2017-01-05 Energy Week

Visitors Please Note: This blog is maintained to assist in developing a TV show, Energy Week with George Harvey and Tom Finnell. The post is put up in incomplete form, and is updated with news until it is completed, usually on Wednesday. The source is geoharvey.wordpress.com.

Within a few days of the last update, the show may be seen, along with older shows, at this link on the BCTV website: Energy Week Series.

Because the BCTV studio was closed for the week of December 25 through 31, this edition of Energy Week covers two weeks.

Thursday, December 22:

• New wind energy is now being contracted for prices as low as 6.45¢/kWh in Ontario, well below the average cost for electricity generation of 11.14 cents as of May 1, 2016. Forecasters expect costs for wind power to continue declining. At the same time, costs for other forms of new or refurbished generation are increasing. [Your Renewable News]

Friday, December 23:

• 8minutenergy Renewables claims to have “the first operational solar PV installation to beat fossil fuel prices in California.” The 155-MW Springbok 2 Solar Farm in Kern County will provide electricity to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power at $35 to $38 per MWh (adjusted for inflation) over the PPA term. [Greentech Media]

Solar panel road (Photo: Christophe Petit Tesson / EPA)

• France has opened what it claims to be the world’s first solar panel road, in a Normandy village. A 1-km (0.6-mile) route in the small village of Tourouvre-au-Perche covered with 2,800 sq m of electricity-generating panels. It cost €5m (£4.2m) to construct and will be used by about 2,000 motorists a day during a two-year test. [The Guardian]

Saturday, December 24:

• A study from researchers at Lappeenranta University of Technology shows that South America could transition to fully renewable electricity by 2030. The study, by LUT and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, also shows a 100% renewable system is the least costly option and would need little energy storage. [Renewable Energy Focus]
• Government projections imply that India may see no new thermal power plants installed after 2022. Between 2022 and 2027, the power ministry plans to add 12,000 MW of large hydro capacity, 4,800 MW of nuclear power capacity, around 100,000 MW of renewable energy capacity, but ZERO of thermal power capacity. [CleanTechnica]

Sunday, December 25:

Alberta wind farm (Canadian Wind Energy Association photo)

• In 2016, renewable energy surpassed coal as the largest source of installed power capacity. China’s carbon emissions peaked. The German upper house voted to ban gasoline-powered cars by 2030. Vancouver chose to ban natural gas in new buildings, also by 2030. And Canada is well on its way to a renewable future. [The Globe and Mail]

Monday, December 26:

• “Low Costs of Solar Power & Wind Power Crush Coal, Crush Nuclear, & Beat Natural Gas” • Here are 5 messages for all those who want a better economy, want local energy independence, want to advance the most cost-effective choices for electricity generation, or just want to make logical decisions about energy. [CleanTechnica]

Tuesday, December 27:

NWT ice patch landscape (Photo Credit: T. Andrews / GNWT)

• Canadian archeologists are in a race against time. They have been collecting, studying and preserving ancient artifacts – darts, bows and arrows – lost or misplaced by prehistoric hunters and protected by a covering of snow over millennia. Climate change is melting the snow now, exposing the artifacts to decay. [Radio Canada International]
• To remain competitive in a changing power market, North Dakota’s largest power plant is making operational changes so production can ramp up and down quicker. Now, all generation resources need to be supplemental to wind. Great River Energy is adapting operations at Coal Creek Station to run at either 1146 MW or 300 MW. [Bismarck Tribune]

Wednesday, December 28:

• Toshiba Corp may have to write off “several billion” dollars because of Westinghouse Electric Company’s purchase a year ago of CB&I Stone & Webster, a US construction firm that specializes in nuclear power projects. Westinghouse had assumed full responsibility for all AP1000 projects under the purchase agreement. [World Nuclear News]
• Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil has won the offshore wind lease to 79,350 acres off the coast of New York. The winning bid was $42.5 million. The lease gives Statoil the potential to develop up to 1 GW of offshore wind, though 400 to 600 MW is a more likely goal, 14 to 30 miles off the coast of western Long Island. [CleanTechnica]

Thursday, December 29:

• The head of research, technology and innovation for Engie SA thinks the cost of solar power will drop below $10/MWh (1¢/kWh) before 2025 in the world’s sunniest places. An Engie study of the Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur region showed it could run entirely on renewable energy for about 20% less than the price of electricity today. [Gas 2.0]

Friday, December 30:

Solar PV park (Author: mdreyno, CC BY-SA)

• “Solar Power Is Not Merely Least Expensive” • We’ve seen a lot of commentary on the fact that utility-scale solar power has become the least expensive source of electricity in many places. There is more than that to be found in LCOE analysis, however, and it implies that solar and wind power have greater value than cost data shows. [CleanTechnica]
• Toshiba shares has fallen over three straight days of heavy losses. The company has now had more than 40% of its value wiped off since 26 December. It comes after the firm’s chairman apologized and warned that its US nuclear business, which brings in about a third of its revenue, may be worth less than previously thought. [BBC]

Saturday, December 31:

• Electricity prices from Boston to Dallas plunged this year as cheap natural gas cut fuel costs, and wind and solar alternatives came online. Consumers also used less electricity for the second straight year, despite a summer heat wave, amid an industrial slowdown and growing awareness of ways to boost energy efficiency. [Bloomberg]

Sunday, January 1:

Regional flood risks

• The risk of flooding in the US is changing regionally, according to University of Iowa engineers. They determined that the threat of flooding is generally growing in the northern half of the US and declining in the southern half, as regional climates change. The American Southwest and West, meanwhile, are experiencing decreasing flood risk. [ScienceBlog.com]

Monday, January 2:

Fast progress in India (Photo by Thomas Kohler)

• India will generate as much as 56.5% of its electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2027, the government has estimated in a draft energy plan. Besides the coal-fired plants that are already being built, the country does not need to build new ones, it said. This puts India far ahead of its Paris commitment of 40% by 2030. [India Climate Dialogue]

Tuesday, January 3:

Golden toad (by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via Wikipedia)

• The field of “attribution science” has made immense progress in the last five years. Researchers can now tell people how climate change impacts them, and not in 50 or 100 years, but today. Scientific American interviewed Friederike Otto, deputy director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. [PBS NewsHour]
• Widespread local plant and animal species extinctions are already occurring as a result of anthropogenic climate change, research from the University of Arizona has found. It showed that local extinctions have now already occurred in 47% of the 976 species analyzed in the study, as a result of climate change caused by human activity. [CleanTechnica]

Wednesday, January 4:

A solar power plant in San Antonio (Credit: Duke Energy / flickr)

• 2016 is shaping up to be a milestone year for energy, and when the final accounting is done, one of the biggest winners is likely to be solar power. For the first time, more electricity-generating capacity from solar power plants is expected to have been built in the US than from natural gas and wind, data from the DOE show. [AlterNet]

2016-12-22 Energy Week

Visitors Please Note: This blog is maintained to assist in developing a TV show, Energy Week with George Harvey and Tom Finnell. The post is put up in incomplete form, and is updated with news until it is completed, usually on Wednesday. The source is geoharvey.wordpress.com.

Within a few days of the last update, the show may be seen, along with older shows, at this link on the BCTV website: Energy Week Series.

Thursday, December 15:

• The price of electricity from offshore wind keeps dropping. A consortium made up of Shell, Mitsubishi/DGE, Van Oord, and Eneco has won the concession to build the Borssele III and IV Wind Farms, amounting to 700 MW, at a new record low cost of €54.5/MWh (5.7¢/kWh). Only last July, the record low price was €72.70/MWh. [CleanTechnica]

• The DOE gave its approval this week to an international power line to carry 1,000-MW from Canada to southern New England. The electricity will come mainly from Canadian hydroelectric dams, but it will also include some power from wind turbines in New York state. The state of Vermont will have dibs on 200 MW of it. [vtdigger.org]

Friday, December 16:

• Middlebury College has won an important battle in what Resident Scholar Bill McKibben recently asserted must become an all-out war on climate change. Late last week the college announced it had reached carbon neutrality, bringing its net carbon footprint to zero, in response to a student challenge of 2007. [Addison County Independent]

Middlebury College maintains a 2,100-acres forest preserve for sequestering carbon. (Photo by Brett Simison)

• A transformation is happening in global energy markets that is well worth noting as 2016 comes to an end: Solar power, for the first time, is becoming the least costly form of new electricity. Unsubsidized solar is beginning to outcompete coal and natural gas on a larger scale, according to fresh data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. [TechCentral]
• Massachusetts has been a national leader for reliable power sources such as solar, wind and water, according to the 2016 Massachusetts Clean Energy Industry Report. Early-stage investments in clean energy companies in the state grew 166% from the previous year, adding more than 6,300 clean energy jobs this year. [Metro.us]

Fort Calhoun nuclear plant in the flood of 2011. US Army Corps of Engineers photo.

• Closing its lone nuclear plant helped the Omaha Public Power District head off a rate hike that would have resulted in a bill increase of 2.5% for average residential ratepayers in 2017. The utility’s board approved a recalculation based on closing the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant and the adding of 400 MW of wind power. [Omaha World-Herald]

Saturday, December 17:

• Lazard Ltd’s Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis compares costs of various generation technologies. Its latest, LCOE 10.0, shows that the cost decline of generating electricity from solar PV was steeper than decreases among other forms of renewable energy in 2016, with utility-scale PV technologies down about 11% from last year. [Solar Industry]

• The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released its 2015–2016 Arctic Report Card. With sea ice extent and snow cover diminishing, it now appears that the Arctic is stuck in a set of feedback loops that will only see temperatures in the region rise at ever faster rates for the foreseeable future. [CleanTechnica]
• In August 2010, one of Donald Trump’s most exclusive new hotels, the Trump SoHo in downtown Manhattan, boasted it would invest in 100% clean power. Specifically, it would purchase electricity from wind. One of the deal’s main architects said the move to purchase wind energy was spearheaded by Trump’s daughter, Ivanka. [Mother Jones]

Block Island wind farm (Photo: Deepwater Wind)

• Norwegian energy giant Statoil was declared the provisional winner of the US government’s wind lease sale of 79,350 acres in waters off New York. Statoil had submitted the winning bid of $42,469,725 in the online offshore wind auction conducted by the US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. [GCaptain]
• In Vermont, the Burlington Electric Department continues to focus on sourcing 100% of its power from renewable generation with the addition of a new source to its power portfolio. Maine’s 17-turbine Hancock Wind Project began operating commercially on December 16, and it will supply 9% of Burlington’s energy needs. [vtdigger.org]

Sunday, December 18:

Istanbul (source: flickr / John Virgolin, creative commons)

• Turkey will focus its efforts on local renewable energy projects to cut back on costly imports of up to $40 billion annually for energy. Geothermal energy projects will play a part in that. The Energy and Natural Resources Minister said Turkey will focus more on domestic and renewable energy investments in the future. [ThinkGeoEnergy]I
• Vermont utility Green Mountain Power will partner with Virtual Peaker Inc to help customers save money, reduce carbon emissions, and use more renewables. GMP will use proprietary software by Virtual Peaker that shares access to internet-based appliances and devices, so they can be managed to even out grid demand. [vtdigger.org]

Monday, December 19:

• “Will Big Business Help Fight Trump’s Anti-Environment Agenda?” • US Environmentalists still have hope. Though their public protests may fall on deaf ears as long as Trump is in the White House and Republicans control Congress, environmental activists may find more of an audience in corporate boardrooms. [The American Prospect]
• An ambitious group of engineers sees value in the abandoned shafts in a centuries-old iron mine in New York’s Adirondacks. They say the mine can provide a steady flow of electricity in a growing renewable energy market. They have a plan to use the millions of gallons of groundwater that have flooded the mine for energy storage. [Tribune-Review]

Tuesday, December 20:

• We all knew that 2016 was going to be a very good year for the US solar market; however no one could say exactly how good. Now, the DOE’s Energy Information Administration posted some of the first concrete numbers for the year. EIA estimates that the US will have installed 9.5 GW of utility-scale solar installed in 2016. [pv magazine USA]

Smoke rising from a factory in Tianjin

• A dangerous gray haze descended on Northeast China over the weekend, choking off schools, flights, and industry. China saw the smog coming and last week issued its first red alert of the year for 23 cities. The smog covered an area of 10.1 million square kilometers (3.9 million square miles), roughly the size of the United States. [CNN]
• With Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker describing climate change as a “serious threat,” the state’s clean air agency unveiled draft regulations aimed at securing greenhouse gas emission reductions from the natural gas, transportation and electricity generation industries. The regulations will be vetted in a series of public hearings. [Worcester Telegram]

Wednesday, December 21:

Polar Pioneer drilling rig being towed

• President Barack Obama designated the bulk of US waters in the Arctic Ocean, and also certain areas in the Atlantic Ocean, as indefinitely off-limits to future oil and gas leasing. The White House said the wording of the statute allowing the ban provides no authority for subsequent presidents to undo permanent withdrawals. [STLtoday.com]
• Warm water flowing through a deep channel under East Antarctica’s largest glacier is driving rapid melting, a study published in the journal Science Advances says. It says that if the thinning continues and the massive shelf gives way, enough ice would slide into the sea to raise global levels by over 11 feet. [Wunderground.com]

Archimedes screw being installed (Dave Zajac, Record-Journal)

• Meriden, Connecticut has made history as the first city in the US to install an Archimedes screw turbine to generate power at a dam. The 20-ton, 35-foot-long steel screw lifted by crane into the Hanover Pond dam will generate about 900,000 kWh of electricity annually and is expected to save the city $20,000 a year. [Meriden Record-Journal]

2016-12-15 Energy Week

Visitors Please Note: This blog is maintained to assist in developing a TV show, Energy Week with George Harvey and Tom Finnell. The post is put up in incomplete form, and is updated with news until it is completed, usually on Wednesday. The source is geoharvey.wordpress.com.

Within a few days of the last update, the show may be seen, along with older shows, at this link on the BCTV website: Energy Week Series.

Thursday, December 8:

For those who generate smoke, electricity can be a valuable by-product.

• The European Union will start to phase out coal subsidies and reduce its energy usage by 30% before 2030 pursuant to the terms of a major clean energy package announced in November. It expects to lower household utility bills, integrate renewables into power markets, and limit use of unsustainable bio-energy, among other benefits. [CleanTechnica]
• Cape Light Compact, the electric utility serving the 21 towns in Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard, has announced that its aggregation power supply load is going with 100% renewable power. The Compact has teamed up with NextEra Energy Services to provide low price electricity to all of its customers. [CapeCod.com News]
• The Dutch government released a long-term energy plan stipulating that no new cars with combustion engines may be sold from 2035 on. Also, all of the houses in the country, which has been for over 50 years the EU’s largest natural gas producer, will be disconnected from the gas grid by 2050. The measure has broad parliamentary support. [CleanTechnica]

Friday, December 9:

Palisades nuclear plant (Entergy photo)

• Entergy Corp announced that it will close down its Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan on October 1, 2018. It has struck a deal for early termination of a power purchase agreement for the generation, which had been to end in 2022. Officials say ending the contract early could save ratepayers $172 million over four years. [Utility Dive]
• A memo obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy outlining Donald Trump’s energy agenda for when he takes Office next January has revealed the full extent to which Donald Trump is going to lay waste to America’s climate record and clean energy industry. It lists 14 key energy and environment policies planned. [CleanTechnica]
• In a document obtained by Bloomberg, President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team asked the Energy Department how it can help keep nuclear reactors “operating as part of the nation’s infrastructure” and what it could do to prevent them from being forced out of the market by cheaper natural gas and renewable resources. [Bloomberg]

Saturday, December 10:

River turbine by Idenergie

• Staff at a Canadian company, Idenergie, have managed to create a kit that can turn the flowing water of a river into as much as 12 kWh of electricity per day. The river turbine system is mainly designed for off-the-grid applications such as small communities or remote cabins where it is not logical to be connected to the grid. [Trendintech]
• India now has the world’s biggest solar plant. At full capacity, the new 2,500-acre plant in Kamuthi could power up to 150,000 homes and add 648 MW to India’s electricity generating capacity. The Kamuthi plant was built in just eight months, at a cost of $679 million. India has pledged to get 40% of its power from renewables by 2030. [Grist]
  Solar panels in India (Photo: Daniel Cossio)
• The US electric power industry has invested in renewable resources well beyond states’ renewable portfolio standards and targets in some regions, a report from The Brattle Group says. The regions where this has happened have organized regional electricity markets or offer access to low-cost wind or solar potential. [Solar Industry]

Sunday, December 11:

Worker in a Siberian oil field (Reuters image)

• Eleven oil-producing countries that are not OPEC members agreed to cut their output to boost prices. The group, which includes Russia, said that they will cut production by 558,000 barrels per day. OPEC announced last month that it would be reducing its own production to ease an over-saturated global market. [BBC]
• According to documents obtained by Politico, Donald Trump’s transition team has asked the Energy Department to cough-up the names of any employees who have worked on President Obama’s climate initiatives, including all who have worked on the “social cost of carbon.” It looks like a witch hunt is already under way. [CleanTechnica]

Avalanche (Getty Images)

• Climate change may be to blame for the deadly avalanche in Tibet, a study found. On July 17, more than 70 million tonnes of ice broke off from the Aru glacier in the mountains of western Tibet. Glacial collapse is unprecedented in that area of Tibet, which for decades has seemed to resist the effects of climate change. [The Statesman]

Monday, December 12:

EIA projections and reality

• “EIA’s Lack Of Math And Logic Skills Makes For An Interesting Investment Environment” • Every year the US DOE’s Energy Information Administration releases an Annual Energy Outlook. Every year, it projects that renewable growth will slow down. But the EIA projections have never done with portraying reality. [Seeking Alpha]
• Donald Trump won’t get Rex Tillerson as secretary of state without a fight. Nominating the ExxonMobil tycoon for the position could ignite a showdown between the President-elect and senators in his own party. Tillerson has a close relationship with Vladimir Putin, and the CIA says Russia likely intervened in the presidential election. [CNN]
• Donald Trump said he still doesn’t think climate change is really happening, in an interview on Sunday 11 December. “I’m still open-minded. Nobody really knows,” he said after a Fox News anchor played a clip in which he calls climate change “a big scam for a lot of people to make a lot of money.” [International Business Times UK]

Tuesday, December 13:

Antarctica’s Larsen C Ice Shelf (Youtube)

• In early 2015, scientists announced the discovery of an almost circular structure in the Antarctic ice surface, about 2 km (1.2 miles) wide. Now, a team of climate researchers has found that the mysterious crater on the King Baudouin ice shelf shows that the East Antarctic ice sheet may be more vulnerable to climate change than expected. [Raw Story]

Block Islands last turbine going up

• The Block Island Wind Farm is supplying power to the grid, making it America’s first offshore wind facility. Deepwater Wind and project partners have commissioned the 30-MW installation off the coast of Rhode Island, and it is now delivering power into New England’s electric grid via a 20-mile-long submarine cable. [POWER magazine]
• According to GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association’s Q4 2016 US Solar Market Insight report, 4,143 MW of solar PV were installed in the US in the third quarter of the year, a rate of one MW every 32 minutes. Thable News]

Wednesday, December 14:

• Donald Trump’s nominees for the secretaries of Energy and State, and administrator of the EPA, are creating a growing hydrocarbon council in his administration. While generally thought to be good for oil and gas, the ramifications remain unclear. The government perception of fossil fuel will doubtless change. [Oil and Gas Investor]
• In another sign that the transition isn’t proceeding as smoothly as President Obama professes, the Energy Department refused Tuesday to provide President-elect Donald Trump’s team with a list of federal employees who have worked on climate-change programs. Trump’s transition team did not explain the request. [Washington Times]

Fracking in a farm field (Andrew Cullen / Reuters / File)

• When the EPA released its draft report in 2015 on the safety of hydraulic fracturing, industry groups seized on one sentence as proof that fracking is safe: a conclusion that the process has no national “widespread, systemic impact” on drinking water. Now, the final report is out – and that sentence has been removed. [Christian Science Monitor]

2016-12-08 Energy Week

Visitors Please Note: This blog is maintained to assist in developing a TV show, Energy Week with George Harvey and Tom Finnell. The post is put up in incomplete form, and is updated with news until it is completed, usually on Wednesday. The source is geoharvey.wordpress.com.

Within a few days of the last update, the show may be seen, along with older shows, at this link on the BCTV website: Energy Week Series.

Thursday, December 1:

Rift in Antarctic glacier, twenty miles from the sea

• New research from Ohio State University determined that a calving event creating an enormous iceberg in West Antarctica in 2015 was even more notable than first thought. It was the result of a deep, subsurface rift that formed approximately 20 miles inland. This implies that the glacier is deteriorating faster than thought. [CleanTechnica]
• The oil cartel OPEC has agreed its first supply cut in eight years, after more than two years of depressed oil prices because of a supply glut on the market. OPEC’s president said that a cut of 1.2 million barrels a day would start from January. The price of Brent crude jumped 10% to $51.94 a barrel, and US crude rose 9% to $49.53. [BBC News]
• Michigan’s largest utility, DTE Energy, is moving ahead with efforts to phase out its use of coal and will not be swayed by any potential changes to federal energy policy. DTE Energy intends to embrace renewable energy more aggressively in the coming years regardless of what changes come from the recent election. [Hydrogen Fuel News]

Offshore wind power

• The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority may become the first US state entity to participate in a federal auction for an offshore wind site. NYSERDA submitted documentation and a bid deposit to take part in an auction for a 79,350-acre Wind Energy Area 12 miles off the Long Island coast. [Windpower Engineering]

Friday, December 2:

Sunny day flooding now hits Miami regularly, thanks to rising sea levels. (Photo by B137, CC BY SA, Wikimedia Commons)

• “Mayors could override Trump on the Paris climate accord – here’s how” • In a recent op-ed, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote, “If the Trump administration does withdraw from the Paris accord, I will recommend that the 128 US mayors who are part of the Global Covenant of Mayors seek to join in its place.” [Business Insider]
• The House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology tweeted a misleading article at Breitbart about the state of the global climate. It read, “Global Temperatures Plunge. Icy Silence from Climate Alarmists.” Senator Bernie Sanders responded to the tweet, asking, “Where’d you get your PhD? Trump University?” [mySanAntonio.com]
• The Canadian province of Alberta, known for its notoriously dirty oil sands, has just made a symbolically significant about-face on energy policy, with potentially major implications for North American wind power. First up is a tender for 5 GW of wind power. Alberta will also pay its coal plants $1 billion to shut down. [CleanTechnica]

Saturday, December 3:

Storage power ratings – Please click on the image to enlarge it.

• An official with the company seeking to buy the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant says it can dismantle the power plant for the money currently in its decommissioning fund. The CEO of NorthStar says if his company can’t dismantle the plant for the $580 million in the fund, then his company would make up the difference. [Electric Light & Power]
• Batteries are not the cheapest way to store grid power. There are many different kinds of storage technologies, each with different characteristics. To be a sensible economic investment, the benefits have to outweigh the costs. Storage has to match the type of demand, considering how much power is needed, and for how long. [Gizmodo Australia]

Sunday, December 4:

California forest in trouble

• Senator Diane Feinstein has urged the US Department of Agriculture to revisit her request for federal aid to help crews clear over 100 million dead trees posing hazards throughout California’s forests. Dried out, free-standing timber throughout the state threatens nearby structures and increases the risk of forest fires. [Asianjournal.com]
• Interview: “EPA boss: Here’s the good news about climate change (yes, that exists)” • Climate change is happening now. We’re causing it. And frankly, it can seem terrifying. But – and this is a critical “but” – there’s still room for hope. That’s the message we may take from an interview with the outgoing head of the EPA, Gina McCarthy. [CNN]
• Columbia, Missouri could more than double the amount of wind energy it uses with a proposed contract coming before the city council Monday. The Columbia City Council will take under consideration a contract a contract with Iowa-based Crystal Lake Wind III LLC to purchase wind energy for $19.55/MWh (1.955¢/kWh). [Columbia Daily Tribune]

Monday, December 5:

Pollution is a popular discussion topic on social media.
(File photo: Fred Dufour, AFP)

• About 20,000 passengers were stranded at an airport in Chengdu, China as flights were grounded because of heavy smog and a thick fog that left the city in a dark haze. The air quality index in Chengdu registered 280, a level considered “very unhealthy.” In some industrial cities south of Beijing, the air quality levels reach up to 875. [Digital Journal]
• “Through climate change denial, we’re ceding global leadership to China” • China was no more prepared for the results of the American election than the US. But it has been quick to size up the environmental implications of a Trump victory, and officials in Beijing are contriving to cast China in a fresh leadership role. [Los Angeles Times]

Snow covers the camp on November 30.

• On Sunday afternoon, tribe members and their numerous allies celebrated, crying tears of joy, over the fact the pipeline project would be rerouted away from land that’s deemed sacred. Even so, the decision to re-route the Dakota Access Pipeline could be reversed once President Barack Obama leaves office next month. [CNN]

Tuesday, December 6:

• Former Vice President Al Gore has met President-elect Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka Trump to discuss climate policy. The meeting “was a sincere search for areas of common ground,” according to Mr Gore, a climate change activist. Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka reportedly wants to make the subject one of her signature issues. [BBC]

Hyde Park, Vermont solar array

• Two Vermont towns, Stowe and Hyde Park, have recently commissioned municipally owned solar plants, making them the first towns in the state to do so. Together, the plants will produce 2.7 MW of solar electricity. This is enough to power 229 average residences of in the towns, about 7% of the total number of homes. [pv magazine USA]
• With two solar facilities moving toward completion and a third in the planning stages, Pownal, Vermont is becoming a leading community. The total countywide capacity from solar sources is approximately 3.7 MW, of which 2.2 MW are in Pownal, but a 2.2-MW array is under construction, and a smaller array is also planned. [vtdigger.org]

Wednesday, December 7:

Donald Trumps Doonbeg hotel and golf course

• Donald Trump’s plan to erect a huge sea wall at his Irish golf course has been withdrawn in the light of stiff opposition from environmentalists. The original application cited rising sea levels as a result of climate change as a key reason for the protective barrier. A new plan with smaller wall is expected to be submitted shortly. [BBC News]
• The largest battery in New England – and once the world – was built 45 years ago and is still working. It’s hidden, on top and deep inside a mountain in north-central Massachusetts. Northfield Mountain is now undergoing re-licensing to run for another 50 years, providing grid load leveling for solar and wind power. [New England Public Radio]

• Opinion: “Trump’s Lies Threaten Wind Techs: Fastest-Growing US Job” There are reasons why Trump’s vendetta against what he calls “the windmills” hurts his own voters. First, wind techs, the guys who climb the towers to do maintenance, are blue-collar workers from red states. And theirs is the fastest growing job in the US. [CleanTechnica]