{"id":20945,"date":"2012-11-09T09:24:50","date_gmt":"2012-11-09T15:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=20945"},"modified":"2012-11-09T09:33:41","modified_gmt":"2012-11-09T15:33:41","slug":"meter-reading-its-gettin-hot-in-here-war-on-coal-ends-in-obama-victory-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/11\/09\/meter-reading-its-gettin-hot-in-here-war-on-coal-ends-in-obama-victory-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Meter Reading: It&#8217;s Gettin&#8217; Hot in Here, &#8216;War on Coal&#8217; Ends in Obama Victory, and More"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_20951\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/11\/09\/meter-reading-its-gettin-hot-in-here-war-on-coal-ends-in-obama-victory-and-more\/heat-wave-grips-new-york\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-20951\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-20951\" title=\"Heat Wave Grips New York\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/11\/71570297-300x181.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"181\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/11\/71570297-300x181.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/11\/71570297.jpg 594w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Photo by Chris Hondros\/Getty Images<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A new study finds that because of rapid climate change, the planet will warm even faster than expected.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>It&#8217;s a good time to buy into sunscreen futures, the &#8216;War on Coal&#8217; ends in a defeat for the industry, and wind is optimistic once again, all in your morning <em>Meter Reading<\/em>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Extreme weather is likely to get more extreme<\/strong>, according to a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national\/health-science\/warmer-still-extreme-climate-predictions-appear-most-accurate-study-says\/2012\/11\/08\/ebd075c6-29c7-11e2-96b6-8e6a7524553f_story.html?hpid=z4\">report in the Washington Post<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cWarming is likely to be on the high side of the projections,\u201d John Fasullo of the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ncar.ucar.edu\/\" data-xslt=\"_http\">National Center for Atmospheric Research<\/a>\u00a0tells the paper. A new study by his group finds that &#8220;the world could be in for a devastating increase of about eight degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, resulting in drastically higher seas, disappearing coastlines and more severe droughts, floods and other destructive weather.&#8221; Texas is far from immune, as our report Thursday on <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/11\/08\/by-the-numbers-texas-long-heat-wave\/\">higher and higher temps<\/a>\u00a0finds.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Remember the &#8216;War on Coal?&#8217;<\/strong> It was one of Mitt Romney&#8217;s main energy policy attacks on\u00a0President\u00a0Barack Obama:\u00a0overreaching\u00a0environmental regulations were &#8220;killing coal,&#8221; Romney alleged. (The truth was <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/10\/17\/fact-checking-the-obama-and-romney-on-energy-and-the-environment\/\">far more nuanced<\/a>, as we reported last month.) A<a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/stories\/1112\/83561.html\"> report in Politico<\/a>\u00a0post-mortems the line of attack, finding that &#8220;millions of dollars in advertising [in coal states] later, Obama still picked up Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia \u2014 states Romney needed desperately, leaving him with only West Virginia.&#8221; And that went for several down-ballot races as well.\u00a0<!--more--><\/li>\n<li><strong>Frackers Spent Millions Attacking Democrats, But Will Likely Be Just as Happy With Obama:<\/strong> That&#8217;s because a drilling boom combined with more regulations on aging coal power plants will ultimately boost the market for natural gas, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2012-11-08\/natural-gas-that-backed-romney-may-gain-from-obama-win.html\">Bloomberg reports<\/a>. &#8220;His policies promise to boost demand for natural gas in vehicles and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/topics.bloomberg.com\/power-plants\/\">power plants<\/a>\u00a0and facilitate domestic oil and gas output to levels not seen in more than two decades,&#8221; they write. There&#8217;s a possibility of legislation to incentivize natural gas vehicles and open up gas exports in the next few years. That demand will be <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/07\/02\/shale-gas-and-the-rebirth-of-texas-gulf-coast-refineries\/\">good for Texas&#8217; refining industry<\/a>, as we reported this summer.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Is It Drafty in Here?<\/strong> A second Obama term also means more support for an extension of a tax credit for wind energy, which is good news for Texas&#8217; massive wind market. The <em>Dallas Morning News<\/em> says that Congress <a href=\"http:\/\/thescoopblog.dallasnews.com\/2012\/11\/one-likely-result-of-obamas-victory-more-jobs-for-texans-in-wind-energy.html\/\">will have to act before the year&#8217;s out<\/a>, but Obama&#8217;s re-election and victories by several wind-friendly legislators on both sides of the aisle, it&#8217;s looking much more likely than just a week ago. Caveat: &#8220;However, like everything else with a price tag, the credits will have to survive a trip toward that looming fiscal cliff,&#8221; they write.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s a good time to buy into sunscreen futures, the &#8216;War on Coal&#8217; ends in a defeat for the industry, and wind is optimistic once again, all in your morning Meter Reading: Extreme weather is likely to get more extreme, according to a report in the Washington Post.\u00a0\u201cWarming is likely to be on the high [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":20951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20945"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20956,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20945\/revisions\/20956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}