Last year, I attended a political rally where Washington Gov. Jay Inslee shared his strategy for putting climate change at the top of the list of national issues. At the time, the Washington Legislature was organizing a ‘clean energy standard’ bill that set a 100 percent clean energy target by 2045 and allowed existing and new nuclear to help meet that goal.

At the rally, Inslee took questions from the audience and I asked him, “What does success look like for beating climate change? How do we know we’ve won?” As we figure out how best to answer that question, states have been offering up their own solutions.

Although climate change is now a buzzword—with efforts like the Green New Deal and the fact that Greta Thunberg was just named Time’s Person of the Year—climate change policy dates back decades.
Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, renewables needed a kick-start. At the time, renewables were new, exciting and like all new technologies, very expensive. In order to help wind and solar gain traction, several states adopted a ‘renewable portfolio standard,’ or an RPS.

By 2012, 29 states and the District of Columbia had passed their own version of an RPS, each with a different goal—such as 20 percent renewables by 2020—to help deploy new renewable technologies and to bring economic and environmental benefits to the states.

Fast forward past decades of political and market variables, and today’s renewables have become much more economically competitive, supplying roughly 17 percent of total U.S. utility-scale generation. Renewables are in the electricity market and many of those 30 RPS targets have been extended.

Following that success, state policymakers are now shifting their policy intentions from deploying new technology to policymaking that focuses on reducing emissions. This trend is evident in the wave of states that have moved from an RPS to a clean energy standard (CES), where wind, solar and nuclear are included just the same. In fact, at least seven states and Puerto Rico passed new, aggressive clean energy targets in 2019.

An RPS is inherently valuable for environmental goals because it brings more zero-carbon electricity onto the grid. A CES is the next advancement of that idea, where states are no longer focusing on a specific technology but instead, on a broader goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Since nuclear energy provides more than 55 percent of carbon-free electricity in the United States, it is well-positioned to work alongside wind and solar to protect the climate. Our policies should reflect that reality.
Although Inslee dropped out of the Democratic primary last year, it was after a CES passed in Washington requiring 100 percent carbon-free generation by 2045. He has helped shape the debate that continues to take place among the remaining Democratic candidates. In answering my question, Inslee said success would look much like a national clean energy standard.

Congress just released a proposal for a national CES but while we wait for Congress to act, states will continue to pass their own ambitious goals. As the leading source of carbon-free energy, nuclear will be a vital part of achieving them.