This is Not Cool

Solar Power Surging in Midwest

A new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis has found that despite Trump administration efforts to push coal and natural gas, renewables are still gaining market share at a “blistering” pace — especially in Michigan and the Midwest.

That’s particularly true when it comes to solar power. Michigan is served by part of the national grid called the Midwest Independent System Operator, or MISO. The report says that as recently as 2023, solar provided barely 1% of the system’s power.

But energy analyst and report coauthor Dennis Wamsted said that number had grown to 4.5% last year. He says that’s largely due to recent major improvements in battery storage technology that lets utilities capture and distribute renewable power as needed.

“It’s like a secret sauce,” Wamsted said. “You put them together and you have a competitor for any kind of coal or natural gas plant, because you now have dispatchable renewable power.”

Wamsted said solar’s growth trajectory in MISO mirrors that of Texas a decade ago. Texas is now the largest solar market in the U.S. Wamsted said MISO won’t necessarily see the same level of explosive growth, but “what it shows is that really fast growth is possible, and you can start to become a very significant part of the grid pretty quickly.”

Trump Admin Just Realized a Mid East War Might Impact Energy Prices

Wall Street Journal:

The national average price of regular unleaded gasoline was $3.48 a gallon as of Monday, up more than 15% since the start of the Iran conflict, according to OPIS. Automakers are racing to gauge the potential effect on sales, which have started slowly so far this year with buyers continuing to fret over record new-car prices and still-high interest rates.

Brian Irwin, leader of the automotive-consulting practice at Alvarez & Marsal, said gas prices at these levels aren’t historically high, but the rate of their rise is noteworthy.

“It is the sudden and rapid changes in price that impact consumer buying behaviors,” Irwin said.

For many automakers, it is a headache they didn’t need after spending a year winding back plans to roll out new electric vehicles.

Newly freed from federal mandates to churn out fuel-efficient vehicles, General Motors, Ford Motor and Jeep-Ram parent Stellantis last year slashed production of EVs while doubling down on big trucks and powerful engines. Detroit’s automakers alone announced more than $50 billion in combined write-downs over scrapped EV plans.

Now, Wall Street analysts and investors are worried whether Detroit’s automakers and their truck-heavy lineups can weather this storm. Shares of Ford are down 13% since the war started, while GM has lost 5%.

Paul Krugman:

Donald Trump talked a lot of nonsense about energy during the 2024 campaign. But in fairness, some of the underlying premises behind “drill, baby, drill” were accepted by many people. At the very least, it was widely presumed that U.S. self-sufficiency in oil would protect America from disruptions in oil supplies overseas.

Up the Temperature Stair Case: Super El Niño Could be a “Major Jump”

Just over 10 years ago I interviewed Kevin Trenberth in San Francisco, in the midst of what turned out to be a strong El Niño event, when global temperature rose smartly through 2015-16, in a pattern that Dr. Trenberth described as a “step function”, and he hypothesized that successive El Niño events, since they represent a major cycle in ocean absorption and release of heat to the atmosphere, were important markers of the global heating process.
We have enough of a record now to see that Dr Trenberth was broadly correct. The El Niño cycle seems to be an important one in which planetary temperature equilibrates to a somewhat higher level.
The cycles historically recur on a 2 to 7 year cycle, the last one was 2023-24, with 2024 being the warmest year in the record.

Washington Post:

This year’s El Niño is looking increasingly likely to have wide-reaching impacts across the planet.

It’s still in its developmental stages and it’s too early to confidently say just how strong it may become, but its tendencies have been similar to major events in the past — boosted by record-breaking westerly wind bursts in the Pacific, which blow warm water eastward.

No two El Niño events are exactly alike, but here are some of the possibilities.

Atlantic hurricane season impacts

Harsh winds in the middle and upper atmosphere during formidable El Niño events can create conditions that are less conducive to hurricane formation.

“Overall, this would be about as unfavorable an Atlantic look as you could get for the peak of hurricane season,” wrote meteorologist Andy Hazelton, who has been tracking this potential El Niño’s impact on the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season, which starts June 1.

Even if there are fewer storms, El Niño doesn’t tell you where hurricanes may go. It only takes one landfall — as demonstrated by Hurricane Andrew in Florida in 1992 — for it to be a memorable season.

The strongest El Niño events almost always cause a record warm year. That’s because heat comes out of the ocean during El Niño, overspreads the tropics in the Pacific, then gets redistributed across the planet.

“The El Nino cometh,” wrote climate scientist Zeke Hausfather.

“Sky is the Limit” for Oil Prices

“Above what anyone expected”.
“A fifth of the world’s energy supply stuck.”

The Hill:

President Trump is pushing oil tanker crews to “show some guts” and sail through the Strait of Hormuz.

“These ships should go through the Strait of Hormuz and show some guts, there’s nothing to be afraid of. … They have no Navy, we sunk all their ships,” Trump said, according to Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade, who recounted the president’s remarks during an interview.

“Farmers and small businesses will see dramatically higher costs from diesel.”

Fox43 – Harrisburg, PA:

As fighting in the Middle East enters its second week, the American Farm Bureau is sounding the alarm on fertilizer prices.

On Monday, the American Farm Bureau held a press conference to discuss the volatility of the fertilizer market since the start of the Iran War. According to the bureau, the Middle East is a key export hub for nitrogen fertilizer, accounting for nearly half of the world’s urea exports and 30% of ammonia exports.

Earth Warming Accelerating as Aerosols Reduced

Bloomberg:

Planetary warming has significantly accelerated over the past 10 years, with temperatures rising at a higher rate since 2015 than in any previous decade on record, a new study showed.

The Earth warmed around 0.35 degrees Celsius in the decade to 2025, compared to just under 0.2C per decade on average between 1970 and 2015, according to a paper published on Friday in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters. This is the first statistically significant evidence of an acceleration of global warming, the authors said.

The past three years have been the hottest on record, compared to the average before the Industrial Revolution. In 2024, warming went past 1.5C, the lower limit set by the Paris Agreement. That target refers to temperature increases over 20 years, but breaching it for one year shows efforts to slow down climate change have been insufficient, the scientists who wrote the new paper said.

Study: Agriculture, Climate Change Pounding Bird Populations

No, it ain’t wind turbines.

Science:

Using data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey, the authors found that about half of the 261 species analyzed showed significant declines from 1987 to 2021, and a quarter showed accelerating declines. Hotspots of accelerating abundance decline were located in regions with high-intensity agriculture (high cropland area, fertilizer use, or pesticide use)

The first notable finding is that warm and warming regions coincide with areas of abundance decline (ΔN, Fig. 3, A and C, and figs. S7 and S8). This pattern is consistent with the evidence that bird populations are shifting their distributions northward as they track cooler conditions (31). Increases in temperatures have been shown to increase the risk of bird species’ extinction as a result of a lack of species adaptability to rapidly changing climatic conditions (32), and consistent temperature-related responses have been documented across both Europe and North America (33). Our results further support this by showing that areas experiencing greater warming (Fig. 3C) also exhibit stronger abundance declines, suggesting that rising temperatures may be a driver of recent bird population losses.

Oil Strikes in Tehran Bring Polluted, Toxic Pall over Mideast

Drop Site News on X:

Israeli strikes on oil depots around Tehran have released massive quantities of toxic hydrocarbons, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. Mixed with rainwater, these chemicals are causing highly acidic precipitation that can cause skin burns and severe lung damage upon contact, according to Iranian authorities.

▪️ Dense plumes of black smoke from the Shahran and other refineries have blotted out the sun, plunging parts of the city into darkness and creating a “nuclear winter” effect, NYT reported. Authorities warned that these noxious fumes cause acute respiratory distress and eye irritation.

▪️ Oil-saturated rainwater has blanketed the city, leaving rooftops, balconies, and streets covered in a thick, murky black liquid and oily soot. This contamination poses a long-term risk of heavy metals like nickel and vanadium leaching into the soil and local water systems.

▪️ Environmental groups warn the pollution threatens migratory birds crossing the Persian Gulf. The “black rain” and smoke plumes can cause internal organ damage and destroy the insulating properties of bird feathers, leading to hypothermia and death.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society warned of the dangers of the rain, advising residents to protect themselves and to cover exposed food from oily soot particles. Officials said the rain is highly corrosive and could potentially damage civilian structures.

Trump “Backed in Corner” in Epstein Oil War

As I wrote last week, Iran is in the driver’s seat, despite being hammered by superior US and Israeli power.
Number one because their capacity to wreck interlinked and globally integrated
markets, which are rapidly ramping pain on Americans, and could, according to some well informed officials, disrupt the global economy.
For many who though this was all fun and games for a long time, real impacts showing up that could be long lasting, and real fears about an expanding war and worldwide ripple effects are putting increased pressure on the team of unprepared amateurs in the Trump cabinet.

Some darker fears of an uncontrolled WWIII scenario are making the rounds.

Batteries, Solar, Can Rival Nuclear for Reliability

Mark Jacobson has taken a lot of heat for his insistence that Wind, water, solar and batteries can power the grid reliably – but relentlessly evolving technology keeps proving his point, particularly since massive battery buildout in states like California and Texas is creating what amounts to a phase-change in how the grid works, crowding out gas to an amazing degree.

Mark Jacobson on X:

Fossil gas use for electricity down 59.5% in 2026 versus 2023 in the world’s 4th-largest economy.

16th-straight and 43rd of 66 days in 2026 with >100% WindWaterSolar on California’s main grid

Fossil gas use continues to plummet as solar & batteries rise

Michigan’s Tornado is Earliest EF 3 on Record

Two weeks ago I was in the northernmost part of Lower Michigan in Gaylord, attending a remembrance event for survivors of a highly destructive ice storm that swept thru a year ago in early April, knocking out power for weeks in some cases, and causing immense damage to infrastructure, including electric transmission, that is still being addressed.
One topic that came up was that Gaylord was just getting over another traumatic event, a very rare EF 3 strength tornado that hit the community in May of 2022. Tornadoes in this part of the upper midwest are, needless to say, extremely rare historically.

Last week another twister of similar strength hit last week in early March, this time in South Michigan, part of a larger band of storms that caused a ground stop at O’Hare Airport in Chicago, where I was waiting for an (eventually cancelled) flight.
With thousands passengers stranded, rental cars disappeared quickly, but I managed to snag one by Ubering about 15 miles west of the airport in the Chicago suburbs. That had me driving through western Michigan under some unusually intense rain and fog conditions for hours to get home, about the same time twisters were killing 4 people not far away.
The video from Union City, MI looks not so much like Michigan in March, as Oklahoma in May.
Union Lake is still iced over.