just transition

By Celina Barron, IBEW Local 11; Barbara James, Carpenters Local 1907; Emmett Doyle, Carpenters Local 68; and Amy Calandrella, IUOE Local 98 - Young Worker Convergence on Climate; Labor Network for Sustainability, December 23, 2022

By Paul Prescod - ZNet, December 21, 2022

The transition to electric vehicles is mandatory to address climate change. But if done haphazardly, it could result in massive job losses. Bold industrial policy and a rejuvenated United Auto Workers union can make electric vehicles a win for workers.

As the climate crisis grinds on, policymakers and economic elites are finally reading the writing on the wall for fossil fuels. The major automobile manufacturing companies have been devastatingly slow on the uptake, but they’re now starting to signal a greater commitment to the transition to electric vehicles.

Over the summer, Ford announced plans to invest $3.7 billion in electric vehicle production facilities across the Midwest. General Motors has increased its electric vehicle production target from one million by 2025 to two million. Newer companies like Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid have made their mark by manufacturing electric vehicles and are set to continue to grow.

While electric vehicle production is not free from environmental problems, the use of these cars over gas-powered ones would certainly be better for the climate.

But without broader changes to our industrial policy, the transition to electric vehicle production will not necessarily be good news for workers in the automobile industry.

As a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute outlines, without increased domestic production of electric vehicle batteries and other power train components, the large-scale introduction of electric vehicles could result in the loss of over two hundred fifty thousand jobs in automobile assembly and parts production. Currently, 75 percent of power train components for gas-powered vehicles are manufactured in the United States, as compared to just under 45 percent for electric vehicles.

The assembly of battery-powered electric vehicles is less complex and requires fewer workers than vehicles with an internal combustion engine. These job losses can only be offset if two conditions are met: a significant strengthening of domestic industries in the electric vehicle supply chain and electric vehicles rising to 50 percent of domestic automobile sales by 2030.

The Economic Policy Institute modeled various scenarios for the large-scale introduction of electric vehicles in the US market. In a scenario where electric vehicles reach 30 percent of the market share with current domestic production levels of electric vehicle power train components, around twenty thousand assembly jobs and twenty-five thousand parts jobs would be lost.

However, if an increase in electric vehicle market share can be matched with corresponding levels of power train production, over a hundred fifty thousand jobs would be gained.

While these scenarios may seem like abstract and technocratic formulations, they have deep implications for the future of important segments of the working class. For those still employed in the production of automobiles, the industry represents a critical gateway to a higher standard of living.

By Maximillian Alvarez, Megan Milliken Biven, James Hiatt, and Clarke - The Real News Network, December 14, 2022

By Joe Goodenbery, Eliasid Animas, and Jennifer Gorman - Ohio River Valley Institute, December 12, 2022

This report describes the development and analysis of a clean energy pathway for a 10-county region in southwestern Pennsylvania. Due to its abundance of fossil fuel resources, the region has a long history of substantial energy production, often at the expense of local environmental quality and economic diversity. A transition to clean energy provides a compelling opportunity to transform the local energy profile, while ending the region’s overreliance on fossil fuels, to reduce emissions and pursue a path of sustainable growth.

To date, the prevailing narrative for decarbonizing this region has centered around the perpetuation of the natural gas industry and costly investments in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies and infrastructure. Strategen’s analysis provides an alternative focused primarily on zero emissions resources, energy efficiency, increased electrification, and leveraging clean energy imports from outside the region, while minimizing the local need for fossil fuels.

Key Takeaways from this study:

• A renewables-based pathway, including energy efficiency and clean energy imports from the PJM market, is more cost-effective than continued reliance on fossil fuels. A strategy focused on natural gas and carbon capture will be 13% more costly than the clean energy pathway, which avoids expensive investments in CCS technologies to reduce emissions, while limiting the region’s exposure to fuel price volatility and mitigating the risk of stranded fossil fuel assets.
• In the developed decarbonization pathway, all coal plants and a significant portion of natural gas plants in the region will retire or reduce output by 2035, drastically reducing emissions going forward. A limited portion of natural gas plants may be kept online as capacity or peaking resources and to ensure reliability, though clean dispatchable resources could potentially serve this role in the future, as technology progresses.
• The clean energy pathway results in a 97% reduction in CO₂ emissions from the power sector by 2050, leading to environmental benefits of nearly $2.7 billion annually. These benefits are greater than those associated with strategies built around natural gas and CCS, furthering the case for the clean energy pathway as a least cost option for energy transition.
• Deep electrification of the transportation and buildings sectors can directly lower regional CO₂ emissions from these sectors by 95%. The total annual value of environmental and health benefits associated with combined reductions from the power, buildings, and transportation sectors reaches $4.2 billion in 2050, through avoided social costs.
• Through reduced reliance on natural gas for power generation and in buildings, Strategen’s decarbonization pathway will decrease natural gas consumption by 96% and 98%, respectively, for two these sectors by 2050. Lower consumption provides an opportunity to reduce emissions associated with natural gas extraction. The value of these avoided emissions would surpass $1 billion in 2050 alone.
• Energy efficiency is projected to increase over time, reducing regional electricity load by an average of 2.6% each year of the study period. Combined with electrification, the clean energy pathway results in overall load growth of 33% by 2050.
• Efficiency measures not only reduce load, emissions, and the need for additional generation, but also lead to local job creation and savings for consumers. Expenditures on efficiency and resulting residential bill savings support 12,416 total jobs in 2035, and 15,353 total jobs by 2050. Compared to both power generation and fossil fuel extraction, energy efficiency has a greater potential for local economic development, leading to more, higher-paying jobs served by workers and suppliers within the region.

Download a copy of this publication here (Link).

By various - Chief Sustainability Office, Los Angeles, December 10, 2022

By Nicholas Kusnetz - Inside Climate News, December 4, 2022

Scientists have debated whether a new technology is a critical climate solution or would carry unacceptable risks. A project in Wyoming’s coal region could begin to provide answers.

ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo.—In early fall, residents of this desolate corner of southwestern Wyoming opened their mailboxes to find a glossy flyer. On the front, a truck barreled down a four-lane desert highway with a solar farm on one side and what looked like rows of shipping containers on the other. On the back was an invitation.

“CarbonCapture Inc. is launching Project Bison,” it read, announcing a “direct air capture facility” set to begin operations here next year. “Join us at our town hall event to learn more.”

Few had heard about the proposal before receiving the flyer, let alone had any idea what a direct air capture facility was. So the following week, about 150 people packed into a large classroom at Western Wyoming Community College in Rock Springs to find out.

“We are a company that takes CO2 out of the air and stores it underground,” said Patricia Loria, CarbonCapture’s vice president of business development, in opening the meeting.

Loria described a plan to deploy a series of units—the shipping container-like boxes pictured on the flyer—that would filter carbon dioxide from the air and then compress the greenhouse gas for injection underground, where it would remain permanently.

By H.J. Mai - NPR, December 2, 2022

By Robert Pollin and Paul Jay - The Analysis News, November 29, 2022

By Faraz Rizvi, Matt Holmes, and Ted Franklin - Sunflower Alliance, November 22, 2022