White House announces $7.3 billion for clean energy in rural America
President Biden announced $7.3 billion in funding for clean energy projects at 16 rural electric cooperatives on Thursday, part of the largest federal investment in rural electrification since the New Deal. The projects, at co-ops from Florida to Alaska, would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by harnessing wind, solar, and hydro power and by buying power from a now-idle nuclear plant in Michigan.
British Columbia’s booming wood-pellet industry threatens old-growth forests
“BC’s inland rainforest — which once totaled over 1.3 million hectares — is endangered, according to International Union for Conservation of Nature criteria, and could experience ecological collapse within a decade if current logging rates continue,” as Brian Barth reports in …
Harvesting American forests for the EU’s ‘green’ electricity plants
Wood-processing plants around the South are turning trees into pellets and then exporting them to be burned in electricity plants in the EU. It's part of the EU's initiative to generate "green" electricity, but scientists question whether burning trees is really carbon neutral, according to FERN's latest story with The Weather Channel.(No paywall)
California to partner with China and Germany to battle climate change
In the wake of President Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, California is teaming up with China and Germany to fight climate change.
Solar farms, and farmers, create political sparks
As costs have dropped, solar panels are becoming a common sight, including in rural America, where farmers are using solar to offset their costs in a variety of ways, says Civil Eats. When farmers move beyond generating electricity for farmstead use into acres of solar panels, it creates a tussle between clean energy and preservation of open spaces for forests and farms, according to a news site in Connecticut, where solar has the upper hand.