Read About The Tarbaby Story under the Category: About the Tarbaby Blog
The U.S. can tap into a huge source of renewable energy that few people are talking about: geothermal. This technology has already transformed Iceland.
We Can SolveThis: America Forges Ahead
The U.S. can tap into a huge source of renewable energy that few people are talking about: geothermal. This technology has already transformed Iceland. #WeCanSolveThis #YEARSproject
Posted by DeSmogBlog on Friday, May 11, 2018
1,400 tons of waste burned a day. Power for 25% of Addis Ababa’s homes. 3 million bricks made from the ash.
This African factory turns trash into energy, clean water and bricks
1,400 tons of waste burned a day.✅Power for 25% of Addis Ababa's homes.✅3 million bricks made from the ash. ✅ via World Economic Forum
Posted by EcoWatch on Thursday, May 10, 2018
What Happens to bees after they sting?
What Happens To Bees After They Sting
You Need To See This… 😱😱😱😱😱😱via ViralHog #FNJ
Posted by Alltime Videos on Saturday, May 5, 2018
Tim Mak May 11, 2018
Russian official Alexander Torshin, appearing in Moscow in 2016, was sanctioned by the U.S. government in April, suspending years of travel back to 2009 during which he cultivated ties with American conservatives. Alexander Shalgin/Alexander Shalgin/TASS
Kremlin-linked Russian politician Alexander Torshin traveled frequently between Moscow and various destinations in the United States to build relationships with figures on the American right starting as early as 2009, beyond his previously known contacts with the National Rifle Association.
Documents newly obtained by NPR show how he traveled throughout the United States to cultivate ties in ways well beyond his formal role as a member of the Russian legislature and later as a top official at the Russian central bank. These are steps a former top CIA official believes Torshin took in order to advance Moscow’s long-term objectives in the United States, in part by establishing common political interests with American conservatives.
“Putin and probably the Russian intelligence services saw [Torshin’s connections] as something that they could leverage in the United States,” said Steve Hall, a retired CIA chief of Russian operations. “They reach to reach out to guy like Torshin and say, ‘Hey, can you make contact with the NRA and some other conservatives… so that we can have connectivity from Moscow into those conservative parts of American politics should we need them?’ And that’s basically just wiring the United States for sound, if you will, in preparation for whatever they might need down the road.”
POLITICS: Depth Of Russian Politician’s Cultivation Of NRA Ties Revealed
Torshin’s trips took him to Alaska, where he requested a visit with former Gov. Sarah Palin; to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.; to Nashville, where he was an election observer for the 2012 presidential race; and to every NRA convention, in various American cities, between 2012 and 2016.
But the jig is up. Last month, Torshin was designated for sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department.
“We can conclude that the administration thought he was acting to advance Putin’s malign agenda, but what precisely [he did] they did not make clear,” said Daniel Fried, helped craft the sanctions authority that were ultimately employed against Torshin as a former State Department coordinator for sanctions policy.
Arriving At Sarah Palin’s Doorstep
Torshin’s outreach to the United States started well before Russia’s now-public campaign of electoral interference during the 2016 elections. And it appears to be a cultivated effort to reach out to conservatives, even in its earliest stages.
“I really do think the Russians are looking at being able to reach out to the right… to say, ‘Hey, you know Russians actually share a lot of the same values,'” said Hall, whose 30-year career in the CIA concluded in 2015.
NATIONAL SECURITY: 6 States Hit Harder By Cyberattacks Than Previously Known, New Report Reveals
Hall said their message was: “You know, we don’t like LGBT causes anymore than you conservatives on the right in the United States do, we are interested in engaging the NRA… the church plays an important role in Russia just as it should in the United States.”
Torshin’s earliest known visit to the United States was in 2009, when he requested a meeting with former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin — a request that has never before been reported.
An email from the former Alaska governor’s archives, released due to a public records request from activist Andree McLeod and posted online en masse by then-Alaska Dispatch News reporter Richard Mauer, shows how Torshin made the approach through the Russian ambassador to the U.S., who was then Amb. Sergey Kislyak.
An aide wrote to Palin in May of 2009: “You had received a request to call the Russian Ambassador regarding a proposed visit by Mr. Alexander Torshin… Torshin will be visiting Alaska on June 6, 2009 and we have asked the Lt. Governor to meet with him.” Neither the Russian embassy nor Palin responded to a request for comment.
2009 REQUEST TO THEN-ALASKA GOV. SARAH PALIN (p. 1)
View the entire document with DocumentCloud
The Lieutenant Governor at the time was Sean Parnell, who would go on later to become the governor of Alaska. Parnell told NPR he doesn’t recall meeting with Mr. Torshin, nor did the name ring a bell — but he said it wouldn’t be odd for him to take such a meeting.
“It wouldn’t be unusual for Alaska’s Lt. Governor to take a meeting with a visiting foreign dignitary, especially if the Governor’s Office had been approached first by the visitor/visiting delegation to schedule a meeting and the governor had declined,” Parnell said in an email.
Torshin’s travels in the United States continued with a strange trip to Tennessee. Public records requests made by NPR shed light on how Torshin managed to become an election observer in Nashville during the 2012 presidential elections.
“The interesting thing about election monitoring is it does get foreign officials out and about in places that they perhaps might not usually go,” said Hall, the former CIA chief of Russian operations. “It wouldn’t be uncommon for either somebody like Mr. Torshin, or a diplomat, or a Russian intelligence officer to appear in places like Washington or New York… But a place like Nashville, or other locations in the United States, provide sort of an insight about what’s really going on in the heartland.”
A memo left for Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett on Oct. 11, 2012, shows that local lawyer Kline Preston, known for his support of Putin, made the application for election observer status on behalf of Torshin.
“Russian Senator Alexander Torshin would like to observe our Presidential election. Polling stations,” the 2012 message reads.
2012 PHONE MESSAGE FOR TENN. SECRETARY OF STATE (p. 2)
View the entire document with DocumentCloud
An email from Tennessee Coordinator of Elections Mark Goins shows that Torshin requested visits to the Davidson County Election Commission and the Williamson County Election Commission. And a sign-in sheet showed that he visited the polling station at Grassland Middle School in Williamson County, Tenn.
2012 TENNESSEE POLL WATCHER SIGN IN (p. 1)
View the entire document with DocumentCloud
According to these documents, Torshin was accompanied by a Russian diplomat named Igor Matveev. Matveev had postings in Syria and the United States, and is fluent in Arabic and English. Hall said that Matveev, who did not respond to a request for comment from NPR, fit the profile of a professional diplomat rather than an intelligence operative due to his background, “but basically the Russian intelligence services can and do oftentimes co-opt standard diplomats to do their bidding for them.”
EMAIL FROM 2012 TENNESSEE COORDINATOR OF ELECTIONS (p. 3)
View the entire document with DocumentCloud
Torshin made no secret of his visit to Tennessee, and posted it on Twitter, like he has about many of his visits to America. He even posted a photo of himself in line at a Nashville-area polling place.
Translation: “Standing in line to the voting station. Like an average American. 6.45 am.”
Russia has a long history of politicizing the use of election monitors — for example using Western, pro-Putin observers to vouch for the validity of its contested elections.
Preston, who arranged for Torshin’s 2012 election observation status in his hometown of Nashville, recently went to Crimea. In a trip reported by a Russian state operated news agency, Preston declared that the election process in Crimea, which Russian annexed in 2014, were open, honest and trustworthy. He did not respond to a list of questions provided by NPR.
There were very few international doubts about the fairness of America’s 2012 presidential elections, which makes Torshin’s visit to Nashville for this ostensible purpose all the more perplexing.
And while there have been election monitors in the United States in the past, it usually involves an international organization like the OSCE, which during the 2012 elections sent 44 observers throughout the U.S. to monitor the elections.
“There are of course no real elections in Russia that Vladimir Putin doesn’t approve of and essentially run himself,” Hall said. “So the idea that any Russian entity would go to be an election monitor anywhere in the world is of course on its face ridiculous. It’s sort of like sending an alcoholic to the distillery to make sure that everything is going okay.”
More Frequent Visits Leading Up To 2016 Campaign
From 2012 to 2016, Torshin began making regular visits to the United States that suggested Russians were trying to find common cause on issues like religion and guns. Torshin attended every National Rifle Association convention during this time and met high-ranking NRA officials.
These trips took him all across the American heartland, with stops in St. Louis, Houston, Indianapolis, Nashville and Louisville. Last month, the NRA acknowledged Torshin was a life member of the NRA and has been since 2012, but insisted he only ever paid his membership dues to the organization. The gun rights group said it had received $2,500 from about 23 Russia-linked contributors since 2015.
“Based on Mr. Torshin’s listing as a specially designated national as of April 6, we are currently reviewing our responsibilities with respect to him,” NRA general counsel John Frazer wrote to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., last month. The NRA has denied wrongdoing and says that it does not accept funds from foreign persons “in connection with United States elections.”
Gun Control Advocates To Press Russia Questions During NRA Convention
Over a similar time period, Torshin also reportedly made repeated trips to Washington, D.C., to attend the National Prayer Breakfast — Yahoo reported that he even had a meeting scheduled with newly-inaugurated President Donald Trump during the breakfast in 2017, but that the president pulled out at the last minute when an aide figured out who Torshin was. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Further, Torshin facilitated reciprocal trips during these years in which he brought Americans to Russia. In 2013 and 2015, he hosted gun rights advocates in Russia, including former NRA president David Keene, whom he developed a close relationship with.
His visits to America sometimes puzzled those who saw him there, as he appeared to have no serious expertise in the field he was purportedly representing. A speech Torshin gave in Washington, D.C. in March 2015, as deputy governor of the Bank of Russia, left some in the audience perplexed.
“For anyone at the lunch who’s remotely familiar with finance or the world of central banking, Torshin demonstrated no significant expertise in either realm,” said a former U.S. official who was at the event. “Torshin’s performance was all the more surprising, given the big questions circulating at that time about the fate of the Russian economy, sanctions, Western diplomatic isolation, and the like.”
In fact, for those observing Torshin, what he was best known for was not central banking, but allegations of money laundering. In 2013 Spanish authorities alleged that Torshin helped a Russian mob syndicate in Moscow launder money through banks and properties in Spain, according to a report by Bloomberg News.
NRA, In New Document, Acknowledges More Than 20 Russian-Linked Contributors
“It is extraordinary and outrageous that a man caught in international money laundering was appointed… to become deputy chair of the Russian Central Bank,” said Anders Aslund, a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.
Torshin’s travels to the United States continued through to perhaps his most infamous trip: The NRA convention in 2016, where he attempted to get a meeting with then-candidate Trump.
According to a report written by Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Torshin used a Republican strategist named Paul Erickson as an intermediary to set up a meeting with Trump himself.
“Happenstance and the (sometimes) international reach of the NRA placed me in a position a couple of years ago to slowly begin cultivating a back-channel to President Putin’s Kremlin,” Erickson wrote to Rick Dearborn, a senior campaign official and a longtime advisor to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
That meeting never occurred — though Torshin did meet Donald Trump, Jr., at an event during the convention. Trump Jr. claims they did not discuss the election.
Sanctions Mean The Jig Is Up
On April 6, the U.S. Treasury Department specifically designated Torshin as a target of U.S. sanctions — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the agency targeted “those who benefit from the Putin regime and play a key role in advancing Russia’s malign activities.”
The sanctions mean that any assets Torshin has in the United States could be seized, and the travel to America that punctuated his life for years will end.
U.S. Hits Russian Oligarchs And Officials With Sanctions Over Election Interference
“He’s, for lack of a better term, become radioactive, certainly to the United States, but really the global financial institutions, that are unlikely to be willing to do any business with him for fear of secondary sanctions from the U.S. Treasury Department,” said Boris Zilberman, who works on the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance.
He also reportedly faces scrutiny from congressional investigators probing the 2016 election and the FBI. McClatchy has reported that the FBI is investigating whether Torshin illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to help President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
Hall said it also probably reflected intelligence gathered on Torshin’s intentions over years of travel to the United States.
“The fact that Torshin has now been personally sanctioned… is an indication that the administration… has seen, probably, intelligence reporting on Torshin and his background, and perhaps what the plans and intentions of the Russian government vis-a-vis Mr. Torshin,” Hall told NPR. “It shows that our system… is doing its job in informing policymakers about the dangers of somebody like Torshin.”
For years, Torshin built relationships with governors, NRA bigwigs and conservative activists — making a point of traveling to the United States repeatedly to expand those ties. But with Torshin’s designation as a target of U.S. sanctions last month, that door has been closed.
Torshin did not respond to a list of questions provided by NPR.
WPLN’s Chas Sisk, NPR’s Audrey McNamara and NPR’s Alina Selyukh contributed to this report.
Jason Linkins May 10, 2018
Washington, D.C. May 8th: Donald Trump announces his decision to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in the diplomatic room at the White House. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
President Donald Trump brought some fresh complaints about the press to Twitter Wednesday morning, seemingly in response to news that broke overnight about the shell company his lawyer and self-styled fixer, Michael Cohen, may have used to facilitate hush-money payoffs to adult film actress Stormy Daniels — as well as some decidedly off-book lobbying fees collected from a handful of companies.
As is his wont, Trump offered another blistering attack on the media, loosed from all capitalization conventions, for continuing to report on him. “91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake),” he wrote, adding, “Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?”
trump tweet: The Fake News is working overtime. Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake). Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?
Trump, who’s never given any indication that he distinguishes between negative commentary about him and objectively true facts that cast him in a bad light, essentially told on himself in this instance.
As ThinkProgress’ Aaron Rupar noted, Trump’s outburst was “a major tell,” in that he made it “explicitly” clear “that he considers all negative coverage of him to be fake.”
But attention soon turned to the unsettling aspect of Trump’s interjection, the part where he threatened to take away some unspecified group of reporters’ credentials.
As you might expect, the focus fell on the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA), whose members do depend on credentials to work within the White House’s confines. Bloomberg’s senior White House correspondent Margaret Talev, who currently serves as the WHCA’s president, addressed the matter in a statement:
“Some may excuse the president’s inflammatory rhetoric about the media, but just because the president does not like news coverage does not make it fake. A free press must be able to report on the good, the bad, and the momentous and the mundane, without fear or favor. And a president preventing a free and independent press from covering the workings of our republic would be an unconscionable assault on the First Amendment.”
Of course, while an appeal to higher principles provides the obligatory covering of the bases, it doesn’t really resolve the matter, because Trump is immune to such appeals. Nevertheless, all this talk of revoking credentials is something of an empty threat; even if the president does revoke everyone’s credentials, it won’t stem the tide of the coverage he dislikes, and it could even exacerbate the problems he perceives himself to have.
Trump is not like previous presidents, and his relationship with the White House press corps bears the imprint of this abnormality. Trump doesn’t understand that a typical presidential administration has a sort of partnership with the press corps. This doesn’t mean the relationship isn’t somewhat adversarial, and it doesn’t mean that any other press secretary might not try to spin the reporters in the room. But the press corps functionally exists to take down copy: What are the big ideas the administration wants to drive today? What policy initiatives is the president focused on? What responses can the White House offer to the news of the day?
More than anything else, the White House is supposed to give the press corps ideas with which to contend, report out, and follow up on. Every day, there is an opportunity for the president to make an argument, and for a room full of reporters to communicate that argument to their audiences.
But Trump’s frame of reference, as far as the media goes, is rooted in the New York City tabloid wars in which he sparred as a big shot real-estate developer. To Trump, it’s all about primate dominance, and getting in your licks — not about presenting a set of core beliefs, or building a case for a policy idea.
As NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen told ThinkProgress’ Sam Fulwood in an interview this week, “He’s not attempting to persuade a majority of the country to his side.”
“He’s not engaging in normal persuasion tactics for which approval ratings and polling are the measure of that,” Rosen continued. “He’s trying to cement a psychological bond with his core supporters that can’t be broken.”
The only role the White House press corps can possibly play in the Trump White House, as he has conceived it, is that of a defeated antagonist, plucked as spoils for his base. That’s the entire basis for the threat to their credentials.
But an exiled press corps isn’t going to simply go home and sulk. They are reporters, and they’ll just keep on reporting — now with renewed resolve and a lot more time on their hands. And loosed into the wide world, they’ll just join up with a coterie of other reporters who are already busy applying themselves to the task of keeping the Trump administration honest.
What Trump doesn’t seem to understand is it’s these journalists, outside the briefing room, who have been primarily responsible for serving up the stories that so anger him. Over these reporters, Trump has no leverage. He can’t stop ProPublica from investigating where the funds provided for his inauguration festivities have gone. He has no credential to revoke from the Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold, who’s currently commanding a deep dive into Trump’s debt.
Of all the stories that have been broken in the wake of Michael Avenatti’s extraordinary reveal of Michael Cohen’s shell corporation, none were written by a reporter who needed to cross the threshold of the briefing room to get it. Pull the press corps’ laminates or don’t, but if there are hits to be had, the hits will keep on coming. The only thing a banished press corps gets you is a diminished capacity to further your own message.
The simple fact of the matter is that if Trump wanted to take a decisive step to end the terrible press he’s gotten of late, he shouldn’t be pulling any reporters’ credentials; he should just keep his own advisers and allies from going on television on a daily basis to talk about his ongoing legal entanglements.
But here, too, we find a concept to which Trump has a deep aversion. He can’t not hit back. And he seems to have a deep and abiding need to see his guys out there, on television, sparring. Never mind that it only compounds his problems. And so you have Rudy Giuliani, late of a string of disaster-laced media hits, confidently telling the Washington Post’s Robert Costa, “Everybody’s reacting to us now, and I feel good about that because that’s what I came in to do.”
You can, perhaps, understand Trump’s exasperation. This is his plan, it’s playing out exactly the way he drew it up — but his life nevertheless refuses to get better. So it must be yet another system rigged against him. Whatever is happening, it has to be “fake” in some way.
Olivia Nuzzi tweet: Donald Trump suggests taking away press credentials as punishment for “negative (fake)” coverage. His campaign did this to many reporters, including me. It made it more logistically challenging to cover him, but the banned press still covered him.
At any rate, at some point in the future, Trump may actually revoke the White House press corps credentials. Yes, this is a threat to the freedom of the press, and you can expect the WHCA to fight back. But it’s really not that new: Trump has denied reporters their access in the past, and they’ve all managed to surmount the obstacle. As it turns out, life on Donald Trump’s blacklist is really not that bad, unless you’re Donald Trump.
Lorraine Chow May 10, 2018
Panoramic view of Logan, Utah. Michael Gordon / CC BY 3.0
Utah’s state lawmakers aren’t exactly friendly to climate change legislation. Their Republican governor said in 2015 that man-made climate change is “a little debatable.” In 2010, the state legislature overwhelmingly passed a resolution that implied global warming is a conspiracy and urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to stop all carbon dioxide reduction policies and programs.
But thanks to a group of fearless high schoolers, Gov. Gary Herbert reversed the 2010 measure this past March, with the support of 75 percent of Republican legislators.
The resolution, which Herbert signed on March 20, “encourages the responsible stewardship of natural resources and reduction of emissions through incentives and support of the growth in technologies and services that will enlarge the economy.”
This valiant, two-year effort was detailed in a High Country News op-ed this week by Jack Greene, a retired high school teacher who works with Utah students on environmental issues.
According to Greene, a group of students at Logan High School were shocked after learning about the 2010 resolution and sprung to action. He described how the students have already witnessed Utah’s longer and more intense fire seasons, a dwindling snowpack and increasing water scarcity.
“My generation and generations to come will inherit the many threats that climate change poses,” student Piper Chirstian told Greene.
They eventually drafted their own bill and gathered support from grassroots groups, business coalitions and key lawmakers.
In 2017, they enlisted Republican legislator Rep. Becky Edwards to sponsor the resolution, “Economic and Environmental Stewardship.”
Although this attempt failed, the students did not give up, and “partnered with a coalition of advocacy organizations, whose volunteers met with representatives from nearly every Utah political district,” Greene reported.
The bill’s supporters pled to legislators to consider the effects of climate change on the state’s future.
“We, as youth leaders of Utah, have assembled with you, our state leaders, to address what we consider to be the paramount issue of our generation—that of a changing climate,” one student said.
During the 2018 legislative general session, after impassioned testimony from the students, the bill gained traction. It made it out of committee by an 8-2 vote, Green wrote, “then, at last, came success as the House passed the resolution 51-21 and the Senate 23-3.”
Those opposed to the bill included Rep. Mike Noel. As quoted by The Salt Lake Tribute, Noel told the students: “This whole issue of climate change has been used by organizations to fool people.”
The Utah Legislature, however, was no fool.
RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB
13 Youths ‘in a Position of Danger’ Sue Washington State Over
Letter: Ignoring climate crisis, is Salt Lake City going to be like Cape
Low snowfall sign of climate change, Utah scientists say | KUTV
Scientists predict climate change to impact Utah ski industry – The
Olivia Rosane May 9, 2018
Pexels
There are lots of ecological reasons to buy local food, from reducing the carbon footprint of the meals you eat to preventing agribusiness‘ destruction of unique ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest.
But research published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Monday uncovered another surprising benefit to local agriculture: it is also better for the environment of countries that currently import lots of food.
This is because, when local crops are displaced by cheaper imports, farmland is then drafted into service growing less sustainable crops, with environmental consequences for the importing country.
The study pointed out that its findings go against conventional wisdom, which held that importing countries benefited from global food trade at the ecological expense of exporting countries.
“What is obvious is not always the whole truth,” study author and Michigan State University (MSU) Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability Director Jianguo “Jack” Liu said in an MSU press release. “Unless a world is examined in a systemic, holistic way, environmental costs will be overlooked,” she said.
To undertake that systemic examination, the study’s authors looked at the international soybean trade.
As the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies explained, Brazil is the world’s second-largest producer of soybeans, and its efforts to clear land for that production is a “major driver of deforestation in the Amazon basin.”
But the study found that the trade also hurt countries like China, which is the world’s largest soybean importer.
As China imported more and more soybeans, local farmers could no longer compete and converted their fields to crops like corn and rice, which require more nutrients to grow and therefore result in an increase in Nitrogen pollution.
The study looked specifically at the highest-producing agricultural land in China, in the country’s northeast, and found that the greatest increases in Nitrogen pollution there came from fields that had flipped from soy to rice, followed by fields that had flipped from soy to corn.
Researchers further examined 160 cases on six continents and found Nitrogen levels went up when fields in importing countries switched from soy to other, more demanding crops like wheat, vegetables, corn or rice.
The study’s abstract concluded with a call for more research into the environmental consequences of international trade agreements for importing countries,
According to the MSU press release, another potential area of study would be fields in Mexico and South America that have switched from corn to more nutrient-demanding vegetables due to an influx in cheap corn from the U.S. The release noted that changes in crops can also put increased pressure on local water supplies.
“This study underscores the need to pay attention to both sides of international trade not rely on conventional wisdom,” Liu said in the MSU press release.
RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB
Organic Agriculture Is Going Mainstream, But Not the Way You Think
Proposed GMO Food Labeling Could Leave 100 Million Americans
How Foodies Can Understand Capitalism and Farm-to-Table Justice
Lorraine Chow May 10, 2018
Puntarenas, Costa Rica. kansasphoto/ Flickr / CC BY 2.0
Carlos Alvarado, the new president of Costa Rica, announced the country’s “titanic and beautiful task of abolishing the use of fossil fuels in our economy to make way for the use of clean and renewable energies.”
He made the remarks at his inauguration speech Wednesday in front of a crowd of thousands, the Independent reported.
The 38-year-old former journalist also wants the country to be a global example in decarbonization.
“Decarbonization is the great task of our generation, and Costa Rica must be among the first countries in the world to achieve it, if not the first,” he said.
His goal is for Costa Rica to lead the Paris agreement on climate change and be a “world decarbonization laboratory” before the United Nations’ climate talks in 2020 (COP 26).
The Central American nation already derives most of its electricity without using fossil fuels. Last year, the country of 4.8 million people ran for 300 consecutive days on its renewable energy mix of hydropower, wind and geothermal. That impressive feat bested its 2015 record of 299 days of 100 percent renewable production. It also went 271 days using only renewable energy production in 2016.
Despite a 98 percent renewable power grid, Costa Rica has a gasoline-dependent transportation sector, with roughly half of its emissions coming from transport.
Still, the government has been working hard to green its fleet. Former president Luis Guillermo Solís signed a law that eliminates sales, customs and circulation taxes for electric vehicles and allows them to use municipal parking facilities free of charge.
Alvarado, who arrived to his inauguration ceremony at the Plaza de la Democracy on a hydrogen bus, campaigned on modernizing and electrifying older modes of transport, promoting research and development in hydrogen and biofuels, and banning oil and gas exploration in the country.
In a speech last month, he announced intentions to ban fossil fuels for transportation by 2021, the year Costa Rica reaches 200 years of independence.
Energy experts, however, cast doubt on the plan, as Reuters reported. They warn that the plan to eliminate fossil fuels in a handful of years is unrealistic.
Oscar Echeverría, president of the Vehicle and Machinery Importers Association, said the switch to clean transport cannot be rushed because the market is so far undeveloped.
“If there’s no previous infrastructure, competence, affordable prices and waste management we’d be leading this process to failure. We need to be careful,” Echeverría explained to the news service.
But economist Mónica Araya, a Costa Rican sustainability expert and director of Costa Rica Limpia, praised the government’s focus on weaning off polluting energy sources.
“Getting rid of fossil fuels is a big idea coming from a small country. This is an idea that’s starting to gain international support with the rise of new technologies,” she told Reuters. “Tackling resistance to change is one of the most important tasks we have right now.”
RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB
Costa Rica Runs Entirely on Renewable Energy for 300 Days
Costa Rica Plans For Sustainable EV Future
100% Renewable Electricity Worldwide Is A New Cost-Effective
Maxx Chatsko May 10, 2018
Things are moving fast in renewable energy. Really fast. Consider that in 2008 wind farms supplied just 1.5% of all electricity in the United States. But by 2019 wind power is expected to contribute 6.9% of American electricity and overtake hydropower as the top renewable energy source.
The rise of wind power wouldn’t have been possible without two companies in particular, which combine to own 20.7 gigawatts of wind capacity, or about 24% of the country’s total. Investors wouldn’t be surprised to learn that clean energy provider NextEra Energy is one of the renewable energy stocks most important to American wind power. However, the relatively unheard of natural gas and electric utility Xcel Energy (NASDAQ:XEL) doesn’t seem to garner nearly the same level of attention. Overlooking it could be a mistake.
With 10-year total returns of 226% and plans to grow its dividend and EPS at annual clips of 5% to 7% — all while investing billions in new wind and solar capacity — it could be the best renewable energy stock you’ve never heard of.
IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.
One look at Xcel Energy’s geographic footprint shows why it’s a leading player in wind power. All of its operations are located in the American wind corridor from the Dakotas to West Texas. The region is home to the majority of the nation’s wind capacity, including all of the company’s 6.7 GW.
That will make it a lot easier to reach the long-term goals to shift its generation mix away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy. Consider how the company’s generation mix has changed and is expected to change over time:
| Generation Source | 2005 | 2017 | 2027 (estimate) |
| Coal | 56% | 37% | 22% |
| Natural gas | 23% | 23% | 17% |
| Nuclear | 12% | 13% | 13% |
| Renewables | 3% | 23% | 45% |
SOURCE: COMPANY PRESENTATION.
Early retirements of coal-fired power plants and pouring billions into renewable energy have reduced Xcel’s carbon emissions 35% from 2005 to 2017. Using 2005 as a baseline, Xcel Energy is targeting 50% reductions in carbon emissions by 2022 and greater than 60% by 2027. The next phase will be driven by $4.25 billion of investment into renewables between this year and 2022. Most of it will fund over 3 GW of new wholly owned wind capacity, boosting the company’s total installed capacity 46%.
It’s all part of the “steel for fuel” strategy. The idea is simple: Xcel Energy will replace perpetual fuel expenses from traditional power sources, such as coal, with “steel in the ground” for wind turbines, which don’t require fuel inputs once installed. The company’s advantageous position in the American wind corridor and the installation of highly efficient turbines have already proven the strategy. Fuel expense fell from 44% of electric revenue in 2013 to less than 39% in 2017. It was a win-win for shareholders and the company’s electric utility customers: average monthly bills dropped from $83.52 to $81 in that span.
IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.
When combined with rate increases from state regulators, lower fuel expenses helped to boost Xcel Energy’s net income 17% from 2013 to 2017. That’s despite revenue growth of just 4.5% in the period. In fact, renewable energy investments have allowed the company to grow EPS at a compound annual growth rate of 5.9% from 2005 to 2017. The dividend has grown 6.3% annually from 2013 to 2018.
That track record should give investors confidence that the company can deliver on its goals of growing EPS 5% to 6% per year and the dividend 5% to 7% per year. And in case investors aren’t convinced, fuel expenses are projected to fall to just 28% of electric revenue by 2027, freeing even more cash flow for reinvestment into the business or redistribution to shareholders.
Similarly, Xcel Energy’s renewable energy leadership should provide confidence in its ability to deliver on the next phase of the growth plan, from 2022 onward, which includes a stronger focus on solar power and energy storage. Right now, however, the focus is on the nearer term.
The main focus is on an upcoming decision from state regulators in Colorado on the company’s proposal to shutter 660 MW of coal and replace it with 1 GW of new wind, 700 MW of solar, and another 700 MW of natural gas or energy storage. If given the green light in summer 2018, then Xcel Energy will have no remaining question marks surrounding its current investment plan that runs through 2022. The stock could respond well to the added certainty.
IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.
Xcel Energy has largely flown under the radar in discussions of renewable energy stocks, but that’s no fault of the company. The predominantly electric utility is a shining example of how companies can lead the United States to a clean energy future — and proving that it can be a profitable endeavor. A healthy 3.3% dividend (and growing), falling operating expenses, and a long-term history of beating the total returns of the S&P 500 show that this renewable energy stock is worth a closer look at the very least — and maybe even a spot in your portfolio.
Maxx Chatsko has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
By Charles P. Pierce May 9, 2018
Getty Images
A few years back, in a national forest in Oregon, researchers found the largest single living organism ever discovered on earth. It was a fungus of the genus Armillaria. It covered 1000 hectares of land and it was nearly 9,000 years old. Through a vast system of thick tendrils called rhizomorphs, Armillaria can spread over a huge area and survive by latching onto the root systems of trees, from which it slowly and parasitically dines on the nutrients of the trees until the trees finally fall over, dead. Most of the damage is done underground, and one Armillariacan kill an entire conifer forest.
I’m beginning to think that the corruption of this administration* is the political equivalent of one of these super-fungi. It is so vast, and so much of it is hidden from view, that we may never see it entirely until it’s too late, and a whole lot of important things about this country go dead and topple down.
RELATED STORY: The Word You Are Looking for Is ‘Lie’
The revelations on Tuesday that Michael Cohen, the president*’s personal lawyer, was one of the most ambitious bagmen in American political history all emerged from an improbable source: a lawsuit lodged against the president* by an adult-film actress with whom he allegedly had an affair. We discovered that Cohen reportedly got a half-million dollars from a Russian oligarch with “links” to Vladimir Putin, as though you could even be a Russian oligarch and stay alive without some kind of “links” to the newly re-elected goon-in-chief.
We also learned that a shell company set up by Cohen took in $200,000 in “consulting payments” from AT&T for, as the leaked documents put it, “insights into understanding the new administration.” They could’ve paid me half that and I would have told them all they needed to know: that these people are all a bunch of crooks and that the companies should adjust their payment schedules accordingly.
Getty Images
I mean, really. Trump. Nixon. AT&T. ITT. Where have you gone, Dita Beard? A president* turns his greedy eyes to you.
Robert Mueller’s team already has interviewed Victor Vekselberg, Cohen’s buddy from Moscow, so we can probably assume there’s more there than we already know. (More women who were paid off? Checks with “kompromat” written in Cyrillic on the memo line? Who knows at this point?) The criminal rhizomorphs of this parasitic blight on government extend god knows where. That members of the administration—hi there, Scott Pruitt—see public service as an All-U-Can-Eat buffet on our dime is no secret any more. We’ve had Pruitt’s $43,000 phone booth, Ben Carson’s dinette set, and a great love for taxpayer-funded air travel by almost everyone.
Getty Images
Nor is the fact that the president* has brought the principles he employed in private business into his public duties—to wit, keeping all the really rotten stuff underground by any means necessary, and reneging on debts you don’t have the money to pay anyway. And still, dammit, they can surprise you. As one of the scientists studying the massive Armillaria lamented to The Atlantic:
“I wish all of the substrate would be transparent for five minutes, so I could see where it is and what it’s doing. We would learn so much from a five-minute glimpse.”
Whether we’d all have the guts to look at what this spreading parasitic growth is doing to our country, however, is a whole different matter. If we saw it whole, we might have to do something about it, and then where would we be?
Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here.