Investor Presentaiton
INNOVATION, NOT ELIMINATION
In charting a pathway to an emission-free future in West Virginia, policy leaders have also
emphasized the importance of innovating new solutions to the climate challenge as we transition
away from polluting power sources. The Clean Innovation Pathway that we modeled borrows from
this strategy.
Through 2040, the Clean Innovation Pathway constructs 20,884 megawatts of solar, wind, and
battery storage power plants in West Virginia. Following tremendous innovations and cost declines
over the past two decades, these technologies have the greatest potential today to make progress
affordably and quickly toward a zero-emissions power sector while creating local jobs and
investment.
In addition, the Clean Innovation Pathway builds natural gas power plants that take advantage
of today's most affordable fossil fuel while maintaining flexibility to switch to zero-emission power
generation when innovation within the fossil fuel industry catches up. Specifically, the combined cycle
natural gas power plants built in the Clean Innovation Pathway will be poised to continue operation
on a zero-emissions basis by switching to zero-emissions fuel (e.g., hydrogen), incorporating carbon
capture and storage, or leveraging other new technologies. This could even be accomplished
gradually by co-firing natural gas plants with a continually increasing blend of hydrogen.
The American Jobs Plan proposes 15 decarbonized hydrogen demonstration projects in the
United States. If one or more of those projects were to be sited in West Virginia, it would lay the
groundwork for a switch to hydrogen-firing at our natural gas power plants. Developing this 21st
century energy technology in West Virginia would also open up possibilities for exporting zero-
emission energy generation technologies and know-how from West Virginia to the rest of the world.
EXPLORING NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR COAL
As emphasized in West Virginia's Energy Future, our miners and coal communities made an
indispensable contribution to America's economic rise in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is critical
that this contribution be honored by securing a strong future for coal communities in the new energy
economy.
The American Jobs Plan includes multiple prongs aimed at developing and deploying carbon
capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies for fossil fuels. First, CCUS will be one of the
technologies eligible for $15 billion in demonstration projects similar to those supported through the
Pentagon's DARPA efforts. Second, the American Jobs Plan proposes building ten "pioneer facilities"
for demonstrating CCUS retrofits at steel, cement, and chemical production facilities, like the cement
production facility in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Third, the American Jobs Plan proposes expanding
the tax credit that companies can receive for the capture and storage of carbon dioxide.
6 The positive economic impact of a potential hydrogen demonstration project was not modeled in our study.
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To ensure that power plants contemplating a natural gas-to-hydrogen conversion can be financed and built, legislators should clarify that, under the American
Jobs Plan's proposed 100%-by-2035 clean electricity standard, any such power plants may continue to operate beyond 2035 without penalty if they are converting to
hydrogen-firing in accordance with a schedule established as part of a U.S. Department of Energy demonstration project.
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WEST VIRGINIA'S ENERGY FUTURE
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