The Energy Secretary has scrapped plans for a pilot “hydrogen town” after a wave of protests against earlier trials.
Claire Coutinho has shelved proposals to force thousands of homes and businesses to replace their natural gas supplies with hydrogen by 2030 to test the fuel’s viability. Aberdeen, Scunthorpe, and two Welsh towns were among those being considered for wholesale conversion to hydrogen for heating.
It was meant to be a trial run to test the use of low-carbon hydrogen as a replacement for natural gas, which was being considered as part of the UK’s drive to reach net zero by 2050…
Last year, the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) recommended the Government should not support the rollout of hydrogen heating. It said the hydrogen would have to be made with natural gas – a process that generates emissions – and would cost more than heat pumps, the main alternative.
This edition identifies 73% more local restrictions than the May 2023 edition (from 228 to 395), 111% more state-level restrictions than the May 2023 edition (from 9 to 19), and 29% more contested projects than the May 2023 edition (from 293 to 378).
The movie “Who Killed the Electric Car” shows how they do that. Working behind the scenes. Funding ghost articles. Supporting opposition organizations. Funding academic studies that favor their point of view. And distributing results that favor their point of view widely. Ditto postings on social media.
Often objections are subtle and much less spontaneous than people think.
The new Labour Government has a target for the electricity grid to be run from 100% green sources by 2030 and will set out plans in its first days to lift the ban on onshore wind farms and encourage community backing for local renewable projects.
But the opposition from within the Green Party, which has urged the country to move even faster to net zero, shows the challenge of getting the public onside, even when they support action on climate change.
Actually, the salmon/hydropower dams issue is NOT at all simple. Most of the dams most listed for being taking down are small scale with minimal power production, and are on watersheds where salmon play a crucial role ecological and economic role. For example, many coastal redwood forests (Sequoia sempervirems) are seriously dependent on salmon bringing nutrients up stream into the woods, and the dams were built via quasi-illegal power plays against the broader public good and in abrogation of important treaties with aboriginal tribes.
Big dams (hello Columbia River) are a different matter, and fortunately newer techniques for getting fish past them are emerging.
It’s not that similar. In the case of the salmon, there are valid ecological arguments that to keep balance, the salmon need to be able to spawn. In this case, the only argument is “we don’t want to have to see ugly power lines in our district” (aka NIMBY). Those are two distinctly different types of arguments.
There is, of course, an economic way to solve such problems, but they will never do it. For example, anyone within eyeshot of the powerlines gets a permanent 15% discount on the power portion of their electricity bill. Heck, you may even get people seeking out homes with the powerlines and the associated discount!
Ocean City, Other Stakeholders Sue to Block Offshore Wind Farm https://www.thewellnews.com/litigation/ocean-city-other-stakeholders-sue-to-block-offshore-wind-farm/ The mayor and city council of this popular tourist destination are the lead plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit intended to roll back the approval of an 80,000-acre wind energy project to be located about 10.7 miles off the Maryland coast. The plaintiffs in the litigation include several neighboring towns and counties, as well as sportfishing groups, hotels, amusement parks and other providers of tourism amenities.
Their 92-page lawsuit claims the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management violated a number of federal statutes and related regulations in approving the construction and operations plan for the project, which is being developed by U.S. Wind.
The alleged wrongdoing includes violations of the Administrative Procedure Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act.
This is probably aesthetic objects rather than environmental. Changes their view of the ocean. To heck with global warming. We don’t want our scenery changed.
There is that (although I’m not sure an industrial wind turbine counts as an aesthetic object) but if you look at the acts cited you’ll see they’re almost all environmental – whales, birds and the like.
Yes, laws that protect the environment can be the basis of lawsuits. Laws that protect scenery are few. Changes in the view does attract attention even when unprotected by law.
Ocean zoning anyone? What can be built within view from the shore? Hearings required?
This seems odd. From shore you can see about 3 miles, perhaps more if the tower is incredibly high (as these windmills are). But at 10-12 miles out it’s hard to imagine that you would even know they’re there unless you already know they’re there.
From the article, it appears that the complainants are folks with strong connections to the marine recreational business - sport fishermen, hotels that offer marine tourism, and the coastal cities and towns. If these are seaside resort communities, they may be concerned about whether they will continue to be attractive destinations for marine recreation, and it may not be a question of whether the windmills are visible from the shore.
