A report by the DOE used erroneous calculations in order to justify conclusions that coal power plants are essential during severe winter conditions.
What happened: A report analyzing the 2017-2018 winter and the presence of the “bomb cyclone” weather phenomenon on the U.S. East Coast was used by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to highlight the value of coal power plants. The report, created by the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), used erroneous calculations in order to justify conclusions that coal power plants are essential during severe winter conditions. There are a number of reasons why the methodology is considered inaccurate: 1) the use of an unfounded metric to estimate the amount of electricity produced by different fuel sources, 2) ignoring in the analysis that there is already a system in place that funds power plants when the electrical grid requires additional capacity during extreme weather conditions, and 3) the cherry-picking of data in a way that reflects poorly on renewable energy and positively on fossil fuel derived energy.
Bloomberg News obtained a series of emails between the study authors and DOE officials that shows that these officials influenced both the language of the report and study design to emphasize the positive aspects of coal power plants, and at least two of study authors seemed to be eager to promote coal power plants and were opposed to neutral or negative viewpoints on coal-produced power.
Why it matters: The scientific process is conducted to provide answers to scientific questions. This process is not conducted properly if researchers have pre-determined answers to the questions they are asking as their objectivity is lost. We need federal science to be objective, unbiased, and rooted in the principles of scientific integrity as federal science serves as the foundational basis for a wide variety of public health, environmental, and energy-based policy decisions. If policies are informed by inaccurate scientific results, this could pose harm to society.
Read more about the politics involved that led to this biased report and the specific ways that the report is based on inaccurate methodology.