A Tale of Five Cities (a repeat post from 2017)

I have written recently about progress on the renewable energy front. Here is a post from six years ago, that I found of interest then and now.

I am often bemused by folks that argue against renewable energy citing costs and jobs. Some say the industry is fledgling, but this does a disservice to the huge progress made over the last five years. Renewable energy jobs are growing at double digit rates per annum and the production costs continue to fall and are much closer to fossil fuel costs, and even cheaper when the present value of all costs (environmental degradation, extraction, transportation, maintenance, health care, litigation, et al) are factored in.

Yet, let’s set that aside and consider five cities in the US – Aspen CO, Burlington VT, Greensburg KS, Houston TX and Las Vegas NV. The first three cities are fully powered by renewable energy, where the last two have significant renewable energy portfolios.

Burlington was the first city to claim being 100% powered by renewable energy – solar, wind and hydro-electric. Per a November, 2016 Politico article, the electric utility has not had a rate increase in eight years for its 42,000 residents.

Greensburg came next, unfortunately they had to experience a tornado that leveled the town. As they rebuilt the town, they did so with a green mindset. So, using solar and the heavy wind across the plain states, helped electrify the town with renewable energy. Starting from scratch let them build for the future.

Aspen was the third city. I find this interesting as I read an article a few years back over the concern of climate change on the skiing industry. More often, climate change reporting focuses on the impact coastal cities. This city acted and has now pushed the envelope to 100% renewable energy.

Which brings me to Las Vegas. They got press stating they were 100% renewable energy powered, but that was somewhat of a misnomer. Yet, what they did do is still impactful. The 140 municipal buildings and facilities are now 100% powered by renewable energy. That is not the rest of the city, but it is a statement nonetheless.

Finally, let’s visit Houston, deep in the heart of oil rich Texas. Per The Guardian in an article this week, Houston is the leading city in the US in producing renewable energy through wind and solar power with 1.1 billion kWh. 89% of its electricity is renewable energy powered. They are in the top 30 in the EPA’s list of Green Partners leading six Texas cities on this list. As I mentioned recently, Texas gets just under 13% of its electricity from wind energy. (Note – in 2023, wind energy accounts for about 1/5 of Texas’ electricity).

These are powerful stores, pun intended. Please remember them and tell others. We are passed the tipping point on renewable energy and we should highlight those leading the way.

PS – Having been to Costa Rica for business (many US companies have call centers there due to its high literacy rate and bilingual citizens), I found the following of interest:

“In 2022 Costa Rica produced a whopping 98% of its electricity from renewable sources for over eight years in a row. In 2023 they will likely do the same. Costa Rica also holds the world record for most consecutive days using solely renewable energy – 300 in 2018! Breaking their own record of 299 days in 2015. Costa Rica uses a combination of hydro, geothermal, wind, biomass and solar power to get the job done. In some years they have even been able to export the excess power that they have generated to countries in Central America’s Regional Electricity Market – Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras and El Salvador.”

Ice on Fire – a second reprise

Note, the following post was written four years ago and reposted two years ago, but still serves as a reminder of the progress we have made and need to make to address our climate change problem. Since I mentioned this documentary in a comment on my last post, I thought I would repeat it here.

I encourage people to watch the excellent HBO documentary called “Ice on Fire” on concerns over climate change and remedial actions underway that should and can be leveraged. The documentary is produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, but the most impactful voices are the scientists, inventors and trendsetters who are seeing dividends from their actions and investments.

To sum up, we have two major problems facing us – too much carbon in the air along with a growing concern over methane as it is released from beneath melting ice caps and frozen tundra, on top of the venting from natural gas sites. The title comes from researchers lighting methane leaks on fire as it is released from melting ice covered waters. The scientists note with data that it is quite clear man is causing the hastened uptick in temperatures as we leave our carbon fingerprints in the atmosphere.

These are major concerns, but we are not sitting still. Significant efforts are underway. They can be categorized as putting less carbon in the air and capturing more carbon from the air. To avoid a novel, I will touch on some of the ideas, but please do deeper dives and watch the documentary airing now.

Stop putting carbon in the air

We must hasten the move to renewable energy. The costs are more on par and less, in some cases, than fossil fuel energy production. Wind and solar energy are growing at accelerated rates. One CEO noted, the technology is here to make this happen even more than it already is. Here in the US, California gets 25% of its electricity from solar and Texas gets 16% of its electricity from wind energy.

Yet, a very promising start-up off Scotland is tapping tidal energy. There is a company producing electricity today with an offshore platform with two turbines turned by the tides to generate electricity. I have written before about this group as they use existing technologies to harness the sea. Their success is gaining notoriety around the world, as it appears to be replicable.

Two other ideas also help with both recapture and restricting release. The first is reusing depleting biowaste (such as dying trees, plants and compost) in the soils to grow crops and future trees and foliage. The biowaste holds water better, maintains top soil and is straight out of nature’s guidebook.

The other is growing more kelp offshore as it captures carbon like sequoia trees and can also be used as a food source for livestock. Feeding cattle kelp is not a new approach. Feeding cattle is important as it greatly reduces the gases released by animals and preserves more carbon capturing grassland.

Capture more carbon from the air

The documentary spells out several natural ways to capture carbon and a few technological ways. On the former, here are a few ideas:

Maintain forests, especially those with large sequoias, which are huge carbon eaters. There are several places that are nurturing huge forests, but they note we need more of these efforts. We need to be mindful to replace what we cut, but keep some protected forests off limits to cutting.

Another example is to replenish mangroves that offer buffers to oceans. In addition to offering protection against storms, they also are natural born carbon eaters.

Another effort is to grow more urban farms. These farms are usually more organic, but in addition to absorbing carbon in urban areas, they perpetuate a farm to table concept that reduces transportation fumes. Reducing auto fumes is a huge concern of cities around the globe.

The next idea is more compex, but it requires the growing of more shells in the ocean. The dusts off the shells creates “ocean snow” that settles to the bottom and absorbs carbon. The idea is to spread a very small amount of iron in the ocean to cause more shells to grow.

The more technological solutions are designed to pull carbon out of the air. There are two approaches – one is to extract carbon and store it safely underground. The other is to pull it out and reuse it through artificial photosynthesis. Both of these options need more description than I am giving them. I prefer the more natural ways, but all of the above, is a necessary strategy at this late hour.

The scientists have concerns, but they do offer hope. The uncertainty of the ice-covered methane release gives them pause. They did note the methane release from accidental leaks from fossil fuel is visible from space and reduceable with some effort.

Another concern is the well-funded activity behind climate change deniers. A Wyoming rancher scientist standing in front of a visible, leaky methane cap said it plainly – they know this stuffs hurts kids more than adults. If someone came into my home to hurt my kids, it would be over my dead body. So, why is it OK to allow this?

Another scientist was less colorful, but equally plainspoken. He said fossil fuel executives perpetuating climate change denial should be tried in The Hague for crimes against humanity. Yet, as the costs have declined, the profit of creating carbon is becoming less palatable than the profit of reducing carbon in the air. People need to know these market forces exist today and not stand for future unhealthy energy creation.

Finally, if you cannot convince a climate change denier that we have a problem, ask them a simple question – if costs were not an issue, would you rather your children and grandchildren breathe methane from vented natural gas or drink coal ash polluted water or have carbon and methane neutral solar, wind or tidal energy? Guess what – costs are not much of an issue anymore and, in an increasing number of cases, less for renewables.

Big Friendly Giants and seas of solar panels

My wife and I flew up to visit our youngest son and drive back the car he had been driving as he got a new one. On the fifteen-hour journey back, it was wonderful to see all the sights of the coast and mountains once we moved inland. Along the journey, we also took delight in seeing a number of windmill and solar farms.

We have always found the windmills to be elegant giants that are usually staggered in hilly terrain in large single digit of double-digit numbers. It is fun to count them as they go off into the distance. I feel like I am watching a higher tech version of “The BFG,” short for “Big Friendly Giant.”

Yet, clearly what we see more of is the solar farms. These photovoltaic panels number in the hundreds and thousands as they cover a field like a sea of solar panels. Solar energy jobs have been growing annually at double digit rates for years as the prices have come down. And, what is good for customers, but scary for utilities and fossil fuel companies, the solar farms need not be large enterprises to power some communities and neighborhoods.

What I have always liked about renewable energy, is these two approaches need not require any of our dear water to operate. With a global water crisis rivaling and made worse by climate change, not using water is a very good thing.

With the law signed last year, we will get to see more offshore and onshore wind energy. That is terrific. For those folks in our plains states, the sight of windmills is more customary with that windy part of the country. Texas still produces the most wind energy in the country and states like Iowa, Nebraska, and Oklahoma are seeing more than 1/3 of their electricity produced by wind.

And, yet the supporters of the fossil fuel industry have tried to pretend like it is not happening. What I find interesting is in oil rich Texas, a reason wind energy is so prolific is very quietly, the state legislature permitted the wiring to these rural locations to harness the electricity from wind energy. For those who still raise issues, please note that on a “60 Minutes” episode about ten years ago, oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, said that natural gas will buy us time, but the future of electricity in the US is wind energy. I would add solar as well.

The future is now.

Pipelines breach and it is not rare when they do

In article on NBC News written by Dennis Romero called “In Kansas, crews contain largest-yet breach of Keystone Pipeline,” it tells of better news in stopping a large oil spill in Kansas. Yet, the story goes deeper as it shows the breaches are not uncommon. The last time I paid attention to this story, there had been fourteen breaches. Now we are up to twenty-two.

The full article is below. The following summarizes a few paragraphs. Just focus on the highlighted pieces for a quick thumbnail sketch.

“The operator of the Keystone Pipeline System, which carries a form of crude oil from Canada to multiple states for refining, said over the weekend that its largest breach yet has been contained for now.

The pipeline failure 3 miles east of Washington, Kansas, on Wednesday caused an estimated 14,000 barrels of crude, or 588,000 gallons of a form of crude known as tar sands oil, to spill into Mill Creek, a natural waterway, according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration of the U.S. Transportation Department….

In the last five years, there have been at least three significant spills along the original Keystone Pipeline System, Wednesday’s being the most voluminous, according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

The pipeline regulators also noted accidents and breaches in the Keystone system in 2011, 2016 and 2020. The affected section is part of the 288-mile Cushing Extension, completed in 2011, which takes crude from Steele City, Nebraska, to Cushing, Oklahoma, regulators said.

Environmentalists have argued that the incidents come with such a pipeline and that they’re not worth the convenience of more direct transportation for fossil fuel in a world coming to terms with global warming caused largely by burning it.

The Sierra Club said it was the 22nd time the pipeline it calls Keystone 1 has been the site of a spill, breach or accident.

‘There is no such thing as a safe tar sands pipeline and this is another disaster that continues to prove we must put our climate and our communities first,’ Catherine Collentine of the Sierra Club said in a statement.”

Oil transported by ship, derrick, train, truck or pipeline will breach at some point. And, the spills usually are disastrous. On the flip side, when an offshore windmill breaches, it causes a different result – a splash. When a solar panel breaches it causes a small outage.

Interestingly, Kansas is one of only two states that gets 40% or more of its energy from wind energy behind Iowa (see second article below). Ironically, the largest wind energy producer by volume in the US is the oil rich state of Texas. And, very quietly, Texas developed infrastructure to harness the electricity from these distributed windmills.

Let me close with the words I heard uttered by oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens on “60 Minutes” about ten years ago before he passed away. He said natural gas will buy us some time, but the future of energy in America is wind energy. It is not a surprise that the windy plains states of America are leading the way.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kansas-crews-contain-largest-yet-breach-keystone-pipeline-rcna61196

Kansas continues to lead in wind energy

To little hype, several climate change initiatives passed in last week’s elections

In an article by Frida Garza of The Guardian called “Voters pass historic climate initiatives in ‘silent surprise’ of US midterms,” some very good news occurred while we weren’t paying too much attention.

The full article can be linked to below, but here are a few paragraphs that summarize the story:

“While the economy and abortion rights drove momentum behind the midterm election this year, voters in cities and states across the US also turned out to pass a number of climate ballot initiatives .

Among the measures passed were a historic multibillion-dollar investment into environmental improvement projects in New York state, including up to $1.5bn in funding for climate change mitigation. This election also saw a $50m green bond act pass in Rhode Island, and in Colorado, the city of Boulder approved a climate tax as well as a ballot measure that will allow the city to borrow against that tax to fund climate projects.

‘Climate voters were the silent surprise of election night,’ said Nathaniel Stinnett, the founder of the Environmental Voter Project. ‘We weren’t loud, and nobody saw us coming, but we showed up to vote in huge numbers.‘

The electoral support at the state and local levels for more climate action comes at a time when world leaders meet in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to discuss the climate crisis at Cop27. Joe Biden and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, were both in attendance last week, urging leaders at home and abroad to meet the moment and take action against the climate crisis now. Because of the timing of the global summit and the US midterms, the Biden administration also had the pressure of a political shift that could mean stagnation of any further climate action after the president’s signature Inflation Reduction Act.“

It is nice to see such movement, as we need a lot more of the same. With a split Congress, we will have to rely on the states and the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act which has climate change mitigation in its midst. To this independent voter, we lost twelve years with the Bush and Trump White Houses to fight climate change, years we will never get back. So, we must act now. I am encouraged by offshore wind projects that are gaining footing, to catch up to the great strides in onshore wind projects in the plains’ states and elsewhere as well as the solar energy development keeps on going strong.

Please push our lawmakers at all levels to move forward. If someone is a naysayer, move on to those who share your concern. We are already late to the party and we unfortunately still must combat a mountain of money being put in some folks pockets by the fossil fuel industry to deter the fight and keep their profit margins.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/18/climate-initiatives-passed-us-midterm-elections

Water is the new oil – a reprise from 2013

The following post was written nine years ago, but with the severe water shortages occurring in the western United States and in Italy, Germany, England, etc., this issue is coming to head. Some of the observations made then are now coming home to roost in more than a few places.

Let’s get down to basics. Our planet has two vital resources  – air and water. We cannot live without them, but we continue to be pretty poor stewards of both. With the advent of man-influenced global warming, one of the key outcomes is we will have more severe droughts in drought-stricken areas. The models are showing global warming is occurring at a faster pace than predicted several years ago. Yet, even without global warming, we must be better stewards with our resources, water in particular. In the book “Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization” by Steven Solomon, he devotes an entire chapter looking to the future. The chapter is called “Water: The New Oil.”

First, some context. This book is one of the best history books I have ever read. Solomon discusses how civilizations came into power and then fell by their ability or inability to manager water resources. Water serves several purposes besides drinking water – farming, sewage maintenance, transport and energy. Getting water into cities and out of them with sewage are vital to their health and wealth.  The latter can be equally important due to the bouts of cholera and dysentery that occur when sewage intermixes with the drinking water supply.

A few examples might help. There are three things that occurred in US history which significantly aided our rise to power in the world. The first was the Erie Canal which connected New York with the Great Lakes. The second is the Panama Canal which gave the US control over two oceans. The third is the numerous dams and water shed protections which gave us energy as well as secured drinking and farming water. Teddy Roosevelt’s greatest contribution is he was the most prolific water oriented US president in our history.

Yet, we have a major problem. We are not protecting our water supply like we need to. There are an increasing number of fights over water, where people downstream argue with people diverting more gallons to their communities upstream. Also, with the worsening droughts, there is insufficient rain to replenish the water. This problem is not restricted to the US. Saudi Arabia is rich with oil, but very poor with water. Its water sheds are in danger of drying out in the reasonably near future. In the US, Texas has numerous cities where the water aquifers are dried out. Water has to be trucked in from elsewhere. The national and international agencies that measure the impact of global warming, say the extreme droughts in Texas are exacerbated by man-influenced global warming.

Water is more critical now than ever before. Water is the new oil. We straighten out rivers allowing water to run off too quickly. We let run off occur from developments that increase silt in the water by washing the sand, dirt and clay into the water. With the rising seas, we let seawater run into fresh water lagoons that were used for farming. We Americans over water our lawns to make them green, when the indigenous grass and shrubs would be OK with a healthy brown color. We cut down on the water flow downstream by damming up a river upstream. We get energy, but there needs to be a more judicious way to let the water flow and still provide the energy.

And, we use water for energy purposes besides the hydro-powered electricity the dams create. In some energy solutions, the water can flow back into the water supply as tepid water, but not all of it as some gets lost in the process. For example, with coal-fired, nuclear powered, and natural gas-powered plants, the water is used to create steam from the heated source. The steam turns the turbine which causes the electromagnetic generator to turn and create the power. Once the water re-forms from the steam, it can be released back into its source. Yes, there are other environmental impacts, but the leftover water can flow back to the source.

Fracking to get the natural gas is a totally different matter. The major concern I have over fracking is not just the chemically laden water, the mercury, arsenic and methane that leaks into the air, the earthquakes that are causally linked to deep ground water disposal and the environmental infrastructure defamation, it is the water cannot and must not be reused. There are two problems. You cannot let the chemically laden water to get back into the water supply. It is harmful to humans and animals. Yet, water finds a way and it poisons the water sources. In the movie “Gasland” there is story of a woman who freezes and saves all the dead animals she finds near rivers and streams adjacent to fracking sites. She has hundreds of them.

The bigger concern is the use of the water in the first place. As noted, we cannot reuse the water. Yet, to frack a well, it is estimated by industry that it takes 4 to 6 million gallons per frack. The average well is fracked ten to twelve times, but let’s use ten for ease of the math. So, the average well is fracked with 40 to 60 million gallons of water. In Utah, they built 2,000 wells in close proximity. If you multiply this out, that is 80 to 120 billion gallons of water. In my home state of NC, they are talking about fracking 10,000 wells. That translates into 400 to 600 billion gallons of water. Using an unscientific term, that is a bucketload of water.

My question is this where you want to use your water? Given the above problems that fracking causes, is this where you want to use your water? You may say I am blowing smoke, but farmers and frackers fought over water in Kansas and Colorado this summer. I would add that Texas is a leader in fracking and they have an extreme drought issue with some cities out of water. I am not linking the two causally as I don’t know for sure, but that is one hell of a correlation, meaning one occurrence happens at the same time as another.

Is this where you want to use your water? I don’t. Fracking is bad enough news without this issue. But, this makes it a slam dunk. The developer makes money, gives a stipend to the landowner and then leaves the clean up to the state. The state residents are the ones who will suffer from the water shortage and other issues.

Water is one of our two dearest resources. Water is the new oil. We cannot soil it and then immediately drink it. We cannot flush it away and not reuse it. We must find ways to conserve it, distribute it equitably and be judicious with its use. We need to innovate on ideas like the flushless toilet competition that is underway. In desert areas, find inventive ways to get rid of sewage. In a major county in California, they are significantly filtering sewage run off water to make new drinking water. And, I mean signficantly filtering it with multiple steps. We need to use more indigenous plants. We need to conserve our water use.

And, we need to use renewable energy sources that do not demand the use of water. Solar and wind energy processes continue to get more scalable, but we need to factor the overall cost of eco-energy versus fossil fuel energy, which must include the cost on the environment, health of our people, and use of water. Fossil fuel produced energy may be cheaper without these other factors, but we need to move away from them in a concerted way.* Our lives depend on it.

*Note: Nine years later, producing wind and solar is as or more cost effective than coal energy production even without factoring in the other environmental, litigation and transportation costs.

Climate change bill may advance after all

Yesterday, The New York Times reported in an article called “Manchin, in Reversal, Agrees to Quick Action on Climate and Tax Plan,” that a Senate bill to help climate change may advance and be sent back to the House for a vote. Below is a link to the article following a few paragraphs.

“Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a key centrist Democrat, announced on Wednesday that he had agreed to include hundreds of billions of dollars for climate and energy programs and tax increases in a package to subsidize health care and lower the cost of prescription drugs, less than two weeks after abruptly upending hopes for such an agreement this summer.

The package would set aside $369 billion for climate and energy proposals, the most ambitious climate action ever taken by Congress, and raise an estimated $451 billion in new tax revenue over a decade, while cutting federal spending on prescription drugs by $288 billion, according to a summary circulated Wednesday evening.

The product of a deal announced by Mr. Manchin and Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, it would reduce the federal deficit by about $300 billion, while seeking to push down the cost of health care, prescription medicines and electricity.”

Since we are in dire need to move forward the US federal government’s response to climate change matching efforts of cities, states and more than several companies, this is good news if it can get passed in both chambers. With places like Texas leading the way on wind-energy and California on solar energy, and offshore wind energy about to launch so we can match places like Scotland, we are poised to do even more. As an independent voter who has been a member of both parties, this is a positive sign.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/manchin-in-reversal-agrees-to-quick-action-on-climate-and-tax-plan/ar-AA102mPJ?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=eec2cc70ff2f45848dc906f02f59c59f

Wednesday wanderings – Valentine edition

I hope everyone had a pleasant Valentine’s Day. As I hum Dion’s big hit “The Wanderer,” allow me to roam around with my thoughts.

They call me the wanderer
Yeah, the wanderer
I roam around, around, around

Just an observation, but the elected and appointed officials who seem to be making the biggest stir about the January 6 House commission are the ones who should have the biggest concerns. Representative Jim Jordan made a stink last year when he was nominated and refused to be allowed on the committee. The fact he is a person of interest would have been a huge conflict of interest. Yet, this is not the first time Jordan has been accused of something – six wrestlers on the Ohio State University said they told then wrestling coach Jordan they were being sexually assaulted by the sports doctor there, which Jordan denies. This doctor molested several hundreds of male athletes.

Yet, if he was seated, this would not have been the first time conflict of interest occurred, as Representative Devin Nunes was allowed to be on the first Trump Impeachment committee. Nunes’ name was noted in the records of Lev Parnas, one of the folks who testified. That is a conflict of interest and he should have immediately recused himself. However, per multiple news reports, Nunes is the same person who had to step down as House Intelligence chair at the request of his own party, because he was leaking information to the White House.

The west needs to stick to its concerted push back on Vladimir Putin. This may be a ruse to threaten, ask for the moon and settle for something more than Putin has. Yet, Putin also knows if he invades Ukraine, the west will likely back down and he will end up with more territory and the sanctions won’t last forever. Putin has been playing this game a long time. I am sure he wishes he had his stooge still in the White House, who did not know he was being taken advantage of by the Russian leader.

I sure do wish Congress would stop all of its posturing and do their jobs. A retiring Congressman said that he spent about 35% to 40% of his time raising money. He would go across the street, sit in a cubicle and make phone calls. This is one simple area that could be changed that would help America. Stop trying to keep your job and do your job. I also do not want to hear you kowtowing to what your party wants – do what you think is right. I am tired of this zero-sum game BS that replaces legislative discourse.

I applaud Joe Biden for looking to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court. Yet, he should have had his picks vetted sooner. One thing his predecessor did right for his party, he adopted and published a list of conservative bent judges he would consider before he was elected. That was a smart move on his part. Of course, I am not keen on our SCOTUS becoming more partisan. This is what happens when the 60 vote Senate approval rule was dropped to a majority. I want fair judges, not partisan ones.

I loved seeing the electric car commercials at the Super Bowl. Plus, there was one commercial on solar panels and how efficacious they have become. The fossil fuel industry continues its very well funded push to dissuade others on the vagaries of climate change, the country grid is not ready or the new technologies are not ready to fully replaces fossil fuel sources, but the tipping point has been reached. A key reason fossil fuel rich Texas leads the country in wind energy is the state legislature approved the expansion of the infrastructure to glean the electricity from where it is produced by wind mills.

Finally, Boris needs to start saying his good byes. Now that Prince Andrew has settled his lawsuit on alleged sex with a minor, Boris will get full bore reporting on his many poor judgment personal decisions. As with other politicians, the act is less important to the series of judgment lapses. How can we trust you with anything important when you keep making less than wise decisions on things that are common sensical.

That is all for now. Come on Dion, let’s finish our walk.

Lower-cost clean energy rises in NC

The following are a few excerpts from an editorial written in The Charlotte Observer on Sunday by columnist Ned Barnett. While the focus is on what North Carolina has done the past ten years, it shows what can happen with a focus on renewables and attracting business. It should be noted a lot of NC’s success is in part due to companies like Amazon, Facebook (now Meta), Google and IKEA setting up centers powered by renewable energy, which got the attention of legislators.

“A new report from Environment America Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group gives North Carolina strong grades for renewable energy. In measures of growth since 2011, North Carolina ranks third nationally in solar power, 10th in energy efficiency, 17th in electric vehicle sales, 20th in battery storage of renewable energy and 26th in wind power. ‘It’s amazing the difference that a decade can make and how many people are choosing to embrace renewable energies like solar power,’ said Krista Early, an advocate with Environment North Carolina Research & Policy Center.

That growth raises prospects that seemed hopelessly remote just a decade ago: widespread use of electric cars that could eliminate the volatile cost of gas and a power grid driven by renewable energy that will reduce utility bills. North Carolina’s move toward renewables will be accelerated by this year’s passage of a major energy bill, House Bill 951.

Steve Levitas, a vice president at Pine Gate Renewables in Asheville, one of the nation’s fastest growing renewable energy companies, said the new state law will have a big effect. ‘HB 951 is going to drive a dramatic transformation of the state energy sectors,’ he said. ‘It will drive retirement of (Duke Energy’s) coal fleet and will result in more renewables. That’s going to happen.’

The new federal infrastructure law and the possible passage of the Build Back Better bill will also expand the use of renewable energy. While renewables still produce a small fraction of electric power, Levitas said the rising use of solar and wind power will make renewable energy an increasingly cheaper option to fossil fuels. ‘People predicted a long time ago that if you created demand, that would drive down costs and that’s been proven to be true many times over,’ he said.”

Note, while the reference to renewables providing a small fraction of electric power may be true in NC, in places like Iowa, Texas, California, Oklahoma, et al, the percentages are not small fractions. Iowa gets over 40% of its electricity from wind energy while Texas is right at 20% on electricity from renewables, primarily wind energy.

Progress is being made, but we now need to hasten it as we have passed the tipping point. Yet, what business has started realizing the past several years, if they do not keep up, their ability to compete may be compromised. State legislatures must recognize this as well.

Read more at: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/article256092197.html#storylink=cpy

There she blows…in Texas

The following is a modified comment I made on a recent blog on the need for climate change action. The forward thinking author of the blog and post lives in oil rich Texas, which has a secret that more folks need to hear about.

What is amazing to me is how few people in Texas (and elsewhere) know the state is the fifth largest producer of wind energy in the world and that the industry employs over 25,000 people in the state. This year renewables will surpass coal as the second largest producer of electricity in Texas (see link below).

Two key reasons are the wind blows madly across the state and the state legislature actually passed funding to build power lines to the wind turbines to harness the electricity. Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens said about eight years ago in a “60 Minutes” piece, natural gas is buying us time, but the future of energy in the US is wind energy.

And, yet this is all a secret. We need to shout this from the rooftops and do more of it to drown out the naysayers and make a difference.

*Note: The author of the blog is from Iowa, which now gets about 40% of its electricity from wind energy. This transition is happening and just needs to happen faster. By the way, if California were a country, it is the fourth largest producer of solar energy in the world.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/texas-us-wind-power-renewable-energy/