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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Germany’s biggest utility spins off its fossil fuel assets; Are fossil fuel companies running scared? Florida punishes homeowners for not polluting; PLUS: MSNBC’s big infomercial for Big Coal… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
Green News Report
with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen
12/4/2014
‘Green News Report’ – December 4, 2014 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen... · · · · · ‘Green News Report’ – December 4, 2014 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Scientists predict green energy revolution after incredible new graphene discoveries; See what your city will look like with rising sea levels; NASA: rate of Antarctic ice melt triples in a decade; CO2 emissions produce maximum warming in 10 years; India considers emissions peak 2035-50; Russia’s proposed pipeline falls victim to low prices; MIT: no health impacts from wind turbine noise … PLUS: The Way We Weren’t: Inhofe Singles out Streisand as Global Warming Hoaxer in Chief… and much, MUCH more! …
STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…
- MSNBC Broadcasts Big Wet Kiss Informercial for Big Coal:
- VIDEO: Last Lunge for Black Lungs — Coal Running Out of Oxygen (Climate Crocks):
An absolutely astounding, nauseating info-mercial for coal on MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough show — complete with “God put these resources here for us to use”, a soaring eagle, cute kids, and “we like to give back to the community.” I’ll understand if you have to pause and throw up.
- Coal mine reclamation (SourceWatch)
- Mountaintop Removal: Reclamation FAIL (Switchboard NRDC):
Roughly 1.2 million acres, including at least 500 mountains, have been flattened by mountaintop removal coal mining in the central Appalachian region, and only a fraction of that land has been reclaimed for so-called beneficial economic uses, according to new research by NRDC and our partner group Appalachian Voices.
- Coal Mine Reclamation Fail: Mining company pays $3.2M for clean-water claims (Louisville Courier-Journal)
- Gov. Beshear supporter racks up mining violations for failed coal mine reclamation (Louisville Courier-Journal)
- COP20: UN Climate Summit Warns of Stranded Assets:
- At climate talks, UN calls fossil fuels ‘high risk’ investment (Reuters):
Oil price volatility “is exactly one of the main reasons why we must move to renewable energy which has a completely predictable cost of zero for fuel” once wind turbines or solar panels were built, she told a news conference.
- VIDEO: Unburnable Carbon 2013: Wasted Capital and Stranded Assets (Carbon Tracker Initiative)
- UN COP20 Lima – Main Coverage Page (United Nations Climate Change Conference 2014)
- Optimism Faces Grave Realities at Climate Talks (NY Times) [emphasis added]:
At stake now, they say, is the difference between a newly unpleasant world and an uninhabitable one.
- VIDEO: UN official calls fossil fuels ‘high-risk’ investment Lima 2014 (Climate State, Youtube):
- Stranded Assets: Global Investors Backing Away From Fossil Fuels:
- Oil Investors at Brink of Losing Trillions of Dollars in Assets. Gore: It’s That Road Runner Moment (Bloomberg News) [emphasis added]:
The concept gaining traction from Wall Street to the City of London is simple. Limits on emissions of carbon dioxide will be necessary to hold temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius, the maximum climate scientists say is advisable. Without technologies to capture the waste gases from combusting fossil fuels, a majority of known oil, gas and coal deposits would have to stay underground. Once that point is reached, they become stranded.
- Carbon bubble will plunge the world into another financial crisis — report (Guardian UK):
Trillions of dollars at risk as stock markets inflate value of fossil fuels that may have to remain buried forever, experts warn
- VIDEO: Finance Community Waking Up to the Carbon (Climate Crocks)
- Bank of England investigating risk of ‘carbon bubble’ (Guardian UK):
The Bank of England is to conduct an enquiry into the risk of fossil fuel companies causing a major economic crash if future climate change rules render their coal, oil and gas assets worthless.
- My Bearish Views On Oil Prices Prove Accurate: What Next? (Seeking Alpha)
- Germany’s Biggest Utility EON To Split Off Fossil Fuel Assets:
- Germany’s $132 Billion Green Energy Lead Is Fortified by EON’s Split With Fossil Fuels (Bloomberg News)
- Germany’s E.ON to quit gas and coal and focus on renewable energy (The Guardian UK):
Germany utility firm to sell off most power generating units amid ‘dramatically altered global energy markets’
- AUDIO: KPFK ‘BradCast’: UNspinning Climate Change and ‘Recounting’ Arizona (The BRAD BLOG)
- With Spinoff, German Utility E.On to Focus on Renewable Energy (NYT DealBooks)
- Investors Cheer E.ON’s Plan to Split Itself (Wall St. Journal)
- E.On’s switch to renewables is a sign of things to come, say experts (Guardian UK)
- Florida To Punish Homeowners For Rooftop Solar:
- Florida regulators approve plan to gut energy efficiency goals, end solar power rebates (Tampa Bay Times) [emphasis added]:
State regulators on Tuesday approved proposals to gut Florida’s energy-efficiency goals by more than 90 percent and to terminate solar rebate programs by the end of 2015, giving the investor-owned utilities virtually everything they wanted.
- The Sunshine State Cuts Its Commitment To Solar Power (Climate Progress)
- Deck stacked against renewable energy in Florida, environmentalist say (Tamba Tribune)
- VIDEO: ‘Sunshine State’ spurns solar power potential (The Rachel Maddow Show):
Rachel Maddow reports on how the state of Florida, despite its sunny disposition (and marketing), is cutting back solar energy incentives and goals, letting power companies off the hook over the objections of clean energy advocates.
- Solar and Wind Energy Start to Win on Price vs. Conventional Fuels (NY Times):
For the solar and wind industries in the United States, it has been a long-held dream: to produce energy at a cost equal to conventional sources like coal and natural gas. That day appears to be dawning.
- Rooftop Solar Cost Competitive with the Grid in Much of the U.S. (Scientific American)
‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…
- VIDEO: The Way We Weren’t: Inhofe Singles out Streisand as Global Warming Hoaxer in Chief (Climate Crocks):
In an interview with Mother Jones back in 2009, Inhofe said “Hollywood liberals and extreme environmentalists” engineered the hoax that he calls climate change. When pressed on who in Hollywood specifically did it, Inhofe said: “Barbra Streisand.”
- Scientists predict green energy revolution after incredible new graphene discoveries (Independent UK):
The implications of the discovery are immense as it could dramatically increase the efficiency of fuel cells, which generate electricity directly from hydrogen, the scientists said.
- Here’s what your city will look like when the ice sheets melt (Grist):
Specifically, his maps show what coastal cities would (will) look like if (when) all the ice caps melt, and the seas rise roughly 80 meters, or 260 feet. (That estimate comes from the U.S. Geological Survey.)
- NASA: Antarctic Melt Loss Triples in a Decade (Climate Crocks):
A comprehensive, 21-year analysis of the fastest-melting region of Antarctica has found that the melt rate of glaciers there has tripled during the last decade.
- Carbon Dioxide Emissions Produce Maximum Warming in 10 Years: Study (NBC News):
Ot’s not just our children and grandchildren who need to worry about global warming. A new study indicates that it takes a mere 10 years for carbon dioxide emissions to produce their maximum warming effects on the Earth.
- India considers emissions peak 2035-50 (RTCC):
Government officials say US president Barack Obama pushed for an announcement when he visits in January
- Russia’s South Stream pipeline falls victim to Ukraine crisis, energy rout (Reuters):
The crisis over Ukraine led to Brussels freezing its approval process, and the pipeline also hit trouble over weak European gas demand and energy prices, undermining its economics.
- No health impacts from wind turbine noise, says MIT study (North America Wind Power):
Living in close proximity to wind farms does not harm human health, a study by the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) found.
- 2014 Headed Toward Hottest Year On Record — Here’s Why That’s Remarkable (Climate Progress) [emphasis added]:
2014 is on track to be hottest year on record, according to new reports. This is remarkable since such records are typically set in years where the long-term manmade warming trend and the El Niño warming pattern combine. But this year, it’s pretty much all global warming.
- VIDEO: GeoEngineering: Contemplating the Last Resort (Climate Crocks):
Scientists have been contemplating the Last Resort. Rutger’s Alan Robock on pros, and cons.
- Israel Hit With Massive 600,000 Gallon Oil Spill (Climate Progress):
A nature reserve has been flooded with oil and more than 80 people have been hospitalized after exposure to toxic fumes after approximately 600,000 gallons of crude oil spilled from a pipeline in southern Israel on Wednesday…The massive spill, which resulted from a breach in the 153-mile Trans-Israel pipeline, has been described as “one of the gravest pollution events in the country’s history.”
- With Coal on the Ropes, is This the Beginning of the End of Oil? (Climate Crocks):
This is a sampler of the increasingly confused and borderline panicky reactions around the world to the plunging price of oil. Intensely interesting puzzle emerging, as temporary price drops tease consumers, but more thoughtful observers see grave danger for producers, and the economies that are too reliant on them.
- Politico’s normal, awful story on EPA’s new air rule (Grist) [emphasis added]:
Hack studies from NAM and other “business groups” are treated as credible. Well-documented facts are put in enviros’ mouths — “greens say” — to shield reporters from inevitable conservative pushback. The focus is always on costs, not benefits. Politically, the fight is always Dems and EPA on the defense, Republicans on the attack. It’s one special interest (“environmentalists”) vs. another (“business”), not the public interest vs. private interests, or externalized vs. internalized costs.
- How to stop global warming, in 7 steps (Vox.com) [emphasis added]:
5) Cutting emissions will cost us – but so will global warming… Economic modeling suggests that this would shave 0.06 percentage points off global economic growth each year….The world would still get richer over time, but at a somewhat slower rate.
FOR MORE on Climate Science and Climate Change, go to our Green News Report: Essential Background Page
But exactly how bad is still an open question, and a lot depends not only on how we react, but how quickly. The rate at which humans cut down on greenhouse gas emissions–if we do choose to cut them–will have a large bearing on how the world turns out by 2100, the forecasts reveal.
Restraining global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius will require changing how the world produces and uses energy to power its cities and factories, heats and cools buildings, as well as moves people and goods in airplanes, trains, cars, ships and trucks, according to the IPCC. Changes are required not just in technology, but also in people’s behavior.
Another way to look at the E.ON announcement to spin off their nuclear, coal and gas based energy production is that they are getting rid of their high risk assets to avoid having the profitable side of the business liable for the costs of disassembling nuclear power plants, storage of spent nuclear fuel (far from a settled matter in germany, the final costs of which are basically impossible to predict) and, of course, the consequences of co2 emissions.
If/once the new company goes under, the german taxpayer will be left to foot the bill for decades of E.ONs irresponsible practices.
I haven’t seen this point made anywhere in the english-speaking media, but in case anyone over there reads german, here you go:
http://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/n...au,eon224.html
spoekenkieker @1,
Hiding the real costs of fossil fuel is masterfully done in the U.S.A.
The populace does not seem to know that the costs of the oil wars are not reflected in the price at the gas pump.
Those costs are socialized to the citizenry even as the government partners with Oil-Qaeda to propagandize against evil socialism.
To top it off, Oil-Qaeda is now financing a campaign to blame the public for what Oil-Qaeda itself has done (Choose Your Trances Carefully – 2).
spoekenkieker, it may be that E.on has hit upon a novel trick to get out of paying for its nuclear decommissioning costs. I have seen some commentary from EU journalists & analysts on Twitter whether the new announcement is really just a clever strategy. But those people seemed to indicate that E.on’s responsibilities can’t be so easily abandoned, and that there will be considerable scrutiny on their next moves for that reason.
The costs of nuclear plant decommissioning and whether laws are strong enough to ensure the owners of such plants have set aside sufficient funds as required is an ongoing, contentious issue everywhere, not least in the EU.