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These States are Going to Become Green Energy Powerhouses

by Poppy Hill Posted on August 28, 2013

Mother Jones

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Renewable energy has gotten tantalizingly close to becoming competitive with conventional fossil fuels, and to help bridge the gap, more than 30 states have passed laws requiring energy companies to supply a minimum amount of power from green sources. But according to a new study, if renewable sources are built in the right places, they could compete against traditional power plants without subsidies, turning states like California, Wyoming, and New Mexico into green energy powerhouses.

The new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has identified the most likely candidates for large scale renewable energy projects in the west, theoretically pitting the costs against what energy would cost from a new natural gas-fired plant. “Renewable energy development, to date, has mostly been in response to state mandates,” said David Hurlbut, the report’s lead researcher. “What this study does is look at where the most cost-effective yet untapped resources are likely to be when the last of these mandates culminates in 2025.”

So what can you expect? And where? Here’s what the study says:

Wyoming and New Mexico are both primed to become major exporters of wind power, according to the study’s authors. With “large amounts of untapped, developable, prime-quality wind potential” the two states have waiting markets in California, Arizona, and Utah. By 2025, New Mexico could be producing twice the amount of renewable energy as its required to, meaning it could start selling it to other states.

Solar power is going to take over California, Arizona and Nevada. California has required that a third of all power in the state must come from renewable sources by 2020, meaning the state is planning on more than doubling the amount of renewable energy it produces. Arizona, which already exports 77 percent of its solar energy, is already building two more major solar projects, with more on the way. Solar accounts for about a quarter of the state’s renewable production now, but when the new projects come online, that figure is expected to jump to account for more than half. Nevada’s combined geothermal and solar resources could provide four times what the state needs to meet its renewable requirements. Its geothermal market is already established and provides about three quarters of the state’s renewable energy. But two big new solar projects could shift the scales.

Idaho is one of a dwindling number of states that doesn’t have renewable portfolio standards—13 percent of its power already comes from renewable sources, not including the 73 percent that comes from hydroelectric generators. But Idaho has readily accessible and yet untapped geothermal resources, and, according to the report, the state is primed to start exporting.

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These States are Going to Become Green Energy Powerhouses

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Beer vs. Oil: Beer Wins

by KlaraGuzm Posted on August 23, 2013

Mother Jones

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Beer lovers of America, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Michigan’s Bell’s Brewery won a decision against Enbridge Oil Thursday night that nixed a proposal the brewery claims would have shut it down for what could have been months. After almost five hours of deliberation, Comstock Township Planning Commission rejected Enbridge Oil’s plan to drop an oil cleanup dredge pad in the lot next to the brewery—and practically in the back yards of some 40 homeowners—and proved that there is still some lingering good in the world.

Just how did the makers of Michigan’s best known microbrews find themselves in a fight with one of the biggest oil companies in North America? The story starts in July 2010, when the Enbridge Oil pipeline near Marshall, Mich., ruptured, spilling more than 840,000 gallons of Canadian heavy crude into the Kalamazoo River in the largest overland oil spill in US history. Three years later, the US EPA estimates there’s still some 180,000 gallons of diluted bitumen clinging to the river bottom, and the agency has ordered the company to complete additional dredging. In July, when Enbridge plotted a holding site for the oil-contaminated muck, called a dredge pad, it stuck one next door to Bell’s main brewery—and that was something that Larry Bell, the brewery’s owner, wasn’t going to stand for.

“We were going to be downwind,” says Bell. “It was going to contaminate our ingredients. It was going to contaminate our employees—it would have put us out of production.” He filed a lawsuit in late July after work had already begun on the site and says he’s spent roughly $50,000 fighting for the site to be moved. According to a complaint filed by Township Supervisor Ann Nieuwenhuis in early July, “substantial work…occurred without Enbridge applying for and obtaining the necessary Township permits,” squelching locals’ chance to air their concerns. “Their M.O. is to set up next to people who can’t fight ’em,” says Bell. “They never bargained for setting up next to me.”

In March, the US EPA set a December 31 deadline for Enbridge to complete the dredging, and the company claims that this setback will make it hard for it to complete the work in time—especially when the agency has already denied a request for extension. “Not getting site plan approval tonight for (Comstock Commerce Park) does make it more challenging to complete that initiative by the timeline in front of us,” said Jason Manshum, senior advisor of community relations for Enbridge. “So now, we’ll go back and work with both federal and state regulators. Before any other action is done, we need to have those discussions at that level.” Two other dredge pad sites were approved on Monday.

At the meeting Thursday night, the township’s attorney Ken Sparks said that Enbridge had failed to provide the burden of proof that health and traffic concerns would be properly addressed. The nearby houses rely on well water, and residents were worried about possible contamination. “This is simply not appropriate at a site adjacent to 40 households,” said township commissioner David Burgess.

The Bell’s brewery is some 30 miles downstream from the original site of the spill, and according to Bell, “the spill was never supposed to get as far as us.” Effects have been seen as far as 40 miles from where the pipeline ruptured. “We’ve made Frankensoup there in the river,” says Bell. “I think we’re going to be dealing with this for a long time.”

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Beer vs. Oil: Beer Wins

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Is Al Jazeera America Going to Change the Way Networks Cover Climate Change?

by 1LymSlagter473 Posted on August 22, 2013

Mother Jones

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On its first day of broadcasting, Al Jazeera America devoted 30 minutes to climate change—more time than top shows on CNN and Fox News have given to this issue in the past four-and-a-half months, combined. In fact, the full half-hour (24 minutes, plus commercials) of broadcast of Inside Story was equal to about half of the coverage climate change received in 2012 from the nightly news on ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, combined. For a network that promised to provide “unbiased, fact-based and in-depth, journalism,” this seems like a promising start.

According to Media Matters, Al Jazeera’s Inside Story had more coverage of climate change “than what was featured by CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront and Anderson Cooper 360 and Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor and Hannity combined in the past four and a half months.” It was just behind the 32 minutes that MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has devoted over the same time period, though a long way back from Chris Hayes, who has spent a whopping hour and 42 minutes of his show on the subject since April 1 (not including a two-part documentary).

Inside Story opened by explaining that “for more than 20 years, 97 percent of scientific research has said climate change is happening, and that it is indeed caused by people. But despite the scientific evidence, Americans remain divided on the issue.” Which brings us to what might be the biggest difference in how Al Jazeera has decided to cover the issue.

As Media Matters writes:

Perhaps most significantly, Inside Story explored public opinion on climate science, and even presented differing views on climate policy, without once offering marginal contrarian viewpoints as a “counterbalance.” Ehab Al Shihabi, Al Jazeera America’s acting chief executive, has cited PBS as a model, and it showed. Other cable news channels have sometimes run afoul of this standard…

Al Jazeera America focused on the impacts of climate change, with a complementary discussion of some possible ways of mitigating them through political action. Notably, no politicians were interviewed, as few politicians are credible sources of information on, say, sea level rise. Instead, the guests—Michael Mann, Heidi Cullen and Klaus Jacob—were all scientists familiar with the topic at hand. Television news outlets don’t always do this well: in 2012, 89 percent and 12 percent of Sunday and nightly news coverage of climate change, respectively, was driven by politics.

To cut through the haze that has clouded the American debate on climate change, the show started by explaining how the waters have become so muddied. “Over the past ten years,” said Michael Mann, the director of the Earth Systems Science Center at Penn State, “special interests have literally spent hundred of millions of dollars in a major disinformation campaign—a campaign aimed at confusing the public. And that’s why we see this gulf between where the scientists stand…and where the public is.” It’s easy to think that this will be written off as biased journalism—and more information can actually make people more polarized on climate change—but for a network that’s trying to give people a reason to watch, it’s a good start.

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Is Al Jazeera America Going to Change the Way Networks Cover Climate Change?

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Watch: How Climate Change Is Melting the Ski Industry

by Fredrick Wise Posted on August 22, 2013

Mother Jones

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In certain industries, global warming is causing a lot of hurt. One business that will really, really be hit hard? Skiing.

To put it simply, the ski industry’s business model is melting. A number of resorts have already closed due, in part, to lack of snow—and in the future, a much smaller total area of the northeastern US will be good for skiing.

In this talk, University of New Hampshire Ph.D. candidate Elizabeth Burakowski outlines her research on global warming and how it is changing the face of skiing. In the process, she also tells her personal story of becoming fascinated with the study of “albedo,” the reflectivity of surfaces (for instance, snow)—which ultimately helps us to understand the ski industry’s struggles.

Plus: This video features a must-see interpretive dance of the jet stream.

Burakowski’s talk is from a live August 15 event held by Climate Desk—in collaboration with thirstDC and the Science Online Climate conference—to showcase new and innovative communication about climate change.

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Watch: How Climate Change Is Melting the Ski Industry

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Watch This Video of Louisiana’s 24-Acre Sinkhole Swallowing a Grove of Trees

by kowalski099 Posted on August 22, 2013

Mother Jones

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For the current issue of the magazine (subscribe!) I wrote about the Bayou Corne sinkhole, a swampy, reeking, 24-acre hole in the earth that opened up near the site of an abandoned salt cavern in rural Assumption Parish, Louisiana. After the sinkhole first appeared (at about 1/24th of its current size) last August, Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered the 350 residents of Bayou Corne to evacuate. On August 2, Louisiana sued Texas Brine, the company that mined the salt cavern that experts have identified as the trigger for the sinkhole. Every few weeks the sinkhole burps—this is really the term the geologists use—and somewhere between 20 and 100 barrels of sweet crude bubble up to the surface. Really, it’s best explained in the piece.

I saw a lot of strange things in Louisiana, but on Wednesday, Assumption Parish emergency response office, which continuously monitors the sinkhole for burps and seismic activity, released perhaps the strangest video I’ve seen yet. It’s an entire grove of trees simply being swallowed up by the sinkhole—something that was known to happen but no one had managed to capture clearly on camera.

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Watch This Video of Louisiana’s 24-Acre Sinkhole Swallowing a Grove of Trees

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These Endangered Animals Could be Besieged by Keystone XL

by CarriNDQ Posted on August 20, 2013

Mother Jones

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In its deliberations over the Keystone XL pipeline, the State Department is taking flak not just from picket-sign-wielding environmentalists, but also from within the ranks of the Obama administration. This spring the EPA slammed an environmental review as “insufficient” and called for major revisions. And yesterday, ThinkProgress uncovered a letter from the Interior Department, dated from April, that outlines the many and varied ways in which the pipeline could wreak havoc to plants and animals (not to mention dinosaurs) along its proposed route.

The letter calls particular attention to a line in the State Department’s most recent environmental impact assessment that claims “the majority of the potential effects to wildlife resources are indirect, short term or negligible, limited in geographic extent, and associated with the construction phase of the proposed Project only.”

“This statement is inaccurate and should be revised,” states the letter, which is signed by Interior’s Director of Environmental Policy and Compliance Willie Taylor. “Given that the project includes not only constructing a pipeline but also related infrastructure…impacts to wildlife are not just related to project construction. Impacts to wildlife from this infrastructure will occur throughout the life of the project.”

Which wildlife? The letter raises concerns that potential oil spills, drained water supplies, and bustling construction workers could cause a general disturbance, but identifies the critters below, some of which are endangered, for special attention:

Ross’ geese Wikimedia Commons

The Ross’ goose depends on Nebraska’s Rainwater basin, which the pipeline would pass through, as a key migratory stopover. A spill in the basin could “severely impact critical habitat,” the letter says.

Black-footed ferret Wikimedia Commons

Although the letter praises State Department plans to protect these endangered ferrets, it nonetheless raises concerns about the potential for infectious diseases from domestic pets at construction camps and worksites in Montana and South Dakota to spread to this population of less than 1,000 in the wild.

Sandhill cranes Wikimedia Commons

Like the Ross’ goose, the Sandhill crane depends on Nebraska’s Rainwater basin, which, according to the letter, could be severely impacted by an oil spill.

Least terns Wikimedia Commons

Already endangered, least terns depend for nesting on plot of protected federal land just 40 miles downstream from where the pipeline will cross Nebraska’s Niobara River. Nests could fail, the letter warns, if construction activities cause fluctuations in the river’s water level.

Piping plover Jerry Goldner/Flickr

Also endangered, the piping plover depend on the same nesting site as the least tern and faces the same threats.

Sprague’s pipit Jerry Oldenettel/Flickr

In 2010 the Fish & Wildlife Service found the tiny Sprague’s pipit qualified for endangered status, but hasn’t yet been able to officially list it because of higher-priority species. But the pipit breeds in Montana’s North Valley Grassland, which the pipeline would pass through, raising concerns about impact from a spill.

Pallid sturgeons Wikimedia commons

While not exactly the cutest on this list, pallid sturgeons are also endangered; the letter raises concern that as water is withdrawn from the Platte River during the construction process, the fish and their eggs could suffocate. An assertion by the State Department that no plan is needed to mitigate damage to sturgeons, the letter says, “seems unsupported and requires further documentation.”

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These Endangered Animals Could be Besieged by Keystone XL

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Leaked Report: Scientists Now 95 Percent Certain That Humans Are Causing Global Warming

by Jamie Cox Posted on August 19, 2013

Mother Jones

Even though more than a month remains until an official release, Reuters is now reporting on a leaked draft of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report. The report, the first in six years by the international body, is considered the definitive scientific take on climate change (although it is sometimes faulted for being too conservative, and quickly becomes out of date).

Previous IPCC reports have made news for a variety of reasons. The 2001 report, for instance, declared it “likely” (e.g., a 66 percent probability; explanation here) that most of the observed warming that the planet has seen is caused by humans. The 2007 report upped that assessment to “very likely” (a 90 percent probability); and now, according to Reuters, scientists are giving us a 95 percent confidence in this central conclusion of modern climate research. That appears to be the chief headline that will be emerging from the IPCC this time around.

Another bombshell reportedly contained in the draft: The IPCC will now label the phenomenon of sea level rise “unequivocal” and increase prior estimates of projected sea level during this century.

IPCC reports are, invariably, attacked upon release by climate skeptics, who seek to cast doubt on some or all of the findings. Based on the Reuters report, those seeking a soft underbelly this time will know where to look: The report validates the increasingly popular skeptic claim that the rate of increase in global temperatures has “slowed” since 1998. In other words, temperatures are still going up, just not necessarily as quickly as previously.

The new report, Reuters says, offers only “medium confidence” that scientists understand the reasons for this slowing. Causes cited include the possibility that the oceans are taking up more heat, that volcanic eruptions (which tend to produce cooling) may be providing a partial offset to temperature rise, contributing too cooling, or that the climate itself has a lower “sensitivity” to greenhouse gas emissions than previously proposed. (For an explanation of why skeptics’ arguments about the global warming “slowdown” are misleading and should not offer any consolation, see this explainer from Skeptical Science.)

According to Jonathan Lynn, who is head of communications at the IPCC, the organization expects that leaks will occur because report drafts wind up in so many different hands. Lynn cautions that “there’s no question that the final report will not be the same as the drafts.” Indeed, for the upcoming 15-page “Summary for Policymakers,” requested changes are myriad. “We’ve received about 1,800 comments from governments, which will have to be taken into account in the approval sessions coming up in September,” says Lynn.

But will any of that reverse the scientific community’s overwhelming conclusion that global warming is human-caused?

Not very likely.

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Leaked Report: Scientists Now 95 Percent Certain That Humans Are Causing Global Warming

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The Solar Industry’s New Dirty Secret

by NielPostma231 Posted on August 19, 2013

Mother Jones

It’s no secret that manufacturing solar panels often requires toxic heavy metals, explosive gases, and rare-earth elements that come from shoddy mines in war-torn republics. But here’s a surprise: The solar industry is actually getting dirtier in some respects. The latest Solar Scorecard from the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), released last week, reports that the industry has slipped on several key environmental metrics, with many solar-panel manufacturers now refusing to provide any information about their manufacturing practices at all.

In terms of market share, only 35 percent of the solar-panel industry responded to this year’s SVTC survey, compared to 51 percent last year. According to SVTC, several major solar companies have provided almost no meaningful information about their environmental performance—stats such as the toxicity of their panels, the use of conflict minerals, or the sustainability of their supply chains—through reports to the group or on their websites.

“If they are not providing the information, we have to assume the worst,” says SVTC executive director Sheila Davis.

Solar companies that do provide sustainability stats are in some cases scaling back their environmental commitments. This year, Arizona-based First Solar started giving customers in most countries the option of buying its panels without participating in its recycling program, reducing the number of solar companies with mandatory recycling programs in the United States to zero. Also, fewer companies this year told SVTC that they would commit to supporting a program to take back and recycle their used solar panels.

Davis blames the poor scores on a global glut of photovoltaic (PV) panels. Huge Chinese subsidies for solar companies have driven down global PV prices (and helped boost sales) but have forced many companies to cut costs. Some major European- and American-based manufacturers (and a few Chinese ones) that abide by strict environmental standards have lost market share or gone out of business and stopped responding to the surveys.

The environmental opacity of the PV industry stands in ironic contrast to that of the PC industry, which, after years of pressure from SVTC and other groups, now routinely discloses a wide range of information about the environmental lifecycle of its products.

“My gut feeling is that solar companies need pressure just like the electronics industry does,” Davis says. “They are not going to rise to the top on their own.”

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The Solar Industry’s New Dirty Secret

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Clouds of Wildfire Smoke Are Choking Southern Oregon

by karczekalisoekomisjonal Posted on August 9, 2013

Mother Jones

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This story first appeared on the Atlantic Cities website and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

How intense are the wildfires blazing in Oregon and California? Let’s answer that question with a photo, snapped in late July by Marvin Vetter of the Oregon Department of Forestry, showing a dang-blasted “firenado” swirling above a sea of burning trees:

This example of “extreme fire behavior” (to use the forestry department’s words) went down in the Douglas Complex wildfire, one of several conflagrations turning conifers to cinders in southern Oregon. The intensity of fires in this sector of the country, which is locked in a stubborn drought, is strong enough that nearby towns and cities are getting covered with big, lung-painting plumes of ashy air.

On Tuesday evening, the state’s environmental department noted that the area around Medford (metropolitan population: 207,000) had an “unhealthy” air quality index of 151, meaning that anybody outdoors could incur “serious health effects,” according to Oregon Smoke. (That includes bees, for the honey-industry experts reading.) The cities of Klamath Falls and Bend enjoyed “moderate” pollution, and a several hours’ drive northward, Portland residents could breathe easy with “good” air quality.

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Clouds of Wildfire Smoke Are Choking Southern Oregon

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Buried in Muck, Clues to Future NYC Drought

by Beatriz Kasser Posted on August 9, 2013

Mother Jones

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Piermont Marsh seems an unlikely place to learn about drought. This warren of narrow streams and muddy, reed-choked embankments clinging to the edge of the Hudson River twenty miles north of Times Square is the domain of crabs, worms, herons, and other water-loving creatures. But as Columbia University climatologist Dorothy Peteet paddles a narrow aluminum canoe deep into the marsh, she insists that buried deep in this black, sulphur-stinking muck are clues that could reveal when, and how badly, the nation’s largest city will next be struck by crippling drought.

Here, she says, “we can get these climate records that we can’t get anywhere else.”

Some climate researchers tap ancient air bubbles trapped in Arctic ice to read long-lost atmospheres; some slice open stalagmites in tropical caves to measure 100,000-year-old rainfall. Peteet is on the hunt for pollen. She dredges up mud from as deep as 45 feet underground and hauls it back to her lab at the nearby Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. There she boils, bakes, and filters it to sift out pollen, not much thicker than a human hair, from plants several thousand years old. The relative abundance and variety of different species indicate climate conditions at the time the pollen was dropped: An uptick of dry-weather species like hickory and pine points to drought.

Pollen, and seeds like these, could shed light on how future droughts will impact New York City. Tim McDonnell/Climate Desk

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Buried in Muck, Clues to Future NYC Drought

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