want your residents and your  constituents to have great insurance. But as we go   forward into the 2050s and the 2070s, there will  be parts of America where we should not live. And   climate realism grapples with those hard truths. FASKIANOS:  

Thank you. So, Varun, can you talk a little bit  about renewable resources such as solar and wind   energy, and the growing sources of electricity  that we’re seeing including in states like Texas,   Iowa, Florida, Oklahoma. Why have  these methods been successful there?   How can technology be deployed in other  states and utilities transition to clean   energy production? How do we make that happen? SIVARAM: Well, look, I separate the world into   two categories of technology in this—there’s a  lot of ways to create a taxonomy, but here’s one.   There are technologies that are just inherently  superior that are going to do very well. And then   there are climate technologies that we need,  but we’re really going to need to continue to   subsidize and pay a carbon tax, et cetera. Solar energy is in the former camp. Solar  

energy is an inherently superior technology. The  Earth receives more sunlight every hour than the   world uses, in energy terms, in a whole year.  There is almost infinite—near infinite, abundant   sunlight. And solar technology has gotten cheaper  almost every year. It is still the case that it’s   intermittent, which means you only get to use  it when the sun is shining, but increasingly the   cost of batteries and other forms of storage is  falling as well. I believe that renewable energy   is doing well because it’s a fantastic technology. Therefore, I personally believe we should strongly  

depoliticize these forms of energy abundance.  President Trump is calling for energy dominance.   That’s a good thing. We should have abundant  energy, both in America and that America can   export. It’ll come in the form of many different  forms of energy, but solar is definitely one of  

them. Texas is, as you mentioned, Irina, the  fastest-growing source of solar energy in the   country. They even surpass California, a very blue  state, with Texas being a red state. Similarly,   wind energy has been strong historically in Texas. There’s no reason that we should restrain these   cheap and abundant sources of energy. Solar is  the cheapest source of energy in almost every   country around the world, and certainly  the fastest growing around the world,   because of its affordability. It has,  honestly, absolutely nothing to do with  

climate. It just happens to be a technology  that just makes a heck of a lot of sense. And   that’s why I wrote Taming the Sun. I believe  that by the end of this century, solar energy   will be the dominant energy source for humanity. And don’t just take it from me. Elon Musk, who   is as now, you know, a key advisor to President  Trump, says the exact same thing. Solar energy  

is going to be humanity’s major energy source.  So what do we do going forward? Well, I would   say the key thing that state and local officials  can work on in order to enable their communities   to use these brand-new sources of energy is on  the permitting side. It’s just so important that   we make it easier to build, site, and use clean  energy sources. Often, state officials will play   a key role in interregional transmission planning. Sometimes this is national. In Texas,  

it's a state-level issue. And in many other  states, it's an interstate issue. For example,   within the ISOs, the Independent System Operator  regions in the Midwest, in the Mid-Atlantic,   in New England, in New York, et cetera. It's just  so important that local and state officials work   on getting the resources built, whether it's  transmission, or storage, or permitting solar   on state lands or—and making it just easier  for folks to build solar and wind. That is the   key to unlocking America's energy abundance. I personally, by the way—and I break with a   lot of the climate community—I personally  don’t think it’s very important to have   really lavish subsidies and incentives. You  know, one of the first things I did as a Los  

Angeles state official was I launched a  program called the feed-in tariff. It was   a premium price for solar on rooftops. And it  turned out that that price was just too high.   We probably spent more money than we needed to.  Solar is an inherently cheap technology now. So   deregulation and permitting reform, I think, are  the top things that state and local officials   can look at to get more of this energy built.  Should be completely bipartisan, nonpartisan. 

FASKIANOS: How much does clean  energy rely on materials from   China? And are there viable alternatives? SIVARAM: Well, it really depends on what   technology you’re talking about. Where  do you want to start, Irina? You want   to start with batteries? You want to start  with solar? Where would you like to start?  FASKIANOS: Let’s start with  solar. Continue on to solar,   and then maybe wind, and then we go to batteries. SIVARAM: So I’ll share another unpopular view  

here. I expect that when I—when I say this answer,  that Q&A tab you see down there is just going to   explode with a bunch of questions, but—or angry  retorts. I am not remotely worried about importing   solar from China. And, by the way, I am a super  hawkish America should compete with China. I’m   scared about China, et cetera, et cetera. But on  solar, I don’t see the risk. If we get every solar   panel from China we don’t create national security  risks for this country, and we do benefit from the   generosity—the largess of the Chinese Communist  Party basically giving money away to Chinese solar   factories to produce below-cost solar panels and  sell them to us. I would love to take advantage   of below-cost energy. It’s as if Saudi Arabia  decided to say, hey, I’ll sell you a barrel of  

oil at a discount. Fantastic. We’ll take it. In this particular case, if China were to then   say, I’m going to shut off the supply of  solar panels, you know what would happen?   Absolutely nothing. You would still continue to  get electricity. You would not have long lines at   the pump, like what happened in the 1970s with the  Arab oil embargo. Solar is fundamentally different   because the only thing that would happen is two  years from now a project may struggle to get the   panels that it needs. But there isn’t really an  energy security problem if we depend on China  

for solar panels. So I say, open the floodgates. Of course, this is not concordant with federal   policy that’s going to come down. Both President  Biden and now President Trump are strongly in   favor of tariffs now on practically everything.  And they will hit solar panels. Solar panels were   the first commodity that President Trump imposed  tariffs on in his first term. Solar panels and   washing machines. I think it’s a mistake. And I’m  being completely blunt here. We should not worry   about cheap Chinese solar. It’s kind of a gift  to the United States. We should take that gift.  

Other technologies, though, I’m not so sure. FASKIANOS: There's a lot to talk about in the   AI—(laughs)—field. And there's growing concern  about the energy demands of AI and expanding   data centers to power AI. So what can be  done? What can state and local officials   do to ensure that these new technologies  do not destabilize electricity markets and   new demands for fossil fuels? You know, maybe  partner with, you know, fueling the AI beast,   and also the energy needs of their communities. SIVARAM: Yeah. It's such a good question. Look,   around the country communities are facing  the set of questions that before only a   couple of communities faced. Northern Virginia  lawmakers—if there any on the call here,   if you're a local official in Virginia you've  been thinking about this for a couple of decades,   right? What are the costs and benefits of  having a bunch of data centers in datacenter   alley? Because Northern Virginia has, like, 25  percent of the data centers in the whole world.  

And the answer to that is, well, datacenters  create property tax—a steady tax revenue   stream. That's good. They don't really create  jobs during the operation of the data center.   There are not a whole lot of people. It's just a  big building with a bunch of humming computers.  There are jobs in the construction phase. And  so those are useful. And they're pretty good   neighbors. You know, these data centers, they  just kind of sit there. They hum. Every so often   they use a diesel generator that spews some bad  pollution in the air, but they're not used very   often. They're used in emergency situations. So  by and large datacenters are probably net positive   for communities around the country. That's why  you're now starting to see Indiana, Ohio, Texas,  

a bunch of areas where data centers historically  have not been considered tier-one markets,   now these communities are saying, look, we want  data centers and we're willing to bring them in.  But if you're a state and local official, what are  the risks here? Risk number one, two, and three   probably is that data centers coming into your  community raise power prices for the rest of   the members of your community. And here's how  it happens. A data center comes in and says,   look, I'm going to be 400 megawatts. These  AI data centers are, like, ten times bigger   than the conventional cloud data centers.  I want 400 megawatts, or I want a gigawatt,   and I want to connect to your grid. And the grid  says, my goodness, that's great. We'd love to have   you buy our power. We make more money that way.  But, you know, we really have to build out the  

grid and the power supply in order to serve you. And what do they do? They go—they turn right   around, they spend a hundred or two million, $500  million, and they send it to all of the ratepayers   in that service territory as rates to pay for  all this increased infrastructure. In effect,   your grandmother ends up paying a higher bill  because Meta brought a data center to a town in   Indiana. That's not a great outcome. And so state  and local officials around the country are going   to have to think about how do we get the benefits  of data centers but ensure that data centers also   pay the costs, rather than our communities? But you don't want to make it too expensive   on data centers, right, because then you'll  lose their business. And, oh, by the way,   at a national level America will fall behind China  if we can't build data centers fast enough. You  

saw the announcements. Satya Nadella today in  Davos said, "I'm going to invest $80 billion   in data centers." Yesterday Sam Altman said,  "I'll invest $500 billion." Elon Musk said,   "I don't believe you, Sam Altman." You don't  have $500 billion. And Satya said "I'm good  

for my 80 (billion dollars)." And Elon said,  "you're right." In any event, how do we make   sure America builds all the data centers we  need to compete with China and stay ahead in AI?  I think the answer comes down to really  thoughtful grid planning, cost allocation,   and new technologies that make it possible to  connect new data centers, power them with cheap   energy whether it's nuclear or geothermal, or,  I hate to say it, natural gas, or just better   technologies, to more efficiently use the existing  grid and the existing resources we already have,   without raising rates on communities. That's how I  think about this really critical problem. Because   we can't afford to not build the datacenters. FASKIANOS: Great. So we’re going to go to the   group for questions and comments. You can either  raise your hand or write your question in the   Q&A. If you do, please identify yourself.  We’d really love to hear your voice, though,   and share best practices. But before we do, I want  to ask, Varun, you started it at the top of this  

to talk about CFR’s Climate Realism Initiative.  We’re going to formally launch it in March,   which is very exciting. So you all are getting  a preview here. Is there anything else you want   to highlight? And maybe also you could talk a  little bit about how you see state and local   leadership helping to drive forward the national  conversation on climate and energy transition. 

SIVARAM: Well, thank you, Irina. Let me just give  a quick overview of this super exciting strategic   initiative called the Climate Realism Initiative.  It’s going to be unlike anything there is,   because it’s not a traditional, progressive,  left-wing, you know, we need to care about the   climate. It’s going to be a bipartisan down the  middle of the road pragmatic approach to what I   believe is one of the most important issues of  our time that’s been unfairly politicized. The  

Climate Realism Initiative—and I’m delighted that  we have some of our staff on the line, our deputy   director, Lindsay Iversen, who’s joined us. The Climate Realism Initiative is, first,   going to recognize some hard realities. Like  I mentioned, we're going to miss our climate   targets. We're in a three-degree or worse world.  So we better get ready. We better get ready for   those wildfires, those hurricanes. And it'll  fall on state and local officials to help us  

prepare, both within America and outside of our  borders—whether America is competing with Russia   for the Arctic—supremacy in the Arctic, et cetera. Second, the clean energy transition is both an   opportunity and a risk for America.  You know, we’ve got the opportunity   to build market share and compete globally  in trillion-dollar markets that are growing   around the world. But we face a risk. We are the  world’s largest oil and gas producer. And China   is increasingly the world’s largest electric  vehicle, solar, and battery producer. Are we   going to be able to compete as the world shifts? And, third, what can America do to help save the   world from catastrophic climate change? It doesn’t  really matter what America does with our own   emissions. They’re a tiny fraction of the future  world’s emissions. A city or state really doesn’t   matter. It doesn’t matter if any city or state  goes net zero. But what does matter is if state  

and local officials develop tools and technologies  that the rest of the world can use. When I was in   the city of Los Angeles, you know, were there  policies that we did—and one interesting policy   was how to repower coal plants. Were there  interesting case studies that then India,   or Indonesia, or South Africa can just copy/paste? Because that's where the emissions are actually   growing. It doesn't matter what we do. It matters  what they do. Similarly, are there technologies  

that we're incentivizing that a state and local  official is getting—an innovative battery plant   or an innovative next-generation clean fuel  facility—that can produce products that can   then be used around the world? Those are the  kinds of innovative advances that state and   local officials can make to reduce the impact of  climate change around the world. But, again, your   own emissions probably don't matter very much. That’s the Climate Realism Initiative. Love   to have the involvement of state and local  officials. I hope that answers your question,   Irina, on what we’d like to do. And we’ll launch  it on March 17th, ideally with a state and local   senior official. So we’re just delighted  to invite this terrific class of public  

servants to come join us. Over to you, Irina. FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you, Varun. And we will   send out an invitation for that. So now we’re  going to go to all of you. And there are already   questions in the chat. And do raise your hand  because we want to hear your voice as well. But   I’ll start with councilmember Anita Barton who  is from Conshohocken borough in Pennsylvania.  What is your take on—I believe you were  referring to President Trump wanting to drill,   and what it will do to the Earth and air quality. SIVARAM: I don’t think we can hear you, Anita.  FASKIANOS: I don’t—I just read her question. SIVARAM: Oh, I see. 

FASKIANOS: Yeah, I read her  question, Varun. That’s her question.  SIVARAM: Oh, I see. I see. Well, thanks, Anita,  for the for the question. I’ll jump right in.   Look, I believe that the oil and gas industry  does, in fact, create what we call externalities.   It degrades the Earth’s—it degrades the land  when we mine, it creates damage—environmental   damage to ecosystems. And when we burn natural  gas or oil or coal within the United States,  

we create local air pollution that,  in the worst cases, can kill people.   We should be very clear that these are damages. On the flip side, we create a lot of benefits. We   create local prosperity. There are hundreds of  thousands, if not millions, of oil and gas job  

in the United States. Pennsylvania, where you’re  from, Anita, is the Marcellus shale. That’s where   we have a natural gas gold mine, so to speak. So  there are real benefits and costs of oil and gas.   And my personal view is that America needs to  be as responsible as we can by pricing in the   externalities, such as local air pollution, so  that, you know, we don’t emit too many of these   pollutants. Or we equip, for example, a coal plant  or a natural gas plant with the scrubbers we need   to limit those emissions and save people’s lives. President Trump's goal has been energy dominance.   And all I'd say to that is let's not limit the  definition of energy dominance. Of course more  

oil and gas will make us more energy-dominant  because we can export that. When America exports   LNG to Europe, we make it possible for Europe  to go off of Russian gas. That's great. But   we also have other energy sources at home. We  have abundant geothermal energy. We have solar.   We have wind. We have the capacity to develop the  world's next generation of batteries. Let's be   energy-dominant both in clean and conventional  fossil fuel technologies. There's no reason,   in my opinion, to limit to just one category. And  that's what I'm a little afraid of in seeing the  

new president's executive orders. Thanks, Anita. FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you. So I’m going   to go next to First Selectman Dionna  Carlson from New Canaan in Connecticut.  Please discuss the efficiency degradation of  solar panels. How much degradation annually?   And the environmental impacts of  used panels and our landfills.  SIVARAM: Yeah, great question. The amazing  thing—Selectmen, the amazing thing about these   solar panels is they actually don’t degrade  very much. Over the thirty-year lifetime,  

they only degrade by a percent or two every  year. Which means a majority of the energy   production of these panels continues thirty even  forty years into their lifetime. So solar panels   are remarkably durable technologies. And  we now have forty, fifty years of data on  

them. So we know they work for a long time. Your question about waste is a good one,   but let me just be clear. The amount of  waste that we create from solar panels   is not nearly as much as the amount of waste  we create from many other industries. This is   a tolerable problem that we can handle. We  should of course—you know, some companies,   like First Solar give a lifetime guarantee. They  promise to take back the panels to recycle them   at the end of life. And that’s fantastic  and responsible. And we should, you know,  

encourage or even regulate companies to do this. But, again, recycling is a solvable problem. I’m   not too worried about it. Solar panels, by  and large, are not particularly dangerous.   They don’t have many dangerous elements.  This is a benign technology with a very,   very solvable set of problems. Thanks. FASKIANOS: Thanks. We have a raised  

hand for Mary Alford. So if you can  unmute yourself and identify yourself,  Q: Hi. I’m Mary Alford. I’m an Alachua  County, Florida county commissioner.  And my question is actually two questions. One  is inspired by the previous question. I live   in a university town. And some students have  been approaching us. Our community was one of   the first to do a feed-in tariff program here  in Florida. And we are ending the—nearing the   end of that twenty-year cycle. And so a lot of  people are saying, well, these solar panels are  

20 percent used up and, you know, they need to  be disposed of or replaced. And I appreciate your   discussion of the fact that, you know, they’re  still good, they’re still 80 percent good,   about. But on the other hand, we’ve had  students that have been working on efforts   to treat solar panels in order to regain some  of the efficiency. Have you heard anything about  

that research? And is it viable and clean? Is  that something our community should look for?  And then, secondly, given the fact that solar  panels degrade, I’ve heard people use that as an   excuse to oversize the solar arrays they put on  their homes. But conversely, we are seeing more   and more energy efficiency every year. So I feel  like we are way oversizing solar installations for   individual homes. So what are your thoughts  on both of those two things? Thank you. 

SIVARAM: Yeah. On the first question, look,  you’re in a university. Universities are places   to experiment. I think it’s wonderful if they  want to try and increase the power production   of existing panels. It’s a hard thing to do,  let me be clear. It’s a hard thing to do. When   solar panels are already produced and you don’t  have the capacity to get under that front glass   and actually access the semiconductor surface,  you’re limited to some very exotic treatments,   such as painting on quantum dots on top of  the solar panels. Could work. Tough to know.   But it’s probably far more—I mean, if this were a  commercial case I’d say absolutely don’t do that.   Just get rid of the solar panels and put new ones  up. If you’re really worried about degradation,  

it’s not that expensive. But wonderful  opportunity to experiment. Most of these   materials are probably not that dangerous.  But in any event, I’m happy to talk more.  Your second question is an interesting one.  Should people be worried about putting too many   solar panels on their roofs? The answer to that  question is—depends on your philosophy in life. I,  

personally, am an abundance kind of guy. I'm  like, look, in many cases there are actually   disadvantages to going for the biggest possible  thing. You want to buy a huge SUV. That's probably   bad because you increase the risk that you'll kill  somebody in a collision. A smaller car will have   fewer safety incidents for every collision it has.  And you create a race to the bottom in terms of if  

I get a big SUV everyone else is going to have  a big SUV to protect themselves. So that's bad.  The same is not true for solar panels. If I get  a ton of solar panels and put them on my roof,   there’s almost no disadvantage, except in  twenty-five years I might have to hire my—the   guy who takes them down and recycles them, he  might take an extra half an hour to take them   off the roof. There’s almost no disadvantage  to oversizing your solar panels. So, look,  

my personal view is you want to use energy,  knock yourself out. You want to use solar   energy to power your energy consumption, knock  yourself out. There is almost no disadvantage   here. I hope that answered those questions. I see  a lot, so I’m going to pause there and keep going. 

FASKIANOS: Great. So Commissioner Nikki Koons from  Manistee County in Michigan has several questions.   So I’m going to group them into one. And the  commissioner does not have access to a mic.  So let's start with: The land that solar panels  are built on are most times not combined with   other regenerative farming. So that is taking  away from other beneficial means. Have you heard   of any of the companies who are building solar  farms, are they thinking or even talking about   other things that can be coupled with solar  farms to be dual purpose? And then the second   part of the question is, with data centers and  tax revenues, how many of them are getting tax   incentives to build there for so many years? SIVARAM: Yeah. Great question, Commissioner. 

So I’d say, on your first question, I first want  to make the point that the amount of solar—the   amount of land area would take to power the  entire country with solar panels is a tiny   fraction of the total amount of farmland that  exists in the United States. So this is not a   major land competition problem. Now, I definitely  understand the point that, insofar as possible,   it’s great to combine both farming and solar.  And so agrivoltaics is an emerging field where   you build the solar farm in such a way  that there’s enough clearance over the   ground to allow vegetation or even crops. But, again, I’m not particularly concerned   about the competition for land. I mean, in terms  of energy production one of the dumber things we  

do—forgive me, this will be blunt and provocative  and probably not land well with many of our   Midwestern colleagues—but we probably shouldn’t  have as much ethanol production that competes with   corn and soybeans given that—you know, that is  a far larger land competition problem than solar   against farmland. So I would urge us to prioritize  our trade-off discussion. Solar probably isn’t the   thing that we have to talk about is that tier. The second question was on the tax incentive   point. I think it's a great question,  Commissioner. If a locality says,   I'm going to give you so much in a tax incentive  for twenty years that I outweigh all the property   taxes you give back to me, there aren't a whole  lot of net benefits to the community at that point   in the datacenter coming. Because the data center  is really just going to come, consume power,   and be a nice neighbor that doesn't create many  jobs except for construction in the first years.  

So it's a great point, Commissioner, that if  you're a state and local official competing   for data centers, you may want to try not to  offer as many tax incentives that outweigh the   stream of property tax revenues that you'll get  in the long run. You probably want net positive   tax revenue over the next twenty years. Thanks. FASKIANOS: Next question from Michael Frieber,   who’s in the Maryland Office of the  Inspector General: In your opinion,   is wind energy worth the costs associated with  constructing and maintaining the turbines?  SIVARAM: Great question. Michael.  Fundamentally—and, sorry, I see OIG,  

which suggests to me that you—is  that Office of Inspector General?  FASKIANOS: Yes. SIVARAM: In which case,   it’s great and good question, because you’re  looking out to protect the public’s resources.   Here’s my answer. Again, you can kind of tell from  the way I’m talking about this, I’m a deregulate   and let the free market operate kind of guy. I’ve  worked at multiple wind energy companies—one in   India, the largest one in the world in Denmark. I  fundamentally believe that, absent any subsidies   and absent any regulation, it makes a ton of  sense to go put on onshore wind turbines, pay   the cost of maintaining them, and produce energy  for the grid. The revenue from the power more than  

outweighs the cost of maintaining them, which are  far less, by the way, than the operating cost of,   say, a natural gas plant, even excluding the  heavy fuel cost from a coal or natural gas plant.  So, yes, the operations and maintenance cost of  onshore wind turbines is not very high. Every   so often you got to send a guy up. In fact,  increasingly, we can do this digitally. I led   the innovation department at a major wind company.  And we’re able to use drones and remote AI-enabled  

digital operations management platforms to  make sure that the wind turbine does very   well over twenty, twenty-five years. So, yes,  strong proponent of wind. I’m very, very sad to   see that President Trump has paused federal lands  permitting of onshore wind. I think that’s not the   greatest decision, if I’m being blunt. FASKIANOS: Thank you.  So we have a question from Councilmember Rich  Kondo from the city of Northglenn. Similar  

question to the solar panel degradation,  except this one is for windmill blades.   So if you could talk about that degradation. SIVARAM: Yeah. Every so often you see a blade   fall down, or if a tornado runs through an  area it can actually destroy wind turbines.   These are regrettable. But the—wind technology  is fairly mature now. And so therefore it is   rare to see wind turbines fail. The degradation  question is a good one. Does the power output of   a wind turbine fall over time? It does, at a  similar rate—0.5 to 1 percent every year. But  

that means that after twenty, thirty years, you  still have a substantial majority of your power   generation. Now we're entering the point where  after twenty, thirty years, since the first wind   installations went up—for example, the Altamont  Pass in California—it's time to repower. It's   time to take advantage of these really windy  areas that now have underpowered wind turbines,   both because they were early generation and  because they've degraded, and put better wind   turbines up there. And, again, I'm a deregulation,  cut regulations kind of guy. Without regulations,   it's economically sensible for state and local  officials to make it possible for the private   sector to invest the capital to repower these  sites. Again, it really just depends on us getting   out of the private sector's way. FASKIANOS: Thank you. 

I’m going to go next to a raised hand from Aryana  Azizi. There you go. And just identify yourself.  Q: OK. There we go. Can you guys hear me? FASKIANOS: We can.  Q: Awesome. Hi. My name is Aryana  Azizi. And I’m representing   Commissioner Lesley Briones from Harris County. You know, we’re interested in floating solar in  

Harris County, due to a large flooding risk.  And so I just wondered if you had any insight   in kind of the cost of floating solar versus  traditional solar arrays, and kind of what the   maintenance of that looks like long term. SIVARAM: Yeah. And, sorry, Aryana,   can you answer two questions? First, Harris  County, Pennsylvania? And, second, can you   explain the flooding risk thing? Why does that— Q: Yeah, no, totally, totally. Happy to provide  

some context. (Laughs.) Harris County in Houston,  Texas. So we face a lot of hurricanes. And so,   you know, we faced Harvey, and, you know, since  then two storms this past summer. And so we know   that land that’s owned by the county is very prone  to flooding. And so we’re trying to mitigate that   risk and have explored some—sorry—floating solar  sites potentially in our flood control channels.  SIVARAM: Got it. Got it. Well, look, I have  actually built—or, led a team that built   a floating solar installation in India. So I’m  fairly comfortable with the technology. Floating  

solar is a marvelous idea, right? Basically,  if you’ve got a reservoir, or even a lake—but   a reservoir is what works best for this—then you  can put solar panels on these floating structures,   basically like fiberglass floats, and it’s  not, you know, inherently, that much more   expensive. But it is more expensive because this  equipment is rarer, and you have to customize the   installation. And then you send a wire over to  the shore to a substation where there’s land.  The benefits of floating solar are you get  automatic cooling. It's cool over a water surface.   And so therefore solar panels always work better  when they're cooler than when they're hotter. So   you'll get kind of automatic cooling. The  disadvantage is sometimes these solar panels can   be exposed to hazardous winds. And so you have to  really carefully run the study of, you know, what  

wind am I rating this float structure for? Because  if you fail to rate it correctly and really strong   gale force winds hit you, that solar installation  is liable to tip over, to fall into the water,   to otherwise get destroyed. And then you've really  messed up your large capital investment upfront.  Overall, I’m a big fan of floating solar in the—in  the potential settings that you’re talking about,   Aryana. So happy to talk more about some of the  technical specifications. And then I’ll just say,   for the group, because it’s fun, floating solar  in oceans is now becoming a thing. It’s way   harder because then you have real waves. You have  salt water that causes corrosion degradation. But   you also have basically limitless water  area, compared to limited land area. So  

China has jumped out as the leader worldwide  in floating solar, as it is in every other kind   of solar. I’m personally following that space  because I think it’s super interesting. Aryana,   thanks so much for the great question. And I’m  sorry I didn’t get the state right, Texas. Thanks.  FASKIANOS: I’m going to take the next written  question from Councilmember Kalisha Dixon from   Bladensburg, town in Maryland: How can  the U.S. effectively share innovative   clean energy technologies with countries  like India, Indonesia, and South Africa,   to help reduce global emissions? And I’m going  to combine that with another question from   Commissioner—or a point that you could clarify.  For some hearing the three degrees doesn’t sound  

like a whole lot. So can you clarify on why  the three degrees is detrimental to the world?  SIVARAM: Yeah, exactly. And if you see me  glancing down because it's because I'm trying   to run the temperature conversion from Celsius  to Fahrenheit, just to tell you what that means.   Three degrees—hmm, three degrees is not 37.4  degrees Fahrenheit. Maybe Lindsay Iversen,  

who's on the call, can run the quick numbers and  tell us why three degrees of Celsius is something   like eight eight-degree Fahrenheit increase in  temperature. Three degrees is a lot. It's a lot.  And the reason, therefore, that this is so scary  is three degrees is the average global warming   around the world. And it’s most accurate when it’s  used around the equator. In northern latitudes,   like where we are, double the number. You’re  talking on average, much more than three degrees   Celsius, or eight degrees Fahrenheit. And so  if your summer peak temperature was 80 degrees   Fahrenheit, by the end of the century you’re up in  the 100 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s a scary world   to live in because everywhere in the country  you start to see some weird things happening. 

By the way, although I’ve given you a  temperature number, temperature is only   one of the many effects we’re talking about,  right? Climate change is called climate change   and not global warming anymore because there’s  so many other effects. Precipitation becomes more   intense and erratic. So you can have, you know,  historic rainstorms. You see atmospheric rivers   increasing in probability in California.  Hurricanes become more intense because   the surface temperature of the water increases. One of the scariest things about the increasing  

temperature is that going from two degrees to  three degrees sounds like, hey, we just increased   the impact by 50 percent. That’s false. On an  exponential curve—I hope you can see my finger   tracing this exponential—going from two degrees to  three degrees means your impacts could be ten or   a hundred times worse. It’s a very scary world. In lecturing about how scary this is, I forgot   the first part of the question.  I’m just going to go pull it up.  FASKIANOS: So the first question  was, oh, let me just pull it up.  SIVARAM: And if you’re there, feel free to just  say it. OK, well, I’m sorry that I’ve lost it.   If it comes back to us, I’ll say it again. FASKIANOS: The question was about sharing  

technologies. Sorry, I found it. SIVARAM: Oh, yes. Thank you,   thank you. Yes, I remember now. FASKIANOS: Sharing innovative clean   energy technologies, yeah, and maybe what  we can learn from them because, you know.  SIVARAM: Yeah. So the first part of the  question I think is the most important question   for climate. Thank you for asking it. The most  important question for climate is, how do we make  

sure that other countries reduce their emissions?  This is a total reframe because most people in the   U.S., whether you’re a state, local official, or  federal official, seem to think let’s talk about   how America reduces our emissions. That’s not that  important, because America accounts for 5 percent   or less of future global greenhouse gas emissions.  Ninety-five percent of future cumulative emissions  

are coming from China, India, Brazil, South  Africa, Indonesia, Nigeria. They’re the countries   that we care about reducing their emissions. Just left on current course and speed, America,   Europe, Australia, and Canada are broadly going  to reduce our emissions and go towards zero. We’re   not the problem anymore. Historically, we were  the problem, but that’s irrelevant for what has  

to happen now in order to solve the problem. How  do we get India to reduce their emissions? Well,   one way is by developing technologies that they  will use. Well, what technologies do they need?   It starts with looking at where their energy  is growing. Their energy is growing from air   conditioning. So they need super-efficient air  conditioners. American research universities  

happen to have some of the coolest technologies  for super-efficient air conditioners.  What else do they use? They use, in the  transportation sector, a lot of two-wheelers,   motorcycles. Electric motorcycles? Electric  battery swapping? Super-efficient batteries?   These are all things that America can develop.  But we should develop them with an eye to where   they’ll be used, which is the developing world.  What about industrial technologies? By far the  

largest source of emissions growth in India,  as well as Indonesia, as well South Africa,   is industrial load. It’s steel mills.  It’s cement plants. It’s fuel production,   refineries. All of these are areas where American  technologies, if we develop really good ones,   can be repurposed and used in emerging economies. I can’t stress this more, the biggest thing   America can do to reduce emissions and help  stop the worst effects of climate change,   going from three degrees to four degrees, is  by developing technologies with an eye to what   everybody else needs to use, not to what we  use. That’s controversial and provocative,   but I hope you might agree that it’s a  better way of thinking about the problem   than almost everybody has historically. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Lindsay says   that a three-degree Celsius change is  equivalent to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit. 

SIVARAM: And that’s a global average. Now double  it, and then you’re talking about northern   latitudes. Triplet it if talking about the Arctic. FASKIANOS: OK.  So we have a question from City  Administrator Phil—let’s see—Green:   What is your perspective regarding the realistic  outlook for next-generation nuclear power?  SIVARAM: Yeah. Great question, Phil. I’m such a  big fan. In my opinion, there are three things   that have to come together for this to work.  Number one, there’s got to be someone who really   wants to buy the power. I think that’s there.  AI datacenters. They really want power, and  

increasingly they want clean power. So that’s  there. Number two, technology. This technology has   been around for a long time. This is actually not  very next generation. Some of the next-generation   nuclear technologies were invented in the 1950s.  I personally believe that if you—if we put our   minds to it, this is a solvable technical problem. Thing number three, the hardest obstacle, can we   have a regulatory regime—the Nuclear Regulatory  Commission, the NRC, regulates nuclear—can we   have a nuclear regime that allows us to have  next-generation nuclear at low cost? That is   by far the hardest challenge. We're not on track  for this. The NRC makes it almost impossible to   build a new nuclear plant because you have to do  decades of studies, you need to build an emergency   planning zone in case the whole thing melts down,  where you have miles of a radius around that no   one can build anything in. That means that  if you want to build a small modular reactor  

that's powering a data center, you're not actually  allowed to put the data center next to the nuclear   power plant. That's not going to work. Next generation nuclear, the reason   it's so exciting and the reason, I  think, Phil, you asked the question,   is next-generation nuclear is inherently safe.  There is no meltdown risk. For example, it might   be passively cooled in such a way that even if  power were cut and a chain reaction took place,   the water or the other coolant on site would  automatically just absorb the excess energy   from the nuclear reaction. It cannot melt down.  It can't send radiation into the air. Given this,   we need to have regulations that allow you to  build next-generation nuclear right next to   civilization, and without a lot of the safeguards  that traditionally we have done because of scary   incidents like Three Mile Island and Fukushima. I don't have a lot of faith that we will have   an NRC that does this, but if we do it'll probably  happen because you get commissioners over the next   four years who are super, super pro-nuclear  and super deregulatory. You've heard me,   throughout this hour-long discussion, tell you  that regulation has caused so many difficulties   in energy abundance. But I want to say that all of  you really are stewards of the quality of life of  

your citizens and making sure that catastrophic  events really don't happen. So there is, of   course, a very important role for regulation. And  I know this, as a state and local official myself.  Over to you, Irina. FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you.  Going next to—let’s see—Vice Mayor Newell Arnerich  of Danville Town, California. Let me get it:  

Recycling solar panels is considered difficult  due to the complex construction of the panels,   which require separating various  materials like glass, aluminum,   and sometimes potentially hazardous  metals like lead and cadmium, making the   recycling process expensive and technically  challenging. While not inherently dangerous,   proper handling is necessary when recycling solar  panels. There’s only one company in California   that can do partial recycling. So is there any  capacity being developed, Varun, to recycle? Or   is the life cycle so far out that, you know— SIVARAM: No, no. Look, I think the point  

that—first of all, Newell, and everybody else  who's asked about solar recycling, it's meaningful   to me that this is on the minds of so many state  and local officials. It's not on the minds of   national officials. But that's because they're  not in the communities like you are. If this is   such an important thing, then I think we should  all be focused a lot more on it. I will say,  

from a technical point of view, I agree with  you that in some cases, cadmium telluride,   which is only one kind of solar panel made  only by First Solar, and it's less than   10 percent of the world mix. But anyway, one  kind of solar panel is tough to recycle. But   First Solar actually takes care of recycling  cadmium telluride panels. And they do it well.  I agree with you that, you know, for all the  other—the Chinese panels, for example, the silicon   solar panels—that it is an involved process.  You have to separate glass from silicon from   silver paste. But I continue to believe that this  is kind of a solvable problem. And so long as a  

developer is responsible and puts money aside for  the decommissioning and recycling of the panel at   the end of its life—and that’s something, by the  way, we absolutely should regulate; that’s a good   regulation—then it’s a solvable problem. By the  way, one way this sometimes ends up getting solved   is the waste ends up getting shipped offshore,  out of the United States, and it gets recycled in   another country. That may ultimately not be great  for the environment, but it is a good way to get   the solar panels out of your communities. And that  that can happen. And it’s an effective way to take   waste out of your communities. FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you.  Just checking to see if we have any raised  hands, or if I continue to read questions   and comments. From Kim Janus from the Illinois  attorney’s office: Can you talk about the role  

of battery storage in enhancing solar? Should  it be subsidized by ratepayers? And it’s the   Illinois Attorney General’s Office. SIVARAM: Great. I’m just trying to   read that question. Can you tell  me where it—is it in the answered—  FASKIANOS: No, it’s in the—it’s the first  question on open. Can you talk about—yes. 

SIVARAM: Oh, OK. Kim, that’s  a great, great question.  So battery storage is important. But this is a  nuanced answer. What’s important, in my opinion,   is that market signals drive the battery storage  deployment, not government subsidies. So if you  

ask me, should it be subsidized by ratepayers?  Probably not. I think that market signals can   create adequate incentives for battery storage  because in many jurisdictions, the price of   power will be very high at some points of the  day when solar cannot generate—for example,   5:00 p.m. or 7:00 a.m. And the price of power  will be very low at other times. So it’s cheap   to charge and expensive when you sell the power  back. And that makes for a great business case.  Now, a lot of companies invested in battery  storage in ERCOT, in Texas, after August 2023,   when they realized, oh my goodness, there’s  a huge spread. I can make money by charging  

cheap and selling expensive. So many batteries  got built. But in August 2024 that arbitrage   disappeared. But you know who took that on the  nose? It was the developers of the batteries.   That’s the point of a functioning private sector  and market, that private capital takes risks. They  

make a ton of money sometimes. But they also take  it on the nose when their investment turns out not   to have been a good investment, in retrospect. I’d like to see that market functioning just   like it happened in Texas happen all across the  country, where developers have the incentive to   invest in batteries precisely because solar causes  price volatility, not because communities decide   to subsidize the batteries. Now I will say,  communities are, in some implicit or indirect   sense, subsidizing the battery because they pay  higher rates until the battery gets deployed to   lower prices. But I think that’s an efficient  subsidy. An inefficient and awkward subsidy  

is when taxpayers or ratepayers have to pay  an actual incentive payment to get battery   storage projects off the ground and on the grid. FASKIANOS: And I’ll take the next question from   Mayor Daniel Kirkpatrick of Fairborn,  Ohio: Why don’t we build solar panels   over parking lots versus taking up farmland? SIVARAM: I think again, Mayor, it’s great to build   them on parking lots. It’s also great to build  them on ground mounts, which are typically the   cheapest way you do it. The cheapest solar is the  largest solar that takes up much more land than a  

parking lot. You get your cheapest economies  of scale when you can rinse and repeat. You   just have acres and acres and acres and hundreds  of acres of repeated rows, infrastructure that’s   super standardized, and that gets you your lowest  cost per kilowatt hour of solar. Is it going to   compete with farmland? Sure, on a small basis. But at a large scale, I told you the there are   many other things that compete with farmland that  are far less useful than the abundant energy from   solar panels. Ethanol is one of them. Probably  shouldn’t have ethanol in this country. There  

are many uses of farmland that are much less  value-creating than using solar. That’s my   provocative opinion. But, Mayor, I’m sure you  have a very well-reasoned reason for asking   that question. So thank you for the question. FASKIANOS: Next question from Joseph Furnari,  

community liaison with New York State  Senate for Senator Dean Murray: Is carbon   recycling picking up any interest in the U.S.? SIVARAM: Joseph, if you’re—if you’re on the line,   I’d love for you to define what you mean  by carbon recycling. I wasn’t quite sure.  FASKIANOS: I don’t know. Let me  see if—he may have dropped off.  So let me go to the next question. And  this is from Commissioner Nikki Koons:  

If the U.S. is only 5 percent why is there such a  big push for us to move toward the solar and wind?   There are some people that do not want to have  that in their local community. And, you know,   citing, you know, it’s—they’re ugly, and all of  that. So the commissioner wants us to understand  

that being supportive to individuals doing this,  doing solar, to save them dollars, but on the   large scale, what’s the pitch here? Why do it? SIVARAM: It’s a great question. Commissioner,   first of all, I just want to understand—oh, I  forget, I think, Commissioner, you don’t have   access to a mic. So I’ll have to— FASKIANOS: I think that’s right,   so you’re going to have to—(laughs)— SIVARAM: Commissioner, look, I struggle   to answer this question because, first of all, I  think it should be in every community's decision   remit for what kind of community they want to  have. Maybe, you know, if you're a local zoning   official you want all houses painted pink, and  your constituents vote for you to have all houses   painted pink, then that's your prerogative. I will  say that large-scale solar and wind installations   are typically out of sight. They're far away.  And even for communities that can see them,  

look, in the worst case maybe it's an eyesore  to see a lot of solar panels or wind turbines,   but the actual nuisance they pose is pretty  minimal. If you're not literally right next   to the wind turbine, it's not making noise. Solar  makes absolutely no noise. On the scale of public   nuisances, I much would prefer to live next to a  solar farm or a wind turbine than to live next to   a natural gas plant or coal plant that produces  particulate emissions that will kill my baby. So   this seems like an open-and-shut case to me. Now, again, communities should have—I’m a  

deregulation nut. So communities should have  the choice to make whatever choice they want   to. I think communities probably will choose  to have cheap power. A lot of folks say, hey,   I would love to have the cheapest electricity  bill I can possibly have. And you’re going to   get that if you live in a community that allows  you to have both natural gas power in your grid   but also solar and wind power on the grid. And  zoning laws can make it possible for it to be   built as out-of-sight as possible. Offshore  wind has been a polarizing topic, but I don’t  

anticipate there’ll be a lot more offshore wind  built. So if you’re in Florida, you’re probably   never going to see an offshore wind turbine. FASKIANOS: Great. Well, with that we—I’m sorry   we couldn’t get to all the questions, but, Varun,  we will just have to have you back. And with the   Climate Realism Strategic Initiative, there will  be much more being produced and coming out of   CFR that can be—that will be useful to all of you.  And, of course, we welcome your input as well. So,  

Varun Sivaram, thank you very much. We will be, again, sending a link to this   recording and transcript. You can follow Varun on  X at @VSIV. And we encourage you to visit CFR.org,   ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org  for the latest developments and analysis on   international trends and how they’re affecting  the United States. Right now the Climate Realism   Initiative launch is slated for March 17. Somebody  noted that’s St Patrick’s Day, so we will take  

a look at that. And we welcome your future—your  suggestions for future webinars, you can email us   at stateandlocal@CFR.org, as well as your thoughts  on how we can be more of a resource for you,   given the important work that you’re doing in your  communities. And you are on the front lines of,  

obviously, the natural disasters shaping your  communities. So please be in touch. And, again,   thank you all for joining us. SIVARAM: Thank you.

2025-01-30 17:26

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