The Paradise Fossil Plant in western Kentucky. CC BY 3.0
Trump is losing his rallying cry to save coal. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) voted on Thursday to retire two coal-fired power plants in the next few years despite a plea from the president to keep one of the plants open.
Earlier this week, the president posted an oddly specific
tweet that urged the government-owned utility to save the 49-year-old Paradise 3 plant in Kentucky. It so happens that the facility burns coal supplied by Murray Energy Corporation, whose CEO is Robert Murray, is a major Trump donor.
The Green New Deal means different things to different people. In some ways, that's part of its appeal. On the other hand, a Green New Deal can't mean anything anyone wants it to, or it will come to mean nothing at all.
More concept than concrete plan so far, the Green New Deal would fight climate change while simultaneously creating good jobs and reducing economic inequality. Described in such broad terms, more than 80 percent of U.S. registered voters support it, including majorities across the political spectrum, according to a survey conducted by Yale and George Mason universities. (Most respondents had never heard of the Green New Deal when the survey was conducted, so these findings no doubt depend on how the question was worded and will change as specific proposals are fleshed out and debated.)
A screenshot from the Budweiser "Wind Never Felt Better" 2019 Super Bowl commercial. YouTube
Budweiser's parent company is continuing to associate with groups with anti-climate agendas and ties to dark money, despite several ads aired during Sunday night's Super Bowl that portray the beverage giant as environmentally friendly, The New Republic reports.
Three of eight commercials aired by Anheuser-Busch on Sunday had themes around renewable energy, water conservation and organic farming, including one spot that brags that Budweiser is "brewed with wind power for a better tomorrow."
When we think of Budweiser's Super Bowl commercials, images of croaking frogs or horses playing football usually come to mind. But for this year's big game in Atlanta, the beer giant is going green.
Budweiser, which
switched all its U.S. beer brewing to renewable energy last year, debuted a dreamy spot called, "Wind Never Felt Better," featuring its iconic Clydesdales, a Dalmatian and wind turbines.
GE Renewable Energy
announced on Wednesday it will install the first 12-megawatt Haliade-X prototype in the Dutch city this summer. Although it's an offshore wind turbine by design, the prototype will be installed onshore to facilitate access for testing.
Wind farms dominate the landscape in West Texas. Robert Coy / EyeEm / Getty Images
By Jeff Turrentine
During the 2016 campaign and in various postelection rallies, President Trump promised to save America's flagging coal industry and put the nation's coal miners "back to work." While Trump continues to labor under the delusion that easing emissions standards will somehow resuscitate the coal industry, his administration's own numbers tell a different story. In fact, more U.S. coal plants have been deactivated in the first two years of Donald Trump's presidency than were taken offline during President Obama's entire first term. Domestic coal use in 2018 was also the lowest it's been since Jimmy Carter was in office.
Wind turbine and the Tricastin Nuclear Power Plant in Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux, France. Sylvain Sonnet / Corbis Documentary / Getty Images
By Grant Smith
Last year the Trump administration's Energy Department announced the launch of a media campaign to counter what an official called "misinformation" about nuclear power. We haven't noticed an upsurge in pro-nuclear news—because there is none to report.
In an eleventh-hour move, the outgoing session of the Senate voted on Thursday to approve at least four of President Donald Trump's nominees to posts impacting the nation's environment, The Huffington Post reported.
Wind farm with solar panels in southern California. 4kodiak / E+ / Getty Images
By Jeff Deyette
Despite the Trump administration's ongoing attempts to prop up coal and undermine renewables—at FERC, EPA and through tariffs and the budget process—2018 should instead be remembered for the surge in momentum toward a clean energy economy. Here are nine storylines that caught my attention this past year and help illustrate the unstoppable advancement of renewable energy and other modern grid technologies.
