EnviroPolitics Blog

Gov. Phil Murphy wants to double New Jersey’s offshore wind power goal

Gov. Murphy, is shown at Liberty Science Center, in Jersey City, before signing an executive order to increase New Jersey's offshore wind-generated electricity from 3,500 megawatts by 2030 to 7,500 megawatts by 2035. New Jersey plans to have 50% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% by 2050. Tuesday, November 19, 2019 — New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy

Scott Fallon reports for NorthJersey.com

Gov. Phil Murphy signed an executive order Tuesday that would more than double his offshore wind power goal for New Jersey.

The order would increase the goal to 7,500 megawatts by 2035, from 3,500 set for 2030.

Murphy made the announcement with former Vice President Al Gore, a clean energy advocate, at a news conference in Jersey City at Liberty Science Center.

“Think about it for a second — when we meet this goal, our offshore winds will generate enough electricity to power more than 3.2 million New Jersey homes,” Murphy said, to applause from environmentalists and labor groups.

“We will meet half of our electric power need,” he said. “We will generate billions of dollars in investments in our state’s future that will, in turn, generate thousands of union jobs.”

Gore praised Murphy and called projects like the offshore wind farm an “emotional reward” in the fight to stem climate change that would be a “wonderful opportunity for good jobs.”

Gore compared the fight against climate change to Pearl Harbor, the Battle of the Bulge and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “We have to rise to this challenge!” Gore said, his voice almost breaking. “We have to change.”

Former Vice President Al Gore is shown in Jersey City, in front Liberty Science Center President & CEO, Paul Hoffman, Gov. Murphy and First Lady Tammy Murphy. Gov. Murphy signed an executive order to increase New Jersey's offshore wind-generated electricity from 3,500 megawatts by 2030 to 7,500 megawatts by 2035. New Jersey plans to have 50% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% by 2050. Tuesday, November 19, 2019 — Former Vice President Al Gore is shown in Jersey City, in front Liberty Science Center President & CEO, Paul Hoffman, Gov. Murphy and First Lady Tammy Murphy. Gov. Murphy signed an executive order to increase New Jersey’s offshore wind-generated electricity from 3,500 megawatts by 2030 to 7,500 megawatts by 2035. New Jersey plans to have 50% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% by 2050. Tuesday, November 19, 2019 *(Photo: Kevin R. Wexler/NorthJersey.com)*

Nearly every major environmental group praised Murphy’s order, from the Sierra Club to the League of Conservation Voters.

Previously, Murphy had set a goal of 3,500 megawatts for offshore wind generation by 2030 to power as many as 1.5 million New Jersey homes.

Toward that end, in June the state Board of Public Utilities approved a $1.6 billion wind-energy farm to be built about 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic City.

The project by Ocean Wind — a joint venture between the Danish energy company Orsetd and PSEG — would be the largest of its kind in the U.S.

Offshore wind power is a cornerstone of Murphy’s goal to convert New Jersey’s electricity production to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. The renewable sources include wind, solar and nuclear power.

New Jersey has a way to go. About 95 percent of electricity generated in the Garden State still comes from natural-gas-powered plants and nuclear facilities.

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SunPower, Goldman Sachs Awarded Big JFK Solar Project – Solar Industry

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has awarded New York City’s single-largest solar energy project – a development at John F. Kennedy International Airport – to SunPower Corp. and Goldman Sachs Renewable Power Group. Built in partnership with the New York Power Authority (NYPA), the JFK International Airport Solar Photovoltaic Project will …

Source: SunPower, Goldman Sachs Awarded Big JFK Solar Project – Solar Industry

SunPower, Goldman Sachs Awarded Big JFK Solar Project – Solar Industry Read More »

Pennsy’s ‘State Superfund’ program going broke

By Kyle Bagenstose for the Beaver County Times
Posted Nov 18, 2019 at 4:01 AM

The sunset of a tax is quickly bankrupting the state’s hazardous cleanup program, and there’s no plan in place to fix it.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection last year paid half a million dollars to provide clean drinking water to dozens of Doylestown Township homeowners stricken by contamination. It spent another $300,000 cleaning up cancer-causing chemicals in Bristol Township’s Croydon neighborhood.

The same chemicals are an even costlier problem in Lancaster County, requiring $4.7 million to provide drinking water to hundreds of people there. The DEP will need millions of dollars more to clean up mysterious barrels recently discovered in a shuttered Beaver County business, where some of the drums are marked simply, “Dark Acid.”

But there’s an even bigger problem tying all of these sites together. Within a few years, the state program funding these environmental cleanups, along with scores of others littered across the commonwealth, is projected to be flat broke.

“That’s the point we’re getting to, unfortunately. One of these sites may have to literally blow up before they get real about dealing with the finances,” said David Hess, a former secretary of the DEP under Gov. Tom Ridge.

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New York City trades gas plant for the world’s largest battery

John Weaver reports for PV Magazine

The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) has approved a 316 MW / 2528 MWh (that’s 8 hours!) energy storage facility (pdf) to “provide peak capacity, energy, and ancillary services in New York City while enhancing grid reliability”.

Ravenwood Development (owners of the current gas plants at the site) plans to build out the project in three phases – 129 MW, 98 MW and then 89 MW – with the first phase complete by March 2021. There is no timetable given for deployment of second and third phases of the project.

The facility would be located at 38-54 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, in New York City’s Borough of Queens (Google Maps).

If the groups deploy all 2.5 GWh of energy storage, they will need demolish 16 existing gas peaker plants, only two of which – with a total peaking capacity of 316 MW – are currently running. There are other gas burning facilities as well, some of which were originally built in the early 1960s.

Found within the Acoustical Analysis & Recommendations (pdf) , is the below rough hardware bill of materials and shipping container layout. The document notes that there will be 136 individual inverters, with 64 of the units being double stacked. The document also names Sunny Central Storage 2500-EV-US Inverter as the currently specified hardware. It was determined that the hardware would increase the site’s decibel rating less than 3 db, a trivial level of noise.

In the filings, Ravenwood was asked to identify if there are “any facilities serving children, the elderly, people with disabilities (e.g., schools, hospitals, day care centers, or group homes) within 1500 feet of the project site?”

P.S. 83; P.S. 76; P.S. 111; St. Ritas School; Growing Up Green Middle School; Jacob Blackwell School; Western Queens Nursery School; The Child School; The Child Middle School; Long Island City High School; Long Island City Health Center; Bright Horizons; NYC Housing Authority Ravenswood Day Care; Queensbridge South Day Care Center.

The PSC’s 48 page decision (pdf – and here’s a link to the Master Project Petition hosted by the PSC and one specific document with great maps/research including the header image) also approved the facility receiving “lightened regulation” as it was determined there’d be relatively little negative impacts on the local population. Ravenwood argues that even though the facility would be charged by any electricity source – fossil fuels included – it would still lower overall emissions within the city.

If this project is deployed fully, the 316 MW of power would meet just over 10% of the New York State’s goal of 3,000 MW by 2030.

Currently, the world’s largest announced lithium ion batteries are the 409 MW / 900 MWh FPL facility in Florida, the 300 MW / 1200 MWh system by Vistra Energy, and a 182.5 MW / 730 MWh system by Tesla at Moss Landing facility in California, and the recently announced 300 MW / 1.2 GWh Eland facility by 8minute Solar Energy feeding Los Angeles. This project will double the largest here.

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‘That’s vinegar:’ The Ohio River’s history of contamination and progress made

BarbiAnn Maynard drives 45 minutes from her home in Martin County, Kentucky, to a spring at the Mingo-Logan county line in West Virginia to fill containers with fresh water. (Credit: Curren Sheldon/100 Days in Appalachia)

“It’s a functioning ecosystem now”

By April Johnston in Environmental Health News

In 1958, researchers from the University of Louisville and the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission gathered at a lock on the Monongahela River for routine collecting, counting and comparing of fish species.

At the time, the best way to accomplish this was what’s called lock chamber sampling, or filling a 350-by-56-foot lock with river water, injecting it with cyanide and waiting for the dead fish to float to the top. Archaic, but effective.

On this particular day, researchers opened the chamber to find one fish inside.

One fish.

It shouldn’t have been surprising, said Jerry Schulte, a biologist who managed the source water protection and emergency response team for the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission [ORSANCO] for more than two decades. After all, the steel companies that dotted the region’s riverbanks were dumping their contaminated water right into the rivers. The waterways were so acidic that the steel-hulled boats meant to last 20 years rusted out in three and the pH routinely measured less than 4.

“That’s vinegar,” Schulte said. “It was so polluted, you could see it, smell it and taste it.”

By the time Schulte began monitoring fish species in the 1990s, thanks to environmental and industrial regulations like the Clean Water Act, the Ohio River and its major tributaries, including the Mon, had changed. They no longer looked or smelled like open sewers. Mayflies hatched on their surfaces; many pollution-intolerant aquatic species returned; and lock chamber sampling — done without cyanide — could yield hundreds, even thousands, of fish.

“It’s a functioning ecosystem now,” Schulte said.

Functioning doesn’t mean perfect, however. As recently as 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency named the Ohio River one of the country’s most polluted. Industrial contaminants, including the “forever chemical” perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), have been detected on long stretches of the river and toxic algal blooms erupt when conditions are just right. Still, most of the time, the majority of the river’s 981 miles are ripe for recreation and fit for drinking after proper treatment.

The same can’t always be said for the greater Ohio River watershed.

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Evacuation alerts spread as brushfires roar in Australia

Fire danger rating in parts of NSW rises to severe as hot, dry, windy conditions end a brief reprieve of bushfire-hit areas of Australia

More than 250 homes have been lost to bushfires in NSW since Friday and 16 homes have been lost in Qld over the past week. A CFA Member works on controlled back burns along Putty Road on Thursday to try to contain the Gospers Mountain fire in the Hawkesbury region of greater Sydney, which on Friday triggered an emergency warning. Photograph: Brett Hemmings/Getty Images

By Australian Associated Press

A fresh emergency warning was issued for the Hawkesbury on Sydney’s outskirts on Friday for a fast-moving fire, as hot, dry and windy conditions returned to bushfire-hit areas of New South Wales.

The warning was issued for a persistent 80,000-hectare blaze at Gospers Mountain, which was burning in the direction of Colo Heights. Those in the town should leave immediately towards Wilberforce, the Rural Fire Service warned.

It was one of four emergency warnings issued on Friday afternoon.

Residents of the town of Ebor, near Armidale were warned just after 2.30 pm AEDT to “seek shelter as the fire front arrives” due to a large bushfire.

A third emergency warning, for the Carrai East fire near Kempsey, was issued at 3.15 pm AEDT. The RFS said the bushfire has broken containment lines on the northern side and was burning in the Mines Road area, towards Temagog.

The fourth warning was was for an out of control fire in Richmond Valley in the state’s north, burning in the area of Bungawalbin and New Italy.

In Queensland, residents are evacuating from the path of a fast-moving bushfire in the Pechey forest raging towards Ravensbourne.

Fire crews and water bombers are attacking the blaze north of Toowoomba that has sparked an emergency warning for people to get out because it will soon be too dangerous to leave.

On Friday afternoon it was racing from Grapetree Road at Peachey towards Ravensbourne. The dangerous fire is expected to impact Purtill Road, Garvey Road, Ravensbourne Tip Road, Mount Jockey Road and McQuillan Road. People leaving the area should head southwest along Esk Hampton Road towards Toowoomba.

Warnings remain in place for residents of Woodgate and nearby Kinkuna Waters, south of Bundaberg.

A worrying fire at Thornside, west of Gympie, has been downgraded to watch and act.

The Cobraball fire near Yeppoon in central Queensland continues to worry authorities given the difficult weather conditions expected in coming days.

The blaze, which destroyed 15 of the 16 homes lost in Queensland over the past week, is 90 percent contained but that could change when high winds arrive.

Australian firefighters battle blazes and exhaustion

Damage assessments were continuing, with Queensland Fire and Emergency Services saying the number of homes lost could rise.

But QFES assistant commissioner Tony Johnstone said crews had done a remarkable job protecting property.

“It’s really hard to say how many houses we’ve saved but I’d say in excess of 300 or 400,” he told ABC radio.

Temperatures to soar over the weekend

Temperatures near major fire grounds are expected to soar beyond 30C on Friday and into the weekend.

Almost all of Queensland was expecting high or very high fire danger on Friday and there was a chance of severe thunderstorms in the south-east that were forecast to produce little rain.

The drought-stricken Darling Downs and Granite Belt region, west of Brisbane, was facing severe fire danger for at least the next three days.

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