Tag Archives: Clean Power

It’s official: Hurricane Matthew is a monster.

by ArlenBrient526 Posted on October 6, 2016

The U.S. and all of its major allies have now ratified the Paris climate agreement, pushing it over the threshold needed for it to go into effect in 30 days — just before the U.S. presidential election.

Donald Trump has promised to “cancel” Paris if he’s elected — and that may have unintentionally sped things along.

Robert Stavins, director of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, told Grist by email, “the threat of a Trump presidency has pushed countries to go forward with ratification more quickly than anyone had anticipated at the time of Paris.” For historical comparison, ratification of the Kyoto Protocol took five years.

Once the deal is underway, it would be more difficult for Trump to extract the U.S. He’d need to give three years notice and allot an additional year for withdrawal.

Still, Trump could simply decide not to deliver on the U.S.’s pledges, by, say, refusing to implement the Clean Power Plan.

Even then, Stavins argues that progress would continue to be made in energy efficiency and at the state level. “Trump could slow down action on climate change, but not as dramatically as Trump may think he could.”

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It’s official: Hurricane Matthew is a monster.

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Pollution from power plants in two states killed thousands of people last year

by VicenteCombes Posted on July 15, 2016

Pollution from power plants in two states killed thousands of people last year

By on Jul 15, 2016 6:03 amShare

How poisonous are power plants? An estimated 2,300 people in the United States died prematurely because of Pennsylvania’s power plants just last year, according to a study out Thursday. Across the border in Ohio, power plants claimed another 2,130 lives last year. The healthcare bill for people suffering from power plants in both states hit $40 billion.

These startling numbers come from a pair of reports from NextGen Climate America and PSE Healthy Energy, which looked at two states infamous for their coal-burning power plants. It should come as no surprise that nearly 90 percent of power plants in both states are in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.

In a word, it’s horrifying. People are getting sick, paying a lot of money, and dying to meet our demand for electricity. Once the EPA’s Clean Power Plan takes hold (it’s currently tied up in the courts) Ohio and Pennsylvania should take a hard look at who’s being affected by emissions, says NextGen. The new federal regulations give states flexibility to meet the standards — including choosing natural gas over coal plants to lower emissions. But, as NextGen points out, natural gas can still lead to asthma attacks, respiratory problems, and death.

NextGen argues that Ohio and Pennsylvania should focus on health and equity for everyone. But the organization’s policy recommendation tiptoes around it: “An emphasis on renewables and efficiency, rather than increased natural gas generation, may be the best way to realize the benefits of the Clean Power Plan without placing a disproportionate impact on vulnerable communities.” It’s not a “may be,” it is.

Natural gas plants can mean sickness and death for vulnerable communities. The long-term goal should be a complete end to poisonous power plants — not a meek proposal to curb some, but not all, of the burdens.

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Pollution from power plants in two states killed thousands of people last year

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GOP lawmaker says EPA is absurd, irresponsible, and “un-American”

by NoeliaDrury Posted on July 7, 2016

Rep. Bill Johnson REUTERS/Jason Reed

GOP lawmaker says EPA is absurd, irresponsible, and “un-American”

By on Jul 7, 2016 4:49 pmShare

A Congressional hearing regarding the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulatory power showed us that time travel may be real after all.

On Wednesday, a House Republican took us back to the 1950s when he accused the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of being “un-American” at a committee hearing to review the EPA’s Clean Power Plan — regulations aimed at reducing carbon emissions from the energy industry.

“It’s draining the lifeblood out of our businesses,” Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) said to top EPA official Janet McCabe. “The hundreds of billions of dollars that you guys are sucking out of our economy every year that could be going toward job creation.” Johnson then ranted for several minutes before declaring, “I think it’s absurd, I think it’s irresponsible. Quite frankly, Ms. McCabe, I think it’s un-American.”

This does seem rather ironic considering the EPA’s job is literally to keep poisoned air and water from harming American bodies (one at which it’s frankly failed recently.) But Rep. Johnson may argue that irony is also “un-American,” much like royalty, bidets, gun control, and poutine.

The Congressman was unavailable for comment as he immediately sock-hopped into his Studebaker and headed back to Ohio after the hearing.

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GOP lawmaker says EPA is absurd, irresponsible, and “un-American”

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This was the climate debate we’ve been waiting for

by JuliannSimon Posted on April 15, 2016

This was the climate debate we’ve been waiting for

By on 15 Apr 2016 12:49 amcommentsShare

Savor it, climate hawks. Global warming had its short and sweet 15 minutes of fame in the ninth — and likely final — Democratic primary debate on Thursday night.

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton had an intense exchange at the CNN/NY1 debate that got to the heart of the two candidates’ different philosophies on climate action. Not only did they scuffle over a topic that has been in the headlines recently — Clinton’s donations from fossil fuel interests — but they also got into it over Clinton’s support for fracking as secretary of state, the merits of a carbon tax, the Paris climate agreement, and the role of nuclear energy.

Here are the highlights:

They agree climate change is a problem: Clinton’s first point on the topic was, “we should talk about it in terms of the extraordinary threats that climate change poses to our country and our world.” And Sanders said: “You know, if we, God forbid, were attacked tomorrow, the whole country would rise up and say we got an enemy out there and we got to do something about it. That was what 9/11 was about. We have an enemy out there, and that enemy is going to cause drought and floods and extreme weather disturbances.”

But they have different philosophies about how to address it: Clinton’s bottom line was that she’ll stay the course set by the Obama administration, particularly on the Paris climate agreement and power plant regulations. “President Obama moved forward on gas mileage; he moved forward on the Clean Power Plan,” she said. “He has moved forward on so many of the fronts that he could given the executive actions that he was able to take.”

These accomplishments deserve support, she argued, particularly as they’ve come in the face of hostility from a GOP-controlled Congress. She added, “It’s easy to diagnose the problem. It’s harder to do something about the problem.”

But Sanders wants to think bigger when it comes to climate politics. “This is a difference between understanding that we have a crisis of historical consequence here,” he said. “Incrementalism and those little steps are not enough. Not right now. Not on climate change.”

On a carbon tax: Sanders, who has cosponsored a carbon tax bill and called for it as part of his platform, kept pressing Clinton on whether she supports such a tax. His opponent never exactly answered. She pointed to her clean energy proposals to build on the Clean Power Plan, saying, “I don’t take a back seat to your legislation that you’ve introduced that you haven’t been able to get passed. I want to do what we can do to actually make progress in dealing with the crisis.”

On fossil fuel contributions: Moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Clinton about Sanders’ charge that she’s in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry. She responded, “we both have relatively small amounts of contributions from people who work for fossil fuel companies … But, that is not being supported by Big Oil, and I think it’s important to distinguish that.”

On fracking: Sanders opposes fracking, and called attention to Clinton’s record in the State Department of pushing fracking abroad and promoting natural gas as a climate change solution. Clinton called natural gas “one of the bridge fuels” to cleaner energy — a comment that’s sure to make fracking opponents cringe. “For both economic and environmental and strategic reasons, it was American policy to try to help countries get out from under the constant use of coal, building coal plants all the time, also to get out from under, especially if they were in Europe, the pressure from Russia, which has been incredibly intense,” she said. “So we did say natural gas is a bridge. We want to cross that bridge as quickly as possible, because in order to deal with climate change, we have got to move as rapidly as we can.”

On nuclear: Moderator Errol Louis asked Sanders how he expects to address climate change if he supports phasing out both natural gas and nuclear energy, considering that the latter provides 20 percent of U.S. power. Sanders admitted, “you certainly don’t phase nuclear out tomorrow,” and pointed to his 10 million solar roofs program.

This is probably the only time we’ll see climate change get so much attention in a presidential debate this year. Too bad it didn’t happen earlier in the campaign season, but better late than never.

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This was the climate debate we’ve been waiting for

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Instead of comparing hand size, Clinton and Sanders debate climate plans

by BrunoPerrin Posted on March 10, 2016

Instead of comparing hand size, Clinton and Sanders debate climate plans

By on 10 Mar 2016commentsShare

At the Univision-Washington Post Democratic debate in Miami, there was a contentious moment when Hillary Clinton — hilariously — accused rival Bernie Sanders of being a tool for the Koch brothers. “I just think it’s worth pointing out that the leaders of the fossil fuel industry, the Koch brothers, have just paid to put up an ad praising Sen. Sanders,” Clinton said Wednesday night. Sanders was, to put it mildly, incredulous.

And yet, no one discussed the size of their “hands” or threatened to ban Muslims from the country. It was almost civilized — at least until Univision’s debate moderator Jorge Ramos asked Clinton about her emails. And Benghazi.

Climate change even was a topic of discussion throughout the evening. It was a relief after a string of Democratic debates where climate received little more than a shout-out and, of course, every Republican debate, where fantasy football has been a more pressing issue than global warming. Not only did Sanders refer to climate change in his opening remarks, lumping it in with a whole lot of other things plans to fix (health care, education, money in politics, Citizens United, etc.), the issue received its own question later in the night. Where are we? Sweden?

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“Sen. Sanders, is it possible to move forward on this issue if you do not get a bipartisan consensus,” said The Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty, “and what would you do?

Sanders called out climate change deniers in Congress, saying that the Donald Trump and the GOP don’t have the guts to stand up to the fossil fuel industry. (He’s right.) “I don’t take money from the fossil fuel industry because they are destroying the planet,” Sanders continued, adding that “We need a political revolution in this country, when millions of people stand up and say their profits are less important than the long term health of this country.” Sanders also called for a carbon tax and invited Clinton to join him in ending fracking. The crowd roared.

Clinton’s turn was next. “No state has more at stake than Florida,” she said, in a city that knows this too well. She said that as president, she would support the Clean Power Plan and enforce Obama’s executive orders, as well as invest in renewable energy (she even accused Sanders of delaying implementation of the Clean Power Plan — an odd attack). “That is the way we will keep the lights on while we are transitioning to a clean energy future,” she said. “And when I talk about resilience, I think that is an area we can get Republican support on.” The applause was more muted.

The candidates’ answers were typical of the two: Clinton emphasized the importance of consensus building, of working within the system that you have. Sanders called for burning it down — or, at least, starting a new kind of American revolution.

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Instead of comparing hand size, Clinton and Sanders debate climate plans

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Scott Walker Thinks Obama’s Climate Plan Will Jack Up Your Electric Bill. He’s Wrong.

by JanaShumway Posted on August 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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Today President Barack Obama released the final version of his signature climate plan, which sets new limits on carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector. Each state has a unique target, custom-built for its particular mix of energy sources. Each state also has total freedom to determine how exactly to reach the target. But the rules are clearly designed to expedite the closure of coal-fired power plants, the nation’s number-one source of CO2 emissions.

It took less than a day for the first legal challenges to the plan to emerge from coal interests. The news rules also attracted some pointed criticism from leading Republican presidential contenders, including Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. Here’s what Walker had to say on Twitter:

Neither of those predictions is likely to come true. Cries about job loss and high costs always accompany new environmental regulation. In the case of the Clean Power Plan, as the rules announced today are known, the fear revolves around the image of coal plants around the country going dark. Folks get laid off from the plant, there’s less electricity on the grid, so the price of electricity goes up, so factories can’t afford to pay their workers, so they lay them off…you get the idea.

But as I’ve reported in the past, that view of the plan is misguided for two reasons. The first is that Obama’s new rules, while an important and historic milestone in the annals of climate action, really aren’t much of a departure from the direction that the energy market is already going. As our friend Eric Holthaus at Slate points out, many states are already well on their way to achieving the new carbon targets simply because, for lots of reasons, making tons of inefficient energy from dirty old coal plants just isn’t economically feasible anymore. So you’d be hard-pressed to pin any particular lost job in the coal industry on Obama alone.

The second reason Walker and his ilk are off-base is that they focus too heavily on the coal-killing aspect of the plan, without also considering two equally vital aspects: (a) The building of tons of new energy supplies from renewables, and (b) big improvements in energy efficiency, which will allow us to use less power overall.

It’s true that by the time the plan takes effect, electricity prices will have risen steadily, as they always have for as long as we’ve had electricity. Because electric utilities typically have monopolies over their service area and prize reliability over affordability, power costs don’t naturally fall over time in the way that the costs of other technologies do. But even though electric rates will probably go up, monthly electric bills are likely to go down, thanks to efficiency improvements. The exact calculus will be different in every state, but to take one example, the Southern Environmental Law Center projected that in Virginia, the Clean Power Plan will lead to an 8 percent reduction in electric bills. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, savings like that add up to $37.4 billion for all US homes and businesses by 2020. The NRDC also projects that the plan will create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the energy efficiency sector, as homeowners, businesses, factories, etc. invest in upgrades that enable them use less power.

In any case, the solar industry alone already employs more than twice the number of people who work in coal mining. Making the energy system more climate-friendly is as much about juicing the clean energy industry as it is dismantling the coal industry.

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Scott Walker Thinks Obama’s Climate Plan Will Jack Up Your Electric Bill. He’s Wrong.

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President Obama Just Finalized His Plan to Fight Climate Change

by FloreneGKQN Posted on August 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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President Barack Obama has been more vocal than any previous president about the need to combat climate change, and on Monday his administration is releasing a package of rules that will likely be the most important—and most controversial—piece of his climate legacy.

“Climate change is not a problem for another generation,” Obama said in a video released early Sunday morning. The Clean Power Plan, as the rules finalized Monday are known, is “the biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken to combat climate change.”

Coal-fired power plants are the country’s biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions and the chief culprit driving global warming. They’re responsible for even more CO2 pollution than all the nation’s passenger vehicles. The new plan aims to slash those emissions by requiring every state to reduce the carbon “intensity” (that is, emissions per unit of energy produced) of its energy sector. By 2030, the plan is expected to slash the carbon footprint of the nation’s power sector by 32 percent below 2005 levels—a more rigorous target than the 30 percent reduction outlined in a draft version of the rules released last summer.

In the final draft, the administration has relaxed deadlines for meeting the new carbon targets—states will now have until 2018 to propose a carbon-cutting strategy and until 2022 to implement it, according to leaked versions—a serious concern for environmentalists who have stressed the necessity of immediate action to limit climate change. And although the targets might sound ambitious, they might not actually be too different from what many states would achieve without them, thanks to a boom in clean energy that is already underway. Moreover, many of the changes required by the rules will play out under Obama’s successor, leaving open the possibility that they could be undermined by a climate change-denying president.

Still, the significance of this official crackdown on the gas behind global warming is hard to overstate, said David Doniger, director of the clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“The very fact that they’re regulating carbon pollution from power plants is a historic step, a huge step,” he said. “This is part of using the existing law to turn the US from doing nothing, to playing a leadership role to curb climate change.”

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President Obama Just Finalized His Plan to Fight Climate Change

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How Can You Benefit From Solar Energy In Your Home?

by Dallas Weiter Posted on November 20, 2013

There’s a growing interest in Sacramento, California regarding the use of solar power. Consumers are noticing that this eco-friendly and very efficient source of electricity is really worth the investment. It’s no longer a futuristic dream to have efficient clean power generated by this semi-infinite resource of power; the sun. We have long seen solar technology as something just utilized for small gadgets such as timepieces and solar calculators, but if you look very closely, solar energy is being utilized everywhere. From satellites in space, universities to your local households in Sacramento.

Curious to know how you can make solar power work in your home?

The very first thing you ought to do is have the solar panels mounted in your residence by a specialist. This is not a complex undertaking but if just anybody will do it, some important details might be missed.

When a reliable installer will do the task, he could assure the system’s good performance and prolonged life span. Ideally, you may put the solar energy panels on top of your house. Setting them up in open grounds and yards may also be an alternative when you have the necessary area.

With a solar panel, you have got a device that makes available electric power which is converted from the energy of sunlight. This ensues either instantly employing photovoltaics (PV), which convert light to an electric current employing the photoelectric effect.

A solar cell, also known as photovoltaic cell (PV), is a gadget, as we described that changes light into an electric current. It was Charles Fritts who made the very first solar cell in 1880 and since then much has changed in terms of its productivity.

The direct current (DC) power that solar cells produce is not the same each time but depends on the intensity of the heat of the sun. Therefore, inverters are needed to routinely alter to get the required voltages or alternating current (AC).

Solar cells are connected in series within what’s known as modules. Then these units are connected together to create arrays, after which hooked to an inverter, which collects the energy at the desired voltage, and for the alternating current, the desired frequency/phase.

One query which plenty of people ask in Sacramento, California is how about during the night? Could i also employ solar power during the night?

This is rather simple; grid energy storage likewise known as large-scale energy storage, stores during periods when the production exceeds usage and then can use that extra energy when usage is greater than production.

This not just assures the consumer that he is going to have enough energy during night time or cloudy weather, but it preserves a regular amount of electrical current.

Connecting your property to the utility grid will allow you to simply buy power when you require it. Additionally, even better is, you can sell and generate income from the energy that you’re not utilizing. Therefore, by means of this system, you are certain that no power is ever lost. Total dependence on power from solar panels which have been set up accurately, therefore, is achievable.

Government policies vary depending on location and are typically subject to modification. The payback price is dependent upon the company providing the grid stores. With the grid store, you may conserve your excess energy for use later on or it can be sold back to the company.

Installing solar power is now an essential part of living in Sacramento, CA, the location is ideal for this kind of energy, and it appears to be productive due to the consistent sunlight in the region.

As for solar energy panels, which technology has been pushing to develop, will only make a great investment in your house, and will add, without a doubt, extra value to your property.

Getting solar power panels put in on your home is a great purchase that a lot of people still do not comprehend. Follow the link for more details so you can inform yourself about this great technological innovation.

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