For years, utilities in Arizona — which gets even more sunshine than the actual “Sunshine State” — have been working to stymie the ability of rooftop solar power companies to increase sales.
In case there was any lingering doubt how they really feel about this industry, we now have some clarity.
The Arizona Republic’s Ryan Randazzo reports that the Salt River Project, the state’s second-largest utility, spent $1.7 million for three-months’ worth of advertising for a change in electricity rates that would penalize solar power users. The increase was approved in February.
They also used some pretty colorful language to describe opponents of the initiative.
“Financial records and e-mails obtained from the utility show the company geared up last year for an intense debate with solar advocates, whom one SRP executive referred to as ‘the enemy’ in an e-mail to public-relations consultants,” he writes.
Salt River has claimed the the employee was just joking.
Even if that’s true, it exemplifies the intense debate within the state over expanding solar power, and who should be doing so.
The Arizona Republic has previously found the state’s utilities spent millions in dark money to support candidates for positions on the state committee that sets […]
A projection of what Phoenix will be like in 2060
Credit: Shutterstock
There has always been an odd tenor to discussions among climate scientists, policy wonks, and politicians, a passive-aggressive quality, and I think it can be traced to the fact that everyone involved has to dance around the obvious truth, at risk of losing their status and influence.
The obvious truth about global warming is this: barring miracles, humanity is in for some awful shit.
Here is a plotting of dozens of climate modeling scenarios out to 2100, from the IPCC:
So what’s the scenario?
The black line is carbon emissions to date. The red line is the status quo — a projection of where emissions will go if no new substantial policy is passed to restrain greenhouse gas emissions.
We recently passed 400 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere; the status quo will take us up to 1,000 ppm, raising global average temperature (from a pre-industrial baseline) […]
Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm, a man who does not seem to like facts when they get in the way of his making money.
Credit: AP/Kevin Cederstrom
Despite a growing body of scientific research connecting oil and gas activity to a dramatic spike in earthquakes across several U.S. states, some industry leaders are fighting this characterization. Harold Hamm, billionaire CEO of Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources, told a dean at the University of Oklahoma last year that he was so displeased by the university’s research on the topic that he wanted certain scientists dismissed, Bloomberg News reported.
In an email to colleagues dated July 16, 2014 and obtained by Bloomberg, Larry Grillot, the dean of the university’s Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy, said that he had met with Hamm, a major donor to the university, to discuss his concerns about earthquake reporting by the Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS), which is housed in the university. “Mr. Hamm is very upset at […]
As the once-vilified drug becomes more accepted, researchers around the world are trying to understand how it works and how it might fight disease.
Credit: Lynn Johnson/National Geographic
There’s nothing new about cannabis, of course. It’s been around humankind pretty much forever.
In Siberia charred seeds have been found inside burial mounds dating back to 3000 B.C. The Chinese were using cannabis as a medicine thousands of years ago. Marijuana is deeply American too—as American as George Washington, who grew hemp at Mount Vernon. For most of the country’s history, cannabis was legal, commonly found in tinctures and extracts.
Then came Reefer Madness. Marijuana, the Assassin of Youth. The Killer Weed. The Gateway Drug. For nearly 70 years the plant went into hiding, and medical research largely stopped. In 1970 the federal government made it even harder to study marijuana, classifying it as a Schedule I drug—a dangerous substance with […]
The nets are easily maintained and affordable, its backers say.
Credit: Fellipe Abreu
CHILE — The dry, red earth could almost be mistaken for a Martian landscape.
It is in fact the Atacama desert in Chile, one of the driest places on Earth.
Average rainfall here is les than 0.1mm (0.004 in) per year and there are many regions which have not seen any precipitation for decades.
But while there is little rain, the clouds here do carry humidity.
Coastal fog forms on Chile’s shore and then moves inland in the form of cloud banks. The locals call it “camanchaca”.
The fog is made up of minuscule drops of water which are so light they do not fall as rain.
During a particularly severe drought in 1956, scientist Carlos Espinosa Arancibia had an idea.
The retired maths and physics professor from the University of Chile carried out a series of experiments in the highest hills near the city of […]
