QUICK NEWS, August 9: Climate Change To The Money Men; Corporations In Record New Energy Buys; An Air B-n-B EV Charger-Sharing Plan

Climate Change To The Money Men Six ways businesses view climate change

MarkTrexler, August 8, 2016 (GreenBiz)

“…One line of argument holds that ‘business’ is responsible for climate change…Another line of argument holds that the private sector is our best hope for a stable climate, because policy-makers have not been able to adequately address the issue…[The Yale Project on Climate Communications has identified and tracks six distinct subsets of American public beliefs but there is no equivalent model] for how business decision-makers think about climate change…[A simple typology of private-sector climate change thinking includes] Decision-makers who see their company’s future as fundamentally threatened by any climate policy that substantially would slow climate change…Decision-makers who aren’t part of the ‘business and climate change’ conversation…Decision-makers who recognize climate change as a societal problem, but don’t see it as a serious business problem…Decision-makers who approach climate change as a business issue to be addressed through corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts…Decision-makers in sectors likely to benefit from climate policy…Decision-makers who see themselves as being on the front lines of efforts to address climate change…” click here for more

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Corporations In Record New Energy Buys In Corporate March to Clean Energy, Utilities Not Required; Instead of waiting for large utilities to go greener, companies are buying renewable energy directly, upending the traditional system. Jan Ellen Speigel, August 8, 2016 (Inside Climate News)

“…Some of the nation's largest corporations decided not to wait for utilities [focusing on cheap fracked gas, expensive nuclear power, what to do about coal, and how to fight renewable energy models that threatened their bottom line]…[The corporations] bought their own clean power…directly from the companies that produced it. No utility middleman needed…This clean power revolt, led by some of the biggest corporate energy consumers, is the latest threat to the [utilities’] power purchase and delivery system that's been in place since Thomas Edison invented it…

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Many experts say there is more of this to come, and that utilities will not sit back and let this market pass them by…The trend was spearheaded by the elite of the Fortune 500, especially those companies with electricity-guzzling data centers and manufacturing operations such as Google, Amazon and Walmart…Municipalities, universities, and other institutions are adopting the model…The windfall has been biggest for the wind power industry [but many corporations are investing in solar as well]…” click here for more

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An Air B-n-B EV Charger-Sharing Plan Electric Car Charging Could Follow Airbnb Model; Individuals offer their charging stations to the public, to fill gaps in commercial recharging networks

Camille von Kaenel, August 2, 2016 (Scientific American)

“…The lack of charging infrastructure nationwide, especially outside EV-friendly cities, has long bred ‘range anxiety’ and chilled sales of the clean vehicles. Utilities, municipalities, workplaces and startups have all ramped up their investment in the infrastructure to calm fears. But in many places, EV drivers still depend on an unreliable patchwork of outlets at hotels and campgrounds…Increasingly, the sharing economy is filling the void. Private individuals…[are] offering their personal charging stations, mostly for free, near bustling highways or in…[remote places and earned the nickname ‘Airbnb of charging…’ The country now has 13,925 public electric charging stations, or 34,378 outlets, according to the Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center…[The on-line app PlugShare maps out tens of thousands of additional outlets from private residents]…” click here for more

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