Sept 16, 2016 - Solar power projects that could jolt Alberta's electricity grid with the addition of hundreds of megawatts of renewable power are being lined up in anticipation of incentives from the provincial NDP government.
According to the Alberta Electric System Operator, 21 proposed solar projects generating a total of 681 MW — about 60 times the existing provincial solar capacity — have been registered on its system access service request list as of Sept. 1.
Sept 7, 2016 - A First Nation in the Nicola Valley has installed B.C.’s largest community-owned solar panel system.
The Lower Nicola Indian Band near Merritt, home to 1,200 members of the Nlaka’pamux Nation, last month installed 330 panels of photovoltaic solar panels to generate up to 85.8 kilowatts of electricity.
Chief Aaron Sam said the system, launched Friday, is designed to help power the community’s school and feed electricity back into the local grid.
“It’s great that it’s come to fruition,” Sam said. “We’re very excited.”
The U.S. is expected to reach a major carbon emissions milestone this year: For the first time, carbon dioxide emissions from burning natural gas in the U.S. are set to surpass those from burning coal — the globe’s chief climate polluter.
Emissions from burning natural gas are expected to be 10 percent greater than those from coal in 2016, as electric companies rely more on power plants that run on natural gas than those that run on coal, according to U.S. Department of Energy data.
Aug 12, 2016 - In the months leading to the December 2015 Paris Climate Conference, representatives of global institutional investors and multinational corporations made headlines after they demanded that world leaders adopt radical emissions reduction targets, among them “net zero” emissions by 2050.
In Washington state, climate hawks have divided over CarbonWA’s Initiative 732, a proposal for a BC-style revenue-neutral carbon tax shift that will appear on the November ballot. The divisions—over both policy and political strategy—are agonizing and strongly felt. I-732 is therefore a contentious subject to publish about, but with the public vote nearing, Sightline is launching a short series analyzing I-732 and the arguments commonly offered against and for it.
The Monad building, a collection of four apartments clustered around an interior courtyard, is one of the city’s most environmentally friendly buildings.
(Nic Lehoux)
July 29, 2016 - The modest four-storey building facing a park in Vancouver’s popular Kitsilano neighbourhood looks unmistakably modern compared to its neighbours.
But just a look from the outside doesn’t show off what is truly different.
15 July 2016 - Earlier this year media outlets around the world announced that February had broken global temperature records by a shocking amount. March broke all the records, too. In June our screens were covered with surreal images of Paris flooding, the Seine bursting its banks and flowing into the streets. In London, the floods sent water pouring into the tube system right in the heart of Covent Garden. Roads in south-east London became rivers two metres deep.
A new leak provides further confirmation that the pro-corporate TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the U.S. and European Union would result in "a giant leap backward in our fight to keep fossil fuels in the ground."
