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DOE says wind could supply 35% of nation’s power by midcentury
After three years of policy battles that left it bruised and cut off from taxpayer support, the U.S wind energy sector received a strong boost last week as the Energy Department reiterated its view that wind energy can become a leading source of U.S. domestic power over the next 35 years. The relief came in the form of DOE’s latest prognosis for wind energy, called “Wind Vision,” which holds that U.S. turbines could meet 35 percent of the nation’s electricity demand by 2050, with near-term goals of 10 percent by 2020 and 20 percent by 2030. [ read more … ]
The New Optimism of Al Gore
Over the last year, however, the prophet of doom has become much more a prophet of possibility — even, perhaps, an optimist. Still an object of derision for the political right, Mr. Gore has seen support for his views rising within the business community: Investment in renewable energy sources like wind and solar is skyrocketing as their costs plummet. He has slides for that, too. Experts predicted in 2000 that wind generated power worldwide would reach 30 gigawatts; by 2010, it was 200 gigawatts, and by last year it reached nearly 370, or more than 12 times higher. Installations of solar power would add one new gigawatt per year by 2010, predictions in 2002 stated. It turned out to be 17 times that by 2010 and 48 times that amount last year. [ read more … ]
3-judge panel picked to hear arguments on Clean Power Plan
Two Republican-appointed judges and one chosen by President Obama will hear the first challenges to his administration’s proposed greenhouse gas standards for existing power plants next month. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit this morning posted the three-judge panel for the lawsuits from Murray Energy Co. and more than a dozen states seeking to block U.S. EPA from finalizing the high-profile regulations this summer. [ read more … ]
Obama’s plan is ‘burning the Constitution’ — Laurence Tribe
President Obama’s Harvard Law School mentor delivered a stinging indictment of the president’s flagship climate change rule this morning, telling a packed House hearing that the Clean Power Plan violates both the Clean Air Act and the Constitution. Laurence Tribe, a noted constitutional scholar, told an Energy and Commerce subcommittee that EPA’s proposal for carbon dioxide from existing power plants seeks to remake both the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments and the constitutional division of powers between state and federal governments. [ read more … ]
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