New York Times: Trump Picks Scott Pruitt, Climate Change Denialist, to Lead EPA
President-elect Donald J. Trump has selected Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general and a close ally of the fossil fuel industry, to run the Environmental Protection Agency, signaling Mr. Trump’s determination to dismantle President Obama’s efforts to counter climate change -- and much of the EPA itself.
Mr. Pruitt, a Republican, has been a key architect of the legal battle against Mr. Obama’s climate change policies, actions that fit with the president-elect’s comments during the campaign. Mr. Trump has criticized the established science of human-caused global warming as a hoax, vowed to “cancel” the Paris accord committing nearly every nation to taking action to fight climate change, and attacked Mr. Obama’s signature global warming policy, the Clean Power Plan, as a “war on coal.”
Mr. Pruitt has been in lock step with those views.
Renewable Energy Magazine: Enel Green Power Begins Operations at World’s First Integrated Geothermal-Hydropower Plant
Enel S.p.A., through its subsidiary Enel Green Power North America, Inc. (EGPNA) has started operations at the world’s first integrated, commercial-scale geothermal-hydropower plant at its Cove Fort site in Utah.
The EGPNA facility at Cove Fort consists of fully submersible downhole generator technology added to a geothermal injection well, combining geothermal and hydroelectric power at one site. Findings from the initial testing phase held between July and September 2016 reveal that the addition of the hydro generator to the geothermal injection well resulted in an overall increase in output of 1,008 MWh over this time, offsetting the energy consumption of the Cove Fort plant by 8.8 percent, therefore improving the plant’s operational efficiency.
Midwest Energy News: Microgrid Powers New Suburban Minneapolis Office Building
On a crowded stretch of one of the Twin Cities’ busiest freeways, a glassy new five-story building announces itself with a large sign saying “OATI Microgrid.”
Inside the building in Bloomington, workers are putting the final touches on the OATI Microgrid Technology Center, which features solar panels, wind turbines, a combined heat and power plant and energy storage.
It’s part of a pilot project for Open Access Technology International, a Minneapolis-based company that provides cloud-based software applications for more than 1,600 clients, including independent service operators (ISOs), electric cooperatives, energy traders and utilities.
MIT Technology Review: Greenland’s Ice Sheet Is Less Stable Than We Thought
Next time you’re walking down the street and pass a tree or a tall building, try to eyeball how high up you think 24 feet is. That’s about how much global sea level would rise if the Greenland ice sheet were to melt.
A historic new finding, published in the journal Nature, suggests that’s a much greater threat than we realized. The result is based on physical evidence in the first-ever piece of bedrock drilled from beneath the northern hemisphere’s largest ice deposit.
Scientists led by Joerg Schafer at Columbia University looked at isotopes in the rock sample that indicate how long it was ice-free. Scientists thought the ice sheet had been stable for at least the last 1.4 million years, and perhaps much longer. But the new study shows that the part of Greenland where the sample was taken was melted down to bedrock for at least 280,000 years during that time. In order for that to be true, models of the ice sheet say it must’ve shrunk to less than 10 percent of its current size.
Engadget: Uber Explains How You Can Lose Access to Its Service
Uber already has publicly posted guidelines telling drivers what they're not allowed to do, and why they might get the boot. However, the same hasn't been true for passengers -- just what qualifies as crossing the line? You probably have a good idea, but Uber wants to erase whatever doubt is left. It's publishing a set of Community Guidelines that not only explain driver and passenger expectations in plain language, but publicly outline U.S. policies for rider behavior for the first time. While they're largely logical rules that you'd expect, it's helpful to see them all the same.