Energy

An eastern Michigan town is halting consideration of wind turbine projects amid resident complaints over an energy company's proposal to build a wind farm in the area. Monitor Township officials unanimously approved a moratorium Monday on the construction of wind turbines until the township's planning commission can review its wind ordinance. More than 400 residents attended the township's Board of Trustees meeting this week to voice opposition to DTE Energy's wind farm proposal. [node:read-more:link]

Utilising waste plastics as feedstocks for the production of chemicals should be part of strategies to better deal with waste management, according to the American Chemistry Council’s vice president of plastics. Finding new uses for plastic waste as feedstocks for bio-based materials would help to create a truly circular economy, where petrochemicals firms produce polymer products and then utilise them once they have been used as a means of creating more, according to ACC vice president Steve Russell. [node:read-more:link]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will propose setting a 19.88-billion-gallon biofuels blending mandate in 2019 under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), up about 3 percent from 2018, according to two sources briefed on the matter. The proposal will include 15 billion gallons for conventional biofuels like corn-based ethanol, unchanged from this year, and 4.88 billion gallons for advanced biofuels, up from 4.29 billion from this year, the sources said, asking not to be named. The targets for biodiesel will be 2.43 billion gallons, up from 2.1 billion this year. [node:read-more:link]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will propose reallocating biofuel blending obligations waived under its small refinery exemption program to other refiners, in an announcement that could come as early as Friday, according to two sources familiar with the agency’s plans. The move is a nod to biofuel groups frustrated with the agency’s broad expansion of the waiver program under the Trump administration, but will antagonize refining companies who say it will unjustly increase their regulatory costs. U.S. [node:read-more:link]

PG&E Corp. and its subsidiary, Pacific Gas and Electric, announced today in an 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it will record a $2.5 billion pre-tax charge related to deadly wildfires in Northern California last year. [node:read-more:link]

The world’s biggest companies are increasingly worried about climate change. The terms “climate” and “weather” combined were among the most frequently discussed topics among executives of Standard & Poor’s 500 companies, beating “Trump,” “the dollar,” “oil” and “recession” according to analysis of 10 years of earnings call transcripts by S&P Global Ratings. “The effect of climate risk and severe weather events on corporate earnings is meaningful,” S&P said in the joint report with Hamilton, Bermuda-based Resilience Economics Ltd. [node:read-more:link]

President Trump directed Secretary of Energy Rick Perry to stop the closure of coal and nuclear plants, pushed offline by cheaper electricity from natural gas and renewables. The president told Perry to “prepare immediate steps” to stop the plants from retiring, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said, adding that “impending retirements of fuel-secure power facilities are leading a rapid depletion of a critical part of our nation’s energy mix, and impacting the resilience of our power grid." [node:read-more:link]

The CEO of the largest nuclear generator in the U.S. says the retirement of coal and nuclear plants does not constitute a grid emergency that warrants urgent intervention from the federal government, as President Donald Trump directed last week. Exelon CEO Chris Crane said the case for a grid emergency is difficult to make in the PJM Interconnection, the site of many potential retirements, when its reserve margin remains so high — 22% in its latest capacity auction. The company has not advocated for emergency action to save plants from retirement, he said. [node:read-more:link]

Aspen Electric, the municipal utility serving the resort town of the same name, achieved 100 percent renewables in 2015, and it didn’t break the bank to do so. Residential rates for Aspen’s customers rank among the lowest in Colorado, while meeting a 100 percent renewable energy goal set by Aspen’s city council 13 years earlier. And this month, upgrades to a Nebraska wind farm, of which Aspen Electric is a major customer, will push the utility’s costs even lower – dropping about 15 percent annually, or $475,000. [node:read-more:link]

Wisconsin officials found elevated levels of toxic heavy metals near a frack sand mine spill that sent millions of gallons of sludge into a tributary, carrying it downstream into the Mississippi River. [node:read-more:link]