New York Times: Despite Risks, Cuomo Bets on Solar Power to Lift Buffalo
On the often cloudy shores of the Buffalo River, where a steel factory once thrived, lies the rising framework of one of New York’s most ambitious economic endeavors ever: a giant solar panel factory that the state says will be the largest of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has committed up to $750 million to the project, the biggest economic development effort he has undertaken in his five years as governor.
In doing so, he has bet big not just on solar energy, a competitive and rapidly growing business, but also on the success of SolarCity, a fast-growing California company that will operate out of the factory that New York state will own.
RenewEconomy: Australian Rooftop PV the Cheapest in the World, Finds IEA
The cost of installing solar PV systems at Australian households and businesses is among the cheapest in the world, according to the latest global PV report from the International Energy Agency, released on Monday.
The IEA’s 20th Trends in Photovoltaic Applications report shows that in Australia, as in many regions of the world, solar PV is now recognized as one of the least-cost options for electricity generation.
Australia has some of the world’s cheapest installed system prices for grid-connected residential and commercial solar PV systems, at USD $1.76/W and $1.61/W, respectively.
Guardian: Nuclear Power Advocate Alan Finkel to Be Named Australia's Chief Scientist
A vocal advocate of nuclear power in Australia, Dr. Alan Finkel, is set to be named as the country’s next chief scientist.
The appointment of Finkel, an engineer and former neuroscience research fellow who has served as the chancellor of Monash University since 2008, is due to be announced by Malcolm Turnbull this week.
It is not yet clear whether the prime minister’s choice, first reported by the Herald Sun on Monday, signals a new openness by the government to consider nuclear power generation.
Vox's David Roberts: The House Science Committee Is Worse Than the Benghazi Committee
Last Thursday, the nation watched with a mix of amusement and horror as the House Benghazi committee spent 11 hours grilling Hillary Clinton on a bizarre farrago of issues, many of which bore only tangential connection to the Benghazi attack.
Over the past few weeks, the political narrative seems to have shifted from "Clinton in trouble" to "congressional witch hunt seeks to take down Clinton." Between McCarthy's accidental truth-telling, an ex-staffer confirming the worst reports about the committee, and another House Republican conceding the obvious, it has become clear that the Benghazi committee is a thoroughly partisan political endeavor. Opinion has turned, but Republicans are trapped.
The thing is: The Benghazi committee is not even the worst committee in the House. I'd argue that the House science committee, under the chairmanship of Lamar Smith (R-TX), deserves that superlative for its open-ended, Orwellian attempts to intimidate some of the nation's leading scientists and scientific institutions.
Climate Progress: Why This Republican Senator Just Came Out in Support of Obama’s Climate Rule
As soon as the EPA’s Clean Power Plan hit the Federal Register, the rule was met with a flurry of lawsuits from fossil-fuel-producing states, utility groups and the coal industry. Republicans in Congress have pledged to block the rule, and could try to kill the rule through the Congressional Review Act this week.
But in a chorus of Republican opposition, the Obama administration won a new ally over the weekend, when Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) became the first Republican senator to openly voice support for the Clean Power Plan.