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Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.Bill Gates launches multi-billion dollar clean energy fund
By Jackie Wattles, CNN.
The Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist announced his latest endeavor, the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, at the climate change summit in Paris.
"We need to bring the cost premium for being clean down," Gates said Monday in an interview with CNN's New Day. "You need the innovation so that the cost of clean is lower than the coal based energy generation."
Lowering the cost of clean energy to make it competitive with fossil fuels is the best way to get poor countries to make the switch without sacrificing economic growth, Gates said. Clean energy can make air conditioning, refrigerators, stoves and fertilizer more affordable for poor people.
Bill Gates lays out vision for clean energy at Paris climate conference
By Hal Bernton, Seattle Times.
In the Monday kickoff to the historic climate conference in Paris, Bill Gates unveiled a new role as a global recruiter for billionaires willing to push clean-energy ideas out of the lab and into the marketplace.
The Breakthrough Energy Coalition lists more than two dozen members from 10 countries that span the globe from India to Africa to Saudi Arabia. In addition to Gates, they include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Alibaba Group executive chairman Jack Ma and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.
The coalition will partner with 20 countries that have pledged to increase their spending in clean-energy research and try to greatly speed up a global transition away from fossil fuels.
How Obama learned from 'a mess' of a climate deal to forge a new agreement in Paris
By Michael A Memoli, Los Angeles Times.
Hoping to salvage a faltering international climate deal, President Obama’s team roamed the halls of a Copenhagen convention center in 2009 “hunting for the Chinese,” as then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently put it.
Securing a commitment – any commitment – from China, the world’s leading emitter of carbon gas, would be key to the face-saving, if disappointing, agreement that emerged.
“A mess,” deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes bluntly labeled the Copenhagen summit.
Congress closes in on deal to extend tax breaks for businesses, individuals
By Kelsey Snell, The Washington Post.
House and Senate negotiators are working to complete a deal as early as this week that would revive dozens of expired tax breaks and could also seek to scale back a controversial part of Obamacare and expand some tax benefits for low income workers.
A bipartisan group of staffers from the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees worked throughout the Thanksgiving recess in hopes of hashing out an agreement to retroactively reinstate the expired tax breaks for businesses and individuals, extending many for a year while making some permanent, according to aides familiar with the negotiations. Early versions of the package circulated by lobbyists and staffers were estimated to cost as much as $700 billion over 10 years, but aides said the discussions are still preliminary and nothing is finalized.
Clean energy mandates remain battleground in N.C.
By Craig Jarvis, The News & Observer.
North Carolina has been home to a thriving solar industry for the past eight years, thanks to a tax break and requiring utilities to develop clean energy.
But opponents of targeted tax credits and government-funded advantages for certain businesses have been chipping away at those benefits – with mixed results.
This year the state legislature did away with a 35 percent tax credit for investments in renewable energy.
Obama and Bill Gates to Launch Clean Energy Initiative
By Colleen McCain Nelson, The Wall Street Journal.
PARIS—President Barack Obama and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates will launch a multi-billion-dollar initiative Monday to accelerate clean-energy research and development as part of a global effort to fight climate change.
The announcement is timed to provide a jolt of momentum as world leaders gather in Paris for the start of a two-week summit focused on forging an international agreement to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. The president and Mr. Gates will join with other heads of state and investors to detail complementary public and private commitments to clean-energy innovation.
The goal, Obama administration officials said, is to speed the pace of progress on new technologies that will help curb emissions and limit the rise of global temperatures.
Oregon Supreme Court weighs in on Clean Fuels ballot measures
By Taylor W. Anderson, The Bend Bulletin.
If any of a set of initiatives that would water down a renewable fuel blending and carbon credit program reaches the 2016 ballot, the ballot measure titles must mention they would do away with the carbon credit trading scheme, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday.
Three initiatives sought by oil companies looking to undo Oregon’s low-carbon fuel standard continued their crawl toward the November 2016 election as the high court weighed in on language proposed by the attorney general’s office that voters would see if any of the proposals make the ballot.
The low-carbon fuel standard is also known as Clean Fuels because it requires fuel producers to blend gas and diesel with alternative fuel to prevent 7.7 million tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted over a decade. Companies that can’t meet fuel requirements can do so by buying credits from other energy companies whose cleaner fuels generate credits.
Underground power storage system could solve Renewable Energy transition in USA
By Paul Pajarillo, iTechPost.
Mark Jacobson and Mark Delucchi proposed a renewable energy storage system in order to meet electric demands in the United States. The paradigm also indicated how the country could shift from fossil fuel to 100 percent utilization of renewable energy sources.
The United States could transition to renewable energy completely by using underground power storage. This is a study proposed by the Stanford University of California in Berkeley headed by environmental and civil engineering professors Mark Delucchi and Mark Jacobson. These university professors have studied state-by-state on the possibilities of the U.S. to shift to renewable energy sources from fossil fuel usage.
Rubio juggles principles, desire to win Iowa
By Steve Benen, MSNBC.
Marco Rubio has a dilemma. The Florida senator clearly wants to win the Iowa Republican caucuses, which would help propel him to his party’s presidential nomination. He also wants to defend his far-right policy priorities, which means opposing the ethanol mandate and taking aim at the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).
The trouble, of course, is that those two goals are occasionally in conflict. The RFS is quite popular in Iowa, but it’s also plainly at odds with Rubio’s conservative agenda.
Congress to move against Clean Power Plan this week
By Eric Wolff, With help from Darren Goode, Alex Guillén, and Anca Gurzu, Politico.
CONGRESS TO MOVE AGAINST CLEAN POWER PLAN NEXT WEEK: House Republicans as early as Tuesday will debate and vote on two Senate-approved resolutions disapproving of EPA greenhouse gas rules for power plants, representing their official public rebuke of the administration’s climate position in Paris. The House Energy and Commerce Committee also approved non-binding disapproval resolutions sponsored by Rep. Ed Whitfield. But by taking up the Senate versions, Republicans can send them to Obama (to veto) soon after he gets back from the start of the climate summit Tuesday.
Energy bill ready to hit the floor: Whitfield says he has been asked by Republican leaders to lead a bipartisan House delegation to the Paris summit in December if there is time to break away from the spending talks to keep the government running, But a trip to the summit will also wait until after the Kentucky Republican helps lead what will likely be two days of floor debate starting next Wednesday on an Energy and Commerce energy bill. The legislation focuses on infrastructure improvements, liquefied natural gas exports and incorporating some of the Energy Department’s quadrennial review recommendations. Republicans are touting it as their alternative vision to the one administration officials will stress in Paris. But the bill is opposed by most Democrats after energy panel leaders failed to craft a bipartisan compromise that would have accommodated Democrats' desire to address climate change.
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