Eco Report – July 14, 2023

And now for your environmental reports:

In a new record, solar and wind generated more electricity nationally than coal for the first 5 months of 2023.  Though Indiana participates little in the effort, other states are surging ahead.  From a production-cost perspective, renewables-wind and solar- are the cheapest thing to use.  So, we’re going to see more and more of these records, said Ram Rajagopal, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, as reported by CBS News. 

As recently as 2008, nearly half of the country’s electricity was generated by coal, but it has been declining steadily ever since, replaced by renewables and natural gas, Environmental & Energy News reported. As electricity providers generate more electricity from renewable sources, we see electricity generated from coal decline over the next year and a half, Energy Information Agency (EIA ) Administrator Joe DeCarolis said in May, according to a press release. We expect that the United States will generate less electricity from coal this year than in any year this century.

Coal reached a record high globally last year due to the increase in natural gas prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but its resurgence didn’t last. An additional 22.5 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity were added in the past year ending in May, an EIA report from earlier this month said. Ending coal generation once and for all can only do good things for the climate. Though it comprises around one-fifth of the energy grid, coal use makes up more than half of the greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector, according to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The expansion of renewables has been given a boost by the Inflation Reduction Act, but getting green power sources hooked up to the U.S. electrical grid has been a tedious process. According to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report, on average, a renewables project that came online last year had waited five years between its request to connect to the grid and the start of its commercial operations. Between 2000 and 2007, the wait was less than two years.

According to the report, 1,350 gigawatts of capacity from more than 10,000 projects are waiting to be connected to the grid, most of them renewables.  Wind and solar make only 10 percent of Indiana’s power generation.  This places our state in the lowest third of all states. 

—Norm Holy

Under the proposal, officials also would drop consideration of economic impacts when deciding if animals and plants need protection. Another change would expand requirements for federal agencies to consult with the wildlife service or the National Marine Fisheries Service before taking actions that could affect threatened or endangered species. Under Trump, officials rolled back endangered species rules and protections for the northern spotted owl, gray wolves and other species. It will take months for Wednesday’s proposal to be finalized.

The Biden administration had earlier reversed Trump’s decision to weaken enforcement of the century-old Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which made it harder to prosecute bird deaths caused by the energy industry. Officials under Biden also withdrew a 2020 rule that limited which lands and waters could be designated as places where imperiled animals and plants could receive federal protection.

Industry groups and Republicans in Congress have long viewed the Endangered Species Act as an impediment to economic development, and under Trump they successfully lobbied to weaken the law’s regulations. This, in spite of a drop in many bird and amphibian populations by 30 percent over the last twenty-five years. Also, we are in the 6th mass extinction, which is projected to extinguish at least a million species of plants and animals.  

—Norm Holy

Illinois, Ohio and Indiana rank second, third and fourth in potential benefits for proposed projects. Each state stands to gain between $4.7 billion and $5.5 billion in capital investments and roughly 29,000 to 32,000 in job-years, with other states in the grid footprint gaining smaller amounts of investments and jobs. Additional grid-wide benefits would include an estimated reduction in wholesale electricity costs of more than $16 per megawatt-hour from 2021 levels, due to an increase in renewable energy on the grid and incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act, the report said, citing a December 2022 analysis by Princeton University researchers. Displaced coal generation could also provide substantial public health benefits, valued at roughly $44 per megawatt-hour, the report said.

—Norm Holy

The WMO says there is a 90 percent likelihood that El Niño will continue to the end of this year at at least moderate strength. (quote) The onset of El Niño will greatly increase the likelihood of breaking temperature records and triggering more extreme heat in many parts of the world and in the ocean,(end quote) said WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas in the press release. The declaration of an El Niño by WMO is the signal to governments around the world to mobilize preparations to limit the impacts on our health, our ecosystems and our economies. Early warnings and anticipatory action of extreme weather events associated with this major climate phenomenon are vital to save lives and livelihoods.

We should expect increased food insecurity and malnutrition, in addition to wildfires, extreme heat and likely surges in cholera and infectious and mosquito-borne diseases like measles and malaria. El Niño can cause increased rainfall in the southern United States, South America, central Asia and the Horn of Africa, while bringing severe drought conditions to parts of southern Asia, Indonesia, Australia, the northern portion of South America and Central America. Its warm waters can also add fuel to hurricanes in the Pacific while dampening the formation of hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin.

—Norm Holy

And now for some upcoming events:

Learn The Secrets of Sinkholes at McCormick’s Creek State Park on Saturday, July 15th, at 3:30 pm.  Explore geological features on this Trail 9 hike, learning about sinkholes, erosion features and geology.  Meet in the Deer Run parking area.