Category Archives: wind energy

How do you save clean energy? This company plans to pump it underground.

New York. California. Hawaii. Colorado. Maine. All of these states and a few others want to get their electric grids running mostly if not entirely on renewable energy in the next few decades. As they ramp up wind and solar farm projects, they’re also going to need ways to store surplus energy to use when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.

Start-ups focused on energy storage are scrambling for the cash and opportunities to demonstrate that their system will hold more than a few hours worth of charge. Last week, Quidnet, a Houston, Texas-based company, announced that it lined up a contract with the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority to construct a pilot project for its “Geomechanical Pumped Storage” technology.

Quidnet’s system is a new take on pumped-hydro storage, an existing technology that takes excess energy from the grid during periods of low electricity demand and uses it to pump water up a hill from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir. Later, when energy is needed, the water is released back down to spin a turbine and generate electricity. Pumped-hydro accounts for 95 percent of the existing energy storage used by utilities in the U.S., but most of these systems were built in the 1970s and 1980s. That’s because it’s expensive and politically difficult to set aside enough land in the mountains to build new pumped-hydropower reservoirs.

Joe Zhou, the CEO of Quidnet, said the company’s technology depends on the same supply chains and expertise used by existing pumped-hydro systems, but gets around those stickier land-use problems by pushing the water underground. To “charge” the battery, the system draws excess energy from the grid to suck water from a holding pond into an underground well, where it’s stored under pressure in the rock. When the energy is needed, the water is released and rushes back to the surface, spinning a turbine similar to those deployed in traditional pumped-hydro systems. The pilot project in New York aims to store 10 hours worth of energy.

Zhou said that Quidnet, which is backed by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, could deploy these systems in roughly 60 percent of U.S. power markets today, based on the type and structure of rock required for the wells. The conditions are especially ripe in New York. “There’s a tremendous, tremendous energy storage resource in New York. I think it can really help the state advance its clean energy goals,” Zhou told Grist.

Quidnet is one of several companies piloting new energy storage systems across the country. In Vermont, Highview Power plans to build the first liquid air storage project in the U.S that would store more than eight hours of energy, using power from the grid to liquify air and store it in tanks. One of the most anticipated projects is Form Energy’s “aqueous air battery system” in Minnesota, aimed at storing and delivering 150 hours of power to the grid, though how it works remains a bit of a mystery.

Today, with pilot projects that store just 8-10 hours, each of these storage solutions are in hot competition with cheap, efficient lithium-ion batteries, which average around 4 hours of storage. “The closer you play to lithium-ion’s durations, the more lithium-ion can compete,” said Dan Finn-Foley, head of energy storage at the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. “The reason that all these alternative technologies think that they can catch lithium-ion is due to how the different technologies scale.”

If you have a grid that depends on wind energy and the wind slows down for weeks at a time, you might need hundreds of hours of storage. Increasing the storage capacity of a lithium-ion system is costly; to double it, you need to install another battery, hence doubling the price. Quidnet’s technology, on the other hand, might be able to scale up more cost-efficiently by increasing the size of a surface pond or the volume of a well. That’s how technology like Quidnet’s could ultimately differentiate itself, Finn-Foley explained.

“The fact that they have a pilot program is encouraging,” Finn-Foley said. “You need to be able to show your price point and show your duration and show your efficiencies and demonstrate it. So that’s the next big step, you know, it puts them into the conversation.”

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How do you save clean energy? This company plans to pump it underground.

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How do you save clean energy? This company plans to pump it underground.

New York. California. Hawaii. Colorado. Maine. All of these states and a few others want to get their electric grids running mostly if not entirely on renewable energy in the next few decades. As they ramp up wind and solar farm projects, they’re also going to need ways to store surplus energy to use when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.

Start-ups focused on energy storage are scrambling for the cash and opportunities to demonstrate that their system will hold more than a few hours worth of charge. Last week, Quidnet, a Houston, Texas-based company, announced that it lined up a contract with the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority to construct a pilot project for its “Geomechanical Pumped Storage” technology.

Quidnet’s system is a new take on pumped-hydro storage, an existing technology that takes excess energy from the grid during periods of low electricity demand and uses it to pump water up a hill from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir. Later, when energy is needed, the water is released back down to spin a turbine and generate electricity. Pumped-hydro accounts for 95 percent of the existing energy storage used by utilities in the U.S., but most of these systems were built in the 1970s and 1980s. That’s because it’s expensive and politically difficult to set aside enough land in the mountains to build new pumped-hydropower reservoirs.

Joe Zhou, the CEO of Quidnet, said the company’s technology depends on the same supply chains and expertise used by existing pumped-hydro systems, but gets around those stickier land-use problems by pushing the water underground. To “charge” the battery, the system draws excess energy from the grid to suck water from a holding pond into an underground well, where it’s stored under pressure in the rock. When the energy is needed, the water is released and rushes back to the surface, spinning a turbine similar to those deployed in traditional pumped-hydro systems. The pilot project in New York aims to store 10 hours worth of energy.

Zhou said that Quidnet, which is backed by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, could deploy these systems in roughly 60 percent of U.S. power markets today, based on the type and structure of rock required for the wells. The conditions are especially ripe in New York. “There’s a tremendous, tremendous energy storage resource in New York. I think it can really help the state advance its clean energy goals,” Zhou told Grist.

Quidnet is one of several companies piloting new energy storage systems across the country. In Vermont, Highview Power plans to build the first liquid air storage project in the U.S that would store more than eight hours of energy, using power from the grid to liquify air and store it in tanks. One of the most anticipated projects is Form Energy’s “aqueous air battery system” in Minnesota, aimed at storing and delivering 150 hours of power to the grid, though how it works remains a bit of a mystery.

Today, with pilot projects that store just 8-10 hours, each of these storage solutions are in hot competition with cheap, efficient lithium-ion batteries, which average around 4 hours of storage. “The closer you play to lithium-ion’s durations, the more lithium-ion can compete,” said Dan Finn-Foley, head of energy storage at the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. “The reason that all these alternative technologies think that they can catch lithium-ion is due to how the different technologies scale.”

If you have a grid that depends on wind energy and the wind slows down for weeks at a time, you might need hundreds of hours of storage. Increasing the storage capacity of a lithium-ion system is costly; to double it, you need to install another battery, hence doubling the price. Quidnet’s technology, on the other hand, might be able to scale up more cost-efficiently by increasing the size of a surface pond or the volume of a well. That’s how technology like Quidnet’s could ultimately differentiate itself, Finn-Foley explained.

“The fact that they have a pilot program is encouraging,” Finn-Foley said. “You need to be able to show your price point and show your duration and show your efficiencies and demonstrate it. So that’s the next big step, you know, it puts them into the conversation.”

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How do you save clean energy? This company plans to pump it underground.

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Trump blasts wind turbine emissions, says zilch about fossil fuels

It’s no secret that President Trump hates wind turbines. He’s had it out for them since at least 2012, when he tweeted that they’re an “environmental & aesthetic disaster,” and blamed them for murdering bald eagles. The enmity reportedly stems from an offshore wind farm that Trump feared would mar views from one of his golf courses in Scotland.

At a rally in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Thursday, Trump made his displeasure known again, saying that the wind turbines he saw recently on a trip to Palm Springs were “closed” and “rotting.” “They look like hell,” he said.

He didn’t stop there. “When they’re making them, more stuff goes up into the air and up into the ozone, the atmosphere,” Trump said. “And they don’t say this, but after a period of time, they get tired, they get old, they get rusty and a lot of guys say hey, their useful life is gone, let’s get the hell out of here.”

The president isn’t entirely wrong about that last bit. As a recent report from Bloomberg Green points out, tens of thousands of aging wind turbine blades — which can stretch longer than the wing of a Boeing 747 — are ending up in landfills. Over the next four years, 32,000 blades will go to the landfill in the United States alone. Recycling the blades, which are built to outlast hurricanes and tornadoes, is nigh impossible.

But the environmental impact of wind turbines is nothing compared to that of oil, gas, and coal — industries that Trump has tried to prop up with every executive lever available to him. If Trump actually cared about the stuff that “goes up into the air,” he’d rail against fossil fuels, not renewables. The carbon footprint of coal is nearly 90 times greater than that of wind energy, according to the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, an agency in the executive branch that Trump is the head of. The footprint of natural gas is more than 40 times greater.

Trump’s 2012 claim that wind turbines kill birds is also a half-truth: the Audubon Society estimates that wind turbines kill somewhere between 140,000 and 328,000 birds every year in North America. But the oil and gas industry kills as many as one million birds a year, says the Bureau of Land Management. And coal, the industry Trump has vowed to save, kills nearly 8 million per year.

Come to think of it, “a lot of guys say hey, their useful life is gone, let’s get the hell out of here” would be a much better motto for fossil fuels than for wind turbines.

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Trump blasts wind turbine emissions, says zilch about fossil fuels

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New study helps regions find their renewable energy soul mates

The climate crisis is an intricate and multifaceted problem, but by now most of us understand the essence of the thing: emissions bad, renewables good. A new study from Harvard’s Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment puts a fresh twist on that well-worn equation. Turns out, it’s not enough to grab a handful of renewable energy projects from a clean energy grab-bag and scatter them across the United States like wildflower seeds. Where you put new renewable energy infrastructure is even more important than what kind of renewable you’re dealing with.

By looking at a number of variables in 10 regions across the U.S. and the costs and operational requirements of three types of renewables — utility-scale solar, rooftop solar, and wind power — the study’s authors were able to figure out which region stands to gain the most from which kind of renewable. Kind of like OkCupid but for geography and renewable energy compatibility. The researchers took into account the amount of existing dirty fossil fuel developments in those regions, because implementing renewable energy would replace those power plants and result in more emissions reductions. Here’s what they found:

The Upper Midwest, Lower Midwest, Rocky Mountains, Northwest, and Great Lakes regions stand to experience the greatest reductions in CO2 by replacing coal with clean energy. In terms of public health, the Great Lakes and Upper Midwest regions, followed by the Lower Midwest, saw the greatest hypothetical benefits.
In the Upper Midwest, the economic and health benefits of installing 3,000 megawatts of wind energy top $2.2 trillion, the highest out of any region.
Solar is highly compatible with the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions, where it would produce $113 of economic and health benefit per megawatt-hour of electricity produced.
California and the Southwest generally stand to gain the least from renewables, in part because those regions don’t have a lot of dirty fossil fuels to displace.
Northeasterners, don’t fret! Some oil can be displaced by renewables in that region, and the Northeast also could gain some powerful public health benefits per ton of CO2 displaced, since it’s so densely populated.

Something that surprised the study’s lead author, Jonathan Buonocore, was that the benefits of renewables outweigh the benefits of carbon capture and sequestration. That technology — which is still in development — has been touted as something of a hail Mary for the fossil fuel industry, as it can be used in tandem with dirty energy developments to bring down emissions. But installing renewables literally anywhere in the country was more cost-effective than doing direct air carbon capture, Buonocore told Grist. Installing carbon capture technology on a coal plant, where it can stash away carbon before it’s released into the atmosphere, was about as cost-effective as installing renewables in many places in the U.S. — but that’s only when you’re comparing purely economic benefits. “When you include health, that changes dramatically,” he said. “For a lot of these different regions, if you include health the renewables look much more cost effective than installing carbon capture and coal.”

Buonocore hopes the study will help policymakers make informed decisions about where to put new energy developments, and to take health into account more often. “This is really important to be ideally included in evaluations of all climate policies,” he said. You hear that, politicians? A public health analysis a day keeps the climate catastrophe away.

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New study helps regions find their renewable energy soul mates

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Can Growth in Sustainable Energy Reduce Natural Resources Overspend?

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Globally, we are consuming resources faster than the Earth can replenish them. If we think of these resources — such as timber, water, and clean air — like an allowance, then we spent our allotment for 2019 on July 29. We are over-fishing, extracting, mining, polluting, depleting, and harvesting resources across the globe.

We reach Earth Overshoot Day, the day when annual consumption exceeds the Earth’s capacity to renew itself, earlier and earlier each year. This means that we are consuming more resources than ever before — and at an increasing rate. For example, Earth Overshoot Day occurred in September in 2000, while in 1980 society overshot in November.

“It’s a pyramid scheme,” said Mathis Wackernagel, CEO and founder of Global Footprint Network. “It depends on using more and more from the future to pay for the present.”

Another daunting thought is that many people throughout the world consume far fewer resources than people in developed countries. Thus, one person in the United States will consume as many resources as 35 people in India. We would need 5 Earths to sustain us if the whole world lived like Americans. For comparison, we would need 3 Earths if we all lived like Germans, or 2.2 Earths if we all lived like Chinese. If the whole world lived like Indians, we would need 0.7 Earths to sustain us — in other words, we wouldn’t consume resources faster than our planet can replenish them.

Per capita carbon emissions in the United States are nearly double that of other wealthy nations, and roughly twice as many Americans are obese as our European counterparts. In other words, Americans could live a very comfortable life but consume far fewer resources.

What can be done to reverse this trend? It will take a political and cultural shift. Thankfully, there are many actions that we can all take to move in the right direction.

Calculate Your Ecological Footprint

A great way to get started is to calculate your personal ecological footprint. This can help pinpoint areas for improvement. Some of the easiest ways to reduce your impact are to use renewable energy, to reduce overall energy consumption, eat fewer animal products, buy less new stuff, live in a smaller home, drive less, and waste less food.

Celebrate Clean Energy Production Gains

Although the concept of Earth Overshoot Day is quite daunting, there is also good news about conserving resources. U.S. power generation from renewables  (that is, biomass, wind, geothermal, solar, and hydropower) surpassed coal in April 2019, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Wind and hydropower comprise the lion’s share of renewable energy production, but solar energy production is increasing. Renewables now comprise 23 percent of U.S. power generation compared to 20 percent from coal. This trend is helpful for reducing carbon emissions and resource consumption.

Power production from coal has decreased from its peak a decade ago, and another 4.1 gigawatts of capacity is expected to be retired this year. Meanwhile, much of the growth in renewable energy is attributed to growth in wind and solar energy capacity. In 2018, 15 gigawatts of capacity came online. To put this big number in context, 1 gigawatt of power is equal to the energy production from 3.125 million photovoltaic (PV) panels or 412 utility-scale wind turbines. It is enough energy to power 110 million LED lights.

This happened for a variety of reasons. The price of renewable energy is decreasing, people and companies have been demanding cleaner power.

Determine Your Electricity Mix

There are many simple items we can do to cut our personal ecological footprints, which can make a big difference collectively.

A great place to start is by examining where your power comes from and finding greener sources of energy. The power mix varies largely by subregions of the country. Some areas use more wind and hydropower, while some areas still use a lot of coal — and this has a big impact on our ecological footprint. The Environmental Protection Agency provides this information by subregions.

If your area uses more fossil fuels for power generation, then you will generate more emissions when consuming electricity. Look into how to offset your dirty-energy emissions.

Switch to Clean Power

Many utility companies offer optional programs to source more renewable energy. This is a great way to support clean energy without installing solar panels. CleanChoice Energy has a website to find out more about programs offered in your area.

Consider Going Solar

Installing solar panels on your roof is a great way to go green. In many states, homeowners can save money by going solar rather than purchasing power from the local utility company. As utility rates increase, going solar becomes more lucrative. Installing a solar system is also a great way to increase your property value.

Visit the EnergySage website for free solar quotes from local solar energy contractors.

Join a Community Solar Project

Unfortunately, many homes aren’t ideal for solar panels. Renters, condo dwellers, low-income households, and people with shaded roofs might not be good candidates for solar. In some cases, community solar farms or solar gardens are a great option.

Solar gardens are solar energy plants that are owned by a community of people or a third party. These projects allow a group of people to use the solar power that is generated nearby without having solar panels on their property. In many cases, the energy from community solar farms costs less than what people otherwise pay the local utility company. It often works like a subscription where you pay more to the solar farm but have a lower electric bill.

The prevalence of community solar farms varies a lot by state because some states have policies that make it difficult to develop such projects.

Launch a Clean Energy Campaign

If your utility company generates a lot of power from fossil fuels, consider launching a campaign to get your utility to use more clean power. Change.org is a great platform to utilize to gain momentum behind this project. You can also urge your state politicians to create stringent renewable portfolio standards. These state-wide regulations vary greatly by state and require utilities to increase their use of renewable power sources. If you live in an area with a weak standard, consider launching a campaign for stronger standards.

When will Earth Overshoot Day occur next year? Ultimately, it depends on our collective actions. Let’s get started to reduce our impact in 2020.

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Can Growth in Sustainable Energy Reduce Natural Resources Overspend?

Posted in ALPHA, eco-friendly, FF, GE, LAI, Landmark, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, solar, solar panels, solar power, sustainable energy, Ultima, Uncategorized, Venta, wind energy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Can Growth in Sustainable Energy Reduce Natural Resources Overspend?

Green Preschools: An Early Start for Sustainable Living

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Young children’s minds are like sponges. They absorb just about everything — good and bad. Often, they pick up on things around them that we adults don’t even notice. Input from the world around them shapes young children’s lives, who they become as adults, and how they live.

Teaching a Healthy Lifestyle & Embracing Nature

That concept is reflected in Dawn Maxwell’s goal to run a preschool “… focused on living a healthy life, embracing nature and letting kids have fun.” Maxwell, a mother of four, said, “I just thought it would work. Their minds are so observant.” The Green House in Oklahoma City uses all-natural cleaners, rags instead of paper towels, eco-friendly toys, and serves only vegan, organic, gluten-free food. Whatever food is left over is recycled or composted. Dawn also teaches her students — who range in age from 3 to 6 — how to garden.

David Centola, whose daughter Clara attended The Green House, said he chose the school after exploring several other options. Ultimately, Centola picked The Green House because of its focus on teaching children about the environment. (Editor’s note, August 2019: It appears that The Green House preschool in Oklahoma City is no longer in business, but the nature-based preschool movement continues to grow.)

Growth of Nature-Based Preschools

Maxwell isn’t the only educator who believes in the benefits of learning sustainable lifestyle habits early. According to the North American Association for Environmental Education’s Natural Start Alliance, “The first nature-based preschool in the United States opened in 1966.” By 2012, there were more than 150 nature-based preschools across the country.

Some schools are taking basic steps towards a more environmentally friendly approach, while others have their entire curriculum based around nature. For example, Sunflower Preschool in Boulder, Colorado, teaches children about recycling, composting, and gardening. The outdoor curriculum at the school “honors the natural environment” and the staff encourages “a sense of wonder in the natural world” as well as active play and a child-directed classroom to stimulate development.

Do Parents Find the Difference Worth the Expense?

Peter J. Pizzolongo, a representative for the National Association for the Education of Young Children, says that the driving force behind the trend of nature-based education is the parents. “If it is something that families value, then they’re going to seek that out. … Largely, the movement within the school is recycling, reuse and alternate use, and cutting back on a lot of using of plastics and things that are thrown away.”

With the change in focus comes a slight change in price among most of the nature-based preschools. But, for the parents who are passionate about the nature-focused practices of these preschools, the difference is worth the cost.

It is never too early to start cultivating good habits and practices in children, especially since they will someday be the stewards of the planet. Teaching them how to take care of it now will eventually lead to a cleaner, greener planet.

Editor’s note: Originally published on September 16, 2014, this article was updated in August 2019.

 

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Green Preschools: An Early Start for Sustainable Living

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Top Ways the World Will Manage Climate Change (Beyond Reusable Water Bottles)

We all know we need to do our part to manage climate change?well, almost everyone knows this scientific fact. We know we need to drive less, recycle, stop using plastic, eat organically and opt for less packaging and reusable bags. And, if you?re like me, you?re trying to do all of these things. But, what if we ? as citizens, business owners, policy makers, or government leaders – knew the most important ways to manage climate change? Then, we could be sure we?re each doing as many of them as possible to make the greatest difference.

The group Project Drawdown ranked the most effective climate change solutions, dividing the many activities under categories such as the best ways to manage climate change based on food, movement of people and goods, homes and cities, land use, electricity use, waste management and empowering women.

Here are some of the top-ranked selections under each of the categories:

Under Project Drawdown?s food category, the organization ranked eating a plant-based diet, throwing away less food, composting waste and cooking over cleaner stoves among the top solutions. Check out my blog, ?New Study Found Plant-based Diet Reduces Heart Failure Risk by 41%? to not only help climate change but to help improve your health, too.

Project Drawdown also looked at the way we move people and goods around the planet and found that we could all help climate change by flying less and flying on more fuel efficient planes when we need to fly. It also recommended that we invest in high-speed trains, ship goods more efficiently and drive electric cars. It seems to me that there is an obvious trend toward decreasing our use (and waste) of fossil fuels and decreasing emissions of these greenhouse gases.

The homes we inhabit and the cities we live in also contribute to climate change and it astounds me that so many town, city, state and national governments continue to institute laws, regulations and policies that restrict people and communities that want to ?go green.? From outdated building codes to front yard vegetable gardens, government officials need to get informed before they get their heels in to support the status quo. Some of the top-ranked ways to fight climate change under the ?Our Homes and Cities? category include green roofs, smart thermostats and LED lighting, as well as designing (or redesigning) cities to be more walkable.

The United States has lost millions of acres of prime agricultural land to development in the last few decades. That doesn?t include wilderness lands that have been developed or opened up for development by governments that don?t understand climate change science. Project Drawdown ranks the protection, preservation and restoration of important ecosystems like coastal wetlands and tropical forests, as well as the return of lands to indigenous peoples as top ways we can combat climate change. The organization also ranked the planting of bamboo because of the plant’s rapid growth and capacity to absorb greenhouse gases at a much higher rate than most plant and tree species.

Our rapid pace of development also leads to challenges with materials and waste management. Top-ranked solutions in these areas include building with greener cement compounds. Cement is ubiquitous in our lives and most of us don?t give it a second thought. But the cement industry is the third largest emitter of carbon dioxide on the planet next to two countries (China and the U.S.), not two other industries. Cement making requires huge volumes of water (another climate change alarm bell) that could be used for drinking and growing crops, and it creates large amounts of dust that increase respiratory problems. Its negative impacts on the natural environment are innumerable. While we must address this massive threat, Project Drawdown also suggests we demand government and industry clean up chemicals in our air conditioning and refrigeration. On a more personal level, we can do a better job of recycling or repurposing more of our household goods and cutting back on rampant consumption.

It is almost impossible for most people today to imagine life without electricity even though its widespread use in society is less than a century old. Electricity generation and use is often sold as ?clean energy? but its impact on climate change is real. Among the top-ranked solutions regarding electricity use, Project Drawdown included wind, wave and solar power as better ways to generate electricity. As an added bonus, none of these energy generating options have been proven to cause cancer despite the ?windmill? claims of a high-ranking government official. Project Drawdown also included nuclear power in the rankings but the images from Chernobyl remain a horrific reminder of the dangers of this form of energy generation.

Last but not least, kudos to Project Drawdown for recognizing that empowering women will have a positive impact in our fight against climate change. Increased access to education, increased access to family planning and closing the gender gap in small-scale farming are some of the solutions the organization ranked high.

Check out all the rankings and let us know what things you are doing to combat climate change and help the planet.

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Dr. Michelle Schoffro Cook, PhD, DNM shares her food growing, cooking, and other food self-sufficiency adventures at FoodHouseProject.com. She is the publisher of the free e-newsletter World?s Healthiest News, founder of Scent-sational Wellness, and an international best-selling and 20-time published book author whose works include: Be Your Own Herbalist: Essential Herbs for Health, Beauty, & Cooking. Follow her work.

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Top Ways the World Will Manage Climate Change (Beyond Reusable Water Bottles)

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U.S. banks pledged to fund renewable energy, but they still spend way more on fossil fuels

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This story was originally published by Mother Jones and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Each year since the Paris climate agreement, major world banks have increased their financing of fossil fuels, pouring $1.9 trillion into the industry from 2016 through 2018. And, it turns out, U.S. banks are the worst offenders, according to a recent report published by a group of environmental organizations.

“The sad reality is that the fossil fuel sector has only grown since Paris,” says Patrick McCully, climate and energy director for the Rainforest Action Network and one of the report’s authors. “The banks are following what the industry is doing, and the industry’s able to expand because it’s able to keep getting capital from the banks … It’s just this really alarming, really terrifying dynamic going on worldwide.”

The top four financial institutions supporting the fossil fuel industry are all American: JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi, and Bank of America. Two more, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, aren’t far behind. This is despite all six of these major U.S. banks publishing a joint statement, in the months leading up to the adoption of the Paris deal, acknowledging the threat of climate change, pledging financial support for solutions, and calling for a “more sustainable, low-carbon economy.”

By far, JP Morgan Chase is the biggest funder among the 33 banks assessed, putting $196 billion into fossil fuels from 2016 through 2018. Its money represents 10 percent of the industry’s total financing. Notably, the highest spending year for Chase — and many other top banks — was 2017, the same year President Trump announced the U.S. would pull out of the Paris agreement.

In recent years, public pressure has mounted against banks financing oil, gas, and coal companies. These campaigns have been particularly coordinated and successful in Europe, and the World Bank announced in 2017 that it would no longer finance oil and gas extraction. The same year, France-based PNB Paribas committed to end support of shale and tar sands businesses, and last year, British multinational HSBC stopped financing offshore oil and gas projects in the Arctic.

“There’s new legislation and national legislation in European countries that are forcing banks to move in the right direction much, much quicker than the U.S. banks,” McCully says. “[U.S. banks] don’t feel the same sort of public pressure, and they definitely don’t feel the same sort of political pressure.”

Efforts and success in the U.S. have been more limited. The most pressure so far has come from activists, led by indigenous groups, that have targeted banks supporting the Dakota Access pipeline. Protesters have also rallied outside Chase and Wells Fargo over their fossil fuel funding in recent years. But the United States is home to several of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, including Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips, and the industry holds huge political influence, particularly since U.S. production of fossil fuels has surged over the past decade. In 2018, lobbying for oil and gas topped $124 million — more than double what it was 15 years ago — putting significant pressure on politicians to resist climate action despite dire warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the world has just over a decade to act to avert catastrophe.

“Our financial system is basically not responding to that threat at this point,” says Yossi Cadan, the senior global campaigner on divestment for 350.org. “The notion that politicians are not going to act is the current financial assumption. And if you think like that, and you say, OK, politicians are not going to regulate the extraction of fossil fuels … then we may be able to burn everything that we have and make a profit out of it.”

Still, banks have made very public commitments in recent years to finance sustainable companies and projects or to go carbon-neutral. Last year, Wells Fargo, the second biggest fossil fuel funder, committed $200 billion in financing through 2030 to projects and businesses focused on transitioning to a low-carbon economy. In 2017, the institution invested $12 billion in sustainable businesses — but it put more than four times that toward financing fossil fuels the same year.

Citi, Bank of America, and Chase have made similar pledges, all of which pale in comparison to their fossil fuel financing. In 2017, Chase announced it would be 100 percent renewable energy–reliant by 2020 and committed $200 billion in clean energy financing by 2025. But it has spent almost the same amount financing fossil fuels in just the past three years. And while Chase CEO Jamie Dimon publicly criticized President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris agreement, the bank’s longest sitting board member is Lee Raymond, the former board chair and CEO of Exxon. Well known for his public skepticism of climate change, Raymond led Exxon during a time when it was pouring tens of millions of dollars into funding climate change denial.

The report also reveals that Chase is the top financier of three major categories of fossil fuel projects — Arctic oil and gas, ultra-deepwater drilling, and liquefied natural gas — and that it is also the top U.S. banker for two others: tar sands oil and coal mining. It is second only to Wells Fargo in financing fracking. Chase did not respond to requests for comment from Mother Jones.

The broad increase in fossil fuel funding comes as many people consider fossil fuels to be economically unsustainable. Oil and gas companies face the prospect of stranded assets if governments tighten environmental regulations, if energy demand shifts toward renewables, or if companies face litigation and increased scrutiny from concerned shareholders — all of which are currently underway. The coal industry in the U.S. is on its last legs, despite the Trump administration’s efforts to prop it up. About 75 percent of U.S. coal production is more expensive than solar or wind energy, according to a report released this week. And it’s getting harder for the industry in general to make money. Yet oil companies have continued to aggressively pursue fossil fuel development, and the world’s major banks are supporting them. Alarmingly, the new data shows that banks (again, led by Chase) put $600 billion behind the 100 companies most focused on expanding fossil fuel production, accounting for almost one-third of all fossil fuel financing.

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“Even if the bank thinks in seven years it might be a problem, they say, ‘Well, we’ll be out of here in three years,’” McCully says. “You say economically why would they do it, but even morally why would they do it? If they think they’re leaving this completely decimated world to their kids and grandkids, wouldn’t they want to do something about it? But it just seems like they’re unable to look beyond the next quarter, maybe the next year. They just don’t have long-term economic or moral vision.”

As banks become increasingly crucial to the future of fossil fuels, they could also play a particularly critical role in the fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow global warming. Without the support of banks, U.S. coal companies would be decimated since a lack of liquid assets makes them reliant on loans, Cadan points out. And while oil companies have enough assets to finance themselves for a while, it’s largely unsustainable long-term, especially because without financing, new investments are increasingly risky and costly. Banks “can determine the pace of how we combat climate change,” Cadan says. “It’s black and white. With the help of financial institutions we can easily be in a different space. If they take real action.”

“Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how many solar panels we have,” McCully adds. “If we’re still building lots more coal plants and oil fields, clean energy is not going to help.”

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U.S. banks pledged to fund renewable energy, but they still spend way more on fossil fuels

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Trump wants to ramp up coal. Spain has found a way to quit it.

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This story was originally published by the HuffPost and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Villablino, Spain — When the shutters come down on the last 10 privately owned pits in northwest Spain’s once mighty coal industry later this month, there will be tears and trauma in the region where the country’s mining unions were born.

There is also a fragile hope that a better, cleaner future could follow — but a barely hidden warning that the despair that propelled Trump to power in the U.S. lurks in the wings if it does not.

Spain’s uneconomic coal industry has been killed by a pincer movement: cheaper imports from developing countries on one flank and falling renewable energy prices on the other, fanned by binding E.U. targets to reduce emissions and a dawning awareness of coal’s climate and other environmental costs.

Industry shutdowns are painful, especially in sectors like coal mining which go back generations. The risk is unemployment and social dislocation. But this one may play out differently: in a “just transition” deal — brokered by unions and a new leftwing government — that could have implications for other coal-producing countries, including the U.S.

Spain plans to support laid-off miners and their communities by plowing $285 million over a decade into compensation payouts, retraining for low-carbon jobs and environmental restoration work in pit communities. The aim is to ensure a safety net to catch those whose jobs will disappear as the economy shifts to a low-carbon one. Politicians and union officials say the deal will ensure both environmental and social protection as the economy shifts away from coal.

However, on the ground in Spain, there is suspicion about this promised new future from workers who have watched an industry, identity, and way of life dying around for them for some two decades. More than a thousand miners and contractors will be laid off around Christmas, a third of them in the northern region of Castilla y León, home to Villablino, and there is concern over whether new jobs will materialize.

“New jobs are a utopia in our country,” says Salvador Osario, a 47-year-old miner from Castilla y León who took early retirement after 20 years of digging coal. “The miners are alone. No one wants to support us. Not the left- or the right-wing parties. Even the unions are divided.”

Salvador Osario, 47, is a retired miner in the Castilla y León region of northern Spain.Arthur Neslen / HuffPost

The valleys of Castilla y León once thrummed to the sound of the coal industry, and relics from its retreat are everywhere. Pit shafts litter the hillsides and monuments to miners are sprinkled around town squares. Diner cafes have stickers of miners on the doors, and coal train statuettes outside.

Coal workers here have a brave history of fighting fascism during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. In the early 1960s, miners in Villablino formed Spain’s first clandestine union, the Confederacion Sindical de Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), which continued the fight against the dictator General Franco.

Spain’s coal industry employed more than 100,000 miners back then. That number had fallen to 45,000 by the late 1980s — nearly half of them in Castilla y León — and it continued to drop. More than 5,000 still worked in the northwest mines of Castilla y León, Asturias, Aragón, and Palencia at the start of this century. Next year, there will be none.

A monument to coal miners in Villablino, Spain.Arthur Neslen / HuffPost

The dying embers of Spain’s coal industry may leave a sad legacy for the miners, but coal needs to be phased out if we are to keep temperature increases below the levels at which we’ll see catastrophic climate change, climate scientists say. Coal emits more carbon dioxide than any other fossil fuel, as well as deadly toxins such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter, which are responsible for more than 20,000 deaths each year in Europe alone.

“The deal is a way forward for many problems that will appear and we are committed to it,” said Mariano Sanz Lubeiro, CCOO’s confederal secretary, from his Madrid office.

This sentiment is echoed by Teresa Ribera, Spain’s minister for the ecological transition. “We have worked hard to restore trust in regions that have suffered a long restructuring process, negotiating and coming up with social protection measures that the unions could accept,” she told HuffPost. “Now we have to deliver. Climate ambition and social protection have to go hand in hand if we want to succeed.”

“The objective we have is that the miners will be offered a [green-collar] job. We will have to register all of them. Instead of one year, it may take one year and three months, but that is very much the plan,”Laura Martin-Murillo, a government negotiator, said.

As well as work in solar or wind energy, she also believes there will be jobs in biomass, making energy from organic matter such as wood pellets or agricultural waste. They are also thinking about labor-intensive work such as retrofitting buildings to be more environmentally friendly.

But miners on eligible contracts will have to live on social benefits until an environmental restoration plan kicks in next autumn, at the earliest. Those who claim the retirement offer will take home around $20,000 a year on average.

This community has been here before. When the last round of closures happened 20 years ago, the miners affected felt it was not a just transition.

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Anxiety is clear in the bleary eyes of Rolando Prieto Perez, 43, an electrician in the century-old La Escondida pit who has just come off a night shift when I meet him in the Villablino CCOO office.

“We’re suffering from depression,” he says wearily. “We have the blues. The situation is unpredictable and our futures look bleak. Sometimes we just feel confused.”

Rolando Prieto Perez, 43, a miner.Arthur Neslen / HuffPost

Prieto Perez is a few years too young to qualify for early retirement, and while the government is registering all miners for new jobs, these could arrive at any time between March 2019 and March 2020: months, if not years, after the mine closures.

Stuck between the beneficiaries of the post-war boom and the clean energy transition, Prieto Perez says he is part of “the unlucky generation.”

Mining is “part of the DNA of this region and its people,” says Sanz Lubeiro, CCOO’s confederal secretary. “That is why its loss has been so traumatic for the community.”

“If the transition is not done right,” he added, “we are preparing the ground for populism which blames climate action or technology or migrant workers,” he says.

There are signs that this may already be beginning in Villablino. “I don’t support this climate change idea,”Prieto Perez says. “I consider this news very manipulated. The government only speaks about global warming, but they want to close the mine for [economic] reasons.”

Omar Garcia Alvarez, a local miners leader, claims that if every miner were guaranteed a job in clean energy, there would be no problem with closing the mines. But “there is no ecological transition,” he says. “We don’t believe in the deal because we don’t trust the government.”

Miners Salvador Osario and Omar Garcia Alvarez look through a window in derelict mine.Arthur Neslen / HuffPost

He notes that the $285 million will have to be split between four regions over 10 years — giving Castilla y León only 6 million euros (or $6.8 million) a year with which to heal its wounds.

Just 39 years old, Garcia Alvarez was forced to quit his pit job last August by spinal injuries caused by his job. He now speaks with a sense of romanticism about the industry and the solidarity it produced.

“All people have a right to defend their jobs,” he says when asked what he thinks about U.S. coal miners, who are facing their own struggle. “I don’t agree with Donald Trump’s politics, but if he supports the miners, it is very good news for them.” Appalachia’s miners are widely thought to have helped Donald Trump win in Kentucky.

Yet Trump’s promises to bring back coal haven’t been fulfilled. “Across the USA you can see the devastation already caused in communities that have lost livelihoods that were dependent on [fossil fuel] corporations who made the decision to exit,” said Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, the world’s largest trade union confederation.

Burrow said Spain’s scheme should be a model for countries such as the U.S. to achieve their own just transition away from fossil fuels. “We need urgent climate ambition to save the planet — and humanity itself,” she said. “But if you don’t negotiate with working people, if plans are not transparent and communities don’t have trust in their futures, then resistance to climate action is absolutely a risk.”

Clean air and a climate-safe future mean little when you can’t put food on the table right now, says Brad Markell, the executive director of the industrial union council of AFL-CIO, the largest federation of unions in the U.S.

“There is no question that people in coal mining regions and around coal-fired generation plants thought that Trump was going to save them. He said he would and they thought it was worth taking a chance on him,” he said.

Markell would not comment on the gamble’s wisdom, despite mounting evidence that miners are now suffering from it. But he questioned whether a deal like Spain’s would translate to the more cutthroat U.S. labor market, where it could involve a 50 percent pay cut on a fossil fuel worker’s hourly rate. Starting pay in the U.S. solar sector can be as low as $15 an hour.

“It would be to everyone’s benefit if the new jobs created in the clean energy sector were high paying — and made available to people losing their jobs — but they won’t be, because in the USA, you’re on your own. That’s how things work here. We have a general deficit of working-class power and until we are able to reclaim that, it will be difficult to achieve economic justice.”

The Spanish government will this month outline how its just transition strategy will be rolled out nationally across all industries, including the car industry.

The issue is also taking center stage at the U.N. climate summit in Katowice which started this week, with Poland trumpeting a just transition for weaning countries off fossil fuels. Critics, however, say the aim is to mask international divisions over emissions-cutting obligations and targets, and divert attention from Poland’s own lack of climate ambition.

In Villablino, Eduardo Gonzalez Menazas, 60, a retired miner turned environmental activist, agrees that a just transition is “fundamental, very necessary, but at the moment too slow.”

He estimates only around 30 percent of his fellow miners believe that global warming is a problem and that saddens him, he said. In his spare time he plants trees around deserted mines. Menazas has noticed that the valley’s climate is already warming, with less snow and bird species such as the capercaillie nesting higher up.

“All people in Spain are responsible for this disaster,” he said.

“The energy transition has to be just because miners also need help from the government,” Gonzalez Menazas said. “In this area, there are no choices for people and that is also a problem. The transition has to be for everyone.”

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The election cleared the way for bold climate policy in these 6 states

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Most of the climate-related coverage of this week’s midterm elections was pretty pessimistic. But if you dig down to the state level — the true hotbed of climate policy in the Trump era — the results were much brighter, even hopeful.

Climate-friendly Democrats won governorships and state legislatures across the country. In several key states, they managed to do both at once, achieving a “trifecta”: Unified control of the governor’s mansion and both branches of the statehouse. In most cases, that means there’s a wide-open lane for an expansion of renewable energy mandates and other climate-friendly policy from coast to coast — at a critical moment in planetary history.

Before the election, Democrats had trifectas in Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. This week, they added Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Illinois, New York, and Maine. Combined, those 14 states are home to more than a third of the U.S. population.

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Here’s a quick look at some of states that are gearing up to finally put climate change on the front burner:

New Mexico

Newly elected Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is aiming to transform New Mexico — the third largest oil-producing state in the country, behind Texas and North Dakota — into an environmental leader. She wants the state to be able to produce so much renewable energy that they can export it to California.

Colorado

Incoming Governor Jared Polis campaigned on a promise of 100 percent renewable energy by 2040, which would be the boldest state-level policy in the country. That goal is so ambitious that even Polis admits it will be a heavy lift, but he’s got the backing of the legislature to help make it a reality.

Nevada

Voters in Nevada managed to pass a 50 percent renewables mandate by 2030 on Tuesday, one of the most aggressive in the country — and one of the few big direct democracy victories this week. Incoming Governor Steve Sisolak campaigned in support of the ballot measure, and will have the full support of his state legislature to roll out policies to make it happen.

Illinois

Newly elected Governor JB Pritzker has vowed to turn the most populous state in the Midwest into a renewables powerhouse, boosting its relatively weak 15 percent by 2025 mandate to 25 percent, and ally his state with others vowing to uphold commitments under Paris agreement.

New York

It was the state senate that flipped, not the governorship, in New York. That will free up Andrew Cuomo to answer his critics and pass legislation to put the state on a path to 50 percent renewables by 2030, something he’s been trying to do for a while now. This comes a year after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan for the city to purchase 100 percent renewable energy “as soon as sufficient supply can be brought online.”

Maine

Janet Mills, the first woman elected governor in Maine, is aiming to reduce the state’s emissions 80 percent by 2030 and supports the development of offshore wind farms — widely seen as more efficient and reliable than onshore wind. Maine’s potential offshore wind resources are 75 times greater than its current statewide electricity use, meaning it could soon sell energy to other parts of New England and the East Coast.


In these state plans, it’s easy to get a glimpse of a future United States that’s actually on a path to holding global warming to less-than-catastrophic levels. Today’s bold state policies could quickly grow into regional hubs entirely reliant on renewable energy, leapfrogging the broken incrementalist approach of the past few decades at the national level and stealthily achieving the kind of world we need.

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The election cleared the way for bold climate policy in these 6 states

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