Portugal’s renewable energy sources generated enough power to exceed total grid demand across the month of March, a new report has found, setting a standard that is expected to become the norm for the European nation.
According to Portuguese grid operator, REN, renewable energy output over the month reached 4,812GWh, surpassing the nation’s total electricity needs for March, which only topped 4,647GWh.
In that time, power generated by Portugal’s hydroelectric dams accounted for 55 per cent of monthly consumption – boosted by drought-breaking rainfall of four times the monthly average – and wind power, 42 per cent.
The new record coincides with the move by the Portuguese government, last Tuesday, to suspend annual subsidies of around €20 million for guaranteed power supplies paid to producers – most of which goes to fossil fuel plants left in stand-by mode.
“Last month’s achievement is an example of what will happen more frequently in the near future,” said the Portuguese Renewable Energy Association and the Sustainable Earth System Association in a report published last week.
“It is expected that by 2040 the production of renewable electricity will be able to guarantee, in a cost-effective way, the total annual electricity consumption of mainland Portugal.”
The group noted that while fossil fuel plants still worked for short periods to complement the electricity supply, those were fully compensated by other periods of greater renewable production.
“These data, besides indicating a historical milestone in the Portuguese electricity sector, demonstrate that renewable energy can be relied upon as a secure and viable source with which to completely meet the country’s electricity demands.”
The effort was also praised by Green MEP Claude Turmes, who cited Portugal’s example as evidence that the EU should support a renewable energy target of more than 27 per cent for 2030
Who knew? Preparing for the future is a good idea.
As the U.S. enters the global offshore wind market in earnest, Massachusetts is a state to watch—on shore as well as off.
In a few weeks, the state will announce which among three proposed offshore wind projects it wants to move ahead. No matter which are chosen, Massachusetts wins.
That’s because more than a decade ago, the state began developing the onshore components for offshore wind, including a major offshore wind-ready port in New Bedford, a wind turbine blade testing center in Charlestown and workforce training initiatives. Officials envisioned Massachusetts as the hub for an entire future East Coast wind industry.
In 2006, with a proposal for offshore wind power in the region under consideration, Matthew Morrissey began exploring what the industry could do for New Bedford, where he was the city’s top economic development official. Once a major port, New Bedford’s whaling days were long gone and its fishing drastically diminished.
Offshore wind, he thought, could be its resurrection. He initiated studies and began discussing the idea with lawmakers. Today he’s a vice president at Deepwater Wind, one of the offshore wind developers waiting to hear about their project.
EPA Director Scott Pruitt’s penchant for bullet proof desks, sound proof booths, and first class flights are drawing a lot of fire.
Trumpians accept the fiscal and moral rot because they are sure, absolutely sure, and delighted, that Pruitt is enacting an agenda to create thousands more Flints, poison as many rivers, and children, as possible, fry the planet, and above all, make, in the imagination of the Fox-addled set, liberal snowflakes cry.
More evidence of the fundamental misunderstanding of government and separation of powers that authoritarian Putinistas have.
EPA regulations are typically grounded in decades of precedent and case law, and crafted to survive legal and administrative challenges and attacks. Simply saying you are going to sweep them away only works if you believe, as Trump and his followers do, that he is some kind of Louis the 14th, (or Vladimir Putin) potentate.
As one example, the much ballyhooed “withdrawal” from the Paris agreement can not take effect for another 3 years. Meanwhile, the US is, officially, still a party to that.
Above, former EPA Director Gina McCarthy describes the reality above, at 1:20 if you are in a hurry.
But legal experts and White House officials say that in Mr. Pruitt’s haste to undo government rules and in his eagerness to hold high-profile political events promoting his agenda, he has often been less than rigorous in following important procedures, leading to poorly crafted legal efforts that risk being struck down in court.
The result, they say, is that the rollbacks, intended to fulfill one of the president’s central campaign pledges, may ultimately be undercut or reversed.
“In their rush to get things done, they’re failing to dot their i’s and cross their t’s. And they’re starting to stumble over a lot of trip wires,” said Richard Lazarus, a professor of environmental law at Harvard. “They’re producing a lot of short, poorly crafted rulemakings that are not likely to hold up in court.”
Six of Mr. Pruitt’s efforts to delay or roll back Obama-era regulations — on issues including pesticides, lead paint and renewable-fuel requirements — have been struck down by the courts. Mr. Pruitt also backed down on a proposal to delay implementing smog regulations and another to withdraw a regulation on mercury pollution.
The courts, for instance, found that the E.P.A. had ignored clear legal statutes when they ruled that Mr. Pruitt had illegally delayed a regulation curbing methane emissions from new oil and gas wells and that the agency had broken the law by missing a deadline last year to enact ozone restrictions.
At the moment, most of Pruitt’s actions are in the proposal stage, and many are years away from being finalized. Several have been halted or overturned by the courts. Pruitt’s legal skills and persistence should not be underestimated, though: As Oklahoma’s attorney general, he made his reputation by suing President Barack Obama’s EPA more than a dozen times. But so far, Pruitt’s biggest achievement is that he appears successful. That explains his good standing with Trump, who values appearances more than anything else.
Last June, in the White House Rose Garden, Trump announced that he would fulfill one of his main campaign promises: withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement. Before that day, it was unclear if Trump would really do it; many in his inner circle opposed the idea. Ultimately, however, it was Pruitt who convinced Trump to follow through. Pruitt’s most high-profile moment as EPA administrator thus came as he stood in front of dozens of news cameras that day, with Trump standing behind him. “Other nations talk a good game,” Pruitt said. “We lead with action, not words.”
And yet, nearly a year after that press conference, the U.S. is still part of the Paris agreement—and, according to its terms, can’t leave until at least November 5, 2020. Withdrawal from the accord, at this point, is merely a rhetorical win—but Pruitt’s allies claim this proves his effectiveness. The Hillcolumn defending Pruitt on Thursday said Trump has already “drained the swamp” with “decisions like the one he made to remove the United States from the unfair and ineffective Paris climate accord.” The Federalist article also noted that Pruitt “shepherded the U.S. departure from the uneven and horribly negotiated Paris climate accord.”
Other high-profile Pruitt actions include his repeal of Obama’s Clean Power Plan, but that regulation was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 and is still winding its way through the courts. So the CPP was never implemented. And in order to legally repeal it, Pruitt must create another greenhouse gas regulation to replace it—a process that is underway but that will take years and inevitably face its own legal challenges. Continue reading “Pruitt Effective at Grifting. At Deregulating? So far, Not so Much”
NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Depression and anxiety afflict Americans who are concerned with the fate of the environment, according to a study of the mental health effects of climate change.
Most hard-hit are women and people with low incomes who worry about the planet’s long-term health, said the study published this week in the journal Global Environmental Change.
Symptoms include restless nights, feelings of loneliness and lethargy.
“Climate change is a persistent global stressor,” said Sabrina Helm, lead author of the paper and professor of family and consumer sciences at the University of Arizona.
Risks to mental health from climate change are a “creeping development,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Due to climate change, scientists predict sea levels are on track to surge as temperatures rise, posing threats such as deadly heat, extreme weather and land swallowed by rising water.
World leaders mobilized to curb man-made greenhouse gas emissions to fight global warming in a 2015 agreement, although the United States has since said it would withdraw from the landmark deal.
Signs of depression do not appear in people concerned about climate change’s risks to humanity but do appear in people worried about its impact on other species, plants and nature overall, the research said.
The study pulled from 342 online surveys of respondents whose views broadly reflect the wider U.S. population, it said.
Speaking at the International Offshore Wind Partnering Forum being held in New Jersey this week, New Jersey officials doubled down on Governor Murphy’s ambitious goal of securing 3,500 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind energy generation by 2030, which was affirmed in an Executive Order that the governor signed earlier this year (PDF).
“As a coastal state, offshore wind is a matter of common sense,” Governor Murphy told the Forum. “It’s a complete no-brainer.”
“New Jersey has joined the fight against global climate change,” Governor Murphy continued. “For us, this is more than just energy. It’s also about the economy. It can lead this state to long term economic stability.”
California’s Redwood Coast Energy Authority has selected a floating offshore wind solution for a project of the Northern California Coast.
A consortium consisting of Principle Power, EDPR Offshore North America, Aker Solutions, H. T. Harvey & Associates and Herrera Environmental Consultants was one of six respondents to the Request for Qualifications issued on February 1, 2018. They beat other contenders including Statoil, EDF, Trident Winds and North Coast Floating Wind.
The wind farm will be the first commercial-scale project for floating offshore wind in the U.S. and is expected to be operational by 2024. The proposed project calls for a 100-150 megawatts floating offshore wind farm located more than 20 miles off the coast of Eureka. The wind resource in the area are the best off California with average wind speeds of more than ten meters per second.
National Park Service officials have deleted every mention of humans’ role in causing climate change in drafts of a long-awaited report on sea level rise and storm surge, contradicting Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s vow to Congress that his department is not censoring science.
The research for the first time projects the risks from rising seas and flooding at 118 coastal national park sites, including the National Mall, the original Jamestown settlement and the Wright Brothers National Memorial. Originally drafted in the summer of 2016 yet still not released to the public, the National Park Service report is intended to inform officials and the public about how to protect park resources and visitors from climate change.
Venerable Russian tradition
Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting obtained and analyzed 18 versions of the scientific report. In changes dated Feb. 6, a park service official crossed out the word “anthropogenic,” the term for people’s impact on nature, in five places. Three references to “human activities” causing climate change also were removed.
The 87-page report, which was written by a University of Colorado Boulder scientist, has been held up for at least 10 months, according to documents obtained by Reveal. The delay has prevented park managers from having access to the best data in situations such as reacting to hurricane forecasts, safeguarding artifacts from floodwaters or deciding where to locate new buildings.
The omissions reflect a broader crackdown on climate science at federal agencies, including removal of references to human impacts, since President Donald Trump took office. Trump previously called climate change a Chinese hoax, took steps to withdraw from an international agreement to cut greenhouse gases and moved toward reversing President Barack Obama’s policies to regulate power plant emissions.
Critics say the National Park Service’s editing of the report reflects unprecedented political interference in government science at the Interior Department, which oversees the park service.
Every year, as the seasons change, a complex ballet unfolds around the world. Trees in the Northern Hemisphere leaf out in the spring as frost recedes. Caterpillars hatch to gorge on leaves. Bees and butterflies emerge to pollinate flowers. Birds leave the Southern Hemisphere and fly thousands of miles to lay eggs and feast on insects in the north.
All of these species stay in sync with each other by relying on environmental cues, much as ballet dancers move to orchestral music.
But global warming is changing the music, with spring now arriving several weeks earlier in parts of the world than it did a few decades ago. Not all species are adjusting to this warming at the same rate, and, as a result, some are falling out of step.
Scientists who study the changes in plants and animals triggered by seasons have a term for this: phenological mismatch. And they’re still trying to understand exactly how such mismatches — like the blooming of a flower before its pollinator emerges — might affect ecosystems.
In some cases, species might simply adapt by shifting their ranges, or eating different foods. But if species can’t adapt quickly enough, these mismatches could have “significant negative impacts,” said Madeleine Rubenstein, a biologist at the United States Geological Survey’s National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center.
“If you look at the past history of climate on earth, there has never been such a dramatic, rapid, change in the climate,” said Andrea Santangeli, a postdoctoral researcher at the Finnish Museum of Natural History. “Species have to respond really fast,” he said, “that’s really unprecedented.”
Here are examples of mismatch, just one of the many threats that species face from global warming, that scientists have discovered so far:
An orchid’s sex life turns bleak
The early spider orchid relies on deception to reproduce. Each spring, the orchid, whose bulbous crimson body looks like an insect, releases a pheromone that tricks solitary male bees into thinking the plant is a mating partner — a key step for pollination.
This ruse, which scientists call pseudocopulation, works because the orchid tends to bloom during a specific window each spring — shortly after lonely male bees emerge from hibernation but before female bees appear.
Yet with spring coming earlier, female bees are now emerging sooner and luring the male bees away from the lovelorn orchid, according to a 2014 study from Britain.
For instance, in a conversation with one of Mr. Pruitt’s closest aides, Mr. Chmielewski sharply objected to a proposal to buy a $100,000-a-month charter aircraft membership that would have allowed Mr. Pruitt to take unlimited private jet trips for official business, according to two administration officials. The membership was not purchased.
Mr. Chmielewski also objected to a proposal to spend about $70,000 to replace two desks in Mr. Pruitt’s office suite, including his personal desk and one at a security station outside his office. Asked about the proposed desk purchases, Mr. Wilcox, the E.P.A. spokesman, said that “the administrator never considered the proposal.” Pasquale Perrotta, who became head of Mr. Pruitt’s security detail after Mr. Weese was removed, insisted that the security desk be upgraded to a bulletproof model, according to current and former E.P.A. employees with direct knowledge of the discussions.
The bulletproof security desk was not purchased, but two new desks were ordered for Mr. Pruitt’s personal office: a brown maple wood stand-up desk, with brass locks, that was purchased from a craftsman and an oversize desk with ornate woodworking that had been in a federal government warehouse in Virginia and was refurbished for Mr. Pruitt at a cost of $2,075. E.P.A. employees gawked at the size and grandeur of Mr. Pruitt’s refurbished desk, with some comparing it to the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, officials said in interviews.
Mr. Weese, the security official, questioned Mr. Pruitt’s desire to use flashing lights and sirens in his motorcade — a perk more commonly associated with the presidency — according to three of the people who worked with or for the E.P.A.
Mr. Pruitt, who often ran late, wanted to use the lights and sirens to expedite local trips in Washington to the airport or to dinner, including at least one trip to Le Diplomate, a trendy French restaurant that he frequented. Such use was not consistent with agency policy, but Mr. Weese was unsuccessful in stopping it.
The agency said Mr. Pruitt played no role in deciding when the sirens and lights would be used. “The security detail for the past 15 years has used them in very limited fashion,” Mr. Wilcox said.
Mr. Weese was also reluctant to sign off on requests for Mr. Pruitt to travel in first class based on security concerns. Mr. Allen, Mr. Chmielewski and Mr. Reeder, too, questioned the use of taxpayer money to pay for first-class airfare. Only after Mr. Weese was replaced by Mr. Perrotta did Mr. Pruitt regularly fly first class, agency staff members said.
There were also questions raised about a request that Mr. Pruitt be issued a bulletproof sport utility vehicle with so-called run flat tires, which keep a vehicle moving even when sustaining gunfire. And they challenged Mr. Pruitt’s expanded security detail of approximately 20 members, three times the size of his predecessor’s. Unlike his most recent counterpart under Mr. Obama, Gina McCarthy, Mr. Pruitt has security officials follow him wherever he travels, and also stay on duty overnight.
“He wanted to be treated like he was the president,” said David Schnare, a prominent conservative lawyer and climate change skeptic, who served on the Trump administration transition team at the E.P.A., after an earlier 30-year stint at the agency that started in the late 1970s.
Newly unearthed internal documents from Royal Dutch Shell/Shell Group provide new insights into what they knew about climate change and when they knew it.
Documents unearthed by Jelmer Mommers of De Correspondent have also been published on Climate Files, a project of the Climate Investigations Center. These documents date back to 1988 and show intense interest in climate change internally at Shell.
A “CONFIDENTIAL” 1988 document titled, “The Greenhouse Effect”, details Shell’s extensive knowledge of climate change impacts and implications. It also reveals an internal Shell climate science program dating back to 1981, well before the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was founded.
In another document from 1998, Shell scenario planners predicted that catastrophic weather events and growing public concern would trigger lawsuits against the government and fossil fuel companies. A section of this scenario titled, “2010- Environment Back on the Front Pages” describes the scene:
“While climate change is not a high priority for most people early in the century, NGOs continue to lobby against inaction on the Kyoto protocol…. In 2010, a series of violent storms causes extensive damage to the eastern coast of the US. Although it is not clear whether the storms are caused by climate change, people are not willing to take further chances. The insurance industry refuses to accept liability, setting off a fierce debate over who is liable: the insurance industry, or the government. After all, two successive IPCC reports since 1995 have reinforced the human connection to climate change.” (Link)
The scenario goes on to predict class action lawsuits will be based on “what they knew when”:
“Following the storms, a coalition of environmental NGOs brings a class-action suit against the US government and fossil-fuel companies on the grounds of neglecting what scientists (including their own) have been saying for years: that something must be done. A social. reaction to the use of fossil fuels grows, and individuals become “vigilante environmentalists” in the same way, a generation earlier, they had become fiercely anti-tobacco. Direct-action campaigns against companies escalate. Young consumers, especially, demand action…The power, auto, and oil industries see billions wiped off their market value overnight.” (Link)
These are just two examples of new revelations unearthed in this trove of information from De Correspondent. We believe these documents will be of significant value to journalists, researchers, lawyers, investors and shareholder activists. Below are some of the most illuminating documents of the trove, revealing new insights into Shell’s perspective on climate science, climate policy, and corporate responsibility over the past three decades.
Links to documents here:
1988 Shell Confidential Report “The Greenhouse Effect”: Confidential report, authored by members of Shell’s Greenhouse Effect Working Group and based on a 1986 study. The document reveals Shell was commissioning “greenhouse effect” reports as early as 1981.
1990 Shell Selected Papers “The environmental challenge and the oil industry’s response”:
Above, shocking to see archival footage of scientists predicting, in the early 80s, what we are now seeing emerge in global climate.
Still, with the Presidential bully pulpit and an international network of anti-science megaphones, the Trump/Putin administration has been pushing public understanding of science downward, again.
Climate scientists say an internal U.S. Environmental Protection Agency memo on how officials should talk to the public about global warming doesn’t reflect reality.
EPA’s public affairs office put out “a set of talking points about climate change” to help the agency have a consistent message, the Huffington Post reported this week.
The Associated Press, which also obtained the memo, contacted 15 climate scientists. They all said EPA wasn’t accurately portraying the degree of knowledge that researchers know about climate change and humanity’s role. For decades, scientists have being saying that the burning of fossil fuels increases greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, which trap heat and change the planet’s climate in many ways.
THE MEMO
“Human activity impacts our changing climate in some manner. The ability to measure with precision the degree and extent of that impact, and what to do about it, are subject to continuing debate and dialogue.”
THE SCIENCE
“To say that ’human activity impacts our changing climate ‘in some manner’, is analogous to saying the Germans were involved in WW II ‘in some manner’,” David Titley, a professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University and retired U.S. Navy admiral, said in an email.
The EPA memo contradicts a November 2017 federal science report, signed off by 13 government agencies, including the EPA. That report says the world has warmed 1.2 degrees (0.65 Celsius) since 1950 and that the likely human contribution to this was between 92 and 123 percent.
It’s more than 100 percent on one end, because some natural forces — such as volcanoes and orbital cycle — are working to cool Earth, but are being overwhelmed by the effects of greenhouse gases, said study co-author Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech.
Hayhoe, one of the scientists who criticized the EPA memo, said the debate now is more about whether humanity’s role is merely close to 100 percent of the warming or if it is it much more and offsetting natural cooling.
THE MEMO
“While there has been extensive research and a host of published reports regarding climate change, clear gaps remain including our understanding of the role of human activity and what we can do about it.”
THE SCIENCE
Two scientists, Jonathan Overpeck, dean of environmental science at the University of Michigan, and Michael Oppenheimer at Princeton University each described the idea of gaps in scientific knowledge as “flat out wrong.” Scientists said there are some details that aren’t completely known, but not gaps in knowledge about what is causing the problem and humanity’s role.
“Suggesting that there are gaps that remain in our understanding of the role of human activity and possible solutions to the problem is false equivalence at its finest,” said Kathie Dello, an Oregon State University climate scientist. “We know it’s us and we know what we have to do about it.”
Asked to provide any sources for the agency’s contention that the contribution of man-made carbon emissions in climate change is unsettled, EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones issued this statement:
“The talking points were developed by the Office of Public Affairs. The Agency’s work on climate adaptation continues under the leadership of Dr. (Joel) Scheraga.”
Meanwhile, steady anti-science drumbeat from the Trump/Putin Administration is degrading American’s understanding of science. (again)
John Cook is the author of the famous “97 percent” study, which shows the overwhelming scientific consensus on global climate change.
A new Gallup survey shows that independent voters are less concerned about climate change than they were a year ago. In the last year, independents have become less likely to accept that global warming is happening and that humans are the cause, and less likely to perceive that there’s a scientific consensus about global warming.
