Climate Change Shift. Climate change isn’t a topic that is too exciting to write about because it has been politicized as a topic. While I don’t understand how anyone can ignore it, I understand why political parties have taken the sides that they have. This week there was a shift however, IPCC started off with a dire warning and the President amplified it by not saying very much about it. At the same time, Hurricane Matthew ravaged the Florida panhandle. Matthew was originally expected to be a Tropical Storm but grew to a category 4 in the same waters that strengthened Hurricane Katrina. I see a society today that no longer wants to debate climate change, but maybe discuss what can be done about it. Spinning it to be a problem that is too big is bad, last year The Guardian wrote about the 100 companies that cause 70% of the global emissions. That type of viewpoint downplays the value of a 10kW home solar system or changing a single LED lightbulb. Both of this things are incredibly important and valuable to the energy economy.
17 F-22s. According to Lara Seligman of Foreign Policy, as many as 17 F-22 fighter jets may have been damaged or destroyed at Tyndall AFB in Florida. Each F-22 costs north of $300million and a single storm may have reduced the US inventory of F-22s by almost 10% at a cost of $5billion in addition to the cost of national security. This is a single line item in the cost of climate change, global warming and changing environmental landscapes. I did reach out to Coronal Energy, which operates a solar farm at Eglin AFB in Florida and they report a functioning solar farm on site with little to no damage.
Rubio Is Wrong. The IPCC report was big news on the Sunday shows and Marco Marco Rubio was asked about climate change and what he plans to do about it. “we’re going to have to do something about the impact on low-level coast areas…but I’m also not going to destroy our economy.” That is where Rubio gets it wrong because he is only hearing from the Koch side of the table. I hope that the folks at NextEra reading this make the call to Rubio to advise him on the financial benefits of solar and energy storage. Tell him where the future is for your billion dollar company, is it in coal, gas or renewables? This also shows the exact messaging we need to adapt for republican politicians. If we can’t argue the science or warnings, we need to argue the financial upside. The opportunity for bankers, lawyers, hedge fund managers and everyone else in the economy to make money saving the planet one solar panel at a time.
Orsted Joins Club. The Danish firm has been on a buying spree and taking its lessons learned across the globe. Being a clean energy major was originally coined by former Sunedison CEO, Ahmad Chatila, and GTM is bringing it back for their story on Orsted. They may be right, most of the other oil firms have dabbled but have yet to embrace the opportunity of the renewable future. It is more than a hedge on the core business units, its a full on replacement.
Coming Up. Thank you to everyone that joined me at the CALSSA dinner, it was a pleasure to see so many of you there. If you raised your hand to help raise money for the trade association that keeps the California market moving, thank you again! Next week I hope to see many of you at Vote Solar’s Equinox DC. As usual, if you spend more than $2,000 in tickets or sponsorships, you get to send me a paragraph to publish on this platform. Two weeks later, a big group of you has already registered to attend SolarWakeup Live! in Jersey City. The agenda is outstanding and the market is moving at breakneck speeds right now with new dockets starting almost every week. Solar is going to transition in NJ and if you want to learn how to make the appropriate changes, come and meet with us!
- Vox: Trump’s 60 Minutes interview with Lesley Stahl shows a lot about who the president thinks is worth believing and when.
- Axios: How the climate debate changed this week
- SolarWakeup: Minnesota Splits Difference On Residential Community Solar Incentive
- Greentech Media: Is Orsted Poised to Become the First Clean Energy Major?
- CleanTechnica: Hawai’i Looks To Add 260 Megawatts Of Solar & 1+ Gigawatt-Hour Of Storage
- Renewable Energy World: Britain’s Battery Market Will Grow by $7.9 Billion by 2030
- Quartz: Climate change is becoming so real that it’s gaining converts for a carbon price
Opinion
Have a great day!
Yann