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Category: Renewable energy/fossil fuels

Blaming the wind for the mess in Texas is ridiculous

Blaming the wind for the mess in Texas is ridiculous

Wind turbines in Antarctica. Spoiler: they work in the cold. pic.twitter.com/Ws2nItJLhF — ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) February 17, 2021 Bill McKibben writes: Sometimes, all you need is a map. In the wake of this week’s power failures in Texas, which have left millions without heat in subfreezing conditions, right-wing politicians and news networks decided that the emergency was down to “frozen wind turbines,” a phrase that has now been repeated ad infinitum on all the various ganglia that make up the…

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UK could ban sale of combustion-engine powered cars in 12 years, says transport minister

UK could ban sale of combustion-engine powered cars in 12 years, says transport minister

The Guardian reports: The government could ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars in 2032, three years earlier than previously suggested, the transport secretary has said. A consultation launched last week suggested all cars with internal combustion engines could be banned from 2035 but Grant Shapps told BBC radio on Wednesday the ban could come within 12 years. The ban would happen by 2035 – or even 2032, subject to consultation, he said. The comments will add to the…

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If the world ran on sunshine, it wouldn’t fight over oil

If the world ran on sunshine, it wouldn’t fight over oil

Last September, Bill McKibben wrote: We are sadly accustomed by now to the idea that our reliance on oil and gas causes random but predictable outbreaks of flood, firestorm and drought. The weekend’s news from the Gulf is a grim reminder that depending on oil leads inevitably to war too. Depending on how far back you want to stand, the possibility of war with Iran stems from a calculated decision by Tehran or its Houthi allies to use drones and…

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Huge battery investments reduce energy-storage costs faster than expected, threatening natural gas

Huge battery investments reduce energy-storage costs faster than expected, threatening natural gas

Jeff McMahon writes: The global energy transition is happening faster than the models predicted, according to a report released today by the Rocky Mountain Institute, thanks to massive investments in the advanced-battery technology ecosystem. Previous and planned investments total $150 billion through 2023, RMI calculates—the equivalent of every person in the world chipping in $20. In the first half of 2019 alone, venture-capital firms contributed $1.4 billion to energy storage technology companies. “These investments will push both Li-ion and new…

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U.S.-China trade war threatens renewable energy

U.S.-China trade war threatens renewable energy

The Financial Times (via Inside Climate News) reports: Leaders of the wind power industry are warning that the global trade war could endanger progress on renewable energy, as slowing growth in clean energy projects puts the goals of the Paris climate accord at risk. “Trade wars do real damages to business by inflating prices,” said Henrik Andersen, chief executive of Denmark-based Vestas, the world’s biggest wind turbine manufacturer. “When tariffs impact new technologies like renewable energy, it makes them less…

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Renewable energy has become the most profitable form of power production

Renewable energy has become the most profitable form of power production

Bloomberg reports: The chief executive of the world’s largest private coal company sat before a group of U.S. lawmakers who wanted to know whether the fuel had a future. He didn’t hesitate. “Coal,” he said, “is the future.” It was 2010. Coal supplied nearly half of America’s power, the executive testified, and was growing more than 1.5 times faster than oil, natural gas, nuclear and renewables combined. Global demand was on pace to rise 53% within two decades. And renewable…

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U.S. generates more power from renewables — decline of coal ‘unstoppable’ despite Trump’s rhetoric

U.S. generates more power from renewables — decline of coal ‘unstoppable’ despite Trump’s rhetoric

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The Guardian reports: The US generated more electricity from renewable sources than coal for the first time ever in April, new federal government data has shown. Clean energy such as solar and wind provided 23% of US electricity generation during the month, compared with coal’s 20%, according to the Energy Information Administration. This represents the first time coal has been surpassed by energy sources that do not release pollution such as planet-heating gases. April was a favorable month for renewables,…

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The U.S. military is locked in a power struggle with wind farms

The U.S. military is locked in a power struggle with wind farms

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Wired reports: When Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Goana takes off in his T-38 Talon training jet, he flies a loop north toward the Red River, which forms a meandering border between north Texas and southern Oklahoma. For decades, the remote farming area has been an ideal training ground for Air Force pilots like Goana. But in recent years, he says, there’s been a new obstacle: wind turbines that now generate a third of Oklahoma’s electricity and 17 percent of the power…

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Our zero-emission future

Our zero-emission future

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Jeffrey D. Sachs writes: The solution to human-induced climate change is finally in clear view. Thanks to rapid advances in zero-carbon energy technologies, and in sustainable food systems, the world can realistically end greenhouse-gas emissions by mid-century at little or no incremental cost, and with decisive benefits for safety and health. The main obstacle is inertia: politicians continue to favor the fossil-fuel industry and traditional agriculture mainly because they don’t know better or are on the take. Most global warming,…

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Investing in renewable energy in order to increase oil production

Investing in renewable energy in order to increase oil production

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Jesse Barron writes: Rex Tillerson stood under a 32-foot pipe organ at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, explaining how the world worked. It was May 2015, in the middle of an oil-price crash, and Exxon Mobil’s earnings had fallen 46 percent compared with the same quarter the year before. But Tillerson, then Exxon’s chief executive, told his shareholders to be confident in the future. Oil and gas furnished billions of people, including the very poor, with cheap,…

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Most U.S. coal power plants would save money by switching to wind or solar

Most U.S. coal power plants would save money by switching to wind or solar

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Fast Company reports: As wind and solar power keep getting cheaper, coal power–which was the cheapest source of electricity for decades–is no longer economical in much of the U.S. A new analysis looked at every coal plant in the country and compared the cost of running those plants to the cost of operating a new wind or solar plant. As of 2018, 74% of existing coal plants cost more to operate than new local wind or solar. “Our hypothesis was…

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White House can’t say whether wind turbines cause cancer but Sen. Grassley calls Trump’s claim ‘idiotic’

White House can’t say whether wind turbines cause cancer but Sen. Grassley calls Trump’s claim ‘idiotic’

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  Question: "Do wind turbines cause cancer?" Mercedes Schlapp, White House Director of Strategic Communications: "I don't have an answer to that." pic.twitter.com/cxcZHQoov2 — The Hill (@thehill) April 3, 2019 Des Moines Register reports: Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley — a champion of the wind energy tax credit — said President Donald Trump’s comments that wind turbines cause cancer were “idiotic” in a call with reporters Wednesday. “I’m told that the White House respects my views on a lot of issues,”…

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Costa Rica lays out ground-breaking decarbonisation plan

Costa Rica lays out ground-breaking decarbonisation plan

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Renew Economy reports: The Central American nation of Costa Rica has laid out its long-term decarbonisation plans to become one of the world’s first, if not the first, zero-emissions nations. Costa Rica’s Decarbonization Plan includes both short-term goals out to 2022 which are intended to support the country’s longer-term 2050 goals and also serves as the basis for Costa Rica’s plans to update its Nationally Determined Contributions in line with the Paris Agreement in 2020. With a population of nearly…

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At last, divestment is hitting the fossil fuel industry where it hurts

At last, divestment is hitting the fossil fuel industry where it hurts

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Bill McKibben writes: I remember well the first institution to announce it was divesting from fossil fuel. It was 2012 and I was on the second week of a gruelling tour across the US trying to spark a movement. Our roadshow had been playing to packed houses down the west coast, and we’d crossed the continent to Portland, Maine. As a raucous crowd jammed the biggest theatre in town, a physicist named Stephen Mulkey took the mic. He was at…

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With a Green New Deal, here’s what the world could look like for the next generation

With a Green New Deal, here’s what the world could look like for the next generation

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Kate Aronoff reports: What, exactly, would a Green New Deal entail? Like its 1930s counterpart, the “Green New Deal” isn’t a specific set of programs so much as an umbrella under which various policies might fit, ranging from technocratic to transformative. The sheer scale of change needed to deal effectively with climate change is massive, as the scientific consensus is making increasingly clear, requiring an economy-wide mobilization of the sort that the United States hasn’t really undertaken since World War…

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