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newsclips -- Newsclips for August 10, 2011.
Posted: 10 Aug 2011 14:12:56
California Air Resources Board News Clips for August 10, 2011. 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. AIR POLLUTION Air District: Help take control of pollution to avoid fine. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District has created a new plan for keeping ozone levels below the EPA limit, even as local drivers and businesses brace for a $29 million noncompliance fee. That controversial annual fine, which could go into effect as early as the fall, will tack on $12 to valley car registrations and charge large businesses that haven't invested in emissions-reducing technology. Posted. http://www.bakersfield.com/news/local/x1206333696/Air-district-Help-take-control-of-pollution-to-avoid-fine CLIMATE CHANGE Carbon contracts lose Chicago exchange as attention shifts to Calif. market. Commodity trading house IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) Inc. is phasing out the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange and shifting its focus to California. ICE's decision comes at a tough time for environmental commodities trading. Financiers dabbling in U.S. emissions trading have been reassessing their business in the United States since the Senate set aside legislation to create a national cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2011/08/09/4 BY PAID SUBSCRIPTION ONLY FUELS Can an industry with big trucks and small wallets cut fuel use? Truckers face a relatively gentle on-ramp as they comply with the Obama administration's new fuel efficiency standards, an industry group said yesterday. The Obama administration set the first-ever standards for the industry yesterday. From 2014 to 2018, heavy-duty trucks will have to get 10, 15 or 20 percent more efficient, depending on the type of truck (Greenwire, Aug. 9). Getting there won't take much more than "off the shelf" technology, according to the White House. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2011/08/10/2 BY PAID SUBSCRIPTION ONLY Fuel-efficient auto effort already supports 151,000 jobs, report states. More than 151,000 Americans already have jobs aimed at making cars and trucks more fuel-efficient, according to a new report. The number of clean-vehicle technology jobs is also expected to increase as the automotive industry embraces new fuel economy standards. "We know the technology exists to make cleaner vehicles, we know that cleaner vehicles can lead to savings at the pump, …Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2011/08/10/5 BY PAID SUBSCRIPTION ONLY White house announces 20% emissions cut for heavy trucks by 2018. The White House today announced the first-ever efficiency standards for heavy trucks and work vehicles, which would improve the fuel economy of tractor-trailers by 20 percent. The standards, which will apply to vehicles produced between 2014 and 2018, are expected to save $50 billion in fuel costs over the life of the vehicles while slashing 270 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/print/2011/08/09/5 BY PAID SUBSCRIPTION ONLY VEHICLES Heavy Trucks to Be Subject to New Rules for Mileage. Big tractor-trailer trucks will have to get 20 percent more miles per gallon by the 2018 model year under the first-ever fuel economy rules for heavy vehicles, announced Tuesday by President Obama. The rules mimic the “light duty” fuel economy standards for cars and sport utility vehicles that have been in place since 1975. But they are more complex, tailored to cover vehicles including garbage trucks, which must get a 10 percent improvement, and pickups and vans too big to be covered by the existing rules, which must now make a 15 percent improvement. Posted. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/science/earth/10truck.html?_r=1&scp=8&sq=diesel%20emissions&st=cse First fuel-efficiency and greenhouse-gas emissions standards for trucks announced. President Obama and truck makers reach agreement on fuel economy and pollution standards for big rigs, work trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles. Reporting from Washington— President Obama announced the first fuel-efficiency and greenhouse gas standards for long-haul rigs, work trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles Tuesday, the second mileage pact with manufacturers in less than a month. The regulations call for reductions on fuel consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions by 2018 of 9% to 23%, depending on the type of vehicle. Posted. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-trucks-20110810,0,6810898.story High-speed rail price tag soars again, this time on pace to surpass $60 billion. For the second time since voters approved California's massive bullet train project, the state on Tuesday raised the total price tag for the first stretch by several billion dollars -- and now the cost for the entire rail line is on pace to skyrocket to an eye-popping $60 billion to $80 billion or even more. http://www.mercurynews.com/california-budget/ci_18645051?source=rss Michigan leads U.S. in clean car jobs, UAW-backed study says. Michigan has 24 percent of U.S. jobs related to "clean" car technology, the most of any state, a report by the UAW and two environmental groups said. The state has 38,067 of the 155,466 U.S. workers who make products that increase fuel efficiency or reduce emissions, according to a study released by the UAW, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Wildlife Federation. Posted. http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110809/OEM05/308099812/1186 By SUBSCRIPTION ONLY Heavy-duty fuel efficiency standards to reduce oil imports by a third by 2025. In a preview yesterday of what is to transpire later this morning at the White House, senior administration officials said new fuel efficiency standards for heavy- and medium-duty trucks, vans and buses will reduce carbon pollution from tractor-trailers by about 20 percent, medium-duty trucks and vans about 15 percent and vocational vehicles from fire trucks to garbage haulers, by about 10 percent. Posted. http://www.thetrucker.com/News/Stories/2011/8/9/Heavy-dutyfuelefficiencystandardstoreduceoilimportsbyathirdby2025.aspx First All-Electric Subscription Plan: Car 2.0 Pricing. Recently, Tesla, a trailblazer in revolutionizing the current era of electric cars announced the end of production of the original Roadster. Tesla is phasing out the Roadster, which cost over $100k the past few years, and phasing in its new Model S, which will have a version as low as $57,400. As Tesla spokesperson Khobi Brooklyn explained in a Fast Company article titled “The End of an Era“ that the roadster made huge advances in the all-electric vehicle (EV) …Posted. http://cleantechnica.com/2011/08/08/first-all-electric-subscription-plan-car-2-0-pricing/ GREEN ENERGY Calif. Solar Plant Faces Lawsuit. An initiative to build one of the world's largest solar power plants is finally having its day in court. Located in Panoche Valley, south of Silicon Valley, the $1.8 billion, 399-megawatt facility is the center of a debate between environmentalists who support green energy and environmentalists who fear the plant will harm wildlife. The proposal, slated to break ground in 2013, was approved last year by the San Benito County Board of Supervisors, but environmental groups including the Sierra Club …Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2011/08/10/9 BY PAID SUBSCRIPTION ONLY FERC Pulls Plug On Northern Calif. Wave Power Project. Wave power's prospects in California suffered another setback last week when federal regulators quietly yanked a permit for a pilot project that was to operate off the coast of Sonoma County in the northern part of the state. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission told the Sonoma County Water Agency that it will cancel a permit issued in 2009 for a "hydrokinetic" project off the coast because of a lack of funds. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/print/2011/08/09/8 BY PAID SUBSCRIPTION ONLY MISCELLANEOUS An Economist for Nature Calculates the Need for More Protection. Dawn is breaking over this remote upland region, where neat rows of coffee plants cover many of the hillsides. The rising tropical sun saturates the landscape with color, revealing islandlike remnants of native forest scattered among the coffee plantations. But across this bucolic countryside, trouble is brewing. An invasive African insect known as the coffee berry borer is threatening the area’s crops. Local farmers call the pest “la broca”: the borer. Posted. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/science/09profile.html?ref=earth OPINIONS Utilities Cash In When You Go Solar. I recently got a copy of a utility bill for a Minnesota business that has a 40 kilowatt (kW) solar PV array. I wanted to learn how quickly they'd pay off their array with the electricity savings. I was shocked. Payback time was 30 years. Even if the business owner had received a generous $2.00 per Watt rebate on top of federal tax incentives, it would still take 22 years to recoup the investment. It all came down to the way utilities account for solar power under "net metering" rules. Posted. http://www.grist.org/solar-power/2011-08-08-clever-accounting-lets-utilities-cash-in-when-you-go-solar BLOGS Fuel Economy: It’s Not Just for Cars Anymore. The Obama administration issued fuel economy standards on Tuesday for medium and heavy trucks, the first time the government has regulated vehicles over 8,500 pounds. The vehicles in this category range from the very largest S.U.V.’s, and pickup trucks that are too big to be household vehicles, all the way to 18-wheelers, which have a maximum loaded weight of 80,000 pounds. Posted. http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/fuel-economy-its-not-just-for-cars-anymore/?scp=2&sq=air%20pollution&st=cse Natural Carbon Storage Off the California Coast? A new study from the University of Southern California finds that the cool waters off the coast of Los Angeles are acting as a carbon sink by sequestering more carbon than other parts of the world’s oceans. Lisa Collins, a lecturer at the USC Dornsife College, spent four years studying samples from floating sediment traps in the San Pedro Basin as a way to determine what’s falling through the water column and how deep it’s getting. Posted. http://blogs.kqed.org/climatewatch/2011/08/09/natural-carbon-storage-off-the-california-coast/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kqed%2FClimateWatchBlog+%28KQED%27s+Climate+Watch+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader Getting more voices into the climate game, starting with Steven Chu. It's easy to overthink the problem of climate change skepticism, to get caught up in sophisticated theories about the psychology of communication. (Er, guilty.) But the question of how to influence public opinion does have some simple answers. One thing that changes people's minds is receiving signals that trusted people and institutions are in agreement on an issue, that it's no longer contested, that it's socially "safe" to accept it. Posted. http://www.grist.org/climate-change/2011-08-09-getting-more-voices-into-climate-game-starting-with-steven-chu U.S. Postal Service Reports $400 Million in Energy Savings Since 2007. Reports of the imminent bankruptcy of the U.S. Postal Service are here once again – the latest news being a loss of $3.1 billion in the third quarter of this fiscal year – but if rain, snow and gloom of night can’t stop the carriers from their appointed rounds, then what’s a little financial uncertainty? Not only is the mail still being delivered, but according to the latest sustainability report from USPS, it is being delivered with about 30 percent less energy than in 2003. Posted. http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/08/postal-service-reports-400-million-energy-savings-2007/ O.C. human waste now powers hydrogen cars. An experimental fuel cell is turning the Orange County Sanitation District into a filling station for hydrogen cars. The fuel cell, which produces both hydrogen and electricity from waste gas at the Fountain Valley sewage treatment plant, began a three-year demonstration run June 1; a “grand opening” will be held Aug. 16. If it proves useful, the project could be expanded in coming years. Posted. http://sciencedude.ocregister.com/2011/08/09/o-c-human-waste-now-powers-hydrogen-cars/134715/ Pike Research forecasts hybrid electric locomotive sales could reach nearly 500 units from 2011 to 2020; to utilize 514 MWh of battery capacity by 2020. According to a recent report from Pike Research, hybrid locomotive sales will reach nearly 500 units during the period from 2011 to 2020, representing an increasing portion of the total market. During that period, hybrid locomotive sales will increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.4% under a baseline forecast scenario, with annual unit sales surpassing 100 locomotives by 2020. Posted. http://www.greencarcongress.com/2011/08/pike-20110810.html