By Times-Herald staff report, 07/28/15, 1:09 pm PDT; UPDATED 08/05/15
Constance Beutel and Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson. COURTESY PHOTO
Benicia >> A reception was held at the Benicia City Hall courtyard before the City Council meeting on July 21 to celebrate the accomplishments of the first Eco-Award winners. They were presented to the City Council afterward.
A resident and a business were selected in each category: energy reduction and renewable energy, water efficiency and conservation, recycling and trash reduction. A non-profit/community-based organization was also chosen as an overall winner.
The seven winners received a $100 gift certificate to First Street Café and a recycled glass trophy designed by Lindsay Art Glass of Benicia as well as a certificate signed by Mayor Patterson.
The Benicia Eco Award, by Lindsay Art Glass. COURTESY PHOTO
The winners are as follow:
Residents: Constance Beutel for energy reduction and renewable energy; Steve and Marty Young for water efficiency and conservation; and Mary Lou and John McVeigh for recycling and trash reduction.
Business: Ponder Environmental Services, Inc. for energy reduction and renewable energy; Pedrotti Ace Hardware for water efficiency and conservation; and Ruszel Woodworks for recycling and trash reduction.
Community-based or non-profit organization: Benicia Community Gardens.
The event was a “Zero Waste” event, meaning there was no trash from the event. All food scraps went to John & Mary Lou’s chickens, real dishes and utensils eliminated any paper or plastic waste, and the cups were recycled. The napkins were composted. Real fruit flavored water hydration stations were provided so no water bottles or sodas were needed.
The program is sponsored by the Green Umbrella group, a coalition of Benicia organizations and individuals dedicated to working together with a focus on environmentalism and sustainability. The group’s work is funded by a grant from the Community Sustainability Commission with support from Arts Benicia and the City of Benicia. Awards are sponsored by Marin Clean Energy, WattzOn, and Republic Services.
Officials touring site of 1st US offshore wind farm hope milestone will boost industry
By Jennifer McDermott, AP, July 27, 2015 — 3:00pm
The first foundation jacket installed by Deepwater Wind in the nation’s first offshore wind farm construction project is seen Monday, July 27, 2015, on the waters of the Atlantic Ocean off Block Island, R.I. Deepwater Wind will consist of five turbines producing a total of 30 megawatts of electricity. STEPHAN SAVOIA — AP Photo
NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. — Construction has begun off Rhode Island’s coast on the nation’s first offshore wind farm, a milestone that federal and state officials say will help the fledgling U.S. industry surge ahead.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said Monday that lenders, regulators and stakeholders can now see a path forward.
“It’s great to witness a pioneering moment in U.S. history,” she said during a boat tour of the site. “We are learning from this in what we do elsewhere. I think it will help the country understand the potential that exists here.”
Deepwater Wind is building a five-turbine wind farm off Block Island, Rhode Island, which it expects to power 17,000 homes as early as next year. It began attaching the first of the steel foundations to the ocean floor Sunday. The first one touching the seabed is known in the industry as the “first steel in the water.”
Deepwater Wind CEO Jeffrey Grybowski said it was a “spectacular” moment. The company took officials and project supporters to the site by boat Monday to celebrate.
They saw the first of two steel pieces for the first foundation in the water. It has four legs and braces like a stool and rises about 30 feet above the waterline. An installation barge with a large crane was next to it, and two barges carrying additional foundation components were nearby. The foundations will be installed by mid-September, Grybowski said.
The wind farm should be operational in the third quarter of 2016, Grybowski said. Deepwater Wind also plans to build a wind farm of at least 200 turbines between Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard.
“We want to build more and larger offshore wind projects, up and down the East Coast,” Grybowski said.
Gov. Gina Raimondo said Rhode Island is a leader in a fast-growing industry that is creating jobs.
“It’s the beginning of something great in Rhode Island,” Raimondo said.
The offshore wind industry is far more advanced in Europe. Developers and industry experts say it has been slow to start in the U.S. because of regulatory hurdles, opposition from fossil fuel interests and the trials and tribulations of doing something for the first time.
Cape Wind received approval five years ago to build the nation’s first offshore wind farm, a 130-turbine project off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. That project stalled after opponents challenged it in court.
While there have been setbacks, Jewell said the federal government has now sold nine leases for offshore wind projects in federal waters. The government is poised to auction a new lease off New Jersey this year and is assessing potential sites off multiple states. The Block Island wind farm is in state waters.
“This is an important first step, important momentum. A lot is happening across the country,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, director if the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
One hurdle, however, is that the renewable energy industry has to fight, regularly, to keep the tax credits and incentives it has, while the well-established oil and gas industry has tax credits it no longer needs, Jewell said. She said that should change.
Several environmental leaders also made the trip. Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, said it was overwhelming to see the start of construction.
“To see it in American waters fills me with patriotic pride,” he said. “This idea that we could create a new industry and tens of thousands of jobs, spur manufacturing and protect wildlife, it’s just an incredible opportunity.”
Utilities efforts to turn back the clean-energy revolution would block low-income communities from realizing the benefits
By Denise Fairchild, 07/01/2015
The clean-energy revolution is underway, and so is the war against it. As with every other major economic transition, this battle will have winners and losers. For low-income communities of color, the stakes are especially high: Will they reap the benefits of the emerging clean-energy economy or will they be locked into energy ghettos?
Here’s the context. Renewable energy — solar and wind — is quickly replacing fossil fuels as the preferred energy source. It is now cheaper than coal and most other fossil fuels. Innovative financing mechanisms have eliminated out-of-pocket costs for installing these technologies, enabling homeowners to save and even earn money from energy production. For example, “net metering” lets solar-powered households sell their surplus energy back to the grid for a profit — sending their electric meters spinning counterclockwise.
The utility sector is not happy with these developments, and it is fighting back. A recent Washington Post article cites utilities’ efforts to influence legislators, state public service commissions and — of particular concern — minority organizations. They want to eliminate net metering and assess households with solar-power systems a monthly surcharge to offset the utilities’ sunk capital investments and maintenance costs. And they have convinced some minority organizations that, without the surcharge, the poor will pay more through rate hikes as clean-energy and net-metering schemes benefit only well-to-do families.
This is a specious argument with potentially dangerous and unfortunate consequences, particularly for low-income residents. Eliminating net metering or placing a surcharge on households that migrate off the grid would foster a two-tiered energy society. These steps would render solar power unaffordable for low-income households, locking in historical racial and class hierarchies. The problems are analogous to the forces that created and sustained central-city ghettos.
Specifically, the surcharges are a form of redlining that limits or otherwise makes community infrastructure investments prohibitively expensive and fosters infrastructure obsolescence. This is similar to the benign neglect and the discriminatory practices that created urban ghettos of the mid-20th century.
The deterioration and blight that afflicts ghettos results principally from the lack of public and private investments needed to maintain, modernize and develop basic infrastructure, such as houses, roads, water and sewer lines. Our energy infrastructure — the “grid” — remains similarly neglected. National investments in local distribution peaked in 2006 and have declined to levels not seen since1991, according to a 2013 report by the American Association of Civil Engineers.
While the utility industry suggests that the surcharge it is seeking would prevent grid disinvestment, the reality is that revenue from such a fee would amount to but a trickle of what’s needed to build a modern, resilient energy infrastructure. Public-housing residents in New York City know about resilient energy infrastructure — or, rather, the lack of it. After Superstorm Sandy, some of the city’s most vulnerable people were off the grid for weeks with no alternative source of power.
Net metering surcharges are also akin to restrictive covenants, which legally prohibited certain races from the benefits of living in American suburbs, locking African-Americans and other ethnic groups into urban ghettos. Surcharges similarly lock the poor and people of color out of the emerging clean-energy future, including not only cleaner, cheaper and newer energy options but also the “green” jobs that these new industries are creating.
Finally, imposing surcharges or eliminating net metering would solidify and accelerate wealth disparities. Net-metering policies generate wealth by turning property owners and communities into energy producers, offering a rare opportunity for residents of low-income communities to build personal wealth. Surcharges will only block poor families from owning their own energy assets.
We need to rethink grid investments, but not at the expense of a clean-energy future. The clean-energy transition is as profound and disruptive to the status quo as the changes in the music and telecommunications industries. And it’s exciting: It can strengthen our energy, economic and health security. That’s a vision that minority communities fully support — and our leaders should too.
Renewable energy shows record growth in power sector
By KARL RITTER, Associated Press, June 17, 2015 | 6:07 p.m. EDT
This May 6, 2013 file photo shows a wind turbine farm near Glenrock, Wyo. The growth of renewable energy outpaced that of fossil fuels in the electricity sector last year, with a record 135 gigawatts of capacity added from wind, solar, hydropower and other natural sources, a new study shows. The annual report released early Thursday, June 18, 2015 in Europe by Paris-based REN21, a non-profit group that promotes renewable energy, underscored how China, the world’s top consumer of coal, has become a global leader in clean energy, too. (AP Photo/Matt Young, File)
STOCKHOLM (AP) — The growth of renewable energy outpaced that of fossil fuels in the electricity sector last year, with a record 135 gigawatts of capacity added from wind, solar, hydropower and other natural sources, a new study shows.
That’s more than the generating capacity of all nuclear reactors in the United States and slightly less than Germany’s installed capacity from all power sources.
The annual report released early Thursday in Europe by Paris-based REN21, a nonprofit group that promotes renewable energy, underscored how China, the world’s top consumer of coal, has become a global leader in clean energy, too.
It also highlighted that while renewables now account for 28 percent of the world’s electricity-generating capacity, they still account for only a tiny share of how we heat and cool buildings and fuel our means of transportation.
“The share of renewables in the power sector will continue to grow. We see that already, especially in emerging economies,” said Christine Lins, executive secretary of REN21. “But we need attention to the heating-cooling sector and transport.”
Renewable energy’s share in all forms of energy consumption — currently about 10 percent — will have to increase dramatically to fulfill the vision that President Barack Obama and other leaders of the Group of Seven wealthy economies endorsed last week. To fight climate change, they called for deep cuts in heat-trapping carbon emissions and all but eliminating them by the end of the century.
Meanwhile, global energy production must surge to meet the demands of developing economies and a growing world population. The fossil fuel industry and many energy experts say that can’t happen without fossil fuels, even in the electricity sector, where coal remains the top fuel.
“Renewables will grow but that doesn’t mean coal is going away,” said Benjamin Sporton, head of the World Coal Association.
Sporton said India is commissioning 20GW of coal-fired power generation every year. “And they have a further 118GW under construction or approved,” he added.
Supporters of renewable energy say the world is already “decoupling” carbon emissions from economic growth, pointing to preliminary data from the International Energy Agency showing that carbon emissions from the energy sector didn’t rise last year even though the global economy grew by 3 percent.
However, earlier this week the IEA said that, among other measures, investments in renewables need to increase from $270 billion last year to $400 billion in 2030 to support a transition to a low-carbon economy.
Paolo Frankl, the head of IEA’s Renewable Energy Division, said REN21’s figures matched research by his own agency, confirming a clear upward trend in renewables.
The REN21 report said renewables accounted for almost 60 percent of the global power capacity added in 2014. Wind power made the biggest jump among the renewables in 2014, with 51GW of new capacity, almost half of it in China.
“This shows that countries are turning towards clean energy to meet their energy needs, rather than fossil fuels that are driving climate change,” said Jake Schmidt of the Natural Resource Defense Council, a U.S. environmental advocacy group.
Solar power also expanded, but from a low level; it accounts for only 1 percent of global electricity production.
Geothermal power added just 700MW of capacity, half of it in Kenya. Other renewable sources, such as ocean energy from tidal forces, are not yet having any significant impact.
In heating and cooling of buildings and industry, which accounts for about half of global energy consumption, there was little change from the year before, with renewables representing about 8 percent, mostly biomass.
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