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newsclips -- ARB Newsclips for December 12, 2013.
Posted: 12 Dec 2013 14:05:31
ARB Newsclips for December 12, 2013. This is a service of the California Air Resources Board’s Office of Communications. You may need to sign in or register with individual websites to view some of the following news articles. CAP AND TRADE UPDATE 1-Guangdong may withhold free permits in China's 4th emissions scheme: sources. China's Guangdong province has warned emitters that unless they bid for carbon permits in government auctions at a regulated minimum price, they will not receive any free permits under the nation's fourth emissions trading scheme, sources said. China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, is launching seven pilot carbon markets ahead of a nationwide scheme later this decade…Posted. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/12/china-guangdong-carbon-idUSL3N0JR19J20131212 Groups Call for Repayment of Loan From Cap-and-Trade Auction Proceeds. Lawmakers approved a one-time loan from the auction proceeds to the general fund last fiscal year. The Governor is now preparing to release his 2014-2015 budget proposal in January. The coalition says the Governor has a legal obligation to repay the loan and invest in programs that reduce carbon pollution. Posted. http://www.capradio.org/articles/2013/12/11/groups-call-for-repayment-of-loan-from-cap-and-trade-auction-proceeds/ AIR POLLUTION Beijing to buy new buses to clear city smog –media. China's capital Beijing, regularly shrouded in hazardous air pollution, plans to replace its oil-burning buses with greener models by 2017 to help clear the smog, state news agency Xinhua said. Nearly 14,000 new buses powered by electricity or natural gas will be bought to replace two-thirds of Beijing's bus fleet and halve carbon emissions, Xinhua said on Thursday, citing the city's environment and transportation authorities. Posted. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/12/china-buses-idUSL3N0JR3KS20131212 Toxins from burning bodies bad for Oakland, lawsuit says. Oakland approved a large crematorium in an East Oakland industrial area without first considering the health impacts of burning some 3,000 bodies a year, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by an East Oakland environmental group. The suit, announced Wednesday by Communities for a Better Environment, alleges that Oakland's city planners wrongly considered the crematorium a "general manufacturing facility" that could be approved without a public hearing. Posted. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Toxins-from-burning-bodies-bad-for-Oakland-5056562.php http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_24709052/lawsuit-oakland-crematorium-will-pollute-air?IADID=Search-www.insidebayarea.com-www.insidebayarea.com http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_24709052/lawsuit-oakland-crematorium-will-pollute-air?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/12/12/3663112/lawsuit-oakland-crematorium-will.html High court likely to allow Obama’s clean-air rules. The fate of key clean-air regulations — central to the President Obama’s larger environmental agenda — now rests with the Supreme Court, which on Tuesday hinted it may throw the administration a lifeline and allow controversial pollution rules to be reinstated. The high court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that’s pitted the administration against states and the energy industry and one that centers on the Environmental Protection Agency’s so-called good neighbor rule, which was struck down by a lower court last year. Posted. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/10/high-court-likely-to-allow-obamas-clean-air-rules/ Thursday will be record fifth straight Spare the Air day. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District issued the season’s ninth winter Spare the Air alert for Thursday, which bans the burning of wood, manufactured fire logs or any other solid fuel both indoors and outdoors for 24 hours. Extremely cold, stagnant weather persists in the Bay Area, causing the air district to call a record fifth consecutive alert. Posted. http://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/thursday-will-be-record-fifth-straight-spare-the-air-day/article_8a0d49e4-62ac-11e3-94c4-001a4bcf887a.html CLIMATE CHANGE Will city warm to a costly climate plan? Many scientists and environmental activists have declared the debate over man-made global warming to be over. Even climate-change skeptics seem to admit as much, at least in terms of public-policy. Like it or not, officials at every level of government view climate change as a given and are crafting regulations to combat it. It may be pointless to get into scientific scuffles at this point, but there is another global-warming debate that is emerging. Posted. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/dec/11/will-san-diego-warm-costly-climate-plan/ DIESEL EMISSIONS CARB gives conditional OK to emissions reduction system. Carrier Transicold announced that its optional engine emissions system (EES) has received conditional verification from the California Air Resources Board (CARB). The EES reduces diesel particulates from trailer refrigeration units by more than 98%, Carrier Transicold said. According to Carrier Transicold, the EES is the first OEM-developed CARB level 3+ verified diesel emissions control (VDEC) device for trailer refrigeration units…Posted. http://fleetowner.com/running-green/carb-gives-conditional-ok-emissions-reduction-system FUELS U.S. Senators introduce bill to eliminate corn ethanol mandate. A group of 10 U.S. Senators introduced a bipartisan bill on Thursday to eliminate the corn ethanol mandate, arguing that current law raises the cost of food and animal feed and damages the environment. The bill, introduced by Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat; Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican; and eight cosponsors, faces an uphill battle as many lawmakers from agricultural states support the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)…Posted. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/12/us-usa-ethanol-corn-idUSBRE9BB0WR20131212 UPDATE 1-Governments fail to agree EU limit on food-based biofuels. EU energy ministers on Thursday failed to agree on a compromise deal to limit the use of transport fuels made from food crops, which critics say pushes up food prices and can do more harm than good to the environment. The European Union's Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said the delay would damage its efforts to reduce dependence on gas and oil imported…Posted. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/12/eu-biofuels-idUSL6N0JR2VL20131212 In Podesta, a Keystone skeptic returns to White House. John Podesta's return to the White House could dim prospects for the Keystone XL pipeline's approval, environmentalists said Wednesday, as the Democratic Party elder and Keystone critic crafts policies to curb climate change. Podesta, who was chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, will have the title "counselor to the president" and chiefly advise President Barack Obama on energy and climate change issues, the White House said this week. Posted. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/11/us-usa-whitehouse-keystone-idUSBRE9BA04H20131211 As U.S. gov't cuts back on biofuel, some rue 'collateral damage' Ben Wootton was just getting ready to bring his company out of bankruptcy last month when word from Washington stopped him in his tracks. Instead of an expected pick-up in sales for the biofuel-based diesel that he makes from recycled cooking oil at a suburban Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, plant, demand is likely to drop due to a proposed freeze on U.S. consumption mandates. "I won't be alive, for sure," said Wootton, who runs the 1.5 million gallon per year Keystone Biofuels plant. Posted. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/12/us-epa-biofuels-idUSBRE9BB02920131212 More refinery closures on the cards for 2014 –IEA. An increase in new oil refining capacity and a rise in production of fuel not processed at refineries will lead to more plant closures in 2014, the International Energy Agency said in its latest monthly report. Crude distillation capacity will increase by a net 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2013 and a further 1.2 million bpd in 2014, IEA forecast in its December Oil Market Report. Refineries in Europe, in particular, have been hit hard by competition from plants in the United States and Asia…Posted. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/11/iea-refining-idUSL6N0JQ27H20131211 How Shale Helped Frack Mexico's Energy Impasse. After decades of inertia, the energy-reform proposal given general approval by the Mexican Senate late Tuesday goes even further than many had expected. The country's rapidly changing energy relationship with its northern neighbor helps explain why. Mexico's dismal decline in oil production, to 2.94 million barrels per day last year from 3.85 million in 2004, is the obvious impetus for trying to coax in more foreign money and expertise. Posted. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304202204579252093109526358?mod=WSJ_Energy_2_4_Right Exxon: Rising living standards propel energy needs. Exxon Mobil says the drive for higher living standards around the world will keep demand for electricity and transportation fuels growing even as economies get more efficient and governments put a price on pollution. The company's annual long-term energy outlook, released Thursday, predicts world energy demand will grow 35 percent by 2040 as electricity and modern fuels …Posted. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/dec/11/exxon-rising-living-standards-propel-energy-needs/ HIGH-SPEED RAIL Sides go back to court in high-speed train lawsuit. The combatants in a lawsuit over California's high-speed project head back to court Friday afternoon in Sacramento. Lawyers with the California Attorney General's Office and attorneys for high-speed rail opponents in Kings County will meet in a case management conference that is expected to set a spring trial date over allegations that current plans for the proposed bullet-train violate Proposition 1A…Posted. http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/12/11/3661992/sides-go-back-to-court-in-high.html#storylink=cpy GREEN ENERGY Muni trolley wire 'visual pollution' electrifies debate. San Francisco's 78-year-old system of electric trolley buses sounds like a model of green transportation: low-noise, no-emission, high-capacity vehicles that serve the city's busiest Muni routes. At least until you look up. The wires that supply power to the buses run above miles of city streets, putting caps of electric lines over some of San Francisco's most traveled intersections before disappearing into rats' nests of overhead wires strung by a motley list of public utilities. Posted. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Muni-trolley-wire-visual-pollution-electrifies-5056671.php MISCELLANEOUS Calif. Assembly Democrats urge $8B budget reserve. Assembly Speaker John Perez pledged Wednesday to cautiously begin restoring funding to some social programs that were slashed during the recession and said lawmakers will ask voters to approve a revised rainy day fund on the November 2014 ballot. Having a voter-mandated savings plan and building an $8 billion budget reserve by 2017 would protect the state from future "slashes and cuts" like those that devastated state programs in recent years, said Perez, D-Los Angeles. Posted. http://www.sacbee.com/2013/12/11/5992674/calif-assembly-democrats-urge.html#storylink=cpy BLOGS China’s Rust Belt Cities Hit With New Air Pollution Fines. A province in the heart of China’s rust belt has levied air pollution fines on city governments for the first time, in a sign that pressure to improve air quality in the world’s second-largest economy is trickling down to the local level. Liaoning, one of the nation’s largest industrial hubs, has so far collected a total of 54.2 million yuan ($8.9 million) from eight of its cities after it passed tougher air-pollution regulations last year, the official Xinhua news agency reported Monday. Posted. http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/12/11/new-air-pollution-fines-hit-chinas-rust-belt-cities/?KEYWORDS=air+pollution Toyota wants to sell 5k-10k fuel cell vehicles a year, to start. Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) powered by hydrogen were taken more seriously at the LA Auto Show and Tokyo Motor Show last month than ever before, but their presence in the market is still shrouded in fog. Soichiro Okudaira, chief officer of research and development at Toyota, is confident fuel cell costs will come down enough to make FCEVs "just one alternative of the eco cars," but that probably won't happen for another 10-15 years. Posted. http://green.autoblog.com/2013/12/12/toyota-wants-to-sell-5k-10k-fuel-cell-vehicles-a-year-to-start/ SolarCity using Tesla battery tech for DemandLogic grid energy storage. Grid energy storage is becoming a tangible business opportunity for cleantech companies and automakers these days – it's all that's left of Coda, for example, and Toyota is open to the opportunities. Sun-power provider SolarCity has entered the market with DemandLogic, a smart energy storage system designed to deal with what it calls two major pain points for businesses: rising utility demand charges and increasing grid outages. Posted. http://green.autoblog.com/2013/12/12/solarcity-using-tesla-battery-tech-for-demandlogic-grid-energy-s/ 2014 World Cup to nearly double carbon emissions over 2010. The 2014 World Cup in Brazil will dump 2.72 million tons of carbon dioxide into Earth’s atmosphere, according to the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA). To put that number into perspective, it’s equivalent to the CO2 produced by 560,000 cars in a year, or 136,000 American homes. And that’s over 1 million tons more CO2 than was emitted by the previous World Cup in 2010. Posted. http://grist.org/climate-energy/2014-world-cup-to-nearly-double-carbon-emissions-over-2010/