Stanford Researchers Have an Exciting Plan to Tack...

Things are pretty dire right now. Giant swaths of my country are burning as I write this, at a scale unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Countless animals, including koalas, are perishing along with our life-supporting greenery. People are losing homes and loved ones. These catastrophes are being replicated around the globe ever more frequently, and we know exactly what is exacerbating them. We know we need to rapidly...

Significant Renewable Energy Growth in U.S. Very S...

After revising its three-year U.S. power forecast, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has predicted major declines for fossil fuels and nuclear power alongside strong growth in renewables by 2022, according to a review of the data by the SUN DAY Campaign, a pro-renewables research and education nonprofit. “FERC’s latest three-year projections continue to underscore the dramatic changes taking place...

Editorial: Murray bankruptcy exposes folly of Ohio...

A perfectly predictable disaster is a step closer to happening in Ohio, and if it does we’ll have decades of bad Statehouse policy to thank. The precarious financial position of Murray Energy Corp. means Ohio could find out, sooner rather than later, what happens when a giant coal company goes bankrupt and forfeits its abandoned mine sites without reclaiming the land. Likely it won’t be pretty. For decades, Ohio hasn’t asked...

Dark Money Is Pouring in to Protect the “Worst Ene...

In Ohio, the fight over a nuclear and coal bailout is getting weirder by the day. This summer, Ohio’s beleaguered nuclear and coal plants got a major gift in the promise of a big bailout. Now, the fight over that promise has escalated into one of the most dramatic and bizarre showdowns of the 2020 election cycle. It all started back in July, when the Ohio state legislature passed a law—called HB6—that, starting next year,...

Poll: Most Ohio voters support renewable energy de...

By Connor Smithee A new George Mason University poll shows that most voters in Ohio support renewable energy development. Registered voters in that state were asked by the university’s Center for Climate Change Communication what is the most important strategy to address Ohio’s energy needs. Of those who answered, 63% said it was more sources of renewable energy. Another 13% said it was development of natural gas power...

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...

The Hope of the Green New Deal

There is significant talk in the U.S. now concerning the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources to reduce the U.S. impact on global warming.  Politically, a Green New Deal is being promoted for achieving the goal of full replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy. The Green New Deal sounds like an admirable endeavor but, realistically, once fully implemented the U.S. would still consume huge volumes...

Solar Company Sees Some Benefit From Ohio’s ...

While critics of Ohio’s recent nuclear bailout are moving toward a referendum to repeal the law, the new policy has won some support from an unusual source. Greg Kuss, president of Solar Vision in Worthington, says that increased charges to electric customers will make solar an economical option. “Now, the price of installing solar is comparable with what you’d be paying your local utilities,” Kuss says. Kuss says the cost...

Here are the winners and losers on climate policy ...

State lawmakers across the country either have wrapped up their legislative sessions or are on the verge of what they refer to as sine die. The result is a panoply of policy that’s mostly good, but also bad and ugly when it comes to our nation’s economy, environment and sustainability. For the most part, states continue to be beacons of hope lighting and leading the way for our nation on climate and clean energy amid lack of...

Ad invokes spurious Chinese invasion of Ohio to tr...

What can nearly $1 million buy? For one, the sleaziest scare ad in recent memory in Ohio, seeking to keep a referendum off the November 2020 ballot on whether to overturn House Bill 6, the recently passed bailout bill for FirstEnergy’s two nuclear plants. The one-minute ad, populated by alarming pictures of the Chinese military, warns, “The Chinese government is quietly invading our American electrical grid” and “coming for...

Nuclear power offers an abundant supply of low-car...

July 31, 2019 — There’s a small red hammer and sickle flag of the old Soviet Union on my dresser at home. I found it years ago on the floor of a primary school in Pripyat, the town built for workers at the doomed Chernobyl nuclear plant in what is now Ukraine. Perhaps it had been waved by a child at a state occasion, or had been left behind in the rush to evacuate Pripyat after the world’s worst nuclear disaster in April...

Nuclear bailout bill is signed into law despite fl...

Gov. Mike DeWine signed House Bill 6 into law today after the Ohio House voted 51-38 — one vote over the 50 required to pass it — to approve the Senate version of the nuclear bailout bill and send it to DeWine’s desk for signature. The bill will require every Ohio residential electricity customer to pay about 85 cents a month, close to 90 percent of which will go to subsidize the Perry and Davis-Besse...

Environmentalists Criticize New Energy ‘Bail...

The Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Lake County is one of two nuclear plants in Ohio that might shut down if lawmakers don’t provide subsidies to save them. DAN KONIK / STATEHOUSE NEWS BUREAU Environmental advocates say the Senate’s new energy plan is taking Ohio in the wrong direction when it comes to emerging energy sources and innovations. That plan would likely bail out two nuclear power plants through new charges on...

Patriotism as an Environmental Virtue

Patriotism as an Environmental Virtue Abstract Define “patriotism” as love for one’s country and devotion to its well-being. This essay contends that patriotism thus defined is a virtue and that environmentalism is one of its most important manifestations. Patriotism, as devotion to particular places and people, can occur at various levels, from the local to the national. Knowing and caring about particular places and people...

Climate Patriotism

Defending America’s future demands bold climate action now. “Patriot (noun ˈpā-trē-ət, -ˌät): one who loves his or her country…” From the from the Ancient Greek πατριώτης (patriotēs, “of the same country.”) To love our country, we must care about its future. We can’t care about our nation’s future without taking into account the ways our actions today are shaping that future, and attempting to steer a course that will leave...