CLEAN POWER PLAN:
• In using the Clean Air Act to combat climate change, the Obama administration reversed course from earlier goals of doing so through legislation. (Greenwire)
• Texas seeks a stay of Clean Power Plan requirements until legal challenges play out. (Texas Tribune)
EFFICIENCY: A report finds California’s efficiency programs have saved $90 billion and eliminated the equivalent of 41 power plants worth of demand, but the state “can do a lot more.” (Los Angeles Times)
NATURAL GAS: A report finds Massachusetts’ natural gas pipeline system has more than 20,000 potentially dangerous leaks. (Boston Globe)
SOLAR:
• Solar will be the next energy boom in Texas, with one county alone planning for nearly $1 billion in projects. (Wall Street Journal)
• A Nevada utility says the state’s net metering cap will be reached tomorrow. (Las Vegas Sun)
• The city of Boulder, Colorado launches an online tool to help homeowners assess their solar potential. (Boulder Daily Camera)
• The CEO of the largest U.S. solar installer says California utilities are “trying to kill solar.” (San Diego Union Tribune)
• Work begins on Colorado’s largest solar farm, which will have 156 megawatts of capacity. (Denver Post)
• A government agency in Minnesota is using marginal land it owns in the Twin Cities region for solar installations. (Midwest Energy News)
WIND:
• A proposed wind farm runs into opposition in Virginia coal country. (Washington Post)
• Local and county officials near Lincoln, Nebraska struggle with wind farm regulations. (Lincoln Journal Star)
COAL: As the coal industry loses around 10,000 jobs per year, Appalachia is taking the biggest hit. (Bloomberg)
FRACKING: A leading shale producer signs a deal to use millions of gallons of treated municipal wastewater in fracking operations in west Texas. (Reuters)
GRID: The results of the PJM Interconnection’s capacity auction, which has been modified in an effort to resolve reliability issues, are expected to be released today. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
UTILITIES:
• The state’s top regulator tells power companies to “stop trying to scare Ohioans” when talking about re-regulating the state. (Columbus Business First)
• Nevada regulators say it would cost $131 million in “exit fees” for three major casino operators to leave Nevada Power and buy electricity on the open market. (Las Vegas Review-Journal)
WASTE-TO-ENERGY: A plant on the edge of downtown Minneapolis quietly converts 1,000 tons of garbage a day into electricity, as one of the city’s trendiest neighborhoods blooms nearby. (Politico)
TECHNOLOGY:
• Developers of a new technology to extract CO2 from the air to produce carbon nanofibers say that if scaled up, the process could restore the atmosphere to pre-industrial carbon levels within 10 years. (Christian Science Monitor)
• A new class of thermoelectrics being developed at Michigan State University is driving one company to commercialize products that turn waste heat into electricity. (NPR)
COMMENTARY:
• Taxpayers are being ripped off by fossil fuel leasing on federal lands. (Grist)
• Why climate advocates need to focus less on economics and more on politics. (Vox)