Dirty Energy Fighting Dirty to Kill Solar in Kentucky

Jim Gooch has been the stupidest and most corrupt member of a stupid and corrupt General Assembly for decades.  His name on legislation guarantees the bill will severely harm the poorest and most defenseless Kentuckians.  Compared to the Gooch, Jim Inhofe is a tree-hugger.

Of course Gooch is getting rich by doing utilities' dirty work to kill renewable energy.

Tom Eblen at the Herald:

The anti-solar energy bill that was narrowly passed by the House and is awaiting action in the Senate illustrates two weaknesses in Kentucky’s civic character: We try to cling to the past, and we tolerate dirty politics.

House Bill 227 was written by electric utilities to protect their monopolies by discouraging Kentuckians from installing solar panels on their homes.

Under current law, homeowners with solar panels get full credit for excess power they feed into the utility grid on sunny days for when they need to draw it out at night or on cloudy days. This bill would significantly cut that credit, while making them pay full price for power they draw out.

SNIP
 
Solar panel installers — mostly small businesses scattered around the state — say drastically cutting the so-called net metering rate would all but put them out of business, costing Kentucky hundreds of jobs. Fewer homeowners will install solar panels if low credit rates make it harder for them to recoup their investment. 

What this bill is really about is protecting the utilities’ traditional business model and protecting their monopolies on generating electricity. It’s as if carriage makers a century ago had tried to ban automobiles from the road, claiming they were unfair to horses.

SNIP

 he story of how this bill even made it to the House floor is a case study in dirty politics. 

It was the work of Rep. Jim Gooch of Providence, a Democrat-turned-Republican and longtime chairman of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee. Gooch, the coal industry’s best friend in Frankfort, is most famous for a 2007 legislative hearing he organized on the science of climate change that included no scientists, only climate-change deniers.

ead more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/tom-eblen/article205488339.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/tom-eblen/article205488339.html#storylink=cpy

New Renewables Now Cheaper Than Existing Fossil Fuels

Oil, natural gas and nuclear are deader than coal, and their corpses stink even worse.  Get on board, Kentucky: the clean energy train is leaving the station.

Think Progress:

In one of the fastest and most astonishing turnarounds in the history of energy, building and running new renewable energy is now cheaper than just running existing coal and nuclear plants in many areas.

A widely-used yearly benchmarking study — the Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis (LCOE) from the financial firm Lazard Ltd. — reached this stunning conclusion: In many regions “the full-lifecycle costs of building and operating renewables-based projects have dropped below the operating costs alone of conventional generation technologies such as coal or nuclear.

Lazard focused on the cost of a power for a plant over its entire lifetime in North America, and how the “increasing economic advantage of renewables in the U.S.” will drive even deeper penetration of solar and wind here.

But Lazard also makes a key global point: It’s more expensive to operate conventional energy sources in the developing world than it is in the United States. So the advantage renewables have over conventional sources is even larger in the rapidly growing electricity markets like India and China.

Since power from new renewables is cheaper than power from existing coal and nuclear, it’s no surprise that the lifetime cost of new renewables is much cheaper than new coal and nuclear power. And that gap is growing.

Lazard notes that in North America, the cost for utility scale solar and wind power dropped 6 percent last year, while the price for coal remained flat and the cost of nuclear soared. “The estimated levelized cost of energy for nuclear generation increased ~35 percent versus prior estimates, reflecting increased capital costs at various nuclear facilities currently in development,” the analysis found.

Indeed, as Lazard shows in this remarkable chart, while solar and wind have dropped dramatically in price since 2009, nuclear power has simply priced itself out of the market for new power.

The lifecycle cost of electricity from new nuclear plants is now $148 per megawatt-hour, or 14.8 cents per kilowatt, while it is 5 c/kwh for utility scale solar and 4.5 c/kwh for wind. By comparison, the average price for electricity in United States is 11 cents per kWh.

So it’s no big shock that there’s only one new nuclear power plant still being built in the United States — or that even existing power plants are struggling to stay competitive.

Indeed, over half of all existing U.S. nuclear power plants are “bleeding cash,” according to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance report released earlier this summer. Even the draft report from the U.S. Department of Energy staff for Secretary Rick Perry conceded that coal and nuclear are simply no longer economic.

Right now, as the chart above shows, new solar and wind are actually cheaper than new gas plants. The variability of solar and wind still give new gas power an edge in some markets. But with the price of electricity storage, especially lithium-ion batteries, coming down sharply, the future of renewable energy is sunnier than ever.

The Religion of Fossil Fuels

It's no coincidence that freakazoids are also fossil fuel fanatics.  It's the same blind, mindless clinging to destructive myths.

Divine Irony:

Ya’ll gon use up all the wind!

↵ Reblogged from thedragoninmygarage

Don't Fall For Fracking Lies

Genuine renewable energy - solar and wind especially - is already cheap and efficient enough to beat out coal and natural gas for electricity generation.

 

But the desperate fossil fuel dead-enders are still spreading lies about how we can't have renewables unless we use natural gas, which is so kind to the environment.

 

Motherfucking liars lying about fucking their mothers, like they always do.

 

Joe Romm at Think Progress:

Fracking is not good for the climate. Or, to put it a tad more scientifically, “By The Time Natural Gas Has A Net Climate Benefit You’ll Likely Be Dead And The Climate Ruined,” as I wrote two years ago.

New satellite data and surface observations analyzed by Harvard researchers confirm previous data and observations: U.S. methane emissions are considerably higher than the official numbers from the EPA. Significantly, the EPA numbers are mostly based on industry-provided estimates, not actual measurements.

While this new study doesn’t attribute a specific source to the remarkable 30 percent increase in U.S. methane emissions from 2002–2014, many other studies have identified the source of those emissions as leakage of methane from the natural gas production and delivery system.

The central problem for the climate is that natural gas is mostly methane (CH4), a super-potent greenhouse gas, which traps 86 times as much heat as CO2 over a 20-year period. That’s why many studies find that even a very small leakage rate can have a large climate impact — enough to gut the entire benefit of switching from coal-fired power to gas for a long, long time.

Even worse, other studies find — surprise, surprise — natural gas plants don’t replace only high-carbon coal plants. They often replace very low carbon power sources like solar, wind, nuclear, and even energy efficiency. That means even a very low leakage rate wipes out the climate benefit of fracking.

Indeed, researchers confirmed in 2014 that — even if methane leakage were zero percent — “increased natural gas use for electricity will not substantially reduce US GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions, and by delaying deployment of renewable energy technologies, may actually exacerbate the climate change problem in the long term.” Exactly. In fact, a study just last month found that natural gas and renewables are competing directly with each other to replace coal plants in this country.

All of these findings taken together vindicate the concerns of high leakage rates raised by Cornell professors Howarth, Santoro and Ingraffea, which I reported on back in 2011. Howarth told Climate Central this week that the increase in methane emissions “almost certainly must be coming from the fracking and from the increase in use of natural gas.” Howarth notes that even with deep CO2 cuts, we’re headed toward dangerous 2°C warming by mid-century.

“But the planet responds much more rapidly to methane, so a reduction in methane emissions now would slow the rate of global warming immediately,” he said.

The good news is that renewables are ready to handle the job of running a modern economy, so we don’t need to rely on natural gas as a “bridge” to a carbon-free future. The bad news is that many people still tout the supposed climate benefits of the fracking revolution — despite a paucity of observations and analysis to support that view and a plethora of data and research undermining it.

Unless He's Pro-Abortion, Pro-Gay and Atheist, AynRandy Ain't Not Libertarian

C'mon, Joe Gerth: you know better.

Now, says Dave Nalle, the vice chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus, which has endorsed Paul, the candidate is re-emphasizing his libertarian roots in a final dash that Nalle says is crucial for him to stay relevant.

Funny how when repugs say "Liberty" they never mean "Liberty" for black people or female people or gay people or muslim people or poor people or anybody who is not white, straight, male, christian, repug and rich like them.

The Tribble-Toupeed One wants a "small" government that's just big enough to deport all the brown immigrants, shove gays back in the closet, impose christian sharia law, turn women into nothing but birthing vessels and eliminate taxes on the rich but quadruple them on the poor to keep giving trillion-dollar subsidies to fossil-fuel corporations and military contractors.

Just like faux-libertarian Matt Lying Coward Bevin.

I Am Too Cynical to Celebrate, But You Should Not Be

I don't know how old D.R.Tucker is, but my guess is at least a generation younger than me.  He hasn't watched the fossil fuel industry win every single battle for the last 40 years.  He doesn't know that all Exxon-Mobil has to do when some little country - and compared to Exxon-Mobil, even the U.S. and China are little countries - demands it stop drilling/fracking/mining is say "Make me."

Because I don't think we can.  But I do sincerely hope D.R. Tucker is right.

The next time somebody tells you change cannot happen, that hope is a hoax, that good men and women cannot win the biggest fights of the day, remind them of December 12, 2015.

Representatives of 195 countries reached a landmark climate accord on Saturday that would, for the first time, commit nearly every country to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help stave off the most drastic effects of climate change.

Delegates who have been negotiating intensely in this Paris suburb for two weeks gathered for the final plenary session where, suddenly, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of France asked for opposition to the deal and, hearing none, gaveled the session closed.

With that the delegates achieved what had been unreachable for two decades: a consensus on the need to move away from carbon-based fuels and a plan for the 195 nations to do so.

Thought the final deal did not achieve all that environmentalists, scientists and some countries had hoped for, it set the table for further efforts to slow down the slide toward an unlivable planet.

In the end, it was an extraordinary effort at international diplomacy. Supporters of a deal have argued that no less than the future of the planet was at stake, and in the days leading up to the final session worked relentlessly to push skeptical nations to join their ranks.

I am fighting back tears as I write this. Do you know what this moment means? It means the most rapacious and destructive industry on the face of this warming Earth is on the downfall. It means that we will finally race towards the day where fossil fuels are kept in the ground where they belong, and children born today can have clean air, clean water and a stable future.

Do you know what this moment means? It means men and women of goodwill can succeed in the face of impossible odds.

Do you know what this moment means? It means that the deniers, the disinformers and the demagogues have been humiliated and humbled once and for all.

This is history’s golden moment. This is a moment where hope won in a blowout against cynicism. This is a day to be proud, damn proud, of being alive, of being compassionate, of being human.

Caring won. Hope won. Science won. The better angels of our nature won.

KY's Fucked-By-Fracking Future: Bevin Appoints Oil-and-Gas Motherfucker to Staff

Earthquakes by the hundreds per day, like in Oklahoma.  Groundwater poisoned by toxic fracking fluid, like in Pennsylvania. Farmland permanently ruined by fracking operations and waste disposal, like in North Dakota.

Not to mention the libertarian paradise economy of Haiti.

Tom Loftus at the Courier:

Gov.-elect Matt Bevin on Wednesday announced two appointments to positions in the new Governor's Office: Andrew V. McNeill as a senior advisor, and Adam M. Meier as deputy chief of staff for policy.

"Andrew McNeill has decades of experience in the public and private sector. He will be a key advisor..." Bevin said in a news release. "Adam Meier has been an invaluable resource in shaping our policy agenda and will add a steady hand to the process in the Governor's Office."

 

McNeill, 42, of Louisville, has been executive director for the Kentucky Oil and Gas Association since December of 2012. He worked in the administration of former Gov. Ernie Fletcher as legislative director for the Governor's Office, chief of staff to the secretary of commerce, and executive director for the Office of Energy Policy. He also has worked for ConnectKentucky.

And how very convenient that the new Attorney General, who alone has the power to put a stop to this shit, is himself a mouthpiece for the fracking industry.

Bend over and grab your ankles, Kentucky: the ass-raping hasn't even started yet.

CA Stops Investing in Rotting Corpse of Big Coal

Divestment is no joke. Divestment brought down South African apartheid.

Not that it's really necessary, given that Big Coal has been walking around dead for a couple of decades now

Think Progress:

The California Assembly passed a bill Wednesday that prompts the state’s public employee pension funds to divest from coal.

The bill passed the Assemby with a vote of 43 to 27, and will require the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) — which combined are responsible for $476 billion in assets — to remove all holdings in companies that get at least half of their revenue from coal mining. The divestment would have to be completed by July 2017. If signed into law, the measure would be the first of its kind in the United States.

“Coal is the fuel of the past and it’s no longer a wise investment for our pensioners,” California assemblyman Rob Bonta, who presented the bill, said in a statement. “I’m pleased that my colleagues agree: it’s time to move on from this dirty energy source.”

California’s Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, who introduced the bill, also praised its passage.

“Coal is losing value quickly and investing in coal is a losing proposition for our retirees; it’s a nuisance to public health; and it’s inconsistent with our values as a state on the forefront of efforts to address global climate change,” de León said. “California’s utilities are phasing out coal, and it’s time our pension funds did the same.”

The bill now heads to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk. The governor has been vocal about the need to act on climate change — he said in June that, when talking about climate action, “we are talking about extinction. We are talking about climate regimes that have not been seen for tens of millions of years. We’re not there yet, but we’re on our way.” The governor is expected to sign the divestment bill.

Will Matt Bevin Let Fracking Poison Mammoth Cave?

He's a repug bidness man full of anti-gubmint FREEDUMB.  Of course he will.

James Bruggers at the Courier:

Pushing a toxic mixture of natural gas liquids through an aging pipeline near Mammoth Cave National Park threatens the world-famous cave’s unique and fragile ecological systems, the National Park Service is warning.

“The National Park Service is concerned about the potential for a catastrophic failure of the ... pipeline” within areas designed to protect endangered cave shrimp and other rare park resources, park superintendent Sarah Craighead wrote recently in a letter to federal energy regulators.

The pipeline is 70 years old and was designed to carry a different product, natural gas, said Bobby Carson, chief of science and resource management for the park. “It’s been underground for a while” and may not be safe for carrying the liquids, which if spilled could damage the park’s rare natural resources, including a variety of endangered species, he said in an interview this week.

The proposal by Kinder Morgan to convert part of its subsidiary Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. operations from carrying natural gas to moving natural gas liquids has stirred controversy all year along a 256-mile path through Kentucky, with citizen groups, environmental organizations and some local officials objecting. Many have asked for a full environmental study rather than the less extensive review now underway.

Yeah, it's a federal agency decision, but Bevin vows to defy the EPA on coal rules; why would he obey the feds on fracking?

KY Wants Your Opinion on Fracking

The comments at this meeting will influence future legislation on fracking in Kentucky.  You can be sure that the motherfrackers will be there in force; don't let them get away unchallenged.

Please appear at the public hearings if you can, testify if you feel so moved, and if you can't be there, send a message to them.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (June 22, 2015) – The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet (EEC) and its agencies have set the dates and locations for three public meetings to allow interested parties to submit comments concerning oil and gas development in the Commonwealth. The locations will be in Madisonville, Somerset and Hazard.

“It is important that the public, including environmental groups, the oil and gas industry and landowners be given the chance to express their opinions on how Kentucky moves forward with the regulation of this industry,” said EEC Secretary Len Peters. “We understand this is a very high-profile issue and hearing all sides presented will be beneficial to everyone involved.”

The listening sessions will be held on the following dates and times. All times are local:

·         July 7:  Madisonville Community College’s North Campus, 2000 College Drive, Madisonville. The meeting will be held in the Quad Room in the Brown Badgett Sr. Energy and Advanced Technology Center.  Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. and the meeting will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. local time.

·         July 23: The Center for Rural Development, 2292 South Highway 27, Somerset. The meeting will be held in the auditorium. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. and the meeting will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. local time.

·         July 30: Hazard Community & Technical College, One Community College Drive, Hazard.  The meeting will be held in Room 208 of the Jolly Center, located in the JCC Building. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. and the meeting will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. local time.

“These are not designed as debates, but rather as listening sessions that will allow for brief spoken comments, as well as the submittal of written comments,” said Secretary Peters. 

The remarks made at the meetings will be captured on video and used in a report to be given to the oil and gas workgroup, made up of environmental interests, industry representatives and regulators. The workgroup began meeting in 2014 to update and modernize Kentucky’s statutes and regulations regarding all areas of oil and gas exploration, including fracking. The report will also be made available to members of the Kentucky General Assembly and the Governor’s Office for possible further action.

The report will help further the work of the oil and gas workgroup, according to Department for Natural Resources Commissioner Steve Hohmann, who chairs the workgroup. “The input from the general public is extremely valuable as this group moves forward. We want to be certain future legislation addressing oil and gas development, especially fracking, takes into account all points of view,” Hohmann said.

Anyone who cannot attend the meetings in person, but wishes to submit written comments may do so by July 31. Those written comments can be emailed to OilandGasComments@ky.gov between July 7 and July 31.

Big Coal Stealing Even More of Your Money

It's really easier to just remember that all fossil fuel companies are evil motherfuckers, all corporations are blatant thieves, and all the rich are parasites.

 

Think Progress:

A seemingly low-profile proposal from a little-known natural resources agency in the Department of the Interior (DOI) has attracted a record-breaking 210,000 public comments from taxpayers, who argue that they are not receiving a fair share of revenues from the mining of coal on U.S. public lands.

The public outcry came in response to a proposed rule from DOI’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue that aims to close a regulatory loophole that allows coal companies to avoid paying royalties owed to taxpayers. Critics argue that the proposed rule does not go far enough to guarantee that western states and U.S. taxpayers are receiving a fair value for the coal mined on America’s public lands, due to additional subsidies given to coal companies under the rule.

“We just got done with this Legislature where there were a lot of needs that couldn’t be met,” said Steve Charter, a rancher from north of Billings, Montana told the Billings Gazette. Meanwhile, he said, “since 2008 Montana has lost over $30 million in coal royalties that should have been revenue to the state.”

In January, a report from the Center for American Progress uncovered evidence that coal companies are dodging royalty payments owed to taxpayers by selling coal to their own subsidiary companies and then paying royalties on artificially low prices.

Reviews of the Department of the Interior’s coal program have also found that coal companies are taking advantage of up to $1 billion a year in royalty rate reductions and subsidies for washing and transporting coal.

 

More Green Energy Jobs Added Than Coal Jobs Lost

Yes, Big Coal's motherfucking liars - I'm looking at YOU, Steve Beshear - have been lying about jobs, too.

Sean Cockerham at McClatchy:

Far more jobs have been created in wind and solar in recent years than lost in the collapse of the coal industry, and renewable energy is poised for record growth in the United States this year.

“I started this company in 2009 and I have seen tremendous growth since then,” said John Billingsley, CEO of Tri-Global Energy in Dallas.

Billingsley built his business on wind energy, which generated more than 10 percent of the electricity in Texas last year. He said he is hiring more workers to expand into solar power as well.

Researchers at Duke University, using data from renewable energy trade associations, estimate in a new study published in the journal Energy Policy that more than 79,000 direct and spinoff jobs were created from wind and solar electricity generation between 2008 and 2012.

That compares with an estimate of about 49,530 coal industry job losses, according to the study. While natural gas was the biggest winner in creating jobs for electricity generation, with almost 95,000 jobs created in that time, it’s clear renewable energy has been on the rise in the United States. 

And every minute, every penny spent propping up coal's filthy, stinking, rotting corpse costs Kentucky those high-paying, can't-be-offshored, green energy jobs being snapped up by even such fossil-fuel-worshipping moronic states as Texas.

Motherfrackers Get Permit to Start Destroying Kentucky's Drinking Water

Nice to know that Kentucky's fossil fuel "regulators" are not biased in favor of coal.

They'll let anybody come in and kill us.

Brad Bowman at the State-Journal:

The Kentucky Oil and Gas Conservation Commission gave the green light for Kentucky’s first horizontal deep-well fracturing operation in a special meeting Thursday. 

 

The commission granted a drilling permit to Horizontal Technology Energy Company of Pennsylvania that will set up an oil and natural gas drilling operation in Johnson County. 

Based on a recommendation by hearing officer Gordon Slone, the company will drill at a target depth of 11,200 feet and has been approved for a vertical depth of 15,000 feet. 

 

The well will tap into the Rogersville Shale that is a part of eastern Kentucky and West Virginia.  

Kentucky residents will have a chance to voice their concerns on oil and gas development in the state at three public meetings hosted by the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet. Meeting locations have been set for Hazard, Somerset and Madisonville, but dates and times for the meetings are undetermined. 

 

According to EEC Secretary Len Peters, the meeting format will include time for brief public comments and the cabinet will also accept written submissions. 

 

In a press release from Dick Brown, spokesperson for the cabinet, Peters said at the meetings there will, “be no debate between those on each side of the issue. These will be ‘listening sessions’ for the cabinet to receive comments on a wide array of issues surrounding the Kentucky oil and gas industry,” and comments will be recorded on video and submitted into a report to the oil and gas workgroup. 

 

According to the release, the report will be available to lawmakers and the Governor’s Office for possible action and the “…input from the general public is extremely valuable as this group moves forward,” Peters said. “We want to be certain future legislation addressing oil and gas exploration, especially fracking, takes into account all points of view.”

 

Despite legislation passed during the recent short session updating oil and gas regulations with environmental impact safeguards, it won’t affect this operation.

 

Senate Bill 186, sponsored by Frankfort Sen. Julian Carroll (D-Frankfort) won’t effectively become law until June. It requires high-volume horizontal fracturing operations to conduct baseline water testing before and after drilling operations begin and disclose the type of chemical used in the fracking process for example. 

 

Given the company could receive its permit as early as today, the new regulations won’t affect it.

Johnson County is high in the Eastern Kentucky mountains.  Right above the Kentucky River watershed, which supplies drinking water to more than a million Kentuckians in Central Kentucky before it dumps its load of deadly fracking chemicals into the Ohio River, from which millions more people drink.

No Water for Anybody But Fossil Fuel Frackers

Kentucky's precipitation is up eight inches over the average for this point in the year, which means there will be plenty of nice, clean drinking water for the motherfrackers to poison and pour back into the water system for the rest of us to choke to death on.

Because nothing - not even a 10,000-year drought - is enough to stop water-destroying fracking.

Wonkette on Jerry Brown's counter-productive attempt to save California from dying of thirst:

The water shortage can’t be real anyway, since there seems to be plenty of water for agriculture, which uses 80 percent of California’s water but only accounts for 2 percent of the state’s GDP.

But even the thieving bastards of Big Ag are pikers compared to California's frackers.

KeninNY at Down with Tyranny:

What About Fracking, Governor Brown?

Fracking, like almond-growing, is also notoriously thirsty. Just one example:

“At the height of California oil production in 1985, oil companies in Kern County pumped 1.1 billion barrels of water underground to extract 256 million barrels of oil—a ratio of roughly four and a half barrels of water for every barrel of oil,” according to Miller. “In 2008, Kern producers injected nearly 1.3 billion barrels of water to extract 162 million barrels of oil—a ratio of nearly eight barrels of water for every barrel of oil produced.”

Again, by that measure, the ratio is eight to one — eight barrels of water produces one barrel of oil. Whom does fracking benefit? The owners of Big Oil:

Clean Water Action has the scoop on which companies have the biggest stakes in the Monterey [California] Shale [oil fields]:

Occidental Corporation (Oxy) is the largest holder of land/mineral rights in California, holding rights to drill over 1.6 million acres of land in the Monterey Shale. In a presentation to shareholders in 2010, Oxy officials stated that “in 10 years, California shale could become Oxy’s largest business unit.”

Venoco Inc. has one of the largest stakes in the Monterey Shale with rights to drill in over 300,000 acres. There are more than 10 billion barrels of oil available for extraction at its current sites. In its 2011 report to shareholders, the company stated that it continues to expand its onshore Monterey acreage lease holdings across three basins: Santa Maria, Salinas Valley, and San Joaquin (which includes the Sevier discovery). ...

And so on. Why does fracking, like big agriculture, get a pass? Maybe this is the reason:

The oil and gas industry gives millions of dollars to California’s elected officials to ensure their interests are served in Sacramento. Governor Brown is one of these recipients, having accepted at least $2,014,570.22 [$2 million] from fossil fuel interests since his race for Attorney General in 2006.

As the public awakens to the dangers of fracking in California, the fossil fuel industry is spending as much money as it takes to protect their dirty interests. Billions of barrels of untapped oil are sitting in the Monterey Shale and Big Oil is pushing to make sure it all stays on the table.

State campaign finance laws prohibit any company or individual from contributing more than $27,200 per candidate, per election — but many of these companies have found loopholes that let them flood the system with their petro-dollars, making sure our elected leaders, and Governor Brown in particular, protect their interests.

The fossil fuel corporations and associated industries at the top of the dirty money pile include: Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, Southern California Edison, Valero Energy, Tesoro Corp, Plains Exploration and Production, Venoco, Conoco Phillips, and Aera Energy (owned jointly by Shell and ExxonMobil). 

So the opening question comes back at the bottom: So what about fracking, Governor Brown? And what about agriculture as well? It's not just us asking, we in the nation waiting our turn. It's your own residents, on whom you're putting the squeeze so ... it has to be said this way ... wealth can be served. The tighter the squeeze, the more urgently the question will be asked. The Social Contract, the glue that holds a society cooperatively together, can be bent, but only so far. At some point it breaks.

The Threat of Solar Energy

They hate what they're afraid of, and they're afraid for good reason.

Undercover Blue at Hullabaloo:

Remember Solyndra, that failed solar tech startup the GOP tried to hang around President Obama's neck like an albatross? Mitt Romney campaigned in front of the closed Solyndra factory in 2012, trying to deflect attention from his vulture capitalist record at Bain Capital. See, the problem was that Big Gummint was perturbing the economic gods with clean energy subsidies, "stifling free market competition by picking economic winners and losers."

Yesterday, I concluded a post noting that it is some kind of article of faith on the right that "government shouldn't pick winners and losers." Rather than call them hypocrites this fine Sunday morning, let's just say they apply that principle somewhat unevenly.

The Washington Post this morning looks at the growing threat rooftop solar poses to the big utility companies. Industry executives met in Colorado three years ago to plan how to fight back, Joby Warrick reports:

If demand for residential solar continued to soar, traditional utilities could soon face serious problems, from “declining retail sales” and a “loss of customers” to “potential obsolescence,” according to a presentation prepared for the group. “Industry must prepare an action plan to address the challenges,” it said.

The warning, delivered to a private meeting of the utility industry’s main trade association, became a call to arms for electricity providers in nearly every corner of the nation. Three years later, the industry and its fossil-fuel supporters are waging a determined campaign to stop a home-solar insurgency that is rattling the boardrooms of the country’s government-regulated electric monopolies.

Those free-market zealots among the Koch-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have been trying to roll back solar expansion that threatens the fossil fuels industry with "potential obsolescence," as the Post described it above. They've been trying to leverage their influence with Republican lawmakers. The free-marketeers want government help in guaranteeing they stay winners. There's one big problem:

The average price of photovoltaic cells has plummeted 60 percent since 2010, thanks to lower production costs and more-efficient designs. Solar’s share of global energy production is climbing steadily, and a study last week by researchers from Cambridge University concluded that photovoltaics will soon be able to out-compete fossil fuels, even if oil prices drop to as low as $10 a barrel.

Turns out that instilling that free-market fervor can really bite when you're operating a government-sanctioned monopoly and even conservatives and evangelicals in red states like Utah like putting solar panels on their church roofs. Trying to impose a solar surcharge offends their free-market sensibilities, so carefully cultivated by the right.

Legislative efforts in Indiana and Utah to slow down solar's expansion by outlawing "net metering" (homeowners selling excess power they generate back to the grid) have failed. "Some of the proposals were virtual copies of model legislation drafted two years ago by the American Legislative Exchange Council," Warrick writes.

It's not easy being mean.

Meanwhile:

Hawaii is on track to pass legislation this year requiring the state to go 100 percent renewable by 2040.

Earlier this month, committees in the Hawaii House and Senate both unanimously recommended bills that would raise the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) from the current target of 70 percent by 2030 to the ultimate goal of 100 percent by 2040. Hawaii has had an RPS since 2001, and right now the state gets just over 21 percent of its power from renewable sources — a 12 percent increase in just six years.

This is huge for our state’s future.

“Even our utility is saying we can hit 65 percent by 2030, so 100 percent is definitely doable,” Sen. Mike Gabbard (D), sponsor of the Senate bill, SB 2181, and chair of Hawaii’s Energy and Environment Committee, told ThinkProgress. “This is huge for our state’s future. Each year, we spend $3 to $5 billion importing fossil fuels to power our economy. Our electricity bills are roughly three times the national average.”

The Pipeline MotherFrackers Are Back. Help Stop Them Again.

You know why you haven't heard anything about the Bluegrass Pipeline toxic chemical death funnel through the heart of Central Kentucky's bourbon and horse industries?

First, because local resident stood against the mother frackers and got a court to make the companies stop terrorizing elderly landowners with illegal threats to take their land by eminent domain.

It was the most effective purely grassroots effort seen in the Commonwealth since Daniel Boone led a bunch of crazy people over the mountains to the clean water and fertile soil of the Bluegrass.

But the Stop the Pipeline folks aren't done yet.  Because the motherfrackers are at it again.  Help us stop them. Again.

From Kentuckians for the Commonwealth: 

Take Action
to protect Kentucky communities
from hazardous liquids pipeline

Kinder Morgan wants to transport highly dangerous hazardous liquids through Kentucky. The company plans to re-purpose the decades-old existing Tennessee Gas Pipeline to carry massive volumes of natural gas liquids from the fracking fields of Ohio and Pennsylvania to processing and export facilities along the Gulf Coast.

The pipeline runs through 18 Kentucky counties, near many homes, through popular business districts, across busy roadways, across waters that supply public drinking water systems, and even within view of schools. A study by the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration concluded that the “blast zone” for a pipeline of the size and volume proposed by Kinder Morgan is nearly one mile.

Kentuckians have a better view of our commonwealth and don’t want a pipeline that puts our water, land and safety needlessly at risk.

Kinder Morgan has applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to abandon natural gas service, the current use for the pipeline, in order to re-purpose it for hazardous natural gas liquids. Would you take action with KFTC and residents all along the route of the pipeline by co-signing our letter to FERC asking that it protect the safety of communities along the pipeline’s path?

A year ago, Kentuckians stopped the proposed Bluegrass Hazardous Liquids Pipeline. Let's do the same for this proposal.

Thanks for your support!

Global Warming Is No Threat to the Planet; What Will Die Is Human Civilization

Divine Irony

Stop Fracking in Kentucky Now

From Kentuckians for the Commonwealth:

Action Wednesday in the Kentucky Senate Legislation that will pave the way for large-scale hydraulic fracking in Kentucky is set to be heard by the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee tomorrow (Wednesday) at 11 a.m. We need to drum up support for an anticipated amendment that would place a two-year moratorium on “high volume hydraulic fracking.” ACTION: Please contact members of the Senate tonight or in the morning before 11. You can call their office directly at 502-564-8100 or leave a message through the Legislative Message Line (800-372-7181). If you’d like to email, you can find their email address or online contact form here: http://www.lrc.ky.gov/whoswho/email.htm MESSAGE: “Please support adding a two-year moratorium on high volume hydraulic fracking to Senate Bill 186, or vote against the bill without the moratorium.” If you call the message line, ask that your message be delivered to your senator plus “Sen. Jared Carpenter and all senators.” (Sen. Carpenter is chair of the Natural Resources and Energy Committee) Thank you for taking action! Why a moratorium is needed now Kentucky already allows fracking, but we do not have the laws and regulations to protect our health, water, land, local infrastructure, air and rural quality of life from the unconventional horizontal drilling and high volume hydraulic fracking that is being planned for Kentucky. SB 186 (and a companion bill in the House, HB 386) make improvements in existing law but fall short of giving landowners and communities any real means of preventing the onslaught of problems that accompany high volume hydraulic fracking. In testimony today, Madison County landowner Vicki Spurlock pointed out that no landowners were involved in developing the legislation (neither were any public health advocates). She wants to stop the “full-scale industrialization” of her rural area of Madison County that this legislation would allow. The Kentucky oil and gas association board of directors voted unanimously to support this legislation, so we know it will allow them to do exactly what they want in Kentucky. Please call as soon as you can.

Reject Them Both

Via Down With Tyranny

New York Bans Fracking; Why Hasn't Kentuckyt?

Because while New York's governor may be wholly owned and operated by Wall Street, Kentucky's is wholly owned and operated by the granddaddy of fossil fuels: Big Coal.

From the New York Times:

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration announced on Wednesday that it would ban hydraulic fracturing in New York State because of concerns over health risks, ending years of uncertainty over the controversial method of natural gas extraction.

State officials concluded that fracking, as the method is known, could contaminate the air and water and pose inestimable dangers to public health.

That conclusion was delivered during a year-end cabinet meeting convened by Mr. Cuomo in Albany. It came amid increased calls by environmentalists to ban fracking, which uses water and chemicals to release natural gas trapped in deeply buried shale deposits.

The question of whether to allow fracking has been one of the most divisive public policy debates in New York in years, pitting environmentalists against others who saw it as a critical way to bring jobs to economically stagnant portions of upstate.