Energy justice in the news
Local:
Jason Armstrong/Civil Beat/2018
Hawaii Consumer Advocate Opposes Bioenergy Power Plant On Big Island By Paula Dobbyn, Civil Beat
Expensive prices passed on to customers and long-term environmental impacts are among the major concerns Hawaii’s Consumer Advocate and others continue to have about Hu Honua, a proposed tree-burning power plant on the Big Island.
After lengthy evidentiary hearings in early March, parties to the Hu Honua case before the state Public Utilities Commission filed hundreds of pages of briefs in recent days. Much of the paperwork continues to criticize the proposed bioenergy facility on the east side of Hawaii island. But Hu Honua stands by its project, saying it’s environmentally friendly, a job creator and a source of renewable power for island residents.
Hawaii’s Consumer Advocate, Life of the Land and Tawhiri Power all say important questions and concerns remain about Hawaii Electric Light Co.’s proposed power purchase agreement with Hu Honua. Read more
How Solar Farms On Mountain Slopes Could Help Hawaii Meet Food Sustainability Goals
By Brittany Lyte, Civil Beat
A growing number of Oʻahu solar farms have found homes on hilly terrain and lower mountain slopes, instead of planted like crops in neat rows on flat, even fields.
In the works, for example, is a 30-megawatt West Oʻahu solar project by Virginia-based AES Corp, a sweeping portion of which would be sited on the lower slopes of the southern Waʻianae Mountains.
As the state strives to grow more food and produce more green energy on an island chain with finite land available for development, competition for land threatens to upset goals to expand the agriculture and renewable energy industries. Read more here.
National:
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine extends into a second month and consumers continue to suffer at the pump, a new report from Friends of the Earth, BailoutWatch and Public Citizen highlights how the largest U.S. oil and gas companies are profiting. The report draws on oil and gas company securities filings to highlight that the companies have authorized spending a combined $45 billion for purchasing and retiring their own stock, directly enriching insiders and other shareholders.
The report finds:
In the first two months of 2022, seven companies’ boards authorized the repurchase of $24.35 billion in stock — a 15% increase over all of the buybacks authorized in 2021. Six of those decisions came in February 2022, after Russian warmongering lifted stock prices. The total since the start of 2021 is $45.6 billion.
More than half the companies boosted their dividends, often extravagantly, in January and February. Of the 11 companies raising their dividends, nine were increases of more than 15% and four were increases of more than 40%. Eleven companies have increased their payouts by at least 100%, some from zero, since the first quarter of 2021.
Six companies have begun paying additional dividends on top of their routine quarterly payments, including by implementing new variable dividends based on company earnings. So far in 2022, these companies have started paying out an initial $3 billion in special windfall dividends.