{"id":45015,"date":"2019-04-04T09:09:01","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T14:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=45015"},"modified":"2019-04-04T09:09:03","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T14:09:03","slug":"how-state-power-regulators-are-making-utilities-account-for-the-costs-of-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=45015","title":{"rendered":"How State Power Regulators Are Making Utilities Account for the Costs of Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How State Power Regulators Are Making Utilities Account for the Costs of Climate Change<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"New<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The electricity powering your computer or smartphone that makes it possible for you to read this article could come from one of several sources<\/a>. It\u2019s probably generated by burning natural gas or coal or from operating a nuclear reactor, unless it\u2019s derived from hydropower or wind or solar energy. Who gets to choose?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In many states, it\u2019s up to the utilities, the companies that bill you for electricity. Costs often weigh heavily in their decisions. But deciding which costs to consider is a very subjective process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If your utility accounts for the toll taken by climate change, like Xcel Energy in Colorado<\/a> does, your state electricity regulator probably makes the company do that<\/a>. This approach is one behind-the-scenes way that a growing number of states are addressing global warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As scholars<\/a> who study<\/a> the intersection between policies that deal with climate change and energy<\/a>, we have studied the rules that govern electric utilities across the nation. Our new report<\/a> sheds light on where state regulators have the ability to make rules that mandate action on climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

States, Electricity and Climate\u00a0Change<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every additional ton of the greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels to generate electricity contributes to climate change. This carbon pollution has many negative consequences<\/a>, both to the physical world and also to global social and economic systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But utilities don\u2019t always tally the costs of these consequences. Because dealing with climate change is astronomically expensive, we believe that this should change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Utilities still largely rely on coal, natural gas and nuclear energy<\/a> to keep the lights on. These companies rely on older technologies in part because those facilities are already built and, to a degree, because of how much it costs to start up and shut down power plants. What\u2019s more, fossil fuels have generally been cheaper than other energy sources until somewhat recently<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How State Power Regulators Are Making Utilities Account for the Costs of Climate Change The electricity powering your computer or smartphone that makes it possible for you to read this article could come from one of several sources. It\u2019s probably generated by burning natural gas or coal or from operating a nuclear reactor, unless it\u2019s derived […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[113,5317,25516,25517,674,850],"class_list":["post-45015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-carbon-emissions","tag-desmog-blog","tag-iliana-paul","tag-power-regulation","tag-renewable-energy","tag-utilities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45016,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45015\/revisions\/45016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}