It is intended to sound like Good News: Duke Energy promises to go “net zero”. In reality, it is extremely Bad News: Nowhere near 0% fossil fuels, and not until 2050. There is no excuse for—I’m sorry, I have no words to express my contempt for these—ehh, let’s just say weasels. By Mokurai Major electric […]
Remember how the climate change denialists told us that intermittent renewables would destroy grid stability? Now we find that stabilizing the frequency with grid-scale batteries and DC-AC inverters is of at least equal importance. Grid operators pay real money for it. We have of course been talking about using grid-scale battery and other storage for […]
Everybody knows that coal is on the way out, but the latest electricity report from BloombergNEF is something of a shocker. It casts a shadow of gloom over natural gas, too. Low-cost renewables are creeping into gas territory, helped along by falling costs for energy storage. In fact, according to BNEF, energy storage is now a cheaper […]
In yet another indicator that COVID-19 will not stop the inevitable march of renewable energy into the sparkling green future, New York State just approved another 1,000 megawatts in offshore wind — and possibly much more, if all goes according to plan. That makes 2020 the second year in a row that the state’s wind […]
As we learned three months ago, after a big rise in 2018, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell slightly in 2019, almost entirely because of reduced coal burning. And because of the broad economic hiatus induced to fight the novel coronavirus, emissions have already fallen so far this year. But that’s temporary, and while the lowered levels of […]
Wind energy is offering hope for American farmers amid tough times. “I would say the absence of financial stress has been a real game-changer for me,” Tom Cunningham tells USA Today. He has three wind turbines on his land and they make up for the crop export issues he has been facing. Farmers who living in […]
Just in time for the next revolution in the world of information and communications technology, a Swiss consortium has come up with a proven formula for drastically improving energy efficiency in data centers. That’s all well and good, but that same consortium warns that the next big wave of energy-gobbling activity will creep out of […]
Trump does not like wind and solar power, but the market absolutely loves wind and solar power. The EIA predicts wind, solar, hydro, and energy storage will be 78% of new electrical generation capacity in 2020. We will see 5.57 GW of coal retired and no new coal plants! By Kurt Lowder Cleantechnica While natural gas is adding […]
The US Energy Information Agency said this week that it expects 42 gigawatts of new electricity generating capacity to start commercial operation in 2020. Solar and wind will account for almost 32 GW of the new capacity. Wind will account for the largest share of these additions at 44%, followed by solar at 32%, and natural gas […]
It’s no secret that the Trump Administration has presided over the collapse of the US coal industry, but do they have to rub it in? The answer appears to be yes. On Wednesday, newly minted Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette announced an all-hands-on-deck initiative to push the energy storage envelope farther into coal-killing territory. For good […]
You finish that last sip of morning coffee and stare at the empty paper cup in your hand. Should it go into the recycling bin, compost, or be landfilled or incinerated? You are not alone. Most Americans are confused about recycling, and the crisis driven by China’s decision to stop accepting most foreign scrap material is […]
For years the coal industry has been claiming, without evidence, that the large-scale retirement of coal plants would leave us freezing in the dark, putting the electricity grid at risk. Coal executives and coal-based utilities have repeatedly used this “resiliency” argument to push energy officials to bail out uneconomic coal plants, despite the reality that the […]
We’ve been writing for a while that solar and wind power are the cheapest options on the market for new power capacity in many if not most places. That is also shown by the power plants that companies across the United States choose to install. While natural gas is still seen as cheaper in certain […]
At the start of August, we explained how the Ohio bill bailing out coal and nuclear plants with consumer cash was a boon to Trump pal Bob Murray. Murray’s company supplied the FirstEnergy coal plants with their climate-killing fuel, so what’s good for FirstEnergy, like this bill, is also good for Murray. By Climate Denier Roundup […]
Kent Lassman of the Koch-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute recently partnered with former Koch lackey Daniel Turner of Power the Future on what the Washington Times’ Valerie Richardson generously describes as a “study” claiming that the Green New Deal will cost American households some $70,000 in its first year. By Climate Denier Roundup While most people would consider a study to […]