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"Lawless and Radical": What the 2016 Candidates Think of Obama’s New Climate Change Plan

by YolandaFoust Posted on August 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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President Barack Obama just unveiled the final version of rules that crack down on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants—the most significant contributor to global warming in the United States. “Climate change is not a problem for another generation, not anymore,” Obama said in a video released on Sunday. But not everyone agrees. Here’s what some of the leading 2016 presidential candidates think of Obama’s Clean Power Plan:

Marco Rubio

On Sunday, at an event hosted by the Koch Brothers, the Florida senator slammed the plan. “So if there’s some billionaire somewhere who is a pro-environmental, cap and trade person, yeah, they can probably afford for their electric bill to go up a couple of hundred dollars,” Rubio said, according to The Huffington Post. “But if you’re a single mom in Tampa, Florida, and your electric bill goes up by thirty dollars a month, that is catastrophic.” Experts disagree with Rubio’s suggestion that the new rules will be costly for ratepayers. As Tim McDonnell explains, “even though electric rates will probably go up, monthly electric bills are likely to go down, thanks to efficiency improvements.”

Jeb Bush

The former Florida governor released an official statement, calling the plan “overreaching” and “irresponsible.” Bush argued that the new rules would raise energy prices while also trampling on the powers of state governments. Bush went so far as to say that the plan would “hollow out our economy” for the sake of addressing climate change.

Mike Huckabee

The former Arkansas governor has been adamant about his opposition to the Clean Power Plan, saying that it would “bankrupt families.” On Monday he doubled down on his opposition to the plan, characterizing it as the president’s “carbon crusade”:

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"Lawless and Radical": What the 2016 Candidates Think of Obama’s New Climate Change Plan

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There’s a Fight Brewing Over Who Profits From Solar Power

by HilarioBaccarin Posted on April 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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In the ongoing wars over solar energy, one power company is consistently painted as the archetypal, mustache-twirling nemesis of clean electricity: Arizona Public Service. So you might be surprised to learn that this same company is about to become a big new producer of rooftop solar power.

APS is an unlikely solar patron: In the summer of 2013, the Phoenix-area utility launched a campaign to weaken Arizona’s net metering rule, which requires utilities to buy the extra solar power their customers generate and provides a major incentive for homeowners to install rooftop panels. A few months later, APS admitted giving cash to two nonprofits that ran an anti-solar ad blitz in the state. Early this year, the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that a letter criticizing the solar industry’s business practices, sent by members of Congress to federal regulators, was originally authored by an employee of APS. And a couple weeks ago, APS asked state regulators to let the company quadruple the fees it tacks on to the monthly bills of solar-equipped homeowners.

It makes sense that the company would be worried about solar’s epic takeoff. In many ways, the solar boom poses an unprecedented threat to big electric utilities, which have done business for a century with essentially zero competition. In the first quarter of this year, applications for solar permits in APS’s service area were 112 percent higher than the same period last year, and every one of those is one less customer for APS’s regular power supply, 40 percent of which comes from coal. Now the company thinks it has found a solution to the problem: It wants to start owning its own rooftop solar.

In December, the Arizona Corporation Commission gave a green light to APS to plunk down $28.5 million on 10 megawatts of solar panels, enough to cover about 2,000 of its customers’ roofs. (Tucson Electric Power, another utility in the state, was also approved for a smaller but similar plan.) The idea is that APS will target specific rooftops it wants to make use of—in areas where the grid needs more support, for example, or west-facing roofs, which produce the most power in the late afternoon, when demand is the highest. APS would offer homeowners a $30 credit on their monthly bill, according to Jeff Guldner, an APS vice president for public policy.

The credit essentially serves as rent for the roof, where an APS-contracted local installer will set up a solar array. APS owns the panels, can use the power however it wants, and gets to improve its clean energy portfolio without losing customers to third-party solar companies. Meanwhile, the homeowner gets a lower bill.

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There’s a Fight Brewing Over Who Profits From Solar Power

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Nebraska Conservatives Take On GOP Governor Over Death Penalty

by AlphonsVarnum Posted on April 16, 2015

Mother Jones

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A group of conservative legislators in Nebraska are gearing up for what could be a multi-day battle to end the state’s death penalty. The fight pits the right-wing anti-death penalty crusaders against their fellow conservatives and the state’s Republican governor. Here’s the Omaha World-Herald:

Nine conservative lawmakers have signed on as co-sponsors of a repeal measure the Nebraska Legislature will begin debating Thursday. One of their key platforms: Repealing the death penalty makes good fiscal sense.

“If capital punishment were any other program that was so inefficient and so costly to the taxpayer, we would have gotten rid of it a long time ago,” said Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln.

The bill is unlikely to become law. There are currently enough votes for passage, but advocates warn that anything could happen when the bill comes up for a final vote. Death penalty advocates could mount a filibuster to block the legislature from even voting on the measure. If they don’t, Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican, has vowed to block the legislation, and it’s unclear that there are enough votes to override his veto.

Still, the upcoming debate and vote on the bill marks a victory for a small conservative group working on a state-by-state basis to end the death penalty and replace it with life in prison without the possibility of parole. This group, Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, argues that capital punishment violates core conservative beliefs about the sanctity of life, small government, and fiscal responsibility.

The Nebraska chapter of the group held a press conference Wednesday in advance of today’s floor debate on the bill. “I may be old-fashioned, but I believe God should be the only one who decides when it is time to call a person home,” said state Sen. Tommy Garrett, a conservative who supports repeal. “The state has no business playing God.”

Nebraska has not carried out an execution since 1997, when the state was still using the electric chair, but that might change, according to the World-Herald:

Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said this week that his staff is working to restore the viability of a lethal injection protocol. He did not, however, predict when executions could resume.

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Nebraska Conservatives Take On GOP Governor Over Death Penalty

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Are Solar-Powered Homes Jacking Up Everyone Else’s Electric Bills?

by MorganZEEZ Posted on March 25, 2015

Mother Jones

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Illustration by Mr. Biscuit

Solar power is having a major moment. It’s growing faster than any other energy source—in 2014, a new system was installed in the United States every three minutes—while the price of a typical panel has dropped 63 percent since 2010. By 2016, experts predict that solar will be as cheap or cheaper than conventional electricity in most states. But solar companies are warning that the boom could soon end, if utilities and some Republican state lawmakers have their way.

Power companies’ beef with solar boils down to a clever payment system that was largely responsible for bringing about the solar boom in the first place—a practice known as net metering. Most solar homes aren’t actually “off the grid”: They stay connected to transmission lines, using regular power when their panels aren’t operating (like at night). But they also feed electricity into the grid when they produce more than they can use.

Sounds great, right? Not really, say the power companies. They pay solar homeowners for their excess kilowatts—but argue homeowners aren’t paying their fair share for grid maintenance. That has utilities in revolt, and the fight has reached a fever pitch in Northern California, where the state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric, serves more residential solar homes than any other.

Like many utilities, PG&E charges customers on a multitiered price scheme—the more electricity you use, the more you pay per unit. That can incentivize power hogs to conserve, but it can also mean that a poor family of four in California’s AC-dependent Central Valley can end up paying rates far above the national average (and what it actually costs PG to serve them), while a Google-employed bachelor millionaire gets a bargain. If that tech dude decides to install solar panels, he pays even less—even though he still uses the grid.

To be fair, customers who generate their own electricity also save the utilities money, causing less wear and tear on transmission lines and less power lost along the way. But a study commissioned by California’s Legislature found that in the Golden State at least, these benefits do not fill the hole left by lost revenue. Net metering cost the state’s privately owned utilities $254 million in 2012, a price tag estimated to jump to $1.1 billion per year by 2020 as an estimated 500,000 more homes go solar.

The solar industry shot back with a study of its own, arguing that those costs are minor compared with the roughly $32 billion that California’s major utilities earned in 2013 and that, for PG&E, the problem is not really caused by solar but by the huge gap—about threefold—between the company’s lowest and highest rate tiers. Since solar is attractive to high-tier customers, who stand to save the most money, each one who saves by installing a system is a big blow to the utility’s bottom line. Smooth out the rate tiers, the study suggests, and the problem disappears.

In 2013, California lawmakers told the state’s utilities to do just that. PG&E’s proposed solution, set to be voted on by state regulators in the spring, would reduce the number of price tiers and add a fixed monthly grid maintenance surcharge. The problem is that the fixed charge will erode the cost advantages of going solar, since you can’t avoid it just by using less power from the grid. Sanjay Ranchod, a policy analyst for the solar installer SolarCity, sees the change as a sneaky way for the utilities to kneecap the competition. Imposing a fixed monthly charge, he says, is “one way you can inhibit the growth of distributed solar.”

Similar battles are playing out from Utah to Wisconsin, as utilities fight to roll back net metering, restructure their rate systems, or impose special fees for solar users—and it’s easy to see why power companies are sweating. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that the gap between the cost of maintaining the US grid and the available funds will grow by $11 billion per year through 2020, since the revenue streams utilities have traditionally relied on to pay for those costs—investments in big power plants they can recover through increased sales—are drying up.

John Farrell, a program director at the Minneapolis-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance, argues that to succeed down the line, utilities will have to act more like grid managers, connecting power from a host of sources (much like data flowing into a server from many places) and investing in technology that helps consumers use power more efficiently. “There’s no outcome 10 or 20 years from now that looks anything like what utilities have been before,” Farrell says. “It’s going to happen anyway, and you just have to choose whether you’re gonna like it or not.”

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Are Solar-Powered Homes Jacking Up Everyone Else’s Electric Bills?

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California Gov. Jerry Brown gets more ambitious about tackling climate change

by VirgilioWjd Posted on January 6, 2015

California Gov. Jerry Brown gets more ambitious about tackling climate change

By on 6 Jan 2015commentsShare

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) wants to make his state even more of a climate leader during his fourth and final term. In a wide-ranging inaugural speech yesterday, he laid out plans to go out with a bang.

He quoted E.O. Wilson — “Surely one moral precept we can agree on is to stop destroying our birthplace, the only home humanity will ever have” — and then called for California to pursue ambitious climate goals for 2030 that build on those the state has already laid out for 2020. Brown said that California’s “impressive” 2020 goals, which the state is “on track to meet,” still “are not enough” for California to lead the world on the path to containing climate change to 2 degrees Celsius of warming, a target that the U.N. hopes will keep the worst effects in check.

From The New York Times, an overview of Brown’s new plans:

Gov. Jerry Brown began his fourth and final term on Monday proposing a broad reduction in California’s energy consumption over the next 15 years — including a call to slash gas consumption by cars and trucks by as much as 50 percent — as part of what he said would be a sweeping campaign to heighten the state’s role in the fight against global warming.

Mr. Brown, a longtime champion of electric cars and limiting greenhouse gas emissions, called in his inauguration speech for 50 percent of California’s electricity to come from renewable energy sources by 2030, up from the current goal of one-third by 2020, and doubling the energy efficiency of existing buildings.

Mr. Brown was in effect proposing that California, which is already viewed as at the forefront in the battle to curb emissions, greatly expand cutbacks put in place in the state’s landmark 2006 greenhouse gas emission bills. And he made clear that he would use his final years in office to try to make this happen.

Brown’s time in office has seen tremendous pushback from the fossil-fuel industry, which has opposed implementation of the state’s cap-and-trade program, put in place by that landmark 2006 climate bill, and other measures. The political money battle will likely only intensify now that Brown’s environmental initiatives are more ambitious, with Brown’s own well-heeled allies — notably environmentalist-billionaire Tom Steyer, who was present at the state Capitol for Brown’s speech — pushing back.

The Western States Petroleum Association, one of the primary industry lobbying groups active in California, told the Associated Press that it was reviewing Brown’s proposals.

Environmental groups, on the other hand, told the AP that Brown should have gone still further — they want the governor to ban fracking in the state during his final term.

Source:
Gov. Jerry Brown Begins Last Term With a Bold Energy Plan

, The New York Times.

Jerry Brown seeks new green regulations in historic fourth term

, Los Angeles Times.

California governor toughens climate-change goals

, Associated Press.

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No, Obama’s carbon limits won’t mean massive power outages

by KennithKyngdon Posted on November 12, 2014

No, Obama’s carbon limits won’t mean massive power outages

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12 Nov 2014 1:36 PMShare

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No, Obama’s carbon limits won’t mean massive power outages

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The overseer of our electric grid is warning that the EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan poses a threat to the dependability of our power systems. Queue the ominous music and prepare for rolling blackouts? Not so fast. Other energy experts say there’s really nothing to worry about — except for, you know, climate chaos.

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation, a not-for-profit regulatory authority in charge of keeping the juice flowing, suspects that the EPA is overly optimistic about how quickly we can transform the grid by shutting down coal plants, increasing efficiency, and building massive gas, wind, and solar infrastructure. From an initial review it released last week:

The proposed timeline does not provide enough time to develop sufficient resources to ensure continued reliable operation of the grid by 2020. To attempt to do so would increase the use of controlled load shedding and potential for wide-scale, uncontrolled outages.

“Wide-scale, uncontrolled outages”?!?! Sounds pretty dire. But it turns out that NERC has a history of fear-mongering, issuing periodic warnings that shuttering coal plants will bring blackouts.

Here’s one reason why NERC’s analysis is balderdash: It leaves out the growing contributions of wind and solar. Yes, that’s right. In assessing the effects of a policy designed specifically to encourage carbon reductions, the report acknowledges that wind and solar electricity will increase, and yet doesn’t count these additions in calculating the total amount of power the grid can deliver.

The Union of Concerned Scientists contrasts the preliminary NERC report with a more rigorous study on the impacts of transforming Minnesota’s electricity system away from fossil fuels toward renewables. This evaluation was also performed by an organization responsible for grid reliability, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator. Turns out, when contributions from renewables, energy efficiency, and boring demand response are considered — and transmission needs are thoroughly analyzed rather than assumed to be insurmountable — a concrete plan emerges for reliably providing 40 percent of the state’s electricity with wind and solar.

The EPA itself certainly isn’t buying the NERC report. “There are a lot of assertions and claims in the report that aren’t really substantiated by any particular analytics they mention, or supported by a deeper look into the issues,” said one agency staff member made available for comment on condition of namelessness, in response to questions from Greenwire. For example, NERC assumes that all states will take the same approach in complying with the Clean Power Plan’s mandates, but in reality the proposed EPA rules give states extensive flexibility to craft strategies that suit their own power systems.

The mainstream media missed it, but beyond NERC’s dismal bullet-point summary, the report actually also offers some quality recommendations for how regional electricity groups can come to understand what needs to be done to meet the EPA rules, and partner with policy makers to address areas of concern. The report was entitled “Potential reliability impacts of the proposed EPA Clean Power Plan,” but John Moore of the Natural Resources Defense Council suggests a more positive title: “Working together, states and grid operators can strengthen reliability and cut carbon pollution.”

Yes, reliability is an important issue as we convert our energy systems to run without fossil fuels. But Seattle-based climate policy wonk KC Golden pointed out in an email that the bigger threat is to the reliability of the United States as a global leader and partner in the run-up to big U.N. climate talks in Paris in 2015. To say nothing of threats to the reliability of food and water supplies in a warming world.

And remember: Most power outages are caused by extreme weather events. So perhaps the biggest threat to the reliability of our electric grid is the increasing number of strong storms that climate change itself causes. Ultimately, the risk of not meeting the Clean Power Plan’s emissions-reduction deadlines are much worse than the risks posed by a speedy grid overhaul.

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Jerry Brown Seeks More Electric Cars in California

by Myrna Posted on September 21, 2014

The governor signed bills to make it easier for low-income Californians to obtain plug-in vehicles ahead of speaking engagements at the United Nations’ Climate Summit 2014. From: Jerry Brown Seeks More Electric Cars in California

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Jerry Brown Seeks More Electric Cars in California

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Tennessee Gubernatorial Nominee Explains Why He Wants to Send Governor to Electric Chair

by tobedzieto123 Posted on August 8, 2014

Mother Jones

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Charlie Brown for Governor

They did it again. On Thursday, Tennessee Democrats picked a statewide candidate with zero political experience. His campaign platform is based on sending incumbent Gov. Bill Haslam (R) to the electric chair. Charlie Brown, a retired engineer from Oakdale whose name is misspelled on his own Facebook page, may owe his victory in the gubernatorial primary to appearing as the first name on the ballot. But he gives full credit to God. “I got down on my knees and prayed about it,” he told Mother Jones, when asked about his campaign strategy. “That hit you pretty hard, huh? That took you for a loop, huh?”

In 2012, anti-gay activist Mark Clayton, who also had no political track record won the nod to take on GOP Sen. Bob Corker. His name was also the first name listed on the ballot. Clayton initially filed to run against Haslam this year but was rejected by the state party. The state party did not, however, unite behind a more experienced candidate to challenge the popular Haslam.

The 72-year-old Brown did not raise money or campaign actively for the seat. Instead, he sent two letters to the editor to every major newspaper in the state, outlining his plans for Tennessee, which included bringing back teacher tenure, restoring benefits for civil servants, spending his gubernatorial salary on large deer for hunters, and raising speed limits on the interstate highways to 80 mph “because everyone does anyway.” (Brown says he has been pulled over for speeding, but “not lately.”) “Let me give you something: My main interest is to put the Bible back in school,” he said on Friday. “You can write that down.”

“I’d still like to put his butt in that electric chair and turn it on about half throttle and let him smell a little bit,” Brown said of Haslam. “You can print that if you want to.”

Shortly before the election, he says a higher power intervened on his behalf. “I was sitting on the interstate waiting on a guy,” he said, “and something hit me just like that, and it said to get down on your knees to pray. I got down right there on the interstate. There’s a wide place, where there’s a pullout. There wasn’t anybody there. And I got down and asked the Lord to get me through this thing and he did. Now listen, I’m not no preacher, I’m just a Christian. I’m just a sinner saved by grace. I’m just like everybody else.”

Brown said he would update his Facebook after he got off the phone (it has since been taken down), and plans to campaign more actively in the fall, but downplays the uphill challenge he faces.

“I’m gonna campaign big time!” Brown said. “They said I was unknown—I’ve been in the newspaper for years under Peanuts!”

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Tennessee Gubernatorial Nominee Explains Why He Wants to Send Governor to Electric Chair

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Will the U.S. keep spending taxpayer money on dirty coal plants abroad?

by gammak Posted on July 7, 2014

Will the U.S. keep spending taxpayer money on dirty coal plants abroad?

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Congress could get in the way of Obama’s efforts to clean up power plants — not just here at home, but abroad.

A year ago, when President Obama unveiled his Climate Action Plan, he declared that the U.S. would stop funding most coal projects in other countries. “I’m calling for an end to public financing for new coal plants overseas unless they deploy carbon-capture technologies, or there’s no other viable way for the poorest countries to generate electricity,” Obama said in his big climate speech. In December, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, which helps American firms access markets abroad, changed its lending guidelines to conform with Obama’s edict.

But now pro-coal members of Congress are moving to block the new guidelines. The Hill reports:

Both of the working proposals in the House and Senate to renew the bank’s charter would reverse Ex-Im guidelines that prevent financing for overseas power plants that decline to adopt greener technology. …

Up until now, coal-state Democrats such as Sen. [Joe] Manchin (D-W.Va.) have lacked political leverage to fight back.

But that’s changing thanks to the looming Sept. 30 deadline to reauthorize the 80-year-old bank. Opponents of the power plant guidelines are seizing on the time crunch to win concessions.

There’s ongoing debate in Congress over whether the Ex-Im Bank should exist at all. Last year, 80 percent of the bank’s funds were used to support purchases from large corporations, such as Boeing and General Electric. Some conservatives say that’s corporate welfare and want to do away with the bank entirely, and right-wing groups like Club for Growth are putting pressure on lawmakers to vote against the bank’s reauthorization.

Meanwhile, President Obama and most Democrats are aligned with business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers in pushing to renew the bank and increase its funding. They note that the bank actually generated more than $1 billion for the treasury last year.

But that isn’t such a good deal if the money comes at the expense of the climate. As The New Republic reports, “Ex-Im’s fossil fuel investments in 2012 accounted for $7.2 billion of $32 billion in spending, the second-largest share of the bank’s portfolio. … If Congress passes this exemption for foreign plants, it will reinforce America’s role as one of the world’s biggest public financers of coal, even as organizations like the World Bank have cut funding for such projects.”


Source
Coal poised for rare win over Obama, The Hill
Small business owners: Closing Export-Import bank would cripple our companies, The Washington Post
Political Battle Over Export Bank Heats Up, The Wall Street Journal
Congress Can’t Stop Obama’s Coal Regulations at Home, So It’s Helping Dirty Plants Abroad, The New Republic

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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Will the U.S. keep spending taxpayer money on dirty coal plants abroad?

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Now Elon Musk wants to revolutionize solar panel production

by ClaudioFitzGibb Posted on June 18, 2014

another bright idea

Now Elon Musk wants to revolutionize solar panel production

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Steve & Michelle Gerdes

Thanks in part to Elon Musk, the world’s biggest and most advanced solar panel factory could be built in the U.S. in the coming years.

The Silicon Valley entrepreneur, fresh off announcing an effort to spur growth in the electric auto industry by opening up access to hundreds of Tesla Motors patents, on Tuesday pushed the cleantech envelope even further, announcing a bid to massively expand the solar panel industry.

Musk, chair of the solar panel installation giant SolarCity, told reporters that in the coming years the company plans to build a solar panel factory in the U.S. that’s “an order of magnitude bigger than any of the plants that exist” anywhere in the world today.

SolarCity is responsible for about a quarter of America’s residential solar panel installations every month — three times as much as its closest competitor. Its market dominance has been earned in part through its “zero-down” financing model. But that’s not enough. Musk says he worries that the company’s ongoing growth will be so rapid that it will start to encounter solar panel shortages, despite what now is an international glut of mostly Chinese-made panels.

So SolarCity is jumping into the development and manufacture of advanced solar panels through the acquisition for $200 million or more of Silicon Valley-based solar panel company Silevo, which has developed highly efficient rooftop photovoltaic cells. Using more efficient cells means fewer panels are needed for each rooftop, helping to push down the price of residential solar systems.

SolarCity

“If we don’t do this, we felt that there was risk of not being able to have the solar panels that we need to expand the business in the long term,” Musk said Tuesday during a call with reporters. “The rate at which solar panel technology is advancing — at least for the panels that are being made at large scale — it’s really not fast enough. We’re seeing high-volume production of relatively basic panels, but not high-volume production of advanced panels, so we think it’s important that the two be combined.”

In a blog post published Tuesday, SolarCity described its manufacturing ambitions:

We are in discussions with the state of New York to build the initial manufacturing plant, continuing a relationship developed by the Silevo team. At a targeted capacity greater than 1 GW within the next two years, it will be one of the single largest solar panel production plants in the world. This will be followed in subsequent years by one or more significantly larger plants at an order of magnitude greater annual production capacity.

Ultimately, Musk says, he wants to develop such advanced panels and manufacture them at such high volumes that fossil fuels simply cannot compete. “To be able to have solar power compete on an unsubsidized basis with fossil fuel energy coming from the grid, it’s critical that you have high efficiency solar panels,” he said.


Source
Solar at Scale, SolarCity blog

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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