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Jimmy Carter Makes a Stand for Solar, Decades After the Cardigan Sweater
The solar panels — 3,852 of them — shimmered above 10 acres of Jimmy Carter’s soil where peanuts and soybeans used to grow. The panels moved almost imperceptibly with the sun. And they could power more than half of this small town, from which Mr. Carter rose from obscurity to the presidency. Nearly 38 years after Mr. Carter installed solar panels at the White House, only to see them removed during Ronald Reagan’s administration, the former president is leasing part of his family’s farmland for a project that is both cutting edge and homespun. It is, Mr. Carter and energy experts said, a small-scale effort that could hold lessons for other pockets of pastoral America in an age of climate change and political rancor. [ read more … ]
Jimmy Carter: From Peanuts to Solar Panels (video)
Former President Jimmy Carter, 92, unveiled a solar energy project to help power his hometown. While President Trump has depicted himself as a champion of coal, Mr. Carter’s project aims to be a model for energy self-sufficiency and job growth. [ read more … ]
China Widens Wind Power Lead Over U.S., World With Another 23 GW
China installed almost three times more wind power than the U.S. last year, continuing its clean-energy investment blitz to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase air quality. China led new global wind-power installations with 23.3 gigawatts, compared with 8.2 gigawatts in second-place U.S., according to a report published Friday by the Global Wind Energy Council. About 54.6 gigawatts of new turbines were installed globally, raising total capacity to about 487 gigawatts worldwide. [ read more … ]
Almost 90% of new power in Europe from renewable sources in 2016
Renewable energy sources made up nearly nine-tenths of new power added to Europe’s electricity grids last year, in a sign of the continent’s rapid shift away from fossil fuels. But industry leaders said they were worried about the lack of political support beyond 2020, when binding EU renewable energy targets end.
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Europe to Invest in Renewables Despite Trump-Electricity Lobby
European utilities will not reduce their investments in renewables if U.S. President Donald Trump lowers U.S. climate goals, encouraged by Chinese and EU political commitments to low carbon energy, electricity lobby Eurelectric said. Trump, who campaigned on a pledge to bolster the U.S. oil, gas and coal industries, said during the campaign he would pull the United States out of a global pact reached in Paris in 2015 to cut greenhouse gases, although he has not yet acted on that pledge. [ read more … ]
Vestas Leaps to Top Spot in U.S. Wind Market
Vestas came back from the brink of bankruptcy just four years ago. Now the wind industry is entering a new phase with slower growth and more steady demand for turbines, prompting producers to turn to servicing and replacement of older turbines to grow revenue. Vestas, the world’s biggest wind turbine maker, supplied 43 percent of the 8.2 GW of wind power capacity connected to the U.S. power grid last year, the American Wind Energy Association said in a quarterly report. That was up from 33 percent in 2015 and just 12 percent in 2014. [ read more … ]
Wind energy sector sees massive expansion in North Dakota
The construction of wind farms in North Dakota began in the late 1990s and only recently have started to surge, Christmann said. The potential for capturing wind for energy in North Dakota is high, particularly in the western and south-central part of the state, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which ranked North Dakota sixth in 2014 for wind energy potential and 11th in utility-scale generation. “We see incredibly strong activity across the country,” AWEA senior analyst Hannah Hunt said. “We do expect to see this success story continue.” [ read more … ]
Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.