2017-03-02 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, February 23:

• In Nepal, some communities are looking to harness the energy water produces with micro-hydropower systems. According to the Nepal Micro Hydropower Development Association, over 3,300 micro hydro plants are providing energy to villages around the country. In many places, impact has been significant for villagers. [CNBC]
• In the years from 2005 to 2014, there were at least 6,648 spills at hydraulically fractured oil and gas wells in just four of the states where fracking is done, according to analysis published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. The states that were in the study were New Mexico, Colorado, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania. [CleanTechnica]
• FirstEnergy, based in Akron, Ohio, made it clear that it is leaving the competitive power plant business, closing or selling all of its plants, including its nuclear plants, by the middle of next year. Closing the plants, which would probably take several years, would also have little impact on customer bills or power supplies. [cleveland.com]

Friday, February 24:

Relying on the Colorado River for survival (Erik A Ellison, Wikimedia Commons)

• In the years of 2000 to 2014, Colorado River flows declined to around 81% of the 20th-century average. Researchers found that the higher temperatures in the region since 2000 are responsible for between one-sixth to one-half of the river flow reductions seen since 2000. Forty million people rely on the river for their survival. [CleanTechnica]
• The main Standing Rock protest camp near the Dakota Access Pipeline was cleared Thursday, a day after a deadline to leave the area expired, authorities said. There were arrests, but no major conflict after police did not enter the camp. About 100 protesters left voluntarily. Protesters chanted, waved flags, and played drums as they left. [CNN]
• Riverkeeper and the Natural Resources Defense Council claim a new study it commissioned puts to rest any lingering doubts over replacement power and shows that the closure of the Indian Point nuclear power plant can be done clean and green, without big increases in electric bills. Indian Points power units will be offline by 2021. [Mid-Hudson News]

Saturday, February 25:

Rhodium nanoparticles (Photo: Chad Scales)

• Scientists at Duke University have used rhodium for a solar powered system that converts carbon dioxide into methane, which can be used as a replacement for natural gas. The idea could enable capturing waste gas from industrial operations and converting it to fuel. Rhodium is a rare element used in the jewelry trade. [CleanTechnica]
• California utility San Diego Gas & Electric put into service the largest lithium-ion storage battery in the world, wrapping up a fast-track procurement process that began less than a year ago. The 30-MW, 120-MWh system is part of an expedited response by the state to the loss of the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility last year. [POWER magazine]
• New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli is again pushing for ExxonMobil to disclose how climate change will impact its corporate bottom line. He voice a concern that Exxon has not ensured its resilience in a lower carbon future. The state pension fund has investment in ExxonMobil valued at $973.6 million. [Albany Times Union]

Sunday, February 26:

In the distance, the coal-burning Stuart station, near Manchester

• Manchester, Ohio is a mass of closed storefronts, with a couple of restaurants and one bar. Its 2,000 residents rely on two coal-burning power plants to provide jobs and keep the local economy afloat. Both are closing in 2018, and the closest town with available work is an hour away. They are looking to Donald Trump to save them. [CNN]
• For 40 years the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has conducted unique scientific research and worked with industry to make sources such as solar, wind and biofuels increasingly big parts of America’s energy supply. But the Trump administration has roughly 1,700 NREL employees wondering what’s ahead. [Colorado Public Radio]

Monday, February 27:

• Renewable energy will fill the demand for power in India in the next seven to eight years. According to an estimate by The Energy and Resource Institute, power produced by renewable energy sources will increase from 5.6% to 34% by 2030 whereas production share of coal based energy will decrease from present 73% to 56%. [Web India]

• A new study by energy experts from the Australian National University suggests that a 100% renewable energy electricity grid, with 90% of power coming from wind and solar, will be a less expensive future option than a coal or gas-fired network in Australia. Most of the current fleet of coal generators are due to retire before 2030. [RenewEconomy]
• With electricity prices depressed, Public Service Enterprise Group, based in Newark, New Jersey, has been quietly lobbying policymakers to help its nuclear plants, much the way New York has approved subsidies to keep reactors in the state operating. PSEG, which owns three units in South Jersey, is in discussions with policymakers. [NJ Spotlight]

Tuesday, February 28:

Severe dislocation in Bangladesh (Photo: Mufti Munir / AFP/Getty Images)

• Oil giant Shell’s farsighted 1991 film, titled Climate of Concern, set out with crystal clarity how the world was warming and that serious consequences could well result. It said climate change was happening “at a rate faster than at any time since the end of the ice age – change too fast perhaps for life to adapt, without severe dislocation.” [The Guardian]
• Tesla will end up hiring around 54% more workers for the Gigafactory project than was initially supposed, according to the executive director of the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development. Initial estimates were that 6,500 jobs would be created by the Gigafactory project. Now, the forecast is for more than 10,000. [CleanTechnica]
• Legislation to require all California electricity providers to supply power generated 100% from renewable resources such as wind and solar by 2045 has been introduced by Senate President Kevin de Leon as Senate Bill 584. Current standards require 33% renewable power by 2020 and 50% by 2030. [Natural Resources Defense Council]

Wednesday, March 1:

Yes, this is a power plant. (Courtesy: Stem Inc)

• The Hawaiian Electric Co and technology service company Stem Inc have successfully tested nearly 1 MW of energy storage systems at 29 commercial sites on Oahu, the companies said. The system is a “virtual power plant,” controlled by computer. It is providing better real-time grid operations, according to HECO. [POWER magazine]
• A study published by the Australian National University claims that pumped hydro storage could be used to help build a secure and cheap Australian electricity grid with 100% renewable energy sources. The 100% renewable energy grid would rely primarily on wind and solar PVs supported by off-river pumped hydro storage. [CleanTechnica]
• China has managed to reduce its coal consumption for a third straight year as the energy-hungry country struggles to reduce its dependency on the heavily polluting fuel. According to a report from the National Bureau of Statistics, coal consumption fell by an annual rate of 4.7% in 2016. Coal production fell even more, by 9%. [Press TV]

Lowell Mountain (Photo: Andrew Stein / VTDigger)

• Vermont Electric Power Co and IBM announced a new venture that will have the computing giant analyzing weather and electric meter data to anticipate conditions on the grid as increasing reliance on wind and solar energy makes that important. The effort is predicted to save Vermonters money, possibly through smart grid technology. [vtdigger.org]

2017-02-23 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, 16:

Workhorse E-GEN powertrain (Workhorse image)

• Delivery vans get between 5 and 8 miles per gallon. Vans powered by Workhorse’s hybrid electric E-GEN powertrain have now completed 250,000 miles of service and have achieved an astounding 30 MPGe rating in daily, real life, stop and go operation. Workhorse calculates each van will save the owner $165,000 during its lifetime. [CleanTechnica]

• The latest US Solar Market Insight report from GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association showed that 2016 almost doubled the installations of 2015, itself a record-breaking year. Solar installations grew 95%, for a total of 14,625 MW. With 39% of new capacity across all fields, with wind placing second at 25%. [CleanTechnica]
• The city council of Pueblo, Colorado committed the city to 100% renewable energy by 2035. Pueblo is now the third city in Colorado and the 22nd in the nation to make the promise. The city doesn’t yet have a route for its destination, partly because it doesn’t have ownership of its electricity provider. It is looking at its options. [The Coloradoan]

Moab, Utah (Saro17 via istockphoto.com)

• Moab, Utah officials say they have taken a major step toward creating a more sustainable city. The Moab City Council passed a resolution, committing to using 100% renewable electricity by 2032. The mayor said the move is driven by the community’s passion for Moab’s natural environment and a sustainable future. [RadioWest]

Friday, 17:

Parched Oklahoma land (Al Jazeera English, Wikimedia Commons)

• The state that gave us Scott Pruitt and James Inhofe just saw temperatures near 100° in the dead of winter. Climate change is loading the dice for record-breaking heat in Oklahoma. Here, the human fingerprint is clear. Carbon pollution traps heat, warming the planet. This, in turn, shifts the entire distribution of temperatures. [CleanTechnica]

Climate change is driving drought

• The future is expected to hold more deadly heat waves, the fast spread of certain infectious diseases and catastrophic food shortages. These causes of premature deaths are all related to climate change, according to a panel of experts who gathered at the Carter Center in Atlanta on Thursday for the Climate & Health Meeting. [CNN]
• TransCanada Corp has rebooted its effort to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline across Nebraska, where it had met with opposition before it withdrew its application when the Obama administration denied the company a federal permit in late 2015. TransCanada’s latest move had been expected since Donald Trump was elected. [MarketWatch]

Saturday, 18:

Wind power

• “Americans rally to support wind power” • Hundreds of Americans from across the country traveled to Washington, DC to show their support for wind energy. AWEA CEO Tom Kiernan penned an op-ed in The Hill looking at why they decided to make the trek. Here are a few highlights and a link to the original article. [Into the Wind – The AWEA Blog]

Underground heat storage system

• Institutions in Hamburg are proposing to build a large underground thermal heat storage system that could supply roughly a quarter of the city’s heating needs with waste heat from industrial and power plants. If successful, it could make Vattenfall’s plans to realise a CO2-neutral district heating network superfluous. [CleanTechnica]
• EU member states have approved a €90 million grant for a compressed air energy storage project in Larne in Northern Ireland. The Larne project converts excess energy from renewable generation into compressed air to be stored in geological caverns within salt layers underground for later release to generate electricity. [reNews]

Sunday, 19:

Solar PV panels in China’s Fujian province (AP)

• An Australian company says it will build solar and battery facilities in South Australia this year with enough storage capacity to meet the power shortfall that caused blackouts in the state 10 days ago. A partner of Lyon Group said he was “very confident” his firm would install two 50-MW battery storage facilities this year. [The Australian Financial Review]
• The air Indians breathe is turning more toxic by the day and an average of two deaths happen each minute due to air pollution, says a new study based on 2010 data. According to medical journal The Lancet, over a million Indians die every year due to air pollution and some of the worst polluted cities of the world are in India. [thenortheasttoday.com]
• The threat of a catastrophe at California’s Oroville Dam may be over. California’s Department of Water Resources lifted the evacuation order. But the dam’s troubles have also temporarily brought down one of the state’s major renewable energy assets, likely replacing 819-MW of hydro capacity with natural gas for a time. [POWER magazine]

Monday, 20:

Celebrating wind power

• Local Aboriginal tribes – the Ngadjuri and Nukunu – have both recognized and celebrated the abundance of South Australian wind and solar power resources. They added huge artworks to the base of two of the 105 massive wind turbines that will form the Hornsdale wind project outside Jamestown, near Port Pirie. [Aboriginal Art Directory News]
• Hundreds of scientists, some in lab coats, held a rally in Boston Sunday to draw attention to their concerns about the Trump administration’s policies. Speakers and signs criticized those in the administration who deny that climate change is real, who question the collection and distribution of data on science, and other policies. [Inside Higher Ed]

Image: Wikimedia Commons

• Opinion: “Easy as Two Plus Two: How to Regain our Democracy” • We can get our democracy back, and improve our lives as we do. If those who disapprove of the Washington establishment we have turn down residential thermostats by 2° F and drive two miles fewer per day, it will cost those who bought this government $10 billion per year. [Green Energy Times]

Tuesday, 21:

• Scientists have built a better flow battery. Using a predictive model of molecules and their properties, University of Utah and University of Michigan chemists developed a charge-storing molecule around 1,000 times more stable than current compounds. Their results are reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. [Phys.Org]
• Researchers from the University of California Irvine studied data collected from 1991 to 2015 on glaciers found in the Queen Elizabeth Islands in the Arctic. They found that, from 2005 to 2015, surface melt off of these glaciers rose by 900% – something they say is attributable to warming air temperatures in the region. [CBC.ca]

Tocardo turbines (Tocardo image)

• Tocardo Tidal Power is preparing to deploy the InToTidal project at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney. The company said the Universal Foundation System is the start of Tocardo’s planned 20-year commercial demonstration project at the site. The semi-submersible platform features five 300-kW devices. [reNews]

Wednesday, 22:

• Almost every railway station in India will soon be fed with solar power if the plans in India’s new union budget are implemented. The Indian Finance Minister announced that the 7,000 railway stations across the country will be fed with solar power as per the Indian Railways mission to implement 1,000 MW of solar power capacity. [CleanTechnica]
• As the world’s number one exporter of crude oil, renewable energy may be the last thing that comes to mind when thinking of Saudi Arabia. But it is now turning to solar and wind power in a SGD 71 billion ($50 billion) bid to cut dependency on oil amid growing energy demands domestically, according to the Saudi energy minister. [VR-Zone]

2017-02-16 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, February 9:

Declining capacities of new coal plants were going to zero before the Clean Power Plan

• “All The King’s Men Cannot Put King Coal Together Again” Even before the new administration took over, it had been widely argued that coal plants would continue shutting down irrespective of whether the Clean Power Plan was implemented. Old coal plants are retiring, and new ones are not being installed. [Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide]
• On February 7th, the Seattle City Council voted unanimously to stop doing business with Wells Fargo Bank. This is because Wells Fargo has investments in the companies behind the Dakota Access pipeline project. Seattle currently does about $3 billion a year in business with Wells Fargo. The pipeline has 17 investors. [CleanTechnica]

Wind farms accounted for over half of the capacity installed. (Shutterstock)

• Renewable energy made up nearly nine-tenths of new power added to Europe’s electricity grids last year, in a sign of the continent’s rapid shift away from fossil fuels, Euractiv’s media partner The Guardian reports. Of the 24.5 GW of new capacity built across the EU in 2016, 21.1 GW (86%) was from wind, solar, biomass and hydro. [EurActiv]

Friday, February 10:

North Carolina wind farm (Avangrid Renewables image)

• The first wind farm in North Carolina is now 100% operational even though the state’s top politicians wanted President Donald Trump to nix the $400 million project because they said it’s a national security threat. Avangrid Renewables today announced the wind farm is now generating power, enough to provide for 61,000 homes. [CIO]
• The troops are mobilizing for a second “deployment.” The Veterans Stand group is once again raising funds for protesters who oppose construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The funds will go toward supplies for the North Dakota protest camp and transportation of veterans to and from Standing Rock Indian Reservation and operations. [CNN]
• New figures from the American Wind Energy Association show that the United States installed a total of 8,203 MW in 2016. As a result, wind energy has now surpassed hydropower to become the largest source of renewable electric capacity in the United States, and the fourth largest source overall, with a total of 82,183 MW. [CleanTechnica]

Saturday, February 11:

Flow battery in laboratory

• A new type of battery has the ability to revolutionize all the smart devices that rely on storage electricity. Harvard professors at the Engineering Faculty created a flow battery that stores the energy in primary molecules dissolved in water with a neutral pH. The new battery has a long life, losing 1% of its capacity after 1,000 charge cycles. [Stоck Nеws USА]
• Encouraged by Chinese and EU commitments to low carbon energy, European utilities will not reduce their renewable energy investments if US President Donald Trump lowers US climate goals, electricity lobby Eurelectric said. Trump said during the campaign he would pull the US out of the Paris agreement of 2015. [ETEnergyworld.com]
• The EPA’s website has begun to transform under Trump’s leadership. Researchers found that Federal climate plans, tribal assistance programs, and references to international cooperation have been stricken. A mention of carbon pollution as a cause of climate change has also been removed and adaptation has been emphasized. [CleanTechnica]

Sunday, February 12:

• Opinion: “Scott Pruitt’s Misleading Senate Testimony: Will ‘Alternative Science’ Replace Real Science at EPA?” • Scott Pruitt, President Trump’s pick to head the US Environmental Protection Agency, is misrepresenting the scientific data clearly showing that the earth’s atmosphere is warming. He said he believes that global warming is in a “hiatus.” [Energy Collective]

Arctic temperature anomalies

• Friday’s temperatures very near the North Pole are about 50° F warmer than normal, according to a temperature analysis by NOAA. The warmth is being funneled toward the North Pole as winds converged winds between a monster storm in the North Atlantic and a giant area of high pressure over northern Europe. [Washington Post] (Thanks to Tad Montgomery)

Huge crane at the VC Summer nuclear plant

• Recently, one of the largest construction cranes on the planet gently hoisted a 750-ton steam generator into place for a new reactor at the VC Summer Nuclear Station. The heavy lifting isn’t over. It could be just beginning for the $14 billion project, with unanswered questions about Westinghouse, the reactor designer. [Charleston Post Courier]

Monday, February 13:

Headline News:

A hydro generator run by KIUC

• A Hawaiian utility co-op is aiming to produce 70% of its energy from renewables by 2030. The Kauai Island Utility Cooperative had already set a target of 50% renewables by 2023 but is set to hit that goal 2018, five years earlier than expected. As recently as 2011 KIUC had a 92% dependency on fossil fuels for generation. [Co-operative News]
• New Hampshire is behind most of its neighbors in use of renewable energy, and several groups are using this legislative session make sure it stays behind. Led by the Americans for Prosperity, founded by billionaire Koch brothers, they support a bill that would pull the state out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. [Foster’s Daily Democrat]
• If you want to understand why Toshiba Corp is about to report a multi-billion dollar write-down on its nuclear reactor business, the story begins and ends with a onetime pipe manufacturer in Louisiana. The Shaw Group Inc, based in Baton Rouge, looms large in a story of business acquisitions and lack of experience. [The Japan Times]

Tuesday, February 14:

Spillway at the Oroville dam (California Department of Water Resources via Reuters)

• “How Did the Oroville Dam Crisis Get So Dire?” • On Sunday, authorities ordered 188,000 people near the Oroville dam in California to evacuate. Extreme weather, which scientists say was exacerbated by human-caused climate change, moved from drought to saturated in just months, filling a reservoir to levels that proved dangerous. [The Atlantic]
• A report in Ward’s Auto dated February 7th says EV battery prices are falling faster than expected and could be lower than the magic $100 per kWh mark by 2020. A US Department of Energy goal of achieving a price of $125 by that year is turning out to be much too conservative. Some experts are expecting $80 per kWh. [CleanTechnica]
• Southwest Power Pool set a wind-penetration record of 52.1% at 4:30 a.m., Feb. 12, becoming the first regional transmission organization in North America to serve more than 50% of its load at a given time with wind energy. The milestone beats a previous North American RTO record of 49.2% that SPP set April 24, 2016. [Satellite PR News]

Wednesday, February 15:

Navajo Generating Station (Shutterstock image)

• Coal power is no longer the best energy bargain. And on Monday, the four private utility owners of the Navajo Generating Station, led by the Salt River Project, voted to shut down the plant at the end of 2019, some 25 years ahead of schedule. The closure will deeply hurt the employees, 90% of whom are Native American. [Grist]
• While the Trump administration appears to have affection for the fossil fuels industry, some states are moving in a different direction, especially on plug-in electric vehicles (PEV). From Massachusetts and New York to California, they and are setting, and achieving, goals to put PEVs on the road, replacing those that burn fossil fuels. [CleanTechnica]
• Cost overruns at Georgia’s Plant Vogtle nuclear power plant are threatening a financial tsunami at Toshiba Corp. The company projected a $6.3 billion write-down, postponed its earnings report because of allegations of impropriety, and announced that its chairman was resigning – all on the same day, the Wall Street Journal reported. [Atlanta Business Chronicle]

2017-02-09 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, February 2:

Faraday Future’s FF 91 prototype (Photo: AFP / Reuters)

• “Surge in electric cars may blindside big oil” • Oil companies are underestimating the global market for electric vehicles and could be caught unaware by weakened demand for petrol within a decade, according to a report, jointly issued by financial think tank Carbon Tracker and the Grantham Institute, both based in London. [Guardian]
• The Iraqi government is warning that a pair of pending deals with GE could be at risk from President Donald Trump’s travel ban, according to internal State Department documents. GE has sizable interests in Iraq, including power contracts worth more than a billion dollars and hundreds of employees in the country. [POLITICO.eu]
• Latest issue of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s monthly “Energy Infrastructure Update,” tells us that newly installed capacity from renewable sources totaled 16,124 MW, or 61.5% of the total, surpassing combined installations for natural gas (8,689 MW), nuclear power (1,270 MW), oil (58 MW), and coal (45 MW). [Sun & Wind Energy]

Friday, February 3:

Decline in UK coal use

• A new report from The Economist Intelligence Unit has concluded that Europe’s coal consumption has been in long-term decline, and the region’s reliance on it is not as uniformly high as many assume. Much of the decline in coal for Europe has been centered in the UK, which has been closing coal power plants regularly. [CleanTechnica]
• A fund meant to spur Vermont’s small-scale renewable energy developments will expire by 2018 unless legislators find another source of revenue, according to a legislative report published this month. The state’s Clean Energy Development Fund holds more than $5 million, but the payments that generated that amount have ceased. [vtdigger.org]
• “Not just Toshiba – the global nuclear industry is in crisis everywhere” • The collapse of Toshiba, the direct result of its failing nuclear ventures, is indicative of a crisis faced by nuclear contractors and utilities worldwide. Another sign of the poor outlook for the industry: no major commodity had a worse 2016 than uranium. [The Ecologist]

Saturday, February 4:

Solar power in New Mexico (credit: Depositphotos)

• Two Democratics in the New Mexico Senate have proposed a dramatic expansion of the state’s renewable portfolio standards to 80% by 2040, from its current goal of 20% by 2020. The state would then be among the most aggressive on carbon emissions. Hawaii is targeting 100% renewables by 2045, and California wants to reach 50% by 2030. [Utility Dive]

A wind farm in Copenhagen (Kim Hansen)

• Denmark’s DONG Energy, already a leader in green energy technologies, has announced that they will become 100% coal-free by 2023. DONG Energy had ditched oil and gas last year. The company has created a portfolio of renewables, based on leading technologies in offshore wind, bioenergy, and energy solutions. [Digital Journal]
• A group of US Senators from western states with windpower resources has re-introduced the Public Lands Renewable Energy Development Act, S. 282. This bipartisan legislation works toward an “all of the above” energy strategy by simplifying the permitting process for wind, solar, and geothermal projects on public lands. [Windpower Engineering]

Sunday, February 5:

Ninh Binh Province (Dinkum, Wikimedia Commons)

• Urgent action is needed to prevent salt intrusion causing severe damage to rice production and loss of drinking water in Vietnam and Bangladesh, according to reports by the World Bank and the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research. The reports say sea level rise threatens large areas of land that is currently highly productive. [The Daily Star]
• The Trump administration’s strict restrictions on immigration, declarations about climate change, reported overtures to an anti-vaccine activist, and pledge to repeal of the Affordable Care Act have turned some in the science community into militants. They will march in Washington, and perhaps in other cities, on April 22, Earth Day. [NBCNews.com]
• An article in the Mail on Sunday stunningly claims, “World leaders were duped into investing billions over manipulated global warming data.” It accuses the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of manipulating data. However, a fact check by independent researchers validates the data that NOAA published. [Carbon Brief]

Monday, February 6:

Soy beans in a no-till field (Credit: US Department of Agriculture)

• In America’s breadbasket, the economic realities of climate change are a critical business issue, but frank discussion is often complicated by politics and social pressure, so they get disguised as something else. Perhaps no one is as aware of the climate and its impact on the earth than a farmer, and the New York Times recently featured one from Kansas. [HPPR]
• South Australian company 1414 Degrees developed technology to store electricity as thermal energy by heating and melting containers full of silicon, at a tenth of the cost for lithium-ion batteries. Silicon is the second most abundant element in the earth’s crust, and one tonne can store enough energy to power 28 houses for a day. [Electronics News]

Australian wind turbines

• The Australian Energy Market Operator says it is confident that adjustments made to wind farm software will prevent the South Australia blackout from being repeated. He said the blackout in South Australia in September, which has set off a huge political debate about renewable energy across the country, would not be repeated. [RenewEconomy]

Tuesday, February 7:

Solar powered house in Germany

• Opinion: “6 reasons the clean energy revolution doesn’t need Trump’s blessing” • As much as Trump and his oil-soaked administration want to make fossil fuels great again, the global clean energy revolution is getting to the point of being unstoppable. Here are a few reasons the renewables revolution will continue without Trump’s blessing. [Inhabitat]
• According to Greentech Media, SunShot has shattered its 2020 goal of reaching $1.00 per watt for utility-scale solar utility costs 3 years earlier. Founded back in 2011 when Stephen Chu was the US DOE Secretary, the SunShot goal was to get utility-scale costs down to $1.00/watt. In 2011, the costs stood at about $4.00/watt. [CleanTechnica]
• Southern California Gas Co, Los Angeles, along with CR&R Environmental, a waste management company in Stanton, California, announced they have begun construction of an eight-inch pipeline that will bring carbon-neutral renewable natural gas into the SoCalGas distribution system for the first time. [Waste Today Magazine]

Wednesday, February 8:

Lots of rooftop solar in Sweden

• The Swedish city of Malmö is one of the greenest in Europe. The Västra Hamnen district uses 100% renewable energy, for power and heat. It is climate neutral, with absolutely no carbon emissions. The area has extensive bike trails, and a public bus system that runs entirely on biogas, a methane-based alternative to gasoline. [Beloit College Round Table]
• The US Army Corps of Engineers will grant an easement in North Dakota for the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, allowing the project to move toward completion despite the protests. President Donald Trump had signed executive actions to advance approval of this pipeline and others almost as soon as he took office. [CNN]

Flaring gas at an oil refinery in Washington

• With former Secretary of State Jim Baker leading, a group of Republican senior statesmen are pushing for a carbon tax to combat the effects of climate change. In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, they argued, “there is mounting evidence of problems with the atmosphere that are growing too compelling to ignore.” [Voice of America]
• Vermont Electric Cooperative announced its 2017 Energy Transformation Program. The 2017 opportunities include financial incentives for members who install cold-climate heat pumps, purchase or lease electric or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, or transition away from generators to power their homes or businesses. [vtdigger.org]