3p Contributor: Bill DiBenedetto
Recent Articles
EPA Keeps the Heat on Coal-Fired Plants
Pollution doesn’t pause in election years. The EPA has proposed what will surely add another target for the right to pursue in its attacks on all things EPA: the first Clean Air Act standard for carbon pollution from new power plants.
It’s not exactly the hardest-hitting rule from the agency: The rulemaking proposed this week only concerns new generating units that will be built in the future, and does not apply to existing units already operating or units that will start construction over the next 12 months.
The proposed standard “reflects the ongoing trend in the power sector to build cleaner plants that take advantage of American-made technologies, including new, clean-burning, efficient natural gas generation, which is already the technology of choice for new and planned power plants,” the EPA said. “At the same time, the rule creates a path forward for new technologies to be deployed at future facilities that will allow companies to burn coal, while emitting less carbon pollution.”
OECD Report Cites Heavy Consequences of Inaction on Climate
Here’s a really sobering conclusion from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: Without ambitious actions by governments global greenhouse gas emissions could increase 50 percent by 2050.
The 34-member-nation OECD, whose mission is to “promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world,” warns in a new report, OECD Environmental Outlook to 2050: The Consequences of Inaction, that rising living standards over the coming decades will mean increased demands for energy, food and natural resources. This will result in sharply higher GHG emissions and pollution.
OECD says the report presents the latest projections of socio-economic trends over the next four decades, and their implications for four areas of concern: climate change, biodiversity, water and the health impacts of environmental pollution.
Inaction on those fronts will be devastating, the report says, in both human and economic terms. Without new policies:
First Wind: Hawaii’s Winds of Renewable Energy
First Wind, a wind energy company, has obtained $236 in financing for its third wind project in Hawaii, the 69 megawatt Kawailoa Wind project on the North Shore of Oahu.
Construction on the 7,187-acre site—basically the ground-breaking—began in December on Kamehameha Schools’ Kawailoa Plantation. When completed by the end of this year it will be the largest wind energy facility in the state; it’s estimated the project will provide more than five percent of Oahu’s electricity.
First Wind, based in Boston, focuses exclusively on the development, financing, construction, ownership and operation of utility-scale wind energy projects in the U.S. The company operates 750 megawatts (MW) of generating capacity at 12 wind energy projects in Maine, New York, Vermont, Utah and Hawaii.
Beyond SOPA: Obama’s Privacy Bill of Rights
Following up on the PIPA/SOPA online privacy controversy of January — which effectively quashed egregious congressional proposals on the subject — the Obama administration has unveiled a “consumer privacy bill of rights,” a 62-page framework for protecting consumer data in a networked world.
The White House calls it a blueprint providing “a baseline of clear protections for consumers and greater certainty for companies.” It’s designed to give consumers more control over the manner in which personal information is used on the Internet.
There’s also the matter of trust, something that is ever harder to find, instill and maintain, especially when it comes to dealing with and on the Web, where online sales have ballooned from $20 billion at the turn of the century to nearly $200 billion annually.
As outlined by the White House, the privacy bill of rights includes:
Solar, Wind and Biofuel: A $246B Market in 2011
For those wondering if the clean energy economy will ever really take flight, there’s some renewable light at the end of the tunnel.
A report from Clean Edge that’s aptly titled “Clean Energy Trends 2012” says the solar photovoltaic, wind, and biofuel markets grew by 31 percent to $246.1 billion last year.
That’s a nice number but still nothing to compare with just the aggregate profits of the fossil fuel guys: over the past decade the top five oil and gas companies alone reported more than $1 trillion in profits and another $71 billion in profits during the first half of 2011. In addition, the oil, gas and coal industries receive massive subsidies, about six times as many as the global clean-energy industry, according to the report.
Volvo Ups the Ante on Emissions Reductions
Volvo Group, the transportation equipment manufacturer, has set a tall order for itself. It wants to reduce its carbon emissions from the construction equipment, buses and trucks it makes by 30 million tons by the end of 2014.
To accomplish that, the group has expanded its partnership with the WWF Climate Savers program.
Volvo also said its joint-venture company, SDLG, which manufactures construction equipment in China, will become the first Chinese company to be a member of the Climate Savers program.
Trendwatch 2012: LEEDing the Recovery?
Please also join us for a free webinar today at 4:00 EST where we’ll be discussing the role of sustainability in economic recovery.
Maybe it’s time to start thinking differently about green and smart buildings. Expand the skyline, so to speak. A better approach — and one that is gaining increasing attention and study — would be to plan and work for green, sustainable and carbon-neutral cities.
Of course that is more easily said than done in the aftermath of the collapse of the housing and construction markets in what is at best a fragile economy. The basic challenge is always money and access to financing. While there is evidence that green-building saves money over the long-term, the initial investments needed for new building or extensive retrofits remain high.
In the Zone: Judge Rules NY Town Can Ban Fracking
One way to stop fracking is to do it one town and county at a time.
New York Supreme Court Justice Phillip R. Rumsey ruled this week that the Town of Dryden, NY has the right to adopt zoning rules that prohibit natural gas drilling that uses the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, method of extraction.
In Anschutz Exploration Corporation v. the Town of Dryden and the Town of Dryden Town Board, the judge concluded that the town’s zoning ordinances are not preempted by the state’s Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Law.
EVs Charged Up for $10K Rebate
Those thinking about jumping into the EV market might have a nice new incentive in the form of a $10,000 rebate, which is part of President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget plan.
The proposal is a boost and a change in direction – buyers of electric vehicles currently are eligible for a $7,500 tax credit for the tax-filing year, while the new rebate program would allow consumers to slice $10,000 off the top of an EV at the time of purchase.
Coal, Mining Interests File Suit to Block Landmark Mercury Regs
Sooner or later you knew it would happen: a Big Coal move to stop the EPA’s landmark decision to regulate emissions of mercury, lead and other toxic pollutants from coal- and oil-fired plants.
The first shot against the regulations was filed Thursday by the National Mining Association in a petition filed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. NMA members are a veritable who’s who of coal, transportation and mining companies, including Arch Coal, ArcelorMittal, Chevron Mining and various coal-state associations.
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