2018 | Energy Equality For All

31Dec 2018 by Energy Equality No Comments

The Story of 2018 Was Climate Change: Future generations may ask why we were distracted by lesser matters.

[caption id="attachment_594" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] In Lynn Haven, Fla., trees were upended by a hurricane in October.CreditCreditJohnny Milano for The New York Times[/caption] Our best hope may be the weather. For a long time, many people thought that it was a mistake to use the weather as evidence of climate change. Weather patterns contain a lot of randomness. Even as the earth warms and extreme weather becomes more common, some years are colder and calmer than others. If you argue that climate change is causing some weather trend, a climate denier may respond by making grand claims about a recent snowfall. And yet the weather still has one big advantage over every other argument about the urgency of climate change: We experience the weather. We see it and feel it. It…

17Dec 2018 by Energy Equality No Comments

‘1,000 little steps’: Global climate talks end in progress but fail to address the galloping pace of climate change

Climate Change, Global Warming

“In the climate emergency we’re in, slow success is no success." [caption id="attachment_586" align="aligncenter" width="1484"] Participants leave town on Friday, even as negotiations drag on at the end of the two-week United Nations summit on climate change in Katowice, Poland. (Czarek Sokolowski/AP)[/caption] KATOWICE, Poland — Weary climate negotiators limped across the finish line Saturday night after days of round-the-clock talks, striking a deal that keeps the world moving forward with plans to curb carbon emissions. But the agreement fell well short of the breakthrough that scientists — and many of the conference’s own participants — say is needed to avoid the cataclysmic impacts of a warming planet. The deal struck Saturday at a global conference in the heart of Polish coal country, where some 25,000 delegates had gathered, adds legal…

13Dec 2018 by Energy Equality No Comments

The Trump Administration Is Spinning Its Latest Pro-Coal Policy as Good for People of Color

Climate Change, Global Warming

[caption id="attachment_580" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Nothing to see here, just your local coal-fired power plant.Photo: AP[/caption] The Environmental Protection Agency is using energy affordability among low-income communities and people of color as an argument to bring back coal. Yes, the same coal responsible for an estimated 3,000 American deaths a year. Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced a new proposal Thursday that would repeal Obama-era regulations aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. The EPA is doing so under the guise of advancing “clean coal,” a term typically used to describe emerging technologies that capture carbon on site from coal plants. Trouble is, that technology hasn’t advanced quickly enough for the market to make it affordable, and the EPA’s new proposal calls actually for doing away with Obama-era…

05Dec 2018 by Energy Equality No Comments

Climate Change Response Pits Trump Against US Government

Climate Change, Global Warming

I don’t believe it. – Donald Trump, November 26th, referring to the 1596-page Fourth National Climate Assessment, released by the White House at 2 p.m. on Black Friday, November 23rd, the day after Thanksgiving. don’t believe it” is not, by definition, a rational argument supported by evidence. It’s a statement of faith, not susceptible of proof or rebuttal, and as such is useless to effective governance. “I don’t believe it” is the empty opposite of the Fourth National Climate Assessment that is part of a continuing, multi-disciplinary, real-world examination of climate change that began in 1990 (more on this under-publicized report later). Produced by the 13 government agencies that comprise the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the Assessment is the latest report in a thirty-year climate watch that has seen steady,…

30Nov 2018 by Energy Equality No Comments

What causes climate change? Carbon isotopes show it’s fossil fuels.

Climate Change, Global Warming

Scientists can measure how much of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is caused by us. To identify the cause of global warming, scientists study the carbon in our atmosphere. Powell: “Carbon has three varieties: three different isotopes, all with the same number of protons, but three different numbers of neutrons.” James Powell of the National Physical Sciences Consortium says these isotopes are found in different proportions in different substances. For example, the carbon found in plants has a distinct ratio of the isotopes carbon-12 and carbon-13. There’s also a difference between the carbon isotopes in living plants and those in fossil fuels, which are made from plants that died millions of years ago. That’s because plants contain the radioactive isotope carbon-14, which decays over time. Powell: “Geological materials like…

29Nov 2018 by Energy Equality No Comments

Meet the microgrid, the technology poised to transform electricity

Uncategorized

By David Roberts and Alvin Chang This is the path to a cleaner, more reliable, more resilient energy grid. If we want a livable climate for future generations, we need to slow, stop, and reverse the rise in global temperatures. To do that, we need to stop burning fossil fuels for energy. To do that, we need to generate lots of carbon-free electricity and get as many of our energy uses as possible (including transportation and industry) hooked up to the electricity grid. Electrify everything! We need a greener grid. But that’s not all. The highly digital modern world also demands a more reliable grid, capable of providing high-quality power to facilities like hospitals or data centers, where even brief brownouts can cost money or lives. The renewable energy sources…

28Nov 2018 by Energy Equality No Comments

U.S. impacts of climate change are intensifying, federal report says

Climate Change, Global Warming

Doyle Rice, USA TODAY A massive report issued by the Trump administration on Friday emphasizes the dire threat that human-caused global warming poses to the United States and its citizens. "Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities," researchers say in the report, officially Volume II of the National Climate Assessment. (Volume I was released last year.) The 1,600-page report details the climate and economic impacts U.S. residents will see if drastic action is not taken to address climate change. "The impacts of global climate change are already being felt in the United States and are projected to intensify in the future," the researchers say. The last few years have smashed records for damaging weather in the United States, costing nearly…

30Oct 2018 by Energy Equality No Comments

$3 billion already spent to end longest blackout in US history. Could renewable energy help Puerto Rico?

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A brigade from the Electric Power Authority repairs distribution lines damaged by Hurricane Maria in the Cantera community of San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Oct. 19, 2017. (Photo: Carlos Giusti, AP) ADJUNTAS, Puerto Rico – Visitors to Casa Pueblo, a community center in this mountain hamlet, can tour the solar-powered meeting rooms, listen in on the solar-powered radio station or catch a documentary at the solar-powered movie theater. Later, they could lunch at one of Puerto Rico’s first fully solar-powered restaurants just down the street. On an island gripped by energy anxiety, Casa Pueblo is a calming oasis. “This is the model we want for the rest of the (island),” said Alexis Massol-Gonzalez, founding director of Casa Pueblo, a community center and renewables advocacy group. “It would be an energy revolution.” Hurricane Maria blasted through…

16Oct 2018 by Energy Equality No Comments

Hurricane Florence crippled electricity and coal — solar and wind were back the next day

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By IRINA IVANOVA MONEYWATCH Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Florence swamped North and South Carolina, thousands of residents who get power from coal-fired utilities remain without electricity. Yet solar installations, which provide less than 5 percent of North Carolina's energy, were up and running the day after the storm, according to electricity news outlet GTM. And while half of Duke Energy's customers were without power at some point, according to CleanTechnica, the utility's solar farms sustained no damage. Traditional energy providers have fared less well. A dam breach at the L.V. Sutton Power Station, a retired coal-fired power plant near Wilmington, North Carolina, has sent coal ash flowing into a nearby river. Another plant near Goldsboro has three flooded ash basins, according to the Associated Press, while in South Carolina, floodwaters…

28Sep 2018 by Energy Equality No Comments

The Frightening Lesson Hurricane Maria Taught the World About the Politics of Climate Change

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By KUMI NAIDOO September 19, 2018 Exactly a year ago, on Sept. 20, 2017, one of the most violent storms ever to hit the Caribbean made landfall on the island of Puerto Rico. The storm, the likes of which Puerto Ricans had not seen in several generations, had gathered in intensity before tearing through Dominica and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and ending in Puerto Rico. No one can deny the devastation that Hurricane Maria brought on the population of Puerto Rico. Most people survived the hell of the storm but were then forced to live through the hell of the aftermath. Food and water shortages were pervasive throughout the island, power was virtually wiped out, hospitals were closed because of extensive damage, and basic services all but collapsed. No one…