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<font size="+1"><i>June 18, 2017</i></font><br>
<br>
<b><a
href="https://cleantechnica.com/2017/06/15/nevada-state-enacts-progressive-new-solar-policies/">Tesla
Moves Into Nevada As The State Enacts Progressive New Solar
Policies</a></b><br>
Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval signed a handful of new solar and
energy related bills today in Carson City to help the state pivot
away from the anti-consumer, anti-solar net metering regulation that
forced SolarCity out of the state in late 2015...<br>
The bills were signed at the Tesla Energy warehouse in Las Vegas,
which was no accident, as the sunny state of Nevada that is also
home to the Tesla Gigafactory has tasted the jobs and economic value
coming from Tesla's operations. As a result of that, Tesla lobbying
(we presume), Tesla's popularity, and citizen demand for solar,
Governor Sandoval made a wise and brand-savvy decision...<br>
Specifically, Tesla will begin offering residential solar and
storage products in the Reno and Las Vegas metro areas starting
today. The new offerings Tesla shared include:<br>
<b>Outright purchase</b> - Buy the system outright for the lowest
cost over the life of the system and the shortest return on
investment.<br>
<b>Solar loan</b> - 10 year or 20 year loan option that allows
customers to finance systems over a period that keeps solar loan
payments comparable to or lower than utility bills.<br>
<b>Solar lease </b>- A low, fixed monthly payment that allows
system hosts to install solar and save money with none of the
upfront investment.<br>
With the signing of the bill, Tesla has kicked off the process of
hiring workers to staff its Nevada operations, heading back up to
"full scale," but clearly with an eye for growth too. Tesla
anticipates creating hundreds of new jobs in the state as a direct
result of the new legislation. In addition to staffing up solar
installation operations in the state, it will also be expanding
beyond its current Las Vegas headquarters and West Las Vegas
warehouse, with new facilities coming to Reno and the greater Las
Vegas area.<br>
<font size="-1" color="#666666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://cleantechnica.com/2017/06/15/nevada-state-enacts-progressive-new-solar-policies/">https://cleantechnica.com/2017/06/15/nevada-state-enacts-progressive-new-solar-policies/</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14062017/solar-renewable-energy-negative-prices-california-power-grid-solutions">As
Solar Pushes Electricity Prices Negative, 3 Solutions for
California's Power Grid</a></b><br>
The state has a wealth of renewable energy midday, but it needs ways
to meet the evening prime time demand as base-load power plants go
offline.<br>
BY LESLIE KAUFMAN, INSIDECLIMATE NEWS<br>
For a time this spring in California, as the snow melted above
hydroelectric dams, the sun shone on solar arrays, and the wind
whipped through turbines, the state was confronted with both a
blessing and a curse.<br>
It arrived as an overwhelming flood of cheap, clean electricity. At
times it drove wholesale prices below zero. And it has left grid
operators in California, and in other parts of the country,
wondering how to cope with the upending of power markets by abundant
renewable energy.<br>
California has led the pack in adding renewable energy to its grid.
How it manages the challenges of energy over-abundance may determine
whether other states follow in its clean energy footsteps...<br>
The crux of the issue that arose this spring is that in the middle
of some days, California produced so much renewable energy it drove
wholesale electricity prices below zero - what's known as negative
pricing...<br>
California is on the storage issue like no one else. The state has
nearly 4 gigawatts (4,000 megawatts) of pumped hydro energy storage,
and it has promised to put in place 1.32 gigawatts of additional
storage by 2020 (more than existed in the entire global markets for
solar battery storage in 2016)....<br>
Yet for all the progress that has been made on the quality and
capacity of battery storage, the Escondido facility built by AES
still holds a mere 30 megawatts, enough to power 30,000 homes for
four hours. That's a drop in the bucket of Southern California's
energy needs....<br>
Another solution is to get Californians to use energy outside of
prime time. Instead of running that load of laundry at 8 p.m., put
it on a timer to start at 3 p.m. when the sun is still shining...<br>
<font size="-1" color="#666666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14062017/solar-renewable-energy-negative-prices-california-power-grid-solutions">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14062017/solar-renewable-energy-negative-prices-california-power-grid-solutions</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
The long read:<br>
<font size="+1"><b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/15/timothy-morton-anthropocene-philosopher">'A
reckoning for our species': the philosopher prophet of the
Anthropocene</a></b></font><br>
Timothy Morton wants humanity to give up some of its core beliefs,
from the fantasy that we can control the planet to the notion that
we are 'above' other beings. His ideas might sound weird, but
they're catching on. By Alex Blasdel<br>
Timothy Morton, was a fan of Björk. Her music, he told her, had been
"a very deep influence on my way of thinking and life in general"...<br>
Excerpts from <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/gallery/20196/1/bjork-s-letters-with-timothy-morton">Morton's
correspondence with Bjork</a> were published as part of her 2015
retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.<br>
Part of what makes Morton popular are his attacks on settled ways of
thinking. His most frequently cited book, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0674024346">Ecology
Without Nature</a>, says we need to scrap the whole concept of
"nature". He argues that a distinctive feature of our world is the
presence of ginormous things he calls "hyperobjects" – such as
global warming or the internet – that we tend to think of as
abstract ideas because we can't get our heads around them, but that
are nevertheless as real as hammers. He believes all beings are
interdependent, and speculates that everything in the universe has a
kind of consciousness, from algae and boulders to knives and forks.
He asserts that human beings are cyborgs of a kind, since we are
made up of all sorts of non-human components; he likes to point out
that the very stuff that supposedly makes us us – our DNA – contains
a significant amount of genetic material from viruses. He says that
we're already ruled by a primitive artificial intelligence:
industrial capitalism. At the same time, he believes that there are
some "weird experiential chemicals" in consumerism that will help
humanity prevent a full-blown ecological crisis....<br>
Morton's theories might sound bizarre, but they are in tune with the
most earth-shaking idea to emerge in the 21st century: that we are
entering a new phase in the history of the planet – a phase that
Morton and many others now call the "Anthropocene"....<br>
Morton has noted that 75% of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
at this very moment will still be there in half a millennium. That's
15 generations away. It will take another 750 generations, or 25,000
years, for most of the those gases to be absorbed into the oceans...<br>
Part of what's so uncomfortable about this is that our individual
acts may be statistically and morally insignificant, but when you
multiply them millions and billions of times – as they are performed
by an entire species – they are a collective act of ecological
destruction. Coral bleaching isn't just occurring over yonder, on
the Great Barrier Reef; it's happening wherever you switch on the
air conditioning. In short, Morton says, "everything is
interconnected"...<br>
Stanford students have started a popular podcast titled <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.genanthro.com/">Generation
Anthropocene,</a> and thousands of articles and books have been
written on the subject, in fields ranging from economics to
poetry...<br>
Despite Morton's popularity, this isn't an uncommon response to his
work. The Morton detractors with whom I spoke accused him of
misunderstanding contemporary science, like quantum mechanics and
set theory, and then claiming his distortions as support for his
wild ideas. They shared a broad critique that reminded me of the
sceptical adage, "If you open your mind too far, your brains will
fall out." The slurry of interesting ideas in Morton's work doesn't
hold together under scrutiny, they say. The philosopher Ray
Brassier, who was once associated with OOO, has charged Morton and
his blogging confrères with generating "an online orgy of
stupidity".<br>
<font size="-1" color="#666666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/15/timothy-morton-anthropocene-philosopher">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/15/timothy-morton-anthropocene-philosopher</a></font><br>
- more-<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://contemporarycondition.blogspot.com/2010/03/hyperobjects-and-end-of-common-sense.html">Hyperobjects
and the End of Common Sense</a></b><br>
Timothy Morton U.C. Davis<br>
In the liner notes to Stop Making Sense, Talking Heads frontman
David Byrne wrote "Nuclear weapons could wipe out life on Earth, if
used properly." The brilliant fake naivety of this seemingly obvious
remark should make us pause. We have indeed created things that we
can hardly understand, let alone control, let alone make sensible
political decisions about. Sometimes it's good to have new words for
these things, to remind you of how mind-blowing they are. So I'm
going to introduce a new term: hyperobjects. Hyperobjects are
phenomena such as radioactive materials and global warming.
Hyperobjects stretch our ideas of time and space, since they far
outlast most human time scales, or they're massively distributed in
terrestrial space and so are unavailable to immediate experience. In
this sense, hyperobjects are like those tubes of toothpaste that say
they contain 10% extra: there's more to hyperobjects than ordinary
objects.<br>
<font size="-1" color="#666666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://contemporarycondition.blogspot.com/2010/03/hyperobjects-and-end-of-common-sense.html">http://contemporarycondition.blogspot.com/2010/03/hyperobjects-and-end-of-common-sense.html</a></font><br>
- more -<br>
<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGxLgrrR4oU">(audio)
Bjork: "In Iceland We Can See The Melting Of The Glaciers"</a></b><br>
Singer & activist Bjork tells Sky News that bureaucracy and
greed hinder efforts to fight climate change<br>
5:12 interview.<br>
<font size="-1" color="#666666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGxLgrrR4oU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGxLgrrR4oU</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7aZ6vqCk2E">potholer54
Video Response to Bill Whittle's "Is climate change real?"</a></b><br>
20: minute video with sources<br>
5:04 – 5:18 – The titles, authors and dates of these papers are ALL
shown very clearly in the video. There is no need for me to repeat
the titles, authors and dates here. If you have trouble reading the
titles, autors and dates then you would be no better off trying to
read them in this video description, where the letters are even
smaller.<br>
<font size="-1" color="#666666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7aZ6vqCk2E">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7aZ6vqCk2E</a></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4356sIaGlU">(video) Why
is it so hard to end fossil fuel subsidies?</a></b><br>
Carbon Brief interviewed Shelagh Whitley at the Overseas Development
Institute (ODI), London. Whitley is head of the climate and energy
programme at the ODI.<br>
<font size="-1" color="#666666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4356sIaGlU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4356sIaGlU</a><br>
</font>- more- <br>
<b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmB5CvS_Uts">(video)
Fossil fuel subsidies: Why do calculations vary?</a></b><br>
Dr William Blyth is the director of Oxford Energy Associates, an
independent energy consultancy company. Blyth is also an associate
at Chatham House and Imperial College London. Oxford Energy
Associates were asked to do a study for the Environmental Audit
Committee, a parliamentary committee on UK subsidies, in 2013.<br>
<font size="-1" color="#666666"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmB5CvS_Uts">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmB5CvS_Uts</a><br>
<br>
<br>
</font> <b><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/6/13/15681498/trump-government-fossil-fuels">Donald
Trump is handing the federal government over to fossil fuel
interests<br>
The appointments, the policies, the rhetoric - it is not
subtle.</a></b><br>
Updated by David <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:Roberts@drvoxdavid@vox.com">Roberts@drvoxdavid@vox.com</a>
Jun 14, 2017, 7:56am EDT<br>
...The love affair between Trump and fossil fuel companies has
blossomed ever since. Recently, Kathleen Sgamma, president of the
oil and gas trade group Western Energy Alliance, gushed to the New
York Times, "not in our wildest dreams, never did we expect to get
everything."..<br>
..."Everything," in this case, denotes a long list of friendly
appointments and regulatory rollbacks. For all its controversies,
distractions, failures, and unfilled jobs, the Trump administration
has been steady and true in its devotion to fossil fuel interests,
giving them a greater presence inside executive agencies, stripping
them of regulatory restraints, and proposing to defund their
competitors.<br>
There are some areas of policy where Trump faces friction from
courts, Congress, or other elements of the conservative coalition.
He has stumbled on health care, on his travel ban, and on foreign
policy. But when it comes to environmental and energy policy, the
coalition is aligned. All the party's most powerful and influential
factions support a pro-fossil, anti-regulatory agenda; there is an
extensive infrastructure of big money, think tanks, and lobbyists
built to support it...<br>
It's worth noting that a pro-fossil fuel, anti-regulatory approach
is not particularly popular in the US, in either party. Majorities
in every congressional district support limiting local pollution and
carbon emissions from coal plants. Majorities in every Congressional
district believe America's focus should turn toward wind and solar.
Majorities in every state support the Paris climate agreement...<br>
But the money and intensity on the GOP side support fossil fuels.
And there is no faction on the right that cares enough about climate
or environmental issues to prioritize them over the larger culture
war. So there is no friction...<br>
..The budget would also cut advanced nuclear energy research and
research into carbon capture and sequestration. The Office of Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy would be slashed by more than
half...<br>
Perhaps most tellingly, the budget would eliminate EPA's Greenhouse
Gas Reporting Program, a relatively inexpensive ($8 million) program
that tracks carbon emissions from the nation's 8,000 largest
industrial polluters...<br>
BP contributed $500,000 to Trump's inauguration and spent $1.7
million in the first three months of the year lobbying on "issues
related to arctic oil and gas development."..<br>
Now Trump has signed an executive order expanding offshore drilling
in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans....<br>
Kelcy Warren, the CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, the company
behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, personally contributed $250,000
to Trump's inauguration. In the first three months of the year, his
company spent $270,00 lobbying on "pipeline related issues."<br>
<font size="-1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/6/13/15681498/trump-government-fossil-fuels">https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/6/13/15681498/trump-government-fossil-fuels</a></font><br>
<br>
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