Ohio Solar Companies Ready to Take on Clean Power Plan COLUMBUS, Ohio – They’re ready to roll with clean energy. Over a dozen solar businesses in Ohio have sent a letter to the White House backing the EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan. Steve Melink, president of Melink Corporation in Milford, signed the letter because he says limits on carbon pollution from power plants are a critical step towards moving to a clean energy economy. He adds, renewable sources of energy can improve health,...

New tracers can identify frack fluids in the environment Scientists have developed new geochemical tracers that can identify hydraulic fracturing flowback fluids that have been spilled or released into the environment. The tracers, which were created by a team of U.S. and French researchers, have been field-tested at a spill site in West Virginia and downstream from an oil and gas brine wastewater treatment plant in Pennsylvania. “This gives us new forensic tools to detect if ‘frac fluids‘ are...

To Modernize the Grid, We Must Forget Everything We Know About Rate Structures The rate structures designed at the dawn of the electric grid are starting to break down, argues Black & Veatch’s Edwin Overcast. Today’s electric utility rates, largely based on structures developed in the 19th century, cannot support the evolving business needs of utilities. Nor can current rates provide for a fair distribution of costs, particularly among residential consumers. In order to modernize the electric utility rate structure, we must...

Want to help the Great Lakes? Change your soap Researchers can’t say how many microbeads are floating in the Great Lakes, but there are enough to cause concern for their potential impact on marine life and the lakes’ overall ecosystems. Do you wash your face every night? Brush your teeth? Of course you do. But your nightly beauty routine might be adding to plastic pollution in the Great Lakes, and environmentalists are ramping up efforts to try to get you to change the products you...

How you can help clean energy eat Big Oil’s lunch Bill McKibben and the folks at 350.org have decided to target the pernicious financial influence of the fossil fuel industry and its front groups. On the day following the election, they kicked off a 21-city “Do the Math” tourto “mount an unprecedented campaign to cut off the industry’s financial and political support by divesting our schools, churches and government from fossil fuels.” Divestment is a fine strategy, but we all know that it...

Cutting Greenhouse Gas Emissions Could Save 3,500 Lives Per Year: Report WASHINGTON –- Save the planet, save lives? A study released Tuesday says reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants in order to curb global warming also would improve health for Americans. That’s because reducing greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide would lead to declines in other pollutants — saving up to 3,500 American lives per year, or an average of nine lives per day. The emissions cuts also would prevent up to 1,000...

Here’s Who To Blame For America’s Increased Contribution To Global Warming In 2013 A new report released by the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday shows just how much large American industrial facilities including power plants, refineries, and chemical manufacturers contributed to global warming in 2013. The report answers the question of how carbon dioxide was emitted by these industries in 2013 compared to 2012, and the short answer is this: more. googletag.cmd.push(function() {...

Fracking companies use loophole to avoid permits for dangerous chemicals, report says Federal laws meant to protect drinking water require fracking companies to get a permit before using diesel fuel in the drilling process. That permit is important: Diesel contains chemicals that can cause cancer and damage nerve tissues. The permits regulate the length and depth of concrete and steel well casings that keep those chemicals from reaching groundwater. But a loophole in the law allows oil and gas companies to separately inject the same toxic...

Is Germany Abandoning Its Commitment to the Energy Transition? A brief history of Germany’s energy policy and an exploration of its enormous impact—and new direction Germany, the world’s fourth-largest economy, has led the world in terms of its commitment to wean itself from fossil fuels and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. The program known as the Energiewende, or “energy transition,” was made into law in 2011. The key laws behind the Energiewende were put in place a decade earlier. This commitment to...

Land records show many state parks could see mining, drilling About 40 percent of Ohio’s natural treasures — its state parks, forests and wildlife and nature preserves — could be undermined in the quest to remove valuable coal, oil, natural gas and other minerals. Mineral rights owned by other parties could permit mining or drilling in parts of 18 state forests, 24 state parks and 53 natural areas, according to an analysis of state land records by The Dispatch. Even the parcel holding one of the crown jewels...