Duke Energy Faces Challenges to its Push for New Natural Gas Plants greentechmedia.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from greentechmedia.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
States and municipalities around the country want to curtail the use of natural gas to fight climate change. Conservative and industry groups want to block them.
Battle over natural gas role in climate change boils over in America’s home kitchens Published February 23
Share on Facebook A new front has opened in the battle over climate change: The kitchen. Cities and towns across the country are rewriting local building codes so that new homes and offices would be blocked from using natural gas, a fossil fuel that when burned emits carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. New laws would force builders to install heat pumps instead of gas furnaces and electric kitchen stoves instead of gas burners. Local leaders say reducing the carbon and methane pollution associated with buildings, the source of 12.3% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, is the only way they can meet their 2050 zero-emission goals to curb climate change.
Allen Best / Big Pivots
Conceptual work has begun on a pumped-storage hydro project along the Yampa River five miles east of Craig. The project was conceived to provide electricity to assist Colorado utilities in balancing the intermittency of wind and solar generation as they advance toward 100% renewable portfolios during the coming decade.
In pumped-storage hydro, water is released from a higher reservoir to produce electricity when needed most. The water in the lower reservoir is then pumped uphill to the higher reservoir when electricity has become more readily available.
Colorado has two existing pumped-storage hydro projects. Cabin Creek Generating Station, between Georgetown and Guanella Pass, harnesses a 1,200-foot vertical drop to produce up to 324 megawatts of electricity. Completed in 1967 and operated by Xcel Energy, it serves as effectively a giant battery with a four-hour life, the same as a humongous bank of Tesla batteries.
NH Business Review
New Hampshire’s backward policies leave the state lagging badly behind
February 9, 2021
Dan Weeks
I was recently called before a New Hampshire town zoning board to seek a variance for a solar project my company installed for a local family farm. Apparently someone in town had driven by while we were constructing the 140-panel array and complained to town officials. Although we had been granted the required zoning permits many months ago, we were told to seek a variance on the grounds that solar panels in a field might now be considered a “building,” with all the attending requirements.