Lawmakers reject bill to classify natural gas power as renewable energy in New Mexico

Legislators rejected a proposal from New Mexico Rep. Jim Townsend (R-54) to reclassify a form of natural gas-driven power as renewable energy, as a means he said would help the state meet electricity demands.

Townsend of Artesia, whose district represents parts of the southeast New Mexico Permian Basin region where most of its fossil production occurs, said he did not believe combined cycle natural gas was renewable despite the language in his bill.

He said the legislation was aimed at supporting natural gas production, which Townsend argued was necessary to meet power demands throughout the state and avoid blackouts as other New Mexico leaders, mostly Democrats, endeavor to shift the state toward less-pollutive forms of energy.

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But the House Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee largely rejected the measure, voting 7-4 to table the bill, meaning no action was taken and it could be brought up again by the committee via another vote.

During the meeting, Townsend contended that classifying natural gas as renewable would prevent statewide blackouts and energy shortages as other New Mexico leader sought to transition toward actual renewable sources like wind and solar.

The bill would have allowed New Mexico to include natural gas in its renewable energy portfolio, Townsend said, meaning its production would count toward benchmarks set by the state intended to increase renewable energy across the state.

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“Let me first say that I understand that natural gas is not a renewable. That’s readily apparent,” Townsend. “But I don’t know of another tool that New Mexico power producers have to try to eliminate a problem that they’re faced with as they develop a system where those renewables that we’re currently dedicated to can be integrated and become dependable to New Mexico consumers.”

He said aside from nuclear energy, Townsend was unaware of any dependable source of energy that was “low carbon or no carbon” other than natural gas.

He argued permitting for nuclear energy required “significantly more time” than natural gas which Townsend contended was readily dispatchable to meet New Mexico’s power needs.

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“My purpose is to try to fix a problem faced by New Mexico,” he said. “It’s readily apparent too that adding natural gas to the portfolio would be good for our energy providers in New Mexico, and it would be one that I think they would all see as the most expedient fix to the problem we face.”

Combined cycle systems use natural gas to generate electricity through not only combustion, as in simple-cycle systems, but also by generating steam.

Exhaust heat generated through the combustion of natural gas is sent to a heat recovery steam generator, where steam in pressurized for other turbines to drive additional electric power, read a report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

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Of the 491 gigawatts of natural gas-fired electricity generation in the U.S., more than half of 280 GW comes from combined cycle systems, the EIA reported.

New Mexico ranks frequently in the top-10 natural gas producing states in the U.S., accounting for 6 percent of nationwide production, the EIA reported.

Almost 300 trillion British thermal units (BTUs) of natural gas were consumed in New Mexico in 2020, according to the EIA’s latest data, the most of any other sector including renewables like wind and solar.

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Jim Winchester, executive director with trade group the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico argued in favor of the bill, testifying before the committee that natural gas energy was reliable and could prevent brownouts and blackouts.

He said natural gas was also less pollutive than fossil fuel sources like coal.

“It gives us the opportunity to emphasize the fact that the reason we’ve seen emissions decline is because of the use of natural gas, and this is one of those bills that allows for reliability with a very clean-burning fuel,” Winchester said.

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Luis Guerrero with the Sierra Club’s Rio Grande Chapter said the bill would wrongly classify natural gas, which he said produces pollution through methane emissions and was not aligned with statewide goals to address climate change impacts from energy.

“Methane gas is a nonrenewable fossil fuel, that when extracted, vented, flared, leaked and combusted damages our air, land, water, climate and health,” he said. “It doesn’t matter where or how you burn fossil fuels, or how many cycles of power it has. It is a dirty, non-renewable fuel.”

Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Carlsbad Current-Argus: Bill to classify natural gas as renewable energy rejected in New Mexico