 |
|
|
|||||
A proposed solar farm in New Mexico aims to finish construction by 2029 or 2030. But the developer that hopes to build it now plans to buy solar panels for the project earlyso it could potentially beat the governments new deadline to qualify for federal tax credits. The new budget law signed by President Trump on July 4 slashed incentives for clean power. New solar and wind projects were left with two limited options to get tax credits. First, a new project can qualify if it starts generating power by the end of 2027. Thats a tiny window of time for projects that typically take several years to permit and build. The law also offers a safe harbor option: if you start building a new wind or solar farm within the next 12 months, you have another four years to finish. While were not thrilled with this legislationto say the leastwere going to just respond to the circumstances, says Jim Spencer, president and CEO of Exus Renewables North America, a wind and solar developer. What that means, of course, is grandfathering as many projects as possible. In New Mexico, Exus has multiple proposals under consideration for new solar farms; by buying solar panels early, the company will be ready to move forward quickly when it wins a bid. Developers can take a few other steps to accelerate projects. If they still need approval from a local community, for example, they might offer extra incentives like more funding for schools or roads. If the regional grid has limited capacity to add energy on local transmission lines, the developer could decide to add more battery storage to ease demand and help it get approval. In some cases, developers might be able to work directly with a customer like a data center and build a microgrid that avoids the need to connect to the grid at all. Right now, the slowest part of building any new wind or solar farm is the interconnection queue, where grid operators analyze and approve energy projects. There are currently more than 10,000 renewable projects in the queue, according to Interconnection.fyi. Getting approval can take years. Technology could also potentially help. PJM, the regional grid that covers an area ranging from parts of Illinois to Tennessee, recently announced that it was working with Google and Tapestry, an Alphabet project, to use AI to review interconnection requests more quickly. And “grid-enhancing technologies” can make it possible for transmission lines to handle more power, removing another bottleneck. Permitting is another challenge, but states could change policy to help speed that up. First, some outdated types of permits could potentially be eliminated for clean energy. Applying conventional energy permitting requirements for a coal plant to a solar project is apples to oranges, says Harry Godfrey, who leads the federal policy team at Advanced Energy United, an industry group. States could also move to a checklist approach, where developers are responsible for doing their own assessments and validating them. In Texas, where permitting requirements are streamlined, we see real differences in terms of speed and scale of project development compared to the vast majority of the rest of the country, Godfrey says. States could also make it easier to site projects. Local communities should be able to make some decisions about whether projects should get built, says Evan Vaughan, executive director at the Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Coalition (MAREC) Action, a group of renewable developers and manufacturers. But he argues that also has to be balanced with the energy demand in a region. PJM has said that its peak demand could rise by a staggering 70 gigawattsenough to power around 52 million homesover the next decade. “That’s an almost inconceivable amount of energy,” Vaughan says. “The more of these near-term projects that don’t reach fruition, not only does it mean it’s harder to meet that goal, but it’s also going to come at a higher expense.” For utilities, there’s an incentive to help get as many projects built now as possible. “I think that they all realize that the sooner that they can contract and avail themselves projects with tax credits the cheaper their electricity is going to be,” says Spencer. But it’s not clear how quickly states or grid operators could make the changes to help more projects get built soon enough to use the tax credits. In many areas, state action would be politically difficult; a growing number of counties across the country have restricted or even banned new renewable projects. Some projects that are at an early stage now likely won’t get built. An analysis from Jesse Jenkins, who leads Princeton’s Zero-carbon Energy systems Research and Optimization (ZERO) Lab, found that future projects without the credits could cost 50% more. If the supply of projects in the pipeline shrinks while demand continues to quickly grow, the price of energy will go up. So even if some projects aren’t financially viable now without the tax credits, they soon could be. “That’s because we’ll all be paying more for power,” Godfrey says. “That’s one of the fundamental ironies of this bill. It’s intended to make life more affordable, but the result is it makes it more expensive.” The industry also faces a risk that the administration may go farther. Trump reportedly promised Republicans in Congress that he’d find ways to stop all projects from getting tax credits, despite what the new law says. But because of the growth in demand for energy, and the fact that large customers like data centers prefer renewables, wind and solar could still continue to grow. In many parts of the country, they’re the cheapest source of new power even without the tax credits. Meanwhile, developers like Exus will continue racing forward. “I think for the next couple of years, we’re all going to be very, very busy,” says Spencer. “Because we’re going to be building everything that we can.”
Category:
E-Commerce
Calls to boycott Etsy are growing since Alligator Alcatraz merch popped up on its marketplace. The term refers to the Trump administration’s new migrant detention facility in the Florida Everglades. The detention facility, built from Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers and temporary shelters at the site of a training airport in Miami-Dade County, is in the middle of a natural alligator habitat. It has drawn condemnation from tribal, environmental, and civil rights groups. The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida called the facility part of a broader strategy to expand the abusive mass detention machine, and in turn, criminalize and disappear members of our communities.” It has not drawn condemnation, though, from Etsy, which claims to prohibit “content which directly or indirectly contains violent or degrading commentary” against people over traits like their race, religion, gender, or immigration status. The availability of “Alligator Alcatraz” merchandise on the site has inspired calls for boycotts on social media that have received thousands of reactions. Etsy did not respond to a request for comment. [Screenshot: Etsy] Etsy’s terms of service around discrimination and hateful content are broad, with the term indirectly allowing for enforcement against veiled, coded, and subtle violations. Considering the derisive and violent nature of how President Trump and his supporters have spoken about the facility, “Alligator Alcatraz” seems to fall under the policy’s generous umbrella. When Trump toured the detention facility last week, he joked that detainees would learn “how to run away from an alligator if they escape prison.” Much of Etsy’s “Alligator Alcatraz” merch has the look of AI-generated slop, which is at odds with the company’s recent push to highlight human-made products. And it’s not clear how much of an audience there is for this stuff. A 53% majority of U.S. adults disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, according to a Yahoo/YouGov poll, and Etsy pages for “Alligator Alcatraz” products don’t suggest robust sales, with low views and few notes indicating products had been purchased or put into carts. There’s also competition, with official Florida Republican Party “Alligator Alcatraz” merch and more options on Amazon. It’s clear Etsy understands the art of political subtly when it comes to the left- and right-leaning political categories it organizes for T-shirts with quiet, hidden political messages. For merch celebrating Trump’s new detention facility, though, that understanding suddenly seems lost.
Category:
E-Commerce
In the age of climate change, many people are trying to consume more mindfully. When it comes to fashion, this often means buying fewer clothes and wearing them longer. But that’s a hard principle to follow with children’s clothing. Kids grow out of garments quickly; they also rip and stain clothes with abandon. It’s tempting to buy them cheap clothes that you won’t mind throwing out after a few wears. And it’s easy to do exactly that when fast fashion for kids is abundant, everywhere from Target to H&M. Now, a new platform wants to make it equally easy for parents and kids to shop secondhand clothing. Rebecca Bahmani [Photo: courtesy Prelove Me] Today, Prelove Me unveils a membership-based platform that allows you to buy and sell used clothing exclusively for kids. And unlike other secondhand clothing websites like ThredUp and Poshmark, Prelove Me doesn’t transact in money but in credits. You get credits for sending in clothes, which you can then use to buy other products on the site. “In the age of fast fashion, it’s easy to think of clothes as disposable,” says Rebecca Bahmani, Prelove You’s founder. “We’re trying to push back against this by teaching them that their clothes have actual value, which they can use to buy other clothes.” The planet is drowning in clothing Some experts estimate that fashion brands produce upwards of 100 billion garments every year, for only eight billion humans. Producing these clothes consumes enormous quantities of raw materials like cotton and oil, and is responsible for up to 8.6% of the world’s global greenhouse gas footprint. There are now many companies like Circ and Repreve that are developing technology that will enable us to recycle old clothes into new ones, which is far less environmentally damaging than making new clothes from scratch. But until this kind of recycling is widespread, a more sustainable approach is buying used clothes. After all, there are already enough garments on the planet to clothe humanity for decades into the future. [Image: courtesy Prelove Me] With Prelove Me, Bahmani wanted to create a platform that would make it easier for families to access secondhand clothing for their kids. To shop the site, you must first become a member. There are three tiers of membership, ranging from $35 a month to $95 a month, that gives you access to between 30 and 75 credits every month. Clothes are priced based on their quality and brand. A Rockets of Awesome bomber jacket is 21 credits, a pair of Vans velcro sneakers is 31 credits. “A membership makes sense because families need to buy clothes for their kids on a regular basis,” she says. “Kids outgrow things quickly, and they have specific needs, like swimsuits for the summer.” Bahmani, who previously worked at a lace manufacturer called Klauber Brothers, Inc., bootstrapped the company. She spent years collecting the initial inventory by asking for donations to launch the site. But the company is also raising funds to allow it to scale, particularly when it comes to automating the logistics of receiving secondhand clothes, uploading them to the website, then sending them out to customers. ThredUp, a secondhand website that generated $260 million in revenue last year, has scaled thanks to its high-tech, highly automated warehouses. [Image: courtesy Prelove Me] To continue growing the platform’s inventory, members are invited to send in all the clothes that their kids have outgrown. They will get credits based on the quality of the garment. Clothes from designer brands and those in excellent or unworn condition will get more credits than those from mass market brands and clothes that show more wear and tear. But the website accepts clothes from all brands, including fast fashion labels like Shein. Bahmani point out that even clothes with a cheap price tag take a lot of resources to make, and it is just as important to keep them out of landfills. Bahmani wanted to make sure that families felt comfortable sending in clothes that are unwearable. Prelove will offer one credit for these clothes, and will send them to be upcycled at a company that produces housing insulation. “We’re trying to teach kids to dispose of clothes responsibly,” Bahmani says. “Upcycling is much better than just throwing them in a landfill. And in time, we’ll be looking at fabric-to-fabric recycling.” [Photo: courtesy Prelove Me] Teaching Kids Good Habits Prelove You’s website is designed to be fun, interactive, and simple enough for kids to use. The number of credits required to buy a product are clearly marked, and it’s easy to “favorite” products. And because it focuses exclusively on kid’s clothes, it is easier for kids to navigate. “Kids often want to be involved with choosing their own clothes,” she says. “We wanted to make the experience fun for them.” More broadly, however, her goal is to help instill more responsible shopping habits in kids. This website is supposed to make shopping pre-owned just as fun as shopping new. It’s also designed to give children a tangible sense of what a circular economy looks like, where clothes are kept in circulation as long as possible. There’s some evidence that young people are more willing to buy thrifted goods than previous generation: 83% of Gen Z is willing to shop pre-owned, and the global secondhand market has increased by more than a third in recent years. But at the same time, young people responsible for the explosion in ultra fast fashion brands like Shein and Temu. Many teens and twentysomethings now buy enormous quantities of clothesor “hauls”from cheap retailers and share them on social media. Bahmani believes that there is still time to shape the shopping habits of younger kids, so they grow up to be the kinds of people who understand the value of clothing and live more sustainably. “If they grow up being excited about shopping preowned, they’re likely to become adults who do the same,” she says.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||