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E.P.A. Warns of High Cost of Climate Change
In the absence of global action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the United States by the end of the century may face up to $180 billion in economic losses because of drought and water shortages, according to a reportreleased Monday by the White House and Environmental Protection Agency. White House officials said the report, which analyzes the economic costs of a changing climate across 20 sectors of the American economy, is the most comprehensive effort to date to quantify the impacts of global warming. [ read more … ]
Developers take steps toward erecting turbines in Md.
The winners of a federal wind energy lease auction have begun surveying the Atlantic Ocean floor near Ocean City, Md., as part of a first step toward building a wind farm there. U.S. Wind Inc. has also set up offices in a Baltimore high-rise, where executives are working to design turbines and attract financing. This is the development phase,” U.S. Wind manager Paul Rich said. Rich has previously worked with Deepwater Wind on developing a five-turbine farm off Rhode Island. [ read more … ]
CEOs grapple with an elephant in the room — the future of electricity
When Tesla CEO Elon Musk entered a New Orleans ballroom full of utility CEOs earlier this month, he did so as an odd evangelist for expanding the power grid. The Silicon Valley electric car entrepreneur sought to reassure America’s powerful investor-owned utilities that the story of their industry doesn’t end with flat or declining electricity demand. It doesn’t end with rooftop solar or energy storage. With summer heat rising off the Louisiana bayou, Musk was there to sell an electric dreamscape. In his rocket to the future, the realignment of the utility business around efficiency, natural gas and zero-carbon technology like electric cars and solar panels is profitable. Utility profits would rise with power demand for Tesla’s latest model. Rooftop solar panels would pull some suburban homes off the electric grid, but industrial-scale battery packs would help manage a broad, interconnected array of centralized and distributed sources of energy. [ read more … ]
Obama admin report touts economic benefits of U.S. action
The United States’ future with global climate change action looks a lot brighter than its future without it, U.S. EPA argues in a peer-reviewed scientific report unveiled today at the White House. The report examines two scenarios — one that keeps warming to 2 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial levels and another that doesn’t — in an effort to refute critics of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan who say it will hurt the economy. The analysis looks ahead to 2050 and 2100 to show dueling snapshots of a United States where warming is contained and others in which it is not. [ read more … ]
Broad voter support for federal ‘nudge’ on renewables — poll
More than two-thirds of U.S. voters across the political spectrum approve of federal policies that promote “automatic” use of renewables, according to new polling conducted by President Obama’s first regulatory czar. The recent survey of 563 Americans devised by renowned Harvard University legal scholar and former White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs head Cass Sunstein explores voter attitudes toward “soft” government interventions intended to “nudge” behaviors while avoiding strict mandates. Administered by Survey Sampling International, the poll has a 4.1-point margin of error. [ read more … ]
Entrepreneur hopes solar can help combat poverty on S.D. reservation
If you want to find a story of poverty on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for the Oglala Lakota nation, you don’t have to look far, says Nick Tilsen, the visionary and CEO behind the nonprofit Thunder Valley Community Development Corp. But if you want to uncover hope and resilience, look no further than the nonprofit’s breaking ground ceremony for its “regenerative” community today.
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Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.