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Page added on November 8, 2013
Western Voters Say No To Fossil Fuels
Fossil fuels took a licking in local elections in Colorado and Washington on Tuesday, as voters resoundingly said no to oil and gas fracking and coal exports.
In Washington state, the four progressive candidates for seats on the Whatcom County Council that will likely decide the fate of a controversial coal export terminal proposal were running well ahead Tuesday night. Incumbents Ken Mann and Carl Weimer, and challengers Rud Browne and Barry Buchanan were all backed by opponents of the coal terminal, including Washington Conservation Voters which spent nearly $300,000 on the progressive candidates’ campaigns.
Because the county council will vote in a quasi-judicial capacity on permits for the proposed terminal, candidates could not explicitly express their views on the facility that would have a capacity of exporting about 48 million tons of coal per year to Asia. The coal would originate in the Powder River Basin region of Wyoming and Montana. The proposed terminal near Bellingham, Washington, is one of three still being planned in Oregon and Washington.
In Colorado, three of the four communities grappling with the issue of oil and gas drilling and fracking easily adopted measures that would stop fracking for either five years or permanently. The cities of Fort Collins and Boulder passed five year moratoria on tracking, and the city of Lafayette passed a so-called community rights measure that bans fracking. In the community of Broomfield, the vote on a five year fracking moratorium was too close to call.
Also in Boulder, voters gave some momentum to a drive for the city to replace electric utility Xcel Energy with its own municipal utility. They defeated a measure supported by Xcel that would have required voter approval of any utility bond issue and instead approved a separate measure to limit the cost of buying Xcel’s facilities to $214 million.
In Ohio, voters defeated proposed fracking bans in two out of three municipal elections where so-called community bill of rights charter amendments were on the ballot. The measures were defeated in Youngstown and Bowling Green, but one in Oberlin was well ahead. An existing fracking ban adopted by the Bowling Green city council this fall will not be affected by the failure of the charter amendment.
16 Comments on "Western Voters Say No To Fossil Fuels"
Arthur on Fri, 8th Nov 2013 11:59 am
Western Voters Say No To Fossil Fuels
Good news, but the article still does not contain text strings like ‘wind’, ‘solar’ or ‘renewable’. That’s probably still considered an issue for ‘tree-huggers’. Coal burning it is going to be.
Some free advice for the mayor of Whatcom:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/business/worldbusiness/28iht-carbon.4.7290268.html
BillT on Fri, 8th Nov 2013 12:50 pm
I will place my bets that the states/cities/towns will be over ridden by the feds. But, they will delay the destruction for a while.
Arthur on Fri, 8th Nov 2013 2:27 pm
off-topic: I don’t understand that you are still posting Bill:
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/taifun-haiyan-meteorologen-warnen-vor-dem-monstersturm-a-932530.html
“Monstersturm…”Haiyan” könnte der stärkste Sturm sein, der jemals auf Land getroffen ist.”.
Der Spiegel reports that this storm could be the strongest storm to hit land EVER.
Charlie Bucket on Fri, 8th Nov 2013 3:01 pm
@BillT: Glad to see you are still with us. Hope the largest Typhoon in recorded history didn’t cause you too much consternation.
Arthur on Fri, 8th Nov 2013 3:10 pm
I just read that Manila is not the most affected area:
http://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article121664414/Taifun-Haiyan-stuerzt-die-Philippinen-ins-Chaos.html
“Die dicht besiedelte Region um die Hauptstadt Manila soll nach Erwartung der Meteorologen nicht betroffen sein.”
The densely populated area around Manila is expected not to be hit according to meteorologists.
bobinget on Fri, 8th Nov 2013 5:38 pm
Good news! Western Voters, from now on will only fill fuel tanks half way. Apps are available to compute volume remaining in gas tanks to prevent over-fills.
No need to EVER fill up that gas tank with overpriced gasoline! Provided the above average person drives fewer then 100 miles weekly there will be no need to ever say “fill her up” again. Think of the money saved!
(since, unlike Oregon, Colorado has no service station station attendants, careful instruct the ‘little woman’ how many gallons are required this week) Here’s helpful tip. Never scold her for ‘going over the limit’.
This is especially important if you have given the LW
proper handgun training.
Mike999 on Fri, 8th Nov 2013 6:21 pm
Don’t worry bobinget, Hybrids and EV’s are rapidly dropping in price. Battery pricing is falling through the floor.
Solar will be cheaper then ALL Other energy sources in 6 years and 1 month.
Solar Panel prices are dropping while efficiency is climbing.
Do you get it?
GAS is DEAD, in the next generation.
It’s time EXXON became an Energy Company and expanded in to Wind and Solar, or Shut the company Down.
J-Gav on Fri, 8th Nov 2013 7:12 pm
The fact is that very few voters anywhere in the Western world (and probably elsewhere) would come close to saying “No to fossil fuels.” That doesn’t make local resistance to fracking and destructive, polluting, water-consuming coal-mining techniques any less valid. But let’s just keep the facts straight.
Arthur on Fri, 8th Nov 2013 7:35 pm
The fact is that very few voters anywhere in the Western world (and probably elsewhere) would come close to saying “No to fossil fuels.”
http://www.dw.de/survey-finds-germans-want-shift-to-renewables/a-17167037
“An overwhelming majority – some 84 percent – of those interviewed said they expect the new government to push for a quick switch to an energy system powered 100 percent by renewable sources of energy.”
Indeed, let’s get our facts straight.
BillT on Sat, 9th Nov 2013 12:25 am
Arthur, ‘want’ and ‘able’ are two totally different words. To be totally independent with renewables means that they have everything within their borders to make, use and store energy and to make use and replace the means to do so. They do not have that and likely never will. No separate country will.
As for the typhoon, we got a few showers in Manila, but the worst was south of the city. So far the death toll is low, around 3 or so, but the totals will come later. The people were evacuated the day before the storm and prepared as best you can for a category 5.
Arthur on Sat, 9th Nov 2013 8:26 am
This just in: Germany increases renewable energy target for 2020 (6 years from now) from 35 to 40%:
http://deepresource.wordpress.com/2013/11/09/germany-to-increase-speed-energy-transition/
Target for 2030: somewhere between 50-75%.
This is obviously about electricity only.
J-Gav on Sat, 9th Nov 2013 10:17 am
BillT – Thanks for answering Arthur on that one … I’ll just add that saying “No” to fossil fuels at this juncture is tantamount to saying “I don’t want lights, hot water or personal transportation.”
Arthur on Sat, 9th Nov 2013 11:05 am
So J-Gav, you think that Germany is not going to achieve 40% by 2020 and that they are bluffing? They are at 26% now:
http://cleantechnica.com/2013/11/07/germany-solar-pv-report-must-read-energy-reporter/
But you are right, saying ‘no’ against fossil and at the same time curse technology at every opportunity as the source of all evil, will ensure that the lights go out.
Flirtations with low standards are not going to save us. Sustainable renewable technology has the potential to at least consolidate some of the goodies we got used to during the past decades. Let’s have it. As the situation is now, Europe is going to achieve the energy transition first, but I would love to see North-America pick up the gauntlet and engage in a friendly, non-destructive competition with us to see who gets there first; a bit like the Airbus-Boeing or Galileo-GPS competition.
J-Gav on Sat, 9th Nov 2013 5:54 pm
Arthur – Warum eigentlich weisen Sie immer auf die Deutsche Lage hin? Als ob sie typisch in der ganzen westlichen Welt wäre! Ganz zu schweigen von den grossen Problemen die sie dort begegnen in der “Energiewende”. Sie haben vielleicht gemerkt dass Kohle erlebt haützutage eine gewisse Auferstehung, zum Beispiel?
Apologies to other posters. As
Arthur has recently been raising Germany up as an energy role-model (and referring to articles in German to do so), just thought I’d let him know he’s not the only German-language reader on this site. The gist of my comment is that the famous German “Energy Transition” isn’t quite as successful as the media make it out to be. Load-balancing problems and coal is making a come-back. Great! I remember shoveling it up from the basement when I lived in Cologne… felt like a miner in that foul black dust.
Arthur on Sat, 9th Nov 2013 11:49 pm
J-Gav, ich weise staendig auf die Deutsche Lage hin, gerade weil sie nicht typisch ist fuer die westlichen Welt, sondern wegweisend ist. The rise of coal has everything to do with the sudden decision to decommission the nuclear power plants; it is not significant. Significant is the radical choice for renewables as quickly as possible. Nobody denies the problems the Germans have with storage, grid capacity, etc., nevertheless they have a clear course –> 100% renewable as soon as possible.
Ha, so you lived in Koeln as well, like I did, Anfang Neunziger, in Koeln-Deutz to be precise, when I was working for two years for a very large car company, Fjord if I remember well, must have been Norwegian 😉
Arthur on Sat, 9th Nov 2013 11:50 pm
Oops, something went wrong with the formatting, only ‘nicht’ should be bold.