“Thanks to bipartisan support California was able to extend its historic cap and trade program which protects our environment and preserves our nation-leading economic growth… I hope politicians around the country can learn from the example set in Sacramento last week.”

– Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

Transportation to Cuttyhunk Island

Just behind Larsen’s fish market in Menemsha we meet… on the docks where seasoned fishing boats unload their catches. Tucker fires up the Shearwater’s mighty diesel engines. He’s our captain for the day. The boat rattles and roars, a 34-foot commercial fishing vessel that reeks of fish. No messing around: It has an eight-foot tailgate to bring in lobster pots and big catches. It’s old and weathered many high seas, and thousands and thousands of pounds of fish.

Currently, there are 174 electric meters on the island, serving a summer population of about 250, with a year-round population of less than 50. And it gets cold and dark in the winter. Peak demand on the island is ~250 kW. That’s when most residents are here in summer, the single hotel is busiest, and the bustling port provides shore power for yachts that tie up in the harbor’s slips.

We’re pretty quiet on the way back. The engine roars, the boat rattles and pounds its way through the seas. We’re all imagining island life, or what it takes to be an islander… day in and day out. And then I chat with Tucker – we’re on cruise control and he wants to talk fish again. Imagine. Nothing like getting your limit of stripers!

The extension of California’s Cap and Trade program through AB 398 is a big win for California, and for Californians. California’s cap-and-trade program uses a market-based mechanism to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Now the program will be extended through 2030, a major means to fulfill the State’s commitment to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2030.

California’s Cap-and-Trade rules came into effect on January 1, 2013 and have applied to large electric power plants and large industrial plants. In 2015, the rules were extended to distributors of heating and transportation fuels. Then, the program encompassed ~ 360 California businesses and nearly 85% of the state’s total greenhouse gas emissions. In January 2014, California’s program was linked to Québec’s program.

Under a cap-and-trade system, companies must hold enough emission allowances to cover their emissions. They are free to buy and sell allowances. California held its first auction of greenhouse gas allowances on November 14, 2012.

While the market mechanism makes sense, it has been fraught with challenges. One of the biggest is who gets the money generated. Everyone wants it. The Governor has been pushing for its use to fund California’s High Speed Rail project. Other fight for EJ… environmental justice… and using Cap and Trade revenues to offset years of local air pollution, for instance communities bisected by highways and homes close to industry.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the bill’s passage was its bipartisan nature. May it be a lesson to Washington. Assembly Republican Leader Mayes spent months expressing interest in negotiating with Gov. Jerry Brown and other Democrats on an extension of cap-and-trade, the state’s signature climate change program.

After helping to secure a number of amendments that would make the law more amenable to the industries most directly affected by its regulations, and possibly give Republicans more of a say in how revenues are spent, Mayes delivered seven critical votes that pushed it over a necessary two-thirds threshold in the Assembly. Apparently a wave of conservative backlash since the vote could cost him his post as head of the Assembly’s 25-member GOP caucus.

The Governor signed the legislation on Treasure Island, the same location where Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB 32 (the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006), which authorized the state’s cap-and-trade program more than a decade ago. AB 398 strengthens and extends the state’s cap-and-trade program, which would have expired without legislative action. According to experts, it also enhances the original legislation: It cuts the use of out-of-state carbon offsets and brings those environmental benefits back to California. It prioritizes cap-and-trade spending to ensure funds go where they are needed most, including reducing diesel emissions in the most impacted communities. And its companion bill, AB 617 makes provisions to reduce air contaminants in California’s most polluted cities.

Extending California’s cap-and-trade program ensures that billions of dollars in auction proceeds continue flowing to communities across California. To date, these investments have preserved and restored tens of thousands of acres of open space, helped plant thousands of new trees, funded 30,000 energy efficiency improvements in homes, expanded affordable housing, boosted public transit, and helped more than 100,000 Californians purchase zero-emission vehicles.

Solar at the Entrance of Chase Field in Phoenix

JPMorgan Chase – a financial services giant and the world’s third largest bank — plans to buy renewable power for 100% of its global energy needs by 2020, and to facilitate $200 billion in clean financing through 2025 – the largest commitment by any global financial institution to date.

JPMorgan Chase announced that it will fulfill its renewable power commitment through 2020 both on-site installations of solar and procuring power from utility-scale projects. This includes installing solar on up to 1,400 retail buildings that it owns, as well as its 40 commercial buildings. The company will begin a pilot installation of solar panels at Chase branches in California and New Jersey.

Already, a division of JPMorgan Chase has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with NRG for a 100 MW wind project that is expected to go online by the end of this year. Green power purchases will be complemented be enhanced energy efficiency measures, including switching to LEDs for lighting and installing systems to manage building energy use.

JPMorgan Chase also announced its plan to facilitate $200 billion in clean energy financing by 2025. While details on this part of the plan are forthcoming, the investments will likely center around the company’s 22,000 corporate and investment clients. In 2016, the company provided $2 billion in tax equity for wind, solar, and geothermal projects.

Wind turbines kill roughly 300,000 birds each year. Compared to an estimated 3.7 billion slain by cats each year, and depending on your perspective, a tiny fraction of the total. Yet avian deaths remain a key issue raised by renewable energy critics. Our President has suggested that wind turbines kill eagles, and lots of them.

Now right-wing skeptics seek to tie the recent death of a humpback whale in Rhode Island to the nation’s first offshore wind farm. The Daily Caller, a news site founded by a Fox News personality, published a story suggesting that noise from the turbines caused a 32-foot juvenile humpback male to beach itself and die.

The necropsy ordered by the Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration, which handled the carcass, may or may not be able to identify a connection between sound emitted by turbines and the death. A number of stressors may be to blame. The whale washed up the same week two other humpback whales died after stranding on Cape Cod. The deaths are part of a larger trend. Since January 2016, 48 humpback whales have died along the East Coast between North Carolina and Maine according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Earlier this year, the agency declared an “unusual mortality event” and launched an investigation.

Block Island Wind’s construction was completed nearly a year ago. Its developers readily admit that the turbines do produce low noise levels when the blades of structures, twice the height of the 305-foot Statue of Liberty, spin. Deepwater Wind officials there note that, “Compared to ferries and cargo ships and any other kind of vessel in the water, the wind farm creates a very, very low level of vibration and sound underwater.”

Offshore wind has huge potential for America. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, winds off the coast of the U.S. could generate 4,223 gigawatts of power. That’s four times the amount of electricity that’s currently produced from all power sources in the country.

Construction of Vogtle Unit 3

Santee Cooper and SCANA will abandon construction of two nuclear reactors at the Summer plant in South Carolina. The Santee Cooper board, which owns 45% of the project, voted unanimously in July to halt construction, citing costs officials said could reach over $25 billion. Problems with the reactor supplied by Toshiba subsidiary Westinghouse caused long delays and cost overruns. The 75% increase in the original cost estimate proved too much for Santee Cooper, which has had to raise rates five times to cover the cost of the project. SCE&G has raised rates nine times to cover Summer’s costs.

Originally proposed in 2007, the two-reactor expansion of the Summer plant was supposed to be completed by 2017 and 2018. But construction crews ran into problems with Westinghouse Electric’s AP1000 reactor design, causing delays and cost overruns that led the nuclear developer to file for bankruptcy in March. After taking over construction, the utilities said they would likely be unable to finish construction before the end of 2021, when a critical federal tax credit for nuclear energy expires.

The decision leaves only one nuclear plant under construction in the United States – Southern Company’s Vogtle nuclear project. That facility has experienced similar problems with reactor design and cost overruns, and Southern officials are expected to decide in August whether to terminate its construction.

Miami Metro Area

The City of South Miami is the latest city to sign onto a new trend encouraging solar across the country: solar mandates. In July, the South Miami City Commission in a 4-1 vote approved a law requiring solar to be installed on all new homes. Thus South Miami became the first city in Florida with such a requirement, seeking to cost-effectively incorporate solar in new construction. Six California cities including Santa Monica and San Francisco have passed such mandates.

South Miami Mayor Philip Stoddard, a proponent of the ordinance, stated that, “Solar reduces the cost of home ownership, it makes houses sell faster, it returns more to a builder, it makes local jobs, and most importantly, it reduces carbon emissions today to help our children and grandchildren have a better future tomorrow.” A university professor, he notes that, “We’re down in South Florida where climate change and sea level rise are existential threats, so we’re looking for every opportunity to promote renewable energy… We have a pledge for carbon neutrality. We support the Paris Climate Agreement.”

Stoddard said he expects only a few new homes and other buildings to be built in South Miami this year because the city of about 11,000 is surrounded on all sides by dense urban development and has very little space for new construction. Under the rules, new residential construction would require 175 square feet of photovoltaics to be installed per 1,000 square feet of sunlit roof area, or one array with 2.75 kilowatt capacity per 1,000 square feet of living space, whichever is less. Houses built under existing trees may be exempt. Those opposed to the law generally like solar, but favored incentives instead of the mandate.

The new construction requirement complements the City’s push for existing homeowners to put solar on their roofs. In 2015, South Miami completed a competitive bid process for solar installations. The objective was to get the best possible and fixed pricing from one single solar installer. The City received responses from two contractors and then negotiated, volume and discounted pricing for solar panel installation on all types of residential and commercial roofs.