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newsclips -- ARB Newsclips for June 24, 2015.

Posted: 24 Jun 2015 13:38:32
ARB Newsclips for June 24, 2015. 

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

New Mexico coal plant owners settle Clean Air Act violations. The
owners of a coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Nation reached a
settlement Wednesday with federal agencies over complaints they
flouted rules for permits and violated the Clean Air Act, leading
to further pollution control upgrades that will cost millions of
dollars.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FOUR_CORNERS_POWER_PLANT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
 

Germany to decide between coal levy and alternative on July 1. 
German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Wednesday he was
considering an alternative to a proposed levy on coal-fired power
plants and would decide on July 1. Germany is wrestling with how
to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the energy sector
to stop it from falling short of its ambitious climate targets,
while safeguarding jobs and securing its energy supply.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/24/us-germany-coal-levy-idUSKBN0P40P220150624


Air pollution could kill 57,000 Americans by 2100. Climate change
is already wreaking havoc on human health, and worsening air
quality alone could kill 57,000 Americans by the end of the
century, doctors and federal officials said Tuesday at a White
House summit. Scientists have long known that climate change is
more than an environmental problem: It's an unprecedented human
health threat.
http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2015/06/23/air-quality-will-get-worse-climate-changes/29191799/


CLIMATE CHANGE

Landmark Dutch ruling: Cut emissions to protect citizens. A Dutch
court ordered the government Wednesday to slash greenhouse gas
emissions to help fight global warming, a landmark ruling in a
case brought by hundreds of concerned citizens that could pave
the way for similar legal battles around the world. Climate
activists in a packed courtroom in The Hague erupted into cheers
as Presiding Judge Hans Hofhuis told Dutch authorities to cut the
country's greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25 percent…
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_NETHERLANDS_CLIMATE_CASE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


OTHER RELATED STORIES
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/24/netherlands-carbon-court-idUSL8N0ZA1LA20150624

http://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/world/article25387198.html#storylink=cpy
 
Study: Weather patterns that bring heatwaves happening more.
Daily weather patterns have changed in recent decades, making
eastern North America, Europe and western Asia more prone to
nastier summer heatwaves that go beyond global warming, a new
study finds. A team of climate scientists at Stanford University
looked at weather patterns since 1979 and found changes in
frequency and strength in parts of the world, according to a
study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_HEATWAVE_TRIGGERS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


ADB: Climate change makes poor poorer in Asia-Pacific. Climate
change has been making the poor in the Asia-Pacific region even
poorer and is also setting back efforts to haul them out of
poverty, the Asian Development Bank said in a report Wednesday.
Combined with rising inequality, the two forces could make the
more equal distribution of the fruits of economic growth a
"distant goal" for the world's most populous region…
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_ASIA_CLIMATE_CHANGE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


El Nino Gains Strength as Pacific Warms Just Like It’s 1997. The
El Nino developing across the Pacific strengthened further,
according to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, which again
highlighted patterns shown by the data that are similar to the
record 1997-1998 event. Sea-surface temperature indexes for the
central and eastern tropical Pacific are more than 1 degree
Celsius above average for a sixth week, the bureau said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/el-nino-seen-strengthening-as-pacific-warms-just-like-it-s-1997


DOE Study Finds Elevated Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Canadian
Crude.  Findings add ammunition to critics of country’s surging
production, opponents of Keystone pipeline. A new peer-reviewed
study funded by the U.S. Department of Energy says oil extracted
from Canada’s oil sands produces greenhouse-gas emissions that
are an average 20% higher than for conventional U.S. crude.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/doe-study-finds-elevated-greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-canadian-crude-1435094434


Alaska Entering New Era for Wildfires.  Alaska, the great
northern frontier of America, is being reshaped by climate
change. While rising temperatures are altering its character and
landscape, they are also bringing the ravages of wildfires. In
the past 60 years, Alaska has warmed more than twice as fast as
the rest of the country, with average temperatures up by nearly
3°F. By 2050, temperatures are projected to climb an additional
2-4 degrees…
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/alaska-entering-new-era-for-wildfires-19146


DROUGHT

Troubled Delta System Is California’s Water Battleground.
Fighting over water is a tradition in California, but nowhere are
the lines of dispute more sharply drawn than here in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a 720,000-acre network of islands
and canals that is the hub of the state’s water system. Giant
pumps pull in water flowing to the delta from the mountainous
north of the state…
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/science/troubled-delta-system-is-californias-water-battleground.html?_r=1


California symbolic of global groundwater crisis, scientist says.
Drought-stricken California might be the current-day poster child
of water rationing, but it's only one of more than two dozen
emerging water-stress pressure points around the world, according
to the latest satellite measurement studies conducted by NASA. "
http://www.sacbee.com/news/news-services/article25386367.html#storylink=cpy


California Drought: Support grows in Bay Area for toilet to tap
water. Bay Area residents consider California's historic drought
so dire that a majority say they would be willing to drink
purified toilet water. That's not the only finding in a Bay Area
Council poll released Wednesday that used to be considered hard
to swallow. Many Bay Area residents appear to be putting aside
some long-held notions about the environment…
http://www.mercurynews.com/drought/ci_28372207/california-drought-support-grows-bay-area-toilet-tap


DIESEL ACTIVITIES

Alphabet Energy introduces PowerModules for modular
thermoelectric waste heat recovery; partnership with Borla for
heavy-duty trucks.  Alphabet Energy, founded in 2009 at Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory, announced the availability of its
thermoelectric generator PowerModule as a standalone product,
available to meet the specific application needs of a range of
industries, including transportation.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2015/06/20150624-alphabet.html 

FUELS

U.S. judge temporarily blocks new fracking rules on public lands.
 A U.S. judge in Wyoming on Tuesday granted a request by four
states and several energy industry groups to temporarily stop new
federal rules on hydraulic fracturing on public lands from taking
effect on Wednesday. The Interior Department rules would require
companies to provide data on chemicals used in hydraulic
fracturing, or fracking…
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-judge-temporarily-blocks-new-fracking-rules-on-public-lands-2015-6#ixzz3dzlUwKyD


How to stop Shell's Arctic drilling? With walruses, green groups
say. Walruses may stop Royal Dutch Shell's Arctic drilling plan.
Two exploratory wells Shell wants to drill in the Chukchi Sea
near Alaska violate regulations designed to avoid disturbing
walruses and other marine mammals, a coalition of environmental
groups led by Earthjustice contended Tuesday.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/how-to-stop-shells-arctic-drilling-with-walruses-green-groups-say/article/2566858


SwRI, UTSA partner on biofuel project. Southwest Research
Institute (SwRI) and The University of Texas at San Antonio
(UTSA) Office of the Vice President for Research have selected a
new biofuel project to receive $125,000 through the Connecting
through Research Partnerships (Connect) Program. Funding 1 begins
September 2015.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2015/06/swri-utsa-partner-on-biofuel-project.html

 
Court delays federal fracking rule. The Obama administration's
long-awaited hydraulic fracturing rule will not take effect as
scheduled today, thanks to a federal judge's eleventh-hour
decision to stay the rule until August. Judge Scott Skavdahl, of
the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming, issued the
decision after more than six hours of courtroom arguments
yesterday in Casper…
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2015/06/24/stories/1060020788 

SANTA BARBARA OIL SPILL

ExxonMobil temporarily halts oil production off Santa Barbara
after oil spill.  ExxonMobil has shut down oil production at its
three platforms off the Santa Barbara County coast a month after
a corroded pipeline owned by Texas company Plains All American
Pipeline burst, effectively cutting off the flow of Exxon’s
crude.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-exxon-platforms-20150623-story.html


VEHICLES

China-US workshop emphasizes cooperation on EV standardization.
More than 75 experts from China and the U.S. convened in Beijing
on 9 June for a discussion of their respective standardization
work programs related to electric vehicles (EVs). The overarching
focus of the workshop was cooperation on standards, conformance,
and training programs among industry and government stakeholders
to facilitate the growth of the EV market.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2015/06/china-us-workshop-emphasizes-cooperation-on-ev-standardization.html


ChargePoint Launches Small DC Quick-Charging Station For Electric
Cars. ChargePoint hopes to increase the availability of public DC
fast charging for electric cars by offering a smaller charging
station. The charging network's new Express 100 station is aimed
at businesses that may want to offer fast charging to customers.
That includes retail stores, restaurants…
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1098855_chargepoint-launches-small-dc-quick-charging-station-for-electric-cars

NREL: battery second use offsets EV expense, improves grid
stability; recommendations. Researchers at the US Department of
Energy (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are
identifying battery second use (B2U) strategies capable of
offsetting vehicle expenses while improving utility grid
stability. 
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2015/06/20150624-nrel.html 

Renault-Nissan Alliance sells its 250,000th EV. The
Renault-Nissan Alliance has sold its 250,000th electric vehicle:
a white Renault ZOE sold to a French engineer. The Alliance
reached the milestone in early June, 4½ years after the launch of
the Nissan LEAF. The Alliance today accounts for half of the
electric vehicles sold worldwide.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2015/06/renault-nissan-alliance-sells-its-250000th-ev.html


Seven Barriers To Alt-Fuel Vehicles: Can Hydrogen Fuel Cells
Overcome Them? Among owners and advocates of zero-emission
vehicles, few topics generate as much back-and-forth debate (to
put it politely) as those cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells. 
Discussions of wells-to-wheels carbon footprint, the presently
nonexistent hydrogen fueling infrastructure…
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1098821_seven-barriers-to-alt-fuel-vehicles-can-hydrogen-fuel-cells-overcome-them


GREEN ENERGY

Home efficiency upgrades fall short, don't pay: Study. Home
efficiency measures such as installing new windows or replacing
insulation deliver such a small fraction of their promised energy
savings that they may not save any money over the long run,
according to the surprising conclusion of a University of Chicago
study. The study, which used data from a random sample of 30,000
low-income Michigan households that were eligible for an Energy
Department home weatherization program…
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ENERGY_EFFICIENCY_LITTLE_PAYOFF?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


The Way Humans Get Electricity Is About to Change Forever. These
six shifts will transform markets over the next 25 years. The
renewable-energy boom is here. Trillions of dollars will be
invested over the next 25 years, driving some of the most
profound changes yet in how humans get their electricity. That's
according to a new forecast by Bloomberg New Energy Finance that
plots out global power markets to 20401increase click area.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-way-humans-get-electricity-is-about-to-change-forever


GAO report: Feds losing track of renewable energy bonds.  The
agency charged with overseeing renewable energy infrastructure on
federal lands is inconsistent in collecting and overseeing the
bonds it holds for those projects, the Government Accountability
Office (GAO) concluded in a report released Tuesday.  The Bureau
of Land Management requires operators of solar and wind projects
on federal land to…
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/245897-gao-report-feds-losing-track-of-renewable-energy-bonds


Debate over California’s renewable energy expansion goes through
the roof.  A political fight over California’s renewable energy
industry is playing out in the corridors of power, but it deals
with something closer to home: your rooftop. Capitol policymakers
are advancing an ambitious proposal to have renewable sources
generate half of the state’s electricity by 2030, up from the 33
percent benchmark already in law.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article25356493.html#storylink=cpy


Renewable energy target: Senate sits late to pass bill without
amendment. Chamber of commerce says deal surmounts ‘major hurdle’
as Greens and environmentalists attack Coalition pledge to create
a windfarm commissioner. Legislation to reduce the renewable
energy target from 41,000 gigawatt hours to 33,000gWh has passed
both houses of parliament. The Senate sat late on Tuesday to pass
the bill.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/24/renewable-energy-target-senate-sits-late-to-pass-bill-without-amendment


Calif. market grows with Shell purchase, national lab agreements.
The California energy storage market got a boost this week with
two new developments. The San Francisco Bay Area startup Advanced
Microgrid Solutions announced Monday that it has signed a deal
with Shell Energy North America to install up to 20 megawatts of
batteries at Shell sites throughout California.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2015/06/24/stories/1060020785 

OPINIONS

Opinion: Reforming CEQA still vital work. The California
Environmental Quality Act, signed into law more than 40 years
ago, is a perfect example of how a political decree meant to do
one thing can transmogrify into something else entirely. CEQA was
meant to compel state and local officials to catalog, and
mitigate where possible, the adverse environmental effects of
public works and private developments.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/dan-walters/article25352200.html#storylink=cpy


Lawn replacement: mixed bag of good, bad effects. Listen to water
officials from Gov. Jerry Brown down to local officials and you'd
think replacing lawns with drought-resistant plants or artificial
turf is a pure good, no negatives involved. They know lawn
replacement, often called "xeriscaping" because it can use cacti
and other desert plants, generally leads to at least a 30 percent
cut in household water use.
http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/story/opinion/2015/06/24/lawn-replacement-mixed-bag-good-bad-effects/29183775/


Another View: Valley rivers aren’t being singled out. Assemblyman
Adam Gray misrepresents his legislation and the State Water
Resources Control Board’s efforts to restore the health of San
Francisco Bay, the West Coast’s largest estuary, and the rivers
that feed into it (“State is unfairly taking water,” Viewpoints,
June 10). The water board is updating water-quality standards for
the Bay Delta estuary and all of the rivers that flow into it…
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article25350550.html#storylink=cpy


BLOGS

Having a Smaller Carbon Footprint in Ramadan.  We are blessed to
welcome Ramadan again this year. It is a time for fasting,
spiritual fulfillment, emotional rebalancing, mental reflection
and physical purification.   Ramadan is the ideal time for
balancing the spirit, the mind and the body. Fasting is a
universal exercise of patience, self-control and altruism, but it
is only one among many important aspects of Ramadan.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zaher-sahloul/having-a-smaller-carbon-f_b_7640516.html?utm_hp_ref=islam




California is in a drought emergency.
Visit www.SaveOurH2O.org for water conservation tips.

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