EnviroPolitics Blog

Philadelphia now recycling milk & juice containers, too

Congratulations to the City of Philadelphia where you now can recycle…

Milk in those waxy paper containers, as well as…

…and even

See The Philadelphia Inquirer and GreenPhillyBlog report the environmental news of the city’s latest single-stream recycling success.

Have a recycling success story you’d like to share? Or an opinion on how your town, county or state could boost its recycling rate? Use the comment box below. If one is not visible, click on the tiny ‘comments’ line.

Our most recent blog posts:
What killed Delaware’s offshore wind energy project?
Big trouble for offshore wind energy project in Delaware
In NJ, a clash over control of environmental regulations
EPA report links fracking to groundwater contamination
Energy and environment bills in NJ Legislature on Dec 8

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What killed Delaware’s offshore wind energy project?

What caused Princeton-based NRG Energy to mothball its plans for an energy wind farm off the coast of Delaware? [Big trouble for offshore wind energy project in Delaware]

Federal purse strings, yanked by a Republican-controlled Congress with a contemptuous view of “green” projects played a significant role. But, so too, did an unforeseen economic reversal that slowed the nation’s insatiable appetite for electric power and forced private investors to reexamine the potential payback from costly alternative energy projects.

The News Journal‘s Aaron Nathans provides answers today in: Bluewater: What went wrong?

DFM News reporter John Hurdle poses similar questions in Dissecting what put Delaware’s offshore wind farm plan in peril

Hurdle also questions the effect of the project’s collapse on other leading Atlantic Ocean wind farm projects– Fisherman’s Energy
off New Jersey, the Deepwater Wind project off Block Island, NY, and
Cape Wind off Massachusetts.

Only time will tell, but the future looks gloomy for the U.S. wind industry, as AOL Energy’s Shifra Mincer reports in Wind Industry Nervous As Tax Credit Expiration Date Looms.

Renewable Energy World offers a more sanguine view in US Offshore Wind Project Updates

What’s your take? Tell us in the comment box below. If one is not visible, click on the tiny ‘comments’ line.

Our most recent blog posts:
Big trouble for offshore wind energy project in Delaware

In NJ, a clash over control of environmental regulations

EPA report links fracking to groundwater contamination
Energy and environment bills in NJ Legislature on Dec 8
Energy & environment legislation up in NJ Assembly

———————————————————————————————————————————-

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What killed Delaware’s offshore wind energy project? Read More »

Big trouble for offshore wind energy project in Delaware

A project which raised hopes for U.S. offshore wind energy when it was made public five years ago is now all but dead in the water.

Making big environmental news today is New Jersey-based NRG Energy‘s announcement that it will terminate its Bluewater Wind power-purchase contract with Delmarva Power at the end of this year.

The project captured the public’s imagination five years ago
as a utility-scale, carbon-free source of energy, 13 miles off the
Delaware coast. The turbines have been expected to provide 200 megawatts–enough to power about 54,000 homes.

“Our people have worked hard and we’ve made a considerable financial
investment in the wind park, but that effort cannot overcome the
difficult and unfortunate realities of the current market,” said David
Crane, NRG president and CEO.

The alternative energy publication Recharge said: that the decision “highlights the difficulties that even well-capitalized developers
such as NRG face in
financing offshore projects with long lead times, as they struggle to
navigate costly permitting and energy tax policy uncertainties at the
federal level.”

According to Recharge:

NRG said its decision was in response to Congress eliminating
funding for the Energy Department’s Section 1705 loan guarantee program,
and failure thus far to extend federal investment and production tax credits
(PTCs) for offshore wind that expire next year.

NRG says its Bluewater
Wind subsidiary, which it acquired in November 2009, was in line for a
loan guarantee for the Delaware project before Congress earlier this year
removed some of the program’s funding as part of a broader spending
reduction.

Even so, NRG says it has supported the Delaware project with “significant
investments” in development, including design and engineering studies, state
and federal permitting and leasing fees, ecological assessments, and
professional and consulting fees.

“But Bluewater has been unable to find an investment partner, despite interest
from two dozen potential candidates and an attractive 25-year power purchase
deal with Delmarva Power & Light. That deal in June 2008 was the first
involving an offshore wind project. Delmarva would initially buy power for
between 13 cents and 14 cents per kWh, with a 2.5% annual increase for the
contract life.

The News Journal today reports:

NRG still expects to receive federal approval for a lease to build
offshore wind turbines off the Delaware coast, said David Gaier, NRG
spokesman. The company would hold onto this lease as an asset, unless
NRG finds a buyer for Bluewater, he said.

Even
absent the contract, NRG could re-enter the offshore wind business in
the future if market conditions are good enough, Gaier said. Or it could
sell Bluewater at a later date, he said.

All in all, it’s a sad day when the U.S., in such dramatic fashion, continues to fall behind Europe and China in the development of a source of energy as clean and plentiful as offshore wind.

Care to add your opinion on the issue? Use the comment box below. If one is not visible, click on the tiny ‘comment’ line.

Our most recent blog posts:
In NJ, a clash over control of environmental regulations
EPA report links fracking to groundwater contamination
Energy and environment bills in NJ Legislature on Dec 8
Energy & environment legislation up in NJ Assembly
Shale gas fracking gets a new black eye: Illegal dumping

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In NJ, a clash over control of environmental regulations

NJDEP Building in Trenton, NJ

Making environmental news today is an interesting piece in PolitickerNJ, where Jim Hooker, the former anchorman for the now defunct NJ Nightly News, asks:

Who’s the boss when it comes to regulating developers and the projects they propose.

The Democrat-controlled Assembly Regulatory Oversight and Gaming
Committee on Thursday approved along party lines a measure that
basically says the state Department of Environmental Protection is
overstepping its bounds with waiver rules it wants for developers and
projects.

But Democrats and environmental allies say those rules
are set down by statute and the DEP can’t set them aside in favor of a
different set of rules drawn up by the administration.

Republicans
and a number of business and other groups argue it’s the DEP’s purview
to develop its rules and to craft them so they don’t run business out of
the state.

“We have a history of over-regulating those who want
to grow jobs and the economy,” Michael Egenton, a lobbyist for the state
Chamber of Commerce, told the committee. As a result, he added, “we’ve
lost businesses and jobs to other states.”

But environmentalists also came out in force to argue against giving
the DEP what they say is too much leeway to aid development and
business, with threats to environmental safeguards being the fallout.

“We
think the department has enough discretion as it is,” said Dave Pringle
of the New Jersey Environmental Federation. “While it doesn’t guarantee
mischief,” he added of the rules change proposal, “it does provide the
opportunity for mischief.”