After 115 Years, Scotland Is Coal-Free

After some 115 years, Scotland has burned its last lump of coal for electricity. The Longannet power station, the last and largest coal-fired power plant in Scotland, ceased operations Thursday. What once was the largest coal plant in Europe shut down after 46 years...
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/03/24/3763158/scotland-closes-last-coal-plant/

Here’s Something Else Donald Trump Is Totally Wrong About

The only way to stop climate change is to drastically reduce, and ultimately eliminate, greenhouse gas emissions. If you want to know how well we're doing on that goal, a good place to start is the Environmental Protection Agency's official GHG database. And frankly, the picture isn't very pretty....
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2016/04/heres-some-good-news-about-planet

New Zealand Pledges An End To Coal By 2018

On Thursday, New Zealand's largest electricity and gas retailer announced it would close its last two coal-fired power plants ... Read more

India Could Plateau Coal Use By 2025-2030, Leading Politician Says

India may not commit to an absolute CO2 target for 2025-2030 at the Paris climate talks. But such a target is inevitable given ... Read more

Congress Has Made Undermining Energy And Environmental Laws The Focus Of Its First 100 Days

In its first 100 days, the 114th Congress has cast more roll call votes on energy and environmental issues than on any other ... Read more

Interior Secretary Says Climate Change Must Factor Into Decisions To Drill On Public Lands

"We must -- we must -- do more to cut greenhouse gas pollution that is warming our planet." The post Interior Secretary Says ... Read more

Report: Developers Are Cancelling More Coal Plants Than They Build

But the world's largest source of carbon emissions is still growing.  ... Read more

Yet Again, Partisan Wrangling Has Left The Wind Tax Credit In Legislative Limbo

Backers of the production tax credit for wind say the extension in the current bill is two short, while a standoff over other ...  Read more

Will The GOP’s New War On Clean Air Revitalize Democrats?

If the lesson some people learn from the 2014 election is that trying to put climate change, clean energy, and the environment ...  Read more

Solar electricity on track to be as cheap or cheaper than average electricity-bill prices in 47 U.S. states by 2016

While You Were Getting Worked Up Over Oil Prices, This Just Happened to Solar

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Poor Countries Tap Renewables at Twice the Pace of Rich

“Clean energy is the low-cost option in a lot of these countries,” Zindler said by telephone. “The technologies are cost-competitive right now. Not in the future, but right now.”...The boom in renewables is often made for economic reasons, Ethan Zindler, a Washington-based Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst, said in an interview. An island nation like Jamaica, where wholesale power costs about $300 a megawatt-hour, could generate electricity from solar panels for about half as much. Similarly, wind power in Nicaragua may be half as expensive as traditional energy.

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"Before the Lights Go Out" Maggie Koerth-Baker on Atheists Talk #161, Sunday, April 1st, 2012

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the author of the new book, Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us. Maggie is the science editor and a regular writer at Boing Boing, and hails from the Twin Cities. She was once described as “A lighthouse of reason in a churling ocean of stupidity,” which is exactly why we all need to read her book and listen to her interview this Sunday on Minnesota Atheists Talk Radio.
From the publisher’s review of Before the Lights Go Out:

“Hi, I’m the United States and I’m an oil-oholic.”
We have an energy problem. And everybody knows it, even if we can’t all agree on what, specifically, the problem is. Rising costs, changing climate, peaking oil, foreign oil, public safety—if the fears are this complicated, then the solutions are bound to be even more confusing. Maggie Koerth-Baker… makes sense out of the madness. Over the next 20 years, we’ll be forced to cut 20 quadrillion BTU worth of fossil fuels from our energy budget, by wasting less and investing in alternatives.
To make it work, we’ll need to radically change the energy systems that have shaped our lives for 100 years. And the result will be neither business-as-usual, nor a hippie utopia. Koerth-Baker explains what we can do, what we can’t do, and why “The Solution” is really a lot of solutions working together…

Interview:
http://mnatheists.org/news-and-media/podcast/722-before-the-lights-go-out-maggie-koerth-baker-on-atheists-talk-161-sunday-april-1st-2012

http://feeds.mnatheists.org/~r/AtheistsTalkRadioShow/~3/-8dUS7q7FEY/atheists_talk-0161-20120401.mp3

Californians Could Save $750 Million On Energy Bills Thanks To Huge Wind Farm In Wyoming

Coal-burning Wyoming could start exporting significant amounts of wind-power to renewable-oriented states. The post ... Read more

TIL Sweden is on a quest to being the first oil-free economy in the world by 2020.

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