CLIMATE:
• The nine states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative have seen as much as $1.4 billion in economic benefits with no harm to grid reliability, according to a new report. (InsideClimate News)
• The author of the same report says New Jersey lost out on as much as $154 million in revenue by leaving the initiative in 2011, leaving the state’s energy consumers with “the worst of both worlds.” (Northeast Energy News)
EMISSIONS:
• California’s push to keep its high vehicle emissions standards in about more than climate change — it’s about smog damaging people’s health. (Detroit Free Press)
• BP commits to “zero net emissions growth” and says it will hold greenhouse gas emissions from its operations at or below 2015 levels. (Houston Chronicle)
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CLEAN ENERGY:
• Advocates in Nebraska are directly lobbying utilities instead of state lawmakers to adopt a clean energy plan they unveiled earlier this year. (Midwest Energy News)
• Georgetown, Texas, is the largest city in the U.S. powered entirely by renewable energy, and it could serve as model for other cities. (Smithsonian)
SOLAR:
• Global solar installations are expected to reach 104 gigawatts in 2018, according to a new report. (Greentech Media)
• Duke Energy will offer North Carolina customers up to $6,000 in rebates each for home solar installations. (WUNC)
• A connection between locally sourced clean energy and food is helping to drive support for solar projects in Athens, Ohio. (Midwest Energy News)
WIND: A handful of community colleges and at least one Texas high school are training students to be wind turbine service technicians. (Hechinger Report)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Tesla allegedly tweaked injury reports at its California car factory in order to improve its safety record, according to a new report. (Quartz)
NUCLEAR:
• FirstEnergy’s plans to shut down four nuclear plants would wipe out enough carbon-free energy to equal all of the mid-Atlantic’s wind and solar power combined, according to a new report. (Greentech Media)
• Utilities across the country look to renew nuclear plant licenses for 20 more years. (The Daily News)
OIL & GAS:
• A Denver energy company moves a proposed oil and gas development away from a charter school that served mostly white students to a new site near a low-income public school. (Mother Jones)
• An advisory group charged with recommending how the U.S. Interior Department regulates federal lands available for fossil fuel development had deep ties to the industry. (Huffington Post)
OFFSHORE DRILLING: An advocate says it is “dizzying” trying to reconcile Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s public statements on offshore drilling with official releases from the department. (E&E News)
EPA: Congressional auditors say EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s $43,000 “privacy booth” violated a governmentwide spending law. (The Hill)
BIOFUELS: Regulators approve plans to build a biofuels plant in south-central Oregon that will produce aviation fuels starting in 2020. (Associated Press)
COAL: Coal is not going to have a renaissance, says the chief executive officer of a Texas energy company. (CNBC)
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GRID:
• The Department of Energy offers $25 million in funding for projects seeking to improve cybersecurity for the U.S. power grid and the oil and natural gas industry. (Bloomberg)
• The blackout caused by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico is the second worst blackout in world history, and the worst in U.S. history, according to a new analysis. (Quartz)
COMMENTARY:
• The solar industry is focused on policies that deliver short-term benefits, when it should be supporting policies to create a flexible and diverse energy system. (Washington Post)
• Energy efficiency can boost resilience during extreme weather events and natural disasters, says a research analyst at American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. (ACEEE Blog)