Category Archives: Dolphin

More of America’s wind turbines are actually being built in America

by s1cx54s Posted on August 13, 2013

More of America’s wind turbines are actually being built in America

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Homegrown.

The equipment that’s powering America’s wind energy boom is increasingly being made right at home.

In 2007, just 25 percent of turbine components used in new wind farms in the U.S. were produced domestically. By last year, that figure had risen to 72 percent, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Energy. And exports of such equipment rose to $388 million last year, up from $16 million in 2007.

This happened even as the U.S. was installing a whole lot of turbines. More than 13.1 gigawatts of new wind power capacity was added to the U.S. grid in 2012, representing $25 billion of investment. That made wind the nation’s fastest-growing electricity source last year, faster even than natural gas–fueled power.

Unfortunately, there were job losses in the sector last year, with the number of wind industry manufacturing jobs falling to 25,500 from 30,000 the year before. That’s because there was a lull and some factory closures after a mad scramble to fulfill orders placed before a federal tax credit expired. (It was renewed for this year, but its future is still up in the air.)

The better news is that the number of workers both indirectly and directly employed by the sector grew to 80,700 in 2012, up from 75,000 the year before.

And as the wind energy sector has grown, so too has the diversity of companies that comprise it, as shown in this chart from the DOE report:

Energy DepartmentClick to embiggen.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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More of America’s wind turbines are actually being built in America

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Undercover agents infiltrate anti-Keystone protests

by DeenaBumg Posted on August 13, 2013

Undercover agents infiltrate anti-Keystone protests

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Is this spy a cop or a private investigator? Either way, watch out.

What do you get when you mix America’s national security apparatus with TransCanada’s determination to build a tar-sands pipeline between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico?

A whole lot of arrests.

Earth Island Journal profiles the infiltration of peaceful Keystone protest groups by police and investigators — and in so doing paints a troubling picture of a government security force working in league with TransCanada:

On the morning of March 22 activists had planned to block the gates at the company’s strategic oil reserves in Cushing, Oklahoma as part of the larger protest movement against TransCanada’s tar sands pipeline. But when they showed up in the early morning hours and began unloading equipment from their vehicles they were confronted by police officers. Stefan Warner, an organizer with Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, says some of the vehicles en route to the protest site were pulled over even before they had reached Cushing. He estimates that roughly 50 people would have participated— either risking arrest or providing support. The act of nonviolent civil disobedience, weeks in the planning, was called off.

“For a small sleepy Oklahoma town to be saturated with police officers on a pre-dawn weekday leaves only one reasonable conclusion,” says Ron Seifert, an organizer with an affiliated group called Tar Sands Blockade. “They were there on purpose, expecting something to happen.”

Seifert is exactly right. According to documents obtained by Earth Island Journal, investigators from the Bryan County Sherriff’s Department had been spying on a Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance training camp that took place from March 18 to March 22 and which brought together local landowners, Indigenous communities, and environmental groups opposed to the pipeline. …

The infiltration of the Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance action camp and pre-emption of the Cushing protest is part of a larger pattern of government surveillance of tar sands protesters. According to other documents obtained by Earth Island Journal under an Open Records Act request, Department of Homeland Security staff has been keeping close tabs on pipeline opponents — and routinely sharing that information with TransCanada, and vice versa. …

The new documents also provide an interesting glimpse into the revolving door between state law enforcement agencies and the private sector, especially in areas where fracking and pipeline construction have become big business. One of the individuals providing information to the Texas Department of Homeland Security’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division is currently the Security Manager at Anadarko Petroleum, one of the world’s largest independent oil and natural gas exploration and production companies. In 2011, at a natural gas industry stakeholder relations conference, a spokesperson for Anadarko compared the anti-drilling movement to an “insurgency” and suggested that attendees download the US Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual.

The article, which includes scanned excerpts from documents the magazine obtained, is worth reading in full. For even more on the topic, read Earth Island Journal’s in-depth article from earlier this year: “We’re Being Watched: How Corporations and Law Enforcement Are Spying on Environmentalists.”

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Undercover agents infiltrate anti-Keystone protests

Posted in ALPHA, Anchor, Dolphin, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Undercover agents infiltrate anti-Keystone protests

BP whines some more about how rough life is

by Vladyslava7u1 Posted on August 13, 2013

BP whines some more about how rough life is

By John Upton

Not that big a deal, really.

BP killed 11 workers when the Deepwater Horizon rig blew up, and then it obstructed government investigators. That’s not editorializing — the company pled guilty to manslaughter and obstruction charges. Since you can’t imprison a corporation, it was punished in other ways. One of those punishments was a temporary ban on getting new federal contracts.

Never one to miss an opportunity to publicly whine about how unfair the world is for an explosion-prone petrochemical giant, BP sued the U.S. government on Monday over the suspension, arguing in court that it is arbitrary, capricious, and “an abuse of discretion.” From Fuel Fix:

BP … wants a judge to order the EPA to lift the suspension and allow BP to bid for and secure new government contracts.

The suspension, called a debarment, affects only new federal contracts, not existing ones. Because of it, however, BP has lost out on potentially billions of dollars of business with the U.S. government.

Among other things, the company was ineligible for new contracts worth up to $1.9 billion to provide fuel to the government this year.

Our hearts are just bleeding.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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BP whines some more about how rough life is

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Even nuclear weapons are going green

by Unique Article Posted on August 13, 2013

Even nuclear weapons are going green

By John Upton

Pantex PlantThe project’s logo.

If the nuclear apocalypse comes, at least it will be a little more climate-friendly.

Construction of five 400-foot wind turbines is beginning today at America’s main site for assembling, disassembling, and maintaining its nuclear arsenal.

The 2.3-megawatt turbines are expected to produce more than half of the power used at the Pantex Plant in the Texas Panhandle. When the blades start spinning next summer, the facility will be the largest federally owned wind farm.

“The windfarm will play a key role in helping Pantex achieve President Obama’s directive that the federal government lead the way in clean energy and energy efficiency,” says a Pantex press release. And the turbines will save the government millions in energy costs too.

The project is part of a broader campaign to make the nation’s nuclear weapons system more eco-friendly. It has a slogan — “Greening the nuclear security enterprise” — and its very own logo featuring a nuke, some wind turbines, wheat, a steer, and, of course, an American flag.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Even nuclear weapons are going green

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Climate-denier politicians under attack by new ad campaign

by Isaiah McKenna Posted on August 12, 2013

Climate-denier politicians under attack by new ad campaign

By John Upton

ronjohnson.senate.gov

Sen. Ron Johnson will be the target of a new ad from LCV.

Here comes more bad PR for climate change–denying politicians.

Barack Obama’s advocacy group, Organizing for Action, began trying to embarrass denier Republicans earlier this year. Now the League of Conservation Voters is piling on, spending nearly $2 million on TV advertisements aimed at four GOP flat earthers.

Ads unveiled Monday ridicule the voting records and anti-scientific statements of Reps. Dan Benishek (Mich.), Mike Coffman (Colo.), and Rodney Davis (Ill.), and a fourth ad will soon target Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.). From a League of Conservation Voters press release:

This ad campaign follows the release of bipartisan polling [PDF] by LCV showing that young voters across the country are particularly concerned about climate change and support federal action to address it. A solid majority in the poll said they are willing to hold accountable those who ignore the problem, going so far as to describe climate change deniers as “ignorant” and “out-of-touch.”

The Hill points out that LCV has run a similar campaign before:

Last election cycle, the group launched a $1.5 million effort to defeat what they called the “Flat Earth Five,” five lawmakers who were skeptical of climate change science. All but one were defeated.

The new ad targeting Davis quotes him saying “global warming stopped” 16 years ago:

In the Benishek ad, the rep is quoted describing climate change as “baloney”:

And the ad targeting Coffman likens him to an ostrich:

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Climate-denier politicians under attack by new ad campaign

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Ozone hole could be making global warming worse

by Arkady549e Posted on August 12, 2013

Ozone hole could be making global warming worse

By John Upton

NASA

A record-breaking hole in the ozone layer in September 2000.

It’s like Lord Voldemort joining forces with The Penguin.

Two of the globe’s most epic environmental threats appear to be ganging up on us: The hole in the ozone layer could be hastening global warming.

Yes, the hole in the ozone layer. It still exists, though it has been getting smaller because the world rightly panicked and began phasing out the use of CFCs in the 1980s. It was previously thought that the hole was helping to slow down global warming, but new research published in Geophysical Research Letters suggests the opposite. From Nature:

The team’s models predicted a shift in the southern-hemisphere jet stream — the high-altitude air currents flowing around Antarctica — as a result of ozone depletion. This produced a change in the cloud distribution, with clouds moving towards the South Pole, where they are less effective at reflecting solar radiation. …

The extra net energy absorbed by the Earth would be 0.25 watts per square metre, or roughly a tenth of the greenhouse effect attributed to CO2, [says Kevin Grise, the study’s lead author and an atmospheric scientist at Columbia University]. The result could be a small but non-negligible contribution to global temperature rise.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Ozone hole could be making global warming worse

Posted in ALPHA, Anchor, Dolphin, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, ONA, solar, solar power, Uncategorized, Wiley | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Ozone hole could be making global warming worse

White House calls for more grid spending as climate changes

by wojciechrak75 Posted on August 12, 2013

White House calls for more grid spending as climate changes

By John Upton

Vilseskogen

Superstorm Sandy got the better of this power pole in New Jersey last year.

An era of ferocious storms and wildfires is not mixing well with America’s aging electrical grid.

The White House published a report Monday calling for a substantial amount of money to be spent fortifying the country’s electrical grid, better protecting transmission lines and other infrastructure from storms, floods, and other severe weather events. From the report [PDF]:

Severe weather is the number one cause of power outages in the United States and costs the economy billions of dollars a year in lost output and wages, spoiled inventory, delayed production, inconvenience and damage to grid infrastructure. Moreover, the aging nature of the grid — much of which was constructed over a period of more than one hundred years — has made Americans more susceptible to outages caused by severe weather. Between 2003 and 2012, roughly 679 power outages, each affecting at least 50,000 customers, occurred due to weather events.

The number of outages caused by severe weather is expected to rise as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of hurricanes, blizzards, floods and other extreme weather events. In 2012, the United States suffered eleven billion-dollar weather disasters — the second-most for any year on record, behind only 2011. The U.S. energy sector in general, and the grid in particular, is vulnerable to the increasingly severe weather expected as the climate changes.

The study, by the White House Council of Economic Advisers and the U.S. Department of Energy, concludes that weather-related power outages cost America between $18 billion and $33 billion per year. What would it take to substantially reduce that figure? The Obama administration doesn’t offer specifics, as the AP reports:

The White House report says increased spending in recent years has still not matched the level of investment between 1960 and 1990. It suggests new spending should be focused on a few main areas, including “hardening” the system by installing stronger equipment, building more transmission wires and energy storage systems to make the grid better able to absorb shocks, and installing more sophisticated technology.

The report does not suggest how much new spending was needed, where that spending would come from, or how much money would be saved by preventing some outages and making others less severe.

The following map, taken from the new report, shows last year’s billion-dollar disasters and makes the point that lots of different kinds of weather events could plunge areas into darkness:

White HouseClick to embiggen.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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White House calls for more grid spending as climate changes

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Carbon offsets plan stirs up controversy in California

by dx1d3x0 Posted on August 12, 2013

Carbon offsets plan stirs up controversy in California

By John Upton

Flickred!

California polluters will soon be able to buy CO2 offsets.

The owners of California’s most polluting industries will be breathing a little easier under a greenhouse gas rule being developed by the state — but their neighbors will not be so lucky.

Californian businesses will soon be allowed to purchase carbon offsets to help them achieve up to 8 percent of required greenhouse gas reductions under the state’s climate change rules. So an oil refinery or factory could sink some funds into a reforestation or energy-efficiency project somewhere else in the U.S. and not reduce its own pollution as much.

The carbon offset rule, being developed by the California Air Resources Board (ARB), will help ensure that the state’s climate change regulations do what they are intended to do — reduce the amount of greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere.

But it will do little for Californians who were eager to breathe cleaner air as a byproduct of the climate change rules. And some worry that carbon offset projects funded by Californian businesses could be scams, in some cases projects that would have moved forward anyway. Those concerns triggered a lawsuit against the state’s planned use of carbon offsets, but the lawsuit was dismissed in January.

From an article in The Sacramento Bee:

[S]tate officials and some environmentalists say offsets are a perfectly legitimate way to combat global warming.

They say offsets give California companies greater leeway in how they follow the state’s climate-change law, AB 32, which was signed into law in 2006. With companies spending an estimated $1 billion a year to comply, this flexibility will help them save money.

“Offsets are a low-cost mechanism,” said Rajinder Sahota, manager of the ARB’s climate change program evaluation branch. The ARB oversees the state’s year-old carbon emissions standards and will police the use of offsets.

Still, some critics say companies in California shouldn’t be allowed to satisfy part of their regulatory burden by paying someone in another state to curb their carbon emissions.

“The local communities living on the fence lines of the refineries and power plants and incinerators don’t receive the benefits,” said Jeff Conant of Friends of the Earth, another critic of offsets.

The use of carbon offsets can be controversial, but it is widespread. It’s allowed, for example, in the European Union’s carbon-trading scheme.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Carbon offsets plan stirs up controversy in California

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By Degrees: Timing a Rise in Sea Level

by Myrna Posted on August 12, 2013

Along with how high oceans may swell, researchers are also trying to determine how fast. Visit site:  By Degrees: Timing a Rise in Sea Level ; ;Related ArticlesThe Texas Tribune: Using the Law to Battle Zebra Mussels and Other Unwanted PestsOn Fate of Wild Horses, Stars and Indians SparDolphin Deaths Off East Coast Worry Federal Wildlife Officials ;

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By Degrees: Timing a Rise in Sea Level

Posted in alo, Citadel, Dolphin, Down To Earth, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, Monterey, ONA, Oster, PUR, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on By Degrees: Timing a Rise in Sea Level

Albany, Long Buried in Paper, Resolves to Save a Small Forest

by Myrna Posted on August 10, 2013

The delivery of bills to New York State lawmakers on tablets or laptop computers requires a constitutional amendment, which the Legislature will put before voters on the statewide ballot next year. See original article here:   Albany, Long Buried in Paper, Resolves to Save a Small Forest ; ;Related ArticlesThe Texas Tribune: Using the Law to Battle Zebra Mussels and Other Unwanted PestsDolphin Deaths Off East Coast Worry Federal Wildlife OfficialsAmid Pipeline Debate, Two Costly Cleanups Forever Change Towns ;

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Albany, Long Buried in Paper, Resolves to Save a Small Forest

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