New York state winters could pose solar farm ‘ramping’ snag for power grid

With low energy demand around midday in the winter, combined with solar-electricity production, New York’s power system could face volatile swings of ‘ramping’ — which is how power system operators describe quick increases or decreases in demand.

In Science Daily – Source: Cornell University

By adding utility-scale solar farms throughout New York state, summer electricity demand from conventional sources could be reduced by up to 9.6 percent in some places.

But Cornell University engineers caution that upstate winters tell a different tale. With low energy demand around midday in the winter, combined with solar-electricity production, New York’s power system could face volatile swings of “ramping” — which is how power system operators describe quick increases or decreases in demand.

“It’s a very surprising finding,” said senior author Max Zhang, associate professor at Cornell’s Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. “When are you going to have maximum ramping take place in New York? It’s not going to be in the summer when the solar power is the highest and the needs are more balanced. It turns out to be in the winter. When you have several days of sunshine in a row during winter, that causes the largest ramping on the power system in New York state.”

The paper, “Strategic Planning for Utility-Scale Solar Photovoltaic Development — Historical Peak Events Revisited,” was published in Applied Energy. In addition to Zhang, co-authors are Cornell doctoral candidates Jeff Sward and Jiajun Gu, and Jackson Siff.

Ramping makes the grid less efficient, because system operators then must employ natural gas or other carbon methods to keep up with demand, Sward said. “This paper can inform regional development trends and could lead to the improvement of electricity transmission from upstate to downstate.”

“The increasing ramping requirement will be a challenge in pursuing our renewable energy target,” said Zhang, “but it can be met with flexible resources, both in the supply and demand sides, as well as energy storage.”

Read the full story

New York state winters could pose solar farm ‘ramping’ snag for power grid Read More »

Canada will follow the EU with its own ban all single-use plastics

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday that the government is looking at different options to limit the use of single-use plastics and make plastic producers responsible for the collection and recycling of their products under new regulations.

The announcement will not include specifics about the type of products that will be banned, which will be determined with scientific and expert input, but the ban should follow a plastics ban approved by the European Union (EU) in March.

The EU’s ban that will come into effect by 2021 includes plastic items such as plates, cutlery, straws, cotton swabs made of plastic and products made of oxo-degradable plastics, such as bags, which do not biodegrade completely due to additives.

The EU also aims to collect 90 per cent of plastic bottles by 2029.

READ MORE: European Union to ban single-use plastics by 2021

The EU’s motion made it a part of a growing number of countries enforcing bans on plastic items.

The U.K. announced a similar ban shortly before the EU’s vote, and more than 30 other countries have banned at least some single-use plastics, including France, India, Taiwan and Italy, as well as a number of states, such as New York and California.

Read the full story

Canada will follow the EU with its own ban all single-use plastics Read More »

Palo Alto becomes first Bay Area city to ban plastic produce bags

Plastic straws, utensils and stirrers banned from restaurants.

Working for Specialty Produce of San Juan Bautista, Alex Mendoza bags sweet peas for a customer as the Downtown San Jose Farmers’ Market opens for its 25th season Friday, May 5, 2017, in San Jose, Calif. (Jim Gensheimer/Bay Area News Group)

By MAGGIE ANGST | Bay Area News Group

Although Palo Alto adopted one of the strictest plastic bans in the Bay Area Monday night, some residents and city leaders contend that the measure doesn’t go far enough.

Palo Alto City Council unanimously voted Monday night to prohibit the distribution of plastic straws, utensils and stirrers in all food service establishments starting in January as well as ban produce and meat bags in grocery stores and farmers markets starting in July 2020.

The proposed bans are part of a larger city effort — called its Zero Waste Plan — to divert 95 percent of its waste from landfills and reduce 80 percent of its greenhouse gases by 2030.

The plan calls for phasing in the ban, which many residents, environmentalists and at least one city council member strongly opposed.

The bans passed Monday night represent phase one of the Zero Waste Plan.

Phase two, which the city plans to put into effect in 2021, would require all food service establishments to charge for non-reusable cups and containers, provide reusable foodware items to all dine-in customers and install dishwashers. The last phase, planned for 2025, would require food service establishments to provide reusable foodware for all takeout orders.

Councilwoman Alison Cormack asked the council Monday to consider adding the phase two requirement that food establishments charge for nonreusable cups and containers to the initial ordinance.

City staff, however, informed her that developing a system for those charges would be too difficult to put in place within six months — when the ordinance goes into effect.

After hearing the staff input, Cormack withdrew her request but said that she was “not happy about it.”

Read the full story

Palo Alto becomes first Bay Area city to ban plastic produce bags Read More »

3 Republican ex-EPA Chiefs Rebuke Trump EPA on Climate Policy & Science

In a Capitol Hill hearing, Christie Whitman and others urged Congress to provide stronger oversight of the Trump EPA and raised concerns about the agency’s ties to industries it regulates.

BY NINA PULLANO for Inside Climate News
JUN 11, 2019

Lee Thomas, EPA administrator from 1985 to 1989 under President Ronald Reagan, testifying on concerns about the current EPA leadership. Credit: Congress
Lee M. Thomas, EPA administrator in 1985-1989 under President Ronald Reagan, described some of his concerns about the Trump EPA during a congressional hearing, saying, “I believe there is a need for rigorous oversight by the committee of the agency’s capacity for sound decisions.”

Three former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrators who served under Republican presidents urged Congress to ramp up its oversight of the Trump EPA on Tuesday, expressing distress at the agency’s attempts to mislead the public on the risks of climate change and brush aside science in decision-making.

They were joined by Democrat Gina McCarthy, the agency’s chief under President Barack Obama, illustrating that these are bipartisan sentiments.

“I find it disconcerting,” McCarthy told a congressional hearing, that “this collection of past EPA Administrators feel obligated to testify together and individually to make the case that what is happening at EPA today is, simply put, not normal, and to solicit your help to get it on a more productive path.”

Lee M. Thomas, who served under President Ronald Reagan as EPA administrator from 1985 to 1989 before becoming a business executive, questioned whether EPA is fulfilling its mission.

“Does the Agency have adequate resources with the strong scientific capability it needs? Is it seeking input form key scientific advisory committees? Is it coordinating actively with the broad scientific community on research surrounding environmental issues? I don’t think they do,” he wrote in his testimony for the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

All of the former administrators stressed that the current EPA needs clear direction from Congress and a return to the bipartisan support and adherence to science that bolstered the agency in the past, when major environmental legislation would pass with overwhelming margins.

Each had been involved in regulations that President Donald Trump’s administration is now trying to dismantle.

William Reilly served as EPA administrator in the George H.W. Bush administration. Credit: Congress
William K. Reilly, EPA administrator in the George H.W. Bush administration, named climate change as one of the “serious challenges in protecting public health and natural resources” that the nation faces.

William K. Reilly was administrator under George H.W. Bush when the Clean Air Act was reauthorized and rules for ozone-depleting chemicals and toxic emissions were added. The Clean Air Act has been a frequent target of Trump administration attempts to roll back pollution regulations. 

“Our country continues to face serious challenges in protecting public health and natural resources,” Reilly said, naming climate change and building community resiliency to address the impacts of extreme weather events, coastal erosion and sea level rise, among other challenges. He has criticized Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement.

“These challenges require an EPA that is strong, credible, and sufficiently resourced to conduct and sponsor timely research and risk assessments,” he said.

Christine Todd Whitman, EPA administrator under George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003, also talked about her growing concerns about the impact of climate change, particularly on the ocean that borders her home state of New Jersey, and about the risks to human health from pollution.

Christine Todd Whitman, EPA administrator in the George W. Bush administration. Credit: Congress
Christine Todd Whitman, EPA administrator in the George W. Bush administration, had harsh words for the behavior she sees in the EPA’s leadership today. She said the Trump administration is “using ideology to drive environmental policy instead of letting science drive policy.”

Whitman listed several “egregious actions” by the Trump EPA, including its plans to roll back vehicle emissions standards, repeal methane emissions from oil and gas operations, and relax regulations on toxic air pollution.

At the same time, she noted, it has been replacing scientists on its Science Advisory Board with industry representatives and trying to formally restrict the scientific evidence EPA can use in policy making.  

The Trump administration is “using ideology to drive environmental policy instead of letting science drive policy,” Whitman said.

Read the full story

3 Republican ex-EPA Chiefs Rebuke Trump EPA on Climate Policy & Science Read More »

Did you think we were rid of DDT?

Newswise: New study shows legacy of DDT to lake ecosystems
Remote lake from DDT study. Photo credit Josh Kurek

McMaster University

Newswise — New findings of a multi-university research team show the pesticide DDT persists in remote lakes at concerning levels half a century after it was banned, affecting key aquatic species and potentially entire lake food webs.

“What was considered yesterday’s environmental crisis in the 1950s through 1970s remains today’s problem,” says lead author Dr. Josh Kurek, Assistant Professor in Geography and Environment at Mount Allison University. “Decades of intense insecticide applications to our conifer forests have left a lasting mark on these lakes—and likely many others in eastern North America.”

Between 1950 and 1970 prior to legal restrictions, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) insecticides were widely applied to eastern North American forests to manage naturally occurring insect outbreaks, such as spruce budworm. Although often applied to forests by airplane, chemicals like DDT are highly persistent and can eventually wash into lakes from their surrounding landscape. This study looked at dated sediments from the bottom of five remote lakes located within different watersheds in north-central New Brunswick, Canada. Lake sediments provide a well-recognized and powerful archive of environmental conditions, which allows researchers to assess chemical and biological conditions in lakes before, during, and after pesticide use.  

The study was recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society, highlights the chemical legacy of one of North America’s largest aerial spray programs of insecticides ever coordinated by forest stakeholders.

Read the full story

Did you think we were rid of DDT? Read More »

SEPTA adds 22 rookie electric buses to its lineup. Can they roll with the fleet’s big-league, fume-belching vets?

SEPTA’s new electric buses are being tested on routes in South Philadelphia and Center City

Jason Laughlin reports for the Philadelphia Inquirer
Updated: June 10, 2019

SEPTA’s 22 electric, emissions-free buses are on the street, but it remains to be seen whether they’re a first step toward greener public transit or a novelty that will prove unsustainable.

The authority’s $23.8 million investment in 25 electric buses — three more will be put in service soon — from the manufacturer, Proterra represents the biggest commitment yet to the technology by an East Coast transit agency. They stand out from the rest of SEPTA’s buses, with big front and rear windows, and a Peco advertisement wrapped around them.

The new buses, though, compose a small percentage of the transit agency’s almost 1,500-bus fleet, and SEPTA won’t commit to going fully electric. Electric buses used elsewhere have proved less reliable than their emissions-spewing predecessors, and it is unclear whether the buses’ cost and SEPTA’s battery charging capacity will prevent them from being used widely in a big city.

“We don’t know how they perform in our conditions,” said Erik Johanson, SEPTA’s director of innovation. “We need to go through all four seasons to see how these buses are able to perform.”

Read the full story

SEPTA adds 22 rookie electric buses to its lineup. Can they roll with the fleet’s big-league, fume-belching vets? Read More »