Energy & the Environment News and Discussions

weatheriscool
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Europe added 41.4 GW of new solar in 2022
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/12/19/ ... r-in-2022/
In another record year for solar, SolarPower Europe estimates PV in Europe grew by 47% in 2022, rising from 28.1 GW in 2021 to 41.4 GW this year. Germany installed the most with 7.9 GW, followed by Spain at 7.5 GW, and Poland at 4.9 GW. For the first time, the top 10 European solar markets all added at least 1 GW.
December 19, 2022 Beatriz Santos
Europe added 41.4 GW of new solar capacity in 2022, according to SolarPower Europe’s (SPE) new EU Market Outlook for Solar Power 2022-2026 report. Annual additions grew by almost 50%, up from 28.1 GW in 2021. It's another record-breaking year for solar, with the continent adding 10 GW more capacity than predicted by SPE in 2021.

Germany again installed more solar than any other European country, adding 7.9 GW. Spain followed close behind with 7.5 GW of new installations, and Poland closed out the top three with 4.9 GW. Poland's shift from net-metering to net-billing in April 2022, combined with high electricity prices and a fast-growing utility-scale segment, contributed to its remarkable third-place performance.
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EPA enacts tougher pollution rule for trucks, vans and buses
Source: Washington Post
Manufacturers would have to reduce harmful tailpipe pollution from new trucks, delivery vans and buses under a long-awaited regulation the Biden administration finalized Tuesday — a rule that could protect public health in poor communities but does not go as far as many advocates hoped. The regulation marks the first time the federal government has tried to crack down on emissions from these diesel-powered vehicles in over two decades, and is aimed at improving the lives and health of Americans who live alongside highways, ports and sprawling distribution centers.

Exposed to heavy diesel exhaust, these predominantly poor, Black and brown communities suffer higher rates of asthma, heart disease and early death. “This is a very aggressive action to protect the health of 72 million Americans and people living in these truck freight routes,” Michael Regan, the administrator of the EPA, said in an interview with The Washington Post. Regan said the EPA rule is the first part of a three-step plan to cut pollution and planet-warming emissions from trucks and buses. Next spring, the administration plans to release a separate set of greenhouse gas rules for heavy-duty vehicles.

The new tailpipe rule — which will take effect 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register and apply beginning with model year 2027 — was the focus of heavy lobbying by vehicle makers , and it reflects the Biden administration’s struggle to crack down on pollution without inviting a legal backlash. The regulation will likely result in real health benefits, but it is sure to disappoint many public health advocates and progressives, who had pushed the EPA to be far more tough. It is not as stringent as California’s pollution regulations, which activists had held up as a model for federal policy.

In a setback for California’s ability to set pollution standards that are tougher than the federal limits, the EPA also announced that it would postpone making a decision until early next year about whether to grant the state’s request for the waivers it needs to enforce its own policies. The delay leaves the state’s truck pollution rules in limbo and affects the other states that have already signed-on to follow California’s regulations.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate- ... pollution/
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Energy giant ExxonMobil sues EU to block energy windfall tax
Source: BBC

US energy giant ExxonMobil is suing the EU in a bid to force the bloc to scrap its new windfall tax on oil firms. A windfall tax is imposed on firms that benefitted from something they were not responsible for. Energy firms are getting much more money for their oil and gas, partly due to supply concerns as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

But Exxon accuses Brussels of exceeding its legal authority, calling the measure "counter-productive". ExxonMobil reported a quarterly profit of almost $20 billion (£17.3 billion) in October. In September, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen announced the plan for major oil, gas and coal companies to pay a "crisis contribution" on their increased 2022 profits.

A 33% tax on this year's profits was announced, which were more than 20% higher than the average for the three previous years. But Exxon argues that the levy discourages investments and undermines investor confidence, in a challenge filed at the EU's Luxembourg-based General Court.

"Whether we invest here primarily depends on how attractive and globally competitive Europe will be," Exxon spokesperson Casey Norton told the Reuters news agency. In an investor meeting earlier this month, ExxonMobil's chief financial officer estimated that the EU tax would cost the group "over $2 billion".

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64113398
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To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
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Keystone Pipeline back up to speed after 600,000 gallon leak
Source: ABC News

A damaged section of the Keystone Pipeline was reopened Thursday after weeks of repairs and clean up following a leak of 600,000 gallons of crude oil into a Kansas creek, officials said.

For the first time since Dec. 7 the 2,687 mile conduit is fully operational, according to TC Energy, the pipeline's Canadian operator.

After completing repairs on the pipeline's Cushing extension, a controlled restart was executed Thursday, "safely returning the Keystone Pipeline to service," TC Energy said in a statement released Thursday afternoon.

U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) approved TC Energy's restart plan on Dec. 23, the company said.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/keyst ... r-AA15MYRD
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EPA finalizes water rule that repeals Trump-era changes

Source: Associated Press/By JIM SALTER and MICHAEL PHILLIS

ST. LOUIS (AP) — President Joe Biden’s administration on Friday finalized regulations that protect hundreds of thousands of small streams, wetlands and other waterways, repealing a Trump-era rule that federal courts had thrown out and that environmentalists said left waterways vulnerable to pollution.

The rule defines which “waters of the United States” are protected by the Clean Water Act. For decades, the term has been a flashpoint between environmental groups that want to broaden limits on pollution entering the nation’s waters and farmers, builders and industry groups that say extending regulations too far is onerous for business.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Army said the reworked rule is based on definitions that were in place prior to 2015. Federal officials said they wrote a “durable definition” of waterways to reduce uncertainty.

In recent years, however, there has been a lot of uncertainty. After the Obama administration sought to expand federal protections, the Trump administration rolled them back as part of its unwinding of hundreds of environmental and public health regulations. A federal judge rejected that effort. And a separate case is currently being considered by the Supreme Court that could yet upend the finalized rule.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/biden-politi ... e48220dcce
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EPA moves to toughen standards for deadly soot pollution
Source: AP

By MATTHEW DALY 36 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is proposing tougher standards for a deadly air pollutant, saying that reducing soot from tailpipes, smokestacks and wildfires could prevent thousands of premature deaths a year.

A proposal released Friday by the Environmental Protection Agency would set maximum levels of 9 to 10 micrograms of fine particle pollution per cubic meter of air, down from 12 micrograms set a decade ago under the Obama administration. The standard for particle pollution, more commonly known as soot, was left unchanged by then-President Donald Trump, who overrode a scientific recommendation for a lower standard in his final days in office.

Environmental and public health groups that have been pushing for a stronger standard were disappointed, saying the EPA proposal does not go far enough to limit emissions of what is broadly called “fine particulate matter,” the tiny bits of soot we breathe in unseen from tailpipes, wildfires, factory and power plant smokestacks and other sources.

In a development that could lead to an even lower standard, the EPA said Friday it also would take comments on a range of ideas submitted by a scientific advisory committee, including a proposal that would lower the maximum standard for soot to 8 micrograms. A microgram is one-millionth of a gram.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/wildfires-cl ... osition_04
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U.S. Department of Energy rejects initial bids to resupply oil stockpile
Source: Reuters

The U.S. Department of Energy has rejected the first batch of bids from oil companies to resupply a small amount of oil to the nation’s emergency crude oil stockpile in February, according to a DOE spokesperson.

The DOE last month had said it would purchase up to 3 million barrels for delivery to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in February, the first buy since last year’s record 180-million-barrel release to tame U.S. pump prices.

“Following review of the initial submission, DOE will not be making any award selections for the February delivery window,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

“DOE will only select bids that meet the required crude specifications and that are at a price that is a good deal for taxpayers,” the spokesperson said.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy ... 023-01-08/
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Solar-powered system converts plastic and greenhouse gases into sustainable fuels
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-01-sol ... nable.html
by University of Cambridge

Researchers have developed a system that can transform plastic waste and greenhouse gases into sustainable fuels and other valuable products—using just the energy from the sun.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, developed the system, which can convert two waste streams into two chemical products at the same time—the first time this has been achieved in a solar-powered reactor.

The reactor converts the carbon dioxide (CO2) and plastics into different products that are useful in a range of industries. In tests, CO2 was converted into syngas, a key building block for sustainable liquid fuels, and plastic bottles were converted into glycolic acid, which is widely used in the cosmetics industry. The system can easily be tuned to produce different products by changing the type of catalyst used in the reactor.

Converting plastics and greenhouse gases—two of the biggest threats facing the natural world—into useful and valuable products using solar energy is an important step in the transition to a more sustainable, circular economy. The results are reported in the journal Nature Synthesis.

"Converting waste into something useful using solar energy is a major goal of our research," said Professor Erwin Reisner from the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, the paper's senior author. "Plastic pollution is a huge problem worldwide, and often, many of the plastics we throw into recycling bins are incinerated or end up in landfill."

Reisner also leads the Cambridge Circular Plastics Center (CirPlas), which aims to eliminate plastic waste by combining blue-sky thinking with practical measures.

Other solar-powered "recycling" technologies hold promise for addressing plastic pollution and for reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but to date, they have not been combined in a single process.

"A solar-driven technology that could help to address plastic pollution and greenhouse gases at the same time could be a game-changer in the development of a circular economy," said Subhajit Bhattacharjee, the paper's co-first author.
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