QUICK NEWS, December 18: How Climate Change Is Attacking The U.S. Military; Research Confirms Plummeting Price Of Wind; New Energy Supports Saved In Final Tax Bill
How Climate Change Is Attacking The U.S. Military Climate Change Already Hampers U.S. Military Sites Around the World, Government Study Finds; The U.S. military is neglecting to plan for climate change-related risks facing hundreds of overseas facilities, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office.
David Leestma, December 18, 2017 (EcoWatch)
“…The Defense Department has identified climate change and its effects as threats to facilities, but a gap remains between determining threats and implementing solutions…[In addition to failing to plan for and incorporate climate change's risks into project designs,] many facilities are not consistently tracking costs incurred by extreme weather [according to Climate Change Adaptation; DOD Needs to Better Incorporate Adaptation into Planning and Collaboration at Overseas Installations]…Requested by the Democrats in the Senate, the study by GAO—a nonpartisan oversight agency—visited 45 military installations around the world. Only one-third of these facilities had integrated climate change adaptation into their planning…[GAO recommended systematically tracking] costs associated with climate impacts…[re-administering] its vulnerability assessment survey to include all relevant sites…[integrating] climate change adaptation into relevant standards; and…[including] climate change adaptation in host-nation agreements…[Lucian Niemeyer, the Trump-nominated assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations and environment] pushed back against some of the study's assertions and claimed that blaming infrastructure damage on climate change is [speculative]…” click here for more
Research Confirms Plummeting Price Of Wind New Report PROVES Wind Power’s REAL cost
Simon Mahan, December 18, 2017 (Clean Energy.Org)
“…Old arguments regarding variable energy resources, like renewable energy, appear to be falling flat…[In 2016, wind energy surpassed 10% of total generation for fourteen states…Average wind farm installation prices have dropped to roughly $1,590/kW (kilowatt) [according to 2016 Wind Technologies Market Report]. Some projects in the Interior region of the country were installed for roughly $1,200/kW. The national average levelized cost of power purchase agreements (PPA) has reached $20 per megawatt hour ($20/MWh), or 2 cents per kilowatt hour, with a number of projects in the Interior region venturing below 2 cents. Those prices are below long-term fuel costs for natural gas power plants…Wind power remains the top energy resource entered into various interconnection queues, with just over 140,000 megawatts entered, with nearly half that amount entered just in 2016. Solar power is also experiencing explosive growth, with over 80,000 megawatts of solar power capacity entered in to queues last year…[W]ith new planned nuclear and coal units virtually eliminated, it’s clear there are massive changes underway in the electric markets…” click here for more
New Energy Supports Saved In Final Tax Bill Tax Bill Largely Preserves Incentives for Wind and Solar Power
Brad Plumer, December 16, 2017 (Washington Post)
“The final text of the Republican tax bill…largely preserves key tax credits for wind and solar power and electric vehicles, reversing language in earlier versions…The last-minute changes, made as lawmakers reconciled the House and Senate versions of the tax legislation, reflect the growing political clout of the wind and solar industries, which now provide more than 7 percent of the nation’s electricity and are two of the fastest-growing energy sources…[Industry groups] expressed relief [that the scheduled phase out of most of the major incentives for New Energy will remain in place]…When combined with the falling costs of wind turbines and photovoltaic panels, these incentives can make new wind and solar even cheaper than running existing fossil-fuel plants in parts of the country…Several Republican senators, including Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Dean Heller of Nevada, had [fought for the New Energies]…The American Council on Renewable Energy, an industry trade group, said it ‘remained concerned’ about changes that [could compropmise the roughly two-thirds of wind projects and three-fourths of solar projects in the United States supported by tax-equity financing through multinational investors…” click here for more
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