I just read this article by Virginia Sierra Club Pipeline Committee Chair Kirk Bowers, and thought it deserved as much attention as possible. Here are a few highlights, but definitely read the whole thing (and send it to Gov. Terry McAuliffe while you’re at it, telling him what you think of this crazy course of action).

*”Three large-diameter, 42-inch Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) lines are proposed in Central and Southwest Virginia. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), 550 miles long, would originate in Harrison County, WV and run to southeastern North Carolina. The 330-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) would extend from Wetzel County, WV and travel south to compressor station 165 in  Pittsylvania County, VA. The Western Marcellus Pipeline (WMP) extends from the Rockies Express pipeline near Clarington, OH and Williams Oak Grove processing plant in Marshall County, WV to compressor Station 165 in Pittsylvania County, VA.”

*”There is no precedent in Virginia for 42-inch pipeline construction across steep forested terrain like the Alleghenies, Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains…These are highly sensitive environmental areas at the headwaters of many of our rivers in Virginia. The pipelines will permanently fragment the truly special forests around Signal Corps Knob, Shenandoah Mountain and Laurel Fork, among others. This region contains some of the most intact, late-successional forest habitat and is an important reservoir of biodiversity for rare species.”

*”The Shenandoah and Roanoke Valley are riddled by porous, unstable karst formations, which would be subject to contamination of groundwater by pipeline leakage and rupture of pipelines due to unstable soil structure.”

*”Since 1986, there have been 7,940 incidents, 512 fatalities, 2,359 injuries and more than $6.8 billion in property damages due to pipeline explosions in the United States. The blast radius is 1,100 feet for a 42-inch diameter pipeline. ”

*”Landowners will see a significant decrease in property values due to the restricted use of land on the easements as well as the visual impacts of a 125-foot wide clear-cut”

*”The proposal to build the pipelines through some of the most beautiful and preserved wilderness in the East is appalling. It poses a serious threat to the environment and to the broader communities along the route. The negative impacts of the Pipelines far outweigh any positive outcomes. Natural gas pipelines accelerate the impacts of climate change. The pipelines will impede the development and use of renewable energy, as well as energy conservation. It will encourage fracking and increase methane emissions more harmful than CO2.”

*”If the pipeline is built, our forests and local communities will bear the full brunt of environmental costs, the harm to hunting, fishing, outdoor recreation, and their economies, and the disruption of the rural character of western Virginia while not sharing in any of the purported benefits. “

Cross posted from Scaling Green

The following are ten top cleantech stories we followed closely in 2014. Of course, this is not a comprehensive list, as there’s so much happening in the vast world of cleantech. Still, we think the following are fascinating, important stories well worth noting as 2014 comes to a close.

First, courtesy of Greentech Media’s “The Energy Gang” podcast (with “energy futurist Jigar Shah, energy policy expert Katherine Hamilton and Greentech Media Editor Stephen Lacey”):

1. According to Katherine Hamilton, the EPA’s Clean Power Plan – “the draft 111(d) greenhouse gas rule that came out last summer…is absolutely the biggest story of the year…I think it’s going to have enormous ramifications for years and years to come.” We agree, as the Clean Power Plan will stimulate innovation at the state level in energy efficiency, wind and solar power, energy policy, and more. It also will make it even less likely that new coal-fired power capacity will come online, although that was already the case due to competition from renewables, natural gas, and energy efficiency.

2. According to Jigar Shah, “dirt cheap solar” is the top story of 2014, complentary to the EPA Clean Power Plan story. In Shah’s view, Austin Energy switching to solar power, because it cost less than 5 cents per kilowatthour, “sent shockwaves throughout the industry,” with “a lot of utility executives, as well as Lazard and others” concluded that “solar is here, it is finally deserving of your respect and you must pay attention to it,” and the Austin Energy story was a “bellwether.” Shah further argues that the drop in solar prices – along with other good, cleantech news – will make 111(d) much easier to achieve and a “lot less costly than people think it’s going to be to implement.” Synergy, anyone?

2a. Stephen Lacey notes that there are now many “utility-scale {solar power} contracts being signed outside of Renewable Portfolio Standards – in Colorado, in Utah, in Georgia, coming up in Mississippi – we are seeing prices that are competitive with natural gas, and utilities are finding that solar is the cheapest resource and they’re not doing it because of mandates.” We’d also point everyone to this recent New York Times story, which reports: “The cost of providing electricity from wind and solar power plants has plummeted over the last five years, so much so that in some markets renewable generation is now cheaper than coal or natural gas.” That includes places like Oklahoma, where “American Electric Power ended up tripling the amount of wind power it had originally sought after seeing how low the bids came in last year.” And, “{a}ccording to the Solar Energy Industries Association, the main trade group, the price of electricity sold to utilities under long-term contracts from large-scale solar projects has fallen by more than 70 percent since 2008, especially in the Southwest.” The bottom line is that, increasingly, solar and wind power are competing with fossil fuels purely on economics, not even counting the massive subsidies fossil fuels receives, or the adverse impacts on health and the environment fossil fuels are not forced to incorporate into the pricing of their products.

4. Lacey nominates Germany’s energy transition as “one of the most important stories of the year, for mixed reasons.” Why? Because “the perceived and the very real negatives in Germany have started to have a deeper impact on the way people are talking about the country in the U.S…I think fewer and fewer people are pointing to [Germany] and saying we need to be like them…There’s a lot of good coming out of Germany this year as well; the country has embarked on subsidy reform, and nearly everyone in politics…agrees that clean energy should be a top priority…It’s also one of the test beds for solar plus storage, along with Australia, potentially Hawaii and Italy…And then finally, of course, this year saw historic changes to utilities, stimulated by the turmoil in the country’s energy markets: EoN is divesting from fossil fuels and focusing on customer-centric distributed renewables; RWE, the second- biggest utility there, is developing a similar plan.”

5. Moving on from the “Energy Gang” crew, we nominate China as one of the top cleantech stories of the year, for a number of reasons.  First and foremost was the U.S.-China agreement to limit carbon emissions, announced on November 12 by Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping. As Triple Pundit explains, this agreement “has China committing to reach peak carbon by 2030, with emission declining after that date,” with Chinese President Xi Jinping saying “that clean energy sources such as solar and wind would constitute 20 percent of China’s total energy production by 2030.”  Then, on December 17, BloombergBusinessweek reported that “China’s use of coal is ‘very likely to peak before 2020,’ [according to] a report from the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), an independent think tank based in Washington and Seattle.” According to Thomson Reuters Point Carbon analysis, this goal would require Chian “to increase its total energy production from nuclear and renewables 10 percent per year until 2020,” with the country adding “a total of 800-1,000 GW of non-fossil power plants” by 2030. To put those numbers into perspective, total U.S. power generating capacity is just over 1,000 GW. So, obviously, if China adds that much non-fossil generating capacity by 2030, it would be huge — for itself, as well as for world energy markets and carbon emissions.

6.  Another important cleantech-related story in 2014 was that, as InsideClimate News put it: “Riding a Rocket, Divestment Movement Gains Momentum.”  This movement — fueled by the “growing belief among global leaders, investors, scientists, and large corporations that the use of fossil fuels must be sharply curtailed-if not phased out-for the sake of future generations” – poses a potentially powerful threat to the fossil fuel industry. As InsideClimate News notes, the fossil fuel divestment movement started a few years ago “with a handful of U.S. colleges, with students pressuring administrators to purge endowment funds of coal, oil and natural gas company stocks.” As of September 2014, “the number of commitments had more than doubled to 181 entities and 650 individuals with control over about $50 billion in total assets, according to a report from Arabella Advisors, a Washington, D.C.-based consultant to philanthropies.” That’s impressive, especially if it continues to grow during 2015 and beyond.

7. On a related note, as Bloomberg explained earlier this month, “A growing minority of investors and regulators are probing the possibility that untapped deposits of oil, gas and coal — valued at trillions of dollars globally — could become stranded assets as governments adopt stricter climate change policies.” Bloomberg adds: “The concept gaining traction from Wall Street to the City of London is simple. Limits on emissions of carbon dioxide will be necessary to hold temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius, the maximum climate scientists say is advisable. Without technologies to capture the waste gases from combusting fossil fuels, a majority of known oil, gas and coal deposits would have to stay underground. Once that point is reached, they become stranded.” How serious is this threat? One indication is that, as The Guardian reported recently, the Bank of England “is to conduct an enquiry into the risk of fossil fuel companies causing a major economic crash if future climate change rules render their coal, oil and gas assets worthless.”

8. Another factor in potentially “stranding” fossil fuels is the rise of energy storage technology and electric vehicles, as exemplified by this story: “Nevada hit the jackpot yesterday in a five-state bid to host Tesla Motors Inc.’s $5 billion battery factory, which could help achieve a mass market for low-emissions electric vehicles by the end of the decade.” As Bloomberg reports, this “gigafactory may soon become an existential threat to the 100-year-old utility business model,” as it will “churn out stationary battery packs that can be paired with rooftop solar panels to store power.” As Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute explains: “‘The mortal threat that ever cheaper on-site renewables pose’ comes from systems that include storage…That is an unregulated product you can buy at Home Depot that leaves the old business model with no place to hide.”

9. The collapse in oil prices we’ve seen in 2014 has implications in many ways for energy markets of all types, including cleantech. For instance, see Bankers See $1 Trillion of Zombie Investments Stranded in the Oil Fields, which reports on a Goldman Sachs analysis which “found [oil] projects representing $930 billion of future investment that are no longer profitable with Brent crude at $70.” That includes “expensive Arctic oil, deepwater-drilling regions and tar sands from Canada to Venezuela.” But what about low oil prices’ impact on cleantech?  So far at least, the cleantech sector doesn’t appear particularly concerned. As The Guardian wrote recently:

…when it comes to electricity, oil and renewables hardly mix at all anymore. That’s because diesel and other petroleum-based fuels account for only 5% of global power generation today, according to the International Energy Agency, compared to a full quarter piece of the pie in 1973. Diesel is even less relevant in US power markets, where it makes up only 1% of generation.

“As far as solar and wind go, the {impact} from lower oil prices is zero in North America and Europe, where power prices do not have any link to oil,” said Pavel Molchanov, a senior research analyst at Raymond James Financial, in an email.

In addition, “Marc van Gerven, vice president of global strategic marketing at rival First Solar, said in an email that solar can provide a competitive advantage over diesel, coal or natural gas because fossil-fuel prices, even if low at this moment, have proven to be quite volatile over time.” Finally, a “recent energy cost analysis by Lazard not only backs up these views on oil’s diminutive impact on renewables. It goes further in calculating that the cost of energy from new utility-scale solar and wind power plants is increasingly competitive with more relevant conventional electricity fuels like coal, natural gas and nuclear power, even without subsidies in some markets.” So, we’ll definitely be keeping an eye on oil prices in 2015, and specifically how they might impact clean energy markets. For now, though, the adverse impact of plummeting oil prices appears to be focused mostly on expensive oil projects, like Canadian tar sands. And frankly, that’s fine with us.

10. Last but not least, since we’re located in the Washington, DC area, we’d be remiss not to look at Congress, politics, and their impact (actual and potential) on U.S. energy policy. For instance, see Why Congress’ Momentary Extension Of A Wind Tax Credit Isn’t Worth ‘A Carton Of Eggs’, which explains that the two-week extension of the production tax credit (PTC) threatens to continue the “‘boom and bust’ cycle in wind capacity installations, as the industry ramps up to take advantage of the credit before an expiration, and then collapses when further extensions become politically uncertain.” This is emblematic of the many ways in which our political system tilts the playing field in favor of fossil fuels. And it’s not coincidence, either; as this new analysis finds, the fossil-fuel industry directly invested $721 million-and perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars more through contributions to outside groups-in order to secure a Congress of its choosing and a friendly energy agenda… in the two years leading up to the November 2014 elections.” The fossil fuel industry’s efforts at influencing energy policy extend to the state level as well, and will most definitely be worth watching in 2015 and beyond.

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, December 24.

*Tense scenes in Missouri after police shoot another black teen (And yes, we DO need to discuss this. Sorry crazy Rudy Giuliani, other right wingnuts, you’re wrong yet again.)

*Economic vigor raises hopes that a boom is coming (“After Tuesday’s report of the fastest quarterly growth in 11 years, some experts believe the economy next year could expand at a rate that hasn’t been seen since the late 1990s.”)

*Inquiry Into I.R.S. Lapses Shows No Links to White House (Add this to the long list of things the right wing’s been wrong about.)

*CNN/ORC Poll: Obama ends year on an upswing (“Improving views of the economy have helped hike President Barack Obama’s approval rating to a 20-month high, a new CNN/ORC poll showed Tuesday, as markets climbed to record levels at news of an economy in overdrive.”)

*The Fossil Fuel Industry Spent More Than $721 Million During 2014’s Midterm Elections (This is a prime example of legalized corruption, aka the purchase/capture of government by well-heeled special interests. We badly need to do something about this, or the quality of our governance will continue to decline, as we descend further into a new “robber baron” era.)

*Now that the Dow has hit 18,000, let us remember the worst op-ed in history (“On March 6, 2009, former George W. Bush adviser Michael Boskin offered whatever the opposite of a prophecy is when he said that ‘Obama’s Radicalism Is Killing the Dow.'” Hahahahahahahaha.)

*Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe pushes for nonpartisan redistricting panel

*Webb is not the man (It baffles me why any progressives, let alone environmentalists, would be supporting Webb for president.)

*Schapiro: Happy Christmas to all and to all a good fight

*Pipeline company begins suing landowners to allow surveys (“Landowners opposed to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project could find themselves in court next month.” Lovely.)

*McDonnell lawyers: Community service, not prison

*Letters of support pour in for Bob McDonnell

*Incarcerated Va. delegate running as independent (“Joseph Morrissey, convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, says voters know his values.” Yes, let’s hope they do and that none of them vote for him!)

*Va. Beach Mayor Sessoms resigns job at TowneBank (“Will Sessoms has resigned as a president of TowneBank after being asked to choose to either stay on as a bank president or remain as the head of Virginia’s largest city”)

*Imprisoned former Virginia delegate denied new trial (“An appeals court panel rejects the request by Phillip Hamilton, serving more than nine years for bribery.”)

*Prosecutor: Fairfax police withheld information in probe of Geer killing (Not acceptable.)

*A year later, Fairfax County may finally have to say why its officer killed an unarmed man (“It’s sad that it took a court order to get Fairfax to provide this minimal level of accountability.”)

*Jeanine Lawson wins Brentsville special election (All I need to know is that Cooch is a big supporter/political ally.)

*A crummy Christmas Eve, then a mild and breezy Christmas Day

Well, well, check this out: six years into the presidency of Barack Obama, it turns out the U.S. economy is booming, the stock market is in record territory, wages are rising…etc. Or, as a headline today in the Washington Post put it: The boom is here: the economy just grew 5 percent, and it’s not going to stop. Oh yeah, and let’s not forget that we’re in the midst of an energy boom, with falling gasoline prices, plummeting crude oil imports and booming wind and solar output. All this, by the way, just six years since the economy collapsed under President George W. Bush, and not even six years since President Obama inherited one of the worst economic situations since FDR took over from Herbert Hoover in 1932.

For any observer not blinded by partisanship, right-wing ideology and/or animosity towards our nation’s first African-American president, this is beyond impressive. It’s also striking to consider the contrast between what Republicans predicted would happen and what actually happened. A few examples of the many ways in which Republicans have been (wildly) wrong the past 6 years include:

*Republicans and Tea Partiers asserted, over and over and over again, that the Recovery Act of 2009 would not work. They were completely wrong. In fact, as it turns out, the Recovery Act ended up doing almost exactly what it was intended to do: provide classic Keynesian, counter-cyclical “stimulus” to an economy in desperate need of it. The only problem, frankly, was that it wasn’t big enough, particularly in terms of aid to the states, and for that we have Republicans and a few conservadems to blame. If it weren’t for them, we almost certainly would have come out of the recession earlier and stronger than we did. In short, the current economic recovery has come about in SPITE of Republicans (and a few conservadems).

*Republicans and Tea Partiers called President Obama every name in the book, with “socialist” and even “communist” or “Marxist” being several of their favorites. Yet, just as in the case of Bill Clinton, the economy has boomed under this supposed “socialist,” with the stock market – not exactly a bastion of “to each according to his need” types – now at record-high levels. Does this sound anything like “socialism” to you? If so, then please, let’s have more “socialism,” please! 😉 Certainly, we’ve done better under this “socialism” then we did under the “capitalism” (actually, corrupt “crony capitalism”) of the Bush/Cheney years.

*Repblicans and Tea Partiers claimed that the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare,” would be a disaster, the ruination of America, blah blah blah. In fact, it’s been nothing of the sort. Instead, we’re getting constant headlines like US uninsured rate heads toward new low and O-Care premiums stable nationwide and U.S. Experiences Unprecedented Slowdown In Health Care Spending. So much for Republicans predictions of doom on all those fronts. As for “Obamacare” being a “job killer,” which we heard about a gazillion times from right wingnuts the past few years, let me simply refer you to the headlines and first couple paragraphs of this post, about the booming economy, soaring stock market, plummeting unemployment rate, etc.

*Republicans and Tea Partiers were also wildly wrong about the U.S. energy situation, from absurd claims that President Obama was causing higher gasoline prices to claims that he was stifling U.S. energy production. Instead, what we’re seeing is an energy boom in the U.S. on all fronts, combined with low energy costs (including plunging costs for clean energy sources like solar and wind).

*Republicans and Tea Partiers ranted and raved about the deficit, ignoring a few important facts, like: a) President Obama inherited a deficit of $1.2 trillion from Bush/Cheney; and b) the deficit for 2014 was just $483 billion — far less than half what President Obama inherited from Bush/Cheney. Of course, if Republicans really cared about the deficit, which they obviously don’t based on their records when they were in the White House (see Reagan’s and Bush’s huge deficits, compare and contrast to Clinton’s surpluses and Obama’s sharp cuts in the deficit he inherited), they would have voted to repeal most of the Bush tax cuts. They also would have signed off on John Boehner’s “grand bargain” on the deficit with President Obama, instead of killing it. Anyway, yet again in spite of Republican wackiness (e.g., the threats to default on the debt, the government shutdown, brain-dead “sequestration”), we’ve managed to make progress on this front as well. Just imagine how much more we could have made with a Republican party willing to work together for the good of the country, as opposed to working for President Obama to “fail?” It boggles the mind.

This list really could go on all day, getting into foreign policy as well (e.g., so much for right-wing claims that Vladimir Putin was kicing Obama’s butt or whatever), but I think the point is clear by now. Bottom line: Republicans have been wrong on basically everything the past 6 years. Will they admit that they were wrong? Apologize for their overheated rhetoric and counterproductive actions during Barack Obama’s presidency? Of course they won’t! Still, it would be nice if the corporate media, not to mention voters, would stop listening to these people, stop treating them as if they had anything serious to say about the challenges confronting our country, and start assigning credit where credit is due – to the Democrats who pulled our country out of the ditch the Republicans had driven it into. Yeah, I know, don’t hold your breath…

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Tuesday, December 23.

*Who unplugged North Korea’s Internet? (“Hackers claimed credit while the U.S. issued a coy nondenial, illustrating a cyberwarfare paradox: As attacks get bigger, the attackers get harder to identify”)

*N.Y. mayor: Put off protests until officers are buried (“Bill de Blasio called for calm and unity among angry New Yorkers after the shootings of two NYPD officers.”)

*Blood on whose hands? (“N.Y. cops’ execution was the work of one man.”)

*De Blasio’s nightmare (“New York’s mayor has lost the police – and maybe much more than that.  –  Bill de Blasio, like his progressive political idol Barack Obama, is finding out that you can’t do the New Politics if you don’t pay attention to the old politics.”)

*Federal Court Unanimously Calls North Carolina Anti-Abortion Law A Violation Of The First Amendment (Good, what about Virginia’s outrageous, forced ultrasound law?!?)

*The Worst Segments That Appeared on Cable News in 2014 (Fox and CNN are basically trash.)

*The Man Poised to Guide Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Campaign (It’s looking more and more likely it will be Terry McAuliffe’s 2013 campaign manager, Robby Mook.)

*The Real Threat to Hillary Clinton: Jim Webb (Highly doubtful.)

*Panel adopts ideas for changing Va.’s redistricting process (“One recommendation: Creating an independent commission to redraw lawmakers’ districts.”)

*Va. Democrats pick new candidate for Morrissey’s seat (“But supporters of Del. Joe Morrissey plan to file a suit challenging the selection process.”)

*Democrats pick Sullivan as nominee for Morrissey’s seat (“Held at two locations, in Henrico County and Charles City County, the primary was open only to about 100 party members ‘in good standing’ but not to the general public, according to the rules posted Friday by the Democratic Party of Virginia. Of those eligible to vote, only a few more than 40 showed up.” That’s just pathetic any way you look at it.)

*Link jobs to opportunity (“The health and strength of the commonwealth’s economy – particularly here in Hampton Roads – depends on our ability to diversify employment options. An over reliance on defense spending means Virginia is dangerously one-dimensional and very much beholden to Washington’s whims.”)

*Sentencing recommendation for Bob McDonnell due Tuesday (“The next phase of former Gov. Bob McDonnell’s legal battle begins Tuesday, when prosecutors and defense attorneys are both supposed to present their arguments on how McDonnell should be sentenced.”)

*McDonnell attorneys ask judge for community service, not prison

*A cap-and-trade proposal for Virginia (By a Republican delegate, no less!)

*Judge orders Fairfax to disclose information in police shooting (“The county police must provide vast portions of their investigation into the death of John Geer.” Finally!)

*Elite journalism school will scrutinize Rolling Stone rape story

*As flu takes off, Norfolk is ranked 5th-sickest city in U.S. by WebMD

*Three candidates hustle to file for prosecutor’s election in Portsmouth

*Rain today and tomorrow, then dry and sunny the rest of the week