WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today in an Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) laid out six challenges and solutions to combating climate change and explored clean energy innovation strategies. Panelists included: Mr. Robert Bryce, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Ms. Sarah Ladislaw, Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Energy and National Security Program; Dr. Arun Majumdar, Co-Director, Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University; David Sandalow, Inaugural Fellow, Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University; and Mr. Abe Silverman, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at NRG Energy, Inc.

In the hearing, Senator King laid out several key opportunities to combat climate change, and urged the importance of research and development in energy information:

• “One is storage. Storage unlocks enormous potential for renewables… storage unlocks huge potential for solar and wind.

• “Number two is efficiency. The cheapest, most cleanest kilowatt hour of all is the one that isn’t used. My experience in the energy efficiency business is, the problem is energy efficiency investments have insufficient return in and of themselves, at a fairly low energy cost. There has to be some subsidy. My suggestion is that utilities could pay customers to do energy efficiency, which would lower their costs of acquiring new power. In other words, new energy efficiency is a “Negawatt” if you will.

• “[Number three:] Carbon capture I think is also critical. We have this huge coal resource, we have huge energy resources. Carbon capture has got to be part of future it seems to me.

• “Number four is nuclear….[but] we’ve got to figure out what to do with the waste. It’s not responsible for our generation to say, ‘we’re going to solve our climate problem by building nuclear plants, and we’re going let you guys, and our children and grandchildren, deal with the waste.’ This government made a commitment to dealing with waste 70 years ago, they haven’t done it, and that’s one of my problems with going whole hog into nuclear. But I do think, clearly, the new generation if it comes, smaller, scalable –  those kind of solutions are important.

• “Number five, for me, is research and innovation. We’ve all agreed on that. The shale revolution, in part, came out of research at the Department of Energy. And if we can have similar research that brings us innovations like that in batteries, we’re in business. That’s a big deal and I think we need to appreciate that.

• “And then, finally the point you all have made… it does have to be an international solution. CO2 doesn’t respect boundaries and if we do everything we possibly can – which I think we should – but India and China don’t, then we’re still not going to solve this problem. And by the way, to put a fine point on the problem we’re now at 410 parts per million of CO2 – first time in three million years we’ve been there – and the last time we were there, the oceans were sixty feet higher. I mean, to me, that sort of captures where we are. So, I think, we’ve got to be talking about all of these things.”

A forceful advocate for clean energy solutions, Senator King is the lead sponsor on clean and efficient energy bills such as the Next Generation Grid Resources and Infrastructure Development (GRID) Act that would encourage energy independence, foster innovation, and leverage federal resources to support a more resilient and modern electric grid through the use of distributed and clean energy resources.  He is also the lead sponsor of the Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Support Act, legislation that would support businesses investing in energy efficiency technology, help diversify energy options for rural industries, and maximize use of Maine’s natural resources. Senator King introduced this bill in November 2017, after holding an ENR Committee field hearing at Robbins Lumber in Searsmont to identify opportunities to use new energy efficient technologies to sustain and strengthen rural industries. Senator King is also the lead sponsor for the Biomass Thermal Utilization (BTU) Act, a bipartisan bill that would incentivize the use of energy efficiency biomass heaters in homes and businesses instead of relying on fossil fuel energy. He has also a cosponsored the Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act, bipartisan legislation which would establish an investment tax credit (ITC) for business and home use of energy storage.