UN report: Clean power is up, costs are down

Roger Harrabin reports for the BBC:
wind powerImage copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionThe cost of offshore wind energy installations has tumbled over the past three years

The world added record levels of renewable energy capacity in 2016, according to the UN.
But the bill was almost a quarter lower than the previous year, thanks to the plunging cost of renewables.
Investment in renewables capacity was roughly double that in fossil fuels, says the report from UN Environment.
It follows news that the cost of offshore wind power has fallen by around a third since 2012 – far faster than expected.
But the report’s authors sound the alarm that just as costs are plunging, some major nations are scaling back their green energy investments.
This, they say, reduces the likelihood of meeting the Paris climate agreement.
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Philly council pulls plug on EV-only curbside parking places

Jim Saksa reports for PlanPhilly:

In an 11 to 6 vote, City Council suspended a program that allowed electric vehicle (EV) owners create EV-only parking spots in front of the curbside electrical outlets used to recharge their cars.

Neighbors complained that the program effectively allowed EV owners to buy a private in-street parking spot—while any electric car could park in the spot, only the specific EV charger’s owner could use the outlet. That spurred Councilmembers Mark Squilla and David Oh to introduce a moratorium bill, which also makes the existing EV-only spots open for any vehicle during the day for up to two hours.
“This policy has become a vehicle for people more interested in owning a private parking spot in front of their home than owning an electric vehicle,” said Oh.
There are 61 existing in-street EV parking spaces, predominantly in Center City.
All EV owners who testified before Council’s vote said that going—and saving—green by forgoing gas was their primary motivation for buying an electric car, not parking.  
A representative for Mayor Jim Kenney said the administration was still evaluating the legislation and declined to say whether the mayor would sign or veto the bill. As a councilman, Kenney introduced the original EV ordinance in 2007.
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When this millennial couldn’t reach his congressman

Temple graduate Ryan Epp is the creator of Snail Mail Congress which gets constituent concerns to elected officials using the postal service. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)


A few months ago, Ryan Epp wanted to tell U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey his concerns about Betsy DeVos, the controversial charter-school champion who Trump nominated to be his education secretary.
 

“No one was picking up the phone in his office. I called like 25 times in one day and didn’t get a response,” said Epp, 26, of Lancaster. “So I decided to write Sen. Toomey a letter.
 
And I did that, printed it out — and then realized I was out of stamps.”
 
So what did he do?
 
NewsWorks‘ Dana DeFilippo provides the answer:

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Frederick B. Lacey, who took on the mob, dead at 96

Former U.S. Attorney Frederick B. Lacey

Ted Sherman writes for the Star-Ledger:

Frederick Lacey’s son first began to understand the danger of the work his father was doing when four federal marshals unexpectedly took up residence to protect the family in their suburban Glen Ridge home.
As the new U.S. Attorney for New Jersey in 1969, Lacey quickly found himself making a number of powerful enemies.
Earlier in his career, as prosecutor he sent the widely feared and ruthless head of Murder Inc., mobster Albert Anastasia, to prison for income tax evasion. As U.S. Attorney, he soon was going up against the likes of Angelo “Gyp” DeCarlo, another major organized crime boss who controlled Newark, as well as the corrupt political machines in Essex and Hudson counties.
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BillyPenn’s list of Philly’s political protests in April (so far)

protestPaige Gross writes for BillyPenn:

We’re heading into the third month of Donald Trump’s presidency, and there’s no sign of slowing down for many resistance-themed events and protests in Philly.

Click here to see the ever-growing list 

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Recalling when oyster boats ruled Delaware Bay

Clyde Phillips, who was a waterman and his father was a waterman, in the area of Bivalve, NJ, shares stories about what it was like in the heyday of the oyster trade in South Jersey
Michael Bryant/Inquirer photographer.
Jacqueline R. Urgo writes for Philly.com:

BIVALVE, N.J. — When they look out over the languid Maurice River these days, Joan Riggin Harper and Clyde Phillips can still see the regatta of sorts that used to appear each Sunday afternoon, when hundreds of wooden boats would be under sail, racing out of the mouth of the river to get to oyster beds in the Delaware Bay to begin the work week of harvesting the shellfish.

“It was a beautiful sight … all those boats and sails on the river. I don’t even have to close my eyes to still see it,” said Harper, 93, of Upper Deerfield, as she stood on the docks of what is now the Bayshore Center at Bivalve. The site was once the center of a thriving maritime industry in which her family played a key role in the early 1900s.

“We’d hop in the car and go to Gandy’s Beach and wait to see Dad’s boat pass by Ship John Light. We didn’t care about seeing any other boat, though, we just wanted to see Dad’s pretty bugeye go by,” said Harper, recalling her childhood along the bay shore in Cumberland County in the 1920s and 1930s, during the heyday of New Jersey’s once-lucrative oyster industry.

“It was an amazing thing to see,” agreed Phillips, 83, of Mauricetown. “New Jersey boats had four corner sails, and they looked pretty under sail.”

“I always say that around here, people were defined by their boats, and many boats were defined by their people,” he said.

For more than two hours, they talked of people and things that are long gone — eccentric teachers they had in school, a factory that produced rope made of salt hay harvested from the surrounding marshland, how boats got their sometimes unusual names, the thriving grocery stores and small shops that sold ladies’ finery and men’s haberdashery in Port Norris.

Read the full story here

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