The Trump administration is burying dozens of studies detailing the promise of renewable energy, impeding a transition away from fossil fuels (excerpt): Grist

 ‘It just goes into a black hole’ 

Vote for my future climate

The Trump administration is burying dozens of studies detailing the promise of renewable energy, impeding a transition away from fossil fuels

By Peter Fairley on Oct 26, 2020

"But what went unsaid at the grip-and-grin was that one of those high-ranking officials, Dan Simmons of the U.S. Department of Energy doesn’t appear to fully support renewables. In fact, he has presided over his agency’s systematic squelching of dozens of government studies detailing its promise.

One pivotal research project, for example, quantifies hydropower’s unique potential to enhance solar and wind energy, storing up power in the form of water held back behind dams for moments when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. By the time of the Hoover Dam ceremony, Simmons’ office at the Energy Department had been sitting on that particular study for more than a year.

In all, the department has blocked reports for more than 40 clean energy studies. The department has replaced them with mere presentations, buried them in scientific journals that are not accessible to the public, or left them paralyzed within the agency, according to emails and documents obtained by InvestigateWest, as well as interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees at the Department of Energy, or DOE, and its national labs.

Bottling up and slow-walking studies is already harming efforts to fight climate change, according to clean energy experts and others, because Energy Department reports drive investment decisions. Entrepreneurs worry that the agency’s practices under the current White House will ultimately hurt growth prospects for U.S.-developed technology."

Go to complete Grist story

 

 Related: Polling Shows Growing Climate Concern Among Americans. But Outsized Influence of Deniers Remains a Roadblock (excerpt): DeSmog

 

'A shot in the arm:' Victoria backs clean energy in bid to fuel COVID-19 recovery: SMH

(Pics by this blog)

"Clean energy projects will receive a Victorian government funding boost in the hope of driving the state's battered economy out of the coronavirus downturn and avoiding a slump in wind and solar investment.

Victorian Energy Minister Lily D'Ambrosio is preparing to brief 

300 investors on Wednesday about the launch of a formal process to test interest in building 600 megawatts of renewable energy capacity statewide, which she said would drive down prices and create new jobs at a critical time."

.......................................

"Climate advocates say the unprecedented upheaval of COVID-19 presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to accelerate the energy transition. Mr Thornton said there was now a "massive consensus" in Australia and around the world about the potential for renewable energy to play a leading role in the economic recovery from COVID-19."

By Nick Toscano and Miki Perkins

September 1, 2020

Go to the complete SMH article 

Related: 

Young people’s burden: requirement of negative CO2 emissions: Hansen et al

Solar and wind’s stunning cost advantage sparks call for mass coal closure: RenewEconomy

climate emergency

A new global study has highlighted the growing advantage of wind and solar costs over new and even existing coal generators, so much so that a decision to replace 500GW (gigawatts) of old coal plant with new renewables would deliver annual savings of $23 billion ($A34 billion) and a timely $A1.4 trillion economic boost.

This is one of the headline findings of Renewable Power Generation Costs 2019, put together by the International Renewable Energy Agency, which notes that the cost of solar has fallen by 82 per cent over the past decade and onshore wind by 39 per cent.

This puts the cost of more than half the wind and solar farms installed across the globe in 2019 below the cheapest new coal plants, and below even many existing coal plants. Remember, this is a global average, so includes regions where the quality of the wind or solar resource may not be so good, and is for renewable generators completed in 2019.

Read the RenewEconomy story 

#jailclimatecriminals

Wind and solar output beat brown coal in Australia for first time in September quarter: RenewEconomy

The combined output of wind and solar generation has beaten brown coal for the first time over a quarterly period in Australia’s main grid, according to new data from energy consultancy Energy Synapse.

Wind and solar have beaten brown coal over weekly and monthly periods in recent times, but not previously over a whole quarter.
“July to September 2019 was the first quarter ever where wind and solar (utility-scale plus rooftop) in the National Electricity Market generated more electricity than brown coal,” says Energy Synapse managing director Marija Petkovic.

“This is a significant tipping point in the transition to clean energy.”

 

According to the Energy Synapse data, utility-scale solar set a new record for electricity generation in the third quarter, despite the fact that it is not usually the best period for sunshine.
The output for the last three months from utility scale solar generation was 1,300HWh – almost three times the generation in the same time last year, which reflected the growth from newly connected solar farms in Queensland such as the Clermont, Haughton, and Rugby Run installations, and despite the fact that many facilities were turned off on occasions due to negative pricing.

Read the RenewEconomy article

See also:

The Climate Denial Machine: How the Fossil Fuel Industry Blocks Climate Action. 

 

#criminales climáticos de la cárcel  #criminalesclimáticosdelacárcel

#jailclimatecriminals  #gaolclimatecriminals  #climateaction  #wewantclimateactionnow

Hello From the Year 2050. We Avoided the Worst of Climate Change — But Everything Is Different: NYT

Let’s imagine for a moment that we’ve reached the middle of the century. It’s 2050, and we have a moment to reflect—the climate fight remains the consuming battle of our age, but its most intense phase may be in our rearview mirror. And so we can look back to see how we might have managed to dramatically change our society and economy. We had no other choice.
There was a point after 2020 when we began to collectively realize a few basic things.

One, we weren’t getting out of this unscathed. Climate change, even in its early stages, had begun to hurt: watching a California city literally called Paradise turn into hell inside of two hours made it clear that all Americans were at risk. When you breathe wildfire smoke half the summer in your Silicon Valley fortress, or struggle to find insurance for your Florida beach house, doubt creeps in even for those who imagined they were immune.

Two, there were actually some solutions. By 2020, renewable

energy was the cheapest way to generate electricity around the planet—in fact, the cheapest way there ever had been. The engineers had done their job, taking sun and wind from quirky backyard DIY projects to cutting-edge technology. Batteries had plummeted down the same cost curve as renewable energy, so the fact that the sun went down at night no longer mattered quite so much—you could store its rays to use later.

And the third realization? People began to understand that the biggest reason we weren’t making full, fast use of these new technologies was the political power of the fossil-fuel industry. 
Investigative journalists had exposed its three-decade campaign of denial and disinformation, and attorneys general and plaintiffs’ lawyers were beginning to pick them apart. And just in time.

Read the NYT article 

See also: 

Blame for Extinction Spreads to Methane Gas: NYT

 

#jailclimatecriminals  #suefossilcorpsdirectors

Clean energy found to be a 'pathway to prosperity’ for Northern Territory : The Guardian

"Energy development in the Northern Territory is a typically Australian story: it is backing fossil fuels – in this case gas – when it could, as one of the sunniest places on Earth, be reaping economic and environmental benefits from renewable energy.
That is the message from a report that makes the alternative case, suggesting embracing clean energy could dramatically expand the electricity, mining and mineral processing industries while reducing living costs."

Read The Guardian Story

Polls Suggest the GOP's Climate and Environment Disinformation Efforts are Beginning to Falter : TGMO

"As reported in the Atlantic, several recent polls reveal that there is a nearly 10-point surge in concern about climate change among Americans."

"We’ve not seen anything like that in the 10 years we’ve been conducting the study," Anthony Leiserowitz, a researcher at Yale, told the Atlantic's Robsinson Meyer.

Extreme weather events are driving concern about climate change. Depending on where you live, flooding, hurricanes, droughts, superstorms and Nor’easters are all making it hard for people to ignore climate change."

DESMOG: Renewables Offset 35 Times More CO2 Every Year Than All Carbon Capture Projects Ever, New Analysis Finds

By Justin Mikulka (6 min. read)

A new analysis by Clean Technica found that global investment in carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) adds up to roughly $7.5 billion total. It also examined how much, for that investment, CCS has reduced atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels compared to an equivalent investment in renewable power generation.

The analysis calculated that “wind and solar are displacing roughly 35 times as much CO2 every year as the complete global history of CCS.” Clean Technica's Mike Barnard concluded, “CCS is a rounding error in global warming mitigation.” 

Read more.

Read the articles in the DESMOG blog

Florida chooses world’s largest solar + storage project to replace gas plants: Renew Economy

"Florida Power & Light (FPL), the state utility owned by NextEra Energy, plans to build the world’s largest solar plus battery storage project which will boast battery capacity four times larger than anything currently in operation.

The new project is specifically intended to accelerate the retirement and replacement of two 1970s-era natural gas generating units at the company’s neighbouring power plant."

Read the article

Australia’s plunging wind, solar, storage costs stun fossil fuel industry: Renew Economy

"This week the federal Coalition government decided to dump 90 per cent of the coal projects that had been submitted to its big underwriting program, and chose instead a shortlist dominated by renewables backed by battery storage and pumped hydro, and some gas and just one coal upgrade.


The choice may have been driven more by politics than economics, given the project developers were asked for only a broad outline of their proposal and there is an election just a few weeks away.


But when the final detailed tenders come in later this year – assuming the program survives the upcoming election campaign – the economic case for favouring renewables and storage projects should be crystal clear, if the latest numbers from global analysts BloombergNEF are anything to go by.

The stunning fall in the costs of wind, solar and storage – estimated on a global scale – has already put the fossil fuel industry on notice, as we reported earlier this week."

Read the article 

See also: The Age of Stupid

#coal  #coalgeneratedenergy  #electricity   #renewableenergy  #renewableenergy

NSW Greens launch plan for 1 million households to have solar in four years

The NSW Greens have today launched a $1.25 billion comprehensive plan to ensure at least one million extra households in NSW can either install solar panels or be part of community renewable energy schemes within four years.  The Household Solar Plan is part of the Greens Roadmap to 100% Renewable Energy by 2030 and involves:

• Mandatory solar plus batteries for all new dwellings - 350,000 in four years
• $2000 rebate for rooftop solar and batteries for 500,000 households
• Solar panels on all public housing and government buildings - 110,000 public housing tenants receive electricity rebates
• A community solar offset scheme for apartment owners and renters - 200,000 participants in four years
• A Fair Price for Solar - mandatory extra 4.4c/kW for avoided health and social costs

The Conversation: Climate change: six positive news stories you probably missed this year

Climate change news can be incredibly depressing. In 2018 alone, The Conversation covered the loss of three trillion tonnes of ice in Antarctica; Brazil’s new president and why he will be disastrous for the Amazon rainforest; a rise in global CO₂ emissions; and a major IPCC report which warned we are unlikely to avoid 1.5℃ of warming. 

Then there were the rogue hurricanes, intense heatwaves, massive wildfires and the possibility we are emitting our way towards a Hothouse Earth. Global warming has left some wintery animals with mismatched camouflage, and it may even cause a global beer shortage.

But things cannot be entirely bad, can they? We asked some climate researchers to peer through the smog and highlight a few more positive stories from 2018.

See The Conversation article 

#climateaction #climatechange #animalextinction #forests #renewableenergy #solarenergy #coal

CNBC: California clears final hurdle for state's landmark solar panel mandate for new homes

solar energy

• A requirement for new homes built in California starting in 2020 to include solar electric systems is now formally part of the state's building code.
•  
• It follows approval Tuesday by the California Building Standards Commission of a plan endorsed in May by a state energy panel.
•  
• California is the first state in the nation to mandate solar-energy installations on most single-family homes as well as multi-family residential buildings.

Read CNBC article 

#California  #solarenergy  #buildingcode #solarpanels #climateaction #climatechange

Climate Change: Sanjeev Gupta shows up Australian Coalition Government on energy leadership

Gupta signs up solar farm to power Victoria steelworks (RenewEconomy)

GFG's announcement to transform Whyalla into a renewable energy super power shows the Coalition Government's lack of leadership is letting Australians down.
"This is the leadership Australia needs to transition to a new, clean economy," Greens Senator for South Australia Sarah Hanson-Young said.

Everything to Know About Coal (in Under 3 Minutes)

Union of Concerned Scientists

Published on Jan 4, 2018

Coal has helped power the United States for decades—but thanks to automation and natural gas, it’s now on the way out. Given the many benefits of renewables, that’s not such a bad thing. Take action here: http://www.ucsusa.org/coal