Brad Panovich is the Chief Meteorologist for WCNC, the NBC affiliate in Charlotte, North Carolina, and adjunct Professor at University of North Carolina Charlotte.
Scott Galloway Discovers Renewables
One of podcasting’s Uber Bros, Scott Galloway, whose work I actually like a lot, seems to find it surprising that renewable energy economics are compelling.
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Hannah Ritchie and Scott Galloway on the economics that flipped clean energy from luxury to no-brainer — solar and battery prices down 90%, red states adopting wind on pure economics, the Iran energy shock accelerating the transition, and why the US is stuck at 10% EV adoption while China and Europe race past 50%.
Indiana Electric Rates to Drop, Thanks to Data Centers.
In Indiana, a utility is ready to drop rates for customers – and Data Centers are the reason.
It’s not hard to understand.
When you get a big customer on the grid that is willing to pay to help amortize all those power plants, towers and wires, you spread the costs out more, and rates can go down.
Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette (Indiana):
If state regulators approve Indiana Michigan Power’s latest base rate reduction request, the Fort Wayne-based utility’s residential customers could see $100 in annual savings.
The estimated savings is for the average residential customer using 1,000 kilowatts a month. Total customer savings in 2027 is estimated at $59 million, officials said.
I&M expects the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to announce a decision on the proposed plan in June of next year, according to the news release. In that scenario, customers would begin to realize savings next summer, the release said.
The utility also proposes freezing rates at the lower amount for three consecutive years.
A local economic development official and a social services executive applauded the move on Wednesday.
Continue reading “Indiana Electric Rates to Drop, Thanks to Data Centers.”Climate Warming/Glacier Collapse – Likely Cause of Nepal Disaster
The full extent of the deaths and damage caused by the enormous flash flood that swept down a river valley in Nepal and Tibet today won’t be clear for weeks. But initial analyses of satellite images and seismic data suggest that the collapse of a high glacier caused the disaster.
“There’s a glacier that rolls over a cliff at about 5200 metres,” says Dan Shugar at the University of Calgary in Canada. “It’s just like a perfect straight line where it snapped off and dropped over a kilometre vertically to the valley bottom.”
This collapse could be a result of global heating. “It’s not that much of a stretch to think, yes, we’re seeing one terrible ramification of human-caused climate change,” he says.
As the glacier flowed over the cliff and moved down the steep slope, deep crevasses would have formed in the ice. Warm weather in the past day or so may have melted a lot of snow and some glacier ice, with this liquid water weakening the glacier and causing the entire section flowing down the steep slope to collapse.
“Comparing satellite imagery from yesterday and today, the glaciers in the vicinity do seem to have lost a fair bit of snow in the last 24 hours,” says Shugar. “My guess is that snow melt, and glacier ice melt as well, injected a lot of liquid water into the glacier, which percolated down to the bed and lubricated it. That was enough for it to collapse.”
The potential energy released as heat when millions of tonnes of ice fell a kilometre may have melted large quantities of it, producing enough liquid water to generate the huge flash flood.
Continue reading “Climate Warming/Glacier Collapse – Likely Cause of Nepal Disaster”Europe’s Glaciers Flashing Red for Nepal-Style Collapse
Permafrost, the icy glue that holds the mountains together, is thawing along with the glaciers. This is what increased rockfalls onto the Birch glacier near the Swiss village of Blatten. In May 2025, the glacier fractured, burying the village under 20 million tonnes of rock and ice, and killing a shepherd. Experts monitoring the glacier evacuated 300 inhabitants nine days before the collapse.
Last month, researchers showed that laying a fibre-optic cable across a glacier can detect crevasses hidden 25 metres down, a far cheaper way to monitor fracturing than seismometers. They were surprised to discover that 8 per cent of the volume of a glacier in Valais was empty crevasses. Scientists may be underestimating the damage to glaciers’ stability, says Thomas Hudson at ETH Zurich, one of the study’s authors.
In the past, monitoring was really all about protecting the glaciers, he says. “We now need to put more of our focus on monitoring for prevention of disasters.”
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Below, a disaster similar to the Nepalese collapse destroyed a Swiss village in 2025.
As Data Center Hate Grows, Plans for Gas to Power them are Uncertain
Above, new PBS reporting on how AI Data Centers have become a campaign issue.
Below, the numbers of new gas powered plants needed to power data centers are daunting, but are they real?
Stunning stat: The amount of U.S. capacity somewhere in the development pipeline doubled in the first half of 2026, per Global Energy Monitor’s analysis.
- A whopping 189 gigawatts is planned for on-site data centers through the first half of 2026, roughly doubling (!) the pipeline at year-end 2025.
Driving the news: Overall, the U.S. pipeline has soared to 378 gigawatts, per the nonprofit that closely tracks projects internationally.
- More concretely, projects under construction climbed 76% in the first half of 2026 to 52 GW, around twice what China is currently building.
- A gigawatt can power roughly 750,000 U.S. homes.
Reality check: If all the 378 GW on the drawing board become reality, the U.S. fleet would grow by two-thirds.
- But the report tracks everything from construction to projects in much earlier stages that may or may not ultimately happen.
- “Pre-construction” and “announced” projects together account for about 86% of the U.S. pipeline.
State of play: The report highlights big questions. For instance, two-thirds of the capacity in development globally hasn’t yet named a turbine or engine manufacturer.
Continue reading “As Data Center Hate Grows, Plans for Gas to Power them are Uncertain”Disturbing Images Keep Coming from Nepal
UK Channel 4 report above, has an explainer from Katmandu University Glaciologist at 2:39.
Below, First few minutes of this CBS News clip contain two of the most haunting images.
This is climate change. Slowly, slowly, then all at once.
Solar Saves Euro Grid as Heat Batters Nukes, Coal
Conventional power generation has vulnerabilities, particularly at times of extreme cold or heat – just the moment it is most needed.
This summer, newly built solar capacity helped the European grid ride out periods of extreme heat.
Solar can’t do it alone, but as storage gets added, heat waves that are becoming more severe will see solar plus storage fill in some glaring gaps.
Ultimately perhaps, modular nuclear may have a role, particularly for winter extremes, but my dark horse is advanced Geothermal.
Neither of those options will be available at scale til the late 2030s, at best. Rapid deployment of renewables and storage is the only course for now.
Europe’s increasingly frequent heatwaves are placing severe stress on electricity grids. Record solar output is helping to meet high demand, but increased flexibility will be needed to future-proof grids.
In June and July 2026, successive heatwaves pushed temperatures above 40°C in many parts of Europe, driving up electricity demand as air conditioning use soared, while disrupting nuclear, gas, coal and hydropower generation.
Fortunately for Europe’s grid stability, record solar output helped cover increased demand during daylight hours, with high prices and supply scarcity most pronounced in the evenings. As extreme heat becomes more common, governments and regulators will need to make greater use of proven solutions, including battery storage and demand response.
The effects of extreme heat on power systems go beyond increased demand. Every type of power generation is impacted, potentially constraining supplies. Grid equipment also has thermal limits. Overhead power lines, for example, can transmit less electricity when the ambient temperature is high, and other equipment, such as grid transformers, can overheat.
The consequences for consumers can be severe. Extreme temperatures caused a grid failure and blackout in the Northeast US in 2003. In June this year, an overheated transformer was responsible for the temporary disconnection of 70,000 consumers in Brittany, France. Fortunately, however, despite extremely challenging conditions, Europe avoided a major disruption to its power supplies.
Continue reading “Solar Saves Euro Grid as Heat Batters Nukes, Coal”Warming Glaciers Contribute to Himalayan Disaster
You may have already seen this footage.
Looks like Sci Fi.
Very much like an event last year, this one was worse.
UDIN DHUNGA, Nepal (AP) — Massive flash floods in Nepal on Wednesday killed at least 22 people and left hundreds of tourists, workers and others missing while causing widespread damage to villages and infrastructure.
The same regions affected by Wednesday’s disaster saw flash floods similar to those in August last year, when a glacial lake in neighboring Tibet overflowed because of high temperatures in the mountain region. Nine people were killed, and critical infrastructure, including a bridge connecting Nepal and China, was damaged at the time.
Climate experts at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development say an avalanche from a glacier likely caused Wednesday’s flash flood.
The Lhende Khola River, a tributary of the Bhotekoshi River, witnessed maximum flooding Wednesday, they said.
“The Lhende Khola has flooded twice in fourteen months, this time triggered by an ice rock avalanche from a glacier on the Nepal side that blocked the river and released a sudden surge downstream,” said Saswata Sanyal, a disaster risk reduction specialist at the climate research group.
“In a warming Himalaya, early warning is the first line of adaptation,” he added.
Senator Slotkin on Climate, Wildfires and Canada
Caught a local meeting today with Senator Elissa Slotkin, who we hope will soon be Michigan’s senior Senator.
First question, from a local Citizen’s Climate Lobby leader, was about wildfire smoke, which has bedeviled the Upper Midwest now for several years, and I fear, many to come.
The Senator started out talking about first responders she just came back from visiting in northern Michigan, where they have been dealing with unprecedented smoke, ice storms, flooding and record rains on a more and more frequent basis.