2017-09-07 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, August 31:

• A chemical plant near the flooded city of Houston is expected to explode and catch fire in the coming days. Forty inches (102 cm) of rainfall in the area flooded the site, cutting off its power, and back-up generators were flooded. The plant lost its ability to refrigerate chemical compounds that need to be kept cool to prevent explosion. [BBC]
• The flooding in the Houston area caused by Hurricane Harvey is just the latest problem for the troubled National Flood Insurance Program. After a series of major storms caused floods in the last 12 years, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Superstorm Sandy in 2012, the Federally funded program is roughly $25 billion in debt. [CNN]

Flood in Houston (AP Photo | David J. Phillip)

• Houston’s relaxed approach to development should not be blamed for Hurricane Harvey’s destruction, as critics are saying, but rather the unprecedented nature of a storm that dumped as much as 50 inches of rain on the city, say planning experts and engineers. Nevertheless, it is the third 500-year flood in Harris County in three years. [Washington Examiner]

Friday, September 1:

Siem Moxie

• Siem Offshore Contractors installation support vessel Siem Moxie has started work at Statoil’s 30-MW Hywind floating wind farm off Scotland. The vessel arrived at the Buchan Deep site last week and is supporting ongoing commissioning work on the project’s five Siemens 6-MW Turbines, which are mounted on soar-buoy floating foundations. [reNews]

Siem Moxie (Photo: Port of Hamburg)

• “The Week the Earth Stood Still” • When normally sober scientists start draining the barrel of awful superlatives to describe a summer day off the Gulf Coast, it’s time to pay attention. And today, the smartest military men count the global insecurity and chaos of climate change as an existential threat on a par with nuclear disaster. [New York Times]

Flooded neighborhood (Getty Images)

• The White House says it will ask the Congress for emergency funding to help those affected by Hurricane Harvey. President Donald Trump is expected to propose an initial $5.9 billion (£4.56 billion). The amount will be followed by other aid, though it is not known how quickly. Texas authorities say the state might need more than $125 billion. [BBC]

Saturday, September 2:

• Tesla CEO Elon Musk foresees the market for Model 3 vehicles swelling to 700,000 vehicles, as EVs become more common. However, having EVs selling in these larger volumes could have some unintended side effects. For starters, a sudden, large-scale surge in electric vehicle charging will have an impact on our electricity grid. [CleanTechnica]

EPA headquarters (Creative Commons)

• Washington DC has become the world’s first LEED Platinum city. This is in part because of what it has done installing solar energy on its municipal buildings. In the past two years, solar power installed on the roofs of 28 public schools, other educational buildings, police and fire facilities now produce as much as 7 MW of solar power. [pv magazine USA]
• Empowered by Illinois’ new Future Energy Jobs Act, solar companies have approached farmers around Will County about using some of their property for solar farms. With offers of $800 per acre, compared to $160 to $180 for a really good crop yield, some older farmers are considering the steady cash flow as they head into retirement. [Chicago Tribune]

Sunday, September 3:

PVs in Utah (Photo: Governor’s Office of Energy Development)

• “Is Utah missing the renewable energy boat?” • Rocky Mountain Power intends to invest $3.5 billion for renewable energy infrastructure to supply power for Utah. The bad news for Utah is that the money will be spent in Wyoming and Idaho. So the question for elected leaders and legislators from Utah’s more rural counties is, “Why?” [Deseret News]
• Aside from the massive recurrent national grid investments in Nigeria, with costs running into several billion US dollars, the country is said to be spending N5 trillion ($14 billion) each year on distributed diesel generation, which has no connection with the national utility grid, but provides electricity for homes and businesses. [TODAY.NG]

Coal being loaded into hopper cars (Associated Press)

• Montana coal production is more than 2 million tons ahead of where it was this time last year, although analysts say the future is far from bright for the fossil fuel. “A company that lost 30% of its market in the last couple years and gains back two points is technically doing better,” one analyst said. And new plants are just not being built. [Billings Gazette]

Monday, September 4:

• Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the bill for reconstruction after Hurricane Harvey could be as high as $180 billion (£138 billion). The damage caused by Hurricane Katrina was about $120 billion. The head of FEMA, the government’s disaster management agency, warned that flood-hit states should not rely on Washington to pay the bill. [BBC]

1919 Rauch & Lang electric car

• “The End of Fossil-Fuelled Cars” • The current growth rate of EVs looks to be higher than the 42% that gives a doubling time of 2 years. If it can maintain a 42% CAGR, and EV sales take the entire market in 2031, even without such revolutionary changes as driverless cars and the ubiquitous ridesharing that some analysts predict. [CleanTechnica]
• The artificial leaf is smaller than a playing card and as thin as a real leaf. At its core is a wafer of the silicon used in standard solar panels. It is sandwiched between two coats of chemical catalysts. The silicon’s job is to absorb sunlight and to pass the energy to the catalysts, and the catalysts use this to make hydrogen and oxygen from water. [The Press]

Tuesday, September 5:

Mushrooms growing under solar panels

• Farmers in Japan could be in for a windfall if a new practice of combining agriculture with solar power generation takes root. In 2013, the Japanese government relaxed some restrictions on the use of farmland for solar power generation, provided it was also used for agriculture. Now, some farmers grow mushrooms under the solar panels. [Nikkei Asian Review]
• Giant batteries are starting to make a mark on the electricity grid that serves all of New England. Their unique characteristics could supercharge solar and wind energy development in the region. The batteries reduce stress on the power grid, and at the same time they reduce customer bills through a process called “peak shaving.” [WBUR]

Cape Sharp Tidal turbine

• The 52-foot-diameter Cape Sharp Tidal turbine endured the winter and spring on the seabed in the Bay of Fundy, generating electricity. Now it is in port for upgrades. While the 1,100-ton machine looks as if it went through a couple of rounds with a powerful adversary, it did survive. That is an improvement over an earlier model’s performance. [Philly.com]

Wednesday, September 6:

Arendal (Image: Shutterstock)

• The Norwegian municipality of Arendal pledged to become 100% climate neutral. It is the world’s first municipality to join the UN’s Climate Neutral Now initiative, which means it will measure and reduce emissions “to the greatest extent possible” and offset other emissions. Municipal operations have been climate neutral since 2008. [Energy Live News]
• In a paper published in July, James Hansen says that because of continued inaction since the Paris agreement was reached, limiting carbon emissions will no longer be enough. Now, he says, active measures to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will be required. And those measures will impose staggering expenses. [CleanTechnica]

Offshore wind farm (Source: Rob Faulkner | Wikipedia)

• Two recent reports indicate that the cost of wind power will continue to decrease, making it one of the most affordable green alternatives on the market. The US DOE’s Wind Technologies Market Report and a report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory both say wind technology and efficiency continues to improve. [Interesting Engineering]

2017-08-31 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, August 24:

• The nine northeastern states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative have tightened greenhouse gas emission limits on electric power plants. The group announced that the plants will face a 30% cut on maximum total emissions allowed starting in 2020. By 2030, power industry greenhouse gas emissions will be cut 65% from 2009 levels. [Albany Times Union]

Exxon plant (Matt Brown | AP)

• “Exxon Dared Critics to Prove It Misled the Public. These Researchers Just Called the Company’s Bluff.” • Science historian Naomi Oreskes and Harvard researcher Geoffrey Supran have published the first peer-reviewed, comprehensive analysis of Exxon Mobil’s climate communications. It adds heft to charges of deceptive climate denial. [Mother Jones]
• “Trump officials rewrite Energy Dept study to make renewables look bad, fail anyway” • Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s long-awaited grid study is finally out. Trump officials clearly rewrote the previously leaked staff draft to make it look like renewable energy is a threat to baseload power and grid resilience, but they mostly botched the job. [ThinkProgress]

Friday, August 25:

The tanker Christophe de Margerie (Sovcomflot photo)

• A commercial LNG tanker has sailed across the cold northern route from Europe to Asia without the protection of an ice-breaker for the first time, carrying gas from Norway to South Korea. The specially built ship completed the crossing in just six-and-a-half days setting a new record, according to tanker’s Russian owners. [BBC]
• Green Lantern has received a Certificate of Public Good from the Vermont Public Utility Commission and plans to build and sell ownership shares in a new group-net-metered Community Solar Array in Guilford. The array will have a capacity of 252 kW AC, and will be able to serve between 50 and 100 homes or the equivalent. [Vermont Biz]
• “This Stealth Terrorist Killed ~53,000 Americans Last Year” • An MIT study found that 200,000 premature deaths a year come from air pollution in the US Road transportation account for 53,000 of them. Electricity generation from coal and natural gas power plants accounts for another 52,000. These are real people; they are being murdered. [CleanTechnica]

Saturday, August 26:

Square Roots farm

• An increasing percentage of the world’s population are living in cities, and this number is set to keep growing. A startup based in Brooklyn, Square Roots, has just raised $5.4 million in seed funding that will be used to empower food entrepreneurs and increase urban farming to give city dwellers access to locally produced, healthy food. [CleanTechnica]
• Those Schools around the northern Indian city of Bikaner that have no supply of electricity will soon be illuminated with power fetched through solar panels. The district administration in a recent review meeting of electrification took this decision to give schools situated at distant locations in rural areas renewable power. [Daily News & Analysis]
• “The US coal industry is going out, not with a whimper, but with a burst of rent-seeking” • The US coal industry is dying, but not with any dignity. As the end approaches, its demands for government handouts increasingly frantic. The industry’s product is outmoded, and “picking winners” doesn’t look so bad when you’re losing. [Vox]

Sunday, August 27:

• Apart from physical damage to facilities, hurricanes affect the energy industry due to flooding, power cuts, evacuation of workers and disruptions to the loading or unloading of tankers. Crude oil prices have actually fallen on the news, while petrol prices are up, with traders expecting refineries to be affected more than oilfields. [The National]

Hurricane Harvey (Jack Fischer | NASA via AP)

• “Why Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Google Are Flocking to Iowa” • Apple is the fourth tech giant to build a data center in Iowa, following Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. Apple CEO Tim Cook said at an event in Waukee that one of the important attractions for business is Iowa’s “world-class power grid,” which is powered 36% by wind. [TheStreet.com]
• The Power to Ammonia project, a study looking at the potential of CO2-free ammonia, shows that the electrochemical production of ammonia from renewable energy is a potentially attractive alternative to current technology and that it offers a very promising solution for large-scale seasonal storage and import of renewable energy. [Advanced Science News]

Monday, August 28:

Engineering software to find flight patterns (Eric Francavilla/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

• Engineers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Marine Sciences Laboratory in Sequim, Washington, are working with open-source software ThermalTracker to find the best method for capturing flight patterns of winged creatures to help developers locate optimal sites for offshore wind projects. [Peninsula Daily News]
• Electricity generators have rebuked the Turnbull government for delaying the introduction of a clean energy target, arguing a target will trigger new investment and bring down power bills. Now Mr Turnbull will meet bosses of some of Australia’s biggest power companies for discussions about rapidly rising power prices. [Brisbane Times]

Hurricane Harvey’s destruction

• “Cyclones and climate change: connecting the dots” • Scientists freely acknowledge they don’t know everything about how global warming affects hurricanes like the one pummeling southeast Texas. But what they do know is enough to keep them up at night. The amplifying impact of climate change is basic, physics. [Phys.Org]

Tuesday, August 29:

• CNN meteorologist Dave Hennen labeled Harvey a “one-in-1,000-years type of event.” By amount of rainfall, Harvey might set a new record. The sea level is about seven inches higher than it was a hundred years ago. And the temperature of the ocean is one to two degrees higher. The combination led to more rainfall and more flooding. [CNN]

Houston Flooded by Hurricane Harvey

• Hurricane Harvey’s path through southeast Texas and the Gulf of Mexico hit almost half of US refining capacity and a fifth of its oil production. The drop in production is expected to cause a temporary spike in US gas prices. Analysts expect the storm’s economic impact to pass $40 billion, with direct losses of over $20 billion. [BBC]
• A study produced by the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change shows that the percentage of PVs in the global power supply could be three times higher in 2050 than previously projected. The share of solar energy will likely range between 30% and 50%, instead of 5% to 17%, as had been suggested earlier. [Nanowerk]
• The US Energy Information Administration published its latest “Electric Power Monthly.” It says the US renewable energy is tied US nuclear energy, with each providing roughly 20% of the country’s electrical generation. However, experts predict nuclear’s share to decrease, while that of renewables is expected to continue growing. [CleanTechnica]

Wednesday, August 30:

Port of Long Beach

• The Port of Long Beach in California has greatly reduced local air pollution levels, the most recent annual Emissions Inventory revealed. Compared to 2005 levels, it has reduced local diesel particulate matter air pollution by 88%, and nitrogen oxide air pollution by 56%. Local greenhouse gas emissions were also reduced by 22%. [CleanTechnica]
• China has reached its 2020 solar power target three years ahead of schedule. New figures published by solar industry firm Asia Europe Clean Energy Advisory revealed that China has already exceeded its 2020 target of 105 GW of installed solar capacity, after new builds in June and July pushed it up beyond 112 GW. [EURACTIV]

2017-08-24 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, August 17:

A difficult year in Montana (Credit: Nate Hegyi | YPR)

• The governor of Montana is worried about climate change. The eastern half of the Montana is now in the most severe drought in the nation. July farm losses are nearly $400 million more than last year’s, according to figures from the US Forest Service. And the state’s wildfire season is costing Montanans more than a million dollars a day. [MTPR]
• Most Europeans can choose who they buy their power from and can choose to purchase power from renewable power plants, instead of accepting a “grey default” power offer. More and more consumers prefer to buy clean energy from solar, wind, hydro, geothermal or bio. Growth in demand for renewable power stands at 39% this year. [Press Release Rocket]

Stefano Boeri’s high-rise towers

• In Milan, architect Stefano Boeri created two high-rise apartment blocks that are adorned with a massive number of trees and plants, including 800 trees and 16,000 other plants. Combined, the two towers can convert around 44,000 pounds of carbon dioxide into oxygen annually. They also filter dust from the air. [CleanTechnica]

Friday, August 18:

• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that July was the second hottest month since record keeping began in 1880. At 61.89° F (16.63° C), last month was behind July 2016’s all-time record by just .09° F (0.05° C), and land temperatures in July were the hottest on record at 59.96° F (15.5° C). [The Japan Times]
• “Climate change will likely wreck their livelihoods – but they still don’t buy the science” • In 50 years, Cameron Parish, Louisiana, will likely be no more, according to newly published calculations of the Louisiana government. Cameron Parish also has the greatest percentage of Trump supporters of any county in the US. [The Guardian]

Modular electricity and water supply

• Getting electricity and clean water to remote villages can make a huge difference to those who live there. Running power and water lines from a central location can be expensive, but water filtration systems and electricity generation can be provided to remote locations at low cost. An Italian startup has a $15,000 all-in-one modular solution. [CleanTechnica]

Saturday, August 19:

• In a European test of vehicle-to-grid technology involving 100 vehicles, the owners of the electric Nissans earned an average of $1,530 a year from the program, more than the cost of charging the vehicles. The test also showed that vehicle-to-grid schemes may actually slow the rate at which lithium-ion batteries degrade in normal use.[CleanTechnica]
• “Staying below 2 degrees is ‘possible and practical’ says RMI” • The latest UN Emissions Gap report showed that the world would still be heading for a temperature rise between 2.9 and 3.4 °C by 2100. A report from the Rocky Mountain Institute argues that staying below 2° C is both practical and possible given trends in renewable energy. [pv magazine]

Wind and solar, sun and clouds (Public domain image)

• The Baker-Polito administration in Massachusetts has awarded a $545,000 grant to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department to support the installation of a 436-kW solar canopy at the Franklin County Jail and House of Correction in Greenfield. The grant is the seventh by the Leading by Example State Solar Canopy grant program. [Solar Industry]

Sunday, August 20:

• While President Donald Trump continues to dismantle Obama-era climate policies, an unlikely surge of Republican lawmakers has begun distancing themselves from the GOP’s hard line on climate change. The House Climate Solutions Caucus, a bipartisan backwater when it formed early last year, has more than tripled in size since January. [Politico]

Eclipse, 2012 (Abby182000, Wikimedia Commons)

• As Monday’s total solar eclipse sweeps from Oregon to South Carolina, US electric power and grid operators will be glued to their monitoring systems in what may represent the biggest test yet of the renewable energy era. Utilities and grid operators have been planning for the event for years and have lined up standby power sources. [ETEnergyworld.com]
• Increasingly, solar companies work with farmers to install solar panels on their land. In North Carolina, solar companies pay rents up to $1,400 an acre, far more than what most farmers could earn from planting crops or raising livestock. But PV arrays are low-impact, so farmers can raise livestock or grow crops on land covered with PVs. [CleanTechnica]

Monday, August 21:

Visitors at a solar thermal power plant

• “Why solar towers and storage plants will reshape energy markets” • The 150-MW solar tower and molten salt storage plant to be built in Port Augusta has been made possible by a ground-breaking pricing and contract structure that could help completely reshape Australian power markets, including the end of “baseload” power as we know it. [RenewEconomy]
• The Trump administration has decided to withdraw the official estimate of the Social Cost of Carbon and disband the inter-agency working group that developed it. Despite this, a group of prominent economists and lawyers have highlighted the metric’s continued validity for policymaking in a letter published in the journal Science. [eco-business.com]

Solar panels

• According to the University of Minnesota’s Energy Transition Lab, starting in 2019 the overall cost of building grid-scale storage there will be less than that of building natural-gas plants to meet future energy demand in that state. Current plans for adding 1,800 MW of gas-fired “peaker” plants by 2028 may be unnecessary. [Yahoo Finance UK]

Tuesday, August 22:

World’s biggest floating solar farm (Sungrow Power Supply)

• A new floating solar farm went live in the Chinese city of Huainan above a retired coal mine, China Daily reported. The mine had been flooded with groundwater after it went out of service. The new solar farm generates 40 MW, which can power 15,000 homes for a year. The second biggest active floating farm has a capacity of 6.3 MW. [EcoWatch]
• Monday’s partial eclipse statewide took a sharp, sudden bite out of solar power production in California. Shortly after 9 AM, the state’s fast-multiplying solar farms were plunged into semi-darkness, just when they would normally be revving up. And the electricity grid survived just fine. The slack was filled by hydro-power and natural gas. [SFGate]

Energy storage train (ARES photo)

• Advanced Rail Energy Storage, based in California, has a solution to the problem of energy storage. It is to run some old trains up and down a hill. When a wind or solar farm is producing excess energy, repurposed electric locomotives haul enormously heavy railroad cars to the top of a hill. When power is needed, they generate it coming down. [Seeker]

Wednesday, August 23:

• Coal executives say President Trump pledged to enact an emergency order to protect coal-fired power plants, but his DOE has decided not to use its authority to offer temporary relief to the plants. This type of order is intended to protect the nation’s electricity supply and temporarily allows power plants to skirt environmental regulations. [ThinkProgress]
• Scientists found that some bacteria have a natural defence to cadmium, mercury, or lead that lets them turn the heavy metal into a sulfide, which the bacteria express as tiny crystals on their surfaces. These turn out to be semiconductors that the bacteria can use to photosynthesize atmospheric carbon dioxide into acetic acid, a chemical feedstock. [BBC]

“Cyborg” bacteria

• The US DOE issued a Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Northern Pass transmission project. It concluded that the hydroelectric system is the “preferred alternative” and will result in minimal impacts. Northern Pass Transmission is developing a 192-mile transmission line to move power from Canada to a substation in Deerfield, NH. [Utility Dive]

2017-08-17 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, 10:

Dry Lake wind project in Arizona (DOE photo)

• The wind energy industry reached an important milestone in 2016 when it passed the generating capacity of hydroelectric power for the first time to become the nation’s top renewable generating source. The total amount of wind capacity in the queue represents 34% of all generating capacity waiting to connect to the grid. [ThinkProgress]
• Since oil prices collapsed in 2014, Canada has lost more than 40,000 jobs in oil, gas and related industries, according to data released last year by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. Thousands of employees of fossil fuel businesses left jobless following a plunge in oil prices are finding work with solar or wind energy. [ETEnergyworld.com]

Wildfire in Greenland (Image: Pierre Markuse, some rights reserved)

• Wildfires can happen even in Greenland. They are very rare there, but unfortunately they are becoming more common. This year has been unprecedented far as numbers of fires go. This is particularly bad, as wildfires release soot, and soot that has been deposited on ice sheets or snow greatly increases the speed at which the ice melts. [CleanTechnica]

Friday, 11:

• India has auctioned the largest capacity of rooftop solar power projects in history. The results are extremely promising and could provide a boost to the rooftop solar power market. In an auction of just over 503 MW of rooftop solar capacity, bids ranged from $1.01/W to $1.166/W with tariffs ranging from 3.4¢/kWh to 7.1¢/kWh. [CleanTechnica]
• India’s total installed solar power generation capacity grew over threefold to 13,652 MW over the past two fiscal years, the country’s energy minister said. He also stated the government has revised the National Solar Mission target of Grid Connected Solar Power projects from 20,000 MW by 2022 to 100,000 MW by 2022. [ETEnergyworld.com]

Offshore wind power (Øyvind Holmstad, Wikimedia Commons)

• Oil and gas operators are positioning for potential growth in US offshore wind projects. The US could generate more than 2,000 GW of offshore wind power, Stephanie McClellan with the University of Delaware said at Renewable Energy World’s inaugural Offshore Wind Executive Summit. Statoil and DONG may invest in the US. [Offshore Oil and Gas Magazine]
• Vermont Governor Phil Scott’s Climate Advisory Commission hasn’t even held its first meeting, but it’s already taken a step that may alienate a broad swath of Vermont’s environmental community. The commission’s Technical Advisory Group will have Annette Smith, vociferous critic of wind turbines, as its co-chair. [Seven Days]

Saturday, 12:

Abandoned Salton Sea bait shop (Conn, Kit | Wikimedia Commons)

• Sandia National Laboratories is testing whether one of the largest and most polluted lakes in California can be transformed into one of its most productive and profitable. The 350-square-mile Salton Sea has high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural runoff. Some algae that thrive on these elements may be used to make biofuel. [Biomass Magazine]
• Last month, the New York Independent System Operator’s CEO told a House subcommittee that it planned to integrate a price on carbon into its market dispatch within three years after the Brattle Group published a report on potential impacts. The Brattle Group has released the report, so the clock has started on carbon pricing in the state. [Utility Dive]

Offshore wind farm (reNews image)

• Growth in the deployment of offshore wind in Europe must triple if countries are to have any chance of meeting the goals of the Paris climate agreement, a study said. Research by a joint team from Ecofys and parent company Navigant found that 45% of Europe’s power requirements would need to come from offshore wind to meet the target. [reNews]

Sunday, 13:

• Records are being set in the UK. There was not a single major plant generating purely solar power in 2007, but now, there are 277. The current UK target calls for 30% of electricity to be generated from renewable sources by 2020, and according to provisional figures, the number for the first three months of 2017 was 26.6%. [domain-B]

Solar array in New Mexico

• A 1-MW solar array in Tres Piedras, New Mexico, started soaking in the sun and pumping power to the grid last week. Kit Carson Electric Cooperative announced plans earlier this year to eventually provide its 30,000 members with 100% renewable energy. The Tres Piedras solar array is the first of seven the co-op plans to build this year. [taosnews]
• The clean energy standard, developed by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, qualifies only zero-carbon producers that became operational after December 31, 2010, for clean energy credits. The Pilgrim nuclear plant is too old to get any subsidies. [SouthCoastToday.com]

Monday, 14:

Tesla Tiny House in Melbourne (iStock photo)

• A tiny Tesla house is on a tour of Australia, showing off the Powerwall and educating the public on how to generate, store and use renewable energy. Oh yes, and the tiny home is towed by a Tesla Model X. The tiny home is completely powered by renewable energy courtesy of a 2-kW solar power system and a Powerwall battery. [Gizmodo Australia]
• Last year, California’s 1.4 million dairy cows fell under a statewide mandate to find a way to curb their environmental footprint in order to achieve the state’s goal to reduce methane emissions 40% from 2013 levels by 2030. The state government says now it is receiving more applications for anaerobic digesters than it can currently fund. [Triple Pundit]

Wind turbines in Alberta (Todd Korol | Reuters)

• Alberta produces about 80% of Canada’s oil. But as oil prices have dropped, there have been lay-offs, and the unemployment rate in the once-booming province stands at nearly 8%. Now Alberta’s renewable energy capacity is doubling roughly every two years, and interest in green energy training has been growing swiftly. [Huffington Post Canada]

Tuesday, 15:

• “Huge Climate Opportunity If RGGI Governors Step Up” • The governors of nine Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states are about to make a momentous decision: how much they will cut power plant pollution, and how fast they will cut it. Big carbon cuts could add $3.2 billion to state coffers and reduce air pollution. [Natural Resources Defense Council]

Wanukv River (Photo: CCIRA)

• Residents of a remote community on the central coast of British Columbia got for funding to build a run-of-river hydroelectric plant. The Wuikinuxv Village, on the banks of the Wanukv River, has about 80 people in it. It is accessible only by float plane or boat, so life is challenging, and it has depended on diesel power in the past. [BCLocalNews]
• A coalition of business, environmental and community leaders has backed Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plan to make offshore wind the focus of New York’s renewable energy plan. The New York Offshore Wind Alliance voiced its support for developing green energy off the state’s coastline ahead of a series of public meetings. [reNews]

Wednesday, 16:

Rochester, New York (Evilarry, Wikimedia Commons)

• A year or so from now, electric customers of Rochester, New York, could have easy access to 100% renewable energy at a price lower than their current rates. The mayor is preparing legislation stating the city’s intent to pursue community choice aggregation, which would let the city negotiate an energy-supply contract. [Rochester City Newspaper]
• A study from the University of California, Berkeley gives us more reason to move from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The study says the US wind and solar power boom has helped prevent the premature deaths of thousands of people and has saved the country billions of dollars in healthcare and climate-related costs in a single year. [AlterNet]

2017-08-10 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, August 3:

Indian harvest (Photo: Zvonimir Atletic | Shutterstock)

• A study led by Harvard University reveals that the damage to crops from climate change will be worse than anyone previously expected. Based on data gathered from experiments conducted on staple crops that were exposed to projected atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, the team found reductions in protein levels. [IFLScience]
• The US renewable industry is set for long-term growth as generating costs are falling and the industry is becoming more resilient, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s Head of America. He noted that problems always develop as young industries mature, but renewable energy’s falling costs add to its resilience. [Energy Matters]

Proterra bus (Image: Proterra)

• The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced plans to convert its entire 2,200 bus fleet to zero-emission buses by 2030. It is awarding contracts for 95 electric buses and charging infrastructure for two of its bus service routes, as Southern California Edison expands its electric vehicle charging system. [Utility Dive]

Friday, August 4:

• Part of the bad news on climate change is that New England may become a hotspot for invasive plants and animals. That was the pressing subject on the minds of around 100 experts from academia, conservation organizations and government agencies who gathered at a symposium on invasive species and climate change in Amherst. [Amherst Bulletin]

Nexans Skagerrak (Nexans photo)

• Nexans Norway has started installing the subsea power cable for the 1.4-GW NordLink interconnector between Germany and Norway. Starting at Vollesfjord in Vest-Agder, cable ship Nexans Skagerrak is installing the wires, which weigh 70 kg per meter, while offshore vessel Polar King will carry out subsea burying operations. [reNews]
• Green energy companies have submitted dozens of bids to bring more hydropower, wind and solar to Massachusetts to help keep the lights turned on and cut carbon emissions. In total, at least 46 bids were submitted to the state Department of Energy Resources by last week’s deadline. Winning bids are set to be announced next January. [Eagle-Tribune]

Saturday, August 5:

Marker for the Glacial terminus of 1917 (Marc Lester | Alaska Dispatch News)

• A finger of ice spilling out of the Chugach Mountains marks Alaska’s rapidly warming climate – almost literally. The path approaching Exit Glacier, the most accessible of the 500 square miles of ancient ice covering Kenai Fjords National Park, is a timeline of retreat. The glacier lost 252 feet last summer. Visitors notice the change. [Alaska Dispatch News]
• President Donald Trump came to the heart of coal country and told a large and cheering crowd what they wanted to hear: that Obama’s war on coal has ended. But in fact, Kentucky coal jobs and production continued down in the second quarter of the year. In eastern Kentucky, employment in the second quarter dropped 5.3 %. [The Independent]

Observed temperature trends, 1900 to 2012. (NOAA image)

• The North Atlantic Ocean is home to a “warming hole” that has enthralled scientists, but a new study on it in the journal Nature Climate Change is troubling. The study is part of a growing chorus of research that suggests the cold patch shows a major ocean current system may be slowing down, and melting Arctic sea ice could be the culprit. [The Weather Channel]

Sunday, August 6:

• The “flash drought” that came out of nowhere this summer in the US High Plains, afflicting Montana and the Dakotas worst, has already destroyed more than half of this year’s wheat crop, going by some recent field surveys. Flash droughts are expected to become more common over the coming decades as the climate continues warming. [CleanTechnica]

Pike Island Locks and Dam (US Army Corps of Engineers, Wikimedia Commons)

• Citing Appalachia’s need to compensate for losing thousands of megawatts worth of coal-fired power during the last few years, developer Pike Island Energy hopes to build a $200 million hydroelectric plant at the Pike Island Locks and Dam in the Ohio River. The 48-MW plant would generate enough electricity for about 22,000 homes. [The Review]
• The tiny Orkney island of Eday is working on an initiative that could revolutionize the world of sea transport. With shipping under pressure for producing high levels of emissions, islanders are developing a project that could pave the way for pollution-free roll-on/roll-off vehicle ferries powered by locally produced hydrogen. [The Times]

Monday, August 7:

Perennial rice crop

• At China’s Yunnan Agricultural University, researchers developed a perennial rice by crossing Oryza sativa, the short-lived Asian rice, with a wild African perennial O. longistaminata. The cross, a possible help for climate change, “apparently lasts at least five years and gives 10 seasons of grain twice a year with yields comparable to seasonal rice.” [NewsX]
• There are a few more than 50,000 coal miners working in the US. That is slightly more than last year, with President Trump taking credit for the change, but coal mining is not secure work. By contrast, the wind industry added 15,000 workers last year and the solar industry added 50,000. The question is whether miners could take the new jobs. [Gears Of Biz]

Cable routes from Tunisia to Europe

• TuNur Limited, a private company incorporated in the United Kingdom is seeking to set up a 4.5 GW concentrating solar power system in Tunisia. The power would be sent through three submarine cables to Europe. The first link, sending up to 500 MW of electricity through Malta, could be finished as soon as 2020. [Malta Independent Online]

Tuesday, August 8:

• The average temperature in the US has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and Americans are feeling the effects, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration. Scientists say they fear that the administration could change or suppress the report. A draft of it is available. [New York Times]

Air monitoring station at Jungfraujoch

• Potent, climate warming gases are being emitted into the atmosphere but are not being recorded in official inventories, a BBC investigation has found. In just one example, Swiss air monitors detected large quantities of one gas coming from a location in Italy. However, the Italian submission to the UN records just a tiny amount. [BBC News]
• A German public works department, Stadtwerke Heidelberg, has broken ground on a new type of energy storage center. Solar and wind energy generated on site will be used to heat up the water inside the tower. The heat will then be sold. The heat storage center will also provide a sustainable energy knowledge hub to the community. [The Urban Developer]

Wednesday, August 9:

Belectric storage project (Credit: Belectric)

• Belectric has built and commissioned a 16-MWh battery storage plant for Eins Energie in Saxony. The €10 million ($11.7 million) project provides primary reserve of 10 MW to the power market, Belectric said. The German state of Saxony funded the project, together with €1 million from the European Regional Development Fund. [reNews]
• US diplomats should sidestep questions on what it would take for the Trump administration to re-engage in the global Paris climate agreement, a diplomatic cable seen by Reuters said. The cable was sent to embassies by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. It also said diplomats should make clear the US wants to help other countries use fossil fuels. [HuffPost]

Pilot plant (Image: VTT)

• Ineratic, a spinoff of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, has cooperated with Finnish partners to develop a mobile chemical pilot plant that can be used decentrally to produces gasoline, diesel oil, and kerosene from regenerative hydrogen and carbon dioxide from the air. The pilot plant is so compact that it fits into a shipping container. [domain-B]