SDG&E PLANS TO KEEP BURNING FOSSIL FUELS DESPITE WHAT IT SAYS
San Diego Gas & Electric recently released its report “The Path to Net Zero: A Decarbonization Roadmap for California.” Rather than demonstrating SDG&E’s commitment to a healthy climate, this report demonstrates its skill at hiring consultants to evaluate scenarios that will ensure that its business will continue to be highly profitable, regardless of the consequences to our community.
The SDG&E report recognizes that electrification is central to decarbonizing the building sector, and yet recommends that the gas pipeline infrastructure throughout the region be modernized and maintained at enormous costs to ratepayers. SDG&E makes money off the guaranteed return on investments made in infrastructure, so the more the better. Studies have shown that retiring older gas pipelines by neighborhood is the most cost-effective way to equitably reduce greenhouse gases.
The SDG&E report also suggests changing the mix of gases in the distribution pipeline. Adding 14 percent green hydrogen to the gas pipeline does not make it a “clean fuel.” And the recommended 28 percent “renewable natural gas” blend still leaks and combusts to create the same human and Earth-harming pollutants as regular “natural gas.” Repurposing the existing gas system to accommodate fuel mixtures that are still largely fossil fuels does not deliver zero carbon energy. It just maintains gas infrastructure funding as long as possible and stalls the most effective actions we can take to decarbonize now: direct use of clean renewable energy for electrification.
Hydrogen is a recurring theme in SDG&E’s “resource diversity” approach and deserves some discussion. The process of producing hydrogen, compressing it, and then turning that compressed hydrogen back into electricity or mechanical energy is grossly inefficient, according to the Hydrogen Science Coalition. Creating hydrogen takes energy because hydrogen atoms don’t exist on their own — they are almost always stuck to another atom. Green hydrogen is made using renewable energy in a process that splits water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen. It is truly carbon-free, very scarce — less than 5 percent of all hydrogen produced today is green — and very expensive.
Most hydrogen is fossil-based. It’s made by separating hydrogen from natural gas in a process that generates more greenhouse gas emissions than burning diesel.
Truly zero-emission green hydrogen may play a future role in hard-to-electrify sectors like marine shipping and aviation. But San Diego doesn’t have steel mills or concrete factories, so there is no need to burn green hydrogen as a fuel in any of San Diego’s buildings.
In addition to all the costs to blend fuels and keep the gas pipelines running, the SDG&E report recommends policies that will require huge investments in impractical carbon removal technologies, to capture and store all the carbon that the gas pipelines will create. Carbon capture and storage has been around since the 1970s but has yet to demonstrate technical and economic viability without fiscal life support from taxpayers.
Carbon-free renewable energy is price competitive and available now.
All these direct costs passed on to ratepayers as well as the external cost of greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting negative health and climate impacts could be avoided by fully electrifying buildings and capping off the gas pipelines.
According to recent news articles, Sempra Energy, the parent company of SDG&E, is paying out its highest profits ever to its shareholders. During an investor call in February, Sempra CEO Jeffrey Martin reinforced his “longstanding commitment to return value to our shareholders.” The fossil fuel industry simply cannot imagine a future without fossil fuels.
And as its report shows, SDG&E plans to keep burning fossil fuels for as long as it can to “return value to shareholders,” and, despite the messaging in its “roadmap,” has no motivation to prioritize the health and welfare of the residents of the San Diego region.
We need to come together as citizens to urge our elected officials to lead on transitioning our community off of fossil fuels and support impacted workers, rather than pretend that SDG&E has a plan to get us there.
Despite the messaging in its “roadmap,” SDG&E has no motivation to prioritize the health and welfare of the residents of the local region.
Lyndon is an engineer who volunteers with the San Diego Building Electrification Coalition, a local coalition of over 30 organizations advocating to eliminate fossil fuels from residential and commercial buildings. She lives in University City.