Month: March 2019

Casper Star Tribune (Wyoming):

Let me explain. The energy market has changed and no one person or legislature can change it back. Energy markets are telling us that coal is no longer king when it comes to being the cost-minimizing source of energy. In Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana and Colorado, electric utilities have calculated that retiring coal plants will save customers money. Here in Wyoming, Rocky Mountain Power has compared the costs to operate its coal units to see how they compare to other available energy sources. Rocky Mountain Power’s analysis suggests that retiring the Naughton plant in Kemmerer by 2022 and replacing its output with cheaper market purchases, including Wyoming wind power, could save customers $175 million. Rocky Mountain Power’s parent company, PacifiCorp, has also stressed that over 60 percent of its coal units are now more expensive to run than alternatives.

This coal bailout bill would make Rocky Mountain Power find an outside buyer to operate uneconomic coal plants, and then require the utility to buy back high-cost power from the new owner. Bill proponents claim that any such coal contract would need to be less expensive than other sources to be approved. But Rocky Mountain Power has already done the math! Unless a new owner intends to cut corners on environmental cleanup or slash worker benefits, it’s hard to see how someone else could run these aging coal plants more cheaply and effectively than Rocky Mountain Power.

–

The electricity industry is undergoing fundamental and permanent changes, and Wyoming’s coal communities need and deserve help. That means embracing our state’s immense potential to generate wind and solar power, finding ways to use coal for profitable materials, and providing transition funding for displaced workers But a bill that claims to “save coal” by charging energy customers more, slashing worker benefits, and preventing cleanup of Wyoming’s land and water is not the answer.

The market is talking and it is telling us that this bill will not reverse the decline of the coal industry, and that it will only delay critical conversations we all need to be having about how to help Wyoming’s coal-dependent communities benefit from the inevitable transition to a cleaner energy future.

Politico:

Republicans claim the Green New Deal would cost $93 trillion — a number that would dwarf the economic output of every nation on Earth.

The figure is bogus.

Continue reading “Fossil Fuel at the “Socialist” Trough”

Governor Jay Inslee of Washington has joined the presidential field with a climate-centric campaign. 

Brave and timely.

The most recent election showed that climate change is now mature as a top tier, even the top tier, political issue. (see video below)

Seattle Times:

Gov. Jay Inslee entered the 2020 presidential race Friday, launching a longshot campaign with a focused message that he’s the only candidate who would make defeating climate change the nation’s top priority.

In a short video announcing his candidacy, Inslee repeats what has become his signature slogan in recent years: “We’re the first generation to feel the sting of climate change, and we’re the last that can do something about it.”

Over images of fire-scorched landscapes and flooding, Inslee said the nation must rise to the challenge, portraying a clean-energy revolution as a potential win for the economy and the environment.

The two-term Democratic governor kicked off his campaign Friday morning at news conference at A&R Solar, a Seattle solar-installation company that employs 70 workers. He plans to leave the state for national media interviews, and will campaign in Iowa Tuesday and in Nevada later in the week.

The determination to tackle climate change is nothing new for Inslee, as his video conveys with TV clips of him speaking on the issue over decades. He championed clean energy as a member of Congress and co-authored a 2007 book calling for a national campaign of research and deployment on the level of the U.S. Apollo program, which sent people to the moon, to push the nation’s economy away from dependence on fossil fuels.

Washington Post:

Minorities, he said, are disproportionately affected by climate change in part because they are more likely to live near pollution-spewing plants.

“I am running for president because, unlike the man in the White House, I believe in all the people who make up America,” Inslee said in one of several barbs directed at President Trump.

Inslee, 68, is the first governor to enter the crowded Democratic contest and has the longest political résumé of anyone in the race.

In 1992, after two terms as a state legislator, he was elected to represent a largely rural, Republican-leaning congressional district in central Washington. In Congress, Inslee attracted national attention by voting for the 1994 assault-weapons ban, immediately making him a target for the GOP.

Continue reading “Jay Inslee’s Climate-Centric Campaign”

Washington Post:

For more than 30 years in Oregon, cases of tetanus in children were almost mythical — studied in textbooks but never seen in person — thanks to the effectiveness of pediatric vaccination programs.

That streak ended in 2017 when an unvaccinated 6-year-old boy arrived at a hospital in the state, experiencing jaw spasms and struggling to breathe, according to a new case study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The child was playing on a farm when he cut his head on something, the report said. His parents cleaned and stitched the wound at home, but alarming symptoms emerged six days later. The boy’s jaw began clenching, and his neck and back were arched — a trademark indication of tetanus called opisthotonus that is caused by involuntary muscle spasms.

He was airlifted to a pediatric hospital, where he was diagnosed with tetanus. It was the first instance of the life-threatening neuromuscular disease in a child in Oregon in more than three decades.

“Fortunately, the emergency department physicians immediately recognized the symptoms of severe tetanus,” Judith Guzman-Cottrill, an author of the report and a pediatrics professor at Oregon Health & Science University, told The Washington Post in an email. “Physicians have all read about tetanus, and we have seen pictures of people suffering from tetanus. … It is profound.”

It would be only the start of a downward spiral and lengthy hospital stay for the boy. When he was first admitted to the hospital, he was alert — but couldn’t open his mouth, the report said. Physicians sedated and intubated him because the spasms of his diaphragm and larynx were causing breathing problems.

The boy was given an anti-tetanus immunoglobulin for his wound, as well as the DTaP vaccine, which protects against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. He was also placed in a dark room with ear plugs, which helped reduce the intensity of his spasms. His scalp wound was cleaned by medical professionals.

Still, the arching of the boy’s neck and back worsened. His blood pressure shot up, and he became feverish. Doctors inserted a tube in his windpipe so a ventilator could help with his breathing, and treated him with neuromuscular-blocking drugs to reduce his muscle spasms. He would remain on those drugs for more than a month, and in the intensive care unit for a total of 47 days.

By the time he was transferred out of the ICU, the boy needed help walking 20 feet. His tracheal tube was removed on Day 54, the report said. On Day 57, he was transferred from the pediatric hospital to a rehabilitation center, where he spent two-and-a-half weeks.

In all, the boy’s medical charges in the hospital amounted to $811,929 — which did not include the cost of being airlifted to the hospital or of inpatient rehabilitation, according to the CDC. It’s unclear from the report who covered his hospital expenses. It took about a month after his rehab for the boy to return to “normal activities” such as running and bicycling, the report added.

Continue reading “Antifaxxers: Vaccine Movement has Lessons for Climate and Science Denial”

Remember “Crazy eyes” Michelle Bachmann, the one-time Presidential candidate and whackadoodle Rep from Minnesota?
One of Bachmann’s signature issues was “save our lightbulbs” – the cockeyed crusade against regulations aimed at improving lighting technology and energy efficiency.
The real motivation, of course, was not to save light bulbs, but to save market demand for the dying coal industry that funds Republican campaigns, then and now.

New York Times:

Solar panels and wind turbines get a lot of attention, but a more inconspicuous instrument is helping to reshape America’s energy economy right now: The humble light bulb.

Over the past decade, traditional incandescent bulbs, those distinctive glass orbs with glowing wire centers, have been rapidly replaced by more energy-efficient lighting. The shift has driven down electricity demand in American homes, saving consumers money and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The energy savings are expected to grow as highly efficient and increasingly inexpensive LED bulbs continue to replace older lights. But energy efficiency advocates worry that the Trump administration could slow the pace of this lighting revolution.

Last month, the Department of Energy said it would withdraw an Obama-era regulation that nearly doubled the number of light bulbs subject to energy-efficiency requirements. (The chart above shows changes for basic, pear-shaped bulbs that are regulated by current rules. Other bulb styles, including globe, candelabra and reflector bulbs, as well as outdoor lighting, are not included.)

Industry groups are also pushing back on new lighting efficiency requirements slated to go into effect next year.

Continue reading “Despite Troglodyte Light Bulb Freaks – Efficiency, and Reason – Winning out”

Financier Jeremy Grantham has supported a lot of climate education work over the years, knows the territory.
Has takes on where we are, the Green New Deal, social inequality, and whatever happened to Republicans?

As usual, worth watching how Dr. Hayhoe handles the climate discussion.

Since a few people have asked, I’ve been somewhat off the grid for 10 days or so, due to helping with packing and moving number one son from Maine back to Michigan.
We’ve been dodging polar vortices and Lake Effect snow squalls all week, and moved a school bus worth of gear 1100 miles.
The view above is from his new homestead. He’ll be managing an organic farm in the area.

Amazing University of Maine animation showing warm air literally pumping into the Arctic, while cold blobs are pushed out into North America.

Temps in the Arctic have been more than 20°C above average creating periodic open water in normally hard-frozen sea ice in the dead of winter: https://t.co/mF6M61bAPz#ClimateChange is here. Let's do something about it#ActOnClimate #climate #energy #climatestrike #GreenNewDeal pic.twitter.com/oKDJDwvYs3

— Mike Hudema (@MikeHudema) March 1, 2019

If you haven’t seen my vid on this, do so now.