carbon pollution
Decarbonization ambitions ignite debate over mining, permitting
The decarbonized, electrified future envisioned by the Biden administration, state governments, automakers, utility companies and corporate sustainability goals depends to a huge degree on minerals and metals. Lots more lithium will be needed for car and truck batteries, as well as the big banks of batteries that are increasingly popping onto the electric grid to […]
Explain it to me like I’m 12: An analysis of the governor’s “Deep Carbonization Pathways Analysis”
North Carolina has strayed from its path to “net zero,” a crucial way to meet its climate change goals. The state needs a course correction, so last week Gov. Cooper released the “Deep Carbonization Pathways Analysis” — a 101-page, dense-as-a-flourless-cake guide to reaching the state’s 2050 benchmark. The background: Over the past five years, the […]
Affordable, reliable and sustainable: report compares utility performance
A nationwide comparison of electric utility performance by an Illinois consumer advocacy group found that customers in states that are heavily reliant on fuel oil and natural gas, as in the Northeast and South, tend to pay more than those with larger amounts of carbon-free generation, among other findings. The report by the Illinois-based Citizens […]
New report: Utility CEO’s take home giant salaries, even as companies fumble transition to sustainable energy
Duke Energy chief Lynn Good is among the highest paid despite company’s inadequate work to tackle the climate emergency Most Americans are aware of just how obscenely inflated many CEO salaries have become, but a new report from Joe Smyth of the Energy and Policy Institute on the compensation packages provided to the CEO’s of […]
The most impactful agricultural story of 2022
Whew… what a year. If you closely follow ag doings, you know there’s plenty to talk about. If not, well let me get you caught up. First, three stories that fall just a wee bit short of the most impactful agricultural story of 2022.
Amid a major federal investment in electric cars, it’s time for states to step up, advocates say
For years, electric vehicles posed something of a chicken-and-egg problem. Mass adoption, seen as critical to cutting the largest single source of U.S. carbon emissions, couldn’t happen until the infrastructure to allow drivers to recharge wherever they were heading was in place. And those charging stations weren’t coming until more drivers switched to plug-in electric […]
States are vying for money to start ‘hydrogen hubs.’ What are they?
Across the country, states are inking agreements with neighbors or striking out on their own to pursue billions in federal funding to set up “hydrogen hubs,” clustered centers for production, storage and use of the gas that many see as a crucial piece of the puzzle for decarbonizing the U.S. economy. How broad a role it should play, however, is a matter of debate.
For offshore wind aspirations to become reality, transmission hurdles must be cleared
President Joe Biden’s administration laid out ambitious additional goals last month to boost offshore wind power generation, one of the American renewable energy industry’s emerging wide open frontiers. The federal announcements come as coastal states across the country are increasingly setting offshore wind energy targets, seeking to capture not just clean energy but the potentially big economic benefits of their ports serving as hubs for the vessels, blade manufacturing, cables and other infrastructure needed to get turbines more than 850 feet tall installed miles out at sea.
Report says many utilities are slow-walking clean energy goals
Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress ranked among the nation’s worst DENVER – A report released this week by the Sierra Club faults dozens of utilities that provide a major chunk of U.S. electric generation for failing to speed up their decarbonization efforts. “For the sake of our communities and planet, we must do […]
Amid a massive American clean energy shift, grid operators play catch-up
For the better part of the past century, the American electric power system evolved around large, mostly fossil fuel power plants delivering electricity to residences, businesses and industry through a network of transmission and distribution wires that collectively came to be called the electric grid. But as the threat of climate change driven by carbon pollution becomes more dire and as technological advances make wind, solar and battery storage ever cheaper options for powering homes and business, states, corporations and voters are increasingly pushing to aggressively decarbonize the grid.
A tale of two realities
As the climate emergency worsens, grounds for hope and optimism continue to emerge It was the best of summers, it was the worst of summers. It was the summer the United Nations declared a healthy environment a universal human right, and a summer that shattered heat records across the globe. The U.S. enacted a historic climate bill not long after the Supreme Court struck down the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan.
California’s 2035 ban on new gas-powered cars set to apply to Virginia
Many states, including NC’s neighbor to the north, have linked their laws to California’s clean car standards California’s decision to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars beginning in 2035 will also halt the sale of such vehicles in Virginia due to a 2021 law linking the commonwealth to the western state’s vehicle emissions standards, […]