Energy

Is The California Coalition Fighting Subsidies For Rooftop Solar A Fake Grassroots Group?

February 8, 2022 Anne Marshall-Chalmers and Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News. Educate! Astroturfing, California, Energy, Solar Energy

In the fight over California’s rooftop solar policy, a coalition that claims to represent low-income, senior and environmental leaders is running ads warning about a cost shift that forces consumers to subsidize solar for people who live in mansions. This message, by Affordable Clean Energy for All, is trying to influence the debate as California regulators consider rules that would sharply reduce the financial benefits of owning rooftop systems. But Affordable Clean Energy for All is not a grassroots movement. It is a public relations campaign sponsored by big utility companies that stand to benefit from policies that hurt rooftop solar. Many of the 100-plus groups that make up the coalition have received charitable donations or other financial support from the utilities.

Big Problems With Proposals For Small Nuclear Reactors

January 28, 2022 Mike Garrity, Counter Punch. Educate! Energy, Environment, Montana, Nuclear Energy

Politicians and investor-owned utilities are now proposing small nuclear reactors in Montana to replace the old coal-fired power plants at Colstrip. For the last 44 years a successful Citizens’ Initiative banned nuclear power in Montana unless approved by the voters. But Republican majorities in the 2021 Montana legislature repealed the initiative and Republican Governor Gianforte signed the bill into law. There are similar proposals in Wyoming and Idaho. But the rush to nukes suffered a major setback this month when the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied the application to build and operate the nation’s first small modular nuclear 720 megawatt reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory.

Climate Change In The American Empire

January 28, 2022 Simon Turner, Audacity Magazine. Strategize! climate crisis, Energy, Environment, Nationalization

Here’s to 2022. A new year to displace one of the twenty previous warmest years globally since records began: the last twenty apart from 1998 with its strong El Niño. The summer of 2021 saw the Met Office in the UK issue what was its first-ever “extreme heat warning.” Over in Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia, flash floods left more than 120 people dead. “You don’t expect people to die in a flood in Germany. Maybe in poorer countries, you could understand it, but not in Germany” was a comment that went viral. Question: What’s the difference between climate change and COVID?

Hydrogen’s Hidden Emissions

January 22, 2022 Global Witness. Educate! Carbon emissions, Energy, Hydrogen, Shell Oil

In just a few years, hydrogen has shot into mainstream conversations about tackling the climate crisis. It is now one of the most hotly discussed energy topics, and a very particular form of hydrogen known as fossil hydrogen (or 'blue hydrogen’) is being pushed by the fossil fuel industry for government backing. They claim it is climate friendly and can help with efforts to decarbonize our energy system, as it involves the use of carbon capture technology to trap and store emissions. One of the very few plants of this type, “Quest” is owned by Shell in Alberta, Canada. Shell have boasted about the project as an example of how it is tackling global heating, claiming that the project demonstrates that carbon capture systems are “safe and effective” and is a “thriving example” of how this technology can significantly reduce carbon emissions.

Farmers Reject Nicor’s Pipe Dream

January 21, 2022 Zoe Pharo, In These Times. Resist! Chicago, Community organizing, Energy, Pipelines

Pembroke Township, Illinois - At the end of a maze of dirt roads lies a 40-acre teaching farm called Black Oaks Center, where local residents gathered on a Sunday in November 2021 for a farmland restoration workshop and community gathering. “If you all want to bust wood again, they’re out there,” said Dr. Jifunza Wright-Carter — who runs the center with her husband, Fred Carter — to the newest arrivals. Some joined the group clearing felled trees for off-grid homesteading, while others stayed inside to warm up and chat. In addition to raising food and hosting classes, Black Oaks has become a hub for organizing against a proposed natural gas pipeline some locals say threatens the area’s farming way of life, which is rooted in environmental stewardship.

The Indigenous Grandmothers Who Stopped A Pipeline

January 13, 2022 Lindsay Jones, Maclean's. Strategize! Energy, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Pipelines

Cheryl Maloney’s eyes glossed over with tears as she stood near the bank of the Stewiacke River in the middle of Nova Scotia. The news was finally sinking in. Behind her, about 100 people filled plates with spaghetti and fried chicken; the crowd included her 11-year-old grandson, Drake Nevin, one of many children who’d spent most of their childhoods fighting alongside Elders to protect this river system. She saw the drift netters—white fishers who catch shad in these waters—reminiscing, and amber leaves floating on the water like confetti. Two weeks earlier, Alton Gas, a subsidiary of Calgary-based AltaGas, had abandoned a project that would have pumped 10,000 cubic metres of brine into the mouth of this river each day for as long as a decade, leaving behind subterranean caverns where the company planned to store natural gas.

What Can A 1970s Farmers’ Uprising Against An Energy Transition Teach Us?

January 4, 2022 Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News. Educate! Energy, Farmers, Infrastructure, Minnesota

If the United States is to make a transition to clean energy, it will need to build many more transmission lines—the thick wires that deliver power from rural areas, where there’s enough open space for wind and solar, to cities where the most power is consumed. But the process of building those lines is likely to be fraught with conflict and delays, because people in rural and suburban communities often don’t want to see wires and tall metal towers in their backyards. Clean energy advocates say that power companies need to do more to understand what fuels public opposition and how best to engage with power line opponents. And one way to start, they say, might be to examine one of the most intense battles over an interstate power line in U.S. history, which unfolded across rural Minnesota for much of the 1970s.

Germany One Step Closer To Nuclear-Free Future

January 1, 2022 Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams. Create! Energy, Environment, Germany, Nuclear Power

Green groups on Friday celebrated as Germany prepared to shut down three of its six remaining nuclear power plants, part of that country's ambitious goal of transitioning to mostly renewable energy by the end of the decade. The nuclear phaseout—which was proposed by the center-left government of former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder at the turn of the century and accelerated under former Chancellor Angela Merkel following the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan—is a key component of a plan by Germany's new Social Democrat, Green, and Free Democrat governing coalition to produce 80% of the country's power from renewable sources by the end of the decade. Renewables accounted for 43% of German electricity consumption through the first three quarters of 2021, down from 48% during the same period last year, according to Clean Energy Wire.

Rally Calls For ISO To Fix The Grid In New England

November 15, 2021 Community Action Works, Popular Resistance. Resist! Electric Grid, Energy, Fossil Fuels, Northeast

Dozens of people gathered in Holyoke, Massachusetts to protest the New England electric system operator, known as ISO-NE, for ignoring public concerns and hampering the transition from dirty fossil fuels to clean solar and wind power. One speaker, Nathan Phillips, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University, summed up the prevailing spirit, “It's time for ISO to declare independence from our fossil fueled energy system and operate differently, with the urgency our climate crisis demands.” Mirelle Bejjani of Community Action Works said, “We’re having this rally because the electric system in the Northeast needs to be powered by renewable energy and the steps decision-makers are proposing are too little too late.”

Cop26: Surging Wood Pellet Industry Threatens Climate

November 10, 2021 Sharon Guynup, Mongabay. Educate! Biomass, climate crisis, COP26, Energy

Representatives From 192 Nations Continue Meeting In Glasgow, Scotland, At COP26 This Week In Hopes Of Making Deals To Save Humanity, Cool The Planet, And Salvage Their Nations’ Reputations. However, Absent From The Conference Agenda Are Discussions Of Carbon Accounting Loopholes That Scientists Say Are Dangerously Underreporting Emissions And Speeding Climate Change. An Overlooked Issue Is Forest Biomass: Burning Wood To Produce Energy. Despite Research Proving Otherwise, The Practice Continues To Be Called Carbon Neutral By Nations And The Forestry Industry, Allowing Significant Greenhouse Gas Emissions To Go Uncounted. That Has Caused Some Policy And Advocacy Groups To Dub Forest Biomass Burning “The Green Myth.”

Oil Industry Bigwigs Given Platform At COP26 Despite Organisers’ Claims

November 2, 2021 Adam Ramsay, Open Democracy. Educate! Big Oil, climate crisis, COP26, Energy

Representatives of major oil companies including BP will be speaking at COP26, despite reassurances from organisers that they wouldn’t be welcome, a programme from inside the venue reveals. Last month, it was revealed that oil companies including BP were being excluded from official roles at COP26, with organisers casting doubt on the firms’ claimed ambitions to eliminate carbon emissions. At the time, the exclusion was seen as a victory for environmental campaigners, who have long called for major polluters to be excluded from UN climate conferences. However, a programme of events obtained by openDemocracy reveals that representatives of Big Oil have been allowed into the conference under the umbrella of a trade association that has a stall at the heart of COP26.

The Dirty Dozen Documents Of Big Oil’s Secret Climate Knowledge

November 1, 2021 Paul D. Thacker, DeSmog. Educate! Big Oil, climate crisis, Energy, Fossil Fuels

“Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes,” said ExxonMobil lobbyist Keith McCoy. “Did we join some of these ‘shadow groups’ to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that’s true. But there’s nothing illegal about that.” These are the words McCoy was caught saying on a secretly recorded video released by Unearthed, Greenpeace U.K.’s investigative journalism arm, and the British Channel 4 News this summer exposing how the oil giant and lobby groups such as the American Petroleum Institute seed doubt about climate change and undermine legislation to stop global warming. These revelations quickly spurred calls for Congress to investigate Exxon’s and other fossil fuel companies’ efforts to obstruct climate action.

Energy Belongs In Public Hands

October 26, 2021 Sandy Hager, Joseph Baines and Miriam Brett, Tribune Magazine. Create! Energy, Energy Prices, New Economy, Public ownership

Already reeling from the turmoil of Covid-19 and the complex challenges posed by Brexit, the UK economy is facing yet another crisis: extraordinary spikes in wholesale electricity and gas prices. With surging wholesale prices, domestic energy bills are predicted to rise by at least 30 percent by early next year. The fallout from rising gas prices is already being felt in the retail energy sector. Thirteen energy companies have gone bust due to rocketing natural gas prices since the start of August, meaning that two million customers have lost their supplier. There are nearly 50 energy suppliers in the UK, but pundits are predicting a ‘massacre’ in the sector, with upwards of 20 more companies expected to fold this winter. The energy market, already dominated by a handful of large companies, is likely to experience further concentration.

Environmental And Labor Groups Urge Canada To Support Just Transition

October 24, 2021 Nick Cunningham, DeSmog. Create! Canada, Energy, Just transition, Worker Rights and Jobs

Canada has not provided a transition pathway for its fossil fuel workers to move into other industries, and as global demand for oil and gas wanes, tens of thousands of workers could lose their jobs, say the authors of a new report. Roughly 167,000 people are directly employed in Canada’s oil and gas industry, but increased automation combined with the energy transition and climate policy mean that half of those jobs are slated to disappear by the end of the decade, according to a report published on October 13 by the Climate Action Network Canada and Blue Green Canada, which is a coalition of labor and environmental groups. The report said there is potential to transition many of these workers into cleaner industries, but action is needed by the federal and provincial governments to ease the pathway.

Biden’s Forest Service To Facilitate Quadrupling Of Oil Production

October 23, 2021 Center for Biological Diversity. Educate! Biden administration, climate crisis, Energy, Oil

Salt Lake city, Utah - In a massive blow to U.S. efforts to address the climate crisis, the Biden administration is poised to approve a right-of-way through the Ashley National Forest that would take the climate-damaging Uinta Basin Railway one step closer to being built. The railway would enable crude oil production in the basin to quadruple to 350,000 barrels a day. Over a year, that much oil would produce planet-warming pollution conservatively estimated at 53 million tons of carbon dioxide — equivalent to the emissions from six of Utah’s dirtiest coal plants. At an October 22 meeting of the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, board members discussed a recent meeting in Utah with U.S. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore.

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