State Policies And Low Costs Will Sustain The U.S. Climate Fight (Part 1)

States Will Lead on Climate Change in the Trump Era

Editorial Board, December 26, 2016 (NY Times)

“State governments will serve as an important bulwark against any attempt by President-elect Donald Trump to roll back the progress the United States has made in addressing climate change…Over the last decade or so, most states have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by promoting energy efficiency and renewable fuels. These trends should continue as clean energy costs continue to decline and, in some parts of the country, fall below the cost of dirtier fuels like coal…[B]etween 2000 and 2014, 33 states and the District of Columbia cut carbon emissions while expanding their economies…That list includes red states run by Republican legislatures, like Alaska, Georgia, Tennessee and West Virginia…It’s hard to know how Mr. Trump will change climate policy, but it is almost certain that he won’t advance it…The people he has chosen to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy and the Department of Interior — the three agencies with the greatest influence on energy policy — have either denied or expressed skepticism that human activity is causing global warming, something that virtually all scientists agree on…[But in] some states, including Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska and parts of Texas, new wind turbines can generate electricity at a lower cost, without subsidies, than any other technology…” click here for more

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State Policies And Low Costs Will Sustain The U.S. Climate Fight (Part 2)

States Will Lead on Climate Change in the Trump Era

Editorial Board, December 26, 2016 (NY Times)

“…[Many people expect President-elect Trump to walk away from President Obama’s commitments under the Paris climate agreement and get rid of or weaken the E.P.A.’s Clean Power Plan, which requires states to lower carbon emissions from the electricity sector. He and his appointees might also try to water down fuel economy regulations for cars and trucks, and cut clean energy tax incentives and research spending…States could blunt much of that damage…California and New York plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. Hawaii hopes to get all of its electricity from renewable sources by 2045…[and many other states have slightly more modest goals]…Cheap natural gas, which has increasingly replaced coal as a fuel source, has had a lot to do with this progress, but so has the drop in the cost of wind and solar power — 41 percent in the case of land-based wind turbines and 64 percent for solar, between 2008 and 2015…

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…The cost of batteries has dropped by almost three-fourths…[In some states, new wind turbines] can generate electricity at a lower cost, without subsidies, than any other technology…Solar panels have not reached that point yet in the United States, but developers of big solar installations in [some] countries…have signed contracts to sell electricity for much less than conventional fossil fuel plants charge…States are also beginning to put a price on carbon emissions to increase the cost of older fuels and encourage cleaner sources of energy, which Congress has refused to do…Lawmakers, environmental groups and individuals who care about climate change ought to fight every effort to take the country backward on this issue. But it will be just as important for them to support states that are trying to advance the cause.” click here for more

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New Energy And NatGas Are 93% of 2016 U.S. Power Growth

Solar, natural gas, wind make up most 2016 generation additions

December 19, 2016 (U.S. Energy Information Administration)

“Electric generating facilities expect to add more than 26 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale generating capacity to the power grid during 2016. Most of these additions come from three resources: solar (9.5 GW), natural gas (8.0 GW), and wind (6.8 GW), which together make up 93% of total additions. If actual additions ultimately reflect these plans, 2016 will be the first year in which utility-scale solar additions exceed additions from any other single energy source…This level of [utility-scale solar] additions is substantially higher than the 3.1 GW of solar added in 2015 and would be more than the total solar installations for the past three years combined (9.4 GW during 2013-15)…Most capacity additions over the past 20 years have been natural gas-fired units. About 8 GW is expected to be added this year, slightly above the 7.8 GW average annual additions over the previous five years…Additions of wind capacity are expected to be slightly lower than in 2015, when 8.1 GW of wind made up by far the largest portion of 2015 capacity additions. Wind capacity additions in 2016 are expected to total 6.8 GW…Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar 2 nuclear facility in southeastern Tennessee, with a summer nameplate capacity of 1.1 GW…will be the first new nuclear reactor brought online in the United States in 20 years…” click here for more

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Climate Change Denial Is Good For Russia

Abandoning Climate Change Fight Benefits Russia

Noah Smith, December 20, 2016 (Hartford Courant)

“President-elect Donald Trump…has vowed to withdraw from the Paris agreement designed to limit fossil fuel use, and presented himself as a champion of the coal industry. U.S. national policy seems set for an epic shift away from alternative energy and carbon reduction…U.S. states and cities will continue efforts to curb carbon, and the steady improvements in solar and battery technology are unlikely to grind to a halt…[Oil, coal, natural gas, and coal interests around the world would win from this shift but the biggest winner probably would be the petro-state of Russia.]…

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Without oil and gas, Russia's economy would be a shambles, and sharp declines in energy prices in the 1990s and again in the past three years sent its economy into deep recessions…In the short run, more U.S. oil drilling and gas exports hurt Russia, because they help hold down global fossil fuel prices. But in the long run, the much bigger danger to Russia comes from a permanent shift away from fossil fuels. Solar technology has been getting steadily cheaper. If solar electricity could be easily stored for night use and transportation, it would displace oil, gas and coal. The price of those commodities would crash and never recover, leaving Russia's economy a wreck…The main technological barrier to the end of the fossil fuel age now is battery technology…” click here for more

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On Price, New Energy Wins, Coal Loses

Trump’s coal revival plan won’t work; clean energy tech is already cheaper; The cost of solar power systems has dropped 30% this year alone

Lucas Mearian, November 15, 2016 (ComputerWorld)

"While President-elect Donald Trump hopes to revive the coal industry by slashing CO2-reducing regulations, industry analysts say clean energy has become so cheap it will continue to increase its domination of the energy industry…[T]he number of coal-fired generators is still expected to be reduced by about one-third through 2030, or by about 60 gigawatts of capacity…And wind and solar are by far the fastest growing energy sectors…Last year, new installations of solar power capacity surpassed both wind and coal for the second year in a row, accounting for 32% of all new electrical capacity…The average number of employees at U.S. coal mines decreased 12% to 65,971 employees, the lowest on record…Last year alone, the solar industry added 31,000 new jobs…[T]hat was 20 times the national average for job creation…Using the EIA's LCOE figures, [“clean” coal-fired power plants have an average cost of $65 to $139 per megawatt hour (MWh) of electricity produced, natural gas-fired plants are $58.1 per MWh of electricity, nuclear power is $102.8, onshore wind is $64.5, solar is $84.7 and hydroelectric is $67.8]…” click here for more

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Wind Turbines Get Bigger, Wind Power Gets Cheaper

Sky's the limit? Reducing wind energy costs through increased turbine size; A new Berkeley Lab study shows significant potential for further turbine scaling

Ryan Wiser, Joachim Seel, Bentham Paulos, Maureen Hand, December 19, 2016 (Utility Dive)

“The growing size of wind turbines has helped lower the cost of wind energy to the point that it is economically competitive with fossil-fuel alternatives in some locations…[and] Recent research suggests that land-based wind turbines and, especially, offshore turbines have room to grow, offering the promise that this already-mature energy technology will see still lower costs in the future…According to the wind experts, larger turbines are on the horizon, enabling further reduction in the cost of wind energy on land and offshore. Turbine design will continue to vary by market and project site, but the experts forecast continued evolutionary growth in average turbine size on land, and more revolutionary growth offshore…” click here for more

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Can Cities Save The Planet?

Cities can pick up nations’ slack on combating climate change

Nick Stockton, December 18, 2016 (Grist)

“…[Deadline2020 is a 100-plus-page study detailing how the C40 Cities’ 90 affiliated cities can, and are, taking rapid, impactful actions to keep the Earth from warming to the point of catastrophe. It] is based on goals set out in the Paris Agreement [signed by 117] countries to keep the average global temperature from rising to 2 degrees C above preindustrial levels…[and] stay as close to 1.5 degrees C as possible…[T]he next four years are critical…If the C40 cities want to meet that 1.5 degrees C goal, its members need to collectively cut the average emissions of city-dwelling folks from 5.1 tons to 2.1 per person by 2020…If they succeed, the cities of C40 will have contributed 40 percent of the reductions necessary to meet the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement. Come hell or high water, their home nations are largely responsible for the other 60 percent…Cities can’t save the Paris Agreement, or the world, on their own. But they can do a lot. And they can do it a lot faster, and a lot more reliably, than nations…Those actions aren’t always sexy, but they are tangible…” click here for more

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Will Solar Save The World?

World Energy Hits a Turning Point: Solar That's Cheaper Than Wind; Emerging markets are leapfrogging the developed world thanks to cheap panels.

Tom Randall, December 14, 2016 (Bloomberg News) “…[As 2016 comes to an end, solar] power, for the first time, is becoming the cheapest form of new electricity…[U]nsubsidized solar is beginning to outcompete coal and natural gas…[and] new solar projects in emerging markets are costing less to build than wind projects…While solar was bound to fall below wind eventually, given its steeper price declines, few predicted it would happen this soon…[In 2016 auctions, where] private companies compete for massive contracts to provide electricity, established record after record for cheap solar power. It started with a contract in January to produce electricity for $64 per megawatt-hour in India; then a deal in August pegging $29.10 per megawatt hour in Chile. That’s record-cheap electricity—roughly half the price of competing coal power…When all the 2016 completions are tallied in coming months, it’s likely that the total amount of solar photovoltaics added globally [now projected at 70 GW] will exceed that of wind [projected at 59 GW] for the first time...[The world is now] adding more capacity for clean energy each year than for coal and natural gas combined…” click here for more

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Will Rick Perry Save Wind Energy At DOE?

Will Rick Perry's pro-wind power stance carry on in the Trump administration? Choice of former Texas governor to lead energy department is a potentially encouraging sign for those alarmed by Trump’s nomination of climate deniers

Tom McCarthy, 15 December 2016 (UK Guardian)

“…[Environmental activists in Texas say former Governor Rick Perry, now nominated to head Trump administration Department of Energy, defended TXU’s 2005 bid to build coal plants because of the utility’s 2001 to 2011] $633,575 in campaign contributions to Perry…But the nomination of Perry, who presided as governor over an explosion of wind power infrastructure in Texas, has been taken in some corners as a potentially encouraging sign…Perry – who has firsthand experience of how wind power can create jobs, make money for landowners and drive energy prices down for consumers – could help guide the Trump administration in the direction of renewables…The success of the Texas experiment with wind power under Perry is not disputed. In 2006, the governor signed legislation that raised benchmarks for the production of wind power and promoted environmentally sensitive siting for transmission lines. The legislation is credited with creating tens of thousands of jobs in the wind industry and attracting tens of billions of dollars in investment…[Perry is not an environmentalist in any meaningful sense of the word, but was] a chief executive with an eye on growing the economy and keeping business happy…[T]here is concern that the job of energy secretary could overwhelm Perry…[before he gets to] transmission lines…” click here for more

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Climate Heats As Bill Gates Plans New Energy

Bill Gates Leads New Fund as Fears of U.S. Retreat on Climate Grow

Hiroko Tabuchi and Henry Fountain, December 12, 2016 (NY Times)

“…[There is some hope a billion-dollar investment fund led by Bill Gates and his fellow technology titans could fill the void in New Energy research and development left by the Trump administration due to its climate change skepticism. The billionaire] co-founder of Microsoft is starting] a fund to invest in transformative energy research and development to reduce the emissions that cause climate change. The work would supplement and build on basic research already underway…[Despite Mr. Trump’s expressed skepticism about climate change and his appointment of fossil fuel advocates to his cabinet, Mr. Gates said he expected the president-elect to recognize that government funding of basic research would eventually be good for business, jobs, infrastructure and other economic elements that Mr. Trump campaigned on…Mr. Gates’s new investment fund, Breakthrough Energy Ventures…[is backed by at least] 19 other investors, including Jack Ma, founder of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, and the venture capitalists John Doerr and Vinod Khosla. The fund will have a life span of 15 to 20 years…The fund will consider investing in electricity generation and storage, transportation, agriculture and energy-system efficiency…” click here for more

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Former TX Gov And Wind Builder Perry To Head Dept Of Energy

Trump taps former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to head Energy Department he once vowed to abolish

Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson, December 13, 2016 (Washington Post)

Editor’s note: click through for a lengthy profile of the nominee

“President-elect Donald Trump has picked Rick Perry to head the Energy Department…[Perry could] shift the department away from renewable energy and toward fossil fuels, whose production he championed as governor while serving for 14 years…[M]ost of the Energy Department’s budget is devoted to maintaining the nation’s stockpile of nuclear warheads and to cleaning up nuclear waste at sites left by military weapons programs. The department runs the nation’s national laboratories, sets appliance standards and hands out grants and loan guarantees for everything from basic research to solar cells to capturing carbon dioxide from coal combustion…[As governor, Perry reportedly embodied an] ‘all of the above’ approach to U.S. energy…[In that time, Texas was not only a world leader in oil and gas production; it was also a global leader in wind power and renewable energy investment…[I]f confirmed, Perry will walk into an agency where many career civil servants will likely be wary of him…[and on edge after] Trump’s transition team gave a questionnaire to DOE officials asking they identify which employees have worked on either international climate negotiations or domestic initiatives to cut carbon.” click here for more

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Climate Change Denier To Decide On Public Land Uses

Trump Taps Climate Change Denier for Secretary of Interior; If approved by the Senate, Cathy McMorris Rogers would oversee energy resource development on public lands

Bobby Magill, December 12, 2016 (Climate Central via Scientific American)

Editor’s note: click through for a lengthy profile of the nominee

“U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a sixth-term Republican from Washington State who is a climate change denier and an ardent opponent of regulations for greenhouse gas emissions, has been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump for Secretary of Interior…If McMorris Rodgers is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, she would govern the management of more than 500 million acres of federal public lands, including more than 400 national parks…Perhaps most critically, she would oversee the development of many of America’s fossil fuels and renewables resources, including all of its offshore oil, gas and wind development. Federal land is the source of more than 20 percent of all the oil and gas and 40 percent of the coal produced in the U.S…McMorris Rodgers would have the power to reverse Obama administration efforts to protect federally managed waters from oil and gas development as well as end the research into how coal mining affects the climate. Earlier this year, the Obama administration placed a three-year moratorium on federal coal leasing, and closed the entire East Coast and parts of the Arctic Ocean to offshore oil drilling…” click here for more

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More Trump Nonsense On Climate – 'Nobody really knows'

Trump says ‘nobody really knows’ if climate change is real

Juliet Eilperin, December 11, 2016 (Washington Post)

"…[U.S. President-elect Donald Trump told Fox News Sunday] that ‘nobody really knows’ whether climate change is real and that he is ‘studying’ whether the United States should withdraw from the global warming agreement struck in Paris a year ago…[He also said] he’s ‘very open-minded’ on whether climate change is underway but has serious concerns about how President Obama’s efforts to cut carbon emissions have undercut America’s global competitiveness…There is a broad scientific consensus that human activity — including the burning of fossil fuels for transportation, heating and industrial manufacturing — is driving recent climate change…Trump said he needed to balance any environmental regulation against the fact that manufacturers and other businesses in China and elsewhere are able to operate without the kind of restrictions faced by their U.S. competitors…The U.S. has outpaced the rest of the developed world in terms of growth since the 2008 recession, though developing countries such as China boast higher growth rates. Typically, economists compare the U.S. against other industrialized nations since developing countries typically grow faster than their developed counterparts…” click here for more

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Solar’s Unstoppable Boom Likely Beats Trump Barrier

These GIFs Show America's Remarkable Renewable Energy Explosion; Even the Trump administration's fossil-fuel-powered cabinet appointees may have trouble stopping this momentum.

Ben Schiller, December 9, 2016 (Sustainability)

“…[A]cross the U.S., renewable energy has been growing exponentially over the last five years: In the first quarter of this year, it made up about 15% of total electricity output. Solar alone now powers the equivalent of 6 million homes…[according to data and graphics] from the Natural Resources Defense Council…In gigawatt hours (GWh), they show where solar and wind have taken off fastest, and particularly how renewables are spread across both blue and red states, indicating their fundamental worthiness (as opposed to their ideological appeal). It's all about cost and availability… Will this growth continue now we have a coal-industry lobbyist running the Environmental Protection Agency? There are reasons to be hopeful. Federal tax breaks for solar and wind have across the board support in the Senate…[Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley recently said Trump would kill the wind energy production tax credit only ‘over my dead body…’” click here for more

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Wind’s Unstoppable Boom Likely Beats Trump Barrier

These GIFs Show America's Remarkable Renewable Energy Explosion; Even the Trump administration's fossil-fuel-powered cabinet appointees may have trouble stopping this momentum.

Ben Schiller, December 9, 2016 (Sustainability)

“...Texas leads the nation in wind power because it has lots of wind resources and because the cost of wind power has been reduced by about 50% since 2008…[Its wind boom is part of the skyrocketing growth of renewables since 2008, as shown in graphics from new graphics from the Natural Resources Defense Council …[A] lot of government support for renewables comes from the states rather than Washington, D.C…29 states and the District of Columbia now have ‘renewable portfolio standards’ requiring utilities to produce certain proportions of power from clean sources…California and New York have 50% targets by 2030, while Hawaii wants 100% by 2045…[Many city mayors want to increase renewable production and 39 recently wrote to Trump saying that unmitigated climate change could cost the U.S. economy $500 billion annually by 2050…Whatever a Trump administration does or doesn't do on climate change in the next four years, it's possible that [technology and market forces will give renewable energy enough momentum to survive…” click here for more

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Sliver Of Hope? Al Gore In Climate Change Meet With Donald Trump

Donald Trump meets with Al Gore on climate change

Tal Kopan, December 5, 2016 (CNN)

“President-elect Donald Trump met on Monday with Al Gore -- one of the most vocal advocates of fighting climate change…[After his meeting with Ivanka Trump, the President-elect's daughter, about climate issues, Gore] met with Trump himself…[Gore called the meeting] ‘lengthy and very productive…[and] a sincere search for areas of common ground.’…Many Republicans are critical of the strong scientific consensus that human activities are exacerbating global climate change, potentially threatening millions of people and their ways of life. Gore has been one of the most outspoken advocates for raising awareness about the dangers of climate change…[The President-elect has now] denied saying global warming was a Chinese hoax…[and more recently said there is ‘some connectivity’ between climate change and] carbon dioxide produced by humans…” click here for more

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The Opportunity In New Energy

Business Leaders: Electrify the U.S. Economy to Reduce Climate Change Risks; Clean energy a major private sector investment opportunity say Bloomberg, Paulson, and Steyer

December 6, 2016 (Risky Business)

“Reducing the risk posed by climate change is both economically and technically achievable, according to From Risk to Return: Investing in a Clean Energy Economy by the Risky Business Project, and would create significant new opportunities for American business…[The new report] finds that an average of $320 billion a year in private sector investment is needed through 2050 to build a clean energy economy and achieve the emissions reductions necessary to avoid the worst economic impacts of climate change. These necessary investments would be similar in scale to other major recent investments made by American business, including in computers and software at $350 billion per year over the past decade. Investments in clean energy could yield on average up to $366 billion in savings per year from reductions in spending on fossil fuels…The country would gain 1.3 million new jobs by 2050, with utilities, construction, and manufacturing seeing the largest gains. But 270,000 jobs would be lost in coal mining, oil, and gas related jobs, primarily in Southern and Mountain states…” click here for more

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Google Seizing New Energy Opportunity

Google Says It Will Run Entirely on Renewable Energy in 2017

Quentin Hardy, December 6, 2017 (NY Times)

“Last year, Google consumed as much energy as the city of San Francisco. Next year, it said, all of that energy will come from wind farms and solar panels…Like almost any company, Google gets power from a power company, which operates an energy grid typically supplied by a number of sources, including hydroelectric dams, natural gas, coal and wind power…[Over the last decade, with relatively little fanfare, Google has participated in a number of large-scale deals with renewable producers, typically guaranteeing to buy the energy they produce with their wind turbines and solar cells. With those guarantees, wind companies can obtain bank financing to build more turbines…The power created by the renewables is plugged into the utility grid, so that Google’s usage presents no net consumption of fossil fuels and the pool of electricity gets a relatively larger share of renewable sources…[Whether Google is the largest buyer of renewables would be difficult to verify, but there is no doubt its] large computer complexes, along with similar global operations by Amazon and Microsoft, are among the world’s fastest-growing new consumers of electricity…” click here for more

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Trial Of The Century Coming On Climate

Trump could face the ‘biggest trial of the century’ — over climate change

Chelsea Harvey, December 1, 2016 (Washington Post)

“…[A] federal judge in Oregon made headlines when she ruled that a groundbreaking climate lawsuit will proceed to trial. And some experts say its outcome could rewrite the future of climate policy in the United States…The case, brought by 21 youths aged 9 to 20, claims that the federal government isn’t doing enough to address the problem of climate change to protect their planet’s future — and that, they charge, is a violation of their constitutional rights on the most basic level…[Climate scientist James Hansen has] joined as a plaintiff on behalf of his granddaughter and as a guardian for ‘future generations.’…The U.S. government under President Obama, along with several others representing members of the fossil fuel industry, filed to have the lawsuit dismissed. But on Nov. 10, federal judge Ann Aiken denied the motion, clearing the case to proceed to trial.

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According to Our Children’s Trust, the nonprofit representing the youth plaintiffs…[the case will] likely go to trial by summer or early fall of 2017…[T]he trial’s outcome could have major implications for the incoming Trump administration, which aims to dismantle many of the climate and energy priorities established under President Obama…Should the plaintiffs prevail, the federal government could be forced to develop and adhere to stringent carbon-cutting measures aimed at preserving the planet’s climate future for generations to come. The only other place such action has ever been ordered by a court is in the Netherlands, where a similar case resulted in a landmark ruling last year requiring the Dutch government to slash its emissions by a quarter within five years…” click here for more

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The Wind-Solar Synergy

Wind and Solar Are Better Together; Building turbines and photovoltaics at the same location can reduce grid and battery costs and level out power supply

Ben Jervey, December 5, 2016 (Ensia via Scientific American)

“…[Wind resources tend to complement solar resources…A handful of enterprising renewable energy developers are now exploring how solar and wind might better work together, developing hybrid solar–wind projects…[with the strengths of the] two technologies in tandem serving as a better replacement for climate-warming fossil fuels than either could be alone…Co-locating wind and solar plants can save money on grid connections, site development and approvals. But that’s not the only benefit…[The developer of an Australian 10 MW solar project adjacent to a wind project] estimates savings as high as A$6 million — reducing the cost of the project by a full 20 percent…When applied to microgrid systems — local energy grids that can disconnect from the traditional grid and operate autonomously — combined solar and wind can help cut battery costs…since the wind can (and often does) blow when the sun doesn’t shine…Combining solar photovoltaics and wind turbines at the same location can actually yield up to twice the amount of electricity as having either system working alone…” click here for more

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The Still Rising Sales Of Cars With Plugs

Plug-in electric car sales surge in Nov: Volt soars, Prius Prime arrives (final update)

John Voelcker, December 4, 2016 (Green Car Reports)

“…[T]he North American winter months have seen a slowdown in sales of plug-in electric cars—but…vehicle sales for November led analysts to suggest this could be another record year for U.S. sales…And several plug-in cars set new monthly records…[S]ales of the Nissan Leaf electric car actually increased over last year's comparable number, while those of the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid soared…Toyota delivered almost 800 of its new Prius Prime plug-in hybrid…Chevrolet delivered 2,531 Volts in November, its best sales month in more than three years, bringing its 11-month sales total to 21,048…Nissan, meanwhile, sold 1,457 Leafs last month (against 1,054 a year ago), indicating that the six-year-old electric car may have some life left in it—and perhaps discounts too…Tesla Motors refuses to break down its quarterly delivery data by country, so we have no comparable data on Model S sedan and Model X crossover utility sales in the U.S…” click here for more

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