PA Environment Digest Blog: Sen. Yaw Proposes Independent Energy Office To Promote Development Of PA’s Diverse Energy Portfolio

On March 2, Sen. Gene Yaw (R-Lycoming), Majority Chair of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, announced he intends to introduce legislation to establish an Independent Energy Office.

“I believe most Republicans and Democrats in the Pennsylvania Legislature agree that we can advance policies that promote energy development and protect our environment simultaneously. They are not mutually exclusive," said Sen. Yaw.

"Our state has one of the most diverse energy portfolios in the United States. There is no question we can capitalize on our state’s energy richness, but we must first stop apologizing for it. I believe an Independent Energy Office can provide impartial, timely and data driven analysis to guide our state in determining and meeting future energy needs,” explained Sen. Yaw.

“The thought is, we need to have someone in charge of that,” said Sen. Yaw.

Sen. Yaw’s announcement said, according to an analysis conducted in November by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)--

-- Natural Gas: Pennsylvania’s marketed natural gas production, primarily from the Marcellus Shale, reached a record 7.6 trillion cubic feet in 2021, and the state is the nation’s second-largest natural gas producer after Texas.

-- Coal: Pennsylvania is the third-largest coal-producing state in the nation after Wyoming and West Virginia, and it is the second-largest coal exporter to foreign markets after West Virginia.

-- Nuclear Power: In 2021, Pennsylvania ranked second in the nation after Illinois in electricity generation from nuclear power.

-- Natural Gas In Homes: Over half of Pennsylvania households use natural gas as their primary home heating fuel, and the state’s 48 underground gas storage sites–the most for any state–help meet regional heating demand in winter.

-- Electricity Exporter: Pennsylvania is the second-largest net supplier of total energy to other states, after Texas.

[Note: Sen. Yaw did not mention renewable energy in this announcement.]

Sen. Yaw noted the IEO would be modeled after Pennsylvania’s Independent Fiscal Office, which was created by Act 120 of 2010, and Act 100 of 2016.

The IFO does not support or oppose any policy it analyzes, and discloses the methodologies, data sources and assumptions used in published reports and estimates.

Click Here for a copy of Sen. Yaw’s announcement and video remarks.

Sen. Yaw's Energy Beliefs

You can get a better understanding of Sen. Yaw's energy beliefs by reading a transcript of the comments he made at the February 27 joint hearing on electric grid reliability by the Senate Environmental and Consumer Protection Committees.

Sen. Yaw said--

"For those of you who know and have heard me say this before, I'm a big believer there's three blocks to any organized society, building blocks.

"You need energy to build an economy. And with an economy then you can deal with the environment.

“And they have to be in that order, because if you don't have an economy and people are worried about whether they have jobs, or do they have food or whatever, do they really care about the environment?

"So the key to our environmental concerns is really the most robust economy that we can build. And also they have to be in that order.

"And where we are right now is we're tinkering with the environmental side without considering the impact on the economics and the operational part of it.

"And I remember, I think Gladys [Brown Dutrieuille, Chairman of the PUC], you may have mentioned this about [how] things have changed over the past five years.

"I think about five years ago I toured with the Committee, the PJM site in Valley Forge. And I know one of the comments made at the time was that Pennsylvania had almost a perfect energy mix at that time.

"We were about a third, a third, a third [in sources of fuel to generate electricity].

"Obviously, that doesn't add up quite, but there's a little bit of renewables included in that.

“We didn't have any reliability issues at all.”

"And now, I participated in a seminar that PJM was part of in New York City, and one of the comments made is the political policies that we as legislators in the various states associated with PJM probably give to PJM.

"In other words, we deal the cards to you and I think we're dealing you a lousy deck, frankly. And what happens is, you've mentioned this, that 95% of the [proposed] energy [facilities], the new coming online in the [JPM] queue, is wind and solar and that means only 5% is natural gas, or coal, or nuclear or whatever.

"And wind and solar are intermittent and weather dependent.

"So it seems to me, and I love it when people say, oh, well by 2035 we're going to have totally clean energy.

"Okay, what's the backup system? What's the backup? Because you have to have a duplicate system as we know it today. And by 2035, that's what, 12 years away, are we going to have some way to back up everything that we have?

"And we're creating, I think legislators, legislators are creating the problems ourselves.

“We've gone from a completely reliable system with backup that worked anytime, night or day, didn't matter whether it was raining, or the sun was shining, or whatever. And the more that we bring that [renewables] online, the more we have a problem.

"Now I was so interested to see that only about 8% are renewables according to the calculations, I think that Gladys [Brown Dutrieuille, Chairman of the PUC] mentioned it first, and that would include hydro as well as solar and wind. And so there's still 92% of it is still is the gas, nuclear or coal. There's been a huge shift.

"And I guess the question I have is, I know the report that came out just I think on Friday, mentions the fact that if there was more natural gas available that could help.

"Well, if that's the case, but yet none of them are in the [PJM proposed energy facility] queue, 95% are the renewables.

"Why aren't natural gas or nuclear or coal, why aren't they applying for new generation capacity? Why is that?"

[Note: The representative of PJM responded natural gas, nuclear and coal plants aren’t in the PJM queue of proposed facilities because of the cost and financial institutions aren’t financing them because they want to reduce their carbon footprint.

[He also noted the 95% renewables in the queue included utility-scale electricity storage and that PJM has approved 35,000 MW of renewable resources that haven’t yet been connected to the grid because of supply chain and siting issues. Read more here. ]

Sen. Yaw: Renewables A Problem, Natural Gas Isn’t

From these and other comments, it’s clear Sen. Yaw believes renewables are a problem and not an opportunity.

However, it is Pennsylvania’s increasing dependence on natural gas for electricity generation that broke the one-third, one-third, one-third fuel mix Sen. Yaw praised.

Six years ago, in 2017, electricity generation was 35% coal, 35% nuclear, 23% natural gas, 6% renewable, biomass and other. Read more here

In 2021, 53% of electricity generation came from natural gas, 31% from nuclear, 12% from coal and 4% from renewables and other sources, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The changes in the coal and nuclear mix were caused by competition from natural gas driving them out of the market, breaking the one-third, one-third, one-third fuel mix.

At the February 27 hearing, the independent ReliabilityFirst Corporation, said, “Natural gas dependency also presents reliability challenges, as a greater reliance on natural gas- fired generation elevates the risk from weather-induced natural gas fuel supply disruptions.” Read more here.

Both the Public Utility Commission and the PJM Interconnection said 70% of the electric generation units that did not perform when called on in December’s Winter Storm Elliot freeze were natural gas-fired. Read more here.

And this isn’t a new problem.

The PA Coal Alliance said, “In February of 2014, during a cold snap, PJM found that 23% of total generator outages were due to interruptions of natural gas supply, and in January of 2018, during the polar vortex, half of the total PJM natural gas capacity was not available to supply peak demand.” Read more here.

The Nuclear Energy Institute added, “The reason for nuclear’s unique ability to maintain reliable operations is in its different approach to fuel availability. Unlike natural gas or coal generation, nuclear plants do not need to be continually fed new fuel supplies to produce electricity."

“It is also worth noting that these nuclear plants are providing this reliable, around-the-clock power without releasing carbon emissions." Read more here.

Not mentioned at all was the fact that natural gas costs went up by as much as 128% for Pennsylvania consumers and electricity costs by as much as 34%, driven by the natural gas price spikes caused by the whims of a Russian dictator that resulted in oil and gas industry profits of $200 billion in 2022. Read more here

The key to affordable electricity prices and reliability is more diversification, not less, and that means increasing the renewable energy part of the electricity generation pie chart in Pennsylvania. Read more here.

The “fuel” for wind and solar energy facilities is free, storage is the problem that needs to be solved.

Also not mentioned is the toll 60 years of fracking and 20 years of shale gas development has taken on Pennsylvania’s environment and public health. Read more here.

The February 27 hearing provided a lot of good information on electricity grid reliability, let’s hope legislators take a look at the big picture and don’t intentionally let pieces out.

Sen. Gene Yaw (R-Lycoming) serves as Majority Chair of the Senate Environmental Committee and can be contacted by calling 717-787-3280 or sending email to: gyaw@pasen.gov.

Sen. Carolyn Comitta (D-Chester) serves as Minority Chair and can be contacted by calling 717-787-5709 or sending email to: senatorcomitta@pasenate.com.

(Photos: Keystone Conemaugh Coal Power Plant, Indiana County; Hickory Run Natural Gas Power Plant, Lawrence County; Limerick Nuclear Power Plant, Montgomery County

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