coal

Turkey Will Post 1 GW Solar Tender By Year-End

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Turkey has announced a new solar tender to be launched by the end of the year. Initial information gives some clues as to what this tender might include. The country’s energy minister Berat Albayrak recently stated Turkey plans to launch new tenders for coal and solar power capacity by the end of the year. He spoke

Inner Mongolia Solar Tender Shows Lowest Bids For Solar Electricity

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A tender for 1GW of capacity in Inner Mongolia shows China’s lowest ever bids for solar electricity, according to a report from Reuters. Reuters cited news outlet China Business News in its report that fifty solar developers and manufacturers had bid as low as CBY0.52/kWh (US$0.078) in this government-backed auction. Reuters added this price point comes

Coal To Solar: Retraining Our Energy Workforce

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As many celebrate the shuttering of coal-fired electricity generation facilities, a call for retraining this former energy workforce from coal to solar is opening the eyes of some. In a study published in Energy Economics, researchers from Michigan Technological University and Oregon State University see a bright spot for coal workers targeting high-quality employment in

World Bank Targeting $625 Million Aid For India Solar Program

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Planning for growing solar development in India has received a solid boost from the World Bank, following board approval of a $625 million loan to support India’s grid connected rooftop solar program to generate clean energy. According to The Economic Times, the board also approved a co-financing loan of $120 million and a $5 million grant

Fossil Fuel Companies Risk Wasting $2 Trillion In Next Decade

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Fossil fuel companies are at risk of wasting up to $2.2 trillion in the next decade by pursuing projects that could be uneconomic. Specifically, the trillions of dollars are at risk, and subsequent lower investor returns are feasible, if fossil fuel companies pursue fossil fuel projects that are uneconomic “in the face of a perfect

What Is Climate Change? (VIDEO)

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Remember the difference between weather and climate? We know what happens when the weather changes—it’s obvious. Climate is another story. Read on. When it rains, you put on a raincoat or take your umbrella when you go out. It snows: time for high boots, a heavier coat, scarf, and warm gloves. And sunny days, well,

REthinking Energy shows solar prices drop 80 percent (IRENA)

Solar Prices Drop 80 Percent Since 2008, Onshore Wind Also Falls

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This year, we have seen the largest-ever outpouring of reporting and planning for inevitable climate change in the Anthropocene. One of the latest studies, REthinking Energy, draws on worldwide research and financial analysis to form some conclusions about changing our mix of energy, one of the major drivers of the phenomenon, as earth’s population continues to

Proposed EPA Carbon Rules (cartoon)

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Looks like a comment on today’s EPA carbon rule, but we do hope you’ll notice that this cartoon is seven years old. Thanks to the artist and the University of Colorado—Boulder for being ahead of their time! (Or not.)

"Clean Gas" More Dangerous Than Coal, Industry Expert Tells TV

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US “clean gas” wells in operation (Irekia-Eusko Jaurlaritza in blogs.lse.ac.uk) Turns out that just about everyone (including President Obama) has been hugely underestimating the methane pollution levels of so-called “clean gas.” The booming American economy now seems to come at a greater cost than we originally thought when we found out that natural gas produces

National Climate Assessment Pulls No Punches About US Options

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(All figures are from the 2014 National Climate Assessment draft.) Later today (Tuesday, May 6), at 8 a.m. EDT, the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee of experts meets by conference call to approve the final version of the Third National Climate Assessment. The gist of their message, as Suzanne Goldenberg of The Guardian

Funding More Fire Suppression Won't Do The Trick

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A firefighter pauses at the $2013 Rim Fire in Yosemite National Park, August-September 2013 (Calfire photo on facebook). President Obama released the federal budget for 2015 last week. Overall, it involves the lowest deficit ($514 billion) of his five-year tenure in office and restores some funding cut in last year’s sequester. Parts of the new

Second-Hand Sunrise In Beijing Smog

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Winter brings darkness and poor air quality to Beijing again this year. A viewscreen in Tiananmen Square produces a synthetic sunrise (China Foto Press/Wang Jinghua). On Thursday, a gray murk of smog displaced the dawn in Beijing. This time, China implemented an unusual and futuristic way for citizens to watch the sun come up. Video.

How Clean Is Your Electricity? Ask The EPA

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If you’ve ever wondered about the composition of the electricity delivered to your home (most of us have no clue), there’s one quick and easy way to find out. The EPA’s ‘Power Profiler’ tool has apparently been around for at least 2 years, but I only discovered it recently. Although the data used to generate

Shutter 1.2% Of Power Plants, Cut Carbon Costs By 20%

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The nation’s most-polluting power plant, Georgia Power Company’s Plant Scherer in Juliette, Georgia, emits more carbon dioxide than all of Maine’s energy emissions. Here’s more from Environment America: On September 10, the Environment America Research & Policy Center, an independent nonprofit, and the Frontier Group presented a mighty appealing fast track toward limiting the U.S.

Romney, In Brilliant Appeal For Appalachian Votes, Declares: "I Like Low Birth Weight. I Mean… Coal"

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  Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, in a passionate appeal for American energy independence, proudly proclaimed “I like coal” during the October 4 Presidential debate, advancing his unique and much touted job-creation plan — linking employment opportunity in Appalachia to leukemia, heart disease, cancer clusters, and low birth rate. “I like coal,” said the former Massachusetts

Naughty Children, Then and Now

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As seen on Yes! Magazine’s website… More on Coal From PlanetSave: In Historic Reversal, US House of Representatives Cling to 20th Century Loyalty to Fossil Fuels — While Saudi Arabia Goes Solar From ElephantJournal: Will Climate Change Cripple Coal & Nuclear Power Plants? ~ Richard Kujawski From Ecopolitology: Map of US Wind Power Capacity 1999-2011

In Historic Reversal, US House of Representatives Cling to 20th Century Loyalty to Fossil Fuels — While Saudi Arabia Goes Solar

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Over the past few days, a strange and unexpected role reversal has come into focus in the realm of international energy policies. On September 21, the US House of Representatives voted in favor of the “Coal Miner Employment and Domestic Energy Infrastructure Protection Act,” an aggressively anti-environment call which, despite the lofty title, represents a shrill

Carbon Omission

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  And of course, before there was “OAL,” there was “Clean Coal”. It’s unfortunate that Big Coal has Big Cash to peddle Big BS to further delay little wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal. More on Big Coal BS: From Coal Tattoo: Coal PR firm set up state’s anti-Obama meetings From Source Watch: Environmental impacts of

Renewable Clean Energy Better For Planet

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It’s time to do away with coal-fired power plants and Nuclear Energy and switch to renewable energy sources. Coal not only destroys the air we breath, but the mining of it destroys our land and water supply. Nuclear is way too dangerous as we all found out from the disaster that happened in Japan last year

Nick Rahall (WV) Has Peaceful Protesters Arrested in D.C.

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West Virginia is one of the nation’s biggest coal-producing states. But both the production and treatment of coal produce major health risks for our local residents. Many residents in West Virginia are adversely effected by the coal industry and have been protesting for decades, especially against mountaintop removal coal mining.

Greenpeace Attempts to get Asthmazon.com, Macrosoot, and iSmog to Quit Coal

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  3 cartoons for the price of none! Scroll down for all 3 cartoons: Take Action! Apple, Amazon and Microsoft all use asthma-inducing, climate-destroying coal to power the “cloud” that stores your emails, photos, music and videos. Take action now & tell these companies to clean the cloud. Joe’s cartoon archive, twitter ramblings and StumbleUpon

Support Turkey Climate Activists Fighting Huge Coal Power Plant

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Dear friends, 2011 was an unprecedented year for social change. The Arab Spring, the “indignados” of Spain, anti-corruption campaigning in India, Moving Planet, Occupy Wall Street, the fight against the Keystone XL pipeline in the United States — on and on I could list the extraordinary citizen mobilizations that have sprung up to challenge the

Big Coal Shaping Public School Education–Really!

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This cartoon was inspired by the Washington Post article, “Energy industry shapes lessons in public schools.” Big Coal may be molding our youth with pro-coal propaganda, but worry not, Big Coal also offers a “green” video to teachers called “The Greening of Planet Earth,” which says that “our world is deficient in carbon dioxide, and

Arsenic from Coal Ash Leaking into Groundwater, Report Finds

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  Coal is one of the top contributors (if not the top contributor) to global warming and climate change. However, coal is also just plain dirty. It harms us in numerous ways. One of the latest findings is that arsenic (nasty stuff) is leaking into groundwater from coal ash disposal sites. “The Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) has

2011 — Record for Wet/Dry Extremes in U.S.

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  Believe it or not (and it would be hard not to believe it), extreme weather is increasing in the U.S., and around the world, due to global warming. And 2011 was a record year for extreme weather. Wet and dry extremes hit an all-time high, as you can see in the chart above. Unfortunately,

Obama Too Coal-Friendly

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  Despite declaring he would veto a tax cut bill if it comes to his desk with horrible anti-environment riders mentioned in my previous post, Obama’s administration has actually been far too friendly to the coal industry. “The disconnect between the Obama administration’s approach to managing federal coal resources in Wyoming and its rhetoric on climate

House GOP Infiltrates Bi-Partisan Tax Cut Bill with Anti-Clean-Air and Other Anti-Environment Riders, Threatens Government Shutdown (Take Action)

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  The House GOP, despite saying last year that “riders” were an underhanded way of pushing political issues, and saying it wouldn’t use them, is sticking very unpopular anti-environment riders into a highly-wanted, bi-partisan tax cut bill. Scott Slesinger, legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, issued the following statement in response: “Leaders of both parties

Why Anglers Want Strong Mercury Protections

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Guest column by Catherine Semcer, Senior Washington Representative for the Sierra Club Resilient Habitats Campaign. I started fishing when I was 8. I remember my father took me to a lake near our home in New Jersey, baited a hook, and showed me how to cast it into the water.  I’ll always remember how proud

Take Action: 5 Opportunities

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  #1: Ringling Circus Gets Largest Fine of Its Kind for Animal Cruelty — Thank USDA & PETA! From PETA: “Feld Entertainment, the parent company of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, must now pay the largest settlement of its kind in U.S. history―$270,000―for alleged violations of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) dating back to 2007.” More

Banks: Worst of the Worst (20 Worst)

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A number of NGOs have ranked the world’s ‘top’ banks on how dirty they are, based on how much money they give to coal projects. The report released by the NGOs is titled, “Bankrolling Climate Change.” Can you guess the top contributors to climate change?

Activism News & Action Opportunities Round-Up (10 Stories)

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  1. Activists occupied KFC on two continents last week. More from the Dogwood Alliance: “Colonel Sanders and various woodland creatures made appearances at over 150 KFC restaurants across the country and various locations in Europe to deliver a message, ‘Stop destroying Southern forests for your throwaway packaging.’ The iconic KFC bucket and other KFC

Help Keep a Virginia Mountain Standing

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iLoveMountains.org and many Virginians are now fighting to save a Ison Rock Ridge Standing. Why would it come down? Well, have you heard of mountaintop removal coal mining? This week, “Virginians who live at the base of Ison Rock Ridge, a mountain threatened by a pending mountaintop removal permit, have been joined by hundreds from

Bank of America is Back into Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

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  Bank of America was once considered an environmental “leader” (at least for one thing), as it announced in 2008 that it would stop investing in companies that engage in mountaintop removal coal mining — I was surprised! Technically, they committed to “phase out financing of companies whose predominant method of extracting coal is through

China's Carbon Intensity Changes Sharply (but…)

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Well, this has been a week of big news for environmentalists — big good news and big bad news. On the bad news side, we can see that Americans used more fossil fuelsagain in 2010, after falling to a 12-year low in the midst of the economic recession, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Annual

Coal "Mine"

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More on all things coal From OpenSecrets.org: Coal Mining: Top Recipients (and MUCH more) From Second Nature: Coal-Fired Plants Linked to Asthma (and the disprportionate amounts of coal-related asthma cases in the black community) From Grist: We could replace coal power with geothermal—10 times over From OnEarth: Coal on a Roll From CoalTattoo: Jeff Goodell:

Climate Change Activists Climb Coal Power Crane in South Africa

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Tar Sands activists in the US and UK weren’t the only ones fighting climate change and bringing awareness to its causes this weekend. Greenpeace activists near Johannesburg, South Africa chained themselves to the gates of a coal power plant construction site and climbed a construction crane last night to protest overuse of coal, a main

Current Extremism and it's Toll on the Environment

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A few weeks ago we were sorely reminded of the extremism of the majority of the current Republican candidates. Among many other alarming things said, Republicans suggested eliminating or privatizing: FEMA, NASA, the EPA, the Federal Labor Relations Board, Medicaid and food stamps. Herman Cain promised not to appoint any Muslims who want to kill Americans to his cabinet. Michele Bachmann supports states’ rights on gay marriage, but also supports a constitutional amendment outlawing it. Rick Santorum wants to “a system of discipline” to “punish” gay soldiers, which suggests that his problem with pornographic Google results is not likely to abate. Tim Pawlenty views Iraq as “one of the shiniest examples of success in the Middle East.”

Top 15 Activism Stories of the Week

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Leading up to and since Tim DeChristopher’s sentencing, there’s been a lot of talk around the internet regarding the direct action that’s needed, and not needed, today. Everyone who cares about the environment seems to be getting into it. DeChristopher has now spent over one week of his two years in prison now, and people are trying to find a way to make his sacrifice worth it, to take his message to a louder megaphone, to bring about the change he (and all of us) have been striving for quite unsuccessfully…

Take the Koch Challenge (cartoon)

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More on Koch Industries From SourceWatch: All About Koch Industries From Greenpeace: Koch Industries: Still Fueling Climate Denial (2011 Update) From Daily Kos: Koch Brothers Limerick & Song Challenge From Me: Koch Brothers–Tilting at Clean Energy (cartoon and article=”cartoonicle”) More on Coke From SourceWatch: All About the Coca-Cola Company From Slate: Coke and Pepsi’s plant-based

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