Environmental Justice Update

1. Battery Power. To work most efficiently, an environmentally sound electrical system uses solar or wind power supplemented by battery power for storage, because the wind isn’t always blowing and the sun isn’t always shining. These batteries are currently of the lithium-ion variety and are as big as shipping containers; a facility may have hundreds of these. But they are expensive (although the price has been falling) and each pack can only work for 2 to 4 hours before needing recharging. Of course, if they become cheap enough this should not be a problem.

2. Ten of Pres. Biden’s Environmental Programs: Electrifying automobiles, cutting pollution from power plants (implying the end of coal use), plugging methane leaks (mostly

from oil/gas producers), banning asbestos (cancer-causing), ending “forever” chemicals (ex. PFAS), protecting endangered species, protecting the Alaska wilderness (ex. denying permission for a road to a copper deposit), improving chemical plant safety, raising costs (now very low) for fossil fuel companies on public land, changing permit policies (speeding up permits for clean energy, slowing down those adversely affecting climate and low-income communities).

3. Trump meets with oil executives at Mar-a-Lago. He requested $1 billion for his presidential campaign “because, if elected, he would roll back environmental rules that hampered their industries.”

4. Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act. This bill on 5/7/24 received 205 Republican votes and 7 Democratic votes in the US House of Representatives. It would “limit the ability of the Dept. of Energy to set energy efficiency standards.” No such standards means more electricity use and thus more greenhouse gases.

Source: The New York Times, 5/10//24