Henry Harrell"s Blog: January 9 Green Energy News

Headline News:

2017 was the costliest year ever for weather and climate disasters in the United States, NOAA announced, totaling $306 billion. The previous record year, 2005, saw $215 billion in disasters. Last year saw 16 weather events that each topped a billion dollars in damage, including three record-breaking hurricanes. [CNN]

Minnesota hail storm (David Joles | Minneapolis Star Tribune | TNS)

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission unanimously rejected Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s plan to subsidize coal and nuclear power plants by raising consumer energy bills. This was a major blow to the Trump administration’s effort to bring back coal power, especially since 3 of the 5 commissioners are Trump appointees. [ThinkProgress]
Since the sexes of sea turtles are determined by the heat of sand incubating their eggs, scientists doing a survey expected that with climate change there would be slightly more females. But instead, they found female sea turtles from the Pacific Ocean’s largest green sea turtle rookery now outnumber males by at least 116 to 1. [National Geographic]
Wind power developers are building new onshore projects in the UK, despite the cancellation of government subsidies in 2015. This is highlighted by the news that renewables developer Dulas has won agreements for British met mast installations from four major firms: SSE, Innogy, E.ON, and Brookfield Renewable UK. [Power Engineering International]
Attorneys seeking customer refunds from SCE&G for its failed multi-billion-dollar nuclear power plant accused the utility of breaking its promises to its ratepayers. They maintained that the utility had promised its customers that if they paid higher rates while two nuclear reactors were being built, they would get lower rates later. [The State]

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