The cold weather and swirling winds gripping the northeastern United States have created the sort of winter scenario that Energy Secretary Rick Perry has cited as a reason to bolster the reliability of the grid by boosting coal and nuclear power plants. Perry said that only those power plants could assure reliability because only they could keep 90 days’ fuel supply on site. [node:read-more:link]
South Carolina wants to replace aging school buses. Colorado plans to electrify Denver’s bus system. And Washington wants electric ferryboats for Puget Sound. As part of a 2016 federal court settlement after Volkswagen admitted programming its diesel vehicles to cheat on emissions tests, the automaker agreed to pay $2.8 billion to states to be used to reduce diesel pollution. [node:read-more:link]
Congressional Republicans allowed a tax on oil companies that generated hundreds of millions of dollars annually for federal oil-spill response efforts to expire this week — a move that amounts to another corporate break for the industry. The tax on companies selling oil in the United States generated an average of $500 million in federal revenue per year, according to the Government Accountability Office. [node:read-more:link]
Low natural gas prices, not high renewable energy penetrations, are the main cause of low and negative electricity prices that are negatively impacting coal and nuclear operators, a new report from two DOE national labs finds. [node:read-more:link]
Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a practical solar heater for poultry houses as part of a project partially funded by USPOULTRY and the USPOULTRY Foundation, the organization announced. Sanjay Shah and his colleagues developed and tested the low-cost solar heater that warms the air as it passes through a black plastic housing that has been heated by the sun. [node:read-more:link]
Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced Dec. 20 a significant step towards economic justice for Pennsylvania landowners in his lawsuit against Chesapeake Energy Inc. and Anadarko Petroleum Co.Bradford County Common Pleas Court issued an opinion and order denying preliminary objections raised by the defendant companies.The Office of Attorney General’s lawsuit seeks to recover for thousands of Pennsylvania landowners the money wrongfully deducted from fracking royalty checks by Chesapeake Energy and Anadarko Petroleum — in violation of [node:read-more:link]
President Donald Trump's administration is rescinding proposed rules for hydraulic fracturing and other oil- and gas-drilling practices on government lands. The rules developed under President Barack Obama would have applied mainly in the West, where most federal lands are located. Companies would have had to disclose the chemicals used in fracking, which pumps pressurized water underground to break open hydrocarbon deposits. [node:read-more:link]
Sen. Ted Cruz has now gotten multiple meetings at the White House over the Renewable Fuels Standard but the Texas Republican still maintains his hold on Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey's undersecretary nomination at USDA. And, following a meeting Wednesday with staff from several senators at the White House's Eisenhower Executive Office Building, it seems Cruz doesn't know what exactly he wants changed with the Renewable Fuel Standard."He just keeps moving the goalpost and moving the goalpost," said a frustrated Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, on Thursday.Staff from the offices of Sens. [node:read-more:link]
Leaders in the biofuels industry wrote President Donald Trump on Friday after learning Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, had floated a proposal to the White House that would essentially cap prices for renewable identification number (RIN) credits at 10 cents apiece. [node:read-more:link]
Look no further than how falling commodity prices have affected rural America in recent years, and you'll get a feel for what the Renewable Fuel Standard has meant to the countryside. Back in 2005 when the first RFS was signed into law, it was challenging just to keep up on the seemingly endless number of announced plans to build corn ethanol plants. [node:read-more:link]
