Appendix A
Game Scenarios
2050 GULF GOVERNORS CONFERENCE ON THE ENERGY TRANSITION: THE PATH TO NET ZERO
Conference Summary
Introduction
On May 23–24, 2050, the governors of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida gathered with leaders from Gulf of Mexico coastal communities, academia, and the energy industry to assess the state of the energy transition in the region. The conference had an air of celebration. Against all odds, the United States met its target of a net-zero carbon economy, a goal that has come to be called the “carbon moonshot.” And just as the Gulf states played an outsized role in the Apollo missions to the moon, the region was critical to this second moonshot. Despite initial resistance in several corners of the Gulf, most sectors
became determined to ensure that their workers and businesses would not get left behind in what became known as “energy diversification.”
The conference was also an opportunity to recall the challenges and growing pains of the past three decades and to seek lessons that could inform strategies to overcome current hurdles. Nearly every session of the conference heard from segments of the regional economy that had struggled, and some of those difficulties are lingering still. Yet most attendees acknowledged that the Gulf is in a better place in 2050 than it was in the early years of this transformation. And some expressed their preference for the “New Gulf” that had phased down hydrocarbon production over the old Gulf that was a leader in the oil and gas economy.
The Gulf’s Road to Net Zero
National policies and global trends formed the background of nearly all discussions at the conference. Yet it was clear that the Gulf was not a passive observer. Leaders in the five states realized their shared needs and came together to establish the Gulf Energy Diversification Council in 2026, widely considered a crucial scaffold upon which the transformation was built. For nearly a quarter century, this collaboration between government, industry, labor, academia, and communities has set energy diversification goals, monitored progress, and built regional trust and community buy-in. The council also played a major part in representing the needs of the region to Washington, ensuring that those who bear the brunt of decarbonization are allowed to share in its benefits. And when the Gulf states were not cooperating to make their voices heard, they competed fiercely against each other, with increasingly ambitious energy transition plans and regulatory fast-tracking to compete for private energy investments and Net Zero Industrial Hubs.
Federal climate and energy policy provided certainty that encouraged Gulf industry to make long-term plans and investments and lead the transition—even as the urgency intensified and federal incentives and funding expanded. Although control of the White House and Congress has shifted back and forth between political parties over these decades, Washington did not backtrack on energy policy. It took until the 2030s, however, for the federal government to fully appreciate the regional disparities caused by the transition. Only when unemployment levels in many Gulf towns and cities reached at least twice the national average did the Gulf states—along with Oklahoma, West Virginia, and others—persuade Washington to fully embrace “just transition” policies. This effort culminated in the Just Transition Act of 2036, a major turning point for the Gulf. From that point until today, federal energy policies have prioritized investment in the workers and communities that had depended on or been impacted by fossil fuel industries.
Climate crises in the 2020s and ‘30s played a role in capturing the attention of both federal and regional decision-makers. The drought that stopped almost all barge traffic on the Mississippi from 2027 to 2029 spread economic pain as far
north as Minnesota. The Category 5 hurricanes Sven and Oleg in 2033 and 2034 wreaked havoc on surviving coastal oil and gas infrastructure, knocking refineries, offshore rigs, and gas processors out of operation for months—some forever. Sven and Oleg were also tough on solar farms and offshore wind turbines, but their biggest effect may have been to spur massive regional investment in resilient infrastructure and natural systems.
Government policy only laid the foundation for Net Zero; the industrial might and resilience of the Gulf made it happen. The private sector turned Green Bank loans into the hydrogen pipelines, carbon reservoirs, and solar farms that now blanket the region. Although some familiar names of the old energy economy disappeared into bankruptcy court, many oil and gas corporations and entrepreneurs embraced the profits to be made in energy diversification and became political cheerleaders for it. Community resistance to energy diversification faded most quickly wherever business leaders put their words and investments behind new energy.
In her keynote address, Latisha White, former Louisiana governor and current chair of the Gulf Energy Diversification Council, said, “We can all remember when the words ‘Net Zero’ felt like a taunt by the rest of the nation against us in the Gulf. But we fought for our place in the sun.”
Conference Session Summaries
Day 1: Energy Sectors
Oil and Natural Gas
Representatives from oil and natural gas industries painted a bleak picture of that sector—although each company on the discussion panel has found ways to profit from a diverse energy portfolio. Exploration of new fields has shut down entirely since the 2030s. As gasoline-powered cars have been completely replaced in the US by electric vehicles, crude oil production in the Gulf states has fallen to less than half of 2020 production, resulting in more than 100,000 jobs lost. In the natural gas sector, employment in production and processing has similarly declined, leading to at least 50,000 lost jobs. Gas-powered electricity generation has fallen by more than two-thirds since 2020. Some of those who lost jobs have found work in the growing fields of decommissioning offshore rigs and plugging wells, whereas others have transferred their skills to underground carbon sequestration and enhanced geothermal in depleted fields. A problem noted by a labor representative is that by the time carbon sequestration and enhanced geothermal really took off, many unemployed oil and gas workers had moved on. Twenty refineries have closed in the past 30 years, well over half of the number that existed in 2020. Existing refineries and chemical complexes have required new investments for carbon capture and for the shift in demand almost entirely
away from gasoline. The added costs accelerated closures. A more widely visible sign of the decline of oil is the many abandoned gasoline stations littering the roadsides, which took another 100,000 jobs with them.
Solar
Panelists during the session on solar energy noted that nationally, the sun now supplies nearly one-third of electricity. Photovoltaics in the sunny Gulf states alone supply about 14 percent of the nation’s electricity. This figure was not a surprise to attendees at the session, who are accustomed to driving past vast fields of solar panels. More than 70 percent of Gulf solar is from utility-scale solar farms, which now cover nearly as much land as all the cropland in Louisiana. Many of these solar farms take advantage of grid infrastructure built around now-closed gas power plants. Employment in solar has reached 375,000, but a labor representative raised concerns about future growth: At Net Zero, the nation is approaching a plateau in electricity production, and for every 100 workers required to build a solar farm, only 1 or 2 are needed to run and maintain it. She predicted a decline in solar construction jobs in the next decade.
A utility representative noted that even though rooftop solar accounts for less than 30 percent of total Gulf solar, this share is higher than that seen in the rest of the US and has effects disproportionate to its size. Widespread adoption of rooftop solar became a driving force in smart grid adoption by utilities, and distributed energy resource management has improved grid stability. A community representative from Justice40 added that rooftop solar was an integral part of the Green Resilient Housing Program under the Just Transition Act. It lowered utility costs for many of the Gulf’s most vulnerable citizens and helped change community attitudes about the energy transition.
Wind
Wind is now the nation’s largest energy source, accounting for more than half of US electricity. But representatives from the Gulf Wind Association expressed some disappointment at the share of this investment that has flowed to the region. Texas, especially West Texas, was already a major producer of wind power by 2020, and the number of wind turbines has tripled since then. This increase has led to a gain of more than 200,000 jobs, but very few of these wind farms are located on the coastline where most Gulf oil and gas jobs were lost. And as with solar, there were suggestions that the moonshot boom in construction could be followed by a bust as demand for renewable energy plateaus, leaving mostly maintenance jobs in the wind industry.
Offshore wind investment in the Gulf has been particularly disappointing in some ways, though encouraging in others, according to a US Ocean Industries Group representative. Given the local industry and workforce that built the off-
shore oil industry, it was hoped that the Gulf waters would be populated with wind turbines. Indeed, now that 10 percent of the nation’s electricity is sourced from offshore wind, the Gulf has become an industrial hub for design services, rigging fabrication facilities, and the construction of customized vessels—supported by the Jones Act requirement for US-flagged vessels. But most of this work is sent to New England, which has somewhat stronger winds and high electricity demand. Some Gulf offshore workers who trained at regional technical colleges through the Greater New Orleans Wind Alliance even fly to New England—two weeks on, two weeks off—building and maintaining offshore wind farms there. Others have migrated to windier shores. Meanwhile, the western Gulf of Mexico has just 1,500 offshore wind turbines, although construction is accelerating with the addition of Just Transition incentives.
Geothermal
Participants in the Geothermal session echoed some of the same themes discussed in the offshore wind session: high industrial and workforce potential not fully matched by investment. Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) use many of the same skills that Gulf workers and companies have employed to frack gas and oil. In recent years, growth in geothermal has created more than 100,000 jobs nationwide, and many of those are filled by workers who lost oil and gas jobs. But only about 1 in 10 of those jobs is in a Gulf state. South Texas and the Haynesville-Bossier Shales (in the borderlands between Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas) have attracted some geothermal investment in the past decade with the help of Just Transition incentives, but early investors in this technology generally preferred to start in Western states with the highest natural geothermal potential. Two panelists cited the region’s failure in 2036 to produce a successful bid to host one of the DOE Geothermal Hubs in the Gulf as a missed opportunity.
Hydrogen
The Hydrogen session was led by representatives from the region’s two Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs. The Gulf was already a hub of hydrogen production from natural gas in 2020, with 900 miles of hydrogen pipelines in Houston and the Texas coast alone. Local hub leaders resisted suggestions at the time to blend hydrogen with natural gas, citing risks, and set their sights on fully green hydrogen, largely created by electrolysis to store excess renewable electricity. (Some is also “blue” hydrogen, still created from natural gas but with carbon capture and storage.) By upgrading existing infrastructure and leveraging local expertise in chemical engineering and pipeline construction, the Gulf captured almost a third of the nation’s clean hydrogen investment, gaining tens of thousands of jobs. Now the Gulf is beginning to use its hydrogen network to attract industries that can use hydrogen directly to replace carbon-intensive production
methods, including the steel industry. Several Gulf ports are also refueling ships that have converted to hydrogen fuel cells for power.
Electric Utilities
The Electric Utilities session focused on the transformation of the grid in the Gulf. A representative from the Gulf Electric Integration Council recalled the severe regional blackouts during the record-breaking heat waves of the summer of 2026 as a turning point against grid deregulation and fragmentation. Today, the Gulf is seen as a smart grid leader, with infrastructure that integrates supply and demand with the rest of the Eastern and Central United States. At the same time, system monitoring and intrusion detection tools grounded in artificial intelligence have greatly improved the security of the grid as it has expanded. The Gulf experienced none of the cyberattack blackouts that afflicted other regions in the 2040s.
Although some renewable energy projects have tapped into infrastructure originally built for gas-fueled power plants, the grid required many upgrades to connect widely varied and widely spaced energy sources. Gulf utilities have also invested significantly in grid-scale battery storage. In addition to the many new sources of energy, electric utilities rely to a small degree on nuclear power from modular reactors, hydropower, and natural gas with carbon capture as baseload and “peaker” sources of power—each making up 5 percent or less of total supply.
The distribution infrastructure has changed even more radically. Local interest in grid resilience in many military base communities was spurred by DOD commitments to make its bases resilient to power outages or grid cyberattacks by investing in a range of renewable options, storage options, and energy-saving options. Other communities were much slower to adapt and suffered greatly from Hurricanes Sven and Oleg in 2033 and 2034. The widespread adoption of rooftop solar, especially since the passage of the Just Transition Act, has improved grid resilience through distributed energy resource management. Stability in electricity prices has contributed to local investment in energy-intensive industries while bringing under control the inflationary crises that squeezed vulnerable populations in the 2020s. But grid managers warned that climate models show the potential for more frequent Category 5 hurricanes in the future, a problem they cannot solve with grid integration and distribution management alone.
Carbon Capture and Storage
The session on carbon capture and storage (CCS) included representatives of some of the biggest names in petroleum, survivors that have also become powerhouses in the growing CCS industry. They explained that CCS technology was slow to develop and only really took off in the last 15 years. But when it did, the Gulf capitalized on several natural advantages to become a national CCS leader. First, the region was home to carbon-intensive industries that embraced CCS to
take advantage of federal incentives—and as their only way forward in a nation racing toward Net Zero. Second, the availability of technical expertise and an industrial base and workforce accustomed to pipelines and underground reservoirs was a strong local advantage. These skills required some upgrading, and the Gulf Energy Diversification Council worked with a network of community and technical colleges to sponsor certification programs in CCS. And third, the Gulf’s most plentiful CCS resource was depleted natural gas reservoirs. In many ways, the industry today works a bit like the natural gas industry—but in reverse. Refitted near-to-shore gas rigs are storing carbon dioxide under the seafloor, which one panelist said was 10 times cheaper than decommissioning the structures. On land, carbon dioxide is also being injected into depleted oil and gas fields. One analyst warned, however, that the most accessible underground fields would be nearing capacity in the coming years.
Day 2: Gulf Impacts
Air Quality and Environmental Justice
Both academic experts and community representatives in the Air Quality and Environmental Justice session agreed that criteria air pollutants (carbon monoxide, ground-level ozone, lead, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, and sulfur dioxide) had fallen significantly across the region. The total conversion of automobiles to EVs and partial (60 percent) conversion of heavy trucks to battery power had the most widespread effect. An epidemiologist noted that asthma hospital admissions for children in Florida had fallen by 25 percent since 2020. But Javier Fontenot, executive director of Concerned Citizens of Cancer Alley, brought up concerns that the laser focus on cutting greenhouse gas emissions during the moonshot phase, as well as regulatory fast-tracking of carbon capture, had done little to address toxic air pollutants for fence-line communities. “The chemical plants in our neighborhoods are investing in carbon capture, not toxic capture,” Fontenot said, adding that the “moonshot mindset” made corporations too impatient to pause for stakeholder engagement.
But environmental justice advocates pointed to positive changes in other areas, such as housing, energy costs, employment, and land restoration. Legislation from the 2020s and the Just Transition Act of 2036 incorporated goals of the Justice40 Initiative and invested in cleaning up a growing number of brownfield sites, building green housing, training for jobs, and developing resilient infrastructure in Gulf communities. The Green Resilient Housing Project trained and employed residents in building and upgrading homes that are fully electrified, efficient, solar powered, and resistant to Category 4 hurricanes. Such changes, as well as the trade-in incentives that made EVs ubiquitous, have lowered and stabilized energy costs for vulnerable citizens since the 2040s. Fontenot reminded
the session that in the decades before, however, the poorest Gulf citizens were the last to transition to EVs—and the most affected as gas stations closed.
Gulf Coast and Offshore
In contrast to inland areas in the Gulf states, shoreline communities have experienced greater upheavals over the past three decades. The Gulf Coast and Offshore session brought together leaders from coastal communities to discuss both the economic and the climatic changes that they have faced. A few communities have become thriving hubs for offshore wind infrastructure, but most leaders acknowledged more pain than gain because job losses in gas and oil were only partially replaced with added jobs in decommissioning rigs, carbon storage, hydrogen, and offshore wind. Some towns and cities have seen their populations decline. The oldest member of the panel reminded listeners that for decades before the Net Zero moonshot began, oil and gas had brought busts as well as booms—and energy jobs had already been declining before renewable energy became dominant.
These same communities also bore the brunt of Hurricanes Sven and Oleg as well as rising sea levels. An estimated 8,000 square miles of coastal land has been lost to inundation since 2030. One bright spot is that federal legislation from the 2020s and the Just Transition Act of 2036 poured funds into coastal restoration and protection. Thousands of coastal residents have been employed in restoring their local mangroves and salt marshes, increasing tree and vegetation cover, and establishing sustainable shade coverage for their neighborhoods. The combination of coastal conservation and declining atmospheric carbon could help preserve these communities.
Leaders have cautioned local citizens not to expect an immediate halt in rising sea levels or erratic weather, but they expressed optimism that the world was moving toward avoiding the worst effects of climate change. The mayor of one coastal town put it like this: “Moving to Net Zero challenged the economy of our community, but unchecked climate change would threaten the community’s very existence.”
Workforce
The final session of day 2 addressed the complex topic of the net effects of the energy transition on the Gulf workforce. Rezea University economist Professor Grace Naidoo presented her analysis showing that for the Gulf states as a whole, 21 percent more jobs had been gained than lost. But this big picture masks several troubling issues. The first is that until the 2030s, more jobs were being lost than gained along the Gulf Coast, and much of the region spent years in recession. The second is that semi-skilled workers who moved from the oil and gas industry to renewable energy saw a 20 percent reduction in pay on average.
(This gap has shrunk in the last decade or so as renewable energy corporations matured, unions gained strength in clean energy, and the federal government set wage minimums in the Just Transition Act.) A third is that many new-energy jobs in the Gulf states are located far from the old oil and gas employers along the coast. For example, West Texas has attracted a high percentage of regional wind investment, whereas inland Florida is a magnet for solar farm development. The Gulf has a long and continuing tradition of flexible contract workers who move temporarily or in two- or three-week shifts. But the 2040 Census already showed population declines in parts of the Gulf, even as the states have continued to grow as a whole. The federal Energy Transition Adjustment Assistance program provided relocation benefits that probably accelerated these moves.
Most panelists had only good things to say about the role of education in workforce development during the energy transition. The education director of the Gulf Energy Diversification Council described what he called the “80/20 rule of thumb” for retraining. Most experienced oil and gas workers know 80 percent of what they need to take on related roles in renewable energy. For the other 20 percent, the Institute for Workforce Development in the Energy Sector has collaborated with regional technical colleges to provide certification courses in wind, hydrogen, geothermal, and CCS. Union apprenticeship programs have also adapted to prepare workers with new-energy skills. Naidoo cautioned that even as this conference celebrates the Net Zero mission accomplished, Gulf leaders should be preparing for an ongoing energy transition: “We began our path to this goal largely on the back of 20th century technologies, but 21st century technologies continue to emerge and deploy at scale. For the Gulf to remain a global energy center, our people must continue to look forward and adapt.”
2050 GULF GOVERNORS CONFERENCE ON ENERGY: STEADYING THE TRANSITION
Conference Summary
Introduction
On May 23–24, 2050, the governors of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida gathered with leaders from Gulf of Mexico coastal communities, academia, and the energy industry to assess the state of the energy economy in the region. The conference organizers considered 2050 to be an important milestone to mark, since politicians and activists had once picked that year as a goal for the United States to reach “net-zero carbon,” a deadline long-since abandoned. The Gulf continues to play a significant role in supplying natural gas and, to a lesser extent, oil to an economy that is more gradually reducing carbon emissions.
At the conference, a wide range of voices expressed varying interpretations of the energy trajectory the Gulf has followed over the past 30 years. Some political leaders praised the efforts of those who had stood up to pressure from Washington (and even the world) to abandon the Gulf’s historical role as an oil and gas economy. They portrayed the work to “steady the transition” as a free enterprise, anti-regulation success that had warded off the collapse of the Gulf economy.
Others, including economists, community leaders, and several business executives, questioned whether resisting the energy transition had actually held the Gulf back in terms of staking a place in new energy industries and cleaning up the air for Gulf residents. Other US (and global) regions have seen higher growth, more stable electrical grids, and better air quality in recent years, changes driven in large part by shifts toward new energy sources. They also noted that oil spills continued to endanger Gulf waters, while oil workers felt the pinch of global trends toward electrified transport.
The Gulf Road to 2050
Over the past 25 years, Washington also played a role in slowing the decline of oil and gas by putting the brakes on plans for a net-zero carbon economy. Several conference session participants noted that federal incentives and investments had waxed and waned as the White House and Congress shifted back and forth between parties. Workers hesitated to retrain for industries with uncertain futures. State governments felt less urgency to plan for change. Solar and wind power have grown significantly based on market forces. But business leaders, especially in renewable energy, learned not to expect any policy to last more than four years. As one put it, “We thought boom and bust cycles were bad in oil and gas, but these clean energy boom and bust cycles are crazy.”
The Gulf states influenced those federal policy shifts. Lawsuits by state attorneys general against policies perceived as anti-Gulf slowed down and even overturned several regulations aimed at reducing carbon emissions. Washington took notice when legislatures in three states took up “Oil and Gas Haven” bills to shield the regional oil and gas industries from federal regulations.
Economic, cultural, and political forces fueled this resistance. State and local governments sought to preserve tax revenues provided by oil and gas production. Local attitudes became increasingly wary of any references to the “energy transition,” seeing it as the “anti-Gulf transition.” In more than one conference session, a participant brought up the infamous presidential debate in 2028. At the time, the Gulf Coast was still reeling from Hurricane Magnus. When the candidates were asked about hurricane damage to the oil and gas industry, one replied, “What goes around comes around.” The response angered residents and petroleum industry workers and even became a meme that reflected the hardened “us vs. Washington” sentiment in the Gulf.
In the absence of consistent policies at the state or federal level to promote new forms of energy, global markets and corporate decisions have driven most changes in the energy economy. In the region, some major energy companies bucked the regional trend and embraced opportunities to diversify their portfolios. Market shifts were especially notable in falling electric vehicle (EV) prices. Though many in the Gulf continue to drive gasoline vehicles—even sporting bumper stickers that say “Fossil Fueled” or “Gassed by the Gulf”—EVs make up the majority of new car sales globally. This transformation continues to undercut the oil industry.
Most conference participants conceded that attempts to shield the Gulf from an energy transition could only delay inevitable changes as market forces reduce the costs of electrified transport and renewable energy. As former Texas governor Maxine Gonzalez said, “We’ve tried to steady the ship, but I fear it will soon be steadily sinking.”
Conference Session Summaries
Day 1: Energy Sectors
Oil and Natural Gas
Panel participants from the gas and oil industries had different perspectives on the last two decades. Both industries saw growth for much of the 2020s, but only natural gas was able to maintain production over the last 20 years. Electric utilities and their regulators in states other than California and much of the Northeast have accepted gas as a “clean enough” alternative to coal, as national commitments to net-zero carbon have wavered. Coal-fired plants have closed down throughout the United States for largely economic reasons. As a result, employment in gas has held fairly steady, with a modest rise in production offset by improvements in automation. None of the gas growth took place offshore, however, where deep-water fields have not been economical to develop and depleted shallow-water fields have been abandoned. (Legacy infrastructure, battered by hurricanes, continues to be a source of controversy.) Many gas jobs have shifted away from the coast and to the interior. One economist cautioned that some states that had embraced the energy transition were successfully balancing their loads without gas-powered peaker plants and were now producing electricity at lower cost than gas-powered electricity in the Gulf. She warned that the “inevitable” declines in gas demand that began in recent years would accelerate in the 2050s.
Oil industry representatives said that overconfidence in the post-COVID early 2020s, when demand for oil was strong and adoption of EVs was slow, led to too much investment in oil fields. By the early 2030s, even unsubsidized EVs had lower sticker prices than new gasoline-powered cars—though Gulf drivers took advantage of low prices for used gas cars arriving from states that encouraged EVs. (Overseas, where subsidies were more common and where most EVs are manufactured, the new-car price points for gas cars and EVs crossed in the mid-to-late 2020s.) As a result of declines in gasoline demand, crude oil production in the Gulf states has fallen by more than a quarter compared to 2020, and the industry employs about 50,000 fewer people today than in 2020. Those losses are more dramatic if viewed from a higher baseline in the mid-2020s. Ten refineries have closed in the past 20 years—well over a quarter of the number that existed in 2020. The greater fear for the future is that the oil market could spiral out of control because of desperate economic conditions in the Middle East. Three weeks ago, OPEC talks broke down, raising the prospect of a production war. Professor Jack Ahmed of Gulf Coast International University noted that Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates all have a marginal cost of production of less than $10 a barrel. “The Gulf of Mexico will lose a race to the bottom,” he warned.
Solar
The panel on solar energy reported that nationally, solar photovoltaics now account for 20 percent of electricity production. Solar electricity from the sunny Gulf region is equal to 5 percent of all US electricity production. Rooftop solar accounts for half that production in the Gulf, which an industry representative said was somewhat surprising considering that utility-scale solar farms have much lower costs per megawatt. But Gulf utilities have had no incentives to replace gas with renewables, unlike utilities in other states. Homeowners in the Gulf, in contrast, have been eager for alternatives after sporadic blackouts, brownouts, and price spikes in deregulated and poorly integrated state electricity markets—not to mention the complete loss of power for weeks after Hurricanes Sven and Oleg in 2033 and 2034. A utility representative complained that rooftop solar complicated balancing loads, but a panelist from the solar industry countered that utilities in other regions have deployed technology for distributed energy resource management that has improved grid stability. In total, the solar industry now employs 70,000 in the region, a figure that might be larger, were it not for shortages of skilled workers. The head of the Electrical Department at Technical College of Eastern Texas noted that with insufficient funding, local technical colleges have not been able to meet the region’s needs for retraining.
Wind
Panelists on wind energy reported that 28 percent of the nation’s electricity now comes from wind farms. Gulf States account for less than one fifth of that, with employment growing by 24,000 in the past 30 years. The vast majority of that growth has taken place in West Texas. But recently, thousands of wind turbines built before the 2020s have begun to fail, and some have been left abandoned, which community representatives said is beginning to create a public backlash against new wind. Linda Mahoney of the West Texas Citizens Alliance asked for regulations and enforcement to ensure that wind turbines that cannot be repaired are disassembled and safely disposed of.
The Gulf coastline, by contrast, has seen little expansion of onshore wind farms, and no large wind projects have been developed offshore. This has been a disappointment to many industries that had hoped to transition from work on offshore oil and gas rigs to infrastructure and expertise for offshore wind. Total US offshore wind production accounts for just 3 percent of US electricity, as high costs have not been sufficiently offset by incentives. Most of those offshore wind turbines in the US have been built and maintained by major wind corporations in Europe and Brazil, where offshore wind production is much higher.
Geothermal
The session on geothermal power was cancelled due to lack of interest.
Hydrogen
Representatives of the hydrogen industry recalled optimism in the 2020s that green hydrogen would be a major growth industry that played to the strengths of the Gulf region in infrastructure and expertise. A few industrial areas along the coast had even begun to promote themselves as “hydrogen hubs.” But with no enduring national or state support, and not enough renewable energy to produce green hydrogen, the green hydrogen industry never really took off. A few natural gas companies, eager to burnish their environmental image to multinational customers, tried blending green hydrogen (made from electrolysis using excess electricity from renewable sources) with their methane gas, but this led to problems with embrittled steel pipelines and leaks. Unfavorable media exposure in the early 2040s about dangerous leaks ended those experiments and set back the reputation of hydrogen. The Gulf still supplies a high percentage of the relatively small national hydrogen market, but more than half of this output is still “gray” hydrogen made from natural gas.
Electric Utilities
In the Electric Utilities session, representatives from electric companies and regulators noted that electricity prices averaged across the past 30 years in the region were lower than the national average. They credited this price stability to minimal regulation and a steady reliance on natural gas for power, accompanied by gradual growth in renewables. “By steadying our energy portfolio, we avoided the large grid investments that have burdened utilities elsewhere,” said one utility executive. But an economist from Southwest Louisiana Technical University noted that the Gulf’s pricing edge has slipped away in recent years—to states with a greater reliance on ever-cheaper renewables. And a panelist from the organization Concerned Consumers questioned whether utilities and regulators had taken sufficient action to mitigate risks. She listed several blackouts and price spikes caused by heat waves, cold snaps, and hurricanes.
Carbon Capture and Storage
Although carbon capture and storage (CCS) was initially slow to catch on, panelists at this session agreed that the technology has become a solid growth area for the region. The desire to adopt CCS was a rare point of agreement between the political parties in Washington. In addition, the petrochemicals industry persuaded state governments that CCS could help stave off pressure against the broader oil and gas economy of the region. With a combination of state and federal tax breaks and investments by the Department of Energy, various industries took advantage of the availability of technical expertise and an industrial base and oil-and-gas workforce accustomed to pipelines and underground reservoirs. More than 700 million tons of carbon dioxide were stored beneath the land and
waters of the Gulf region in 2050, seven times higher than in 2035, when deploying these technologies at scale was still fairly new. Corporate representatives did raise concerns that few workers arrive with any training in CCS.
Day 2: Gulf Impacts
Air Quality and Environmental Justice
Both academic experts and community representatives in the Air Quality and Environmental Justice session agreed that criteria air pollutants and toxic air pollutants remained stubbornly high, especially for fence line communities near refineries and petrochemical complexes. The exceptions were communities near refineries that had shut down. Environmental justice advocates asked for more consultation on pollution reporting and mitigation. State policy representatives noted that several multinational companies operating in the region had voluntarily begun to publicly release data on their emissions and their targets for emissions reductions. The government representatives expressed confidence in a less-adversarial approach and argued that reducing unemployment from plant closures and keeping energy costs low was the best way to protect vulnerable populations. “If we close down every refinery and petrochemical plant, the air will smell sweeter, but we’ll all be unemployed,” said one state secretary of commerce.
Gulf Coast and Offshore
During the Gulf Coast and Offshore session, residents, executives, and political leaders of coastal communities highlighted threats that go far beyond the shifts in energy markets. Flooding, land loss, subsidence, worsening hurricanes, and higher rainfall were all mentioned as threat multipliers that will continue to compound changes in the oil market. An estimated 8,000 square miles of coastal land has been lost to inundation since 2030. Attempts to shield the oil and gas industry from net-zero policies could not shield oil rigs, refineries, and port terminals from Category 5 Hurricanes Sven and Oleg, and increasing threats from more extreme ocean conditions. Some energy infrastructure was still not fully repaired from Sven when Oleg hit, one year later. And since the decline in offshore gas was followed by a decline in offshore oil, some of that infrastructure was not worth repairing at all.
In the wake of Oleg in 2034, Congress passed the Coastal Resiliency Act, which allocated $50 billion for infrastructure on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico to deal with sea level rise, flooding, salt-water intrusions, and hurricane resiliency. Some of that infrastructure is still being built, and one civil engineering expert said it was widely understood that $50 billion could address only a fraction of the needs along the coast. But residents and political leaders were relieved that some progress was being made in the short term, and the construction jobs created had made a temporary dent in unemployment in some coastal areas.
Workforce
The final session of day 2 addressed the complex topic of the net effects of shifts in the energy market on the Gulf workforce. Economist Serena Okafor presented her analysis showing that for the Gulf states as a whole, the energy economy employs more people today than it did 30 years ago. Some of those jobs have shifted, particularly from oil to solar, wind, and CCS. However, solar and wind jobs pay on average 20 percent less than jobs in the oil industry—a gap that seems to have persisted for more than a decade. Renewable energy jobs in the Gulf states are also likely to be located far from the old oil employers along the coast. For example, West Texas has attracted a high percentage of regional wind investment, while inland Florida is a magnet for solar farm development. The 2040 Census already showed population declines in parts of the Gulf Coast, though it is difficult to tease out how many have migrated to escape climate and environmental impacts such as flooding and hurricanes, and how many are seeking employment.
Professor Okafor presented a separate analysis of high-level jobs in management and technological innovation for the energy sector. Although cities along the Gulf were internationally recognized as headquarter locations for such high-paying office jobs in the old energy economy, companies in what she called the “new energy economy” have created those jobs in locations such as California, the northeastern US, Europe, and China, which have embraced these technologies.
Panelist Dr. Jorge Upshaw, executive director of the Louisiana Association of Technical Colleges, focused on education and training, arguing that the Gulf could no longer resist global forces, and should prepare the workforce for a post-oil-and-gas economy. “A 30-year-old in the Gulf today may well have parents who were able to spend their entire careers earning a good living from what they could draw from beneath the soil and the seafloor of the Gulf region,” he said. “But by the time that 30-year-old retires, the Gulf of the previous generation will have disappeared. We must prepare this generation to replace it with something even better.”
