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California becomes first state to eliminate subsidies for gas line extensions amid electrification push

9/19/2022

 
The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday unanimously voted to entirely eliminate ratepayer subsidies for the extension of new gas lines beginning in July, amid a statewide push to decarbonize the building sector.  Current subsidies for gas line extensions are “a vestige of the past,” dating back to an era when the state wanted to promote the expansion of the gas system — but that policy no longer makes sense in light of California’s greenhouse gas emission reduction goals, CPUC Commissioner Clifford Rechtschaffen said at the agency’s voting meeting.- Utility Dive

Criticism intensifies after big oil admits ‘gaslighting’ public over green aims

9/19/2022

 
Criticism in the US of the oil industry’s obfuscation over the climate crisis is intensifying after internal documents showed companies attempted to distance themselves from agreed climate goals, admitted “gaslighting” the public over purported efforts to go green, and even wished critical activists be infested by bedbugs. The communications were unveiled as part of a congressional hearing held in Washington DC, where an investigation into the role of fossil fuels in driving the climate crisis produced documents obtained from the oil giants ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP. - Guardian
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The Dilbit Disaster: Inside The Biggest Oil Spill You’ve Never Heard Of, Part 1

9/1/2022

 
An acrid stench had already enveloped John LaForge’s five-bedroom house when he opened the door just after 6 a.m. on July 26, 2010. By the time the building contractor hurried the few feet to the refuge of his Dodge Ram pickup, his throat was stinging and his head was throbbing. LaForge was at work excavating a basement when his wife called a couple of hours later. The odor had become even more sickening, Lorraine told him. And a fire truck was parked in front of their house, where Talmadge Creek rippled toward the Kalamazoo River. LaForge headed home. By the time he arrived, the stink was so intense that he could barely keep his breakfast down. Something else was wrong, too. - Inside Climate News
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Earthjustice Is Suing EPA Over Coal Ash Dumps, Which Leak Toxins Into Groundwater

9/1/2022

 
- Inside Climate News

In 'aggressive' step toward clean energy, Hawaii is closing its only coal power plant

9/1/2022

 
Hawaii is getting ready to say goodbye to its only coal power plant on Sept. 1 as part of its "aggressive push to renewable energy," according to the state's top energy official. The state received its final shipment of coal last week to the AES Hawaii power plant, located on the western side of Oahu, and  s looking toward new solar and battery storage energy projects. "It's the first large fossil fuel power plant that we're retiring," said Scott Glenn, chief energy officer at Hawaii State Energy Office. "The rest of the country is also grappling with this and we don't have the tools that the rest of the country does. ... (As an island chain) we can't reach out to others for help. It's an important step for Hawaii, and I also think it's going to be something that other states look to."- USA Today

Misinformation is derailing renewable energy projects across the United States

9/1/2022

 
On a winter night in early 2016, Jeremy Kitson gathered in his buddy's large shed with some neighbors to plan their fight against a proposed wind farm in rural Van Wert County, Ohio. The project would be about a mile from his home. From the beginning, Kitson — who teaches physics and chemistry at the local high school — knew he didn't want the turbines anywhere near him. He had heard from folks who lived near another wind project about 10 miles away that the turbines were noisy and that they couldn't sleep. "There were so many people saying that it's horrible, you do not want to live under these things,'" Kitson says. - NPR
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Irreversible declines in freshwater storage projected in parts of Asia by 2060

8/21/2022

 
The Tibetan Plateau, known as the “water tower” of Asia, supplies freshwater for nearly 2 billion people who live downstream. New research led by scientists at Penn State, Tsinghua University and the University of Texas at Austin projects that climate change, under a scenario of weak climate policy, will cause irreversible declines in freshwater storage in the region, constituting a serious threat to the water supply for central Asia, Afghanistan, Northern India, Kashmir and Pakistan by the middle of the century. “The prognosis is not good,” said Michael Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State. “In a ‘business as usual’ scenario, where we fail to meaningfully curtail fossil fuel burning in the decades ahead, we can expect a substantial — that is, nearly 100% loss — of water availability to downstream regions of the Tibetan Plateau. I was surprised at just how large the predicted decrease is even under a scenario of modest climate policy.” - Penn State
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Wind and Solar Are Saving Texans $20 Million a Day

8/21/2022

 
In a year of record-high prices for fossil fuels, as lawmakers consider new policies that can help fight inflation, renewable energy is already helping to shield Americans from steep jumps in their electricity bills. For example, in Texas, even as some observers have incorrectly blamed renewables for the state’s strained power grid, more than a third of electricity in the first half of 2022 came from wind and solar projects. Wind and solar have both set records already this year. High production from renewables and high fossil fuel prices together mean wind and solar are having an outsized impact on lowering energy costs. Based on benchmark natural gas prices, RMI estimates that, on average, wind and solar projects in Texas have avoided $20 million per day in fuel that otherwise would have been needed for fossil fuel-based power plants to meet electricity demand.- RMI
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Strip Mining Worsened the Severity of Deadly Kentucky Floods, Say Former Mining Regulators. They Are Calling for an Investigation

8/21/2022

 
Two former state and federal mining regulators say state and federal authorities should investigate the role strip mining played in last week’s devastating and deadly flooding in eastern Kentucky and the condition of the mines after the torrential rainfall. The Kentucky counties, and areas of West Virginia and Virginia, flooded by torrential rains have for decades been heavily logged and strip-mined for coal—land-use practices that dramatically alter the landscape and contribute to flooding. The recent flooding has killed at least 37 people. With strip mining, trees are the first to go. Then, hundreds of feet of rock may be  blasted away from the tops or sides of mountains to get at underground seams of coal. - Inside Climate News
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Saudi Aramco: Oil giant tops own record with $48.4bn quarterly profit

8/21/2022

 
Saudi oil giant Aramco has broken its own record with a $48.4bn (£40bn) profit for the second quarter of 2022. It is a 90% year-on-year increase and marks the biggest earnings for the world's largest energy exporter since its public listing three years ago. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has seen oil and gas prices skyrocket. Russia is one of the world's biggest exporters but Western nations have pledged to curb their dependence on the country for their energy needs. According to Bloomberg, the Saudi oil giant's figure represents "the biggest quarterly adjusted profit of any listed company". As well as the record profits, the state-owned Saudi energy giant announced it would keep its dividend unchanged at $18.8bn for the third quarter. - BBC

New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States

8/21/2022

 
According to new data from the Rhodium Group analyzed by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, warming temperatures and changing rainfall will drive agriculture and temperate climates northward, while sea level rise will consume coastlines and dangerous levels of humidity will swamp the Mississippi River valley. Taken with other recent research showing that the most habitable climate in North America will shift northward and the incidence of large fires will increase across the country, this suggests that the climate crisis will profoundly interrupt the way we live and farm in the United States. See how the North American places where humans have lived for thousands of years will shift and what changes are in store for your county. - ProPublica
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New US Climate Law Will Reduce Carbon Emissions & Make Electricity Less Expensive Economists Say

8/21/2022

 
U.S. consumers are expected to save money on their electricity bills under the nation’s first comprehensive climate law—perhaps more than $200 billion over the next decade, economists project. Even utilities are talking about eased prices at the same time they are detailing new clean energy investments. The potential price drop flies in the face of an argument made by climate action foes for years—that a move to cleaner power will mean higher energy prices for U.S. homes and businesses. Instead, the Inflation Reduction Act signed this week by President Joe Biden will direct government support to companies that invest in and generate carbon-free power, lowering their costs in a way that will enable them to pass those savings to their customers, analysts say. - Inside Climate News
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The Oil and Gas Industry’s Methane Problem in Four Charts

8/21/2022

 
As the likes of Shell and ExxonMobil continue to generate bumper profits this year, the oil and gas industry’s windfall stands in stark contrast to two crises gripping the world: soaring inflation and climate change. Shareholders are certainly reaping the benefits of the record earnings in the form of buybacks and dividends. But the planet would gain from oil and gas companies spending more to lower their carbon footprint, specifically methane emissions.- BNEF
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Texas stumbles in its effort to punish green financial firms

4/29/2022

 
For years, fossil fuel producing states have watched investors shy away from companies causing the climate crisis. Last year, one state decided to push back. Texas passed a law treating financial companies shunning fossil fuels the same way it treated companies that did business with Iran, or Sudan: boycott them. "This bill sent a strong message to both Washington and Wall Street that if you boycott Texas energy, then Texas will boycott you," Texas Representative Phil King said from the floor of the Texas legislature during deliberations on the bill, SB 13, last year. But the Lone Star state is straining to implement the law. Loopholes and exceptions written into the law could sap its impact on financial firms that have aggressive climate policies. - NPR
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The Power of Big Oil

4/19/2022

 
FRONTLINE examines the fossil fuel industry’s history of casting doubt and delaying action on climate change. This three-part series traces decades of missed opportunities and the ongoing attempts to hold Big Oil to account. - Frontline
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Switching to clean energy would save over 100,000 US lives, American Lung Assn.

4/19/2022

 
If the United States switched completely to cleaner energy vehicles and power plants, it would not only benefit the environment but also save an estimated 110,000 lives and $1.2 trillion in health costs over the next 30 years, the American Lung Association says in a new report. “These numbers are enormous," said Will Barrett, the national senior director of advocacy, clean air, for the American Lung Association. "It's hard to wrap your head around. $1.2 trillion in public health benefits and 100,000 lives saved." - ABC News

What Is the Keystone XL Pipeline?

4/16/2022

 
The Keystone XL pipeline extension, proposed by TC Energy (then TransCanada) in 2008, was initially designed to transport the planet’s dirtiest fossil fuel, tar sands oil, to market—and fast. As an expansion of the company’s existing Keystone Pipeline System, which has been operating since 2010 (and continues to send Canadian tar sands crude oil from Alberta to various processing hubs in the middle of the United States), the pipeline promised to dramatically increase capacity to process the 168 billion barrels of crude oil locked up under Canada’s boreal forest. It was expected to transport 830,000 barrels of Alberta tar sands oil per day to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas. From the refineries, the oil would be sent chiefly overseas—not to gasoline pumps in the United States. - NRDC
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AZ regulators deny SRP gas plant expansion, citing community impacts and insufficient supporting evidence

4/13/2022

 
​The Arizona Corporation Commission on Tuesday voted 4-1 to deny an 820-MW expansion at a gas plant proposed by Salt River Project. Regulators said there was insufficient evidence in the record to make a decision, and the expansion would put too much pressure on the nearby, historically-Black community of Randolph. - Utility Dive

SRP’s baffling, costly natural gas expansion (Op-Ed)

4/7/2022

 
The U.S. power generation market has changed dramatically over the past five years. Natural gas has been bleeding market share to cheaper sources of electricity, which include solar, wind, and even nuclear. At roughly $5 per MMbtu, the price of natural gas today is more than double what it was just two years ago. Even at half of that price, natural gas has been unable to compete with solar in the Southwest. - AZ Capitol Times
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Europe's Biggest Lie - (2-Part Documentary Videos)

3/29/2022

 
This is offered without vetting. It seemed worth inclusion for somebody to review. If you review this, please let me know what you think, what questions you have.  JS

Told by people in the UK and the Netherlands, this two-part series reveals the scale and life-threatening impact of the pollution we breathe in every day, as well as the inaction of our governments. - WaterBear Films
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Gas Prices May Be Rising But You’re Still Not Paying for the True Cost of Driving

3/26/2022

 
But nonetheless, as politicians try to bring down the cost of gas, I want to take a moment to reflect on the true cost of driving. That cost includes not just the price of a vehicle and filling up the tank but also the costs that operating it impose on society, including pollution that drives climate change. Calculating the damage done by pollution and other factors such as traffic and accidents—what economists call externalities—is a fraught process, and economists don’t necessarily agree about all the variables. But one thing is true under any reasoned consideration: driving costs society much more than you’re paying to do it. - Yahoo / Time
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Why geothermal energy is being viewed as a viable alternative to fossil fuels

3/26/2022

 
President Biden and the European Union on Friday announced new plans to enable Europe to become less dependent on Russian oil and gas. But for now, the Russian invasion has opened up much larger questions over our dependence on fossil fuels and the need to develop cleaner renewable energy. Science correspondent Miles O'Brien reports on how and why geothermal energy is attracting new interest. - PBS
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Microsoft heads up $34M investment in software platform to cut cargo ship emissions

3/16/2022

 
Hundreds of cargo ships already use Nautilus’ software system to monitor and optimize their voyages, according to the company. That includes vessels owned or operated by the French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies, Eastern Pacific Shipping and Emirates Shipping Line. So far, Nautilus clients have saved up to 12 percent on fuel costs per voyage, with the overall savings potential expected to reach as high as 30 percent. - Canary Media
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In Peru, fishermen struggle to stay afloat after oil spill

3/14/2022

 
After a large crude-oil spill by the Spanish-owned Repsol oil refinery caused suspension of fishing in Peru, more than 2,500 fishermen have been out of work. Those affected are on the poverty line and it remains unclear when they can return to fish.  - CSMonitor

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A Century of Oil & Gas Development Has Devastated the Ponca City Region of Northern Oklahoma

3/5/2022

 
When Earl “Trey” Howe III returned home here after four years of military service, the first thing he noticed was the smell. Howe grew up in and around Ponca City, the site of the Phillips 66 refinery, one of the oldest and largest crude oil refineries and tank farms in the country. The smell from the plant—a sulfur-rich odor somewhere between rotten eggs and freshly paved asphalt—was so constant, he’d never even noticed it. But now, it seemed to follow him everywhere. "Depending on which way the wind is blowing, I’ll get a stronger whiff on some days than others,” Howe, 51, the former chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma, said. “It’s overpowering sometimes.” - Inside Climate News
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