Renewable Revolution

Islands Become Trendsetters for Renewable Energy

by Colin McCormick - August 05, 2015

Colin McCormick is a Research Fellow looking at energy technology innovation for WRI’s Charge project.



With its new target in place, Hawaii becomes the largest island to aim for a full-renewables grid strategy.

Hawaii made waves earlier this year with the announcement that it plans to transition its electric grid to 100 percent renewables by 2045. This is the most aggressive target in the United States, and it means that the state will serve as a testbed for bringing large amounts of variable renewables onto the grid. It should be watched closely by grid managers everywhere.

It’s no coincidence that Hawaii leads the nation in its renewable ambitions. As a group of islands, Hawaii faces unique energy challenges, and it has worked closely with the U.S. Department of Energy to analyze the potential of solar energy, and examine the challenges of integrating a variety of renewables into its energy mix.

From one perspective, an island seems like a hard place to use variable renewable energy like wind and solar. Island grids are usually isolated, so they can’t rely on power from the mainland grid when there’s no sun or wind. (There are some exceptions, like the Danish island of Samso.) Island grids generally have to pay more attention to backup generation and energy storage than mainland grids, raising the overall costs of renewables.

On the other hand, most islands rely on fuel imports to run their grid. These shipments of diesel, oil or natural gas are very expensive, and anything that can reduce or eliminate them can mean big savings. It also means less reliance on imports, increasing energy security. So shifting to fuel-free renewables like solar and wind saves money on this side of the ledger.

How do these two factors balance out in practice? The answer is clear in the growing number of island communities around the world that are moving quickly to adopt renewables.

The Growth of Renewable Islands

Hybrid renewable energy technologies can provide stable power for islands. For example, El Hierro, one of the Spanish Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, operates a stand-alone electric grid to serve its population of 11,000 and run power-hungry desalination plants. Last summer, the island inaugurated a hybrid wind-hydro power plant that combines wind energy when it’s available with pumped hydroelectric storage that runs when the wind drops. This has allowed it to almost completely stop using expensive, shipped-in fuel oil. The plant has just completed one year of successful operation.

Grid management and storage solutions are also being developed and used on islands. Kodiak Island in Alaska has just shifted to fully running its grid with wind and hydro power. To make this work, the utility had to deal with the challenge of smoothly transitioning between wind and hydro generation without the power flickering. Managers handle this by using a battery-storage system that can provide a brief (90 second) amount of power to bridge the gap. With the full system in operation, Kodiak is able to almost completely eliminate imports of close to 3 million gallons of diesel per year.

Many other islands are expanding how much of their electricity can feasibly come from renewables, as IRENA and the Carbon War Room have both addressed. These islands range from extremely small—such as the tiny Pacific nation of Tokelau, which moved to entirely solar power several years ago—to relatively large—Iceland relies almost entirely on hydropower and geothermal power, although these are less variable than wind and solar.

Learning from Hawaii

With its new target in place, Hawaii becomes the largest island to aim for a full-renewables grid strategy. The lessons from balancing variable renewable generation on smaller islands will help the state as it works to handle the challenges of large amounts of renewables. And while some of these lessons will remain island-specific, many will be relevant to mainland grids.


Ubiquitous solar panels on Rooftops in Hawaii

One particular example that many utilities around the world are grappling with is the question of how much distributed renewable energy can be safely installed on the grid. Hawaii has the highest percentage of rooftop solar in the United States—one household in eight has it—which has raised some technical concerns about grid stability.  In 2013, the local utility (HECO) capped the allowed amount of rooftop solar, freezing thousands of permit applications for new installations.   

After research by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) resolved those concerns, HECO doubled the cap and allowed new installations to go ahead. 

Now it is charting new territory, including learning how to work with distributed solar companies to better use data from rooftop solar installations to improve awareness of how these systems are performing and their impact on grid stability.

As the Hawaiian grid continues to gather real-world experience in incorporating large amounts of renewables, it will serve as both a practical demonstration and a tremendously valuable testbed for how other states could follow a similar path.

http://www.wri.org/blog/2015/08/islands-become-trendsetters-renewable-energy

Front groups with official and impressive name such as Medicine and Public Health at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) tend to lend an air of authoritative credibility to a given issue. It carries the impression of being an expert source.

To increase the “expert credibility” image, add someone with a few letters before and/or after their name to the staff.

But is the front group or its representatives really an expert and credible organization? 

Full article:
https://frackorporation.wordpress.com/2015/08/15/shilling-for-dollars/

Agelbert NOTE: The short answer is NO. The ACSH is funded by a rogues gallery of polluters. The scientists they employ are bought and paid for to distort, dissemble and twist the science of applied physics (see "High Energy Density" of fossil fuels happy talk) and climate science along with several other pro-corporate and anti-people propaganda). The ACSH exists to perpetuate the profit over planet polluting status quo, PERIOD.




Posted on April 17, 2015 by Gary Ruskin

The American Council on Science and Health is a front group for the tobacco, agrichemical, fossil fuel, pharmaceutical and other industries.

Personnel

ACSH’s “Medical/Executive Director” is Dr. Gilbert Ross.[2] In 1993, according to United Press International, Dr. Ross was “convicted of racketeering, mail fraud and conspiracy,” and was “sentenced to 47 months in jail, $40,000 in forfeiture and restitution of $612,855” in a scheme to defraud the Medicaid system.[3]
ACSH’s Dr. Ross was found to be a “highly untrustworthy individual” by a judge who sustained the exclusion of Dr. Ross from Medicaid for ten years.[4]


Funding 

ACSH has often billed itself as an “independent” group, and has been referred to as “independent” in the press. However, according to internal ACSH financial documents obtained by Mother Jones:

“ACSH planned to receive a total of $338,200 from tobacco companies between July 2012 and June 2013. Reynolds American and Phillip Morris International were each listed as expected to give $100,000 in 2013, which would make them the two largest individual donations listed in the ACSH documents.”[5]

“ACSH donors in the second half of 2012 included Chevron ($18,500), Coca-Cola ($50,000), the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation ($15,000), Dr. Pepper/Snapple ($5,000), Bayer Cropscience ($30,000), Procter and Gamble ($6,000), agribusiness giant Syngenta ($22,500), 3M ($30,000), McDonald’s ($30,000), and tobacco conglomerate Altria ($25,000).

Among the corporations and foundations that ACSH has pursued for financial support since July 2012 are Pepsi, Monsanto, British American Tobacco, DowAgro, ExxonMobil Foundation, Philip Morris International, Reynolds American, the Koch family-controlled Claude R. Lambe Foundation, the Dow-linked Gerstacker Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, and the Searle Freedom Trust.”[6]

ACSH has received $155,000 in contributions from Koch foundations from 2005-2011, according to Greenpeace.[7]

Indefensible and incorrect statements on science
ACSH has:

Claimed that “There is no evidence that exposure to secondhand smoke involves heart attacks or cardiac arrest.”[8]

Argued that “there is no scientific consensus concerning global warming. The climate change predictions are based on computer models that have not been validated and are far from perfect.”[9]

Argued that fracking “doesn’t pollute water or air.”[10]

Claimed that “The scientific evidence is clear. There has never been a case of ill health linked to the regulated, approved use of pesticides in this country.”[11]

Declared that “There is no evidence that BPA [bisphenol A] in consumer products of any type, including cash register receipts, are harmful to health.”[12]

Argued that the exposure to mercury, a potent neurotoxin, “in conventional seafood causes no harm in humans.”[13]

Footnotes

[2] “Meet the ACSH Team,” American Council on Science and Health website.

[3] “Seven Sentenced for Medicaid Fraud.” United Press International, December 6, 1993. See also correspondence from Tyrone T. Butler, Director, Bureau of Adjudication, State of New York Department of Health to Claudia Morales Bloch, Gilbert Ross and Vivian Shevitz, “RE: In the Matter of Gilbert Ross, M.D.” March 1, 1995. Bill Hogan, “Paging Dr. Ross.” Mother Jones, November 2005. Martin Donohoe MD FACP, “Corporate Front Groups and the Abuse of Science: The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).” Spinwatch, June 25, 2010.

[4] Department of Health and Human Services, Departmental Appeals Board, Civil Remedies Division, In the Cases of Gilbert Ross, M.D. and Deborah Williams M.D., Petitioners, v. The Inspector General. June 16, 1997. Docket Nos. C-94-368 and C-94-369. Decision No. CR478.

[5] Andy Kroll and Jeremy Schulman, “Leaked Documents Reveal the Secret Finances of a Pro-Industry Science Group.” Mother Jones, October 28, 2013. “American Council on Science and Health Financial Report, FY 2013 Financial Update.” Mother Jones, October 28, 2013.

[6] Andy Kroll and Jeremy Schulman, “Leaked Documents Reveal the Secret Finances of a Pro-Industry Science Group.” Mother Jones, October 28, 2013. “American Council on Science and Health Financial Report, FY 2013 Financial Update.” Mother Jones, October 28, 2013.

[7] “Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group: American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).” Greenpeace. See also Rebekah Wilce, “Kochs and Corps Have Bankrolled American Council on Science and Health.” PR Watch, July 23, 2014.

[8] Richard Craver, “The Effects of the Smoking Ban.” Winston-Salem Journal, December 12, 2012.

[9] Elizabeth Whelan, “’Global Warming’ Not Health Threat.” PRI (Population Research Institute) Review, January 1, 1998.

[10] Elizabeth Whelan, “Fracking Doesn’t Pose Health Risks.” The Daily Caller, April 29, 2013.

[11] “TASSC: The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition,” p. 9. Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, University of California, San Francisco. November 21, 2001. Bates No. 2048294227-2048294237.

[12] “The Top 10 Unfounded Health Scares of 2012.” American Council on Science and Health, February 22, 2013.

[13] “The Biggest Unfounded Health Scares of 2010.” American Council on Science and Health, December 30, 2010.

Food For Thought, Hall of Shame

http://usrtk.org/hall-of-shame/why-you-cant-trust-the-american-council-on-science-and-health/

Agelbert NOTE: Here is an excellent example of pseudo scientific baloney published by the ACSH (it's three years old but the same baloney continues to be peddled by fossil fuelers and those that swallowed their mendacious propaganda):

Energy Density: Why Gasoline Is Here To Stay 

By Hank Campbell    | August 2nd 2012 11:00 PM

SNIPPET 1 - The Pretense of Objectivity Wind Up (i.e. tough love "real world" baloney mixed with sympathy laced rhetoric):

Like people who approach geopolitics with the attitude of "If people would just talk to each other, we would all along", there are a lot of naïve assumptions about just dumping gasoline.

We know it causes emissions, and emissions are bad, we know a lot of the money paid for oil goes to fund Middle Eastern terrorism, and that is bad - those things should cause both the left and the right in America to want gasoline gone. And yet it is not gone. The reason is simple: gasoline is a lot more efficient than alternative energy proponents want to believe.


SNIPPET 2 - The pitch:

Energy density is the amount of stored energy in something; in the case of gasoline we talk in America about a 1 gallon volume but I will use both metric and standard for the values. Gasoline has an energy density of about 44 megajoules per kilogram (MJ/kg), converted to American values that is 1.3 × 108 J/gallon.


SNIPPET 3 (Just ONE of SEVERAL real world AND applied physics LIES):

Ethanol was the last craze of the Anything-But-Oil contingent yet even they had to succumb to reality and recognize that the lower energy density meant 25% worse gas mileage - worse for people, worse for food prices and worse for the environment.
http://www.science20.com/science_20/energy_density_why_gasoline_here_stay-91403


Agelbert NOTE: To begin with, ethanol is not a "craze". It was not a craze in 2012 and, because presently 15 billion gallons of it are made a year, it certainly isn't one now.

But the fact that the author is so ignorant of history (Edison labs in partnership with the U.S. Navy, in the first decade of the 20th century, PROVED that ethanol was a superior fuel to gasoline - It was rather convenient for Standard Oil that Prohibition just happened to come along after Rockefeller funded the temperance movement to the tune of several million dollars...) is informative about the questionable scientific objectivity of the author. 

The author puts up a happy talk graph showing gasoline as the high energy density champion over E85. He leaves out E100 (an informative omission that points squarely at a fossil fuel bias).

The chart is accurate. So what's the problem? The problem is that energy density of gasoline and ethanol is a process determined in the lab, by scientists, in certain standardized conditions. I'm CERTAIN fossil fuelers know this. The energy density of about 44 MJ/kg) for gasoline is determined by heating water, in an open flame in standard atmospheric conditions (a fixed temperature and pressure - sea level at 59 degrees F). 

If the above appears irrelevant to you, let me remind you that heating water in an open flame is an EXTERNAL combustion process. It is true that gasoline will heat that water quicker than ethanol. 

But, unless you have a steam engine running your car, you need to consider how much WORK you can get from gasoline versus ethanol in an INTERNAL combustion engine.

The author neglected to mention that ethanol (E100) has a higher octane rating than non-leaded gasoline, even though E100 has a lower energy density.  High octane ratings give a fuel better mileage as long as you oxidize them in a high compression internal combustion engines. That is why tetra-ethyl lead was invented to help our children's IQ... You see, ethanol was outlawed for fuel thanks to Prohibition... And, by the way, leaded gasoline is STILL LEGAL for use in aircraft internal combustion engine, all of which are high compression engines. Do you live under the approach to general aviation airport? Then you are getting the "benefit" of still another "externalized" cost thanks to the fossil fuel industry.

When you mix gasoline with ethanol (e.g. E85) you LOWER the octane rating. IOW, you are making it LESS efficient. You are making it LESS competitive with gasoline. You are getting the waste heat disadvantage of gasoline and losing the a part of the high octane rating of ethanol. That is Inefficient. That is unscientific. That is STUPID. But that is convenient and profitable for the fossil fuel industry. You might ask yourself why E100 is in common use in Brazil, but not in the USA. I'll give you three guesses - the first two don't count. 

Why ethanol's octane rating is higher than that of non-leaded gasoline if ethanol has a lower energy density? Because ethanol is of uniform chemical structure. Consequently, it burns evenly and does not suffer from pre-ignition (like low octane gasoline DOES) which can severely damage an engine.

More thermodynamically important, however,  the consistent chemical structure of E100 ensures complete combustion, aided by the fact that it carries it's own oxygen.

In addition, ethanol has extremely low waste heat because, unlike gasoline, it doesn't produce carbon deposits from incomplete combustion on the cylinder walls that increase friction and decrease engine life.

Unlike an engine running on gasoline, you can touch the block, or the manifold, of an engine running on ethanol with your hand AND KEEP IT THERE without getting burned. This has huge savings implications for engine design that the fossil fuel industry has done it's best to keep from internal combustion engine designers and manufacturers (more on that below).

IN SUMMARY, "High energy density" calculations  are based on EXTERNAL thermodynamic combustion processes. It is true that gasoline will boil water in an open flame faster than ethanol will. That doesn't have beans to do with automobiles.

But when INTERNAL combustion is involved, ethanol produces more useful work than gasoline. That has EVERYTHING to do with automobiles.

But there is more the fossil fuel industry does not want most people to know. Due to the fact that ethanol burns so cleanly and has such low waste heat, a high compression internal combustion engine specifically designed for ethanol would be about 30% lighter (i.e. a lot cheaper) because the metal alloys involved would not have to be engineered to withstand the engine stressing waste heat that gasoline generates. Of course, said internal combustion engine (ICE) could not be approved for running gasoline. Gasoline would trash an engine designed specifically to run on ethanol in short order. The fossil fuel industry would not like that at all.

A lighter ICE running ethanol would then get even more mechanical energy (i.e. WORK) out of each gallon because less engine weight would need to be moved along with the car and occupants.

The Fossil Fuel Industry knows all that. That is why they continuously try to demonize and talk down ethanol biofuel with mendacity and dissembling about "low ERoEI", "water in the fuel" and "corrosion".

I, and many others, have exposed all that fossil fuel industry self serving propaganda. But they just keep throwing it out there to try to preserve the TOTALLY unscientific basis for claiming fossil fuels are a "better fuel" than E100 (pure ethanol).

Don't believe them. And check to see who is doing the funding when you read happy talk about fossil fuels.

The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) is not objective, science based or credible. Hank Campbell, like the fossil fueler MKing that haunts the Doomstead Diner, is not interested in scientific objectivity; preserving the fossil fuel profit over planet status quo with mens rea mendacity is behind everything they write.



Further reading that methodically takes apart some relatively recent pseudo scientific baloney by the "illustrious" Professor Charles Hall, friend of fossil fuelers everywhere. 



 

Tierney Smith, TckTckTck | September 21, 2015 9:08 am

100 percent renewable energy for all is achievable by 2050, creating jobs and cutting fuel costs, according to Greenpeace’s latest Energy [R]evolution report.

Researched in collaboration with the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), the report finds that the clean energy transition—including the electricity, transport and heating sectors—will create 20 million jobs over the next 15 years, and—unlike coal—will provide energy access to the one third of people globally that currently have none.

Greenpeace Energy [R]evolution report author Sven Teske said:

“The solar and wind industries have come of age, and are cost-competitive with coal. It’s the responsibility of the fossil fuel industry to prepare for these changes in the labour market and make provisions.

Governments need to manage the dismantling of the fossil fuel industry which is moving rapidly into irrelevance.

Every dollar invested in new fossil fuel projects is high risk capital which might end up as stranded investment.”[/color]

Greenpeace and DLR found that the investment necessary to reach a 100 per cent renewable goal will be a considerable US$1 trillion a year.

However, this will be more than covered by the US$1.07 trillion in savings on fuel costs alone in the same period, not to mention the vast co-benefits to human health and the avoided costs from climate change-related extreme weather that come with the renewable transition.

To date, Greenpeace’s clean energy transition projections have proven to be the amongst the most accurate globally. 

This updated roadmap plots an ambitious path, but a necessary one for the world to tread if we are to remain below the agreed 2C guardrail of average global warming.

Renewable potential has been consistently understated, but with overwhelming public support, renewable records being broken all the time in Germany and elsewhere, Tesla about to add storage to the rapidly growing Australian solar market, and California recently approving 50 percent by 2030 renewable target—to name just a few developments—momentum is growing at such a pace Greenpeace could be proven prescient once again.

Greenpeace International executive director, Kumi Naidoo said:

“We must not let lobbying by vested interests in the fossil fuel industry stand in the way of a switch to renewable energy, the most effective and fairest way to deliver a clean and safe energy future. I would urge all those who say ‘it can’t be done’ to read this report and recognize that it can be done, it must be done, and it will be for the benefit of everyone if it is done.”

With the UN climate talks in Paris looming, fossil fuel divestment gathering pace worldwide, and the renewable industry booming, there is no fork in the road—there is only forward to a clean energy future or backwards to a dirty fossil fuel past.

Countries from Sweden to Brazil, China to India are already waking up to the opportunities of a clean energy future, and with the right investment, Greenpeace says renewables will triple to 64 percent of global electricity supply—almost two thirds—by as early as 2030.

Such a transition would see CO2 emissions fall from the current 30 gigatonnes a year to 20 gigatonnes by 2030.

http://ecowatch.com/2015/09/21/100-renewables-2050-greenpeace/

Associated Press

Monday 28 September 2015 08.17 EDT  Last modified on Monday 28 September 2015 11.14 EDT 

Brazil on Sunday became the first major developing country to pledge an absolute reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for an envisioned global pact against climate change.

The world’s seventh biggest greenhouse gas polluter said it would cut its emissions by 37% by 2025 from 2005 levels by reducing deforestation and boosting the share of renewable sources in its energy mix. It also indicated an “intended reduction” of 43% by 2030.

“Our goals are just as ambitious, if not more so, than those set by developed countries,”

President Dilma Rousseff said as she announced the targets at the UN in New York.
 
In talks on a new climate agreement, set to be adopted in Paris in December, developed countries are expected to shoulder the biggest responsibility for cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. For example, the US has pledged to reduce its emissions by 26-28% between 2005 and 2025.

Major developing countries such as China and South Africa have pledged to rein in their emissions as their economies expand, rather than to slash them in absolute terms.

Brazil, however, has already achieved significant emissions cuts in the past decade primarily because of efforts to reduce deforestation in the Amazon.

Environmental groups tracking climate policy applauded Brazil for taking absolute reduction targets, but said they could have been even more ambitious.

The targets would reduce Brazilian emissions from the current level of 1.6bn tonnes a year to 1.5bn tonnes by 2025 and 1.3bn tonnes by 2030, said Viviane Romeiro of the World Resources Institute (WRI), an environmental thinktank.

“Ideally, we would have reached 1 gigaton by 2030. This pledge won’t allow us to get to that number,” she said.

Rousseff said that by 2030, Brazil, which has large dams, aims to get 66% of its electricity from hydropower and 23% from other renewable sources including wind, solar and biomass.

That’s an increase from a joint announcement with the US in June, when Brazil said it would double its non-hydropower renewable sources to 20% by 2030.

She also said that Brazil would strive to end illegal deforestation by 2030, a goal that Romeiro said it had previously hoped to achieve by this year.

A crunch issue in UN climate talks is how to divide the responsibility of fighting climate change between developed countries who have historically released the highest emissions and developing nations whose emissions are growing the fastest.
 
Environment minister Izabella Teixeira told the Associated Press that Brazil’s targets were consistent with its historical responsibility to deal with the problem.

“We are not increasing our emissions. We are cutting our emissions,”

she said.

Without naming anyone, she added that many countries say they want to fight global warming, “but when you check their numbers you see they are increasing their emissions”.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/28/brazil-pledges-to-cut-carbon-emissions-37-by-2025

Sweden to Become the World’s First Fossil Fuel-Free Nation​ 

Lorraine Chow | September 25, 2015 11:20 am



http://ecowatch.com/2015/09/25/%e2%80%8bsweden-fossil-fuel-free/

10/16/2015

Editor:

The sun can provide virtually limitless, pollution-free energy to power our lives. Solar energy is also supported by people with a wide range of political backgrounds. Incredibly, support for the development of solar energy ranges from environmentalists all the way to tea party activists. In an increasingly competitive renewable energy market, and with increasingly bipartisan support for solar, what’s getting in the way of our clean energy future?

A recent report from Environment Colorado’s research and policy center, entitled Blocking the Sun, helps shed some light on this — pun very much intended.  

The report reveals major opposition to the development of solar energy from utility interest groups and fossil fuel industry-funded think tanks that are providing funding, model legislation and political cover for anti-solar campaigns across the United States and in Colorado.

Because of the overwhelming public support for solar, these special interests are resorting to some seriously shady tactics to stop the development of solar energy in its tracks. 


The Koch brothers, who have an enormous financial stake in the fossil fuel industry through their company Koch Industries and its many subsidiaries, have provided funding to the national fight against solar by funneling tens of millions of dollars through a network of opaque nonprofits like Americans for Prosperity, which has a chapter in Colorado, and is a first-hand participant in Colorado anti-solar campaigns. Through Americans for Prosperity, and by funding anti-solar efforts by other groups, including ALEC, the Koch brothers have funded or participated in fights against solar in Colorado.

The Koch Brothers and their front groups like Americans for Prosperity    have resorted to shady tactics to undermine our solar power.

Now it’s personal.

This is a matter of political monopoly over the public interest and environmental sustainability. Now it’s up to our leaders to reject these attacks and support a clean energy future. 

Katie Otterbeck
 Solar power campaign organizer, Environment Colorado
 Denver

http://coloradostatesman.com/content/996254-letter-reject-fossil-fuel-industry%3Fs-roadblocks-solar-energy

10/30/2015 02:53 PM     

Which US Cities Lead on Renewable Energy Use?

SustainableBusiness.com News

Surprisingly, Dallas ranks #1 this year on renewable energy use  , followed by Houston    , which was #1 last year, says the EPA.

EPA's ranking rates government use of green power. Other governments in the top five are District of Columbia, Montgomery County,  Maryland, and Austin, Texas. 

Municipal buildings in Dallas now run on 100% wind and Houston gets half its electricity from a mix of wind and solar.

When we look at the top 10 renewable energy users in the US, these cities are still on the list: Intel, Microsoft, Kohl's, Apple,  Google, Mars, City of Dallas, Starbucks, US Department of Energy, and City of Houston.

Once again, Austin will add a lot more solar, this time another  600 megawatts (MW) by the end of 2019. That's in addition to 118 MW approved this year and 150 MW last year, bringing it close to its goal of 35% renewable energy by 2020.

 This exceeds the entire amount of solar in the state - 300 MW as of 2014, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. The reason Texas has so little solar is because of a lack of incentives compared to other states, approving the first utility-scale solar projects just last year because of low prices. 

Read our article, US Solar Production Underestimated - By Half! 




Texas leads the nation on wind energy, supplying 10.6% of its electricity, but it still burns lots of coal, gas and oil, maintaining its position as the biggest polluter among US states for the 24th consecutive year, according the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

And pollution isn't going down. In 2013, Texas spewed more carbon emissions than since 2004 - almost double that of California. So did other states that are major fossil fuel producers - especially from fracking, which boomed that year. 

Calculated per capita, top carbon emitting states are (in this order): Wyoming, North Dakota, West Virginia, Alaska and Louisiana. 

And the lowest are (in this order): New York, Vermont and California.


Between 1990-2013, Washington DC has driven down emissions the most - an impressive 36% - followed by Delaware, New York, Massachusetts and Maryland with declines of 17-24%.  Nebraska's emissions grew the most at 28%, thanks to growth in ethanol which consumes a lot of natural gas.

Across the country, "the general trend is emissions are down and are stable,"    says Perry Lindstrom, EIA analyst. US emissions are down around 11% from the 2005 peak, with emissions falling in 37 states and rising in 13 between 1990-2013.

Here is EIA's analysis of state's emissions from 1990-2013:
 
Website: www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/state/analysis/

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/26455