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In China, they deliver wind turbine blades in convoy to project sites. It must be much lower cost than in Australia, where blades are moved piece by piece, with police escorts.

The post Photo of the Day: Australia should allow wind turbine blades to be trucked in convoy appeared first on Renew Economy.

• The U.S. Department of Transportation announced that it will no longer enforce a provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting racial discrimination in federal funding. (KQED)
• President Trump loves to tear up bike lanes in Washington, D.C. because they supposedly inconvenience drivers, but he’s perfectly fine with snarling traffic for months to build a monument to himself. (Politico)
• Transit projects should be treated like any other type of infrastructure. (Next Metro)
• The cost for the Minneapolis Blue Line rose again to $3.6 billion as it nears completion. (KSTP)
• Denver could be facing a 20 percent transit budget cut. (Denver Post; paywall)
• It’s bad enough that Houston forces cyclists and pedestrians to use tunnels, but lately those tunnels have gotten flooded. (ABC 13)
• The St. Louis Metro is deploying a new integrated fare and gate system to improve fare recovery and make riders feel safer. (Metro Magazine)
• Washington state passed a law distinguishing between e-bikes and motorcycles (Government Technology) as many other cities and states struggle to do the same.
• The Urbanist says Seattle should be spending its bike-lane money faster.
• Milwaukee held its first Vision Zero summit. (On Milwaukee)
• San Francisco cyclists are fed up with Waymos blocking bike lanes. (Chronicle; paywall)
• The Trump administration might be cracking down on immigration and talking about annexing Canada, but train travel across the border from Seattle has never been easier. (KOMO)
• Barcelona may make a controversial decision to get rid of its private bikeshares in favor of expanding the public option. (Road.cc)
• Seoooooul Train: The Korean capitol is building six new urban rail lines. (Chosun Biz)

We’re well into the 21st century, but pedestrians in the United States are being killed like it’s still 1982.

According to a new analysis of nationwide traffic deaths, 7,080 pedestrians died on American roads in 2024. That number is 6 percent lower than 2022’s figure, but still a 72-percent increase since 2009, and almost the exact same number of pedestrian deaths as 42 years ago.

This staggering figure, which heralds our country’s years-long devolution in road safety, is part of the annual Dangerous by Design report released last week by the advocates at Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition. The report uses the most recent year of federal data available, puts it in five-year windows for context, and crunches the numbers to reveal the metro areas and states with the deadliest roads per capita for pedestrians.

It’s ugly down there. New Mexico was the deadliest state in the country for pedestrians from 2020 through 2024, with a fatality rate of 4.42 pedestrians per 100,000 people.

According to the report, 57 percent of all roadway fatalities in 2024 occurred on state-owned roads, and state DOTs wield significant power in both creating (or blocking) live-saving policies. 

Despite this power, meaningful state-level progress is almost non-existent.

“Of the 20 most-deadly states, 19 showed no signs of improvement or became even more dangerous,” the report notes. “Only five states that improved in the 2024 report have continued to improve and build upon that progress in this report, and only eight states in total have improved since the last report when comparing five-year periods.”

Delaware was the most-improved state, lowering pedestrian fatalities by 0.41 percent over that five-year period, but it still remains the 10th most-deadly state in the country. 

Memphis was the deadliest metro area for pedestrians in the country in that five-year period, with a fatality rate of 5.5 pedestrians per 100,000 people, according to the report. One local news TV segment from earlier this month encapsulated the city’s problem, both with its headline (“More than a dozen Memphis pedestrians hit by cars in just over a week”) and with its anti-pedestrian framing.

“It’s more about being observed, paying attention when you’re crossing the street, not being distracted by cell phone usage or whatever the case may be,” a local sheriff tells the camera, apparently addressing a likely-to-be-struck pedestrian.

Earlier this spring, the Trump administration, citing the slight decline in pedestrian fatalities last year, declared victory: “Under President Trump and Sec. [Sean] Duffy, American roads are safer,” National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Jonathan Morrison crowed in a press release in April — while ignoring the fact that we have returned to the Reagan era when it comes to killing pedestrians with vehicles.

Advocates want real and sustained safety improvements, not press releases.

“Our leaders are celebrating small improvements from historic deaths as some major victory, while thousands of people continue to be hit and killed while walking every year,” Beth Osborne, president and CEO of Smart Growth America, said in a written response to the NHTSA. “If we were any other country, this would be treated as a national crisis. Instead, our leaders are quick to accept these deaths as a necessary aspect of our transportation system.”

The federal government has a warped perception of traffic fatalities partly because of how NHTSA measures traffic fatalities, which is per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. This odd metric, which is mostly unique to the United States, obscures the epidemic. Deaths remain high, but as Americans drive more, the death rate falls. (Another terrifying statistic: Americans drove 3.279 trillion (!) vehicle-miles in 2024, an increase of 1 percent from the year before).

The rest of the world, including Smart Growth America, measures death rates per capita — and using this metric, the U.S. continues to head in the wrong direction compared to other developed nations. In 2024, we had 11.7 traffic fatalities per 100,000 people, compared to 8.73 in the 34 “peer nations” that managed to achieve over a 10-year span of addressing traffic safety, according to the report. If the U.S. had managed that same level of improvement, the report asserts, more than 63,000 lives would have been saved between 2014 and 2024. 

Pedestrian fatalities continue to disproportionately fall along lines of class and race — American Indian and Alaskan Natives had a fatality rate of 7.9 per 100,000 people, nearly quadruple the overall rate of 2.15, according to the report. Black Americans had a rate of 3.67, Hispanic or Latino Americans were at 1.9, and whites were at 1.6. Low-income Americans are more likely to die in crashes.

Historically, traffic fatalities have decreased in the U.S. following huge pushes in national policy — like mandating seatbelts in new vehicles in 1968, or setting a national speed limit of 55 mph in 1974. But the Trump administration has little appetite for the safety measures that are being adopted in Europe — like forcing all new vehicles to be installed with GPS speed governors, or imposing higher taxes and parking fees on heavier, more dangerous trucks and SUVs. Pedestrian plazas and bike lanes are still somehow controversial, even in places like New York City.

The $1.2-trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed by Congress in 2021 also contained next to nothing to fund the kind of safety-minded, traffic-calming design changes that ultimately force drivers to slow down and pay attention. The authors of the report point out that the bill was supposed to force the US DOT to adopt a “Safe System approach” to new road projects, but that the NHTSA’s own “Safe System” dashboard seems to be, uh, broken. 

Make this safe.

There’s not much evidence to suggest that our federal lawmakers fully grasp the issue. In a letter sent to Senate Republican earlier this month, Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey put “Make Transportation Safer” near the top of his list of what he and his Democratic colleagues see as priorities for this year’s surface transportation bill.

Markey correctly notes that we are in the midst of a “safety crisis,” and adds that the vehicular death rate in the U.S. is “four times higher than that in Britain or Germany.” But in the same breath, he claims that the IIJA made “important progress” in advancing safety initiatives, and that somehow, “the next surface transportation bill has the potential to move the nation meaningfully closer to zero road deaths.” (Tellingly, Markey’s first request, above safety, to these MAGA-pilled politicals, is “Protect Infrastructure Grants from Political Interference.”)

A spokesperson for the NHTSA has not responded to Streetsblog’s request for comment on the report.

Dmytro Stechenko was not just a stand-up guy, but had a personal morality that he simply did not violate. He didn’t litter. He didn’t jaywalk. He wouldn’t so much as sit in an accessible seat on a subway, even if no one was around.

So it’s the cruelest irony that the Ukraine-born cyclist was killed on the Queensboro Bridge on May 28 in a collision with the rider of an illegal scooter who reportedly made a risky passing maneuver, the victim’s best friend told Streetsblog.

Dmytro Stechenko with his cat Luni.

“It just feels super unfair that somebody who would never break the law, even a tiny one, would be killed in such a [way],” said Alex Pawlowski, the best friend of 35-year-old cyclist, reflecting on Stechenko’s way of life and connecting it to the need for Mayor Mamdani to not wait for another death to crack down on illegal high-powered electric two-wheelers and improve existing bike infrastructure.

“I want the politicians to know that we don’t have to wait for the next death to happen in order to create the impetus to change,” he said.

Pawlowski and Stechenko met 16 years ago at the National Technical University of Ukraine in Kyiv, where both men studied computer science. The two were reunited after both moved to the United States and would often ride endurance laps in Central Park, a fitness hobby the pair picked up in their 30s.

In fact, the friends were together the morning before the May 28 crash, when scooter operator Francis Delvalle, 39, crashed his illegal electric scooter into Stechenko, killing them both.

The first time Pawlowski rode on the Queensboro Bridge, in fact, was the day of his friend’s death, after a mutual friend called him about the crash. Pawlowski said he always avoided the East River bridges because he felt they were too narrow and unsafe. Now he just wants to make sure no one else has to lose a friend in the same way.

“We always know that something is unsafe, but we rationalize it [because] nothing has happened yet,” he said. “But it will eventually happen. And when it happens, it takes away somebody’s brother, husband, someone’s friend, their best friend of 16 years. It’s not like better street design is some kind of mystery. We have a lot of experience in urbanism, there are people who can help. We just have to take their advice and actually implement those changes.”

In fact, the Queensboro Bridge recently received major safety improvements. Last year, after inexplicable delays and years of advocacy about the danger, the Department of Transportation finally opened up one lane of the bridge’s so-called “South Outer Roadway” to pedestrians so that cyclists and other legal electric two-wheelers no longer had to dodge walkers on the narrow path.

But DOT’s efforts to protect roadways with evidence-based redesigns must endure a gauntlet of theatric community board meetings and navigate a broken political system that allows powerful New Yorkers and influential businesses to delay, dilute and cancel those redesigns.

Even when DOT overcomes these hurdles, however, it still takes too long to implement redesigns. Indeed, the road markings on the Queensboro Bridge have not yet been updated, creating a confusing situation for those using the bridge path.

“To be fair, the Queensboro Bridge, the markings were confusing,” said Pawlowski. “When I was riding there for the first time on that day, I was also a bit confused, because it was showing that I have to go the opposite direction that I was going.” He pointed out that while cyclists and pedestrians now each have their own lane, car drivers still enjoy seven lanes of traffic on the bridge.

Stechenko moved to New York around 2016, and was working as a software engineer at Meta when he died. Pawlowski followed him to the city in 2021. Cycling provided a way for the two to stay connected. “It was nice that he started cycling with me because it’s cool to have somebody to share your hobby with,” Pawlowski said. “Especially an old friend.”

When Pawlowski reached the crash scene on the morning of May 28, he was struck by the severe damage to his friend’s bike, especially compared to Delvalle’s illegal scooter. “This thing was not even damaged,” he said. “I was looking at the scooter and it just seemed completely pristine.” The only exception was a tiny aluminum clamp that allowed the scooter to fold in half.

By contrast, Stechenko’s carbon-fiber road bike was cracked in half. The bike was “outclassed” by the heavy scooter, Pawlowski said.

The illegal scooter and the bike in the aftermath of the crash that killed two men on the Queensboro Bridge bike path.

This type of damage may not have been possible if both men were riding street-legal devices. After the crash, Streetsblog identified the scooter as a Blade GT II by the Chinese brand Teverun. Thanks to its 4900W motor, the vehicle can reach 53 mph in under four seconds. While the city requires electric bikes to top out at 750W, the law is less clear for scooters. But the city still bans scooters that are capable of exceeding 20 mph.

It’s unclear how fast Delvalle was going, but the debris caused by the crash and the fact that both men died while wearing protective helmets clearly suggests a high-speed collision. Pawlowski blamed the sheer power and torque of the device under Delvalle’s feet.

“We live in a dopamine-fueled environment,” he said. “People are seeking dopamine from anything, just like phones, and I think that type of instant acceleration is another source that can, over time, distort your sense of risk.”

He continued: “The idea that you can overtake anything, it’s just there, this acceleration, which goes to the wattage rating of the motor. If the motor was less than 750 watts, it would not be capable of that much acceleration. But if it’s multiple kilowatts of power, it’s instant torque.”

It is currently illegal to operate this type of scooter on city streets and bike paths, but it is not illegal to buy one. That means online retailers can continue to market and sell thousands of street-illegal e-scooters and e-bikes to New Yorkers. Local brick-and-mortar stores dedicated to these illegal vehicles have popped up, too.

Pawlowski wants the city to enforce existing laws and take a clue from Europe, where many cities equip law enforcement personnel with specialized devices known as dynamometers that measure the power of electric scooters and bikes in order to determine which are legal — and which are not.

“We have to start enforcing [the regulations],” said Pawlowski. “Something like in the EU where they take the scooters and they test the top speed. Something like that needs to happen. New York is a busy city, people are rushing everywhere so probably that somewhat partially explains it, but I think it’s unreasonable to expect culture to change. That’s why we don’t live in a utopia — you have to make bad behaviors difficult to do.”

State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez (D-Long Island City) represents the neighborhood where Stechenko lived and the bridge on which he died. She told Streetsblog that she is drafting legislation to close this loophole and prevent future deaths like Stechenko’s, which she described as “devastating.”

“It’s clear we need reform around the sale of these dangerous products,” she said in a statement. “When these products are advertised it needs to be clear they are not street safe and there needs to be transparency on the risks of using them. I am actively working on legislation at the state level that would keep dangerous devices off of our streets and address enforcement at the point of sale.”

City Hall did not respond to a request for comment on Pawlowski’s call to action.

A new land access agreement between Traditional Owners of the Pilbara region and iron ore giant Fortescue will see the two parties collaborate on decarbonisation of mining operations on Country.

The post Fortescue to lease electric haul trucks as part of land deal with traditional owners appeared first on Renew Economy.

Federal and state governments back rollout of 18 community batteries on parts of the grid with particularly high rooftop solar uptake.

The post Australia’s biggest isolated grid to soak up suburban solar with 18 new community batteries appeared first on Renew Economy.

Canada’s economy has been growing very slowly for the last year, since Donald Trump launched his trade war against Canada’s exports. The side-effects of Trump’s attacks against Iran (including high oil prices and accelerating inflation) have further undermined growth in Canada.

Recent Statistics Canada data indicate that real GDP in Canada (adjusted for inflation) declined very slightly (by 0.036%) in the first quarter of 2026. Coming on the heels of a larger decline in real GDP in the final quarter of 2025, this signifies that Canada is experiencing a ‘technical recession” – traditionally defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction in real GDP.

There is no doubt that Canada’s economy faces serious headwinds, primarily the decline in exports to the U.S. and weak business capital spending (hurt by the uncertainty surrounding the trade environment and the economic outlook). As Centre for Future Work Director says in this commentary, originally published in the Toronto Star, whether the resulting growth is slightly above or slightly zero is not meaningful for economic policy decisions.

A technical recession is more about politics than economics By Jim Stanford

Statistics Canada recently released its quarterly report on Canadian GDP, covering the first three months of 2026. Most economists had expected a modest increase in GDP, but the final number came in slightly below zero.

Coming on top of a small decline in the last quarter of 2025, this means Canada has experienced what is commonly called a ‘technical recession’: two consecutive quarters of shrinking real GDP (adjusted for inflation).

Opposition politicians jumped on this report as evidence that Canada’s economy is being mismanaged. They were joined by Pete Hoekstra, the famously undiplomatic U.S. ambassador to Canada, who cited the data to renew his call for Canada to become the 51st state.

‘Technical recession’ is a very rough-and-ready benchmark commonly used to determine whether the economy is shrinking. One-quarter declines in real GDP often occur, without signalling serious economy-wide trouble.

The two-quarter rule is only slightly more robust. But it is still arbitrary and subjective, and doesn’t necessarily say much about what’s actually happening in the economy.

The U.S. follows a much stricter definition. A technical committee at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) monitors dozens of indicators, including employment, consumer spending, and business investment. Only when there is widespread evidence of significant contraction “spread across the economy and last[ing] more than a few months,” will it declare a recession.

Even as technical recessions go, this one is as ‘technical’ as they can get. Both of the quarters in question registered tiny declines in measured real GDP. And both of those declines reflected unusual statistical quirks, more than evidence of broader economic contraction.

In the fourth quarter of 2025, GDP declined solely because businesses sharply reduced excess inventories accumulated earlier in the year, after Donald Trump started his trade war. Statistics Canada accounts for inventory reductions as a charge against GDP. Excluding that $13 billion drawdown, GDP would have grown a modest 0.3 percent.

Then in the first quarter of 2026, GDP shrank because of an unusual surge in gold imports, which rose (coincidentally also by $13 billion) as industrial users and financial investors took advantage of softer gold prices. Without that temporary inflow of gold, GDP would have grown 0.5 percent.

So in neither case was the broader economy genuinely shrinking. Canada’s economy is not in recession, in any economically meaningful sense. This week’s strong labour force report, showing Canada created 88,000 jobs in May, confirms the economy is still growing, albeit too slowly.

Opposition politicians see the technical recession as great fodder for memes and sound bites. Indeed, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre talked of virtually nothing else last week. Politicians should be careful, however, about putting too much emphasis on this single, arbitrary metric.

Statistics Canada regularly revises its GDP data on the basis of new information. The decline in first-quarter GDP was so tiny (just $900 million out of a $3 trillion economy, or 0.036%) it could easily switch positive with the next revision. In fact, that decline was so small Statistics Canada’s official release stated that GDP was “unchanged” – a nuance lost in the histrionics of Question Period.

Just such a revision occurred back in the third quarter of 2023. A much larger initial decline in GDP (reported as -0.4% at the time) was later changed to a small increase. If that happens again, the whole pseudo-recession will be revised right out of existence, and these politicians will rightfully look silly.

There’s no doubt Canada’s economy is facing tough times. Donald Trump’s tariffs, now followed by his war in the Persian Gulf, are the clear culprits behind weak exports and investment uncertainty. Whether GDP growth is slightly above zero, or slightly below, is irrelevant. The critical priority is to boost spending, investment, and job-creation in all sectors (including public services) fast enough to offset that shock and enhance Canada’s economic independence.

Theatrics over whether an arbitrary line has been crossed are an unhelpful distraction from that task.

The post Political Drama Over Technical Recession Not Justified appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

Neoen Australia boss calls on government to focus on quick wins with its flagship renewables program if it wants to meet its 2030 target.

The post Only shovel-ready projects should be allowed to win CIS rounds, says Australia’s leading renewables developer appeared first on Renew Economy.

At the Audubon Center at Debs Park, the start of summer brings a bittersweet milestone: our FLIGHT interns have officially “fledged the nest.”After nine months of learning, restoration work, bird...

A recurring misconception about electrifying apartments is that the building can’t support induction cooktops. But the switch is more straightforward than most expect.

The post How to ditch gas for induction cooktops without frying your apartment building’s electrics appeared first on Renew Economy.

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Willapa Bay and neighboring Grays Harbor are the most important spring stopover sites for Pacific Red Knots (Calidris canutus roselaari) in the entire Pacific Flyway (Buchanan et al. 2011). A large...

Australia's superannuation sector could be missing its chance to own the nation's green energy future, but the super industry says it's well invested.

The post Australia’s super fund giants have invested just 0.03 pct of their $2.5 trillion in renewables since 2020 appeared first on Renew Economy.

Oregon groups move to intervene in lawsuit to defend the Climate Protection Program against oil and gas industry attack Ally Harris Mon, 06/15/2026 - 3:19 pm

Support the Roadless Area Conservation Rule

In 2001, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule was adopted with massive public support to protect 58.5 million acres of roadless national forest land in 39 states. The Roadless Rule was the result of years of work and public input. The public comment period set a record with 1.6 million public comments submitted. The rule protects 58.5 million acres of national forests over 39 states from new road construction, and prohibits the logging of roadless areas in the National Forest System.

On Aug 29 2025, the USDA published a notice of intent, kicking off a 21 -day comment period which ended September 19. We generated more than 620,000 public comments for that comment period.

As we prepare for another public comment period around the release of the draft Environmental Impact Statement in Spring/Summer 2026, we’re continuing calls to action to protect the Roadless Rule to ensure the federal government and our elected officials are aware of the public’s desire to keep the rule intact.

The post Roadless Rule Defense Toolkit appeared first on Native Organizers Alliance.

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink

I’ve often come across graphs on social media showing atmospheric CO2 concentrations over time, with various dates of climate agreements highlighted. Shared by doomers and skeptics alike, they are used to argue that the rise of CO2 concentrations is inexorable and has not (or perhaps cannot) be slowed by actions we take.

One example from the Orwellian-named climate skeptic group “Friends of Science”.

On the other hand global CO2 emissions – the very precursors to those concentrations – have largely plateaued. After increasing by more than 20% in the 2000s, CO2 emissions today are a mere 3% higher than they were in 2013. This plateau has been driven in part by a rapid expansion of clean energy globally, with spending on clean energy rising from around $600 billion in 2020 to $2.3 trillion in 2025. At the same time we’ve seen notable reductions in land use emissions associated with reduced rates of deforestation in countries like Brazil.

Figure via Carbon Brief.

So if global CO2 emissions are flattening, why do atmospheric concentrations appear to be growing unabated? The answer is in the persistent nature of atmospheric CO2.

About half of the CO2 humans emit into the atmosphere remains there for at least a century (and about 20% for more than 10,000 years), with the remainder being absorbed by land (mostly vegetation) and ocean (mostly geochemical) carbon sinks. This means that even with flat CO2 emissions we would expect atmospheric CO2 concentrations to increase – that concentrations are approximately the integral of annual emissions.

This means that, generally speaking, if emissions remain flat concentrations would linearly increase. If emissions increase, concentration growth accelerates, while if emissions fall, concentration growth slows down. Its a bit more complicated in practice – unlike for temperatures we can get atmospheric CO2 concentrations to fall if emissions are reduced enough, where sinks take up more CO2 than we emit. But broadly speaking we expect atmospheric CO2 to keep growing until we cut emissions pretty substantially (e.g. to <50% of current levels).

Either way, atmospheric CO2 is better seen as a lagging rather than leading indicator of changes in emissions, as it is harder to see the effects of emissions reductions on concentrations over shorter time periods.

What we can do, however, is use reduced-complexity carbon-cycle models to examine how different atmospheric CO2 concentrations would have been if global emissions had not plateaued. To start with, lets assess what would have happened to global CO2 emissions if they had continued increasing at the ~2.2% per year that we saw in the 2000s. This is shown in the figure below.

Next lets use a reduced complexity carbon cycle model to convert these additional emissions into atmospheric concentrations. Here I am using the Joos et al (2013) impulse response function which describes the fraction of a one-year pulse of CO? that stays in the atmosphere as the ocean and land sinks gradually draw it down. These pulses are then convolved into changes in atmospheric concentrations over time.

Here we see that atmospheric CO2 concentrations would have been approximately 8 ppm higher if global emissions had not plateaued over the past 13 years.

Finally, lets add in annual variability in atmospheric CO2, both observed (blue line) and modeled (red line).

We can also extend this all the way back to the start of the record. As expected, a plateauing of global CO2 emissions transitioned us from an accelerated growth rate to a more linear growth rate. Its not a dramatic swing – global CO2 emissions remain at above 40 billion tons per year! – but its at least some detectable progress away from a much worse emissions future.

What are the takeaways here? Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are still climbing despite some success in flattening global emissions. But this is generally what we’d expect; if emissions had continued to increase concentrations would be noticeably higher and accelerating rather than exhibiting a more linear increase. Observed increases in atmospheric CO2 are, if anything, a bit on the low end (though still in the uncertainty range) of what the model expects based on observed emissions.1 I’ve included a more detailed writeup and code to reproduce this analysis on my GitHub here.

So next time someone shows you a graph of CO2 concentrations and argues that nothing is changing, you can show them how much worse it would have been had we really done nothing to change our emissions trajectory.

Update

I got a number of questions from folks about the role of slower growth in fossil emissions vs falling land use emissions in driving these changes. It turns out that around 78% of the avoided increase in atmospheric CO2 is attributable to fossil emissions, and 22% to land use. The GitHub repo has more details on this sensitivity test.

1 This suggests that it is our emissions, not recent changes in carbon cycle feedbacks, that are the main driver of growth in atmospheric concentrations. That being said, we still expect some weakening of carbon sinks in a warmer world – something we have started to see in the data.

We track how the NRC’s push to weaken long-standing radiation safeguards lines up with the rush to license small modular reactors marketed as climate solutions. We connect new research on low dose radiation risk to the unresolved nuclear waste crisis and the growing demand for electricity from AI data centers.

The Gulf Coast city of St. Petersburg is a place where art and nature blend together to create a whole vibe: The Dalí Museum overlooks mangrove-lined waters, bird-themed murals dot the streets of...

At regulatory hearing, lawyer and expert discredit Duke Energy’s “blind faith” claims of huge upcoming growth and new climate-wrecking power plants

A prominent clean energy expert has provided written testimony in a regulatory proceeding that challenges Duke Energy’s plans for a massive buildout of failure-prone nuclear plants and climate-wrecking fracked gas. It’s unclear if the North Carolina Utilities Commission will allow this expert to provide verbal testimony in the ongoing hearing in Raleigh. 

The testimony of engineer Bill Powers, P.E., of San Diego also describes the huge potential for a path that could quickly phase out fossil fuels and protect citizens from Duke’s massive rate hikes. According to Powers, local solar-plus-storage (SPS) installations could be installed at a fraction of the time and cost of new nuclear units – making it the fastest, cheapest, most equitable tool to move North Carolina off its course toward climate and social chaos. 

As detailed in NC WARN’s Sharing Solar proposal, new local SPS could be put into the rate base for all customers to share the costs and benefits, much like we already pay for dirty energy. Multiple excellent solar companies in North Carolina are positioned to install SPS on roofs, parking areas and unused ground areas at or near where power is used. 

Powers’ testimony for NC WARN centers on the following issues:

1. 1. Duke Energy’s electricity demand forecasts are “poor … consistently inflated and wrong” (pg. 15-16). Duke predicts a massive influx of new electricity demand, which it is using to justify investments in new, dirty power generation. In reality, per capita electricity use in NC has been on the decline for years (pg. 9), and Duke has been able historically to meet peak demand while leaving much of its existing power plant fleet sitting idle (pg. 17).

   2. Duke Energy’s plans for failure-prone, colossally expensive nuclear reactors rely on “blind faith” that past mistakes won’t be repeated (pg. 29). The only two AP1000 reactors – the model of large nuclear plants that Duke hopes to construct – ever completed in the US are the most expensive power plants ever built (pg. 25) due to construction challenges, delays and cost overruns. Duke Energy has already failed 6 times during its attempts to build the AP1000 reactor and has been unable to explain how it can avoid repeating the mistakes that led to previous project collapses (pg. 28).*
      
      
   3. Duke Energy plans the nation’s largest buildout of fracked gas-burning power plants. Duke’s whopping proposed 12.3 GW of new fracked gas generation largely hinges on its ability to transition these new plants to burn “green hydrogen” some time in the 2040s. Powers indicates that green hydrogen remains elusive as a reliable fuel source despite industry efforts over many years (pg. 36).

   4. Solar-plus-storage can serve as a cheaper, more reliable alternative to Duke’s plans for new nuclear reactors and fracked gas-fired power plants. According to Powers, North Carolina has the solar potential for SPS to “operate as baseload, intermediate, and peaking power in the years leading to 2050 … to replace existing coal- and gas-fired generation and displace any new gas-fired and nuclear power as necessary” (pg. 40).

NC WARN attorney Matt Quinn led last week’s in-person proceedings by challenging Duke Energy witnesses on using monopoly customer money to recruit power-guzzling industrial customers to North Carolina. These developments are facing widespread opposition – including community-backed moratoriums on data centers. 

Brought to light by the Utilities Commission’s Public Staff during the hearing, Duke Energy CEO Harry Sideris recently boasted to investors, “We have a [recruiting] team in place that their goal, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, is how do we get these things signed quicker?” 

Duke leaders also told investors they plan to drive up profits and power bills by adding an unprecedented $60 billion to the rate system in just the next 4 years in the Carolinas. NC WARN rejects the idea that a monopoly utility should be allowed to spend millions a year boosting its own revenue at the expense of the public. Meanwhile, its actions further entrench the corporation’s stature as one of the world’s worst climate polluters.

NC WARN appreciates that Attorney General Jeff Jackson criticized Duke Energy’s exaggerated growth projections and overreliance on fracked gas, as well as his recommendation that Duke should “plan based on realistic projections and include more affordable, stable sources like solar.” 

*Duke Energy’s filing projects it would be at least 2037 before any new nuclear plant becomes operational, far too late to help with the climate crisis or to power data centers. 

###

Now in its 38th year, NC WARN is building people power in the climate and energy justice movement to persuade or require Charlotte-based Duke Energy – one of the world’s largest climate polluters – to make a quick transition to renewable, affordable power generation and energy efficiency in order to avert climate tipping points and ongoing rate hikes. 

The post Clean Energy Expert Shows Quick, Inexpensive Path to Phase Out Fossil Fuels in North Carolina — NC WARN News Release appeared first on NC WARN.

Build the Village, Break the Empire

While the US and Israel relentlessly drop bombs on Iran, Lebanon, and Palestine with our tax dollars and living costs skyrocket as a result, regenerative economies, collective healing, and liberation can feel like pipe dreams to many of our families, neighbors, and fellow workers. We are faced with the Herculean task of just surviving the constant physical and psychic attacks—let alone needing to build something that requires our wildest imaginations and all of our labor.

The truth is, everyday people have already been building the villages that we need to survive this crumbling empire; sometimes prompted when crisis hits their communities, but sometimes just because they see each other, understand the collective needs, and act intuitively. Neighbors do it whenever they lend tools or kitchen ingredients. Families and friends do it whenever they bring meals to a sick loved one. These informal practices could be a foundation for viable economic infrastructure—aka organized ways we care for home.

In this newsletter, we explore some of the ways we and our homies are building power by building the village. Flip through these pages to learn more.

{Cover IMAGE ID: Cover image by Amir Khadar. Movement Generation’s June 2026 Newsletter. The theme is titled Build the Village, Break the Empire. The illustration features a large ancient tree. In the bottom portion, the roots underground are crushing and breaking institutional buildings representing the United States, as well a military tank and police car. The top portion shows people farming and living in community beneath the tree canopy in the sunrise.}

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