This post is part of a series examining where 2024 candidates running for public offices in the Southeast stand on key energy and climate issues.
Note: The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy does not support or oppose candidates or political parties. Links to reports, candidate websites, and outside sources are provided as citizen education tools.
In this blog post, we examine the policies and positions of Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Democratic Party candidate running for election to represent Florida in the United States Senate. Also in this series, we profile Republican candidate Rick Scott. Election Day is November 5, 2024.
Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is a first-time Senate candidate running to represent Florida. She served as a United States Congresswoman from 2019-2021 representing Florida’s 26th congressional district. Mucarsel-Powell is the first South American born immigrant to serve as a member of the US Congress, having been born in Ecuador. She graduated from Pitzer College and earned a Master’s degree from Claremont Graduate University. Her prior work includes being an associate dean at Florida International University.
Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
While in Congress, Mucarsel-Powell supported clean energy tax incentives for wind and solar energy, energy storage technology, energy efficiency, and modernizing the electric grid to make it more energy efficient and resilient. On her website, she says “Extreme heat continues to drive up electricity bills, but Florida has only tapped about 2% of its rooftop solar potential. Debbie will push to expand solar panel power in Florida and lower the cost of Floridians’ electricity bills.”
Climate Change
Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign website states “Debbie knows climate change is real and she is ready to take action to address the climate crisis that is impacting Floridians, their lives, and their property.”
While a sitting Congresswoman, Mucarsel-Powell sponsored the WISE Act which would require using a percentage of the federal Clean Water State Revolving Fund for projects to address green infrastructure, water or energy efficiency improvements or other environmentally innovative activities, designed to mitigate the impacts of climate change. She also voted in favor of the Climate Action Now Act, the purpose of which was to encourage the United States’ earnest participation in international climate change mitigation efforts.
In an op-ed in the South Dade News Leader she wrote, “reducing carbon emissions will bring our economy into the 21st century and create sustainable, green jobs.”
Electric Transportation
While in Congress, Mucarsel-Powell supported clean energy tax incentives for electric vehicles and charging infrastructure.
Energy Equity and Energy Burden
According to Mucarsel-Powell’s website, she “would support legislation like the bipartisan REBATE Act to allow local governments to receive federal grants to carry out high-efficiency electric home rebate programs that put money back into Floridians pockets.”
High-Risk Energy: Coal, Nuclear, Oil, Gas
Mucarsel-Powell has taken the “No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge” to not accept money from fossil fuel donors.
Voter Information
Election Day is November 5. Here are important dates and deadlines to consider, from the Florida Division of Elections:
- Deadline for county election offices to send vote-by-mail ballots to UOCAVA voters: September 21, 2024
- Deadline for county election offices to send vote-by-mail ballots to domestic voters: September 26, 2024 – October 3, 2024
- Deadline to register to vote: October 7, 2024 (no deadline to change party affiliation)
- Deadline to request that ballot be mailed: October 24, 2024
- Early voting period (mandatory period): October 26 – November 2, 2024. [In addition, county supervisors of elections have the option to offer more early voting on the 5 days before the mandatory start, and/or 1 day after the mandatory end (i.e. potentially opening Oct. 21-Nov. 3 for early voting)]
- Election Day: November 5, 2024
*Visit Vote-by-Mail and Military and Overseas Citizens Voting for information about deadlines to send a vote-by-mail ballot, to request a vote-by-mail ballot and to return vote by a mail ballot.
** Due to Hurricane Helene, Governor DeSantis has issued Executive Order 24-212 making changes to election rules for some residents of the counties most affected by Helene. Hurricane Milton may affect voting as well. Check here for the latest information.
Find additional important election information here.
#CandidatesOnEnergy2024
The post Candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell On Climate & Energy appeared first on SACE | Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
Weather Guard Lightning Tech
Australia’s $17B Grid Expansion, Recycling Blades to Steel
Allen covers Suzlon hitting 2 GW in a single Indian state, Nabrawind’s crane-free turbine install in Namibia, Antora’s South Dakota thermal battery, Australia’s $17 billion grid expansion, and Shimizu recycling old turbine blades into steel.
Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!
GOOD MORNING.
The wind industry is not just getting bigger.
It is getting smarter.
And today … we have the proof.
Let us start in India.
SUZLON GROUP just crossed a milestone.
Two gigawatts of wind orders … in a single Indian state.
The latest deal … sixty-five turbines at three megawatts each
for a company called SUNSURE ENERGY.
SUNSURE is not a utility.
It is an independent power producer
building round-the-clock clean energy
for data centers … electric vehicles … and heavy industry.
Wind paired with solar and battery storage.
Power that does not stop when the sun goes down.
SUZLON is already building six hundred and sixty-four megawatts
of additional commercial and industrial projects in the same region.
And SUNSURE … backed by PARTNERS GROUP of Switzerland …
has seven gigawatts in development across India
with a target of ten gigawatts by two thousand thirty.
That is not government-led.
That is private capital chasing wind.
Now … across the ocean to Africa.
A Spanish company called NABRAWIND [NAH-brah-wind]
just solved a problem that has plagued remote wind farms for years.
How do you install a turbine
when you cannot get a crane to the site?
Their answer is a system called SKYLIFT.
No heavy-lift cranes. None.
A self-erecting tower combined with a blade installation tool
they call the BLADERUNNER.
They just put up a GOLDWIND six-megawatt turbine
at a wind farm in NAMIBIA.
And here is the part that changes the math.
Traditional crane installation needs calm air.
Six to eight meters per second. Maximum.
NABRAWIND’s system works in fifteen meters per second sustained …
with gusts up to twenty.
That site blows hard. All the time.
Which is exactly why they chose it.
When complete … seven turbines …
two hundred and thirty gigawatt-hours a year.
About six percent of NAMIBIA’s entire electricity demand.
NABRAWIND was acquired by Australia’s FORTESCUE last year
as part of its industrial decarbonization push.
So India is stacking private-sector wind orders.
Africa is installing turbines without cranes.
And in SOUTH DAKOTA …
they are storing the wind itself.
A California startup called ANTORA ENERGY
just built a five-gigawatt-hour thermal battery
at an ethanol plant in BIG STONE CITY.
More than two hundred solid carbon blocks.
When the wind blows at night and nobody needs the power …
the blocks absorb cheap electricity and heat up.
When the plant needs energy …
the blocks release heat or generate electricity
through special cells that capture light
from superheated material.
Think of it as a giant toaster oven battery.
Full power expected by October.
The plant’s president put it simply.
Nobody has got a switch for the wind.
It blows when it wants to blow.
Now … down under.
The AUSTRALIAN government just announced
the biggest single expansion of its electricity grid.
Nineteen renewable energy projects.
Seven-point-eight gigawatts of generation.
Seven-point-nine gigawatt-hours of battery storage.
Seventeen billion dollars in private investment.
Nineteen thousand construction jobs.
Power for four million homes.
Among the largest … RWE’s [arr-vay’s] THEODORE wind farm in QUEENSLAND.
One-point-one gigawatts. Up to one hundred and seventy turbines.
Three billion Australian dollars.
RWE … the same company building offshore wind
in England and Denmark …
is now building onshore in AUSTRALIA.
And the AUSTRALIAN government is not stopping.
They just opened the next round of tenders.
Another five gigawatts.
Finally … JAPAN.
Major contractor SHIMIZU [shee-MEE-zoo] CORPORATION
has developed a way to recycle old wind turbine blades.
Not into park benches. Not into landfill.
Into steel.
The blades are cut and crushed into a material
that goes into electric furnaces
to adjust the carbon content of steel …
making it harder and stronger.
JAPAN expects to replace one hundred to two hundred turbines a year
by the two thousand thirties.
That is two to three thousand tonnes of blade waste. Annually.
SHIMIZU has built about twenty percent
of the wind power facilities in JAPAN.
They see this technology as a way to grow
their entire wind energy business.
So … let us step back.
India stacks two gigawatts of private-sector wind orders.
Africa installs turbines in gale-force winds … without a crane.
South Dakota stores surplus wind in superheated carbon blocks.
Australia backs nineteen projects with seventeen billion dollars.
And Japan turns old blades into stronger steel.
From the factory floor to the scrap yard …
from the wind farm to the furnace …
the industry is solving problems
at every stage of a turbine’s life.
And that’s the state of the wind industry for the 25th of May 2026.
Join us for the UPTIME WIND ENERGY PODCAST tomorrow.
We’ve all heard ideas like the one being expressed here, though this one sounds extreme. Jail sentence? Education is exclusively an exercise in pounding in bad habits?
What’s the outcome for students in the very worst of our schools that make no attempt whatsoever to help its pupils learn to think critically? Well, their kids learn to:
- Read and write
- Do math, at least through algebra
- Understand some level of history and geography
- Make friends and get along with others
- Establish independence from the parents
- Gain the qualifications for employment
What’s the alternative? Illiteracy? Social isolation? Child labor? Poverty? Neurotic sloth? Being a burden on society?
Is it a coincidence that the countries with the best educated children are the happiest, sanest and most productive nations on the planet?
If you’re a competent woman working at the highest echelon in the U.S. government, better start packing your bags.
-
Greenhouse Gases10 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Climate Change10 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Renewable Energy7 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits
-
Greenhouse Gases10 months ago
嘉宾来稿：探究火山喷发如何影响气候预测