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Picture: Ethan Miller (Getty Photos)GLASGOW, SCOTLAND — The Republican local weather delegation has landed on the Glasgow local weather talks. As 100,000 protesters took to the streets to demand radical, transformational change, Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas, Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana, and Rep. John Curtis of Utah walked into the conference middle the place negotiators are hammering out a local weather deal.Their pitch is decidedly not transformational, although it definitely is radical. As a substitute of decarbonizing by constructing out renewable capability as rapidly as potential, the group is pitching exporting extra American pure gasoline and investing in expensive nuclear energy and unproven carbon seize expertise as what’s wanted to handle the local weather disaster.Earther occurred to run into the entourage as they have been wandering the nation pavilions the place nations host talks from consultants and tout their local weather bona fides. Crenshaw paused at one level to snap a photograph of an artwork set up that includes polar bears carrying life vests on the pavilion for Tuvalu, an island nation dealing with the prospect of extinction because of sea stage rise, earlier than taking a gathering within the Danish pavilion. We have been in a position to meet up with him after.“As a Republican delegation right here, I’d say typically [we’re here] to carry extra rational perspective to all of this,” he stated. When requested in regards to the options the group was right here to advertise, he famous that it included nuclear power, together with superior modular reactors, carbon seize, and Texas pure gasoline. “That is extra of a rational dialogue on selling nuclear power, selling carbon seize, selling pure gasoline exports from the U.S., which might displace coal around the globe and have a heck of much more affect on lowering emissions than, frankly, any of the targets which might be being talked about right here. … The rationale Republicans are in favor of these kind of options as a result of they really work.”The rationality of those positions, although, is on considerably shaky footing, together with how nicely they really work. Let’s begin with nuclear energy, which is an important supply of carbon-free power that’s in critical hazard. Many vegetation within the U.S. are nearing or previous retirement age. In New York, Indian Level was shuttered this yr, whereas in Illinois, the state authorities lately threw a lifeline to the getting older nuclear fleet to maintain it on-line, underscoring the 2 wildly divergent choices out there. G/O Media might get a commissionNew nuclear vegetation, nevertheless, have confirmed extremely difficult to construct out. There’s presently just one underneath development within the U.S., the Vogtle Nuclear Plant, which is years not on time and is now double its preliminary price. Investments in nuclear are definitely one avenue to decarbonization, however the challenges at Vogtle present that it’s not a slam dunk neither is it seemingly sufficient nuclear capability may come on-line within the timeline wanted.Carbon seize and storage, or CCS, has to this point been a pipedream that has failed. That features the shuttering of the Petra Nova facility in Crenshaw’s Texas earlier this yr as a result of it was too expensive and ineffective. (The carbon it captured was additionally used to extract extra oil, which isn’t precisely a win for the local weather.) Crenshaw stated that was a “pilot mission,” which in itself says so much in regards to the state of CCS. That’s to not say it’s not a worthy expertise to put money into, and actually, it might purchase the world time to cut back emissions. But it surely’s not a silver bullet or a serious plank within the race to decarbonize the power system.Then there’s the pure gasoline factor. Gasoline is healthier than coal, sure. But it surely nonetheless releases methane. Even comparatively “cleaner” Texas gasoline poses a local weather problem, with fugitive methane emissions that trigger the planet to heat 80 instances sooner than carbon dioxide. A significant report from the Worldwide Vitality Company, which was based within the wake of the Nineteen Seventies oil disaster and isn’t precisely a granola-and-hemp-loving group, launched earlier this yr discovered that new oil and gasoline exploration should cease subsequent yr. Crenshaw stated he hadn’t seen the report, however “that’s not possible in any respect.”In the meantime, the Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change report on reaching the 1.5-degree-Celsius (2.7-degree-Fahrenheit) purpose discovered oil and gasoline use should decline 37% and 25% respectively by 2030. Crenshaw additionally stated the Texas blackouts confirmed the necessity for extra pure gasoline and the chance of counting on renewables. (Peer-reviewed science has discovered the blackouts confirmed the chance of not weatherizing pure gasoline infrastructure.)“There was a strawman argument made like, ‘oh, the Republicans are saying the wind generators froze,’” he stated. “Perhaps some did say that. I didn’t say that. There was a meme that stated that on the web.”Certainly, there was a debunked meme. Whereas Crenshaw didn’t share stated meme, he did tweet a thread about why Texas’ grid failed, beginning with “Frozen Wind Generators” and that he can be digging into what occurred “so we’re not counting on frozen wind generators to warmth our houses throughout a blizzard.” Once more, that is merely not what consultants who examine power coverage have discovered was the principle explanation for struggling. The Republican imaginative and prescient for rationality on the UN talks, then, is basically persevering with to depend on fossil fuels with some CCS and nuclear bells and whistles that, whereas essential investments, usually are not sufficient to maintain the tides from swallowing locations like Tuvalu.
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