B. L. England to pump out power for another two years


Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:


PJM Interconnection says generating facility essential to reliability of power grid

b.l. england

Credit: Kirk Moore
B.L. England power plant in Cape May County
B.L. England is not shutting down anytime soon — again.
The power plant in Beesleys Point, scheduled to close next month, will continue to operate under a directive from PJM Interconnection, the operator of the nation’s largest power grid.
The decision is largely unrelated to a continuing controversy over the past few years about converting the coal-fired generating facility to natural gas by building a 22-mile gas pipeline to the facility, partly through the Pinelands. That project is tied up in litigation.
PJM wants the remaining units at the plant to keep running for another two years while transmission upgrades now underway are completed to maintain the reliability of the power grid. That work is not expected to be finished until 2019, according to PJM.
“If the transmission work is done, they could be retired sooner,’’ said Ray Dotter, a spokesman for PJM.
The owner of the plant agreed to shut down the facility — at the time one of the most polluting units in the state — according to an administrative consent order with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in 2014. The order included a provision that the shutdown would not take effect if PJM deemed the units needed to keep the lights on in the region, which it has.

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Some of these kids have never seen strawberries



From the environmental blog, Grist:

Courtesy of Karmani

Immigrant developed app for food waste

 

Raj Karmani was a graduate student in computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign when his frequent trips to the neighborhood bagel store opened his eyes to food waste. Most of the unsold bagels usually went into the trash. Karmani’s obsession with efficiency got him thinking: What if there were an app that would sync up businesses with fresh, excess food and organizations in need of it? In 2013, he started Zero Percent, an online platform for food donation.
Here’s how it works: First, a food producer at a commercial kitchen, say a restaurant or bagel shop, opens an Uber-style app and drops in detailed data about the excess food: the amount, where to pick it up, when to pick it up, etc. Then, a delivery person, hired by Zero Percent, scoops up the food and drops it off at any number of youth groups, community centers, or nonprofits that have also signed up for the app and signaled a need.
Right now, Zero Percent operates in the Chicago area and in Urbana-Champaign (but plans to expand), and its biggest clients include the University of Illinois and the local Salvation Army. Karmani says Zero Percent has delivered more than 1,000 meals. As a well-educated and relatively well-off immigrant, the experience has been eye-opening for him. “Some of these kids have never seen strawberries.”
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EP Podcast: #19 – Week in Review – April 10-15, 2017


Our podcast is back with a New Episode (#19) in which we review some of the interesting political and environment stories featured in the past week in our daily subscription newsletter, EnviroPolitics or its free companion–EnviroPolitics Blog.


Stories like:

  • Pa mine fire that’s been burning for decades. Yes, decades
  • Key federal approval for gas pipeline that’s opposed in Pa and NJ
  • New York State’s second rejection of a Marcellus gas pipeline 
  • Big, expensive cleanup of a NJ lake polluted by a DuPont munitions plant
  • An effort to bring back the Bobwhite quail
  • Ozone pollution in Delaware
  • Gas and chemical industries joining with seniors to fight nuclear bailout 
…and more


Click to listen to Episode 19  

You can subscribe to our podcast for fee on:
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and other popular podcast services.

It’s easy to do and you’ll never miss a future episode.

See and hear all 19 episodes 

Questions? Email: frankbrilljr@gmail.com or 609-577-9017


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Industry sends Trump list of regs to cut with EPA on top


Juliet Eilperin reports for The Washington Post:

Just days after taking office, President Trump invited American manufacturers to recommend ways the government could cut regulations and make it easier for companies to get their projects approved.
Industry leaders responded with scores of suggestions that paint the clearest picture yet of the dramatic steps that Trump officials are likely to take in overhauling federal policies, especially those designed to advance environmental protection and safeguard worker rights.
Those clues are embedded in the 168 comments submitted to the government after Trump signed a presidential memorandum Jan. 24 instructing the Commerce Department to figure out how to ease permitting and trim regulations with the aim of boosting domestic manufacturing. 
The Environmental Protection Agency has emerged as the primary target in these comments, accounting for nearly half, with the Labor Department in second place as the subject of more than a fifth, according to a Commerce Department analysis.
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Trump restoring jobs? Don’t ask the U. S. tourism industry


Airplanes sit on the tarmac at San Francisco International Airport. San Francisco is one city expected to lose tourism dollars this year after President Trump promoted a travel ban. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The Washington Post reports:

The toll of the president’s proposals has been swift on the nation’s tourism industry, with tour group organizers saying that people suddenly have an unsettling sense that the United States isn’t as welcoming a place as it once was. One industry expert pegs the projected lost revenue for 2017 at $7.4 billion. Read the full story

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EPA chief Pruitt wants U.S. to exit Paris climate agreement

Marianne Lavelle reports for Inside Climate News:
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said on Thursday that the United States should exit the Paris climate agreement. The comments are his strongest yet on a question that has divided the Donald Trump administration, even as it seeks to roll back the nation’s commitment to act on climate change.
“Paris is something we need to look at closely. It’s something we need to exit in my opinion,” Pruitt said in an interview on the Fox & Friendsmorning news program.
“It’s a bad deal for America,” he said. “It’s an ‘America second, third or fourth’ kind of approach.”

The White House has said it expects to flesh out the administration’s official position on Paris in a month or so.
Pruitt’s statement puts him at odds with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former chief executive of ExxonMobil, who said during his confirmation hearing that it was important for the U.S. to “maintain its seat at the table.”
Even some big U.S. coal companies have taken a similar position. They have argued in recent weeks that the pact offers their best chance to advocate for coal in the world’s future energy mix, perhaps by promoting technology to capture emissions and store them underground.
Other Trump supporters have said that even if the U.S. stays in the Paris process, it should abandon its pledges to cut emissions, which probably cannot be met if the administration succeeds in killing Obama-era pollution control rules.
But Pruitt said the United States “frontloaded all of our costs” under the Paris accord, while “China or India had no obligations under the agreement until 2030.” In fact, the Paris agreement is the first climate pact that requires emissions-cutting commitments from all of the more than 190 nations that signed it, although each commitment is different, determined by individual countries.
The treaty was not mentioned in the March 28 executive order that called for repealing the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan and took steps to roll back other U.S. climate policies. 
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