Today’s comic by Mark Fiore is Exclusive Audio: Trump Phone Calls!
• Sweden’s recycling is so revolutionary it has to import trash to keep its recycling plants running.
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• Largest battery storage system in the world will also be one of the fastest constructed in history:
In August, San Diego Gas & Electric tapped energy storage company AES to install two energy storage projects totaling 37.5 [megawatts], 150 [megawatt-hours]. When completed, the larger, 120 MWh project is expected to be the single biggest lithium ion battery in service on a utility grid in the world.
Both battery facilities are expected to be online by the end of January 2017 — nothing short of miraculous in an industry where deploying assets, especially newfangled technologies, can take years.
• Kirk Douglas turns 100.
• EPI promotes public investment in much broader range of infrastructure:
A policy effort to boost public investment should include a broad portfolio of investments. “Core” infrastructure investments—building roads, bridges, transportation systems, water and sewer systems, and utility facilities—provide high rates of economic return. But so do many categories of noncore public investments, such as improving early child care and childhood education and investing in renewable energy and health care.
Many of these noncore investments—particularly human-services investments—are at least as neglected as core infrastructure. This is particularly true if one considers the low pay in these sectors that impedes the development of a fully professionalized and motivated workforce.
• Trump’s EPA pick thinks it’s okay for states to spew pollution but not to legalize pot.
• Thousands of small, invisible oil spills are killing the Gulf of Mexico:
Every year thousands of oil and chemical spills occur in waters around the country, but unless you live in a highly impacted area like Louisiana, you probably only hear about a handful of them. That’s partly because the Coast Guard classifies many spills—up to 100,000 gallons—as minor or moderate, and small spills get less of everything: less media attention, less regulation, less environmental impact assessment, and most critically, less funding to clean them up.
It makes sense that not every greasy pelican is national news. But as a group, they probably should be. Oil is toxic. Oil spills, however small, have a cumulative environmental impact. But the regulations in place to prevent them are limited, and in some cases, absurd. For instance, the US Coast Guard basically relies on oil companies to use the honor system when reporting leaks.
• You can find a larger, interactive version of the chart below by clicking here
• On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Even more bigly conflicted & leveraged. But, whatevs! New frontiers in bribery: inaugural committees. Armando called it: Trump’s not really rich? Josie Duffy Rice highlights a report saying some 40% of our prison population could & should really be released.
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