Kenny Stein, IER’s Policy Director, joins the show to discuss the 2 trillion dollar coronavirus relief bill recently passed by the federal government. Kenny provides an overview of what the bill means for American energy and examines what provisions made it in the final bill, and which didn’t.
The post Plugged In Podcast #46: Kenny Stein on Special Interests and the Coronavirus Relief Bill appeared first on IER.
Several states and cities have banned the use of single-use plastic bags in favor of reusable shopping bags. Studies have shown, however, that reusable bags can carry viruses and bacteria, spread them throughout a grocery store or pharmacy, and live on surfaces for up to three days. Tony Radoszewski, President and CEO of the Plastics Industry Association wrote a letter to Alex Azar, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, requesting the Department “to speak out against bans on these products as a public safety risk…” The letter noted:
In recent years, there has been a push to eliminate single-use products at the local, state, and now even at the federal level. During that time, the plastics industry has been working to educate the general public and elected officials that single-use plastic products are the most sanitary choice when it comes to many applications, especially the consumption and transport of food, whether purchased at a restaurant or at a grocery store.
And,
The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing many Americans, businesses and government officials to realize that single-use plastics are often the safest choice.
Some States Reverse Their Bans on Plastic Bags
Eight states have banned single-use plastic bags and hundreds of municipalities are also doing so. But, some of those states and localities have realized that reusable bags can spread the coronavirus. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu prohibited shoppers from bringing reusable bags to stores and ordered stores to make new paper or plastic bags available. Maine delayed a bag ban that was scheduled for April 22. Boston Mayor Martin Walsh issued an executive order allowing plastic bag use in the city for retailers that qualify as essential businesses under a state executive order. That executive order was followed by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker announcing a ban on reusable shopping bags and allowing grocery stores, pharmacies, food banks, and emergency food programs to use single-use plastic bags without charging customers for them.
A statewide ban went into effect in New York on March 1, but enforcement was delayed and then further delayed to May 15 as courts effectively closed down earlier this month. According to a New York government official, NY’s ban on plastic bags will help the state reduce plastic pollution, including keeping plastic bags out of tree branches and waterways. The department estimates that 23 billion plastic bags are used annually statewide. New York’s state law makers were told of the health risks before they passed the law. One activist even warned that New York could be particularly vulnerable because New Yorkers often rest their bags on the floors of subway cars containing potentially deadly bacteria from rats—and then set the bags on supermarket checkout counters.
Instead, the New York Department of Health issued a webpage entitled “Reusable Grocery Bags: A Smart Choice But Play It Safe”, added the following cautions: Grocery shoppers should segregate different foods in different bags; package meat and fish and poultry in small disposable plastic bags inside their tote bags; wash and dry their tote bags carefully; store the tote bags in a cool, dry place; and never to reuse the grocery tote bags for anything but food. Clearly, it is unrealistic to expect people to follow all those rules. Food manufacturers and grocers know that disposable plastic is the cheapest, simplest, and safest way to prevent foodborne illnesses.
The ban on plastic bags will also mean more trash in landfills because paper bags and reusable totes take up more space than thin disposable plastic bags and emit more greenhouse emissions because of their larger carbon footprints since reusable totes and paper bags require more water to manufacture and more energy to produce and transport. It would be more beneficial to establish programs to discourage littering and to pick up everything that’s discarded—a direct approach that has proved effective in the past.
Another Reason for the Ban
During the 1970s, environmentalists wanted the government to restrict the use of plastics because they were made from oil, which many thought would soon be depleted. Both the oil-depletion and the plastics-made-from-oil beliefs, however, are myths since the United States is now the number one producer of oil in the world and plastics are not made directly from crude oil, but from a feedstock that is derived from oil. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), plastics are produced from natural gas, feedstocks derived from natural gas processing, and feedstocks derived from crude oil refining.
Data from 2010, when the EIA last collected this information, shows that about 191 million barrels of liquid petroleum gases and natural gas liquids were used for the production of plastics along with 412 billion cubic feet of natural gas. The liquids amount constituted about 2.7 percent of the country’s total petroleum consumption. Most of the natural gas used in plastics production was used as a fuel rather than feedstock. In addition to petroleum products and natural gas, about 65 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity were used to manufacture plastics in 2010, equal to about 1.7 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption.
Like other products that the nation uses and needs, plastics are manufactured using energy.
Other Uses for Single-Use Plastic Bags
One New Yorker started a nonprofit group, called Mats for a Mission that uses donated, clean plastic bags to crochet sleeping mats for homeless people. The mats keep people off the cold or wet ground, and are washable. Consumers are the main source of the donated bags. It takes 850 bags and 50 hours to crochet one 3-foot-by-6-foot-long mat, after chopping the ends off the bags, cutting them into strips and tying them together to make plastic yarn, which takes another 20 hours. The group has kept about half a million bags out of the waste stream.
The Cheektowaga, NY resident started making the mats three-and-a-half years ago at the local library, storing bags and mats in her van. The group now uses 4,000 square feet in a former store at a mall in Buffalo to make the mats. About 470 of the colorful, quarter-inch thick pads were available in February for distribution to the homeless and another 110 were available in March.
Plastic bags also have other advantages. For example, pet owners use them for cleaning up after their dogs and in major urban areas of the United States where human excrement in public places is a growing problem, plastic bags that can be easily disposed of offer a quick solution.
Conclusion
Eight states have banned single-use plastic bags, having grocery store patrons use reusable totes or paper bags instead, meaning and businesses are not allowed to determine what product is best for them and their customers. The 2019 novel coronavirus is just one of many pathogens that shoppers can spread unless they wash their reusable bags regularly, which few people will bother to do. Viruses and bacteria can survive in the tote bags up to nine days, according to one study of coronaviruses. Rather than banning plastic bags, it would be more beneficial for states to re-examine their policies and figure out a better way to dispose of them or recycle them. Furthermore, the ban on single-use plastic bags will mean more trash in landfills and more greenhouse emissions.
The post Plastic Bags Enlisted to Fight the Coronavirus appeared first on IER.
Posted by amandamilligan
This is a stressful time to say the least. Everything is impacted by COVID-19 in some way, including our work.
Once we’ve taken time to acknowledge how lucky we are to work in digital, it’s time to assess if our current content strategy needs any adjusting based on current events.
Many marketers are finding themselves:
So, I spent hours using Ubersuggest, putting myself in the shoes of various Americans. I tested a variety of keywords to see which ones have exhibited a trend during the COVID-19 outbreak and might warrant some attention from content marketers.
The results below are for the term “Coronavirus,” so for the other keywords identified, I looked for a noticeable spike in the months of January, February, and March to make sure they matched up accordingly.
My findings reveal potential topic ideas for several primary industries. See if any provide inspiration for high-quality content you can create in the coming months.
I’ll start with one of the industries hardest hit by this pandemic: travel. This was a tough one, as more and more people are understandably opting for driving, walking, or biking to get around, and are no longer relying on air travel or public transportation as trips and work get cancelled. However, I identified a few key opportunities.
While it had an increase in the summer months, interest in the topic of travel insurance has risen back up again. Perhaps those who have to travel want to make sure they’re covered if they get sick, or maybe those who canceled travel want to see what their insurance covers.
In either case, people are looking for information about travel insurance and how it can help them.
It seems that train travel falls into an ambiguous category that people are asking about. I’m not here to say whether it’s safe or not (as that is obviously not my area of expertise). As we’ve all heard, it’s best not to travel at all, but perhaps your brand can offer some clarity in this regard and offer alternatives.
For everyone stuck at home but still grappling with wanderlust, how can they still explore from the couch? Virtual travel seems to be gaining popularity as more people find themselves stuck at home.
In some cases, companies and schools have gone from in-person to virtual nearly overnight. It’s been a huge shakeup across the board, and relevant topics are trending accordingly.
Many kids are home from school, and their parents are suddenly and unexpectedly in the position of teaching them. They’re sure to have a lot of questions! Note how the search level now is the same as the summer months, when kids are also home.
With all plans essentially cancelled as a result of “social distancing,” people are looking for ways to spend their time at home. If you offer online courses, consider amplifying them and explaining their value. If you don’t, consider whether it makes sense to create one.
Executives and staff alike are looking for advice on how to improve productivity while working from home, perhaps for the first time. Consider creating content with suggestions on how to set up a home office or maintain a schedule while dealing with at-home distractions.
Whether it’s because people are working or studying at home for the first time or because they’re anxious and distracted by the developing events, more and more people are struggling to stay focused. Can your brand offer anything by way of motivation or tools for focus and efficiency?
Everyone’s at home either trying to distract themselves from the stressful reality of the world or looking to cure their boredom. As a result, online entertainment is on the rise. Can you offer the entertainment itself, or maybe guides on how to choose the best entertainment?
We’re stuck with digital for now, and people are looking for new media to consume. What can your brand provide? Also trending: “cheap digital games” and “best multiplayer video games”.
Some folks are using their newfound free time to work on hobbies and skills they haven’t had the chance to pursue in the past. Can your brand teach them anything?
This is particularly interesting to me. Keyword rates for this term are as high as they were over the holidays. I’m wondering if people who still have disposable income will pass the time online shopping, while others who are more financially impacted will cut back, leaving things at a net equal?
Aside from the health and safety of the population, finance cuts most to the emotional core of this pandemic. Many people are laid off or can’t work, and financial worry is skyrocketing. What can you do to provide guidance or relief?
Many people are unexpectedly looking to file unemployment, and plenty of those people have no idea how to do it, how much money they’ll get, or how to get that information. Informative guides and tips could be hugely helpful in this area.
With layoffs and pay cuts, people are scrambling to find new ways to save money. Also trending with the same graph results: “How to invest money wisely” -- most likely because of the fluctuating stock market. Can you provide insight?
When tensions run high, it’s important to pay attention to all the relationships in your life, meaning several subtopics in this vertical can be of vital importance.
Couples stuck inside are looking for ways to keep up their romantic lives. Does it make sense for your brand to provide dating or relationships tips at an unprecedented time like this?
Physically, we’re all practicing social distancing, but we shouldn’t be virtually disconnecting from the people in our lives. It looks like people are wondering if they should take advantage of this free time to reconnect with old friends. Can your brand offer advice on the topic, or possibly a forum for those connections to happen?
There are a lot of jokes going around about Gen Zs and Millennials trying to convince their Boomer parents to stay inside. But the jokes are for a reason: Many people are having tough conversations for the first time with family that they aren’t entirely sure how to navigate. Could you provide some helpful tips to approach these conversations?
Health is, unsurprisingly, a vital category right now. Rather than getting into some of the most obvious things (like hand washing, hand sanitizer, etc.), I’ll try to cover some other popular topics that might be useful.
Similar to “unemployment” above, this is probably a response to people losing their jobs who are now unsure how they can get health insurance. What other concerns might these people have that you can help with?
People might have to stay home, but they’re also trying to stay healthy. How can you assist them in this endeavor?
Also trending: “how to start running”, indicating that solitary outdoor exercise is key, too.
People are concerned about their health and want to do whatever they can to protect themselves from COVID-19. However, only dive into this subject matter if your brand is a legitimate medical expert. False information can damage lives.
Also trending: “healthy diet”.
Don’t forget about mental health, which is also being affected by the pandemic. People are stressed, anxious, worried, and, well, scared. Does it make sense for your brand to provide guidance on how to emotionally or mentally approach this day and age?
Also trending: “meditation”.
In many cases, entire families are at home, every day, for the first time since the kids were old enough to be in school. That can lead to some interesting challenges.
In an effort to keep the house clean, people may be looking for guidance on the best type of supplies to use. Could you make a list of the most effective products?
Also trending: “organic cleaning products”.
Everyone’s at home for all their meals and trying to avoid restaurants, so they probably need more recipes in their arsenal. Maybe your employees have favorite family recipes you could share with your readers.
Parents are used to this over the summer, but not when it’s sprung on them for an indefinite period of time. How can your brand give them ideas and tools to entertain their kids while they’re home?
Also trending: “family conversation starters”.
To round out this study, I want to show the results for “uplifting stories.”
If you’re not responsible for delivering breaking news or important COVID-19 updates, look for opportunities to amplify joy, gratitude, hope, or any other positive emotion. People are looking for health and safety updates, but they’re looking for inspiration, too.
Consider how any of these topics might apply to your brand, do some further exploring in the Moz Keyword Explorer, and focus on creating a content plan you feel confident in.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!
During World War II, American industrial giants retooled their operations to make the United States the “Arsenal of Democracy.” Today, in response to President Trump’s metaphorical call to arms against COVID-19, America is once again flexing its industrial muscles to answer that call and produce life-saving equipment to battle the virus.
Ford is working with 3M Company to accelerate production of respirators, using off-the-shelf parts where possible, including fans from the Ford F-150 pickup’s cooled seats and 3M air filters. Ford is also using United Auto Workers members to assemble more than 100,000 plastic face shields a week. The company is also planning to help General Electric’s health-care unit produce ventilators that hospitals desperately need for coronavirus patients. Ford’s project, called Project Apollo after the Apollo 13 spacecraft rescue mission, will help GE and 3M scale their existing efforts to provide critical products to hospitals to save lives during the coronavirus outbreak.
Ford is coordinating with General Motors to avoid duplicating efforts as each company reaches out to their suppliers to produce medical devices. GM is exploring the feasibility of building ventilators for Ventec Life Systems Inc. at one of its auto-parts plants in Indiana. Another automaker, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, is planning to produce 1 million masks a month at one of its plants in China to donate to first responders and health-care providers in the United States and is supporting Italian ventilator manufacturer Siare Engineering International Group increase its output.
Automobile companies have closed their auto assembly lines to keep their employees from catching and spreading the coronavirus. Now they are using their facilities to manufacture medical equipment that is in short supply. That medical equipment is manufactured from plastic components made from natural gas and oil feedstocks and the transportation sector uses gasoline and diesel to transport the supplies to the factories for assemblage. Without the oil and natural gas products to make the plastic components and to transport the supplies to factories and hospitals, these manufacturers would not be able to help with the coronavirus outbreak. America’s status as the number one oil and gas producer in the world is a distinct positive benefit to our nation’s strength and the health of all Americans, just as our energy resources fueled the furnaces that provided for the troops during World War II.
Ford’s Partnership with GE
Ford will help produce a simplified version of GE Healthcare’s existing ventilator, which is used to help patients suffering respiratory failure or having difficulty breathing that are symptoms of the coronavirus. The first ventilator is expected to be completed by early June. GE has already doubled its output of ventilators in the months since the coronavirus outbreak began, and it expects to double production again by the end of the second quarter, independent of the Ford partnership. Ford is not new to manufacturing medical equipment. The company had manufactured medical equipment in the past, including portable incubators to prevent infant deaths in rural areas in the early 1940s and ventilators then known as iron lungs during the 1948 polio epidemic.
GM Partnership with Ventec Life Systems
Even before the President invoked the Defense Production Act to compel GM to produce ventilators, they were on the march. GM is partnering with Washington-based Ventec Life Systems, a small ventilator manufacturer, and StopTheSpread.org—an organization that brings together businesses to prevent the virus from spreading. Ventec Life Systems and General Motors have been working to implement plans to build more critical care ventilators. With GM’s support, Ventec is planning exponentially higher ventilator production. GM’s Kokomo Operations in Indiana makes electronic components and assemblies. The 2.6 million-square-foot facility employs 274 hourly and 118 salaried employees, which can help in the production of medical equipment. GM has also tapped its suppliers to support the effort, which includes Minneapolis-based Twin City Die Castings Company that makes housing for electronics in control and four-wheel drive systems and airbags. Twin City believes that it can help Ventec increase its ventilator production from 150 ventilators per month to up to 200,000 ventilators per year.
Conclusion
Americans are blessed to have industrial giants and ample energy of all kinds during the current coronavirus crisis. Due to the shortages of ventilators, respirators, and other essential equipment, automakers are using their facilities to help produce medical equipment. The automakers are leveraging their engineering, logistics, and manufacturing expertise to help boost the production of ventilators, respirators, and other needed equipment to save lives and combat the coronavirus. One can lose sight of the necessary relationships to make such efforts work. It takes coordination not just from the automakers and their suppliers but from the folks delivering the supplies. Behind all these end products is the energy sector that is helping to produce the plastic components of the medical devices and the fuel needed to transport them to the manufacturing facilities and the final product to hospitals and medical centers. America’s manufacturing and energy industries are answering the call to arms from President Trump on behalf of our nation.
The post Automakers and Other Manufacturers Help Fight the War on the Coronavirus appeared first on IER.
Posted by MiriamEllis
Local businesses know better than any other model what it means to fully participate in community life. You are the good neighbors who are there to serve, inspire, and sustain the people and traditions that make your town a unique and enjoyable place to call home.
As we explore this topic of what local businesses can do during the COVID-19 pandemic, I want to honor all that you have always done to take care of your community as a local business owner or marketer. Thank you.
In this article, you will find local SEO tips that could make a difference for your business in the coming weeks, innovative resources for support, advice from my own tight-knit community of some of the world’s best local SEOs, and some serious thinking about building a better local future.
First and foremost, start each day with a review of both local and national news to be sure you are complying with the evolving regulations for your city, county, and country. Policies designed to mitigate the harm of COVID-19 vary widely from region to region, and your business must keep informed of which forms of service you are allowed to offer in this dynamic scenario.
And, while social media can be a great connector within your community at any time, beware of misinformation and, sadly, scams in the days ahead. Get your news from sources you trust, and if you are not certain about interpreting a guideline, directly contact local authorities. This article does not take the place of laws and regulations specific to your community.
The most helpful thing any local business can do right now, whether it’s deemed an essential or non-essential service, is to provide accurate information to its community. There are three key places to do this:
“More than ever, your Google Business Profile is a critical communication nexus with your customers”. —Mike Blumenthal, GatherUp
Local businesses know just how big a role Google plays as intermediary between brands and the public. This remains true during this difficult time however, Google’s local product is not running at full strength. Joy Hawkins’ article for Local University on March 23 details the limited support for or complete discontinuation of Google Q&As, posts, descriptions, reviews, and owner responses. It’s an evolving scenario, with local SEOs reporting different outcomes each day. For example, some practitioners have been able to get some, but not all, Google posts to publish.
As of writing this, there are four fields you can utilize to communicate current information to customers via GMB, but please be aware that some edits may take several days to go into effect:
Google is allowing businesses to edit their business name field to reflect that they are offering curbside service, takeout, and delivery. For example, if your current name is “John’s Grill”, you are allowed to temporarily change your name to “John’s Grill — Delivery Available”.
If regulations are keeping you at home but you still want customers to be able to reach you on your home or cell phone for information, update your work answering machine to reflect the changes and edit your GMB phone number to the appropriate new number.
The discussion on how best to show that your business either has no hours or limited new hours is ongoing. I believe the best route for the present is to use Google’s method of setting special hours. This option should be especially useful for multi-location enterprises who can set special hours via the API.
Be advised, however, that there are some instances of agencies setting special hours for clients and then clients receiving emails from Google asking if the business has closed. This can alarm those clients. However, to date, it appears that when Google receives responses to this prompt that yes, the business is closed, they simply put a message about this on the listing rather than remove the listing entirely.
On March 25, Google implemented a “temporarily closed” button inside the “Info” tab of the GMB dashboard, as reported by Joy Hawkins. Utilizing this button may temporarily decrease your rankings, but you will be able to remove the label in the future and I strongly hope (but cannot guarantee) that this will remove any effects of suppression. I recommend using this button if it applies to your business because we must put safety first over any other consideration.
Google has newly created a Google posts type that you’ll see as an option in your GMB dashboard. While other post types have been published sporadically, I am seeing examples of the COVID-19 Update posts going live. Try to fit as much information as you can about the changed status of your business into one of these posts.
In addition to the edits you make to your GMB listing, update your most visible local business listings on other platforms to the best of your ability, including on:
Google My Business may be experiencing support issues right now, but thank goodness you still have full control of your website as a home base for conveying important information to the public. Here’s a quick checklist of suggested items to update on your site as soon as you can:
“Make it clear what you're doing, such as things like home delivery or curbside pickup. And mention it EVERYWHERE. The companies that are being successful with this are telling people non-stop how they can still support them. Additionally, don't be afraid to reach out to people who have supported you via social media in the past and ask them to mention what you're doing.” —Dana DiTomaso, Kick Point
Whether your customers’ social community is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or another platform, there has never been a more vital time to make use of the instant communication these sites provide. It was Fred Rogers who famously said that in times of crisis, we should “look for the helpers.” People will be looking to your brand for help and, also, seeking ways that they can help, too.
If you can make the time to utilize social media to highlight not just your own services, but the services you discover are being provided by other businesses in your city, you will be strengthening your community. Ask your followers and customers to amplify information that can make life safer or better right now.
And, of course, email is one of the best tools presently at your disposal to message your entire base about changed conditions and special offers. My best practice advice for the present is to be sure you’re only communicating what is truly necessary. I’ve seen some examples of brands (which shall remain nameless) exploiting COVID-19 for senseless self-promotion instead of putting customers’ concerns and needs first. Don’t go that route. Be a helper!
Beyond your local business listing, websites, social media platforms, and email, don’t overlook offline media for making further, helpful informational contributions. Call into local radio shows and get in touch with local newspapers if you have facts or offers that can help the public.
“Find out what support is being made available for you at [the] government level, tap into this as soon as you can — it's likely there will be a lot of paperwork and many hoops through which you'll need to jump.” —Claire Carlile, Claire Carlile Marketing
While the social safety net differs widely from country to country, research any offers of support being made to your business and make use of them to remain as operational as possible for the duration of this pandemic. Here are six adjustments your business should carefully consider to determine whether implementation is possible:
If your business meets local, state, or federal regulations that enable it to continue operating because it’s deemed “essential”, here are the ways different business models are adapting to current conditions:
If your local business already has an e-commerce component on its website, you’re many steps ahead in being well set up to keep selling via delivery. If you’ve not yet implemented any form of online selling, investigate the following options:
In my very large family, one relative has transitioned her yoga studio to online classes, another is offering secure online psychotherapy appointments, and another is instructing his orchestra on the web. While nothing can replace in-person relationships, virtual meetings are the next-best-thing and could keep many business models operating at a significant level, despite the pandemic. Check out these resources:
If COVID-19 has somewhat or completely paused your business, it’s my strong hope that there will be better days ahead for you. If, like so many people, you find yourself with much more time on your hands than usual, consider using it to come out of this period of crisis with new business knowledge. Please make use of this list of resources, and I want to give special thanks to my friend, Claire Carlile, for contributing several of these suggestions:
“I would say generally it's critical for business owners to connect with one another. To the extent they can join or form groups for support or to share ideas, they should. This is a terrible and scary time but there are also potential opportunities that may emerge with creative thinking. The 'silver lining', if there is one here, is the opportunity to reexamine business processes, try new things and think — out of necessity — very creatively about how to move forward. Employees are also a great source of ideas and inspiration.” —Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land
I’d like to close with some positive thinking. Local SEO isn’t just a career for me — it’s a personal belief system that well-resourced communities are the strongest. Every community, town, and city shares roughly the same needs, which we might depict like this:
In this simple chart, we see the framework of a functional, prepared, and healthy society. We see a plan for covering the basic needs of human existence, the cooperation required to run a stable community, contributive roles everyone can play to support life and culture, and relief from inevitable disasters. We see regenerative land and water stewardship, an abundance of skilled educators, medical professionals, artisans, and a peaceful platform for full human expression.
COVID-19 marks the third major disaster my community has lived through in three years. The pandemic and California’s wildfires have taught me to think about the areas in which my county is self-sustaining, and areas in which we are unprepared to take care of one another in both good times and bad. While state and national governments bear a serious responsibility for the well-being of citizens, my genuine belief as a local SEO is that local communities should be doing all they can to self-fulfill as many data points on the chart above as possible.
While it’s said that necessity is the mother of invention, and it certainly makes sense that the present moment would be driving us to invent new solutions to keep our communities safe and well, I find models for sane growth in the work others have already contributed. For me, these are sources of serious inspiration:
Other models and examples may personally inspire you, but I share my friend Greg Sterling’s opinion: now is the time to bring creativity to bear, to connect with fellow local business owners and community members, and to begin planning a more realistic and livable future.
For now, you will have to make those connections virtually, but the goal is to come out of this time of crisis with a determination to make local living more sustainable for everyone. You can start with asking very basic questions like: Where is the nearest farm, and how many people can it feed? What do we need to do to attract more doctors and nurses to this town? Which facilities could be converted here to produce soap, or bathroom tissue, or medical supplies?
I don’t want to downplay the challenge of forward-thinking in a time of disruption, but this I know from being a gardener: new seeds sprout best where the earth is disturbed. You have only to visit the margins of new roads being laid to see how digging is quickly followed by verdant crops of fresh seedlings. Humanity needs to dig deep right now for its best solutions to serious challenges, and this can begin right where you are, locally.
Please allow me to wish many better days ahead to you, your business, and your community, and to work by your side to build a stronger local future.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!
Tesla, GM, and Ford are now manufacturing ventilators to bolster the country’s stock in response to the coronavirus crisis. Meanwhile, President Trump has activated the Defense Production Act, which may compel more companies to follow suit. While it may be difficult to retool an auto assembly line, these companies have 3D printers for components, “clean rooms” that could meet FDA standards and Tyvek suits used in paint shops that could be re-purposed to aid in the fight against the coronavirus. Regarding Tesla’s offer to make ventilators, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted: “Our country is facing a drastic shortage and we need ventilators ASAP – we will need thousands in this city over the next few weeks. We’re getting them as fast as we can but we could use your help! We’re reaching out to you directly.”
New York City is clearly a hot spot for the coronavirus. As of Wednesday morning, March 25, there were at least 30,811 confirmed cases of the coronavirus discovered in New York State, including over 17,856 in New York City. At least 285 people have died from the coronavirus in the state, which has over half of the confirmed cases in the United States.
Tesla will be reopening its Buffalo plant to make ventilators. Medtronic is partnering with Tesla on the project and “open-sourcing” one of its lower end ventilators, which are easier to produce because there are fewer components, and that can be used as an intermediary step in the critical care of coronavirus patients.
There are about 160,000 ventilators in the United States and another 12,700 in the National Strategic Supply—a cache of medical supplies maintained by the federal government to respond to national emergencies. Ventilators, which deliver air to the lungs through a tube placed in the windpipe, are a crucial tool to keep patients from dying from COVID-19. The machines can cost as much as $50,000.
Electricity will be needed to produce the ventilators and to operate them at hospitals around the state. New York gets over 90 percent of its electricity from traditional sources of electrical generation that can be relied on to perform 24/7.
New York’s Electricity Mix
Despite the state’s concerted effort to be “carbon-free,” New York relies on natural gas for almost 40 percent of its electricity. Traditional sources of power (natural gas, nuclear power, and hydroelectricity) have provided over nine-tenths of New York State’s net generation since 2012, while other non-hydroelectric renewable resources (e.g., wind and solar) have provided less than 10 percent.
Over half of New York’s generating capacity is at natural gas-fired power plants, and about two-thirds of that capacity is at units with dual-fuel capability that can use either natural gas or petroleum. To increase reliability, especially during the winter months, New York regulators require the electricity generating units with dual-fuel capability to be ready to switch to petroleum, which generates less than one percent of the state’s electricity, but is available at times of severe weather or electricity price spikes. Oil and gas companies are implementing contingency plans focused on ensuring continuity of supplies to market, and preventing the spread of the coronavirus to workers and the public. Natural gas utilities are considering using contractors to backfill positions if needed, or calling on mutual personnel or equipment assistance from other utilities.
In 2019, one-third of New York’s net generation was provided by nuclear power. However, that share will be going down as one of the state’s four nuclear power plants—Indian Point—is scheduled for retirement by 2021. That plant’s reactors provide 12 percent of the state’s power, and account for 40 percent of the state’s nuclear generating capacity.
Another one-fifth of the electricity in New York in 2019 was generated by hydropower. The rest of the electricity generation in the state is provided from renewable resources, primarily wind, solar, and biomass, together combining for 7 percent of total generation.
New York grid operators have noticed that the load patterns of electricity usage in the state have changed due to the coronavirus, looking more like a snow day when peak usage occurs later in the day. The New York Independent System Operator indicated that daily energy use on the grid has dipped about 2 percent to 3 percent, with daily peak energy use—the highest amount of energy used at any point during the day—about 2 percent below the typical peak for this time of year. Reliable and affordable electricity is absolutely essential when millions are working from home in the wake of the coronavirus.
Conclusion
In this time of critical need for energy to power the manufacture of medical equipment and their operation, it is imperative that electricity be available 24/7, and not be reliant on power that is dependent on the wind blowing or the sun shining. Hospitals, in particular, need to be assured of reliable and resilient power sources to operate their medical equipment that is necessary to keep people alive. It takes crises such as the one we are currently experiencing to realize the importance of our traditional generating resources, such as New York’s natural gas, nuclear power, and hydroelectric generators that provide continuous and reliable power.
The post U.S. Auto Manufacturers Going Back to Work to Make Ventilators appeared first on IER.
Posted by rjonesx.
Building local pages in any amount can be a painful task. It's hard to strike the right mix of on-topic content, expertise, and location, and the temptation to take shortcuts has always been tempered by the fact that good, unique content is almost impossible to scale.
In this week's edition of Whiteboard Friday, Russ Jones shares his favorite white-hat technique using natural language generation to create local pages to your heart's content.
Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!
Hey, folks, this is Russ Jones here with Moz again to talk to you about important search engine optimization issues. Today I'm going to talk about one of my favorite techniques, something that I invented several years ago for a particular client and has just become more and more and more important over the years.
I call this using natural language generation to create hyper-local content. Now I know that there's a bunch of long words in there. Some of you are familiar with them, some of you are not.
So let me just kind of give you the scenario, which is probably one you've been familiar with at some point or another. Imagine you have a new client and that client has something like 18,000 locations across the United States.
Then you're told by Google you need to make unique content. Now, of course, it doesn't have to be 18,000. Even 100 locations can be difficult, not just to create unique content but to create uniquely valuable content that has some sort of relevance to that particular location.
So what I want to do today is talk through one particular methodology that uses natural language generation in order to create these types of pages at scale.
Now there might be a couple of questions that we need to just go ahead and get off of our plates at the beginning. So first, what is natural language generation? Well, natural language generation was actually originated for the purpose of generating weather warnings. You've actually probably seen this 100,000 times.
Whenever there's like a thunderstorm or let's say high wind warning or something, you've seen on the bottom of a television, if you're older like me, or you've gotten one on your cellphone and it says the National Weather Service has issued some sort of warning about some sort of weather alert that's dangerous and you need to take cover.
Well, the language that you see there is generated by a machine. It takes into account all of the data that they've arrived at regarding the weather, and then they put it into sentences that humans automatically understand. It's sort of like Mad Libs, but a lot more technical in the sense that what comes out of it, instead of being funny or silly, is actually really useful information.
That's our goal here. We want to use natural language generation to produce local pages for a business that has information that is very useful.
Now the question we almost always get or I at least almost always get is: Is this black hat? One of the things that we're not supposed to do is just auto-generate content.
So I'm going to take a moment towards the end to discuss exactly how we differentiate this type of content creation from just the standard, Mad Libs-style, plugging in different city words into content generation and what we're doing here. What we're doing here is providing uniquely valuable content to our customers, and because of that it passes the test of being quality content.
So let's do this. Let's talk about probably what I believe to be the easiest methodology, and I call this the Google Trends method.
So let's step back for a second and talk about this business that has 18,000 locations. Now what do we know about this business? Well, businesses have a couple of things that are in common regardless of what industry they're in.
They either have like products or services, and those products and services might have styles or flavors or toppings, just all sorts of things that you can compare about the different items and services that they offer. Therein lies our opportunity to produce unique content across almost any region in the United States.
The tool we're going to use to accomplish that is Google Trends. So the first step that you're going to do is you're going to take this client, and in this case I'm going to just say it's a pizza chain, for example, and we're going to identify the items that we might want to compare. In this case, I would probably choose toppings for example.
So we would be interested in pepperoni and sausage and anchovies and God forbid pineapple, just all sorts of different types of toppings that might differ from region to region, from city to city, and from location to location in terms of demand. So then what we'll do is we'll go straight to Google Trends.
The best part about Google Trends is that they're not just providing information at a national level. You can narrow it down to city level, state level, or even in some cases to ZIP Code level, and because of this it allows us to collect hyper-local information about this particular category of services or products.
So, for example, this is actually a comparison of the demand for pepperoni versus mushroom versus sausage toppings in Seattle right now. So most people, when people are Googling for pizza, would be searching for pepperoni.
So what you would do is you would take all of the different locations and you would collect this type of information about them. So you would know that, for example, here there is probably about 2.5 times more interest in pepperoni than there is in sausage pizza. Well, that's not going to be the same in every city and in every state. In fact, if you choose a lot of different toppings, you'll find all sorts of things, not just the comparison of how much people order them or want them, but perhaps how things have changed over time.
For example, perhaps pepperoni has become less popular. If you were to look in certain cities, that probably is the case as vegetarian and veganism has increased. Well, the cool thing about natural language generation is that we can automatically extract out those kinds of unique relationships and then use that as data to inform the content that we end up putting on the pages on our site.
So, for example, let's say we took Seattle. The system would automatically be able to identify these different types of relationships. Let's say we know that pepperoni is the most popular. It might also be able to identify that let's say anchovies have gone out of fashion on pizzas. Almost nobody wants them anymore.
Something of that sort. But what's happening is we're slowly but surely coming up with these trends and data points that are interesting and useful for people who are about to order pizza. For example, if you're going to throw a party for 50 people and you don't know what they want, you can either do what everybody does pretty much, which is let's say one-third pepperoni, one-third plain, and one-third veggie, which is kind of the standard if you're like throwing a birthday party or something.
But if you landed on the Pizza Hut page or the Domino's page and it told you that in the city where you live people actually really like this particular topping, then you might actually make a better decision about what you're going to order. So we're actually providing useful information.
So this is where we're talking about generating the text from the trends and the data that we've grabbed from all of the locales.
Now the first step, of course, is just looking at local trends. But local trends aren't the only place we can look. We can go beyond that. For example, we can compare it to other locations. So it might be just as interesting that in Seattle people really like mushroom as a topping or something of that sort.
But it would also be really interesting to see if the toppings that are preferred, for example, in Chicago, where Chicago style pizza rules, versus New York are different. That would be something that would be interesting and could be automatically drawn out by natural language generation. Then finally, another thing that people tend to miss in trying to implement this solution is they think that they have to compare everything at once.
That's not the way you would do it. What you would do is you would choose the most interesting insights in each situation. Now we could get technical about how that might be accomplished. For example, we might say, okay, we can look at trends. Well, if all of the trends are flat, then we're probably not going to choose that information. But we see that the relationship between one topping and another topping in this city is exceptionally different compared to other cities, well, that might be what gets selected.
Now here's where the question comes in about white hat versus black hat. So we've got this local page, and now we've generated all of this textual content about what people want on a pizza in that particular town or city. We need to make sure that this content is actually quality. That's where the final step comes in, which is just human review.
In my opinion, auto-generated content, as long as it is useful and valuable and has gone through the hands of a human editor who has identified that that's true, is every bit as good as if that human editor had just looked up that same data point and wrote the same sentences.
So I think in this case, especially when we're talking about providing data to such a diverse set of locales across the country, that it makes sense to take advantage of technology in a way that allows us to generate content and also allows us to serve the user the best possible and the most relevant content that we can.
So I hope that you will take this, spend some time looking up natural language generation, and ultimately be able to build much better local pages than you ever have before. Thanks.
Video transcription by Speechpad.com
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!
The last coal-fired power plant in New York is closing and its power will be replaced by renewable energy—wind and solar power that works when the weather permits. The 675-megawatt, 36-year-old Somerset coal plant is retiring due to stricter state emissions regulations and poor economics. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and state regulators enacted rules to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, which are designed to end coal generation in the state by year-end 2020. Shuttering the plant is also supposed to help the state reach its goal of 100 percent carbon-free power generation by 2040. To help implement its ambitious goals, Governor Cuomo recently issued rules that would make it easier to obtain permission to build renewable energy, including wind turbines and solar panels, allowing applicants to bypass zoning rules and other local regulations.
Across the country, coal plants are being shuttered, due to lower cost natural gas and regulations and incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to generate power from renewable energy sources. The closures result in lost tax revenues and jobs, and the need to retrain workers. In the NY town with the Somerset plant about an hour outside of Buffalo, the plant’s payments to the state in lieu of taxes had allowed the school district to run a surplus for years. Now, the school district will need to use its savings to keep its budget in the black.
Further, residents are not sure whether solar-panel farms and wind turbines should be the landmarks of their backyards. People who rent land to energy companies and receive a regular payment for the solar panels or wind turbines on their property are generally happy with the blight from those technologies, but those not receiving a check generally prefer a more picturesque landscape. To replace the NY coal plant with what New York believes is “carbon-free power” would require about twice the plant’s capacity if wind power is the replacement technology and over 3 times its capacity if solar power is the replacement technology due to their lower capacity factors. That means more land is needed and a much greater impact on the NY landscape.
And, NY’s goal comes at a considerable cost to taxpayers. For the first 10 years of production, wind energy producers get paid a federal production tax credit, which was originally worth $23 for each megawatt-hour produced. In some markets, that subsidy exceeded the wholesale price of electricity and forced out of the market reliable and resilient power sources, such as coal, nuclear and natural gas. These baseload plants become less efficient and less economic when intermittent sources are forced into the system by financial incentives and mandates. When subsidies, grants, and tax credits given by states are added to the federal subsidies, wind turbines can sometimes be installed and operated at nearly no cost. Warren Buffett, whose companies build and operate wind farms, said, “We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the reason we build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.” Solar power also has federal and state subsidies and mandates that encourage its use.
It is these federal tax credits, the Production Tax Credit for wind and the Investment Tax Credit for solar, that the Democrats want extended in the coronavirus stimulus bill. Both tax credits are being phased out. Despite the wind and solar industries saying that they are competitive without the tax credit, they are fighting for the tax extensions. That means U.S. taxpayers can help pay for these intermittent technologies that are being built in states that have goals similar to that of New York for what they consider to be “carbon-free” power, which is an anomaly.
When wind and solar power plants are decommissioned, they generate millions of tons of waste. By 2050, the International Renewable Energy Agency calculates that the disposal of obsolete solar panels will more than double the tonnage of the world’s plastic waste. Both wind and solar require far more material and land than fossil fuels. One wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2500 tons of concrete, and 45 tons of plastic and resins that cannot be recycled. Wind turbine blades, for instance, cannot be recycled after their 20-year life and are dumped in landfills. Because the blades are 120 feet long, they must be crushed or cut into pieces.
In a 100-turbine wind farm, there are 500 million pounds of concrete. Building enough wind turbines to supply one-half the world’s electricity needs would require nearly two billion tons of coal to make the concrete and steel, and two billion barrels of oil to make the composite blades. Thus, the world would be consuming immense amounts of hydrocarbons to avoid consuming those hydrocarbons to generate power directly. The new, intermittent power requires backup sources that are increasingly operated inefficiently and uneconomically because of “ramping” up and down to accommodate the intermittent sources.
Solar farms require the mining of silver and indium. The demand for rare earth minerals required for the manufacture of solar panels is expected to increase 300 percent to 1000 percent by 2050 to meet the goals of the Paris Accord. The United States does not mine its own rare earth minerals due to onerous regulations and instead must import them. China provides over 70 percent of the world’s supply of rare earth minerals, which would make us dependent again on another area of the world.
The irony is that a solar or wind farm that stretches as far as the eye can see can be replaced by several gas-fired turbines, each about the size of a tractor-trailer.
Conclusion
New York’s belief that solar and wind power are “clean and renewable” is false. Fossil fuels, on the other hand, are readily accessible right here in America, affordable, and have much smaller environmental footprints than the renewable energy that environmentalists and many states are promoting.
The post For New York, Coal Is Out and Renewables Are In appeared first on IER.
Posted by morgan.mcmurray
For the last few weeks, you’ve probably experienced an influx of emails from companies detailing how COVID-19 is affecting them and thus you, their customer. It's... a lot, isn't it? So today, we want to take a departure from the world of "how this affects us" and focus instead on actionable things we can all do to make things brighter for ourselves and our communities. This won't be your regularly scheduled programming — we won't be discussing SEO or marketing. Instead, we're sharing ideas and advice from the folks at Moz who've been finding ways to be helpers as we all navigate this new normal.
For those who have steady income during this time of economic uncertainty, it’s more important than ever to support local businesses and charitable organizations. Many employers, Moz included, offer charitable donation matching to make use of as well.
You can donate money or call local organizations (like homeless shelters, food banks, and animal rescues) to see what items they most need. Mozzers have found several creative ways to contribute, including a super helpful spreadsheet of all the food banks in our area shared by Britney Muller. A few of us have volunteered to be pet foster parents, and Skye Stewart has even seen neighbors turn their “little free libraries” into pantries for those in need!
If you’re healthy and able, consider signing up to donate blood. The blood banks in our area have received so many volunteers that they’re scheduling appointments weeks in advance — what a fantastic show of community support!
All of our favorite local salons, restaurants, bars, or home goods stores are likely suffering from recent closures. Gift cards give them support now and give you the option to shop later (or have your holiday shopping done a little early). Many local businesses also have online shops for you to browse from home. Shipping times are likely impacted, though, so be understanding!
Local restaurants are shifting to take-out and to-go order business models. If you can’t go pick up food, apps like DoorDash and Grubhub are offering no-contact delivery options.
Stock up only with what you need for two or three weeks for yourself. You can also volunteer, like Mozzer Hayley Sherman, to make grocery runs for at-risk friends or family.
This sounds like a no-brainer — of course we’re all trying to stay healthy! But it has to be said, as now we have to be a bit more creative to keep up our healthy habits.
With recent closures, local gyms and studios are offering online classes. Have you ever wondered what a yoga or dance class is like via Zoom? A few of us at Moz have found out, and it’s definitely different — but also surprisingly fun — to connect with all the other students in this new way.
We’ve been enjoying some unseasonable sunshine in the Pacific Northwest, making it the perfect time to fight cabin fever with a walk or run outside. Weather permitting, you can do the same! Just make sure to maintain social distance from other walkers and runners (even if they have a cute puppy with them — tough, we know).
Meditation can help calm the anxiety many of us might be feeling right now. Dr. Pete recommends the Ten Percent Happier app for assistance, and apps like Insight Timer and Calm have dozens of free meditation options for you to choose from, too.
While it’s tempting to only stock up on non-perishable food like mac and cheese (I’m guilty of having several boxes stored in my pantry) and rely on supplements or Emergen-C, fresh produce is still one of the best options to get necessary vitamins and boost your immunity.
Several of us at Moz have found it helpful to disconnect from the news cycle for a while every day, and we try to only pay attention to news from reputable sources. With so many voices in the conversation, this can be hard, which is why going offline can be so helpful.
Human connection remains important for maintaining morale and good humor, even if we can’t share the same physical space.
Call people you would normally see regularly, and reach out to those you haven’t seen in awhile. Mozzers are staying connected by calling into morning coffee hangouts and virtual team lunches — it’s been great to see everyone’s smiling faces!
You might start a weekly virtual happy hour or book club using free video conferencing software like Google Hangouts or Skype, or schedule some time to watch movies together with the new Netflix Party extension.
Social media groups or apps like Nextdoor allow you to meet your neighbors, share memes, and check to see if anyone needs anything like a grocery run, medicine, or just a virtual hug.
We’ve created channels in our company Slack for topics like parenting, wellness, gardening, and just general fun. These groups have really helped bring light and friendship to our shared situation. In the parenting channel, specifically, Moz parents have banded together to share resources and suggestions to help support each other in this new world of homeschooling.
We're living through an unprecedented time, and one of the best things we can do is understand that sometimes, humans just need to be human. If you're leading a team that's working from home, you might find your employees keeping unorthodox working hours with school closures, disrupted schedules, and technical difficulties. Flex your empathy muscle, and consider enacting flexible policies that will reduce stress on your employees while making sure the work still gets done.
Let everyone know it’s okay to sign off during normal working hours to prioritize family time and child care. You can also schedule non-work-related check-ins, or build relaxation time into your schedules. Moz CEO Sarah Bird gave all employees a “Take a Breather” day to give everyone time to relax, make “quarantinis”, and adjust to our current reality. We all really appreciated that time!
We're committed to keeping as much normalcy in the routines of our community as possible, and that includes minimizing the impact of this crisis on our customers and employees. There will be no interruptions to our tool functionality or to our support team’s ability to serve our customers. We will also continue to publish helpful, actionable content — even if that means you see a few Whiteboard Fridays from the living rooms of our experts!
Employees at Moz have already been trained as a distributed team, which has prepared us well for a life of working from home — now a mandatory policy. We're also given paid time off, including sick leave, and are encouraged to sign off from work when we’re feeling under the weather to rest and recuperate.
This list of ways to help is by no means exhaustive, and we’d love to hear your ideas! Leave a comment or send us a tweet. We’re in this together.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!
Data show that solar panels do not work well during Minnesota winters. Solar panels generated nearly 30 percent of their potential output in July of 2018 in Minnesota, but electricity generation from the state’s solar plants dropped to 5.6 percent by December 2018. Reasons for the performance decline—which only politicians and interest groups could find surprising—include shorter days during winter, performance of solar panels lessened from snowfall because snow reflects light, and the expense to clear snow off of solar panels.
It is expensive to clean snow off solar panels, especially at large solar arrays where thousands of panels are spread over acres of land. Snow removal without human intervention can sometimes be achieved by single access tracker panels that can be tilted to optimize performance, but those panels generally cost more than traditional fixed panels. Fixed, low pitch panels work well in the warmer half of the year because they pick up light for longer periods. There is less production with shallower pitch solar panels in winter, but those panels generally make up for the loss in summer. Snow also adds weight to panels and can cause microcracks, especially on panels enclosed in frames, which are the most widely used modules today.
Issues Arising from Federal Subsidies and State Mandates
Minnesota and other states are building solar arrays due to federal subsidies and state government mandates. In 2013, the Minnesota legislature passed the Solar Energy Standard, which mandated that 1.5 percent of the state’s electricity must come from solar energy by the end of 2020. Despite Minnesota’s poor solar resources depicted below, Xcel Energy wants to spend billions of dollars building 4,000 megawatts of solar power not because it is the most productive way to generate electricity, but because it will obtain the most government-guaranteed profits. The solar plants will replace reliable coal plants, which will be closed a decade early.
Using the cost estimates to build solar photovoltaic technology from the Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook 2020, building these solar panels would cost $5.4 billion, without federal subsidies. The federal investment tax credit (ITC) for solar is currently a 26 percent deduction on the capital cost of installing a solar energy system from federal taxes. In essence, federal taxpayers will pick up 26 percent of the capital cost of solar panels, or $1.4 billion of Xcel’s costs, if the solar farm is built this year. In 2021, the ITC is reduced to 22 percent of the cost of the solar system, and after 2021, the ITC is reduced to a permanent 10 percent of the cost of commercial solar systems.
State Renewable Portfolio Standards
Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia (DC) have renewable portfolio standards (RPS)—polices that require electricity suppliers to supply a specified share of their electricity from designated renewable resources or eligible technologies by a certain date. While publicly sold as “standards,” they are mandates. Although no additional states have adopted an RPS policy since Vermont in 2015, several states have extended their existing targets in 2018 or early 2019, continuing a trend in recent years across the United States. States with legally binding renewable portfolio standards collectively accounted for 63 percent of electricity retail sales in the United States in 2018. In addition to the 29 states with binding RPS policies, 8 states have nonbinding renewable portfolio goals. Since utilities are a highly regulated industry, such goals are always potentially up for discussion when non-renewable permits are required from the state or local government.
Solar Losing Its Aura in New England
In Connecticut, an 18-megawatt solar project that would help the state meet its RPS has been in the blueprint phase for three years. Local environmental and neighbor groups believe the proposal will lead to runoff and environmental degradation and want regulators to reject it. In New England, forests have been cleared and hilltops leveled to make way for new solar arrays. Environmentalists indicate that the soil on hilltops and sides is thinner from natural erosion, and when graded for solar arrays, it becomes more vulnerable. In Connecticut, environmental officials have issued cease and desist orders in recent years to owners of three solar projects that have led to adverse water quality impacts.
Conclusion
Solar power is not always beneficial, particularly in certain northern U.S. states where solar irradiance is not the best. In Minnesota the capacity factor of solar fell to 5.6 percent in December 2018, the time of year when it is darkest and cold weather begins to set in. Solar power loses its performance value due to shorter days in winter, snowfall reflecting light, and the expense of removing snow from solar panels. Solar energy is being pushed due to state renewable performance standards and federal tax credits, which will fall to a permanent 10 percent reduction after 2021 unless extended by Congress. However, some states are losing interest in solar power due to environmental concerns when forests need to be cleared and hilltops leveled to make room for solar panels. It appears that as more is learned about solar energy, more questions are being generated, even when electricity from solar panels is not.
The post Solar Panels Perform Poorly in Minnesota During Winter Months appeared first on IER.
