Energy & the Environment News and Discussions

[firestar464]

[wjfox]

[Yuli Ban]

Coal power has effectively died in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom was the birthplace of coal. It has now, effectively, died there.

As shown in the chart, in the late 1980s, around two-thirds of the UK’s electricity came from coal. By the time I was born in the 1990s, this had dropped to just over half.

The use of coal has plummeted in my lifetime. It now makes up less than 2% of the UK’s electricity.

[wjfox]

The use of coal has plummeted in my lifetime. It now makes up less than 2% of the UK’s electricity.

We don't even have 2% anymore. A month after that article was written, the UK closed its last remaining coal station, in Nottinghamshire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratcliffe ... er_Station



Crep171166, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

[weatheriscool]

ESA Launches Satellite Designed to Capture Earth's Forest Biomass
'Weighing' the planet's forests will help scientists understand just how much vegetation plays a role in Earth's natural carbon sinks.
By Adrianna Nine April 29, 2025
https://www.extremetech.com/science/esa ... st-biomass

The European Space Agency (ESA) launched a satellite on Tuesday that will "weigh" Earth's forests, offering a more complete measurement of their biomass. The final measurement, which has only been estimated so far, will help scientists understand just how much vegetation plays a role in the planet's natural carbon sinks.

The satellite, called Biomass, launched aboard a small-lift Vega-C rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, South America on April 29 at 11:15 a.m. CEST (5:15 a.m. EST). Within an hour, Biomass separated from Vega-C's upper stage; 73 minutes after launch, the satellite sent a signal to ESA via Antarctica's Troll ground station, indicating that it was operating normally in orbit. Mission controllers will now spend the next few days completing Biomass's "early orbit" phase, which includes system checks and the deployment of the satellite's mesh reflector.

[caltrek]

10 Charts Prove that Clean Energy is Winning — Even in the Trump Era
by Umair Irfan, Benji Jones, Adam Clark Estes, and Sam Delgado
April 21, 2025

Introduction:

(Vox) At every light switch, power socket, and on the road, an unstoppable revolution is already underway.

Technologies that can power our lives and jobs while doing less harm to the global climate — wind, solar, batteries, etc. — are getting cheaper, more efficient, and more abundant. The pace of progress on price, scale, and performance has been so extraordinary that even the most optimistic forecasts about green tech in the past have turned out to be too pessimistic. Clean energy isn’t just powering our devices, tools, and luxuries — it’s growing the global economy, creating a whole suite of new jobs, and reshaping trade.

And despite what headlines may say, there’s no sign these trends will reverse. Political and economic turmoil may slow down clean energy, but the sector has built up so much momentum that it’s become nigh unstoppable.

Take a look at Texas: The largest oil- and gas-producing state in the US is also the largest in wind energy, and it’s installing more solar than any other. Texas utilities have come to realize that investing in clean energy is not just good for the environment; it’s good business. And even without subsidies and preferential treatment, the benefits of clean technologies — in clean air, scalability, distribution, and cost — have become impossible to ignore.

And there’s only more room to grow. The world is still in the early stages of this revolution as market forces become the driver rather than environmental worries. In some US markets, installing new renewable energy is cheaper than running existing coal plants. Last year, the US produced more electricity from wind and solar power than from coal for the first time.

Read more here: https://www.vox.com/climate/377072/dat ... velocity

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

E.P.A. Plans to Shut Down the Energy Star Program
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/clim ... nated.html

https://archive.ph/1zSnR

Employees were told that the popular energy efficiency certification program would be “de-prioritized and eliminated,” according to documents and a recording.
By Lisa Friedman and Rebecca F. Elliott
May 6, 2025 Updated 8:46 p.m. ET

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate Energy Star, the popular energy efficiency certification for dishwashers, refrigerators, dryers and other home appliances, according to agency documents and a recording of an internal meeting.

E.P.A. managers announced during a staff meeting on Monday that divisions that oversee climate change and energy efficiency would be eliminated as part of an agency reorganization. That includes the E.P.A.’s climate change office as well as the division that oversees Energy Star.

“The Energy Star program and all the other climate work, outside of what’s required by statute, is being de-prioritized and eliminated,” Paul Gunning, the director of the E.P.A. Office of Atmospheric Protection, told employees during the meeting, according to the recording obtained by The New York Times. Mr. Gunning’s office itself is also slated for elimination.

For the past 33 years, Energy Star has been known for its recognizable blue label, which shows that an appliance has met energy efficiency standards set by the federal government.

It has been credited with changing the way Americans shop by encouraging manufacturers to make products that use less power, as well as with reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Since its creation under the first President George Bush in 1992, Energy Star has helped households and businesses save more than $500 billion in energy costs and to get rebates and tax credits, according to the program’s 2024 report. At the same time, it has also prevented four billion metric tons of greenhouse gases from being released into the atmosphere.

[weatheriscool]

Trump to allow commercial fishing in New England marine monument

Source: Reuters

May 9, 2025 5:34 PM EDT Updated 11 hours ago

May 9 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Friday will sign a proclamation restoring commercial fishing access to a marine national monument off New England, according to a White House official. The move is aligned with the Trump administration's efforts to cut regulations it believes are burdensome to businesses and economic activity.

The proclamation will reopen the nearly 5,000-square-mile (13,000-square-kilometer) Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which was designated by former President Barack Obama in 2016 to protect species including deep-sea corals, sea turtles and whales.

Trump opened the monument to fishing during his first term in 2020, but that was reversed by former President Joe Biden in 2021. The decision supports fishing communities, economic activity and jobs, the White House official said. A recent aerial survey of the monument by the New England Aquarium, supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, found over 600 animals, including a humpback whale calf and bottlenose dolphin calves, the group posted on Facebook on Friday.

Peter Auster, research professor emeritus of marine sciences at the University of Connecticut, said the monument serves as an important reference site for understanding how human activity in the ocean affects marine life. “Without protected areas like this that exclude commercial scale activities, we have no measure of how human uses elsewhere at sea impact biodiversity,” Auster said.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/enviro ... 025-05-09/

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

Oh look – another greedy, short-termist measure now having longer-term consequences.

Who'd have thought it.

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Poor building standards add £1,000 to energy bills of new homes, analysis finds

Fri 16 May 2025 05.00 BST

People living in newly built homes are being hit with energy bills that are nearly £1,000 a year higher than need be because of the poor standards to which they have been constructed.

Occupants of homes built in the past seven years have paid about £5bn more in energy bills than they would have if regulations requiring new homes to be low-carbon had not been scrapped in 2016, according to analysis seen by the Guardian.

Equipping new homes with heat pumps, solar panels and high-grade insulation at the time of construction would have cost between £5,000 and £8,500 for most of the period since 2016. Housebuilders, however, have long claimed building to such standards would be prohibitively expensive.

Instead, most new homes have been built to lower standards of insulation, and with gas boilers instead of heat pumps. About six out of 10 new homes are still being built without solar panels. While the government has recently confirmed new regulations are likely to require renewable energy generation to be incorporated in most new homes, which is likely to mean solar panels in most cases, there are still questions over whether an adequate number of panels will be mandated.

Jess Ralston, energy analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, the thinktank that produced the analysis, said: “Governments giving in to housebuilder lobbying have left Britain with more poor-quality homes, more dependent on foreign gas, and more exposed to the highly volatile gas markets during the ongoing energy crisis. Unless we lower our gas demand by building better, warmer homes that run on heat pumps then we’ll just have to import more from abroad, as the North Sea continues its decades-long decline in output.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ysis-shows

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

Exactly as predicted by anyone who studies exponential trends.

But even when solar/wind + batteries are covering 100% of our energy and baseload needs, I expect there'll still be people clamouring for more expensive, outdated, slow-to-construct nuclear power plants.

[weatheriscool]

US EPA drafting plan to erase greenhouse gas limits on coal and gas-fired power plants

Source: Reuters

May 24, 2025 10:29 AM EDT Updated 7 hours ago


WASHINGTON, May 24 (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed on Saturday that it was drafting a plan to eliminate all limits on greenhouse gases from coal and gas-fired power plants in the United States and would be published after interagency review.

"Many have voiced concerns that the last administration's replacement for that rule is similarly overreaching and an attempt to shut down affordable and reliable electricity generation in the United States, raising prices for American families, and increasing the country's reliance on foreign forms of energy," a spokesperson for the agency said. "As part of this reconsideration, EPA is developing a proposed rule."

The draft plan was first reported by the New York Times, which said the EPA argued in its proposed regulation that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from power plants that burn fossil fuels "do not contribute significantly to dangerous pollution" or to climate change because they are a small and declining share of global emissions. The EPA also said that eliminating those emissions would have no meaningful effect on public health and welfare, the report added.

According to the United Nations, fossil fuels are by far the largest contributors to global warming, accounting for more than 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90% of carbon dioxide emissions. The U.S. government under President Donald Trump has moved quickly to remove all federal spending related to efforts to combat climate change and to eliminate any regulation aimed at addressing greenhouse gas emissions as part of its effort to bolster oil, gas and mining operations.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/ ... 025-05-24/

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

bruh I thought China was all about being green

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

Survival of the Greenest: Why World’s Oldest Organizations are Surpassing Young Upstarts in Environmental Sustainability
June 5, 2025

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) What does it take for a company to last for centuries? Ask most business analysts, and you’ll hear about innovation, financial acumen, or strategic pivots. But new research suggests another key to organizational survival: environmental sustainability. In a study recently published in Frontiers in Organizational Psychology, an international team of researchers reveals a robust link between organizations’ longevity and their commitment to environmentally sustainable business practices. The findings challenge the assumption that younger, more agile companies are best positioned to lead on climate and environmental issues.

The study explores whether firms that have stood the test of time — some over a century old — are also those most committed to preserving the planet. It’s a timely question. As climate change accelerates and the call for corporate accountability grows louder, understanding the organizational characteristics associated with environmental responsibility is more critical than ever.

The study analyzed data from hundreds of firms including industry leaders in tech, manufacturing, and finance in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and Asia. Our goal was simple yet ambitious: determine whether older organizations exhibit stronger environmental sustainability performance than younger ones. To answer this, our team analyzed environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings drawn from multiple independent sources, including CSRHub, S&P Global, and Thomson Reuters, that evaluate companies on dimensions of climate strategy, eco-efficiency, and environmental reporting.

Standing the test of time

The results were striking. In every region examined, older organizations outperformed their younger counterparts on environmental metrics.

Conclusion:

Sustainability is not a generational rivalry. It is not a race between new and old, small and large, or East and West; it is a test of adaptation, a shared evolutionary journey where the most enduring organizations are often those that embrace sustainability as central to who they are. The climate crisis is rewriting what it means to lead in business, and in this new chapter, the champions will be not only the boldest or the strongest, but the greenest.

Read more of the Eurekalert article here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1085926

For a presentation of study results as published in Frontiers in Organizational Psychology: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/o ... 537/full

caltrek’s comment: Many U.S. oil industry businesses stand out as contrary to this trend. While energy companies outside of U.S. borders often pursue more sustainable energy technologies, such companies in the U.S. double down of fossil fuel usage. Encouraged, no doubt, by political leaders such as Donald Trump.