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Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.U.S. and Chinese Climate Change Negotiators to Meet in Los Angeles
By Coral Davenport, The New York Times.
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s top climate change negotiator will meet with his Chinese counterpart in Los Angeles on Tuesday to announce joint actions by cities, states and provinces in both countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The summit meeting follows a historic accord reached in Beijing in November by Mr. Obama and President Xi Jinping, who pledged to enact policies to cut emissions significantly. Mr. Obama said the United States would reduce planet-warming carbon emissions up to 28 percent by 2025, while Mr. Xi vowed that China would halt its emissions growth by 2030.
That announcement by the world’s two biggest greenhouse gas polluters was seen as a breakthrough after decades of deadlock on efforts to forge an effective global accord on climate change. Now Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi are pushing for the completion of such an accord, signed by every nation on earth, at a United Nations summit meeting in Paris this fall.
Northeast cap-and-trade program nets $2.2 billion since 2008
By Associated Press.
ALBANY, N.Y. - The latest auction in the Northeast’s cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants brought in $152 million to be distributed to the nine participating states including New York.
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative sets a cap on carbon dioxide emissions and requires power producers to buy allowances for every ton of carbon they produce. The cap was reduced in 2014, driving up the price per credit in subsequent auctions.
Emergency Stay of EPA’s Clean Power Plan Denied by Federal Court
By Sonal Patel, POWER Mag.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Wednesday rejected a request by 15 U.S. states to stay the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Clean Power Plan.
In a one-page order, the three-judge panel dismissed the request filed on Aug. 13 by a coal company and the coalition of states led by West Virginia’s Attorney General Patrick Morrisey asking the court to issue an emergency stay to postpone deadlines imposed by the final rule. The states argued that the measure was critical while the courts determine the plan’s legality.
In its ruling, however, the court said the petitioners had not satisfied “the stringent standards that apply to petitions for extraordinary writs that seek to stay agency action.”
Over 2,000 Businesses Urge Congress to Prioritize Tax Extenders Bill
By Kelly Phillips Erb, Forbes.
Last year, the Senate waited until just over two weeks left in the calendar year to pass a bill that extended certain tax provisions through December 31, 2014 (retroactive to January 1, 2014).
In contrast, this year it felt like Congress was getting a jump on things when they began contemplating a tax extender package in July. Granted, it was still seven months behind schedule (remember, these are tax provisions which expired at the end of 2014) but there was promise. By promise, I meant wishful thinking.
Two months later, we’re no further along than we were before. Tax provisions which expired at the end of 2014 remain expired – and they’re joined by a slew of other provisions which will be expiring at the end of 2015. The “now you see them, now you don’t” tax provisions remain in limbo.
Low-carbon cities are a $17 trillion opportunity
By Mike Hower, GreenBiz.
The disparate efforts of cities around the world to take climate action were amplified on the international stage late last year when more than 2,000 municipalities around the world signed the Compact of Mayors, which focuses on scaling up climate resilience efforts, energy efficiency programs, resilient financing mechanisms and public carbon emissions reporting.
Pursuing such low-carbon policies actually could have a hefty payback, according to new research from the New Climate Economy. Investing in public and low emission transportation, building efficiency and waste management in cities could generate savings with a current value of $17 trillion by 2050.
These low-carbon investments also could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 3.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (Gt CO2e) per year by 2030 — more than the current annual emissions of India.
Forest waste-to-RNG technology to be demonstrated in California
By Placer County, Biomass Magazine.
A new technology for converting forestry waste into renewable natural gas will be demonstrated for the first time ever Sept. 14 in Auburn, California.
The process, developed by Canadian firm G4 Insights, converts scraps and small trees from forest thinning projects into a renewable natural gas called biomethane. In its first public demonstration, G4 will exhibit the demonstration plant used to produce the gas, and fuel an unmodified Placer County truck with gas produced on site.
Renewable natural gas produced from forestry waste could serve a helpful role in alternative energy production, especially in heavily forested areas.
Energy Department Announces $11 Million to Accelerate Alternative Fuel Technology Development
U.S. Energy Department Press Release:
The Energy Department today announced $11 million in available funding to support development and demonstration of innovative alternative technologies for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, designed to help reduce U.S. reliance on gasoline, diesel, and oil imports.
The funding opportunity includes two areas of interest:
- Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicle Powertrain Electrification focuses on research, development, and demonstration of electric-drive powertrain technologies for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles that significantly reduce fuel consumption.
- Heavy-Duty Vehicle Dual Fuel Fleet Demonstration seeks to demonstrate the performance and reliability of commercially-available dual fuel heavy-duty vehicles equipped with engines capable of operation using a mixture of diesel fuel and gaseous fuels—natural gas, propane- or natural gas-derived fuels such as dimethyl ether—and the associated emissions control systems.
Chile Metrogas wants to produce biogas for vehicles
By Diana Hristova, SeeNews Renewables.
Chilean natural gas distributor Metrogas is working on a project to process street market waste into biogas for vehicles in two years, Diario Financiero reported on Monday.
The company has successfully completed research tests and will install a pilot anaerobic digestion plant in 2016 by investing up to USD 350,000 (EUR 313,000), which should be followed by an industrial plant in the next years.
Ener-Core Receives Purchase Order for Powerstation Installation at Orange County Landfill
By Business Wire.
Ener-Core, Inc. (OTCQB: ENCR), a provider of commercialized Power Oxidationtechnology and equipment that generates clean power from low-quality and waste gases and is deployable in a wide variety of industries, has received a purchase order totaling $900,000 from the Advanced Power & Energy Program (APEP) of the University of California, Irvine for the installation of Ener-Core’s 250kW Powerstation EC250 at the closed Santiago Canyon Landfill in Orange County.
The installed Powerstation will use the low-quality gas created from solid waste decomposition to produce electricity for Orange County Waste & Recycling site operations, which, in turn, is anticipated to lower the County’s utility bill for such operations. The Santiago Canyon landfill has been closed since 1996 and, as with most closed landfills around the world, has been flaring its landfill gas because the gas quality was not high enough to be used as a fuel for traditional power-generation technologies.
This is the second purchase order Ener-Core has received in approximately one month, following the receipt of a purchase order from Dresser-Rand in early August for the delivery and installation of two of Ener-Core’s larger-scale two-megawatt Power Oxidizers to be coupled with the Dresser-Rand KG2-3GEF two-megawatt gas turbine generators for Pacific Ethanol’s Stockton, CA plant (http://ir.ener-core.com/press-releases/detail/55/ener-core-receives-2-1-million-purchase-order-and-initial).
Garbage spurs Istanbul's energy, flowers
By Anadolu Agency, Daily Sabah Istanbul.
Istanbul, Turkey's largest city with a population of more than 14 million, also leads in garbage production but instead of eliminating it, the city is benefiting from recycling. Through recycling, the garbage finds a use in energy production and as an organic fertilizer for flowers in the city's parks and gardens.
Every day, some 17,000 tons of garbage are collected on the Asian and European sides of the city, which was once infamous for the heaps of garbage common in every street in the 1990s and a methane gas explosion at a landfill in Halkalı in 1993 due to haphazard waste dumping. Nowadays, the city's municipality focuses on different waste disposal techniques, especially sorting out the garbage in its source by installing dumpsters for different types of garbage and setting up large-scale recycling facilities.
Solid waste that produces landfill gas, which in turn produces 340 million kilowatts per hour yearly, helps address the city's energy needs. Power supplies capable of powering about 800,000 households are produced by landfill gas.
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