Energy and the Environment
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The Energy, Utilities, and Telecommunications Committee is now holding hearings on HB 2228. The bill will reset the total capacity limitation for net energy metering (NEM) systems that may operate within the service territory of an investor-owned electric utility. The total capacity is now set at 1% and it will be increased to 10%, allowing… Read more
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A carbon dividend results from the Carbon Fee And Dividend approach to regulating greenhouse emissions. The money collected by the fee is not a tax, as it would be distributed equally to all citizens to compensate for the rising cost of fuel. In the United States, it is proposed that a fee of $15 per… Read more
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“Evergy is responsible for the high electric rates in Kansas, but the Kansas Legislature is to blame for nothing being done about it. “ In 2008, Kansas disbanded the Kansas Energy Council, which sought to take a strategic approach to the development of the state’s energy system. This left the three-member Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC)… Read more
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Fossil fuel companies knew in 1979 that carbon dioxide emissions would cause the Earth to warm, creating undesirable consequences for the Earth. By 1981, the Exxon scientist concluded that the burning of fossil fuels could be catastrophic for some of the world’s population by 2030. The choice between huge profits and the possibility of harming… Read more
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The countries of the world have reached a consensus that we need to reduce our carbon emissions. One proposal to do that is to switch to a hydrogen economy. The problem is that currently about 95% of the hydrogen we use is made using fossil fuels, which is an energy-intensive process that produces more CO2. The fossil… Read more
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This is a guest post written by Darrel Hart of Wichita, Kansas. Many people have expressed fears about the range of Electric Vehicles or about finding charging stations. This article should put those fears mostly to rest. “The last 10 days we drove an electric vehicle over 2,700 miles from Wichita Kansas to a mountain… Read more
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The Wichita City Council voted on June 15, 2021, to form a Sustainability Board. This was due to the work of several environmental groups, especially SOAR, who had that as one of its main goals. In 2017, a group of citizens in Wichita, Kansas formed the Society of Alternative Resources (SOAR) as a way to… Read more
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There’s a little bit of truth to every myth, and the hydrogen economy is no different. Hydrogen fuel cells would be wonderful for the environment. They combine hydrogen with oxygen from the atmosphere to produce electricity, and they emit pure water. The hydrogen can be made by electrolysis of water, and the energy for the… Read more
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I’m not sure how they got to be laws, but they do appear inviolable in most instances. The First Law: “Energy is conserved, i.e., it can be neither created nor destroyed.” However, it may change from one form to another, such as heat to work. This law allows you to trace energy as it changes… Read more
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New Greenhouse gases play a huge role in keeping the surface of the Earth warm. Without the greenhouse effect, the temperature of the Earth would average about -18°C, and all the water on the Earth’s surface would be ice. The average temperature of the Earth’s surface is now about 15°C and rising. The graph below… Read more
J.C. Moore Online 