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Power Plants

Blocking Trains And Removing Coal, Climate Activists Fight To Close One Of New England’s Largest Power Plants

January 28, 2020 Sarah Freeman-Woolpert and Arnie Alpert, Wagingnonviolence.org , ,
By escalating from symbolic actions to obstruction, the #NoCoalNoGas campaign is mounting a serious challenge to the fossil fuel industry with a growing network of climate activists. Under cover of darkness, dozens of climate activists snuck into the forest in the small town of Harvard, Massachusetts. The air was buzzing with nervous excitement as the group filed along a dirt path next to the railroad tracks, carrying heavy metal scaffolding.

Shutting US Coal Plants Saved More Than 26,000 Lives Over The Past Decade

January 10, 2020 Staff, E360.yale.edu ,
The shutdown of hundreds of coal-fired power plants in the United States over the past decade has saved an estimated 26,610 lives, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Sustainability. This closure of coal plants also has reduced carbon dioxide emissions and lowered air pollution and ozone levels, and has even increased nearby crop yields, the study found. More than 330 coal-fired power plants stopped operating in the U.S. between 2005 and 2016, thanks in part due to aging facilities and a glut of cheap natural gas.

Coal Train Protesters Target One Of New England’s Last Big Coal Power Plants

January 7, 2020 By Phil McKenna, Insideclimatenews.org , ,
Climate activists halted a coal train bound for one of New England's last large coal-fired power plants by building a barricade on the tracks and sitting on it for about eight hours this week. The delay was temporary, but it was the fifth time activists had stopped a coal train in the region in less than a month. The protest is part of an ongoing effort to eliminate coal-fired power production in New England. It also draws attention to what activists say is a costly and unnecessary subsidy for coal-burning power plants that consumers ultimately pay.

Burrillville Power Plant Blocked By RI Regulators

June 22, 2019 Staff, Wpri.com ,
WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — After more than two years of widespread debate, state regulators on Thursday rejected a $1 billion proposal to build a gas-fired power plant in Burrillville. The three-member Energy Facility Siting Board, which oversees all major energy developments across the state, unanimously voted against the proposal by Invenergy to build what would have become the largest power plant in Rhode Island. The board determined Invenergy failed to prove the plant was needed.

Climate Emissions From Gulf Coast’s New Petrochemical, Oil And Gas Projects Same As 29 New Coal Power Plants

October 24, 2018 By Sharon Kelly, Desmogblog.com , , , , ,
In the last six years, officials in Texas and Louisiana issued permits allowing 74 petrochemical, oil, and gas projects to pump as much climate-warming pollution into the atmosphere as running 29 coal-fired power plants around the clock, according to numbers released September 26 by the nonprofit watchdog Environmental Integrity Project. And construction appears to be speeding up, with over 40 percent of those projects permitted between 2016 and mid-2018. The 31 most recent projects combined will add 50 million tons of greenhouse gases — equal to 11 new coal-fired power plants — to the world’s atmosphere in a year, the watchdog adds. Environmentalists pointed to the risks that climate change poses to Gulf Coast states...

Cities Could Create Massive Virtual Power Plants With Distributed Solar

February 6, 2018 By Fred Lambert, Electrek.co , , ,
It will function much like Tesla’s giant Powerpack system, which charges when demand and electricity rates are low and discharges when demand and prices are high. We reported last month the single battery system managed to make around $1 million in just a few days. The new project is going to be financed through power sales and it is being assisted by the government with a $2 million grant and $30 million loan from the Renewable Technology Fund. The government says that they already started installations for a trial in 1,100 Housing Trust properties, which is for lower-income households. Tesla plans to ramp up its deployment in the next few years and have all 50,000 systems installed by 2022.

9 Eastern States Agree To Cut Power Plant Emissions An Extra 30%

August 26, 2017 Georgiana Gustin, www.insideclimatenews.org , ,
By Georgiana Gustin for Inside Climate News - Nine eastern states announced Wednesday that they have agreed on a proposal to cut global-warming pollution from the region's power plants an additional 30 percent between 2020 and 2030. The compact of Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) has worked for two years to hammer out the next step in their landmark emissions cap-and-trade program, which puts a price on carbon dioxide emissions from the production of electricity. The program has a track record of cutting emissions fairly painlessly across a densely populated section of the country. Advocacy groups and policy makers have been closely watching the outcome of the negotiations. The RGGI states' decision on how to move forward, which still must be finalized, is seen as a test case of states' commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions as the Trump administration attempts to dismantle federal climate policies, including the Clean Power Plan that was the Obama administration's plan for controlling power plant emissions. The RGGI states—with five Republican governors and four Democratic governors—together represent the world's sixth largest economy, with $2.8 trillion in GDP. California, where the legislature recently voted to extend its own cap-and-trade program through 2030, falls just behind in GDP, at $2.5 trillion.

‘No New Power Plant’ Dominates Ancients And Horribles Parade

July 6, 2017 Steve Ahlquist, www.rifuture.org ,
By Steve Ahlquist for RI Future - For the second year in a row a float with the theme of opposing Invenergy‘s proposed $1 billion fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant has taken first prize in the Glocester, Rhode Island Ancients and Horribles Parade. The float and marchers won first place in two categories, Large Float and Best Current Event. It should be noted that there were at least two groups opposing the plant marching in the parade, and that not everyone marching in the parade opposing the plant were backing all the messaging on display in the pictures below. The Burrillville Land Trust marched earlier in the parade and had its own messaging separate from the float and marchers who won awards. Paul Roselli, president of the Burrillville Land Trust, spoke briefly (in the video below) about the need to finish the power plant off before next year’s parade. After the Burrillville Land Trust and separated by some bands and other marchers came the award winning float. This year, actors pantomimed Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Johnston Mayor Joseph Polisena enabling Invenergy’s director of development John Niland as he consumed the Scituate Reservoir.

New Yorkers Disrupt Power Plant’s Breaking-Ground Ceremony

June 29, 2017 Kim Fraczek and Lee Stewart, www.popularresistance.org , ,
By Kim Fraczek and Lee Stewart for Sane Energy Project and Beyond Extreme Energy - Dover, NY – The controversial Cricket Valley Gas-Fired Power Plant’s golden-shovel ceremony was disrupted today by a large, golden bell rung by NY voters and local farmers expressing an alarm-bell for regional waters and soil, nearby school children that will breath toxic emissions, decline in quality, local jobs and economy, and a gigantic methane producer at the height of a global climate crisis. Cricket Valley, an 1,100MW power plant not only locks New York into a future of dirty fuels via the plant’s connection to the Dominion Pipeline expansion, but also slates the connected Iroquois Pipeline for flow reversal expansion to export the gas to foreign markets via Canada putting the health and safety risk on the local community for private profit. Although Governor Cuomo has made bold statements about being a climate leader, he sets policy to a different tune. He recently issued a Methane Reduction Plan shortly following his 2017 State of the State address where he said “New York must double down by investing in the fight against dirty fossil fuels and fracked gas from neighboring states.”

Natural Gas Power Plants Emit Up To 120 Times More Methane Than Previously Estimated

March 27, 2017 Steve Horn, www.desmogblog.com , ,
By Steve Horn for Desmog Blog - Researchers at Purdue University and the Environmental Defense Fund have concluded in a recent study that natural gas power plants release 21–120 times more methane than earlier estimates. Published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, the study also found that for oil refineries, emission rates were 11–90 times more than initial estimates. Natural gas, long touted as a cleaner and more climate-friendly alternative to burning coal, is obtained in the U.S. mostly via the controversial horizontal drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”).

Power Plant Battle Follows Governor Raimondo To Washington D.C.

January 17, 2017 Steve Ahlquist, www.rifuture.org ,
By Steve Ahlquist for RI Future - Lee Stewart entered the JPM Chase United States Capitol Visitor Center in Washington DC and followed the signs to the forum. When he got to the desk, he asked if he could attend, even though he hadn’t pre-registered. The people at the desk registered him and gave him a name tag. Stewart then found the room where Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo was sharing the stage with Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA); Governor Mary Fallin (R-OK) and Michael Bloomberg and sat down and waited. When Raimondo began to speak Stewart stood up and said, “Governor Raimondo, I have a a very simple message for you from the people of Rhode Island...

Federal Probe Of Competitive Power Ventures

May 5, 2016 Pramilla Malick and Nadine Raia, www.blog.protectorangecounty.org , , ,
By Pramilla Malick and Nadine Raia for Protect Orange County - Slate Hill N.Y.- The residents of Orange County have long been calling for a federal investigation into the numerous irregularities in the approval process for the CPV Valley Power Plant and related Minisink Compressor Station. (This 650 MW fracked-gas power plant is now under construction in Orange County, N.Y.) We applaud the launch of this probe and hope it serves to explain these irregularities and restore the integrity of the review process.

FANG Escalates Protest In New England

April 21, 2016 FANG, www.PopularResistance.org ,
By FANG. The past three days, FANG has been nonviolently escalating our efforts to stop the fracked-gas power plant proposed for Burrillville and to confront other forms of injustice. It's all part of an unannounced Week of Action, that FANG is simply calling #theWOA. Check out this quick recap about what's happened so far. Wednesday - A group of Boston area residents delivered an "Annual Report" to National Grid at their North American headquarter building. The Report detailed how National Grid is failing our communities via their support of the LNG facility proposed for Providence, their support of the fracked-gas industry as a whole and their immoral utility shutoffs. Four people were arrested after refusing to leave. . .

Miami’s Oceanfront Nuclear Power Plant Is Leaking

March 10, 2016 Rob Wile, www.fusion.net , ,
By Rob Wile for Fusion - What is arguably America’s least-well-placed nuclear power plant is leaking radiation into the sea. The University of Miami has found that the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant, located just south of Miami, has caused levels of tritium, a radioactive isotope, in Biscayne Bay to spike to 200-times higher than normal levels. “This is one of several things we were very worried about,” South Miami Mayor Philip Stoddard, who is also a biological sciences professor at Florida International University, told the Miami New Times.

Nuclear Industry Prices Itself Out Of Market For New Power Plants

March 10, 2016 Joe Romm, www.thinkprogress.org ,
By Joe Romm for Think Progress - In the modern era, nuclear power plants have almost always become more and more expensive over time. They have a “negative learning curve” — along with massive delays and cost overruns in market economies. This is confirmed both by recent studies and by the ongoing cost escalations of nuclear plants around the world, as I’ll detail in this post. In the United States, the cost of Georgia Power’s newest twin Vogtle reactors may top initial estimates of $14 billion and reach $21 billion, according to recent Georgia Public Service Commission testimony.
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