Month: August 2017

Enlarge / DUNKIRK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES - 2016/10/09: A NRG owned coal fired energy facility that plans to convert to a natural gas facility. (Photo by John Greim/LightRocket via Getty Images) (credit: Getty Images)

The US Department of Energy (DOE) released a report late Wednesday night recommending that power markets revise how they value coal and nuclear power. The report also admits that low natural gas prices are a primary cause of recent coal plant closures.

The report has been controversial since its inception. In mid-April, Energy Secretary Rick Perry directed his team to study grid reliability and security for 60 days. Although the memo never mentioned renewables, it implicated “certain policies” that apparently unfairly threatened coal-burning plants.

That led critics to wonder whether renewable energy—critical for the mitigation of climate change—would get a fair shake in Perry’s study. Grid operators have been able to put a fair amount of renewable energy on the grid without reliability suffering, but the tone of Perry’s memo suggested that a conclusion contradicting that fact had been predetermined.

Enlarge / House GOP: "How do you do, fellow kids? Say, have you heard about this Zelda guy?"

American Republican legislators have begun aiming their sights on a major policy initiative: the nation's tax code. Any changes will certainly impact the American technology sector, but before getting to that possible impact, there's the matter of the GOP's publicity campaign on the matter.

On Wednesday afternoon, the GOP showed that it could use some help in its attempts to make its sales pitch look "hip."

In a blog post titled "What Do The Legend of Zelda and the American Tax Code Have In Common," House Republicans originally wrote:

Enlarge / Oil processing towers and gas processing infrastructure stand at the Exxon Mobil Corp. (credit: Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

A review of 187 ExxonMobil documents, published by two Harvard researchers on Wednesday, has found that the company ”misled the public” on climate change.

The documents included internal papers published by journalists at InsideClimate News as well as 50 “peer-reviewed articles on climate research and related policy analysis” written by ExxonMobil researchers. The oil and gas company made the internal papers public and challenged anyone to “read all of these documents and make up your own mind,” accusing journalists of cherry-picking data.

Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes, from Harvard's Department of the History of Science, took up that challenge, comparing the information in the documents cited by ExxonMobil against the information conveyed in the publicly-available advertorial columns published by the company on anthropogenic (or human-caused) climate change in the New York Times. They found that “83 percent of peer-reviewed papers and 80 percent of internal documents acknowledge that climate change is real and human-caused, yet only 12 percent of advertorials do so, with 81 percent instead expressing doubt.”

At Ars Technica Live, Catherine Bracy talked about her nonprofit startup TechEquity, and how the tech industry can mitigate the housing crisis. (video link)

If the headline on this article made your eyes burn with fire, and your fingers twitch to comment without reading further, then you're in the majority. The relationship between Silicon Valley's tech industry and economic inequality in the Bay Area is an incendiary issue, as civic tech leader Catherine Bracy is all too aware. She came to Ars Technica Live to talk about her vision for a future where people in Oakland celebrate when a new tech company comes to town. With her startup TechEquity Collaborative, she's showing techies what they can do to help their neighbors benefit from the tech economy as much as they have.

Bracy's first message to the packed crowd was that we shouldn't blame techies for the housing crisis. She said she'd had to overcome her own prejudices to make that realization. When Uber announced they were buying the historic Sears Building in Oakland, where Bracy lives, she said she had to struggle not to get angry. She worried that her neighborhood would be less brown, and that there would be a wave of housing displacement like the one San Francisco has already experienced. But after years of working on civic-minded tech projects like Code for America, and founding nonprofit TechEquity several years ago, she's come to a new understanding.

Enlarge (credit: Portal Abras)

The Federal Trade Commission has formally allowed Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods to go forward.

According to a statement released Wednesday by acting FTC director Bruce Hoffman, "Based on our investigation, we have decided not to pursue this matter further. Of course, the FTC always has the ability to investigate anticompetitive conduct should such action be warranted."

Last month, there had been some public opposition to the deal. Back in June, the online retail giant announced it would acquire Whole Foods Market for approximately $13.7 billion.

Enlarge (credit: mementosis)

A New York City father and son have been arrested and indicted on allegations of selling fentanyl and oxycodone on the underground drug website AlphaBay, which was seized and closed by federal law enforcement in July.

The indictment comes days after six Californians were indicted on similar charges of drug trafficking on AlphaBay, suggesting that federal law enforcement is now ready to start prosecuting at least some of the dealers that used the notorious site.

According to a newly-issued criminal complaint, Michael Luciano admitted to selling the opioid drugs out of their Staten Island home, along with his son, Philip Luciano, following a search of their home in July.