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Giant turbines propel boom in wind energy
The wind industry is growing, literally. American wind developers are installing increasingly large turbines, capable of generating twice as much power as their predecessors and opening up new areas of the country to wind development. The trend arrives at a critical time for the industry. The production tax credit, a federal subsidy, is set to end at the end of the year. But unlike in previous years, when wind development ground to a halt when subsidies dried up, industry representatives are predicting only a modest slowdown. [ read more … ]
Policy & Politics
Trump admin throws wrench into offshore wind plans
The Trump administration is ordering a sweeping environmental review of the burgeoning offshore wind industry, a move that threatens to derail the nation’s first major project and raises a host of questions for future developments. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, a division of the Interior Department, is ordering a study of the cumulative impact of a string of projects along the East Coast. The review comes in response to concerns from fishermen about the impact of offshore wind development on East Coast fisheries.
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‘Flight shame’ fuels carbon offset boom
Campaigning by climate activist Greta Thunberg and filmmaker-naturalist David Attenborough is persuading pollution-conscious fliers to try to mitigate the environmental damage caused by their flights. Sales of so-called carbon offsets are soaring: Myclimate, a Swiss nonprofit whose clients include Deutsche Lufthansa AG, reported a five-fold uptake in its credits in a year. At Ryanair Holdings PLC, Europe’s largest discount carrier, the number of customers making voluntary offset payments has almost doubled in 18 months. [ read more … ]
The world will still thirst for fossil fuels in 2040
Fossil fuels will still provide the vast majority of the world’s energy in 2040, according to new projections released by consultancy Wood Mackenzie, leaving the planet far short of the goals of the Paris climate agreement. “The energy mix is not changing nearly as quickly as the world needs it to,” Wood Mackenzie president Neal Anderson wrote in an op-ed accompanying the report, released Friday. [ read more … ]
Wind-credit foe the latest in string of GOP retirements
Marchant’s announcement comes after a long string of retirements from House Republicans. In just the last two weeks, Reps. Will Hurd, Pete Olson and Mike Conaway of Texas; Martha Roby of Alabama; Paul Mitchell of Michigan; and Susan Brooks of Indiana said they’d leave, while Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah confirmed his previous decision to retire after publicly toying with staying. [ read more … ]
Wind Technologies Market Report
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Wind Technologies Market Report provides an annual overview of trends in the U.S. wind power market. You can find the report, a presentation, and a data file on the Files tab, below. Additionally, several data visualizations are available in the Data Visualizations tab. [ read more … ]
Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.