Tesla solar power in Hawaii, all day and all of the night

Lloyd Alter writes for Treehugger:

Solar City and Tesla take the Kinks out of solar power with plenty of PowerPacks
Hawaii gets most of its electricity from burning diesel fuel, an expensive and polluting proposition. But it has lots of sun that can generate power during the daytime, and now Tesla is installing the batteries needed to power it at night.
Solar City, now owned by Tesla, installed 13 megawatts of solar panels and Tesla installed 52 megawatt-hours of Powerpack batteries, enough power to supply 4500 homes day and night, for the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative. It is enough juice to reduce the need for 1.6 million gallons of diesel fuel each year. Tesla and Solar city installed the package under a 20 year fixed price contract costing the utility 13.9 cents per KWh, slightly less than the cost of diesel-powered electricity.

The Kauai facility is meant to show what Tesla can offer for higher-demand commercial projects, and it’s a stake in the ground that’s designed to pique the interest of energy providers the world over – not just those perfectly situated to make the most of available sunlight, according to [CTO] Straubel.

“It’s immediately a cost benefit,” Straubel said. “And that’s true in many places around the world, it’s not just true on islands like this in Hawaii. It’s not intuitive; most people, they think this is more expensive still today, but the cost of solar and the cost of storage has come down so quickly that these projects now are cost-effective in many locations.”
Last summer, when Tesla was planning to buy Solar City, Derek wrote about all the Negative Nellies and Debbie Downers who were against the idea. (Oh, and the EV Eeyores too) However this installation, and the recent one in California that we wrote about in Tesla kills the duck with big batteries may well silence the skeptics because the evidence is right there in living colour, in dollars and cents: Solar power that runs all night, that’s cheaper than diesel.
Soon it may well be cheaper than any other fossil fuel because at least for now, the sun is still free.
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PennFuture: Oppose Trump’s Chesapeake Bay defunding

Thomas Point Lighthouse in Chesapeake Bay

A second Pennsylvania environmental organization is fighting a Trump administration action to scale back environmental protections.


We reported earlier today that PennEnvironment is urging letters opposing lower auto mileage standards. 


Now, PennFuture is sounding an alarm that President Trump’s proposed budget would eliminate all funding for the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay cleanup program.   


Here’s the association message to members and friends:

Today, the White House released its 2018 federal budget proposal, which includes draconian cuts to investment in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Alarmingly, President Trump’s proposal slashes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s annual Chesapeake Bay Program budget from $73 million to $0. If this budget passes, it would eliminate the program and make it impossible for Pennsylvania to meet its Total Maximum Daily Load obligations required by the U.S. Clean Water Act to clean up the Chesapeake Bay and restore local streams in the Susquehanna River watershed.
Chesapeake Bay Program funding for restoration comprises nearly 55 percent of its total budget. Under Trump’s proposal, Pennsylvania would lose more than $10 million in aid if the Bay Program’s almost $41 million of on-the-ground grant funding disappeared, leaving the state without the resources necessary to guarantee clean water to local communities and businesses. At a time when there is broad-based support to work on TMDL compliance goals, this funding is crucial to support a wide range of watershed efforts, including agricultural best management practices for farmers, green infrastructure and stormwater management for municipalities, and protecting riparian buffers along streams.
Without full funding, Pennsylvania’s waters are put in jeopardy by nutrient pollution, erosion, sediment, and run-off. A healthy and robust Chesapeake Bay Program budget is an integral part of Pennsylvania’s effort to ensure clean water for its citizens.
Tell your member of Congress that you support a responsible budget and EPA’s role in protecting the Susquehanna and the Bay. Tell your Representative and Senators that you oppose Trump’s plan to eliminate the Chesapeake Bay Program completely.
TAKE ACTION NOW

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Maryland House approves fracking ban by large margin

Activists rally outside Maryland’s State House for a fracking ban on March 2. (Brian Witte/AP)

Josh Hicks reports in The Washington Post:

Maryland’s House of Delegates on Friday passed legislation to ban hydraulic fracturing in the state, but a major hurdle remains in the Senate, where a key lawmaker has resisted efforts to permanently prohibit the controversial gas-extraction method.
The bill passed the Democratic-majority House 97 to 40, with eight Republicans supporting it.
Sen. Joan Carter Conway (D-Baltimore), who chairs the Senate committee in charge of reviewing the proposal, has said she sees little sense in trying to move the measure to Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s desk unless both legislative chambers can approve it with veto-proof majorities, the Baltimore Sun reported Friday.
Hogan has said he supports hydraulic fracturing as long as the state implements strict safeguards for the practice, commonly known as fracking.
The 141-member House needs 85 votes to override a veto from the governor, while the 47-member Senate needs 29 votes for such action. Anti-fracking advocates say they are a few votes short of that number in the Senate.
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PennEnvironment sees Trump, Detroit driving in reverse

Hummer backing up


David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment, with offices in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, is encouraging the members of his organization and others to let the nation’s three major automakers know that Americans do not support the current efforts of Detroit and the Trump administration to reverse progress on automobile mileage standards.  


Masur writes:


Dear _____,

Nearly a decade ago as the recession was crashing down on our economy, Detroit’s “Big Three” automakers were scrambling to stay afloat after putting all their eggs into the basket of big, gas guzzling SUVs—a vehicle that the public had little desire to buy with rising gas prices at the pump.

Now those same auto companies just convinced the Trump administration to overturn climate-fighting fuel-efficiency standards that would have cut global warming pollution by 6 billion tons by 2030.  Those standards drove the industry to innovate with fuel-efficient cars, hybrids and now electric vehicles. [1]

Email Detroit’s “Big Three” and ask them to stop pushing to dismantle fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks. 

If the whole thing sounds like a story you’ve heard before, you’d be correct.  For years, the auto-industry fought these same fuel-efficiency standards as they tried to build bigger and bigger SUVs. Even as hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius were selling like hotcakes, Detroit’s Big Three continued building larger SUVs.  And inevitably their failed products helped lead to a multibillion-dollar bailout by us, the American taxpayers—hoping they’d learn their lesson. 
Instead, last week major auto-makers sat down with President Trump to persuade him to undo the very fuel-efficiency standards that helped cut pollution and save their industry.

It’s time for the U.S. to put cars that burn too much gasoline in our rear-view mirror. Unfortunately, the order this week by Trump’s EPA is a green light to keep making dirty gas guzzling cars that pollute our air, endanger our health and threaten our children’s future.

Tell the Detroit Big Three: You want more clean cars, not more hummers.

Sincerely,
David Masur
PennEnvironment Executive Director

PS—forward this to your friends and family and tell them to take this urgent action TODAY!

[1]  “Trump targets Obama’s global warming emissions rule for cars“, The Hill, March 15, 2017.  


—————————————————————————
If you click on either of the links above you’ll be taken to a form. Enter your name, e-mail address, etc., and a letter to the big three will be automatically generated and sent.  

It’s an easy way to help pressure the automakers. It’s also a clever marketing technique, as the information supplied helps PennEnvironment build its database for future communications and, no doubt, fundraising requests. 


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Terhune to lead Scarinci Hollenbeck’s environment section

Todd W. Terhune

The Scarinci Hollenbeck law firm has named Partner Todd W. Terhune as Section Chief of its Environmental and Land Use Law Group.


Terhune, who joined Scarinci Hollenbeck as a partner in 2015, brings almost three decades of experience in the environmental field, practicing first as a licensed Professional Engineer and, for the past 17 years, as an environmental attorney.


A partner in the firm, Terhune has handled some of the largest and most complicated brownfield and redevelopment projects in the State. He has also worked on a wide range of environmental issues arising out of real estate and business transactions, as well as in regulatory compliance and enforcement matters. 


Terhune routinely appears before the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and the United States Environmental Protection Agency.


The growing full-service law firm, with over 65 attorneys in New York, New Jersey and the District of Columbia, Scarinci Hollenbeck is comprised of six core practice areas: Transactional, Environmental, Litigation, Intellectual Property, Public Law and Labor and Employment, each of which encompasses several sub-practice groups.


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Renewed fracking battle coming along the Delaware River?


Susan Phillips and Jon Hurdle report for StateImpact:

Defenders of a longstanding de-facto moratorium on natural gas drilling in the Delaware River Basin say there are gathering signs of a renewed push to allow natural gas production by the industry and its allies.
Environmental groups including Delaware Riverkeeper Network say officials from the Delaware River Basin Commission, which is composed of representatives from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the federal government, have been in talks with member states about finalizing work on oil and gas regulations that began before a de-facto moratorium was imposed seven years ago.
Opponents of any move to open the basin to shale gas development also worry about a lawsuit brought by a group of Wayne County landowners who challenge the DRBC’s right to regulate drilling.
And they fear that there will be new pressure from the Trump administration, via the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, its representative on the DRBC, to allow gas drilling at the eastern edge of the Marcellus Shale.
The debate over gas drilling near the Delaware River dates back seven years. In May 2010 the DRBC’s five Commissioners voted unanimously to hold off on any decisions regarding drilling in the Delaware River Basin until new regulations were adopted. The de-facto moratorium imposed by the Commission prevents drilling for natural gas in Pennsylvania’s Wayne and Pike counties, as well as parts of southern New York, until the DRBC establishes its own regulations. If their rules are more stringent than state regulations, the DRBC rules would trump those in Pennsylvania.
In early November, 2011, the DRBC posted draft regulations, but cancelled the vote by commissioners after then-governor of Delaware, Jack Markell, said he would vote against them. Since then, the commission has remained silent on gas drilling, while commission staffers worked behind the scenes. New York has since banned fracking.
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