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TODAY'S CLIMATE AND ENERGY HEADLINES

Briefing date 10.10.2017
Trump administration to sign climate rule repeal proposal Tuesday

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News.

Trump administration to sign climate rule repeal proposal Tuesday
Politico Read Article

The Trump administration will today move to roll back the US clean power plan, president Obama’s signature climate change policy, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Scott Pruitt announced yesterday. Making the announcement, Pruitt said: “The war on coal is over,” reports the Associated Press, noting that Pruitt was one of about two dozen state attorney generals who sued in an attempt to stop the clean power plan, culminating in a Supreme Court decision to prevent the rule from taking effect pending legal decisions. The New York Times explains the details, including what the clean power plan was supposed to achieve and what happens next. It says: “While the repeal of the Clean Power Plan offers a reprieve for America’s coal industry, it is unlikely to halt the decline of coal altogether…A new analysis by the research firm Rhodium Group estimated that United States electricity emissions are currently on track to fall 27 to 35 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, roughly in the range of what the Clean Power Plan originally envisioned, even if the regulation is repealed.” In any case, Pruitt’s proposal will have to go through formal public comment, “a process that could take months” and could end back in the Supreme Court, the New York Times adds. Democratic state attorney generals have already said they will sue over the attempted repeal, reports the Hill. In a comment for the New York Times, Richard Revesz and Jack Lienke outline the “smoke and mirrors” used by the EPA to “mangl[e] the costs and benefits” of the clean power plan. This new EPA analysis involves more than tripling the cost of compliance with the plan, by ignoring energy efficiency savings when calculating its cost estimate and ignoring international impacts of CO2 emissions, in a revised social cost of carbon calculation [see this detailed Q&A on the social cost of carbon produced by Carbon Brief earlier this year.] The EPA also “invented flimsy excuses for ignoring some – and, in the most extreme version of its analysis, all – of the rule’s health benefits,” Revesz and Lienke note. They conclude: “In the end, all of these methodological contortions are meant to obscure a very basic truth: that any ‘savings’ achieved by rescinding the Clean Power Plan will come at an incredibly high cost to public health and welfare. If the Trump administration is willing to make that trade, it should at least have the courage to admit it.” Pruitt’s announcement came at an event in Kentucky yesterday, in the heart of US coal country, with senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, reports CNN. Separately, the Hill reports Pruitt’s comments that he would “do away with” federal tax credits for solar and wind, though he conceded it was not up to the EPA to make such a decision, which must be made by congress. The Financial TimesWashington PostHillThink ProgressBuzzfeed News and Reuters all cover the clean power plan repeal attempt news.

Hinkley Point deal was best we dared risk, say officials
The Times Read Article

Contract negotiations over the Hinkley C new nuclear plant would have collapsed if ministers had tried to lower the price, government officials claimed yesterday. The Times and others report the comments at a select committee hearing in parliament, where former officials said it was “fanciful” the deal would not have collapsed if the government had tried to renegotiate the terms – though they admitted the economic case for the scheme had become “more marginal” between its agreement in 2013 and the time it was signed off in 2016. The officials said Britain’s energy security and climate targets would have been put at risk if prime minister Theresa may had halted the scheme, reports the Financial TimesCarbon Brief has a detailed Q&A on the Hinkley C scheme. Meanwhile a Finnish reactor being built to the same design as the UK project faces fresh delays, reports the Financial Times. The Olkiluoto plant has been delayed by another five months and is now likely to start generation more than a decade late, Bloomberg notes, under the headline: “Finland’s 10-Year Wait for a Nuclear Reactor Just Got Longer”. Carbon Brief looked at the lessons of the Finnish scheme back in 2015.

Energy price cap proposals to be set out this week after May’s conference pledge
Press Association Read Article

The government will publish draft legislation to enforce a cap on some energy prices on Thursday, reports the Press Association. The legislation is due to be unveiled by business secretary Greg Clark on the same day as the government sets out its clean growth strategy on meeting the UK’s legally binding carbon targets.

There’s enough wind energy over the oceans to power human civilization, scientists say
Washington Post Read Article

Wind energy over the open oceans has the potential to generate “civilisation scale power”, according to new research covered by the Washington Post and others. The paper says “it’s very unlikely that we would ever build out open ocean turbines on anything like that scale…[but] floating wind farms, over very deep waters, could be the next major step for wind energy”. Carbon Briefexplored the prospects for floating offshore windfarms earlier this year. The Independent and Press Association also cover the new research, with the Indy choosing the headline: “The entire world could be powered by a deep-sea wind farm”.

German Greens: 'No coalition with Merkel without climate progress'
Climate Home Read Article

Leading Green politicians in Germany have made a coalition with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the free-market Free Democrats conditional on “substantial” climate policy progress, reports Climate Home. Oliver Krischer, vice chair of the party’s parliamentary group tells Climate Home that a carbon price floor and green innovation were issues where a coalition might find agreement.

Tony Abbott says climate change action is like trying to 'appease the volcano gods'
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Read Article

Climate policy is like primitive goat sacrifice, former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott told the annual lecture of the climate-sceptic lobby-group the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London last night, report the ABC and others. Most lead on Abbott’s claim that climate change is “probably doing good – or at least more good than harm”. [The statement is based around the claim that more people die in cold snaps than heatwaves, an over-simplification of a complex and changing balance, explored in this Carbon Brief explainer from 2015.] Some media outlets were blocked from attending the event, reports Climate Home, which notes that, as prime minister, Abbott had said he took climate change “very seriously”. In a separate analysis, the ABC’s political editor says: “Having drenched the work of climate scientists with contemptuous spittle, the real Tony Abbott has emerged…[his speech] strips away all his previous pretence [on climate change].” Former labour leader Ed Miliband called Abbott’s intervention “idiocy”, reports the Telegraph. Meanwhile a comment piece for the Guardian calls the speech ” strange and sad – and all about politics”. Noting that Abbott signed Australia up to the Paris Agreement on climate change, the piece suggests his speech is more about attempting to influence Australian energy policy than anything else. For climate scientists contacted by DeSmog UK, the “misleading” speech was “laced with distortions, falsehoods, misrepresentations and misdirection”. Gizmodo carries another memorable quote from a climate scientist, who says: “His arguments hold less substance than his speedos.” BuzzFeed News, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Mirror also cover the speech.

Comment.

Editorial: The hard questions of fossil fuel divestment
Editorial, Financial Times Read Article

“The decision that faces Cambridge university is political not economic,” says a Financial Times editorial on a campaign to get Cambridge University to join the fossil fuel divestment movement. It says: “Limiting the economic, environmental and human damage threatened by climate change is one of the great challenges of our age, and meeting it will require lessening the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. Given these facts, investing in companies that discover, extract, and distribute fossil fuels raises hard questions.” The editorial concludes: “An institution that decides to divest should be clear: divestment is not an investment strategy, or a way of putting direct economic pressure on energy companies. It is a political statement.”

From fluffy pillows to concrete: The uses of captured CO2
Gabriella Mulligan, BBC News Read Article

CO2 can now be captured from the air and stored in a range of everyday items in your home and on the street, says a BBC featurette that cites “your fluffy pillows and memory foam mattress”. Captured CO2 can also be used to make plastics for insulation, paint and glue, it notes.

Science.

Bird specimens track 135 years of atmospheric black carbon and environmental policy
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Read Article

A novel study uses bird specimens from museums to estimate black carbon (spot) concentrations between 1880 and 2015 in the US Rust Belt region. Researchers analysed the soot accumulated in more than 1,300 birds collected over the last 135 years. The results suggests that previous black carbon data underestimate the levels in the US during the first decades of the 20th century, the researchers conclude, suggesting that black carbon’s impact on the climate in the past may also have been underestimated.

Geophysical potential for wind energy over the open oceans
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Read Article

Putting wind turbines out in the open ocean, rather than on land, could increase how much power they can generate by a factor of three or more, a new study suggests. This is because average wind speeds are higher over the oceans than land, the researchers say, highlighting the North Atlantic as a potential location for consistent wind power. While no commercial-scale deep water wind farms yet exist, the researchers say, “such technologies, if they became technically and economically feasible, could potentially provide civilization-scale power”.

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