Most recent 40 articles: Yale Climate Connections - Energy
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Some anglers say Rhode Island’s Block Island wind farm has improved fishing - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Apr 26) |
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Apr 26 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Off the coast of Rhode Island, anglers fish for striped bass, fluke, and mahi-mahi. Smythe: “Recreational angling is a prominent, very important use of our coastal waters. It is an economically, socially, culturally important activity.” So Tiffany Smythe of the United States Coast Guard Academy says it’s important to know how anglers feel about fishing near offshore wind turbines. Her team surveyed about 200 recreational anglers about the Block Island Wind Farm - the nation’s first offshore wind farm. Smythe: “We found, overall, a ... Read more ... |
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'Just do it!’ Wisconsin couple built a net-zero home - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections A few years ago, Jacqueline Freidel and her husband built their new home near Madison, Wisconsin, complete with four bedrooms and an open-concept floor plan. But the couple’s house has a hidden feature - it runs entirely on electricity and is net-zero, meaning it produces just as much energy as it uses every year. Freidel: “If you were walking by and didn’t know anything about the house, you might not even guess that it is net-zero energy and all-electric.” Freidel is an energy efficiency consultant. But she says anyone can build a net-zero ... Read more ... |
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What are virtual power plants? - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections For decades, electricity has been produced at large power plants and then sent to homes and businesses. But as rooftop solar and other renewable sources expand, energy can be generated all over. Nemtzow: “For the first time, we can take distributed energy resources, which have been around for many years, but we can organize them to act like power plants.” David Nemtzow is with the U.S. Department of Energy. A so-called virtual power plant can be operated by a traditional utility. It can include solar panels, car batteries, ... Read more ... |
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What is a passive house? - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Apr 17) |
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Apr 17 · In a webinar on April 19, we'll explore how climate organizations are currently using storytelling in their work, the impacts of these stories, and lessons learned from other movements. Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections A well-insulated, airtight thermos or cooler can keep your coffee warm - or your water cold - all day. So-called passive houses are not all that different. Like a thermos, they’re designed to keep heat from entering or escaping. So their design focuses on what’s called a building’s envelope - the walls, windows, roof, and foundation that separate the inside from ... Read more ... |
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Schools in coal country are going solar - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · In a webinar on April 19, we'll explore how climate organizations are currently using storytelling in their work, the impacts of these stories, and lessons learned from other movements. Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Deep in the heart of coal country, schools in Wayne County, West Virginia, are going solar. Conant: “The schools, they don’t have to pay for the equipment. They don’t have to pay for the panels, the labor. Instead, Solar Holler pays for all of that up front.” Dan Conant is the founder and CEO of Solar Holler. The West Virginia-based solar ... Read more ... |
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Want a climate-friendly home? You might need a new breaker box. - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Apr 5) |
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Apr 5 · In a webinar on April 19, we'll explore how climate organizations are currently using storytelling in their work, the impacts of these stories, and lessons learned from other movements. Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Many people are replacing their old, fossil-fuel-powered furnaces and gas stoves with new electric heat pumps and induction stoves. But some hit a snag when they find out that their home’s electrical panel, or breaker box, cannot handle all the extra electricity they’ll need. Fowler: “That’s when you realize, oh, I need a little more juice.” Eric ... Read more ... |
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A blizzard put a hyper-efficient home to the test. It passed. - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Apr 2) |
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Apr 2 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections When the power goes out on a cold winter night, some people head to a hotel. Others huddle around a fireplace bundled up in hats and blankets. But after a blizzard knocked out the power at Katrin Klingenberg’s home in Illinois, her house stayed warm and comfortable. Klingenberg: “I was sitting in my living room in a T-shirt, and outside it was negative 40 windchill. And that’s kind of cool.” She lives in a so-called passive house she designed herself. And she’s co-founder of Passive House Institute U.S., a nonprofit that works to increase ... Read more ... |
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Yes, heat pumps slash emissions even if powered by a dirty grid - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Apr 1) |
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Apr 1 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Do you plan to take advantage of clean energy tax credits? Tell us about it in this brief survey. You might consider heat pumps to be a tantalizing climate solution (they are) and one you could adopt yourself (plenty have). But perhaps you’ve held off on getting one, wondering how much of a difference they really make if a dirty grid is supplying the electricity you’re using to power them - that is, a grid whose electricity is generated at least in part by fossil gas, coal or oil. That’s certainly the case for most U.S. households: While ... Read more ... |
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What is solar thermal? - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Mar 25) |
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Mar 25 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections When people talk about solar panels, they’re usually referring to solar photovoltaic panels, which convert the sun’s energy to electricity. But solar PV is just one way to harness the power of the sun. Gasco: “Solar thermal is, I’d say, the simpler and kind of overshadowed little brother almost to solar PV. … I think it’s a really great technology in the simplicity and the efficiency of it.” Gwe Gasco is with Eighth Fire Solar, an Indigenous-led initiative in Northern Minnesota. The group manufactures and installs solar thermal panels, ... Read more ... |
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Wind farm radar system reduces nighttime light pollution in Iowa - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Mar 22) |
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Mar 22 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections If you drive across Iowa at night, you might encounter a series of coordinated red lights flashing in the sky. Greenwood: “It looks like a whole bunch of fireflies lighting up at the same time.” Geoff Greenwood is with MidAmerican Energy, which operates 3,400 wind turbines across the state. Red lights are placed on top of the turbines to prevent pilots from crashing into the structures, which can be more than 200 feet tall. But that flashing lights up the night sky, which some people find annoying - so at three of its wind farms, ... Read more ... |
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You can start applying for the American Climate Corps next month - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Mar 21) |
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Mar 21 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Do you plan to take advantage of clean energy tax credits? Tell us about it in this brief survey. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively with Grist. The program is modeled after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, launched in 1933 to help the country make it through the Great Depression. The positions with the new corps could range across a number of fields including energy-efficiency ... Read more ... |
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Do wind farms hurt home values? When they do, it’s usually temporary. - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Mar 20) |
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Mar 20 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Some homeowners wonder if having a wind farm nearby will affect their property values. A recent study finds that although wind farms can reduce nearby home prices, the drop is usually limited and only temporary. Hoen: “We hope that this allows people to have greater confidence into what are the likely effects from building a wind project in the future and when those effects are likely to occur.” That’s Ben Hoen of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. He and his colleagues found that, on average, wind farms had no impact on property values in ... Read more ... |
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Want clean electricity? These are the overlooked elected officials who get to decide. - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Mar 13) |
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Mar 13 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections On a Tuesday morning in January, college student Aurora Gray stepped up to the podium in a windowless room in Atlanta, around the corner from the state capitol building. In front of her sat a five-member panel of elected officials that oversees how and where nearly every Georgia resident gets their power. “The generation of energy … using fossil fuels has become an existential threat to our safety due to the undisputed impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on our planet,” Gray told the commission. “We must act now, as later is way too late.” More ... Read more ... |
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Solar project at Fort Lauderdale park keeps basketball players cool - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Mar 8) |
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Mar 8 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections At Reverend Samuel Delevoe Memorial Park in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, teens can practice jump shots under the shade of a new open-air pavilion covered with solar panels. Jennifer Jurado is chief resilience officer for Broward County, which includes Fort Lauderdale. She says the city is hot and getting hotter as the climate warms. So it’s important to help protect people from the scorching sun. Jurado: “So being able to provide a shaded area for play at a site that’s so heavily utilized and valued by the community, it really provides ... Read more ... |
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Heat pumps are keeping homes warm in Maine - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Mar 6) |
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Mar 6 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Manufactured - or mobile - homes make up about 8% of the housing in Maine. Most of them are heated with oil, kerosene, or propane. Mistro: “And all of these are relatively expensive heating fuels.” Dan Mistro is with Efficiency Maine, an agency that runs the state’s energy efficiency programs. He says electric air source heat pumps can provide a cheaper - and cleaner - alternative. So his group has been running a pilot program to show that heat pumps can heat homes even during Maine’s cold winters. Casagranda: “We had two days ... Read more ... |
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The U.S. has never produced more energy than it does today - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Mar 6) |
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Mar 6 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections U.S. energy production is going gangbusters. Despite persistent false claims that the Biden administration is waging an “unprecedented assault” on American energy, the U.S. is producing energy at a pace never seen before and from a broad mix of sources and locations throughout the country. In fact, the data illustrates that we’re experiencing an unprecedented renaissance of American energy production and innovation. The chart below is interactive – hover over the lines to see the details. This graph shows primary energy production data from ... Read more ... |
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Is marijuana bad for the climate? - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Mar 1) |
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Mar 1 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections As a growing number of states legalize marijuana, cannabis businesses are ramping up. But cannabis is often grown in indoor farms under intense grow lights. And this setup can have a large carbon footprint. Quinn: “Indoor-grown cannabis is using just a ton of electricity.” Jason Quinn of Colorado State University co-authored a study on how much energy it would take to grow cannabis indoors at various locations in each state and the carbon pollution that would cause. In the worst case, growing just one kilogram could emit as much ... Read more ... |
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How oil sands undermine Canada’s climate goals - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Feb 20) |
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Feb 20 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Now in his ninth year as prime minister, Justin Trudeau has sought to position Canada as a global climate leader, touting one of the world’s highest taxes on carbon pollution, clean fuel regulations, and clean technology tax credits. Yet Canada’s per-person climate pollution remains stubbornly near the top of the list of developed countries - alongside the United States and Australia, whose governments have been less consistently supportive of climate solutions over the past decade. Climate Action Tracker, an independent project that monitors whether ... Read more ... |
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Company gives retired wind turbine blades new life - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Feb 19) |
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Feb 19 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections A wind turbine usually lasts 20 years or more. But at the end of its life, its giant blades often end up in a landfill. That’s because many turbine blades are built out of a composite material made of glass fibers mixed with a hardened resin or other polymer. Recycling this composite material is difficult. But a company called Carbon Rivers has found a way to give this material a new life. Morgan: “We know how to do this with paper, we know how to do this with metal, and we know how to do this with plastic. Now we’re doing this with composite.” Read more ... |
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What 10 EV lovers from around the world say about their cars - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Feb 19) |
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Feb 19 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections No matter where in the world you live, you might have questions about EVs: How do you charge it? How often? Can you charge at home? How much range do you need? To get firsthand answers to those questions, I (David Carlson) connected with international EV-driving friends I met during a career working in science. Collectively, we operate 10 different EVs from BYD, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes, Nissan, Renault, Tesla, and Volkswagen (for details on our vehicles, see Table 1). Our insights offer a glimpse of the on-the-ground realities of driving an EV today in ... Read more ... |
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Why Biden’s pause on new LNG export terminals is a BFD - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Feb 14) |
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Feb 14 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Natural gas has long been touted as a “bridge fuel” to a clean energy future that gets all its power from renewable sources like wind, solar, and geothermal power. That’s because natural gas produces about half as much carbon dioxide as coal when burned to generate electricity. But researchers have warned for years that natural gas - whose main ingredient is climate-warming methane - is not the trouble-free substitute for coal that the oil and gas industry claims. The long-simmering issue became a top news story in January when President Joe Biden ... Read more ... |
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Could your next home be made of hemp? - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Feb 12) |
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Feb 12 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections When you think about the materials that make up your home, oil probably isn’t at the top of your list. There’s a good chance it should be, however. In a recent book about natural building materials, the leaders of New York design firm LTL Architects discussed the growing problem of fossil-fuel-derived products in residential construction. “The over 1 million homes which are built each year in North America are increasingly assembled and glued together from petrochemical-based materials throughout, from vinyl floors and siding to plastic lumber, acrylic ... Read more ... |
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A New Mexico electric utility is developing microgrids to keep the lights on when the larger grid goes down - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Feb 5) |
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Feb 5 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Worsening storms, wildfires, and other extreme weather are causing a growing risk of power outages in rural northern New Mexico. Reyes: “A couple of years ago, we had winds over 100 miles an hour in the mountains. Besides taking down a lot of our power lines, it just ravaged the forest by taking a lot of trees down.” Luis A. Reyes, Jr., is the CEO of Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, which provides power to about 30,000 households in the region. This past fall, the member-owned utility was awarded more than $15 million in funding from the ... Read more ... |
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The promise of passive house design - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Feb 5) |
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Feb 5 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Imagine a home so efficient that it could be heated with a hair dryer. That’s the promise of a passive house, a design standard that’s becoming increasingly popular in the architecture community for its benefits to occupants and the climate. In passive house buildings, an airtight facade prevents unwanted flows of energy between the interior and exterior - a marked break with typical structures that let heat in during the summer and leak it out during the winter. “Passive house is the most reliable, cost-effective, and healthiest way to ... Read more ... |
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Heat from treated wastewater can warm homes - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Jan 31) |
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Jan 31 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections In Duluth, Minnesota, millions of gallons of warm, treated wastewater are discharged into the Saint Louis River each day. Slick: “Right now, the effluent temperature coming out of the end of the process is about 90 degrees … so there’s a huge amount of waste heat there.” Jodi Slick is with Ecolibrium3, a nonprofit based in Lincoln Park, the largely low-income neighborhood where the wastewater plant is located. Her group, along with the city and other partners, is working on a plan to harness that waste heat and use it as a source of ... Read more ... |
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Electric vehicles use half the energy of gas-powered vehicles - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Jan 29) |
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Jan 29 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections As U.S. EV sales rise, more cars than ever are using the electrical grid to power up. It would be reasonable to assume that means the grid must now supply a vast amount of energy to those cars - but it actually won’t take as much as you might think. The reality: EVs require much less energy to operate than gasoline-burning vehicles. In fact, with the nation’s current electricity blend, an EV requires only about half the energy needed for a gasoline-powered internal combustion engine. U.S. residents are collectively burning about 8.9 million ... Read more ... |
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Could your community do this? Workshop participants trade tips on saving energy - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Jan 17) |
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Jan 17 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Most people could use tips for saving energy and preparing for weather emergencies. But they also often have knowledge to share. So a Minneapolis-based nonprofit is hosting workshops that affirm participants’ traditions and experiences. Arevalo: “There really is no rigid separation between the teacher or a student. … All participants are learning from each other.” Natalya Arevalo is with the Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy. She says in the nonprofit’s 'Justice in Home Electricity’ workshop, participants learn about ... Read more ... |
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All-electric skyscraper nears completion in Brooklyn - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Jan 15) |
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Jan 15 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections In downtown Brooklyn, a new skyscraper is nearing completion. The 44-story building has more than 400 apartments, retail space, a gym and yoga studio, a rooftop pool, and more than 200 bicycle parking spots. But it does not have any gas lines. The building is New York City’s first all-electric skyscraper - with electric induction stovetops, electric heat-pump dryers, and all-electric heat throughout the building. Della Valle: “We’re hoping that by leading by example, our industry peers will come along with us.” Jared Della Valle is ... Read more ... |
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New federal programs could ease high home heating bills - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Jan 11) |
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Jan 11 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections As temperatures fall, heating bills often skyrocket. But new programs available under the federal Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats passed in 2022, could help ease the burden for some U.S. households by making it easier for people to access energy-efficiency upgrades and cost-saving electric appliances. That could make a big difference to millions of U.S. residents. One out of every five American households had to choose between basic necessities and heating or cooling their homes in 2020, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Read more ... |
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Only 2% of all the electricians in the United States are women - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Jan 11) |
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Jan 11 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Installing an electric vehicle charger? Call an electrician. Hooking up solar panels? Call an electrician. Switching to an electric heat pump? … You get the idea. To meet its clean energy goals, the U.S. will need more electricians than it has today - by some estimates, about a million more in the next 10 years. And one veteran of the trade says there’s a largely untapped pool of potential candidates. Hicks: “Only 2% of all the electricians in the United States are women.” That’s Tonya Hicks. About 25 years ago, she became the first ... Read more ... |
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Farmer’s plants grow year-round in geothermal greenhouse in upstate New York - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Jan 5) |
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Jan 5 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Terry Bloom - the owner of Stone Bend Farm in Newfield, New York - built a greenhouse. He’s using it for more than growing plants. The 4,000 square-foot timber-framed structure houses a farm-to-table kitchen and taproom, too. And it’s all heated by geothermal energy. Bloom: “You say 'geothermal’ and people’s eyes glaze over a lot of times because it sounds so technical and scientific … but it’s so simple, and that’s what I love about it.” Just a little ways underground, the earth ... Read more ... |
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Northern Minnesota couple stays warm with help from heat pumps - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Dec 29) |
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Dec 29 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Winters in northern Minnesota can be frigid. But at Michael Overend’s home near Duluth, heat pumps keep things toasty warm, even in subzero temperatures. Overend: “We have heated our home with air-source heat pumps now for the last two winters, and they’ve done great.” Heat pumps are highly efficient, so they help reduce the energy needed for heating and cooling. And they run on electricity, which can be provided by clean, renewable sources of energy. Heat pumps have been common in the southern U.S. for decades. But they were rare up north ... Read more ... |
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Floatovoltaics could help the Southwest generate power and conserve water - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Dec 27) |
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Dec 27 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Just southeast of Phoenix, over 150 miles of canals sit uncovered in one of the hottest and driest regions of the country. The Gila River Indian community’s solar panel project, which would cover some of those canals with solar panels, could be the start of a new wave of such solar projects, known as floatovoltaics. A new study by an international team of researchers shows just how useful wide-scale floatovoltaics could be. They calculate that covering 30% of the surface of 115,000 reservoirs globally could generate 9,434 terawatt hours of power a ... Read more ... |
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Three tips for saving money and staying warm this winter - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Dec 18) |
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Dec 18 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections When cold weather arrives and you turn up the thermostat, your energy bills may go up, too. But you can save money and stay comfortably warm in winter by properly insulating your house and making a few simple changes. A lot of heat can escape your home through drafty or old windows. So if you do not have new, energy-efficient windows, you can help keep warm air inside your home by sealing your windows with easy-to-install plastic film from the hardware store. Hanging insulated curtains can also hold heat inside at night, and opening those ... Read more ... |
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Why a new climate group is heckling powerful Democrats - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Dec 4) |
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Dec 4 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections A new group called Climate Defiance aims to make investment in fossil fuels unpopular with the public and politically toxic. And their members aren’t afraid to shout about it. During Climate Week events in New York City in September 2023, Climate Defiance members chased down Deputy Secretary of the Interior Tommy Beaudreau, heckling him on the street and disrupting a speaking event over his role in approving the massive Willow Project, an oil-drilling venture on federal land in Alaska that would generate 9.2 million metric tons of heat-trapping carbon ... Read more ... |
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Most people don’t realize how much progress we’ve made on climate change - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Nov 27) |
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Nov 27 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections The year was 2015. 'Uptown Funk’ with Bruno Mars was at the top of the music charts. Jurassic World was the most popular new movie in theaters. And decades of futility in international climate negotiations was about to come to an end in Paris. After years of inaction despite constant warnings from climate scientists, hopes had been high for a breakthrough in climate agreements in 2009, leading up to the U.N. summit - known as COP15 - in Copenhagen. But just a few weeks before that event began, a hacker broke into a server at the University of ... Read more ... |
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Wind power boosts his family’s business, Kansas rancher says - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Nov 17) |
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Nov 17 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections In the Flint Hills of Kansas, Pete Ferrell owns the 7,000-acre ranch that his great-grandfather established 135 years ago. He says income from oil production on the land helped save the family’s ranch during a drought in the 1950s. Now wind energy is helping Ferrell sustain the business when times are tough. Ferrell: “I always say that wind farming is my best cash crop because the wind blows even during a drought.” Ferrell was first approached by a wind developer in the 1990s. He was initially skeptical. Ferrell: “Quite frankly, ... Read more ... |
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Solar worker helps other women get started in the industry - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Nov 16) |
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Nov 16 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Riley Neugebauer is a solar panel installer in Boulder, Colorado. And she knows what it can feel like to be a woman getting started in the predominantly male career. She says in the beginning, she faced a steeper learning curve than some of her male colleagues. For example, even though she did lots of labor on her family’s land growing up, nobody ever put power tools in her hands. Neugebauer: “I think it’s what happens to a lot of women and girls, and so we get socialized in a different way or we don’t even think to ask about ... Read more ... |
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Can we still avoid 1.5 degrees C of global warming? - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Nov 9) |
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Nov 9 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our newsletters. Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Strictly speaking, it’s not yet impossible to keep from heating our world more than 1.5 degrees Celsius beyond the average global air temperature of the mid-to-late 1800s, when the Industrial Revolution was gaining momentum. In practical terms, though, the odds of keeping global warming to 1.5°C are dwindling fast - though just how fast has been a matter of sharp debate. Here are a few points to help you navigate this critical and contentious topic. The 2015 Paris ... Read more ... |
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Battery storage helped Texas power through summer heat - Yale Climate Connections - Energy  (Nov 8) |
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Nov 8 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections This past summer, Texas suffered through a long, brutal heat wave. As people cranked up their air conditioners, electricity demand in the state hit record highs. Michael Webber, an engineering professor at the University of Texas at Austin, says the state’s electricity grid was able to handle the demands placed upon it - partly because of battery storage. Webber: “They really fill in the gap when there’s a mismatch in supply from traditional power plants and demand from air conditioning. … At one point we even had like two and a half ... Read more ... |
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