Pennsylvania is a slouch in solar power. Here’s how it can catch up

Pennsylvania’s legislature could do a lot more to speed up renewable-energy adoption, a new report says.

 

Solar panels surround a liquefied natural gas storage facility in Berks County, Pennsylvania, in 2013. Credit: Ryan McFadden/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images

Solar panels surround a liquefied natural gas storage facility in Berks County, Pennsylvania, in 2013. Credit: Ryan McFadden/Reading Eagle 

By Jon Hurdle, Inside Climate News

The nonprofit PennFuture outlined ways for Pennsylvania to do so in a new report, accusing the state’s legislature of “policy inertia” for failing to pass bills that would increase adoption and reduce the cost of energy for consumers.

The advocacy group said a majority of state lawmakers favor a “more gas now” policy rather than enabling the development of increasingly cheap renewable energy and battery storage that would cut climate pollution. Among the measures that PennFuture suggested legislators support is allowing community solar, a way for renters and others who can’t install their own panels to tap into local solar arrays.

“Thoughtful solar policies can also facilitate development of PV [photovoltaic] panels on the countless rooftops of warehouses and distribution centers that populate the landscape,” the report said.

The report called on lawmakers to increase the share of renewable energy required by the state’s Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards, which currently mandate that some 18 percent of the electricity utilities distribute come from renewable sources. Neighboring New Jersey, by contrast, required utilities to source double that share last year and 50 percent by 2030.

David Hess, a former secretary of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, said the Pennsylvania House, which has a slim Democratic majority, has passed many bills that would enable programs such as community solar, warehouse solar and expanding energy-efficiency programs at utilities.

But the bills have not become law because the Republican majority in the state Senate has opposed them, he said.

Read the full story here

_______________________________________________
Daily energy and environment updates. Free 30-day subscription

Pennsylvania is a slouch in solar power. Here’s how it can catch up Read More »

Opinion: Keyport’s toxic disaster is a crisis Trenton makes — worse

Photo of Keyport Fishing Pier
New Jersey’s cleanup failures and privatization created this environmental nightmare. The state must act before it becomes a public health tragedy.

By Jeff Tittel in The Jersey Vindicator,

 

What is happening in Keyport is not simply an environmental disaster. It is a government-created environmental failure that is now threatening to become a public health tragedy.

For more than four decades, New Jersey knew about the Aeromarine Landfill and failed to clean it up properly. Now residents are raising alarms about cancer, independent testing is finding dangerous contamination outside the landfill, and the state is scrambling to investigate what should have been investigated years ago.

This did not happen because New Jersey lacked environmental laws. It happened because New Jersey weakened some laws, stopped enforcing others, dismantled oversight by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and turned toxic-site cleanup into a development program.

The state weakened the Department of Environmental Protection, privatized much of the site remediation system, failed to require the proper cleanup of contaminated landfills, and eliminated much of the public participation and oversight in cleanups. Brownfield remediation increasingly became a vehicle for redevelopment rather than a requirement for permanent cleanup.

The philosophy became “pave and wave”: Pave over the contamination, wave goodbye to Department of Environmental Protection oversight, and call it economic development. That is not environmental protection. That is putting lipstick on a landfill.

Read the full article here

Daily energy and environment updates. Free 30-day subscription

Opinion: Keyport’s toxic disaster is a crisis Trenton makes — worse Read More »

London slowly sinking due to repeated heatwaves

Londoners are facing historic levels of subsidence risk after five successive heat waves dried out the clay soil on which much of the city is built.
Central London during the heat wave in July.
Central London during the heat wave in July. Photographer: Aaron Chown/PA/Getty Images


By Gautam Naik, Bloomberg

Insurance claims tied to subsidence — a phenomenon associated with bouts of hot, dry weather that shrink the soil and destabilize the foundations on which buildings stand — hit a record last quarter, according to data provided by the Association of British Insurers. On average, households claimed £20,000 ($27,200) for the risk, more than in any previous quarter and a 15% jump from the same period in 2025, the ABI said.

Laura Hughes, head of general insurance at the ABI, says the upward trend is likely to continue. “We expect to see more subsidence cases because of the hot weather,” she said in an interview.

Londoners have taken to social media to express their dismay. On Reddit, people offered personal accounts telling of “horrendous cracking” in their homes, and “doors sticking” due to subsidence. One said it was “genuinely scary” to discover that their kitchen had moved as the foundations of the home shifted.

Read the full article here 
_______________________________________________

Daily energy and environment updates. Free 30-day subscription

 

Read More »

PJM Clears 50 GW of Clean Energy and Pushes New Grid‑Connection Reform

 

 

By Frank Brill, EnviroPolitics Editor

The PJM Interconnection is sitting on one of the largest backlogs of clean‑energy projects in the country — and a major portion of it is finally ready to move. More than 50 gigawatts of solar, wind, and battery storage have now cleared PJM’s approval process, according to Canary Media. The milestone marks a turning point for a region that has struggled for years to connect new resources fast enough to keep pace with rising demand, especially from data centers.

But approval is only the first step. Now it’s up to states and utilities to ensure these projects get built, sited, financed, and interconnected. Without that follow‑through, the region risks continuing the cycle of delays that have slowed the transition to cleaner, more reliable power.

At the same time, PJM is taking another run at a key reform to speed up the queue. As Utility Dive reports, the grid operator is proposing a second attempt at a rule change that would allow new generators to connect using spare capacity at existing substations and transmission facilities. The idea is simple: if there’s unused headroom already on the system, developers shouldn’t have to wait years or pay for major upgrades just to tap into it.

If adopted, the reform could shave months — even years — off interconnection timelines and reduce costs for renewable developers. It would also help PJM better manage the surge of projects seeking to come online as electrification accelerates and data‑center demand continues to soar.

Together, the two developments show a grid operator under pressure but finally making progress: tens of gigawatts of clean energy ready to build, and a renewed push to modernize the rules that determine how quickly new power can reach the system. For policymakers, utilities, and developers, the challenge now is execution — turning approvals and reforms into steel in the ground and electrons on the grid.

Daily energy and environment updates. Free 30-day subscription

PJM Clears 50 GW of Clean Energy and Pushes New Grid‑Connection Reform Read More »

America’s offshore wind turbines are locked in a hidden tug-of-war over the same gusts

karwin luo kFDcO5kafyM unsplash 1


By Carlos Albero Rojas, Energies Media, August 22, 2026 

Thousands of offshore wind turbines are set to rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast, forming the backbone of America’s push toward clean electricity. But these turbines don’t simply harvest the wind — they compete for it.

Each spinning rotor extracts energy from the air and leaves a slower, choppier wake behind it. Researchers have now put hard numbers on how much that invisible rivalry between turbines costs in lost power — and what it could mean for the country’s 2030 offshore wind targets.

When turbines get in each other’s way

Every spinning turbine is essentially a wind thief. It pulls kinetic energy from the air and leaves a slower, more turbulent stream in its wake, meaning turbines positioned downwind receive degraded airflow and generate less power as a result.

It comes from turbines within the same farm interfering with each other — a finding with direct implications for how future farms should be designed and spaced.

This isn’t a new concept — engineers have known about the wake effect for decades. What’s changed is the scale of the problem as the U.S. prepares to build thousands of turbines in close proximity along the Atlantic seaboard.

Read the full story here

Daily energy and environment updates. Free 30-day subscription

America’s offshore wind turbines are locked in a hidden tug-of-war over the same gusts Read More »