Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Economy

New England Will Soon Be Coal-Free

On shuttered coal plants, New York’s congestion charge, and Volvo’s last diesel car

New England Will Soon Be Coal-Free
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Flood watches are in effect for the eastern half of North Carolina • Egg-sized hail smashed car windshields in eastern China • Europe is forecast to be unusually warm through April.

THE TOP FIVE

1. New England to shutter last remaining coal plant

New England will soon follow the Pacific Northwest in becoming a coal-free region. Granite Shore Power, which owns the region’s last-remaining coal plant, said it will close Merrimack Station in Bow, New Hampshire, by 2028 at the latest. The move is voluntary, but is part of a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency over the facility’s excessive particulate matter emissions. Granite Shore Power says it will transform the plant, as well as Schiller Station in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, into a “renewable energy park.” “The end of coal in New Hampshire, and for the New England region as a whole, is now certain and in sight,” said a statement issued by Tom Irwin, the vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation in New Hampshire. “Now we must vigorously push for the phaseout of other polluting fuels like oil and gas.” New Hampshire will be the 16th state to go coal free.

2. Louisiana to get direct air capture hub

The Department of Energy is giving the green light to Project Cypress, a cluster of facilities in southwest Louisiana that will filter carbon dioxide directly from the air and store it underground. The agency will award the project $50 million for the next phase of its development, which will be matched by $51 million in private investment. But there is a long road ahead: The project’s four implementation phases will take several years, and members of the surrounding community near Lake Charles (home to some of the most contested energy projects in the country) are skeptical the project will benefit them. Once it’s fully operational, Project Cypress is designed to capture 1 million tons of carbon from the air per year. Louisiana alone releases more than 200 million tons annually. “Even if we scale this up, we'd have to scale it up orders of magnitude higher than will ever be possible,” one Louisiana activist told Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo.

3. New York’s MTA paves the way for congestion pricing

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority has approved a plan to start charging drivers $15 for entering Manhattan below 60th Street, “the most congested district in the United States.” The congestion charge is expected to result in 100,000 fewer cars entering that region every day, reducing gridlock and improving air quality. Research shows that low-emission zones and congestion charging zones, which have been rolled out in other cities across the world, are associated with health benefits, including lower rates of cardiovascular disease.

MTA

New York would be the first city in the United States to implement such a program, but the plan faces challenges from six lawsuits that need to be settled before it can go ahead. “I’m keeping my champagne on ice until the lawsuits are resolved (which stopped a version in 1980) and no acts of Congress passed to block it (which stopped tolls on East and Harlem river bridges in 1977) and the first car is charged,” traffic analyst Sam Schwartz toldGothamist.

4. Biden administration finalizes crackdown on methane from oil and gas

The Biden administration finalized a rule yesterday requiring oil and gas companies to reduce methane emissions from their operations. The rule “will hold oil and gas companies accountable” by tightening restrictions on gas flaring on federal lands and requiring producers to find and prevent leaks. “By setting a ceiling on how much gas companies can vent and flare without paying royalties, the new rule is expected to generate more than $50 million in additional payments to the federal government each year,” The Washington Post reported. “It will also conserve billions of cubic feet of gas that might otherwise have been vented, flared, or leaked.”

5. Volvo builds its last diesel car

Volvo

You’re looking at the last diesel car Volvo will ever make. The XC90 SUV rolled off the line at the carmaker’s plant in Torslanda, Sweden, this week, and will head straight to a museum, “where it will be on display for anyone wanting to ponder the noxious emissions of yore,” wrote Jennifer Mossalgue at Electrek.

As recently as 2016, diesel vehicles accounted for half the company’s sales. Noting the surprising speed of the EV revolution, Volvo credited “tightening regulations around tailpipe emissions, as well as customer demand in response to the climate crisis.” Volvo plans to be all-electric by 2030, “making it one of the first legacy carmakers to do so,” Mossalgue said.

THE KICKER

“The fact that we can say, ‘Look, this is slowing down the entire Earth’ seems like another way of saying that climate change is unprecedented and important.”–Duncan Agnew, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, whose new research suggests climate change might be affecting global timekeeping

Yellow

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Economy

FEMA Forces Storm-Wrecked Homeowners to Choose: Build Up or Move Out?

It’s known as the 50% rule, and Southwest Florida hates it.

A house made of money.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

After the storm, we rebuild. That’s the mantra repeated by residents, businesses and elected officials after any big storm. Hurricane Milton may have avoided the worst case scenario of a direct hit on the Tampa Bay area, but communities south of Tampa experienced heavy flooding just a couple weeks after being hit by Hurricane Helene.

While the damage is still being assessed in Sarasota County’s barrier islands, homes that require extensive renovations will almost certainly run up against what is known as the 50% rule — or, in Southwest Florida, the “dreaded 50% rule.”

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Sparks

What Happens to a Landfill in a Hurricane?

The trash mostly stays put, but the methane is another story.

A hurricane and a landfill.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

In the coming days and weeks, as Floridians and others in storm-ravaged communities clean up from Hurricane Milton, trucks will carry all manner of storm-related detritus — chunks of buildings, fences, furniture, even cars — to the same place all their other waste goes: the local landfill. But what about the landfill itself? Does this gigantic trash pile take to the air and scatter Dorito bags and car parts alike around the surrounding region?

No, thankfully. As Richard Meyers, the director of land management services at the Solid Waste Authority of Palm Beach County, assured me, all landfill waste is covered with soil on “at least a weekly basis,” and certainly right before a hurricane, preventing the waste from being kicked up. “Aerodynamically, [the storm is] rolling over that covered waste. It’s not able to blow six inches of cover soil from the top of the waste.”

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Climate

AM Briefing: Assessing Milton’s Damage

On the storm’s destruction, wildlife populations, and shipping emissions

What Hurricane Milton Left Behind
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Large parts of Pennsylvania are under a frost advisory today and tomorrow • The remnants of Hurricane Kirk killed at least one person in France • A severe solar storm is expected to hit Earth today.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Hurricane Milton moves toward Atlantic after slamming into Florida

Hurricane Milton is headed out to the Atlantic after raking across Florida overnight, and as the sun comes up, residents are assessing the damage left in its wake. Milton made landfall near Sarasota as a Category 3 storm, bringing heavy rainfall, dangerous winds, and flooding. St. Petersburg reported 16 inches of rain, which meteorologists say is a 1-in-1,000-year event. The storm also triggered more than 130 tornado warnings, possibly a new record. The Tropicana Field Stadium in Tampa sustained significant damage. While deaths have been reported, it’s not yet clear how many. More than 3 million people are without power.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow