AIRE’s “solar benefit web calculator” has been updated


Granted it isn’t only for the potential of saving money that we might want to put solar on our home, business, school or place of worship. After all, greenhouse gas emissions are literally killing us. Money is a necessary construct though, if you’re going to install solar. The sunshine is free but it does cost


The Bankruptcy of Fracked Gas: The Chickens Coming Home to Roost


Just a quick little rant here, but it’s worth filing a mention of the goliath of fracked natural gas, Chesapeake Energy bankruptcy. I’m not going to get into the details since the story is everywhere in the financial news. To see how big a deal this is, just search “Chesapeake Energy bankruptcy” and you’ll get


Duke Energy on the dole: pays no taxes (but you sure do)


Duke Energy, a government-protected monopoly, not only still isn’t paying it’s fair share, it’s taking away from ordinary, working taxpayers. According to the 2018 update report released a few days ago from the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, which does a deep dive into the impacts of the 2017 corporate tax cuts on large,


A Lesson in Critical Reading: Michael Barnard Deconstructs Deceitful Energy Journalism


As the planet smolders, the Amazon burns, and the Bahamas are in ruin, and as Columbia Journalism Review just launched a project called Covering Climate Now to hold media accountable for real climate coverage, Michael Barnard just posted a piece over on CleanTechnica that is a textbook example of critical reading. His piece, Adventures in


Don’t believe Duke Energy when it says it wants to set the record straight on SB559 (Take 2)


(This piece is as submitted to the Raleigh News & Observer and unpublished by it. This is a second version of an AIRE blog piece, with this one offering some numbers to go along with the rhetorical critique offered in the first version.) ————————————– By Steve Owen, Ph.D. and Nancy LaPlaca, J.D. A recent News


Don’t believe Duke Energy when it says it wants to set the record straight on SB559


Over this past rainy weekend, an opinion piece in the Raleigh News & Observer caught my eye because its title contained the words Duke Energy and SB559. Its author, Mr. Stephen de May, president of Duke Energy North Carolina, used some language and made some claims which chiefly amount to “hey, we’re Duke Energy and


Connecting the Dots: Cheap fracked gas isn’t cheap, the public pays


I recently wrote about neighborhoods in and around Denver-Boulder trying to pass a modest proposition to keep fracking rigs a little farther away from their backyards. That vote failed in the November elections as the fracking industry piled on a mountain of money to make sure they could continue to drill along side backyards, schools,