The Biden Administration recently announced the designation of 31 communities across the country as Regional Innovation and Technology Hubs (Tech Hubs) through the Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration, however, all five Tennessee regions that applied for the designation were not included.
Read the full story
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer proposed enacting a paid family leave program, a 100% clean energy standard and codifying the Affordable Care Act in her “What’s Next” speech that outlined the fall agenda Wednesday morning.
The second-term Democratic governor outlined her priorities as state Democrats control the governor’s office, House and Senate in Michigan for the first time in 40 years.
Read the full story
Michigan Senate Democrats introduced on Thursday a clean energy plan to force a 100% clean energy standard by 2035.
The plan includes forcing the end of coal-fired electricity generating plants by 2030, requiring utilities to move toward eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from power generation by 2035, and developing a 100% clean energy standard by 2035.
Read the full story
The Minnesota House passed legislation after seven hours of debate late Thursday night that would require the state’s electricity grid to be 100% carbon-free in 17 years.
This is an unrealistic timeline that could endanger the lives of Minnesotans if it fails while causing their electricity bills to skyrocket, Republicans argued throughout the night.
Read the full story
With more than a $17 billion projected surplus, the Democrats released their priorities at a capitol news conference Wednesday.
“We are moving swiftly because that’s what Minnesotans expect and deserve,” House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, said. “Although there were bipartisan wins over the last four years, many of Minnesotans’ priorities were blocked by the Republican Senate majority. With unified DFL control of state government, we now have an opportunity to work quickly to improve people’s lives. The DFL-led House and Senate are going to work hard and work together to meet the needs of Minnesotans and build a state that works better for everyone.”
Read the full story
In his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, President Joe Biden promoted electric vehicles (EVs), trumpeting his plans to establish “a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations.” In so doing, Biden is unwittingly supporting the worst humanitarian abuses in the world. This is because of the way in which the materials used in manufacturing the batteries that power today’s EVs are obtained.
To obtain a reasonable amount of power per pound of battery weight, EV manufacturers generally use various forms of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, so named because the battery’s positive electrode, called the cathode, is largely made up of the highly reactive metal lithium (Li). To keep the cathode stable when a battery is not in use, the lithium is combined in a metal oxide matrix, with different manufacturers using different combinations of metals.
Most EV manufacturers combine lithium with nickel, cobalt and manganese to create a Li-Ni-Mn-Co oxide matrix to form the cathode. Tesla substitutes aluminum (Al) for the manganese, yielding a Li-Ni-Co-Al oxide matrix for the cathode on their batteries. Tesla maintains that their formulae is more cost-effective as less cobalt is required.
Read the full story
White House press secretary Jen Psaki argued that higher gasoline prices, which critics blame the Biden administration for, highlight the need for a rapid transition to clean energy.
“Our view is that the rise in gas prices over the long term makes an even stronger case for doubling down our investment and our focus on clean energy options so we are not relying on the fluctuations and OPEC and their willingness to put more supply and meet the demand in the market,” Psaki told reporters during Friday’s press briefing.
Read the full story
As the supply chain crisis continues to worsen, Americans can expect to pay higher energy costs in order to maintain heating in the coming winter, says Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.
In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, Granholm said “this is going to happen…it will be more expensive this year than last year.”
While Granholm claimed that “we are in a slightly beneficial position…relative to Europe,” she nonetheless admitted that the United States has “the same problem in fuels that the supply chains have, which is that the oil and gas companies are not flipping the switch as quickly as the demand requires.”
Read the full story
Energy experts criticized President Joe Biden’s plan to prioritize wind farms, arguing wind power is costly, inefficient and indirectly produces greenhouse gas emissions.
Wind energy, like solar, is often unreliable since it is intermittent, or highly dependent on nature and out of the control of suppliers, according to the experts. Higher reliance on wind to produce even a fraction of a nation’s energy supply, therefore, cou ld lead to higher prices depending on the weather.
“Both wind and solar have Achilles heels in that they’re intermittent,” Dan Kish, a senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview.
Read the full story
Seven Democratic U.S. representatives have asked Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, to not target the oil and gas industry in the budget reconciliation bill before Congress.
Despite the concerns they and those in the industry have raised, Democrats in the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee pushed through a section of the bill, which includes billions of dollars in taxes, fines and fees on the oil and gas industry in the name of climate change.
Committee Chair Raúl M. Grijalva, D-Ariz., said the section of the bill that passed “invested in millions of American jobs” and put the U.S. “on a more stable long-term economic and environmental path.”
Read the full story
RICHMOND, Virginia — Governor Ralph Northam and Dominion Energy CEO Robert Blue announced that the Port of Virginia will lease 72 acres of the deep-water Portsmouth Marine Terminal for staging and pre-assembly of Dominion’s offshore wind project.
“This announcement is yet another milestone toward making Virginia the national leader in offshore wind power,” Northam said. “The Commonwealth and Dominion Energy are standing together to promote clean energy, reduce carbon emissions, create jobs, and build a new American industry on the East Coast of the United States.”
Read the full story
The COVID-19 pandemic hit the Midwest clean energy job market hard, with more than 17,000 workers at one point filing for unemployment.
But the industry appears to be rebounding, according to an analysis of employment data released by the nonpartisan business group E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs) and Clean Energy Trust.
Read the full story
The COVID-19 pandemic hit the Midwest clean energy job market hard, with more than 17,000 workers at one point filing for unemployment.
But the industry appears to be rebounding, according to an analysis of employment data released by the nonpartisan business group E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs) and Clean Energy Trust.
Read the full story
U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Pete Buttigieg will visit Phoenix on Thursday to discuss the Biden Administration’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan. The Arizona Sun Times inquired with the DOT for further details of Buttigieg’s visit. They didn’t respond by press time.
Buttigieg is scheduled to host a press conference at 10 am MST. During the press conference, Buttigieg is expected to address the infrastructure plan’s impact on tribal communities. In April, Buttigieg promised that tribal communities would benefit from the infrastructure plan’s investments into roads, broadband, water, higher education, and transportation.
Read the full story
Tucson will require all new constructions of one- and two-family homes, as well as townhomes, to be outfitted with electric vehicle charging outlets. The Tucson City Council finalized this decision in a unanimous vote during last Tuesday’s regular meeting.
According to the new requirement, Ordinance 11844, each one- to two-family dwelling and townhouse unit should have at least one “EV [Electric Vehicle] Ready Space,” with markers identifying the outlet as such. Builders wouldn’t have to provide any EV Ready Spaces if there aren’t on-site parking spaces.
Read the full story
Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all star panelist Clint Brewer to the studio to discuss last Thursday’s presidential debate.
Read the full story
Minnesota Senate Republicans said they plan to introduce a “Clean Energy First” bill during the upcoming legislative session that will “prioritize clean energy” and “modernize Minnesota’s energy resources.” According to the Associated Press, several different versions of the “Clean Energy First” legislation were introduced during the last session, but all were intended to change how the state’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) analyzed the long-term plans of utility companies. Senate Republicans say their bill will require Minnesota utility companies to “prioritize carbon-free technology” and will direct the PUC to “consider whether utilities’ new energy projects are in the public interest.” The legislation will include nuclear, solar, wind, hydropower, carbon sequestration, and municipal solid waste as clean energy sources. “In the next two decades, most fossil fueled power plants will likely be retired and replaced – representing more than 40 percent of our current capacity. As we plan for our state’s future energy needs, we have the opportunity to do so in a way that prioritizes efficiency and carbon-free energy,” Sen. David Osmek (R-Mound) (pictured above), chair of the Senate Energy and Utilities Committee, said in a statement. “‘Clean Energy First’ addresses our long-term energy needs in an affordable and reliable…
Read the full story
Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) announced a proposal to make Minnesota a 100 percent clean energy state by 2050 at a press conference Monday morning. “Today I’m excited to be here to propose our One Minnesota path to clean energy—a set of policy proposals that will lead Minnesota to 100 percent clean energy in the state’s electrical sector by 2050. There’s a lot of reasons to be excited about this. Minnesota’s known as a national leader in setting and achieving clean energy goals. There’s now an opportunity to take this leadership to a new level,” Walz said to applause. He said his proposal would build on the success “that Minnesota’s achieved in reducing dependence on fossil fuels, increasing the use of clean energy, promoting energy efficiency, and lowering greenhouse gas pollution produced by the electrical sector.” “The proposal establishes a new standard that requires all electric utilities in Minnesota to use only carbon-free energy resources by 2050, while allowing each utility the flexibility to choose how and in what ways they meet the standard,” he added. Walz also claimed that his proposal would “ensure local hiring and require living wages,” but didn’t elaborate any further. “I have been absolutely clear on…
Read the full story
by James D. Agresti The famed SAT, or Scholastic Assessment Test, is a college readiness exam taken by more than 1.6 million students per year. In May of 2018, the College Board, which owns and operates the SAT, required test takers to read an article that claims: the cost of solar energy installations “fell by more than 50 percent between 2010 and 2013.” “solar power is now competitive with other energy sources in many markets.” solar energy is a “ray of sunshine for the U.S. economy.” This article appeared in the reading portion of the exam, which supposedly uses “authentic texts selected from high-quality” sources. Yet, all of the assertions above are rooted in solar industry propaganda that is at odds with the facts. Moreover, this disinformation misleads students in ways that can cause serious harm. Cost Declines In contrast to the SAT’s claim that the cost of solar installations fell by more than 50% from 2010 to 2013, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory reports that “system prices of residential and commercial PV [photovoltaic solar] systems declined 6%–12% per year, on average, from 1998–2014….” This amounts to a decrease during 2010 to 2013 of 17%…
Read the full story