SB 100: the clean energy plan that keeps California hooked on gas

My Op-Ed in Capitol Weekly published September 24, 2023

Here is the original text that Capitol Weekly published last week. I’ve added some backstory and reflections to the end.

“OPINION – California’s clean energy future is at risk. Despite ambitious goals and a trillion-dollar investment plan, the state is still on track to burn natural gas for decades to come unless we change course.

SB 100, the 100 Percent Clean Energy Act, mandates that all retail electricity come from renewable or zero-carbon sources by 2045. However, new research exposes a critical flaw: even with massive investments in solar, wind, and batteries, there will be significant energy gaps that can’t be fully addressed by batteries alone.

Batteries, while essential for short-term energy storage and grid stabilization, are limited by their charge-discharge cycles, typically offering only four to six hours of support. During cloudy, windless days—often stretching for days or even weeks—batteries will need to be recharged by natural gas plants to meet demand. Modeling by Dr. Leonard Rodberg for the Anthropocene Institute shows that even with extensive battery deployment, natural gas would still need to fill over 80 percent of the shortfall during these periods, leaving California burning nearly as much gas in 2045 as it does today.

The solution lies in integrating a large, firm, dispatchable emission-free resource (DEFR) into California’s energy mix. Nuclear energy is uniquely suited to this role, providing reliable, continuous power at the scale required to decarbonize the grid. Unlike the combination of renewables, storage, and gas backup—which increases complexity and drives up costs—nuclear offers a stable, carbon-free baseload, available day and night. Nuclear works best alongside renewables and storage to phase out natural gas, optimizing grid flexibility and ensuring a truly clean energy system for California.

To achieve the vision of SB 100, California must lift its decades-old moratorium on new nuclear plants. Research shows that advanced nuclear can meet the state’s energy needs at no greater cost than its current plan, while eliminating reliance on fossil fuels.

California has long been a climate leader, but now we face a critical choice: continue investing billions in a system that keeps us hooked on natural gas, or embrace nuclear energy to fully decarbonize the grid. The time to act is now—our energy future depends on it. Download the full report here.

Ryan Pickering is an energy policy researcher and solar industry veteran based in Berkeley, California, focused on balancing nuclear and renewable energy to achieve a sustainable future.”

…and that’s it. 354 words thrown at the windows of California’s energy future.

The day it was published, I happened to run into Len Rodberg, the primary author of the report my Op-Ed references. He handed me a printed copy, and we congratulated each other. Later, I asked my friend Angelica Oung to take this photo outside a restaurant in Manhattan.

Angelica was on the street with Alexander Kaufman, famed reporter from the Huffington Post. I asked them how they could stand to have so much of their writing coded into the amber of the internet for all time. They both shrugged, voicing that time moves on; few look back, and if they do, we can always update our opinions.

Perhaps under 350 words is a good medium for me. It’s agonizing to boil down my thoughts into such a diminutive pile of stones. Yet in so many ways, it’s the truest expression of my own way of speaking and reasoning. The known writers in this space—Oung, Slav, Angwin, Kaufman, Orr, Jenkins, Kozeracki, Nelson, Bryce, Wright—build big ideas of energy realism and energy sobriety with thousands of words, suspended between tremendous references and experience.

Perhaps my own contributions can be something more debased—a sort of energy brutalism.