PSEG sells former NJ coal-power plants to re-developer

Former PSEG Hudson Generating Station in Jersey City
The former Hudson Generating Station in Jersey City. – ()PSEG Power, a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group, announced on Wednesday the sale its retired Hudson Generating Station, in Jersey City and Secaucus, and Mercer Generating Station, in Hamilton Township, sites to Hilco Redevelopment Partners, an operating company within Hilco Global.Both coal-burning power plants were built in the 1960s and retired in June 2017.According to a press release, PSEG selected Chicago-headquartered HRP based on their strong environmental track record and demonstrated success in managing complex redevelopment projects, including retired coal plants.HRP envisions redeveloping the sites as state-of-the-art industrial parks to serve the growing need for regional warehouse distribution hubs in central and northern New Jersey.PSEG is committed to being a leading clean energy provider. Last year, the company set the goal of eliminating 13 million metric tons of CO2-equivalent emissions by 2030 from 2005 levels.”We hope these sites will continue to be productive assets for the communities that hosted the plants for decades,” said John Paul Cowan, senior vice president of operations for PSEG Fossil, in a release. “That’s why we sought out a buyer that understands the strategic value of both locations and will leverage the great labor pool in the surrounding areas. Hilco Redevelopment Partners has a track record of success taking on both the remediation of these types of industrial facilities and, most importantly, redeveloping them into economic engines for the people who live in and around the sites.”Like this? Click to receive free updates

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Opinion: Rosenstein departure too late for Trump


Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
By Paul Waldman
Washington Post opinion writer

Had today’s news out of the Justice Department come six months or a year ago, President Trump might have had reason for optimism that he might be one giant step closer to his fondest wish — to shut down the special counsel’s investigation into the Russia scandal.
Instead, coming as it does now, it may indicate just how powerless Trump is to escape accountability for what happened during the 2016 campaign and in the early days of his presidency. The Post reports:
Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein has told people close to him that he expects to depart the Justice Department if a new attorney general is confirmed, though there are no concrete plans in place or a timeline for him to do so, according to people familiar with the matter.
Rosenstein has been the No. 2 Justice Department official since April 2017, his tenure defined by his appointment of Robert S. Mueller III to lead the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and the attacks he incurred from President Trump for doing so. Incensed by Mueller’s work, Trump periodically toyed with the idea of ousting his deputy attorney general, though Rosenstein managed to avoid the ax time after time.
We shouldn’t forget that Rosenstein was appointed by Trump, but it was one of those appointments that was doubtless delivered to him by others who knew Rosenstein as a respected professional, and that Trump came to profoundly regret. Rosenstein probably would have done his best to oversee the Mueller investigation in an objective manner regardless, but Trump’s constant public outbursts on the subject and regular expressions of contempt for then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself no doubt made Rosenstein even more determined to avoid even the appearance of succumbing to Trump’s pressure.
And so the investigation proceeded largely unimpeded. Now, by all appearances, it is nearing its completion, with a growing pile of indictments, guilty pleas and evidence that people around Trump were in regular contact and even coordination with Russia throughout the campaign. Trump put in place an acting attorney general, Matthew G. Whitaker, who may have gotten the job because the president was pleased with his criticism of the Mueller probe, and announced that William P. Barr, who had also been critical of the investigation, will be Sessions’s permanent replacement. But not only has all the attention to the potential for meddling made it harder for either of them to shut Mueller down, by now it’s too late.
That brings us to the absolutely extraordinary news we learned late Tuesday that while he was chairman of the Trump campaign, Paul Manafort was feeding internal polling data to his associate Konstantin Kilimnik, who is widely suspected to be a Russian intelligence asset. Let me point you to this paragraph from the New York Times’ report, which also refers to Rick Gates, the deputy campaign chairman who has pleaded guilty to crimes and is cooperating with Mueller:
Mr. Manafort asked Mr. Gates to tell Mr. Kilimnik to pass the data to Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who is close to the Kremlin and who has claimed that Mr. Manafort owed him money from a failed business venture, the person said. It is unclear whether Mr. Manafort was acting at the campaign’s behest or independently, trying to gain favor with someone to whom he was deeply in debt.
So to repeat: The Trump campaign was giving internal polling data to a likely Russian intelligence asset so he could pass that data to a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin.

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Record rains increased pollution in Chesapeake Bay


MARYLAND NATURAL RESOURCES POLICE

Frank Kummer reports for the Philadelphia Inquirer

Record rainfall helped tick up levels of two widespread pollutants in the Chesapeake Bay watershed in 2018, and worried scientists say bigger storms could be the new norm, according to a recent report.

The biennial report by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation said the health of the bay decreased one point to a score of 33, earning it the equivalent of a D-plus in its scoring system, mostly because of heavy rain that swept in nitrogen and phosphorous from runoff. Water clarity also took a hit. The foundation has marked progress from scores as low as 20 in the 1970s. A score of 100 would indicate pristine. The foundation’s goal is a passing score of about 70.

“Overall, the result is a substantial drop in the scores relative to 2016,” the report said. “Winter and early spring water flows down the Susquehanna, the largest river feeding the bay, were higher than average in both years [2017 and 2018]. And record rainfall during summer 2018 caused flooding and more pollution to enter the region’s waterways.”

Though nitrogen and phosphorus do occur naturally, too much coming from a variety of human activities means nutrient pollution in waterways.The report also states that climate change models suggest more frequent and severe storms in the future.

William Baker, the foundation’s president, said the Trump administration’s environmental rollbacks also pose a challenge.

But Beth McGee, the foundation’s director of science and agricultural policy, said all the news was not bad.

“The good news is that scientists are pointing to evidence of the bay’s increased resiliency and ability to withstand and recover from these severe weather events,” McGee said in a statement. “And this resiliency is a direct result of the pollution reductions achieved to date.”

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has been issuing its state of the bay report since 1998. The report is compiled by scientists and is based on data collected on 13 indicators, each scored from 1 to 100. Taken together, they create an index score.



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Carbon emissions surged in ’18 even as coal plants closed

passenger planes at Phoenix airport

Brad Plumer reports for the New York Times


WASHINGTON — America’s carbon dioxide emissions rose by 3.4 percent in 2018, the biggest increase in eight years, according to a preliminary estimate published Tuesday.

Strikingly, the sharp uptick in emissions occurred even as a near-record number of coal plants around the United States retired last year, illustrating how difficult it could be for the country to make further progress on climate change in the years to come, particularly as the Trump administration pushes to roll back federal regulations that limit greenhouse gas emissions.

The estimate, by the research firm Rhodium Group, pointed to a stark reversal. Fossil fuel emissions in the United States have fallen significantly since 2005 and declined each of the previous three years, in part because of a boom in cheap natural gas and renewable energy, which have been rapidly displacing dirtier coal-fired power.

Yet even a steep drop in coal use last year wasn’t enough to offset rising emissions in other parts of the economy. Some of that increase was weather-related: A relatively cold winter led to a spike in the use of oil and gas for heating in areas like New England.


But, just as important, as the United States economy grew at a strong pace last year, emissions from factories, planes and trucks soared. And there are few policies in place to clean those sectors up.

“The big takeaway for me is that we haven’t yet successfully decoupled U.S. emissions growth from economic growth,” said Trevor Houser, a climate and energy analyst at the Rhodium Group.


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Looks like business is buying into Gov’s clean-energy goals

One company is doubling solar capacity at its manufacturing site in Warren County, NJ, making it the second largest net-metered facility on the East Coast

Solar field

Credit: DSM North America
DSM North America’s solar farm in Belvidere, Warren County will double in capacity.
Tom Johnson reports for
NJ Spotlight:
New Jersey’s state’s environmental community has bought into the Murphy administration’s goal of having 100 percent clean energy by 2050 big-time, but they’re not the only ones.
Some of the state’s top business executives also are embracing renewable energy. Take DSM North America, which this week plans to announce the expansion of its solar field at its manufacturing plant in Belvidere, Warren County.
The 20.2-megawatt project will double the capacity of DSM’s original solar farm, making it the largest net-metered solar facility in New Jersey, and the second largest on the East Coast. It will span 60 acres of the 500-acre site in Belvidere, and provide energy for the manufacture of nutritional products. (Net metering credits owners of solar-energy system for the electricity they add to the grid.)
“I am very encouraged by the administration’s rhetoric on this issue,’’ said Hugh Welsh, president of DSM North America, whose headquarters are located in Parsippany. “The plant in Belvidere proves it can be done.’’

Excess energy will be sold back into the grid

The 62,215 solar panels at the site will use DSM’s anti-reflective coating, the company’s flagship product for the solar market; it reduces the reflection of sunlight, thus increasing the energy output of the system.
The solar field will provide more than enough energy to power the Belvidere plant, which employs 250 and has operated at the site for 50 years. Excess electricity will be sold back into the grid, according to company executives, improving the plant’s economics.
DSM, a subsidiary of Netherlands-based Royal DSM, is committed to reducing its carbon footprint and to sustainable manufacturing. Founded in 1902, it originally was a coal company (Dutch State Mines). It now touts itself as a global-based science company focusing on nutrition, health and materials business.
The investment in the solar expansion comes at a time of uncertainty for New Jersey’s solar sector as the state is mulling scrapping its existing way of financing the renewable energy. But Welsh said the project still made a lot of sense financially.
DSM is currently scouting out potential locations for a new food enzyme plant, and Belvidere remains one of the candidates for the facility, according to Welsh.
The company’s Belvidere facility is projected to provide 23,437 MW hours of electricity annually — the equivalent of enough to power 2,614 homes over a year. And the savings that will be reaped are not immaterial, Welsh said.

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FERC commissioner Kevin McIntyre dies at 58

Kevin McIntyre. Photo credit: FERC

Kevin McIntyre, a commissioner on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, has died.
Rod Kuckro reports for E&E News 
Kevin McIntyre, who served the briefest tenure ever as the nation’s top energy regulator at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, died yesterday.
McIntyre had been diagnosed with brain cancer in 2017 and previously had surgery to remove the tumor.
A setback in his condition led him to step away from the chairman’s role on Oct. 24. He remained on the commission and was succeeded as chairman by Commissioner Neil Chatterjee.
President Trump nominated McIntyre, 58, to serve at FERC as chairman in August 2017. It is unclear whether the administration knew at the time that he had cancer.
A Republican, he was confirmed by the Senate in November and was sworn in Dec. 7 as chairman. The several months of delay were attributed to his medical treatment, according to several sources.
In March, as news of his ailment was made public, McIntyre issued a statement acknowledging “a health issue that arose unexpectedly last summer” and the subsequent brain surgery (Energywire, March 12, 2018).
The prognosis was good, he said, given his “excellent health” and post-operative treatment. “For reasons of personal and family privacy, I do not intend to provide further details or updates on this subject,” he said at the time.
Within days of taking the reins at FERC, McIntyre had to lead the agency’s response to a request by Energy Secretary Rick Perry that the agency consider changing electricity market rules to enable financial subsidies for nuclear and coal power plants unable to compete in the market.
He led a 5-0 rejection by the commission of Perry’s proposal.
He chaired just eight of FERC’s monthly meetings, missing the September and October sessions for health reasons.
McIntyre led a number of important initiatives such as launching a resilience proceeding in response to Perry’s request as well as a review of FERC’s 1999 policy statement on certification of natural gas pipelines.
In April, he committed FERC to an interagency administration process that aims to cut the environmental permitting time for big infrastructure projects to two years.
As chairman, he also presided over a raft of 3-2 decisions in favor of natural gas pipelines that featured a party-line split among the commissioners.
Leading the commission, he was known for his deliberate approach to issues and his dry sense of humor.
Prior to his nomination to FERC, McIntyre was the co-leader of the global energy practice at the law firm Jones Day, where he practiced law for most of his nearly 30-year legal career.

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