solar power

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, January 26, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Stories:

• The Agents of Unregulated Globalization vs. the Agents of the Fight against Climate Change - By Jeanette Bonifaz, Center for Economic and Policy Research, January 9, 2015

Crude by Rail:

• CSX reports record fourth quarter results - Trains [paywall alert], January 21, 2015
• Federal Court Order: Explosive DOT-111 "Bomb Train" Oil Tank Cars Can Continue to Roll - By Steve Horn, DeSmog Blog, January 23, 2015
• Interim Settlement Reached in Lac Megantic Oil Train Disaster, but Culprits Say "It Wasn't Us" - By Roger Annis, Truthout, January 22, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Alberta One Of Hardest Hit By Lower Oil Prices - By Andy Tully, OilPrice.Com, January 20, 2015
• Baker Hughes to lay off 7,000 - By Jennifer Hiller, FuelFix, January 20, 2015
• BHP to cut 40 percent of its U.S. shale drilling - By Jennifer Hiller, FuelFix, January 21, 2015
• Halliburton suggests North American layoffs could come - By Jennifer Hiller, FuelFix, January 20, 2015

Green Jobs and Just Transition:

• A Boom in Solar Jobs - By Rick Cohen, Nonprofit Quarterly, January 22, 2015
• In US, There Are Twice as Many Solar Workers as Coal Miners - By Kirsten Korosec, Fortune, January 17, 2015

Other News of Interest:

• Brazilian Workers, Students Battle Fare Hikes Pushed By Workers Party - By Steve Payne, In These Times, January 22, 2015
• Building Bridges with MST - By La Via Campesina South Asia, La Via Campesina, January 20, 2015
• Elizabeth Mpofu speaks before 50,000 people at the “we are fed up” demonstration - La Via Campesina, January 21, 2015
• Kosovo miners return from underground, ending 3-day strike - By Andrew Topf, Mining.Com, January 26, 2015
• 150-foot span of Willits Bypass collapses into Haehl Creek; Several workers injured - By Adrian Baumann and Michael Mott, Willits News, January 22, 2015
• Oil And Gas Production Is Exposing Californians To At Least 15 Different Kinds Of Pollutants - By Katie Valentine, Think Progress, January 22, 2015
• Outside Senators’ Clean Water Act proposal threatens Bristol Bay salmon, culture, jobs - By Tim Bristol, Save Bristol Bay, January 22, 2015
• Report faults Chevron - By D Ross Cameron, Contra Costa Times, January 24, 2015
• Scientists and Doctors Sound Alarm Over Health Dangers of Oil Spill Dispersants - By Dahr Jamail, Truthout, January 20, 2015
• Stop the Free Trade Agreements [brochure] - La Via Campesina, January 20, 2015
• U.S. refinery workers, oil firms start talks for new contract - By Erwin Seba, Reuters, January 21, 2015
• Via Campesina solidarity visit to Douro small wine growers - By La Via Campesina News Team, La Via Campesina, January 20, 2015

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, January 17, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Stories:

• The Robots Are Coming! Let's Make Them Work for the Workers - By Thomas Matt, Truthout, January 15, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• BP, ConocoPhillips to cut 530 jobs in the North Sea - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, January 15, 2015
• Schlumberger to cut 9,000 employees, including in Houston - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, January 15, 2015; [related]: Schlumberger axes 9,000 workers - By Michael Allan McCrae, Mining.Com, January 16, 2015
• Wage growth for oil workers slowed in 2014, data firm says - By Joshua Cain, FuelFix, January 15, 2015

Green Jobs and Just Transition:

• By focusing on collaboration, not competition, teachers can save civilization - By Lizanne Foster, Rabble.ca, January 18, 2015
• Offshore Wind in the Atlantic Would Provide Twice the Number of Jobs, Energy as Offshore Drilling - By Jaime McClain, Oceana, January 15, 2015
• Solar Jobs Boom: US Industry Adds 31,000 Workers as Installations Surge - By Pete Danko, Breaking Energy, January 15, 2015
• There are now twice as many solar jobs as coal jobs - By Tim McDonnell, Grist, January 15, 2015

Other News of Interest:

• Bhopal Cloud Hovers Over Industrial Safety in India - By Neeta Lal, Truthout, January 20, 2015
• Five Die After Crash In South Texas Oil Field - by Katie Valentin, Think Progress, January 16, 2015
• Forced labor on Thai fishing vessels - By Farah Obaidullah, Greenpeace Blogs, January 16, 2015
• Global union alerts Bougainville about Rio Tinto - Adam Lee interviewed by Radio New Zealand, Papua New Guinea Mine Watch, January 20, 2015
• Oil-by-Rail Reality: Watch What Industry Does, Not What They Say - By Justin Mikulka, DeSmog Blog, January 15, 2015
• Peruvian Youth To Protest Against New Labor Law - Telesur, December 22, 2014
• RCMP union: Solidarity forever? - By John Baglow, Rabble.ca, January 17, 2015
• Report urges injury, death coverage for farm workers - By Karen Kleiss, Edmonton Journal, January 15, 2015
• Soma, Ermenek, Yirca: Can Anti-Coal Activists Defend Coal Miners and Olive Farmers? - By Ethemcan Turhan, Jadaliyya, January 17, 2015
• Textile Workers’ Strike Stirs Discontent In Sisi’s Egypt - By Hossam el-Hamalawy, al-Araby, January 16, 2015
• Women Garment Workers Organize Against Inhumane Conditions in India - By Pushpa Achanta, Waging Nonviolence, January 12, 2015
• Worker dies at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant - By Justin McCurry, The Guardian, January 20, 2015

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, January 17, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Stories:

• Hundreds Rally Against Proposed Propane Terminal at Planning and Sustainability Commission Hearing - By Yoko, Rising Tide Portland, January 13, 2015
• The climate is ripe for social change: Forget the UN, social justice movements offer the only viable solution to global warming - By Vishwas Satgar, The Mail & Guardian, December 17, 2014

Carbon Bubble:

• Oil prices and the devil's ransom - By Alexander Reid Ross, The Ecologist, January 15, 2015
• This Is Just the Beginning of the Great American Oil Bust - By Wolf Richter, Wolf Street, January 12, 2015
• How Wall Street Drove the Oil & Gas Drilling Boom That’s Turning into a Disaster - By Wolf Richter, Wolf Street, January 13, 2015
• Apache workers face layoffs as oil prices fall - By Ryan Honeywell, FuelFix, January 14, 2015
• BP cuts 200 North Sea staff, 100 contractors - Associated Press, FuelFix, January 15, 2015
  Canadian oil firm to cut 1,000 jobs, curb spending - By Colin Eaton, FuelFix, January 13, 2015
• Lewis Energy cuts jobs in wake of oil price crash - By Jenifer Hiller, FuelFix, January 14, 2015
• OPEC Wants to “Crush US Shale” - By Andy Rowell, Oil Change International, January 15, 2015
• San Antonio-based driller cutting 20 percent of workforce - By Jenifer Hiller, FuelFix, January 14, 2015
• Suncor cutting 1,000 jobs, taking $1 billion out of 2015 budget - By Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press, January 13, 2015
• Texas job growth to slow as oil prices tank - By David Hendricks, FuelFix, January 13, 2015

Green Jobs and Just Transition:

• Because another energy is possible: Looking back at 2014 (video) - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, January 14, 2015
• Offshore Wind More Profitable Than Drilling on U.S. East Coast, Report Says - Yale Environment 360, January 14, 2015
• Ohio’s Renewable Energy Freeze Threatens Growth of Solar and Wind Investments and Jobs - By Anastasia Pantsios, EcoWatch, January 14, 2015
• The Solar Industry Created More Jobs In 2014 Than Oil And Gas Extraction - By Katie Valentine, Think Progress, January 15, 2015
• Solar Is Creating Jobs Nearly 20 Times Faster Than Overall U.S. Economy - By Anastasia Pantsios, EcoWatch, January 15, 2015
• Solidarity, PA - By Abby Scher, Dissent, January 2015
• US Solar Jobs Climb 22 Percent as Clean Power Aids Economic Recovery - By Justin Doom, Bloomberg, January 15, 2015
• We Need Less Work, Not More - By Alexandra Bradbury, In These Times, January 15, 2015

Other News of Interest:

• Breast cancer: the workplace aspects are too often forgotten by researchers - By European Trade Union Institute, January 14, 2015
• Carbon Colonialism: How the Fight Against Climate Change Is Displacing Africans - By Nafeez Ahmed, Motherboard Vice, December 1, 2014
• The Killer Fog That United Labor and Environmentalists - By Anna Hiatt, New Republic, September 19, 2014
• Pushing through the pipeline - By Nicole Colson and Brian Ward, Socialist Worker, January 14, 2015
• Rio Earth Summit: From Red Scare to Green Scare - By European Trade Union Institute, January 14, 2015
• US Department of Transportation Delays New Rules on 'Bomb Trains' - By Peter Rugh, Vice News, January 15, 2015

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC

By Béla Galgóczi - European Trade Union Institute, 2015

Our planetary limits demand a radical transition from the energy-intensive economic model based on the extraction of finite resources, which has been dominant since the first industrial revolution, to a model that is both sustainable and equitable.

Unfortunately however, energy transformation in Europe has, after a promising start, fallen hostage to austerity and to the main philosophy underpinning the crisis management policies in which overall competitiveness is reduced to the much narrower concept of cost-competitiveness. Regulatory uncertainty, design failures built into incentive systems, and unjust distribution of the costs, have also contributed to the reversal of progress in energy transformation currently observable across Europe.

In this book three country case studies highlight the different facets of these conflicts, while additional light is thrown on the situation by an account of the lack of progress in achieving energy efficiency.

By way of conclusion, a mapping of the main conflicts and obstacles to progress will be of help in formulating policy recommendations. Ambitious climate and energy policy targets should be regarded not as a burden on the economy but rather as investment targets able to pave the way to higher employment and sustainable growth. It is high time for this perception to be recognised and implemented in the context of Europe’s new Investment Plan, thereby enabling clean energy investment to come to form its central pillar. A shift in this direction will require an overhaul of the regulatory and incentive systems to ensure that the need for just burden-sharing is adequately taken into account.

Read the report (Link).

By Mike Gaworecki - DeSmog Blog, November 16, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

A recent trend has seen utilities deciding that since they haven't been able to beat back the rise of rooftop solar companies, they might as well join them (or at least steal their business model). But the Walton Family, owners of Walmart as well as a stake in a manufacturer of solar arrays for utilties, aren't ready to give up the fight.

A new report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance has found that, through their Walton Family Foundation, the Waltons have given $4.5 million dollars to groups like the American Enterprise Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and Americans for Prosperity—groups that are attacking renewable energy policies at the state level and, specifically, pushing for fees on rooftop solar installations. The head of ALEC has even gone so far as to denigrate owners of rooftop solar installations as “freeriders.”

But support for groups seeking to halt the rise of clean energy is only half the story. According to Vice News, the Waltons own a 30% stake in First Solar, a company that makes solar arrays for power plants as “an economically attractive alternative or complement to fossil fuel electricity generation,” per its 2013 annual report, which also identifies “competitors who may gain in profitability and financial strength over time by successfully participating in the global rooftop PV solar market” as a threat to First Solar's future profitability.

By Anastasia Pantsios - EcoWatch, November 11, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

A new study by the UK’s Energy Research Centre (UKERC) took a deep dive into job creation claims made by proponents of renewable energy and energy efficiency, looking at the figures and projected figures for the EU from a number of angles. It came to the conclusion that in the short run, moving to renewables and ramping up energy conservation would create more jobs than the fossil fuel sector, at a rate of about one job per gigawatt hour of electricity saved or generated by a clean energy source, with the long-term picture murkier because of factors in the economy and government policy that are hard to predict.

The report, Low Carbon Jobs: The evidence for net job creation from policy support for energy efficiency and renewable energy, said, “‘Green’ sectors account for as many as 3.4 million jobs in the EU, or 1.7 percent of all paid employment, more than car manufacturing or pharmaceuticals. Given the size of the green jobs market, and the expectation of rapid change and growth, there is a pressing need to independently analyse labour market dynamics and skills requirements in these sectors. What is more controversial is the question of whether policy-driven expansion of specific green sectors actually creates jobs, particularly when the policies in question require subsidies that are paid for through bills or taxes. Politicians often cite employment benefits as part of the justification for investing in clean energy projects such as renewables and energy efficiency. However, other literature is more sceptical, claiming that any intervention that raises costs in the energy sector will have an adverse impact on the economy as a whole.”

The report focused not simply on job creation, but on net job creation, subtracting the number of fossil fuel-based jobs that could potentially be displaced by spending on green infrastructure projects. It also employs “counterfactuals”: what other power generation sources would have been built instead without green policies. It says that over-optimistic green jobs figures don’t take this into account. But it also says that jobs skeptics tend to be overly broad in their application of counterfactuals.

By Judee Burr and Lindsey Hallock, Frontier Group and Rob Sargent, Environment America Research & Policy Center, Environment America - Publication, November 2014

America could meet its energy needs by capturing just a sliver of the virtually limit-less and pollution-free energy that strikes the nation every day in the form of sunlight. With solar installation costs falling, the efficiency of solar cells rising, and the threats of air pollution and global warming ever-looming, solar power is becoming a more attractive and widespread source of energy everyday.

Solar energy is on the rise across the country.The amount of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity in the United States has tripled in the past two years. More than half of all new U.S. electricity generating capac-ity came from solar installations in the first half of 2014, and the United States now has enough solar electric capacity installed to power more than 3.2 million homes.

Read the report (Link).

By Nick Surgey - PR Watch, July 30, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

As the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) prepares to meet in Dallas this week, the Center for Media and Democracy has uncovered new evidence that Edison Electric Institute (EEI) -- the trade association for the U.S. utility industry -- has been funding ALEC's legislative assault on solar energy.

Although ALEC recently proclaimed that it was being falsely portrayed as "anti-clean energy," these latest revelations confirm that ALEC continues to pursue a polluters' wish list, despite its PR pronouncements.

"Solar Is Dumb," says ALEC Legislator

As documented by Suzanne Goldenberg and Ed Pilkington in The Guardian late last year, ALEC has been peddling legislation designed to increase costs for Americans who have invested in solar panels for their homes and businesses, which ALEC's rep attempted to label as “freeriders.” Through ALEC's bill and campaign, the group has been pushing changes to state laws that would increase costs for homeowners with solar who sell excess energy back to the grid, known as “net metering.”

The CMD documents underscore what Gabe Elsner of the Energy & Policy Institute has uncovered, which is that EEI is a prime player in ALEC -- footing the bill and calling the shots on the anti-renewable agenda. This shows that some powerful utilities -- which include public and private entities -- are backing ALEC's extreme agenda, not just global coal and oil corporations.

From libcom.org, February 22, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Part of domestic living in Britain is receiving hot water and heating from a boiler that serves one property alone. In fact, around 93% of households have a single appliance in homes where typically the number of occupants per household is around 2.5. Natural gas is the majority fuel by far for all heat needs within homes and non-domestic buildings.

So, where's this going beyond pointing out that gas is king and there is a boat load of heating and hot water boilers per person? I hope to make a brief case for the immediate need to do away with individual boilers, replacing them as best practicable with a more communised form of heating, the district heating network (DHN).

The case against the crap we call cutting edge technology

Fuel, more specifically natural gas, is running out fast in Britain, and despite our dependence on a finite resource we desperately rely upon for industry and manufacturing, we burn the stuff in our own homes, regulated by nothing more than the ability to pay. The utilisation of renewable energy sources for heat production in Britain is, according to the Department of Energy and Climate Change "around 15%... in 2012; this equates to 2.3% of total heat demand" (DECC, National Renewables Statistics), a figure that flies in the face of a common misconception that problems around resources and emissions control are being adequately addressed by technology. Furthermore, whilst the trend for using renewable sources of energy have continued to impress for electricity production, for heat production less so. In 1990, renewables represented a replacement of around one million tonnes of oil for both electricity and heat production, a third of that figure being for heat. In 2012 renewables replaced around 7 million tonnes of oil for electricity production and one million tonnes heat; considering most energy use is for heat production overall, development in renewable energy for heat production has seen the smallest change in face of the biggest need.