Energy
A Better Day for Salmon on the Klamath River
Why would a major utility corporation agree to remove four of its hydroelectric power plants and pay hundreds of millions of dollars for the privilege? As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, that is exactly what would happen under a tentative agreement between PacifiCorp and various other parties, including several American Indian tribes. The dams in …
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CONTINUE READINGHey planet, we owe you one!
According to the Global Footprint Network, today is Earth Overshoot Day. We have already used up as many resources in 2009 as the planet can produce in a single year. The rest of the year represents deficit spending. “It’s a simple case of income versus expenditures,” said Global Footprint Network President Mathis Wackernagel. “For years, …
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CONTINUE READINGSecond Circuit Remands Connecticut v. AEP
In climate change news, the Second Circuit has (finally!) issued its decision in the case of Connecticut v. AEP, where a bunch of states sued electric power producers, saying that their carbon emissions constitute a common-law “public nuisance.” The appellate court overturned the trial court’s (completely unsupportable and poorly reasoned) decision that such a lawsuit …
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CONTINUE READINGFor Renewable Energy in California, It’s Not Clear Which Way the Wind is Blowing
If California’s governor sticks to the plan he announced last week, California’s leadership role in promoting domestic renewable energy development is in doubt. As Cara Horowitz reported in a recent post, the governor announced his intention to veto recently-passed legislation that would have set a target of 33% renewable power by 2020. Instead of signing …
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CONTINUE READINGA third is a third is a third?
On the last day of its term, the California legislature did wind up passing SB 14, the hotly debated bill to boost the state’s renewable energy supply requirement to 33% by 2020. But its prospects don’t look good — the Governor announced within hours that he would veto (SacBee story here). Presumably in its stead, …
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CONTINUE READINGOil Speculators, Land Use Planners, and Those Sticky Tar Sands
Three separate items in the news, this past week, underscore the fact that we still have much work to do before we can claim to have a viable plan for reducing fossil fuel use, and the related environmental damage. Energy Daily reports on a new paper from Rice University’s Baker Center for Public Policy showing …
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CONTINUE READINGDuke Energy Leaves ACCCE But Who Remains?
Duke Energy, one of the largest electric utilities in the midwest and southeast and a prominent memeber of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, announced this week that it has quit the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. ACCCE, as it is known, is a trade group recently exposed as the front group that sent bogus letters on …
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CONTINUE READINGSacramento debates renewable energy, jobs
With Ken posting about California’s renewable energy goals and ways to meet them, I’ll point out the battle waging this week in the state legislature over SB 14, a bill that would legislate and broaden the 33%-RPS-by-2020 Ken discussed here (currently derived from an executive order). This from the LA Times: Under the measure, by Sen. …
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CONTINUE READINGPlease don’t take my sunshine away
Just when we thought we were gaining momentum in the effort to get solar panels installed throughout the state, the word from Napa is that thieves are stealing ground-based solar panels from wineries. While the problem may not be widespread yet, it reveals a potential challenge for ground-based solar installations (a topic that Ken mentions …
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CONTINUE READINGMovie Stars, Solar Cells
Flowers are beginning to bloom through the cracks in the foundation that formerly was the economy in the state of Michigan. With the precipitous closure of auto manufacturing plants, and the strong ripples throughout the state’s employment base, the state of Michigan has come close to the economic bottom. Now come the opportunities for rebirth. …
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