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Capital Region Community Solar

July 19, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

New York’s Capital Region is getting a major new community solar farm. A community solar farm is a solar power installation whose output is shared by multiple community subscribers who receive credit on their electricity bills for their share of the power produced. The primary purpose of community solar is to allow members of a community to have the benefits of solar power even if they cannot or prefer not to install solar panels on their own property.

US Light Energy has broken ground on the Sugar Hill Solar Farm, to be located on 40 acres of land on the Sugar-Hill/Sugar-View Farm in Clifton Park. The 7-megawatt, ground-mounted solar project will include nearly 20,000 solar modules. When fully operational later this year, the facility is expected to produce more than 8.6 million kilowatt-hours of energy a year.

The farm will be part of New York state’s Community Solar Program, and the electricity it generates can be supplied to customers anywhere in National Grid’s existing distribution system. Residential and commercial properties in Clifton Park will have 30 days to subscribe before the solar energy generated by the farm is opened to the general public. Subscribers of community solar farms typically save 10% on their electricity bills.

There are already community solar programs in operation in several Capital Region communities, but this is the first one in the Clifton Park Area. Apart from providing savings on utility bills, community solar allows consumers to support clean, locally generated power with little or no upfront costs. Not everyone is in a position to put solar panels on their roof, but community solar is increasingly an option for New York residents.

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Construction begins on 7-MW community solar farm in New York

Photo, posted March 19, 2012, courtesy of Kate Ausburn via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Drilling In California

May 16, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

More than one million acres of public and private land in California may soon be opened up to oil drilling and hydraulic fracturing, according to a plan recently released by the Trump Administration. The proposal raises environmental concerns, and comes at a time when opposition to oil and gas drilling in the state is growing.

The plan, put forth by the Bureau of Land Management, would end a five-year moratorium in the state on leasing federal public land to oil and gas developers. In 2013, a federal judge put the moratorium in place until the environmental risks of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, could be better evaluated.

Fracking is the process of injecting liquid at high pressure underground in order to crack open rocks and extract oil or gas. Well-documented risks associated with fracking include air and water pollution, as well as increased risks of oil spills and earthquakes.

Nevertheless, the Bureau of Land Management, which is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, released its 174-page environmental impact statement with the proposal to open up 1,011,470 acres of land to fossil fuel extraction, impacting the California counties of Fresno, Kern, Kings, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare, and Ventura.

Unsurprisingly, the draft plan has been praised by industry groups who say concerns are misguided, and slammed by environmentalists who say the move poses a serious public health risk and could lead to a “fracking frenzy.”

The proposal is now subject to a 45-day period for public comment, after which the Interior Department will determine how to proceed. A link to weigh in on the proposal can be found here .

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Trump fracking plan targets over 1 million acres in California

Bakersfield Field Office Hydraulic Fracturing Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement

Photo, posted March 14, 2010, courtesy of Mike Baird via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Trees And The Future Of Cities

April 16, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The shade of a single tree is a welcome source of relief on a hot summer day. But even a relatively small patch of woods can have a profound cooling effect. A new study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison looks at the role trees play in keeping towns and cities cool.

According to the study, the right amount of tree cover can lower daytime temperatures in the summer by as much as 10 degrees. The effects are noticeable from neighborhood to neighborhood and even on a block-by-block basis.

Cities are well-known to be hot spots due to the urban heat islanding effect. Using trees to keep temperatures more comfortable in cities can make a big difference for the people who live and work there.

The man-made structures of cities – roads, sidewalks, and buildings – absorb heat from the sun during the day and slowly release it at night. Trees, on the other hand, not only shade those structures from the sun, but they also transpire -or release water in the air through their leaves – which helps to cool things down.

According to the study, to get maximum cooling benefits, tree canopies must exceed forty percent, meaning that city blocks need to be nearly halfway covered by tree branches and leaves. To get the biggest bang for the buck, cities should start planting more trees in areas that are already near the forty percent threshold. But

trees can’t just be in parks. They need to be in places where people are active.

If we want the places where we live to be more comfortable and resilient in a warming world, we need to plant more trees.

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Study suggests trees are crucial to the future of our cities

Photo, posted May 26, 2012, courtesy of Mislav Marohnic via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Australian Plastic Bag Ban

December 31, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Last summer, the two largest supermarket chains in Australia – Coles and Woolworth’s – decided to stop offering single-use disposable plastic bags to customers. The initial public reaction was decidedly negative. However, within just three months after the radical change, the country’s National Retail Association reported an 80% drop in the consumption of plastic bags nationwide.

In that three-month period, it is estimated that 1.5 billion bags have been prevented from use. Some retailers are reporting reduction rates as high as 90% in the use of the bags. The move by the big supermarkets has paved the way for smaller businesses to follow suit. The smaller businesses typically can’t afford to risk the wrath of their customers with a major change like this. Customers have to learn to bring their own bags or buy reusable bags at the store.

In much of Australia, the phase-out of plastic bags has been legislated, but the state of New South Wales, home to Sydney, the country’s largest city, has not enacted such legislation. So, supermarkets themselves are doing the work of getting rid of the bags.

The change has not been without hiccups. For the first couple of months after the plastic bag ban was put in place, Woolworth’s saw poor sales in its stores. However, customers eventually got used to the new way of doing things and sales levels returned.

Disposable plastic bags often find their way into the oceans where they break down into microparticles. Studies have shown that these plastic bits are ingested by a wide variety of marine life. For example, a UK study found that 100% of sea turtles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans as well as the Mediterranean Sea had plastic in their digestive systems.

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