Rising temperatures undermine the president’s vision of an energy-dominant America, affecting coal-fired power plants, oil production and the electrical grid, a federal report says.
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WASHINGTON — It’s been a defining phrase of the Donald Trump presidency, “Energy dominance,” a doctrine that emphasizes the expansion of coal and oil production as well as the weakening of environmental regulations, including those that address climate change.
But at every turn, according to a broad scientific report on climate change issued last week, rising global temperatures threaten to undermine the president’s vision of an energy-dominant America. The blackouts and other energy disruptions of Hurricane Harvey were just harbingers, the report said. Across the United States, every element of the country’s energy infrastructure, like oil wells and nuclear power plants, will be stressed by droughts, heat waves, rising seas and fiercer storms.
“Climate change disrupts everything, including Trump’s agenda,” said Alice Hill, a research fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution think tank who served as senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council under President Barack Obama.
When it comes to fossil fuel production, the disruptions are particularly serious. And there’s a fundamental irony at play. Even as emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are warming the planet, the consequences of that warming will make it harder to drill for oil, mine for coal and deliver fuel through pipelines.
Mr. Trump wants to boost oil and gas drilling on public lands in the West, but drought is expected to affect the water necessary for hydraulic fracturing, the technique of injecting vast amounts of liquid into the bedrock to force out natural gas or oil. In the Arctic, where Mr. Trump has plans to open sensitive areas to oil drilling, equipment built to withstand Alaska’s freezing temperatures is particularly vulnerable to permafrost melting as the state warms at twice the rate of the rest of the country.
Coal-burning power plants are at risk as well. Rising temperatures from extreme heat events, the report notes, are expected to reduce their capacity to generate power and hamper the efficiency of the transmission grid.
The national climate report, mandated by Congress and made public by the White House, makes the case that global warming “is transforming where and how we live and presents growing challenges to human health.
