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Can Solar and Batteries Outlast an Extended Power Outage?

Can Solar and Batteries Outlast an Extended Power ...

It depends, experts say. Just expect to make a few sacrifices. Even by the standards of the generally well-informed clean-energy customers in California’s Bay Area, Todd Karin is a savvy one. Karin works as a postdoctoral researcher in the energy storage and distributed resources division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Last year, he chose to add solar and storage to his home, first buying an array of...
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Solar-plus-storage projects spreading across the U.S.

Solar-plus-storage projects spreading across the U...

A new wave of solar farm development, pairing solar photovoltaics with battery storage, is accelerating across the United States, most notably in California, Hawaii, Florida and the Northeast. Roughly 40 such systems were in operation in the U.S. as of late September, combining about 533 MW of storage with 1,242 MW of solar capacity. Meanwhile, companies are developing at least another 85 co-located solar and storage...
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Toxic Metals Found in 95 Percent of Baby Foods

Toxic Metals Found in 95 Percent of Baby Foods

Heavy metals that may damage a developing brain are present in 95 percent of baby foods on the market, according to new research from the advocacy organization Healthy Babies Bright Futures (HBBF), which bills itself as an alliance of scientists, nonprofit organizations and donors trying to reduce exposures to neurotoxic chemicals during the first three years of development. Researchers commissioned by HBBF looked at 168...
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From the Rooftops, Big Box Stores Are Embracing Solar

From the Rooftops, Big Box Stores Are Embracing So...

Target and Walmart are trying to out-green each other in proving to customers they are environmentally responsible businesses. The Minneapolis retailer best-known for its trendy, private-label brands and its millennial-friendly prices, has very publicly embraced the renewable energy passions of its millennial-heavy consumer base and is adding rooftop solar panels to its stores to generate renewable electricity at a...
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94 World Mayors Call for Green New Deal, Blast Slow National Actions

94 World Mayors Call for Green New Deal, Blast Slo...

Disappointed by the lack of concrete action at September’s UN Climate Action Summit, the mayors of some of the world’s biggest cities are taking matters into their own hands. The C40 group of mayors — who represent 94 cities, more than 700 million people and one quarter of the global economy — announced their support Wednesday for a Global Green New Deal to fight the climate crisis, The Guardian reported....
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Brief overview of new IPCC report on oceans and ice risks

Brief overview of new IPCC report on oceans and ic...

New special report from IPCC lists array of increasing risks facing oceans and ice in a warming world. On the heels of its August special report on climate and land, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in late September published another special report, this one focused on oceans and ice. This latest report was authored by 104 climate scientists from 36 countries and reflecting findings in 6,981 studies. It...
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Curbing runoff from giant livestock farms key to solving Lake Erie toxic algal blooms: Howard A. Learner

Curbing runoff from giant livestock farms key to s...

CHICAGO – Summer may be over, but eyes still need to be on Lake Erie. Toxic algal blooms had another bad year, covering 620 square miles of the lake at one point with a thick green scum and microcystin toxins. The situation won’t improve until the manure and fertilizer runoff pollution causing the toxic algal blooms is significantly reduced. Until then, safe clean drinking water will be impaired and at risk every summer,...
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On Climate and Food, What’s the Lesson We Insist on Missing?

On Climate and Food, What’s the Lesson We Insist o...

Food will be scarce, expensive and less nutritious,” CNN warns us in its coverage of the UN’s new “Climate Change and Land” report. The New York Times announces that “Climate Change Threatens the World’s Food Supply.” Reading these headlines, I’m tossed back to the late ’60s when our culture was gripped by what I came to call the “scarcity scare,” as Paul...
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We’re Just Starting to Learn How Fracking Harms Wildlife

We’re Just Starting to Learn How Fracking Harms Wi...

In January 2015 North Dakota experienced one of the worst environmental disasters in its history: A pipeline burst, spilling nearly 3 million gallons of briny, saltwater waste from nearby oil-drilling operations into two creek beds. The wastewater, which flowed all the way to the Missouri River, contained chloride concentrations high enough to kill any wildlife that encountered it. It wasn’t the first such disaster in...
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Extreme ‘Flash Drought’ in Southeast Means Big Trouble for U.S. Farmers

Extreme ‘Flash Drought’ in Southeast M...

While the northern reaches of the continental U.S. are finally starting to feel a little chill, the Southeast is dealing with something very different. The United States Drought Monitor releases an update once a week with a map of the drought situation across the country. Its report this week echoes what farmers in the Southeast have been saying: We have a problem. According to the Drought Monitor, the Southeast is enduring...
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This new resource aims to help clear up recycling confusion

This new resource aims to help clear up recycling ...

Can a cardboard cereal box go into the office paper recycling bin? How about a shiny magazine insert? And which plastics are OK: No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7? It can be a baffling world for those who want to avoid putting all of their waste into the trash can. DIYSigns, a new online repository of ready-to-edit labels and posters that can be used to provide visual cues for proper sorting into multiple bins, aims to help reduce...
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USGS Estimates 214 trillion Cubic Feet of Natural Gas in Appalachian Basin Formations

USGS Estimates 214 trillion Cubic Feet of Natural ...

USGS Estimates 214 trillion Cubic Feet of Natural Gas in Appalachian Basin Formations www.usgs.gov USGS Updates Appalachian Basin Natural Gas Assessments New Estimates for Marcellus and Point Pleasant-Utica Shales The Marcellus Shale and Point Pleasant-Utica Shale formations of the Appalachian Basin contain an estimated mean of 214 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable continuous resources of natural...
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HB 6 is headed to defeat if it makes it to the November 2020 ballot, but that’s the if

HB 6 is headed to defeat if it makes it to the Nov...

Ohio voters will kill House Bill 6 – a bill that would require Ohio’s electricity customers to subsidize the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear power plants – if they get the chance. That’s a big “if.” And it’s why the powerful interests who rammed House Bill 6 through the General Assembly last summer are doing all they can to keep voters from signing petitions to place HB 6 on Ohio’s November 2020 ballot. The nuclear plants are...
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An Unusual Plan for Lowering Solar’s Customer Acquisition Costs: Infomercials

An Unusual Plan for Lowering Solar’s Customer Acqu...

Recent solar and storage entrant Generac believes it can generate sales leads on the cheap through the old-fashioned TV ad. “No one has unleashed the power of TV on the space,” says Generac’s Russ Minick. SALT LAKE CITY — Generac Power Systems, a Fortune 1000 company that sells residential backup power generators, is making a play for the residential solar and storage market. This spring the Wisconsin-based...
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Ocean Cleaning Device Succeeds in Removing Plastic for the First Time

Ocean Cleaning Device Succeeds in Removing Plastic...

An enormous floating device designed by Dutch scientists for the non-profit Ocean Cleanup successfully captured and removed plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the company announced Wednesday, as CNN reported. Ocean Cleanup has been hard at work on creating a device to attack the plastic waste crisis for seven years, by creating a device that captures plastic in its fold like a giant arm, according to Business...
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