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Solar Power vs. The Darkness of Trump
We desperately need clean energy now. That’s what this election is about.
Sep 08, 2024
To understand the primal stakes in this year’s election, and to understand the very exciting possibility for rapid progress in the climate fight, a new set of numbers is extremely useful.
They come courtesy of Electrek’s Michelle Lewis, reporting on the longtime renewable researcher Ken Bossong’s analysis of the data on electric generation provided each month by the Energy Information Administration. And what they show is the remarkable transformation over the last decade. In 2014, solar power “utility-scale solar provided a mere 9.25 GW (0.75%) of total installed US generating capacity.” Which is to say, less than one percent. But “by the middle of 2024, installed solar capacity had risen to 8.99% of total utility-scale capacity.” (Add another few percent for rooftop distributed solar).
That still sounds like a relatively small percentage—under ten percent. But in fact what it measns is that we’ve finally moved on to the steep part of an S curve, and if we can keep up anything like that pace of expansion it won’t be long before the numbers are truly incredible. Indeed, as Bossong pointed out on Twitter, “the combination of utility-scale and “estimated” small-scale (e.g., rooftop) solar increased by 26.3% in the first six months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.” Statistics numb the brain so let me say it another way: we are on the cusp of a true explosion that could change the world. We are starting to put out the fires that humans have always relied on, and replace them with the power of the sun.
Pretty much the same thing is happening with wind, and pretty much the same thing is happening around the world. Bloomberg predicted last week that global installations of new solar modules would hit 592 gigawatts this year—up 33 percent from last year. The point is, when you’re doing this a few years in a row the totals start to grow very very fast. When something that provides one percent of your electricity doubles to two percent, that doesn’t mean much—but when something that supplies ten or twenty percent goes up by a third that’s actually quite a lot. And more the next year.
For a long while, you could see this growth coming, but it hadn’t yet added up to enough to materially dent the use of coal and gas and oil. But that is starting to change. Here’s the most important number I can give you, supplied to me this afternoon by Stanford professor Mark Jacobson, who has been keeping careful track of the California electric grid. As I wrote earlier, it’s been moving to renewable energy faster than almost anywhere in the country. The result: “For the (almost) 6-month period from March 7 to September 4, fossil gas use on the grid was 29% lower in 2024 than in 2023.” I’m going to repeat that. “For the (almost) 6-month period from March 7 to September 4, fossil gas use on the grid was 29% lower in 2024 than in 2023.” That is, the use of natural gas to generate electricity has dropped by almost a third in one year in the fifth largest economy in the world. In 2023, fossil gas provided 23% more electricity to the grid than solar in that six month period. In 2024, those numbers were almost perfectly reversed: solar provided 24 percent more electricity than fossil gas, 39,865 GWh v 24,033 GWh. In one year. That’s how this kind of s-curve exponential growth works, and how it could work everywhere on earth,
All this is the premise for understanding why the fossil fuel industry is so freaked out about this year’s election. They can read these charts as easily as anyone, and they know what’s coming. If it keeps happening at this pace, it will quickly start reducing demand for their products—they have vast reserves of, say, natural gas in the Permian Basin that will stay there forever simply because there’s no market. They have to lock in customers right now, or else watch their whole business start to slowly, and then quickly, fade. And with that fade will come, inevitably, reduced political power. Right now they can still frighten politicians—hence the fact that Kamala Harris, with Pennsylvania on the line, has to insist she supports fracking. But four years from now, not so much.
And if Trump wins, there’s tons that he can do to slow the transition down. He can’t “kill wind,” as he has promised. But he can make it impossible for it to keep growing at the same rate—right now there are teams in the White House managing every single big renewable project, trying to lower the regulatory hurdles that get in the way of new transmission lines, for instance. A Trump White House will have similar teams, just operating in reverse.
Again, he can’t hold it off forever—economics insures that cheap power will eventually win out. But eventually doesn’t help here, not with the poles melting fast. We desperately need clean energy now. That’s what this election is about—will Big Oil get the obstacle it desperately desires, or will change continue to play out—hopefully with a big boost from the climate movement for even faster progress.
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Texas GOP Invents Corporate Courts Ready to Do Industry's Bidding
"Why bother judge-shopping when you can just invent a new court?" asked one watchdog.
Sep 04, 2024
In recent months, corporate groups such as the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce have faced growing backlash over "judge-shopping," a tactic whereby plaintiffs deliberately select legal venues they believe will produce favorable outcomes.
But as of the beginning of this month, corporations have access to nearly a dozen Texas courts created specifically for the purpose of settling major business cases as well as a statewide panel that will hear appeals from the newly established courts.
"Why bother judge-shopping when you can just invent a new court?" Adrian Shelley, Texas director of Public Citizen, asked in a statement Tuesday.
Texas' Business Court Judicial District, which consists of 11 business courts, is a product of Republican legislation backed by GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, a Big Oil ally tasked with handpicking the courts' judges. A local Chamber of Commerce branch characterized the new courts as "a collaborative effort between the state legislature and the business community."
The state's oil and gas industry lobbied aggressively for the new business district, and their investment appears to have paid off. As journalist Katya Schwenk reported for The Lever last week, "at least five of Abbott's 13 appointees to the business courts, including all three appointees to the appellate court, have worked on behalf of fossil fuel companies."
While it's not the only U.S. state with courts specifically dedicated to corporate cases, Schwenk explained that "Texas' model is different from many other states' business courts."
"The judges are appointed personally by the governor, with virtually no oversight from the legislative branch," Schwenk wrote. "And they only serve two-year terms—in contrast to 12-year terms in Delaware and six-year terms in Nevada—in theory making it easy for Abbott or a successor to quickly replace a judge who doesn't rule in favor of his political interests. Abbott has been pushing for Texas to create such a system for years."
"In the words of one local corporate law firm, the courts were designed to 'preserve Texas' business-friendly culture,' and major corporate actors seem to agree," Schwenk continued. "In the wake of the courts' rollout, SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk announced he was reincorporating the rocket company in Texas; he has since said he is moving SpaceX's headquarters there from California, as well as those of X, formerly Twitter."
"Voters have already chosen the judges they want to head the courts in their communities; Greg Abbott is rejecting that choice by creating new courts that launch with unelected judges he picked."
The new business courts will hear cases involving disputes worth over $10 million, and the 15th Court of Appeals will hear appeals arising from those cases.
As Public Health Watchrecently observed, the creation of the new appeals panel "allows industries and state regulators to bypass the 3rd Court of Appeals, whose six justices are, at the moment, all Democrats." The judges on that court are also elected, unlike the inaugural members of the newly established 15th Court of Appeals.
Shelley of Public Citizen said Wednesday that "there is an ongoing campaign to rip power away from institutions considered unfriendly to the agenda of the state's Republican majority."
"In addition to creating these courts, the legislature also passed H.B. 2627, the Death Star bill, that blocked cities and counties from creating local rules that are best for those communities, including on issues that concern public health, safety, and the environment," said Shelley. "Just as state lawmakers view democratically elected city councils as standing in their way, especially in blue-leaning cities, they don't want the courts checking their power."
"Voters have already chosen the judges they want to head the courts in their communities; Greg Abbott is rejecting that choice by creating new courts that launch with unelected judges he picked," he continued. "These maneuvers are not only a threat to public health and the environment but also undemocratic."
Public Health Watch reported in July that a number of significant climate-related cases are set to move from the 3rd Court of Appeals—which the outlet characterized as generally "receptive to environmentalists' arguments"—to the 15th Court, including "proposed expansions of the ExxonMobil chemical plant in Baytown, near Houston, which experienced a major accident in 2019, and the Valero refinery in Corpus Christi."
Scott Brister, the judge Abbott chose to serve as chief justice of the 15th Court of Appeals, "worked at a law firm known for its specialty in fossil fuel litigation," Schwenk reported last week.
"While an attorney there, Brister, a Republican, led the defense of the oil company BP in litigation over the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill, one of the worst environmental disasters in history, which released more than 100 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010," Schwenk noted. "Before then, while serving on the Texas Supreme Court, Brister threw out a major guilty verdict against oil giant ExxonMobil for allegedly poisoning a town's water supply."
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'Big Win': UK Won't Defend Fossil Fuel Projects in North Sea
Oceana U.K.'s leader called the decision "a massive win for campaigners and another step towards... a cleaner, greener future for our seas, planet, and climate."
Aug 29, 2024
Climate campaigners celebrated Thursday after the United Kingdom's new Labour government announced it will not legally defend decisions to allow controversial offshore drilling in a pair of areas in the North Sea.
The two sites are Shell's Jackdaw gas field and the Rosebank oil field, owned by Equinor and Ithaca Energy. Both projects have been loudly criticized by international green groups as well as U.K. opponents.
"This is amazing news and a BIG WIN for the climate. The government must now properly support affected workers and prioritize investment in green jobs,"
declared Greenpeace U.K., which along with the group Uplift had demanded judicial reviews.
The approvals for both North Sea sites occurred under Conservative rule—in 2022 for Jackdaw and last year for Rosebank, the country's biggest untapped oil field. Voters handed control of the government back to the Labour Party in May.
Then, as The Guardiandetailed, "in June, the cases against the oil and gas fields received a boost when the Supreme Court ruled in a separate case that 'scope 3' emissions—that is, the burning of fossil fuels rather than just the building of the infrastructure to do so—should be taken into account when approving projects."
"Now we need to see a just transition plan for workers and communities across the U.K. and an end extraction in the North Sea for good!"
The U.K. Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, led by Secretary Ed Miliband, cited the "landmark" Supreme Court ruling in a Thursday statement that highlighted the government's decision not to defend the approvals "will save the taxpayer money" and "this litigation does not mean the licences for Jackdaw and Rosebank have been withdrawn."
"Oil and gas production in the North Sea will be a key component of the U.K. energy landscape for decades to come as it transitions to our clean energy future in a way that protects jobs," the department claimed, while also pledging to "consult later this year on the implementation of its manifesto position not to issue new oil and gas licenses to explore new fields."
Welcoming the U.K. government's acceptance of the recent high court ruling, Uplift founder and executive director Tessa Khan
said on social media that "the immediate consequence... is that the Scottish Court of Session is very likely to quash the decision approving Rosebank, although we're likely to have to wait a while before that's confirmed."
"If Equinor and Ithaca Energy decide they still want to press ahead with developing the field," Khan explained, "then the next step will be for them to submit a new environmental statement to the [government] and regulator... that includes the scope 3 emissions from the field."
"If you need reminding, those emissions are massive: the same as 56 coal-fired power plants running for a year or the annual emissions of the world's 28 poorest countries," she added. "If Equinor and Ithaca try to push Rosebank through again, the U.K. [government] must reject it."
Greenpeace similarly stressed that "Rosebank and Jackdaw would generate a vast amount of emissions while doing nothing to lower energy bills," and "the only real winners from giving them the greenlight would be greedy oil giants Shell and Equinor."
"To lower bills, improve people's health, upgrade our economy," the group argued, the government must: increase renewable energy; better insulate homes; and boost support for green jobs.
Celebrations over the government's decision and calls for further action weren't limited to the groups behind the legal challenges.
Oceana U.K. executive director praised the "incredible work" by Greenpeace and Uplift, and called the government dropping its defense "a massive win for campaigners and another step towards... a cleaner, greener future for our seas, planet, and climate."
Oil Change International also applauded the government's "incredibly important and correct decision."
"There is no defending more fossil fuel extraction," the organization said. "Now we need to see a just transition plan for workers and communities across the U.K. and an end extraction in the North Sea for good!"
Global Witness similarly celebrated the government's move, declaring on social media that "this is brilliant news!"
"New oilfields are an act of climate vandalism," the group added. "Governments must prioritize people, not polluters' profit."
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