EMISSIONS: An “unprecedented” agreement to control greenhouse gas emissions from international airline flights is ratified by a United Nations agency, with the U.S. agreeing to implement the requirements in 2021. (Associated Press/The Hill)
CLIMATE:
• Capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is necessary to bring levels down to an ideal 350 parts per million, according to a recent study. (InsideClimate News)
• Two watchdog groups are accusing a conservative nonprofit group of paying over $1.7 million to ExxonMobil, some of which was specifically earmarked to help the company’s climate change agenda. (The Hill)
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ENERGY EFFICIENCY: A national non-profit is working to make factories and other industrial energy users more energy efficient. (Midwest Energy News)
WIND:
• Revenue from wind energy development has become a sort of cash crop for low-income rural communities, “saving family farms across a wide swath of the heartland.” (Bloomberg)
• Amid local opposition, developer of a Vermont wind farm offer to scale back the project and increase payments to residents. (Associated Press)
SOLAR:
• New Jersey is considering a bill that would increase solar development in the state, but critics are concerned about the cost. (NJ Spotlight)
• A recent Massachusetts ruling to reject solar access fees and fixed charge increases on utility customers is good news for distributed energy and could help bolster the business case for community solar in the state. (Greentech Media)
• As the growth of large solar installers in California slows, the success of the market may fall to regional and local solar installers. (Greentech Media)
• Solar advocates say Oregon regulators are still too eager to eliminate net metering in the state. (Portland Business Journal)
• Solar jobs in Hawaii are down by more than 40 percent thanks to the termination of the state’s net-metering program, according to a new report. (Pacific Business News)
• State policy changes are slowing growth in the residential solar market, which is expected to expand by only 23 percent this year, versus 70 percent in 2015. (Utility Dive)
PIPELINES: The North Dakota portion of four-state Dakota Access Pipeline is at least 87 percent complete, despite ongoing protests at construction sites in the state. (Forum News Service)
OIL & GAS:
• Electricity prices could drop nationwide for the first time since 2002 thanks to cheap natural gas, according to a new government report. (Denver Business Journal)
• A federal judge rejects the approval of a 16-well project planned in Utah, saying the Bureau of Land Management ignored impacts to air quality and recreation. (Deseret News)
• Oklahoma’s governor proclaims October 13 a “prayer day” for the state’s troubled oil industry. (EcoWatch)
• More than a dozen Senate Democrats ask President Obama to take advantage of a legal provision to block offshore drilling in U.S. waters in the Atlantic and Arctic. (The Hill)
FRACKING: About 57 percent of water-intensive fracking wells are located in water-stressed regions of the U.S., according to a new report. (Mashable)
COAL: A 117 million-ton expansion of Montana’s largest coal mine is approved after a recent study concluded it would have a minor impact on the country’s overall emissions. (Associated Press)
COMMENTARY:
• The U.S. is unlikely to meet its emissions reductions goals without changes in transit, energy and public works policies, which would be extremely difficult to enact. (Ars Technica)
• U.S. opinion on climate change remains consistent – and deeply partisan. (Vox)
• “The era of the world burning rocks for electricity is coming to an end. And it is not going to cost us as much as we’d thought.” (Houston Chronicle)