Bloomberg: Deutsche Bank Seeks to Buy $1 Billion in Green Bonds
Deutsche Bank AG said it’s working to boost its investment in green bonds to 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion), joining competitors including Citigroup Inc. and Barclays Plc in tapping profit from the quickly growing market.
The Frankfurt-based institution has invested 200 million euros in green bonds and intends to expand that starting with purchases of a 10-year issue from the World Bank, according to a statement from Deutsche Bank on Friday. The funds are for the bank’s liquidity reserves.
Climate Central: Utilities May Get a Break From EPA on Cutting CO2
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy hinted this week that the EPA is not only listening to utility concerns, but is also considering allowing them to take more time to cut their CO2 more gradually. The change, allowing the cuts over the next 15 years instead of requiring most of them in the next five, could appear when the final version of the plan is unveiled this summer.
The Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan proposes to slash carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants by 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. But states have to make progress quickly, cutting most of those emissions -- about 26 percent -- by 2020, mainly by making natural gas the dominant way utilities generate power.
NY Times: Appraising Solar Energy’s Value
New research sponsored by the Department of Energy shows that buyers are willing to pay more for homes with rooftop solar panels -- a finding that may strengthen the case for factoring the value of sustainable features into home appraisals.
The study, conducted by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, examined sales data for almost 23,000 homes in eight states from 2002 to 2013. About 4,000 of the homes had solar photovoltaic systems, all of them owned (as opposed to being financed through a lease with the solar company).
Green Car Reports: Tesla's First Solar-Powered Supercharger-Store-Service Center Is Almost Ready
Electric-car maker Tesla Motors has rapidly been opening Supercharger DC fast-charging stations throughout the U.S. and outside the country.
But despite its goal of providing solar-generated electricity at those sites, Superchargers thus far have drawn on electricity from the conventional power grid.
That's about to change.
Inside Climate News: Documents Reveal Fossil Fuel Fingerprints on Contrarian Climate Research
Communications show that Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics called his peer-reviewed research papers "deliverables" in return for funding from fossil-fuel companies. In addition, the documents reveal that Soon and Harvard-Smithsonian gave the coal utility company the right to review his scientific papers and make suggestions before they were published. Soon and Harvard-Smithsonian also pledged not to disclose one funder's identity without permission.