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Allen, Kara[Kara.Allen@mail.house.gov]
Allen, Kara
Fri 8/9/2013 12:42:19 PM
SEEC Daily Clips 8.9.13

Sustainable Energy & Environment

Top news stories:

The busiest part of the Atlantic hurricane season will get underway in just a few weeks, and it is
supposed to be an active one, with the possibility of three to five Category 3 or greater hurricanes.

The oil and natural gas industry's rate of U.S. job growth has far outpaced the economy as a whole in
recent years as production has surged, federal data shows.

The rapidly spreading wildfire raging through a rugged Southern California mountain range Thursday
had already destroyed 26 homes and was threatening more than 500 other residences, forcing some
1,800 people to flee. One man suffered serious burns and five firefighters were injured, including two
from heat exhaustion.

GOP candidates snagged 85 percent of the $2.6 million in contributions from the oil and gas industry,
OpenSecrets data shows, citing July 29 data released by the Federal Election Commission. ExxonMobil
topped the list at $344,500 in contributions, $304,500 of which went to Republicans.

Energy news:

A shortage of biofuel credits needed for gasoline sales in the U.S. may lead to an increase in exports of
the fuel from America in 2014, according to the International Energy Agency. The U.S. Environmental

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Protection Agency, or EPA, earlier this month maintained its target requiring 16.55 billion gallons, or 1.1
million barrels a day, of biofuels be blended into the country's gasoline and diesel supplies this year. This
led to concerns as to whether the domestic gasoline market can absorb this volume of biofuel and may
have hit the so-called "blend wall," the IEA said today.

BP CEO Robert Dudley says public hatred of oil companies in the United States is an anomaly in the
world. Bloomberg Businessweek, in a new interview, asked him "why do people hate oil companies?"

One year ago, General Electric delayed its plan to build the world's largest solar plant in Colorado, saying
it would focus instead on out-innovating its primary competitor in thin-film technology, First Solar. Now,
its plan for the 400 megawatt (MW) manufacturing facility is officially dead under a multi-pronged
partnership announced this week with its former rival.

During the height of last month's heat wave, millions of people in northern New England were urged to
conserve energy, and some utilities fired up expensive, dirty sources of power to meet demand. But at
the same time, at least two wind farms in Maine and Vermont were ordered to reduce the amount of
electricity they provided.

Urban Green Energy Inc., a manufacturer of wind turbines small enough to be placed on residential
rooftoops, received $20 million in backing to install systems that will power mobile-phone towers in
remote locations.

Solar shipments in the second quarter from three of the top four panel producers exceeded projections
by as much as 32 percent as demand surged in Asia.

A European Union-backed project to produce biofuels from algae moved a step forward on Thursday by
producing its first crop of algae biomass at its site in southern Spain, the main company behind the
scheme said on Thursday.

Climate news:

Coal industry lobbyists are pitching the White House on a plan to create "achievable" carbon standards
for coal-fired power plants that would enable construction of new projects. American Coalition for Clean
Coal Electricity (ACCCE) lobbyists met July 31 with White House Office of Management and Budget aides
to discuss upcoming EPA emissions standards for future plants, a newly posted meeting record shows.

It was a stunning figure: $60 trillion. Such could be the cost, according to a recent commentary [PDF] in
the journal Nature, of "the release of methane from thawing permafrost beneath the East Siberian Sea,

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off northern Russia ... a figure comparable to the size of the world economy in 2012." More specifically,
the paper described a scenario in which rapid Arctic warming and sea ice retreat lead to a pulse of
undersea methane being released into the atmosphere.

The Keystone XL oil sands pipeline "will not have any impact" on greenhouse gas emissions, a report
released by prominent energy industry consulting group IHS CERA said Thursday. The report said that's
because Canada's oil sands, which are more carbon-rich than conventional oil, will come out of the
ground with or without Keystone.

Just two miles from the White House stands the Capitol Power Plant, the largest single source of carbon
emissions in the nation's capital and a concrete example of the government's inability to green its own
turf.

A survey released these week by a coalition of climate-conscious investor groups illustrates how climate
change could be having an increasingly strong influence over global investments with particular
implications for fossil fuel divestment and international climate policy. In the smoke-and-mirrors world
of investment, however, some traders think the results have little of substance to say.

There aren't many hot races in this off-off election year, but the Virginia governor's race is packed full of
enough drama and weirdness for a dozen contests. Here's just a sampling of the crazy: An obsessive
vendetta against a prominent climate scientist. A fledgling cleantech company under federal
investigation. A $1,500 turkey dinner (let's hope it was organic and heritage breed). Dueling high-profile
billionaire donors.

An electric car is only as good for the climate as the electricity used to power it. And in states that rely
heavily on fossil fuels like coal and natural gas for their electricity there are many conventional and plugin hybrid electric vehicles that are better for the climate than all-electric cars.

The South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga (population 106,000) doesn't have the loudest voice at the climate
change negotiations, and it isn't known for pulling stunts like underwater Cabinet meetings to draw
attention to the grave threats islands face from global warming.

Environment & Health news:

Tesla stock (TSLA) soared 17 percent to record highs after a surprisingly good earnings report. Tesla
Motors continues to defy expectations, making Tesla stock an intriguing option for many clean tech
investors.

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A new study makes the case for tracking fish from ocean to plate in order to protect Americans from
overspending hundreds of dollars each year on mislabeled fish. Better tracking of fish would decrease
the rates of "seafood fraud," according to a report from the ocean conservation organization Oceana.

One major barrier to bringing electric vehicles to the masses is range anxiety - not the fear that you left
the stove on at home, but the fear that your EV will run out of juice before you can get to the next
charging station. But creative solutions are in the works. This week, South Korea debuted the world's
first electric road, 15 miles of city streets with underground cables that charge EVs parked or driving
above - no plug-in stations necessary.

A group of state lawmakers has asked the federal government to investigate hydraulic fracturing off the
California coast where new oil leases have been banned since a disastrous oil spill in 1969.

With partisan politics trumping science-based solutions all too often these days, it's especially
heartening when people overcome political differences to let solid data point the way toward practical
solutions. That's what happened in Georgia last month when state regulators voted to require Georgia
Power -- the state's sole investor-owned electricity provider -- to expand the use of solar power in its
energy mix.

A Shanghai government report found more than half of the city's rivers and lakes are "severely
polluted," boosting concerns about water quality months after thousands of dead pigs were found
floating in its streams.

Costa Rica is a leader in green economic development: it has tripled its GDP over the past 25 years,
while doubling the size of its forests. Now, the country plans to open the cages at its two governmentfunded zoos and turn them into wildlife sanctuaries where animals can roam free, citing "a change of
environmental conscience" among its citizens.

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