How American Innovation is Driving Clean Energy Forward
This week, Clean Energy Week was held in Washington, D.C. to bring together Congressional leaders, federal agency officials and industry experts from across the energy field to talk about policy solutions to address climate change in a sustainable way.
If the key takeaways from the week were to be summarized in one word, it would probably be ‘innovation.’ From small modular reactors to LNG exports, American creativity and ingenuity is transforming the energy system in what our CEO Karen Harbert likes to refer to as an energy evolution. AGA’s Richard Meyer was asked to speak on a panel at Clean Energy Week to highlight some of the exciting ways the natural gas industry is driving change and lowering emissions through smart innovation.
We’re at a transformational moment in our history. U.S. manufacturing is undergoing a renaissance that has no parallel in living memory. American natural gas is critical to supporting this growth by making it affordable to build factories and keeping energy costs low enough for U.S. manufacturing to be cost competitive – and doing so in a way that makes our manufacturing cleaner than in places like China. Richard’s comments highlighted these facts along with the key strategic advantage of reshoring our most important supply chains.
Global crises including COVID and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East alike have caused supply chain disruptions that make it abundantly clear that reshoring our supply chains is a strategic imperative. Taking this necessary step will significantly increase energy demand – and innovative technologies like renewable natural gas and high efficiency technologies will be key to meeting this new energy demand while maintaining, or expanding, our emissions advantage over competitor nations like China. After all, as Richard pointed out – “If you’re going to make a widget, it’s better to use Texas gas than Chinese coal.”
Equally important will be helping ensure that low carbon resources like natural gas and renewable natural gas can get to the factories where the energy – or the material feedstocks themselves – are needed. That means investments in natural gas infrastructure, both modernizing existing infrastructure and building new pipelines, will be key to supporting manufacturing competitiveness going forward.
AGA’s participation in Clean Energy Week is a testament to the natural gas industry’s commitment to protecting our environment while facing challenges ranging from affordable manufacturing, to meeting surging demand for AI data centers, to protecting America’s position globally. We’re excited by our industry’s innovative work on building a safer, cleaner, and more reliable energy system prepared to meet any challenge going forward.