Several years ago, Glen Sweetnam, director of the International, Economic and Greenhouse Gas division of the Energy Information Administration at the Department of Energy (DOE), announced that worldwide oil availability had reached a “plateau.” However, his statement was not made known through a major US mainstream media outlet. Instead, it was covered in France’s Le Monde.
Last month, the social-media giant Facebook announced plans to build a new data center near Odense, Denmark. The expansion of server capacity was needed, the company said, to support "richer content" such as live-streaming and virtual reality.
The Facebook executive who made a public announcement of the decision (live-streamed, of course), noted that the new facility would have the "smallest footprint possible" and be "powered by 100 percent clean and renewable energy." Well, not exactly.
On December 5, former vice president Al Gore met with Donald and Ivanka Trump in an effort to convince the president-elect that he should not gut federal policies and agreements dealing with climate change. Three days later, actor Leonardo DiCaprio also paid the Trump duo a visit, urging them to help build a green, climate-friendly economy with lots of jobs.
David battling Goliath is a cliché. But how else to describe the struggle between a rural electric co-op and its powerful supplier of electricity?
