September 18, 2019 | By Cory Felder and Dan Cross-Call RMI This Spring, Colorado ascended to the top tier of state-led clean energy policy in the United States. In the final days of May, Governor Jared Polis signed 11 bills ushering in a wave of key policy changes to advance decarbonization and clean energy in the state. The legislature codified an electricity sector greenhouse gas (GHG) …
Fertilizer plants emit 100 times more methane than reported. IPCC points to nitrogen fertilizers as one of the most dangerous and underestimated contributors to the climate crisis
Step Aside Agribusiness, It’s Time for Real Solutions to the Climate Crisis. Sept 24 2019. Big food and agribusiness companies are desperate to portray themselves as part of the solution to the climate crisis. But there is no way to reconcile what’s needed to heal our planet with their unflinching commitment to growth. By GRAIN. New research is showing that the …
Transitions that work: The principles include strong governmental support, dedicated funding streams, strong and diverse coalitions, and economic diversification
The principles include strong governmental support, dedicated funding streams, strong and diverse coalitions, and economic diversification. The case of Tonawanda, New York, where the coal-fired power plant shut down, highlights how many of these principles work in practice. There, a diverse coalition, including the Kenmore Teachers Association, the Western New York Area Labor Federation, the United Steelworkers of America, Tonawanda, …
Hickenlooper presided over a 400% increase in Colorado oil production and threatened to sue any local jurisdiction that tried to stop fracking
The vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions come from burning fossil fuels. Each new well pad adds to the supply of these greenhouse gas-emitting fuels at a time the IPCC says we should be reducing their use. Hickenlooper has never apologized to the local jurisdictions that tried to stop the expansion of fracking into residential neighborhoods and were thwarted by …
Liebreich: Climate Lawsuits – An Existential Risk to Fossil Fuel Firms?
September 26, 2019, By Michael Liebreich, Senior ContributorBloombergNEF As I fly in to New York for Climate Week (I know, flight-shame, more on that later), I have been reading about the bankruptcy of Purdue Pharma. Over the past 20 years the company has been hit with over 2,600 lawsuits because of the central role its Oxycontin painkiller played in the …
Seattle City Council to consider ban on natural gas for new homes, buildings
Sep. 5, 2019, Seattle Times By Daniel Beekman Seattle Times staff reporter The Seattle City Council will consider a ban on natural gas for newly constructed homes and buildings, favoring the use of electricity for heating and cooking. Councilmember Mike O’Brien plans to introduce legislation this week that would prohibit natural-gas piping systems in new structures, starting next summer. The ban would take effect …
On how out-moded gas investment is
Sept 2019: (Wall Street Journal) Oil and Gas Bankruptcies Grow as Investors Lose Appetite for Shale Bankruptcies among U.S. oil and gas companies are rising as Wall Street continues disinvesting from the industry, the Wall Street Journal reports. Twenty-six oil-and-gas producers have filed for bankruptcy so far this year. That number is expected to rise as companies face mounting debt …
Global Warming and U.S. National Security Diplomacy: Why the prospect of raising temperatures and sea levels along the coasts while inland regions suffer drought is viewed simply as collateral damage to the geopolitics of oil
Stopping global warming requires a tax policy to close down the special privileges promoting oil industry profits including the use of “flags of convenience” in offshore banking centers as a means of tax avoidance. A Green program logically would include a natural-resource rent tax (as classical economists advocated throughout the 19th century), and charges for what economists call “external economies,” …
Hydrogen can do everything coal does in the steel-making process: BNEF says hydrogen technology competitive with high-cost, coal-based plants when the cost of renewable hydrogen (just produced from methane now) falls below $2.20 kg, assuming coking coal prices remain where they are now at about $310/ton (maybe by 2030)
Currently, most commercial hydrogen in North America is derived from natural gas, which has its own carbon and methane emissions problems. New technologies that rely on renewable energy are in development. By Steve Hanley, Clean Technica, 6 Sept 2019 Industry depends on steel to make the cars, appliances, and other consumer goods that are at the heart of the global economy. …
Exxon drops out of the S&P 500 top 10. Also, the decline of American coal is taking a toll on the railroad industry
Reproduced from Moody’s; Chart: Axios Visuals No matter what President Trump says, coal in America isn’t coming back — and it’s bringing other industries down with it. Driving the news: Coal demand for electricity is likely to drop by more than 50% in 11 years, according to a report by the rating agency Moody’s. In turn, revenue from transporting that coal around …