Tag: Illinois

Facing coronavirus and a ‘cliff,’ can Illinois solar survive?

Energy News discusses whether  Illinois solar can survive with today’s problems.

Legislation that sought to boost the shrinking fund for solar incentives is on hold, as are many installations across the state.

Illinois’s solar industry, which until recently had been booming, could be decimated by the coronavirus pandemic, according to experts and developers who are scrambling to prepare for the uncertain future.

The state’s 2017 Future Energy Jobs Act sparked a boom in distributed solar installations and local solar companies and jobs, and also created a program to spur solar and energy efficiency jobs for low-income and marginalized communities. But those efforts are now in jeopardy given the stay-at-home restrictions through at least May 30, the economic recession triggered by the pandemic, and the stalling of proposed legislation considered essential to maintaining clean energy momentum.

Yale Climate Connections, January 17, 2020

This week’s articles include:

  1. ‘The Climate Trail’: Survival game pits players against climate catastrophe
  2. ‘Cranky Uncle’ smart phone game will show you how to disarm climate deniers
  3. Power plant emissions down 47% under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
  4. How climate change influenced Australia’s unprecedented fires
  5. Australia’s heat and bushfires are signs of fundamental shifts in its climate
  6. Residents of Midlothian, Illinois, fight back against ‘terrifying’ floods
  7. Cleaning up the air in China could save lives
  8. Virginia Tech theater project helps people visualize flood scenarios
  9. California’s high housing prices drive development in risky fire zones
  10. Economist: Electric vehicles likely to be as cheap as conventional cars by 2025

As Trump attempts to prop up the struggling coal industry, Illinois is taking another step away from its dirtiest source of electricity

This article discusses how Illinois is taking another step away from its dirtiest source of electricity, coal.

As President Donald Trump attempts to prop up the nation’s dwindling coal industry, Illinois is taking another step away from its dirtiest source of electricity.

Under a deal brokered by Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration, the Texas-based owner of eight coal-fired power plants in central and southern Illinois agreed last week to shutter 40% of its fleet by the end of the year.

Vistra Energy will be allowed to choose which units it retires and might scrap some of its cleaner power plants instead of the dirtiest. But the company’s agreement with the state’s new Democratic governor is far more stringent than industry-friendly rules proposed two years ago by former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.

Illinois: A Slippery Tale of Oil Spills and Secrecy

This story from the Food and Water Watch people should help readers understand just how bad fracking is, both for those who live nearby, and those far away. In 2017, a company applied for the first fracking license in Illinois, and received it, over near unanimous local opposition. In May, Woolsey Operating Company LLC submitted and was granted (after 4 rewrites, 10,000 signatures in opposition, and over 4,000 public comments of concern) the first High Volume Horizontal Hydraulic Fracturing well permit in Illinois.

 

Fracking To Begin In Illinois; Athletes & Mental Health; LaSalle County Nursing Home Reopens

On the 21st: We learned about the first fracking permit issued in Illinois and talked with residents of the town that will be affected. Plus, we discussed how athletes are speaking up about mental health and checked in with a LaSalle County nursing home that was hit by a tornado earlier this year.

https://will.illinois.edu/21stshow/program/fracking-in-illinois-athletes-mental-health-lasalle-county-nursing-home-reo