Five Stories: New Frackademia Effort to Educate Young Regulators

Here are five recommended reads for today (10/05/15).

1. DeSmogBlog clears the air on the latest in frackademia: “At a seminar titled “Staying Ahead of Federal and State Regulations: A Partnership with Academia and Government,” officials from Pennsylvania State University and the University of Texas described how gifts from companies like ExxonMobil allowed their universities, along with the Colorado School of Mines, to offer state regulators free classes on oil industry best practices, travel and accommodations included.”
2. InsideClimateNews reveals the dispute between environmentalists and industry over flaring: “The royalty-free flaring of natural gas from wells on public and tribal lands amounts to a hidden federal subsidy worth tens of millions of dollars, according to a new study by the environmental group Friends of the Earth that focused on the industry in North Dakota.”
3. Slate demonstrates the decline of King Coal with changes in Coal County: “But the entity that accounts for the largest portion of this year’s retirements isn’t, say, a utility in California that’s going all in on solar. Rather, it’s the Tennessee Valley Authority—the Depression-era entity that helped bring a large chunk of Appalachia into the modern age by electrifying the region in the 1930s. Coal is essentially being abandoned by its home team.”
4. Renew Economy reports on a plan to make solar power more equitable for homeowners and utilities: “The report – a submission to the Victorian government on its proposed Renewable Energy Roadmap – notes that in that state, as in many others in Australia, the current levy on PV exports to the grid pays rooftop solar owners around 6 cents/kWh, which is then resold to (mostly) nearby consumers at 20 to 30 cents/kWh, leaving 15-25 cents/kWh to be shared as a “windfall profit” by the retailer and network operator.  But according to Pears – one of Australia’s leading energy efficiency experts – this system could be a lot fairer for solar households, while also helping governments to fund renewables growth and the transformation of ageing grid infrastructure, and without cutting into the “legitimate” costs of power retailers and networks.”
5. Reuters reports on the ongoing construction and funding needs for South Africa to convert to renewables: “Oct 4 South Africa’s ageing electricity transmission grid needs investment of $15 billion by 2022 to help cope with increased new energy production, an executive at German state development bank KfW said on Sunday.”






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