Energy

A Butler County judge has dismissed the second lawsuit a developer and 13 landowners had filed against Middlesex residents and non-profits opposed to fracking, the defendants.  Dewey Homes & Investment Properties and other property owners, who collectively hold more than 440 acres of land, originally filed the lawsuit last May against five residents, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and the Clean Air Council. [node:read-more:link]

The first comprehensive study of the content of rare earth elements in coal ashes from the United States shows that coal originating from the Appalachian Mountains has the highest concentrations of scarce elements like neodymium, europium, terbium, dysprosium, yttrium and erbium that are needed for alternative energy and other technologies. The study also reveals how important developing inexpensive, efficient extraction technologies will be to any future recovery program. [node:read-more:link]

Residential solar in the U.S. grew 66 percent in 2015 over 2014, the largest annual growth rate to date, according to a recent report by GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association, or SEIA. In 2015, residential solar installations amounted to 2,099 megawatts, which, when converted, equals more that 1,600 megawatts. By comparison, Montana's coal-fired Colstrip plant, the second-largest power plant west of the Mississippi River, has a peak output of 2,100 megawatts. [node:read-more:link]

California's ambitious efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are taking a hit as demand has plummeted for pollution credits that are supposed to fund the initiative.  Only about a tenth of the available pollution credits were sold in an auction last week, according to results released Wednesday by the California Air Resources Board. Gov. Jerry Brown's administration says revenue from the program was $600 million short of the $2.4 billion anticipated in the current fiscal year. [node:read-more:link]

Washington state regulators unveiled an updated plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions from large polluters, the latest attempt by Gov. Jay Inslee to push ahead with a binding cap on carbon emissions after struggling to win approval from legislators. Washington would join nearly a dozen states including California that have capped carbon pollution from industrial sources. The proposed rule requires large industrial emitters to gradually reduce carbon emissions over time. [node:read-more:link]

For seven Midwest states - Michigan, Minnesota, Insiana, Illinois Ioa, Ohio and Wisconsin – between 50 percent (Indiana) and 79 percent (Minnesota) of the projected energy mix could come from a combination of onshore and offshore wind.  The remaining supply would mostly comprise utility-scale, commercial, residential and concentrated solar, with a small percentage from hydroelectric sources under the projected energy mixes.  Wind and solar could meet all of Indiana’s and Illinois’ energy needs; 99.9 percent of Ohio’s; 99.8 percent of Iowa’s; 99 percent of Wisconsin’s; 98.3 percent of Michig [node:read-more:link]

Americans may be divided on partisan and ideological lines, but on at least one issue they agree: Support for clean renewable energy just keeps growing. In a March 2015 Gallup Poll, for example, 79 percent said they wanted the nation to use more solar energy, while 70 percent wanted to see more of the energy we use come from wind.  As promising as this trend seems to be, however, it is a quantum leap to move from 100 percent renewable electricity to 100 percent renewable energy. [node:read-more:link]

See how your state ranks! The U.S. Clean Tech Leadership Index tracks and ranks the clean-tech activities of all 50 states and the 50 largest metro areas in the U.S. – from EV (electric vehicles) and renewables adoption to policy and investment activity.  The objective of the Leadership Index is to serve as a tool for regional comparative research, a source for aggregated industry data, and a jumping-off point for deep, data-driven analysis of the U.S. clean-tech market.   [node:read-more:link]

One long-standing program that provides a means by which an entity can get capital for energy efficiency projects is known as the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program. PACE allows local governments to issue bonds to property owners that finance energy retrofits at their facilities, which they and back over a period years. However, entities with significant building portfolios and energy intensive operations like local governments lacked a similar avenue to achieve the same savings – until now, that is. [node:read-more:link]

The EPA released the preliminary 2017 RFS Standard on May 18. The preliminary rulemaking also established biomass-based diesel (BBD) volume requirements for 2018. Here, we first re-examine the magnitude of the likely conventional biofuels push contained in the final rule making for 2014-2016 and then the likely magnitude of the push in the preliminary rulemaking for 2017. Those calculations will indicate if the EPA is continuing the policy of providing a measurable push for conventional biofuel consumption beyond the E10 blend wall. [node:read-more:link]