Why Is So Much Farmland Suddenly Being Taken Up By Solar Power? Also, Is That Bad?
Solar farms are growing in popularity, taking up more and more land every day. Is that a good thing?
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Energy
The GOP Released Their Policy Blueprint For 2025. It’s A Mess.
The Republican Party has drafted its “policy” plans for 2025, when they at this point seem unlikely to be able to retake the White House. While there are some valuable points in critiquing the structure of the federal regulatory apparatus, most of the over-arching objectives include dismantling federal agencies and applying theocratic and corporatist dogma to American public policy.
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Labor for a Just Transition
Kristin Caffray writes about how central the labor movement is to the question of a just transition to decarbonization, and how this must involve everyone ranging from urban factory workers to rural coal miners in what might become a valuable and rare point of bipartisanship.
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ERCOT Is Working Exactly As It’s Meant To. That’s… Kinda The Problem.
Texas made the conscious decision to cut itself off from the rest of the country. In extreme weather conditions, either its consumers, its energy producers, or its government are going to have to pick up the tab.
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Michigan SB 271: Not-So-Lofty Goals Face Off Against Fossil Fuels
Michigan’s Senate is currently working on an energy bill that would require utilities to adopt a 100% renewable portfolio standard by 2035. It’s a good start, but there are a few holes that need to be plugged.
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MI Healthy Climate Conference: Is It A New Day In Michigan?
I wrapped up a couple of days at the MI Healthy Climate conference. We talked about decarbonization, public health, and innovation. We even got to see some eBikes!
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Why Regulating Methane, Not CO2, Is Key to Climate Policy
Carbon dioxide is often the bad guy in the climate change debate. But methane– mostly from anthropogenic sources- is a far more potent greenhouse gas. And, unlike carbon dioxide, methane emissions are virtually all a product of waste (rather than the product of combustion from, say, burning a gas like methane). Reduce waste = reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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New Ideas For Utility Policy (Idea No. 2)
In my last article, I looked at this question of “dig once” and how it might influence utility affordability and
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Can Utilities Be Held Financially Liable For Outages?
In the aftermath of recent power outages that saw as much as 20% of the population of the state of Michigan without power, this article outlines some ideas on what specific things we should be asking about or thinking about in trying to hold utilities accountable.
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The Anatomy of a Power Outage in Michigan
The power went out. Then the ice melted. A few days later, the snow came, and the power went out– again. Now that the snow is gone, what’s next?
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