Read About The Tarbaby Story under the Category: About the Tarbaby Blog
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
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.
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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.”
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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.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert posted a new episode.
Stephen explores the China’s government-instituted plan to assign its citizens overall social credit grades, and gets one himself.
Watch The Late Show weeknights at 11:35/10:35 c on CBS and CBS All-Access!
Everyone In China Is Getting A “Social Credit Score”
Stephen explores the China’s government-instituted plan to assign its citizens overall social credit grades, and gets one himself.Watch The Late Show weeknights at 11:35/10:35c on CBS and CBS All-Access!
Posted by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday, May 8, 2018
UnSplash
Monarch butterflies, which pollinate many different kinds of wildflowers, are among nature’s great wonders. Their annual migration is one of the most awe-inspiring on Earth: Each fall, millions of these striking black-and-orange butterflies take flight on a 3,000-mile journey across the U.S. and Canada to wintering grounds in Mexico’s Sierra Madre mountains.
The monarch population, which is determined by measuring the number of hectares the butterflies occupy in their Mexico habitat, has declined to 2.48 hectares—almost 30 percent less than last year’s population. The population has been in steady decline for the past 20 years—reaching a high of more than 20 hectares in 1997 and plunging to 0.67 hectares in 2014. Two decades ago, nearly one billion wintering monarchs blanketed the mountain forests of Mexico. Today, that number has dropped by more than 80 percent.
Heavy use of an herbicide called glyphosate (marketed by Monsanto as Roundup) has greatly diminished milkweed, a native wildflower that is the sole food source for monarch caterpillars and the only plant on which adult monarchs lay their eggs. As milkweed disappears, monarch populations have also plummeted, and the annual migration of monarchs to Mexico is in danger of collapse. And yet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently reapproved the registration for Dow’s Enlist Duo, a combination herbicide designed to kill milkweed.
Much effort has gone into planting milkweed throughout the continental U.S. in the past several years in an attempt to make up for the milkweed that has been lost through agricultural practices. Planting milkweed is a great way to help other pollinators, too, as it provides nectar to a diverse suite of bees and butterflies.
But this year’s monarch butterfly population demonstrates that we need to do much, much more if we are going to be successful at building its population back up again to secure numbers. We also need to curb the use of pesticides that are eliminating milkweed in the first place and come up with sustainable solutions—not just for butterflies, but for farmers and our public health.
NRDC envisions a future where monarch populations across North America are healthy and resilient. To achieve this, we’re working at the federal, state, and international levels to secure limits on the use of toxic herbicides and create new milkweed habitat.
We’re taking legal action against the EPA to win restrictions on toxic herbicides, such as glyphosate, that are killing off native milkweed. And we’re calling on agribusiness companies to withdraw their toxic products. At the state level, we’re working with officials to plant new milkweed habitat along the monarchs’ migration route. Internationally, we’re leveraging pressure by petitioning UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee to upgrade its protection of monarch wintering habitat in Mexico.
We mobilized more than 113,000 of our members and activists to sign a petition demanding Dow AgroSciences remove Enlist Duo from the market. Not only that, we generated an outcry against Enlist Duo in Congress that included signatures from 32 lawmakers calling on the EPA to take a closer look at the devastating health and environmental impacts of this herbicide.
On the global arena, we ramped up international pressure, including 50,000 petitions from NRDC members and activists, on the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to declare the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico in danger due to the destruction of monarch habitat in the U.S. and Canada by glyphosate. In response, UNESCO launched a formal evaluation of the request.
Monarch Watch is a nonprofit educational outreach program based at the University of Kansas that focuses on the monarch butterfly, its habitat, and its spectacular fall migration. NRDC partners with Monarch Watch to plant milkweed at schools, churches and garden clubs to help save North American monarch butterflies.
Since 2016, Monarch Watch has been distributing milkweed plants, featured in this Monarchs for Moms campaign, for planting on tribal lands and other locations along the monarchs’ migration route.
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By John Lauinger May 7, 2018
The hard-line conservative faction of just under three dozen members has been noncommittal and uncharacteristically quiet since Mike Conaway released his legislation last month. | AP Photo
Conservative groups are piling on against the House farm bill, underscoring the challenges confronting House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway as he seeks the GOP backing he needs to get it to the floor in May.
While Conaway’s team used last week’s congressional recess to whip the bill, H.R. 2 (115), groups including Heritage Action and Americans for Prosperity made the case to reporters and lawmakers that the bill fails to reform farm subsidies and benefits wealthy farmers and agribusiness over taxpayers.
Though farm bills have a history of being bipartisan, Democrats are vehemently opposed to Conaway’s version because it would impose new work requirements on between 5 million and 7 million low-income people enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and invest billions of dollars to expand capacity in state-run SNAP employment and training programs.
Without Democratic backing, Conaway will need to get the support of some conservative House Freedom Caucus members to pass the bill, which he hopes to bring to the floor the week of May 14. But the hard-line conservative faction of just under three dozen members has been noncommittal and uncharacteristically quiet since Conaway released his legislation last month. And the increasingly vocal opposition from outside groups isn’t helping the chairman’s cause.
“There’s not a whole lot of excitement around this bill,” among GOP conservatives, Dan Holler, vice president of Heritage Action, said last week at a briefing for reporters.
The pile-on began on Tuesday at the briefing by the Heritage Foundation, where the group’s political arm, Heritage Action, formally came out against the bill. On Wednesday the group joined about a dozen other right-leaning, free-market organizations in writing to Congress to denounce the legislation. And on Thursday, two conservative groups linked to the influential Koch brothers — Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners — penned a letter to Congress that said the bill moves the system farther away from free-market principles.
The groups took aim at some of the bill’s SNAP provisions, but their opposition is rooted in the farm policy side of the bill and, specifically, its lack of cutbacks to subsidy programs.
“Quite simply, respect for farmers doesn’t mean tolerance for wasting taxpayer money on handouts,” read the letter signed by Heritage Action and 13 other groups. “Our organizations are taking farm subsidy reform very seriously in the upcoming farm bill debate.”
Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners noted recent big-ticket spending bills the 115th Congress has passed, writing that the “reckless budget deal and the irresponsible omnibus bill” have made it increasingly important for farm and nutrition programs to be reassessed and put on a “fiscally responsible path.”
Instead, the groups wrote, the farm policy side of the House bill is “rife with corporate welfare” and includes provisions to expand access to subsidies for members of a family-owned farm, allowing cousins, nieces and nephews to qualify to collect government payments without having to live or work on a farm.
“These lavish programs already vastly exceed a reasonable safety net, yet this bill expands them further,” they wrote.
Their letter, like the one from Heritage Action and the 13 other conservative groups, faulted the House bill for ignoring subsidies reforms called for by the White House.
A spokeswoman for the House Agriculture Committee did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
When the committee marked up the bill last month, Conaway opened the session by outlining what’s at stake for the nation’s producers: “We’ve seen a 52 percent drop in net farm income over the last five years. Chapter 12 bankruptcies are up 33 percent over the last two years alone. And not long ago two key universities informed us that two-thirds of the representative farms that they use to model economic conditions in agriculture are currently in marginal or poor financial condition.”
The markup, like the entirety of the farm bill reauthorization cycle up until that point, was dominated by Democratic sniping over the bill’s proposals for SNAP.
Last week, the Congressional Budget Office released an analysis of cost estimates for the House measure. It found that placing stricter work requirements on able-bodied adults receiving SNAP benefits would save $9.2 billion over a decade as people lose eligibility. But government spending costs would grow by $7.7 billion due to costs from state employment and training programs and administrative expenses. Overall, CBO projects the nutrition title would cost taxpayers about the same over the next decade under the bill, even with the projected drop in participation.
Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners highlighted the proposals to strengthen SNAP work requirements as “positive elements” of the bill, but questioned the call to redirect expected savings from those reforms into a ramp-up of SNAP Employment and Training programs, noting that those programs have “a poor track record for delivering results.”
According to the CBO, expanding SNAP job training could take more than 10 years, but states would be given just two years to complete build-outs. CBO estimated that “by the end of 2028, about 80 percent of the beneficiaries who are subject to the work requirement would be offered such services through a state program.”
Nan Swift, director of federal affairs for the National Taxpayers Union, a conservative fiscal watchdog, argued in a blog post on Thursday that there’s “little reason” to assume that a major expansion of SNAP Employment and Training programs would lead to more SNAP beneficiaries entering the workforce.
“Legislators should think twice before creating a new opportunity to exacerbate our entitlement spending crisis,” Swift wrote.
On the other side of the political spectrum, House Agriculture ranking member Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) also criticized the call to build out SNAP E&T. “I think that people should work; I agree with that,” he said during a radio interview on Wednesday. “What I don’t agree with is this huge amount of money that’s being spent on a bureaucracy that is not going to accomplish anything. It’s not enough money to actually train anybody.”
The Minnesota Democrat, in a statement to POLITICO, cited “the gaggle of conservative groups lined up in opposition to this bill” as evidence that “the clear and present danger to the farm bill comes from Republicans, not from Democrats.” He also pointed to the fiscal 2019 budget blueprint that the 154-member conservative Republican Study Committee released recently that called for deep cuts to farm bill programs.
“I’ve suggested to my colleagues that we don’t offer any amendments,” Peterson added, referring to House Democrats. “We’re ready to take a step back, sit down and do this the right way, but the Republicans clearly have some deeper divisions to contend with.”
Helena Bottemiller Evich and Maya Parthasarathy contributed to this report.
Adrian Ayres Fisher, orig. pub by Ecological Gardening May 2, 2018
One afternoon in early March I flew from Boston to Chicago, returning home from an Ecological Landscape Alliance conference. Cloud cover, white and lumpy as a rumpled hotel duvet, obscured the view, until over western Pennsylvania the plane crossed the edge of the weather system. Our country’s heartland unfurled below. The gently rolling terrain flattened as the plane headed west, divided by roads delineating a grid, with fields, towns, and even woodlots squared into the design.
This tidy, Grant Woods-esque arrangement is the relic of late 18th century surveying expeditions sent out to divide the Northwest Territory into 6-mile square townships, the better to sell off, settle and tame the nearly, at the time, unfathomable expanse. As they worked, the surveyors made detailed maps, including of vegetation; they used boulders, piles of rock or even notable trees as corner markers and confirmed corner placement with nearby “witness trees.” Today, restorationists use these maps to help figure out what kinds of ecosystems they should be restoring to, when embarking on conservation or rewilding projects.
We flew on. Farm building roofs shone in the sun among the fields; only the occasional meandering river gave a hint of how the land had looked in the early 19th century. Though there’d been snow out east, here everything was shades of brown: leafless woodlot trees and tens of millions of acres of empty fields, a mid to dark brown sea of bare earth.
Bare fields full of potential
For me that landscape was a palimpsest of loss, prosperity and the potential to help mitigate climate change. The ghosts of past cultures—the Adena, the Hopewell, more recently displaced nations such as the Potawatomi and Miami, and a later thriving network of small American family farms—lay below. These successive groups inhabited a now phantom post-glacial landscape comprised of Eastern deciduous forest punctuated by areas of savanna, prairie and wetland that, as a traveler journeyed west, expanded until the prairie dominated.
Today this landscape, tended by a very few farmers utilizing all that technology has on offer, signify an evanescent prosperity precariously balanced on an extremely limited number of commodity crops. This flourishing economy could be upended tomorrow not only by ill-conceived trade wars, or weather catastrophes such as drought, but also by the mounting environmental problems, including but not exclusive to climate change, that are nearly all of our culture’s own devising.
Years ago I might have seen those fields as completely normal, even desirable. But no longer. Because I’m a regenerative gardener and natural landscape manager, when I see a piece of land, no matter the size, I see an opportunity to nurture what biodiversity is there. To me, improving a parcel of land means working with it in such a way as to increase its ecosystem functionality. I highly respect the work conventional farmers do to wrest a living from the soil; I believe that industrial farming methods are not only outmoded, but also actively dangerous.
Those Midwestern fields are losing their fertility along with their world-class topsoil; many now lack the organic matter and important microbial life that not only maintain good soil structure and health but also allow water to percolate properly. Conventional farming practices, such as leaving the earth bare from harvest until planting season, can actively harm the living soil. Fertilizer run-off pollutes waterways and overuse of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides inflict far-reaching collateral damage on living organisms from bumblebees and monarch butterflies to birds to humans, while habitat destruction imperils them further.
But what could that landscape teach about climate change mitigation and environmental renewal? It’s become evident that to hold average planetary temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), global emissions should peak by 2020, and then decline by 10% or greater each year in order to reach zero emissions by 2050. Thereafter, the downward trend then must continue into negative emissions territory. Clearly, technology-based solutions such as ramping up renewable energy while leaving fossil fuels in the ground are fundamental to mitigation. Emissions reductions and increased energy efficiency are essential in every arena, from the global to the personal. For example, if the global top 10% of individual carbon emitters reduced their carbon footprints to that of the average European, greenhouse gas emissions would decline 30%. (This, of course, includes nearly all US residents.)
However, going further means figuring out how to actively remove carbon from the air. Most schemes are in the research stage; existing mechanical carbon capture and sequestration (CSS) is expensive and difficult and only halts emissions at industrial sites. So far, only seventeen facilities, including an ethanol plant in Decatur, Illinois, use the technology to achieve neutral production emissions. Proposed biomass-based CSS systems such as BECCS (Bio-mass carbon capture and storage), with their emphasis on monocultures, have the potential to further damage ecosystems.
Solving global warming requires increasing biodiversity
Global warming, with its effects of climate weirding, is just one element—a deadly symptom, if you will—of the ongoing, global crisis of ecological destruction that also includes extinction, water scarcity, pollution and desertification. Averting this human-inflicted catastrophe will require multiple, diverse strategies and it has become increasingly clear we cannot accomplish anything without the aid of our planet’s complex natural systems. Solving the greenhouse gas puzzle requires working to help biodiversity increase worldwide and helping the currently disrupted biogeochemical cycles stabilize and recover so that all life might thrive on our beautiful blue and green planet.
This is where large-scale regenerative land management comes into play: it is the most effective tool for carbon sequestration that presently exists. Carbon sequestration through natural means includes not only vitally important conservation and restoration, but necessitates incorporation into all landscape management, from regenerative organic farming and intensively managed holistic grazing to, on the one hand, backyard landscaping with native plants and on the other, toxic chemical cleanup. Managing land along principles that foster soil health and biodiversity not only can sequester carbon on a potentially massive scale (4-12 GtCO2e or even more), but can also help regulate local water cycles, thereby helping avoid both desertification and excessive flooding. It also reduces toxic chemical use and nutrient run-off, all the while promoting biodiversity in plant and animal life, from the microbes in the soil, to pollinators, birds and other animals, to charismatic megafauna and apex predators such as ourselves.
Agriculturalists and other land managers throughout the world are already changing their practices, though it’s been slow to take hold in the Midwest. Regenerative agriculture networks such as ReGenerate IL have sprung up; farmers and scientists have formed partnerships to explore and measure the soil health and carbon sequestration potential of agricultural practices both ancient and cutting edge; farmers are beginning to try methods such as cover crops and waterway buffer zones planted with native plants. In all this, the most innovative practices combine agriculture with landscape management for biodiversity. There’s even an economic case to be made. In this era of falling commodity prices, rising costs of materials and supplies, and potential economic woes, many conventional farmers are already struggling to make ends meet. Farmers are discovering that, while it requires more, different kinds of knowledge and work, regenerative farming can actually be more profitable owing to reduced production costs and higher selling prices. More might go the way of the Nebraska farmer I heard interviewed on the radio recently, who said he is considering moving at least part of his farm out of soy, corn and hogs, and into diversified organics.
A possible future landscape
What might air travelers traversing the Midwest see ten years in the future? Farms, of course. We can’t return the Midwest to the matrix of woods, prairie and savanna it was 150 years ago. But what if all that land was managed not only for food production but also for soil health, water management, biodiversity and carbon sequestration? There’d be very little bare soil. Instead, there’d be extensive cover crops blanketing fields whose crop production included diverse, multi-year rotations; wide bands of prairie and woods featuring native grasses, flowers, shrubs and trees bordering fields, waterways and roads; areas of intensively managed grazing; alley cropping, silvopasturing and other forms of agroecology; and even expanded natural areas: in short, carbon sequestering, diversified, fertile farmland that would be healthier for farmers as well as the planet.
On the western edge of Indiana, the land changed again. As we descended towards Midway airport, subdivisions, logistics terminals, golf courses and parks replaced fields. Remarkably, amidst the development reposed large, wild areas featuring irregular woods along creeks and streams and the shaggy tan carpet of dormant prairie grasses. We’d entered Cook County: home to the 5.25 million people of the Chicago metro area and the most biodiverse county in Illinois, thanks in part to the nearly seventy thousand acres of carbon-sequestering forest preserve land managed through a unique partnership of professionals and volunteers.
I fastened my seatbelt. I thought about Aldo Leopold, the Midwesterner who both worked with farmers to save and restore their land during the Great Depression and helped invent the art and science of ecological restoration. Leopold might not have known about global warming—very few at the time did—but he had a thorough understanding of the harm unthinking human activities can wreak. He wrote that most modern technologies and practices, “do not suffice for the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.” That has become our greatest, most significant challenge in the Midwest and worldwide. Are we up for it? Can we solve the puzzle?
References:
Ecological Landscape Alliance: https://www.ecolandscaping.org/
(4-12 GtCO2e or even more): “There’s a huge gap between the Paris climate change goals and reality Current pledges are about a third of what’s needed.”
By David Roberts@drvoxdavid@vox.com Updated Nov 6, 2017, 10:56am EST https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/10/31/16579844/climate-gap-unep-2017
“Decatur plant at forefront of push to pipe carbon emissions underground, but costs raise questions.”
By Tony Briscoe/ Chicago Tribune /November 23,
By Hal Bernton, The Seattle Times May 5, 2018
In this March 20, 2018 photo, farmer Jackie Brunson, right, walks with Tuusso Energy co-founder Jason Evans, whose project would place photovoltaic panels on some of the Brunson land and property belonging to three other Kittitas County landowners, in Ellensburg, Wash. The Seattle Times via AP Steve Ringman
Seattle: After decades of growing alfalfa, Timothy hay and other crops, Jeff and Jackie Brunson want to lease part of their farm to a Seattle-based solar-power developer.
Not a popular move. Neighbors and other county residents don’t want the green of summer fields transformed into a black expanse of photovoltaic panels.
“They aren’t happy. But it is a business decision we have made, and we don’t regret it one iota,” said Jackie Brunson. “We owe nobody a view. It’s our farm, and it’s a great way to diversify.”
As proposed by Seattle-based Tuusso Energy, the photovoltaic panels would spread across more than 80 of the Brunsons’ 1,000 acres, and another 120 acres owned by three other Ellensburg-area landowners. If approved, this would be one of the first solar farms to come on line in Washington — and for some, an unwelcome precedent for turning crop land over to solar-energy production.
In this case, the solar panels would sit on less than a half percent of Kittitas County’s 180,000 farm acres. Still, opponents worry that a project here, combined with a rising demand for clean energy such as solar, will swallow up whole swaths of agricultural land that produce the crops and livestock that underpin the county economy.
“These projects should not be on ag land. There are plenty of other places in the county where they can go,” said Richard Carkner, Brunson’s neighbor and a founder of Save Our Farms, a nonprofit formed to oppose the development.
Such concerns prompted county commissioners to reject an earlier solar project proposed for farmland and approve a moratorium for permits for all new ones.
Developers say predictions of solar sprawl are overblown, and that county delays put the project at risk.
They have asked the state to override the county moratorium, and on April 17 they achieved initial success when the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council approved an expedited review of the Tuusso project. Council members now have two months to make a recommendation to Gov. Jay Inslee, who has the final say.
“We are excited about the decision,” said Jason Evans, co-founder of Tuusso Energy. “If everything goes well, we could be breaking ground by the end of the year.”
County commissioners had hoped the state council would stay out of the permitting.
“The process really takes away the voice of the local government and the local citizens and local control of what the land is going to look like,” said Laura Osiadacz, a county commissioner. “It is a very disappointing decision for the residents of Kittitas County.”
The Kittitas County clash is part of a broader battle over solar siting, one that has escalated in recent years as developers fan out across the country in search of prime locations. Their projects range from a few dozen acres to mega-solar farms like Topaz, which spreads over 6,400 acres in San Luis Obispo County in California.
The industry’s dramatic expansion has been buoyed by favorable government policies and incentives and growing consumer demand for cleaner sources of electricity.
Developers also have benefited from huge declines in the prices of photovoltaic panels, which use silicon, an element found in sand, to convert sunlight into electricity. From 2010 through 2017, the average project costs plummeted by about 80 percent, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. In 2017, these solar projects generated about 2 percent of the nation’s electricity, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Solar’s share of the power market is expected to grow.
Even with the 30 percent tariff on imported solar panels announced this year by President Donald Trump, solar projects can be built for far less money than in years past.
“We have seen panels get more efficient, and a lot more inexpensive,” said Evans, who co-founded Tuusso Energy back in 2008, and through the past decade has helped to bring on five solar projects in four states.
But some developers have faced resistance for projects that typically involve tens or hundreds of thousands of photovoltaic panels.
In Oregon, for example, the state land-use board last year overturned Jackson County’s approval of an 80-acre project on farmland.
In North Carolina’s Currituck County, where two projects have been placed on 2,260 acres of farm land, neighbors complained about noise and dust during construction and poor maintenance that allowed weeds to sprout among the solar panels. These issues, along with concerns about farmland loss, helped persuade county commissioners in February 2017 to ban new solar developments, according to Laurie LoCicero, the county planning director.
In Washington, solar has largely been confined to rooftop installations on homes and businesses, and a small demonstration project at a Puget Sound Energy (PSE) site in Kittitas County.
Most renewable-energy development during the past two decades has focused on wind power. These projects, at times, also have faced pushback in Kittitas County, which is just over the Cascade divide from the Puget Sound region.
Then-Gov. Christine Gregoire in 2007 approved the Horizon Wind project that had been turned down by county commissioners. In a legal challenges, plaintiffs argued that the turbines, visible for miles, would spoil a scenic view shed and violate local ordinances, but the state Supreme Court allowed the project to go forward.
In Washington, wind power development has slowed, with many of the prime ridge-top and other sites already claimed.
Unless PSE and other utilities venture farther afield to prime wind states like Montana, the future here is likely to include a lot more solar power. In a recent planning document, PSE tagged Eastern Washington solar as the cheapest renewable option, and forecast buying up to 266 megawatts of power from solar producers by 2023.
Tuusso’s project — known as Columbia Solar — would meet only a small part of that demand. The sites selected — and leased for 30 years — would collectively produce 25 megawatts of power.
The project would provide enough electricity for about 1,000 homes, according to Evans. The panels would sit about 8 feet high, and trees and shrubs would be planted to help screen them from view.
The project is estimated to cost $40 million to $50 million, and is made possible by a 1978 federal law — the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act — that requires PSE to buy the electricity at a price equal to or less than the cost from a traditional power plant.
In Kittitas County, Tuusso Energy has found some support, including from the Chamber of Commerce board, which voted unanimously to endorse the project.
“The feeling was that we do have to transition away from carbon fuels at some point, and solar is a good way to do it,” said Jim Armstrong, the chamber’s executive director.
County critics say they are not against solar energy, but that farmland — under the state’s Growth Management Act — is supposed to be protected.
Carkner, a retired agricultural economist, says each planted acre helps support the broader community as farmers purchase seed, fertilizer, tractors and other merchandise from local merchants, and spend their earnings in town.
So Carkner wants projects placed in more remote, undeveloped parts of the county, some of which, he said, have the three-phase electrical lines needed to handle the power produced by photovoltaic panels.
Tuusso did initially look at such land but could find no suitable sites with the three-phase transmission network in place, according to Evans. It would be possible for a large solar project to build a three-transmission network in these out-of-the-way locations. But for a smaller project, such as Columbia Solar, Evans says such development would add millions of dollars in costs and scuttle profitability.
The economics look a lot better in the irrigated agricultural zone, where an extensive three-phase transmission system already is in place, according to Evans.
But even in this farm belt, the transmission system is limited, and would largely be tapped out once photovoltaic panels were placed on some 400 acres of farmland, according to Evans. Thus, he said concerns that county farmland would be overrun by solar photovoltaic panels are unjustified.
If Columbia Solar gets a green light from Inslee, opponents still may opt to pursue a legal challenge.
But if all goes according to plan, the alfalfa and seed oats now growing in two of the Brunsons’ fields be replaced next year by some 35,000 photovoltaic panels.
Jeff Brunson figures that, even on these lands, he still will be farming.
“The sun raises my crops right now, and the sun is going to raise them in the future,” Brunson said.
In this March 20, 2018 photo, Ellensburg landowner and Microsoft employee Jay Pittenger stands on his land that Tuusso Energy wants to lease for a solar farm, in Ellensburg, Wash. The tract has not been used to grow crops. It is one of five sites, belonging to four different landowners, where Tuusso Energy wants to put solar panels. The proposed solar farm has stirred controversy in the county, as did a ridge-top wind farm shown in the distance. The Seattle Times via AP Steve Ringman
This March 20, 2018 photo shows Jeff and Jackie Brunson’s land near Ellensburg, Wash. The couple, who farm about 1,000 acres plan to lease out more than 80 acres of their land for a solar farm. If the plan is approved, solar panels would cover that property, including the parcel shown here, which is bordered by trees at left, Highway 97 in the distance and Tjossem Road at right. The Seattle Times via AP Steve Ringman
In this March 20, 2018 photo, Jeff Brunson jumps a ditch by a 100-acre field he is seeding with Timothy hay, in Ellensburg, Wash. He and his wife want to diversify by leasing some of their Kittitas County land to a solar-energy developer while continuing to farm most of their 1,000 acres. The state is considering whether to allow the project. The Seattle Times via AP Steve Ringman
In this March 20, 2018 photo, farmers Jackie and Jeff Brunson speak about hearing complaints from neighbors and others who don’t want farmland used for energy development, in Ellensburg, Wash. The Seattle Times via AP Steve Ringman