Energy Storage, GHG Emissions, Regulation, Wind  -  February 22, 2020

Weekend reads: J.P. Morgan backs carbon tax; Sci-fi author offers path to surviving climate change

It's the weekend! Kick back and catch up with these must-read articles from around the web.

A Group of Big Businesses Is Backing a Carbon Tax. Could It Be a Solution to Climate Change? (TIME) The long list of big companies backing a carbon tax as a solution to climate change grew this week with financial giant J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. endorsing a legislative plan billed as a centrist approach to reducing emissions. The announcement comes as the Climate Leadership Council (CLC), the organization behind the proposal, which was first released in 2017, redoubles efforts to promote the plan before an expected introduction in Congress as the conversation around various climate solutions heats up in Washington.

ScottishPower seeks to challenge greenwashing with new 100% renewable tariff (Current) ScottishPower has announced from today all new domestic fixed price tariffs will use 100% renewable energy that will be sourced entirely from its own wind farms. This will mean that all of the power generated by the company’s wind farms will be used exclusively by its domestic and commercial customers. Money made from the tariff will be reinvested into new renewable generation, allowing investment in renewables to grow alongside customers.

Energy-Efficiency Investments Have Reduced Emissions by 60% Since 1980 (Builder) Since 1980, U.S. energy efficiency investments have prevented a 60% increase in energy consumption and carbon emissions, according to the Energy Efficiency Impact Report. The report - compiled by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, Alliance to Save Energy, and The Business Council for Sustainable Energy in partnership with a number of energy organizations, including the U.S. Green Building Council - examines the impact of energy efficiency policies and other tools on overall energy use over a number of sectors, including the built environment.

The Future Of Battery Energy Storage Is Upon Us (Forbes) Are you ready for the Energy Storage Grand Challenge? It was announced in January by U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette and is a comprehensive program to accelerate the development of next-generation energy storage technologies that would position the U.S. as a global leader. The goal of the program is to “create and sustain global leadership in energy storage utilization and exports, with a secure domestic manufacturing supply chain that is independent of foreign sources of critical materials, by 2030,” according to the department.

A Sci-Fi Author's Boldest Vision of Climate Change: Surviving It (The Wall Street Journal) Kim Stanley Robinson spends his days inventing fictional versions of a future where the climate has changed. In his 2017 novel “New York 2140,” sea levels in the city have risen by 50 feet; boats flit over canals between docks at skyscrapers with watertight basements. In 2005’s “Forty Signs of Rain,” an epochal storm called Tropical Storm Sandy floods most of Washington, D.C. It came out seven years before Superstorm Sandy pummeled New York. The 67-year-old author of 20 books and winner of both Hugo and Nebula awards for excellence in science-fiction writing, Mr. Robinson is regarded by critics as a leading writer of “climate fiction”—“cli-fi” for short. He considers himself a science-fiction writer, but also says that books set in the future need to take a changing climate into consideration or risk coming across as fantasy.

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• Weekend Reads: COP29 on Energy Efficiency; Unscrambling Hydrogen
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