Month: January 2018

RenewEconomy (Australia):

UK-based billionaire Sanjeev Gupta is looking to buy equipment from and use part of the old Holden factory in South Australia to create an electric vehicle production line in what would be a remarkable transformation of Australia’s car industry and economy.

Gupta, whose GFG Alliance last year bought the OneSteel business in Australia with a view to powering the Whyalla and other steelworks with renewable energy and storage, has the backing of the South Australia government, keen to support what it sees as the “inevitable” transition to EVs.

The proposal to buy the disused GM assets would be a partial reprise of the Tesla story in California, which used an old factory in Fremont, once jointly owned by GM and Toyota, to launch its Tesla Model S electric vehicle.

Any EV production plant at GM’s former operations in Elizabeth, north of Adelaide, would likely source steel from Gupta’s newly acquired steel operations, and use renewable energy supplied by its newly merged SIMEC Zen energy business.

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Gupta has insisted that supplying the Whyalla steelworks with renewable energy – solar, pumped hydro, battery storage and demand management – is critical to reverse its fortunes of the ageing Whyalla steelworks and make it profitable.

The plan is a direct rebuttal of claims that renewable energy would be the death of manufacturing and energy intensive businesses in Australia. Numerous big energy users are now turning to wind and solar to slash their electricity costs.

Gupta intends to take the same model to his even more energy intensive operations in Victoria and NSW, which he also bought as part of the OneSteel package.

Gupta has teamed up with Zen Energy, now SIMEC Zen, to provide electricity to the South Australia government pending the construction of the new solar tower and storage facility in Port Augusta. SIMEC Zen’s contribution will be renewable once its new solar plants and storage are built.

 

Continue reading “Breakout Year (again): Renewables Plus Storage are Here”

I’ll think of this from now on, every time I see a bunch of whiny Alt-right man-boys.

Guys, she’s taking all the fire. Let’s Go!

Damn, anyone else have that Flu from Hell?
I’ve been clobbered ever since I got back from the American Geophysical Union meeting, a month ago.
At least functional over last couple weeks, but mental cobwebs and nagging cough are annoying – starting to clear.

Anyhow, it’s 2018, I’ve got a wealth of important new interviews and footage, so let’s get going.

And Then There’s Physics:

There have been a couple of recent papers presenting analyses that claim to have narrowed the likely range for equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS). One is Dessler et al. (currently a discussion paper under review) which suggests that the 500hPa tropical temperature better describes the planet’s energy balance and infers an ECS of 2.1K to 3.9K. The other is Cox et al. who use variability of temperature about long-term historical warming to constrain the ECS to 2.2K to 3.4K. Both suggest a narrower range than that suggested by the most recent IPCC report (1.5K to 4.5K).

James Annan has a post which suggests that these new papers are interesting but that there may be unaccounted for uncertainties. I largely agree and won’t say any more myself. I was, however, going to mention a few aspects of this that I think are relevant.

I thought how this was framed in the media was somewhat unfortunate. For example, Yes, global warming will be bad. But these scientists say it won’t reach the worst-case scenario.It does indeed seem that these studies are suggesting that the worst case scenarios might be less likely than we had previously thought. However, the public debate seems to be dominated by those who think everything will be fine (Lukewarmers) and those who are mostly in the middle of the mainstream. In fact, there is often quite a lot of pushback against any who present worst case scenarios.

The significance of these new studies to the public climate debate therefore seems to be that they largely rule out the Lukewarmer position. Yet, this is not really how they’ve been presented. One prominent Lukewarmer has even claimed that these studies are a vindication for Lukewarmers. Presenting these studies as having ruled out the worst case scenarios, rather than the best case scenarios, probably hasn’t shifted the public climate debate very much.

Claims of a substantial gap between model projections and observed temperatures are not true (2017 update edition). pic.twitter.com/qBqRvQZedC

— Gavin Schmidt (@ClimateOfGavin) January 20, 2018

Continue reading “The Weekend Wonk: 2017 was HOT. Climate Models Affirmed. Climate May be MORE Sensitive than Thought”

Great piece here discussing the enthusiastic following current reigning Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson has among white supremacists, and Neo-Nazis.

Carlson is also famous for spreading climate denial talking points even as planetary warming goes into overdrive.
Completely consistent with my continued hammering on the relationship between racism and climate denial. They always seem to show up with each other.

As the 2010 spot from ABC News shows, below, the association between climate denial and Neo-Nazis goes back at least a decade. Science has never been convenient for Authoritarians, who prefer to follow a “Great Leader” rather than the facts.  Science is the antithesis of Authoritarianism, and hence the hostility that Fox News and its followers have toward scientists.

A clear example occurred in just the last week.
In Mark Steyn, Carlson had a guest who’s a twofer – a non-scientist well known for climate denial, and willing to spout White Supremacist talking points as well.

ThinkProgress:

On Thursday’s Tucker Carlson Tonight, Fox News’ highest rated program, the host and his guest, right-wing pundit Mark Steyn, were unrepentant in their embrace of anti-Hispanic racism.

Steyn ominously noted to an audience of about 3 million people that the “majority of grade school students in Arizona are Hispanic.” According to Steyn, this means that “Arizona’s future is as an Hispanic society.” This, Steyn says, is very bad.

Fox News Insider:

Author and columnist Mark Steyn believes that doomsday climate change predictions appeal to the left because they’re “cartoon science.”

“It’s cartoon science. That’s why they like it, because it’s simple and it appeals to them,” Steyn said on “Your World” today.

Continue reading “Peas in a Poison Pod. Fox News Continues to Push White Supremacy, Climate Denial”

(Robert Mueller III)

ROTFLMAO

Science! is a thing in political races around the country.

https://twitter.com/LaurelCoons/status/954393028877316097

Interesting piece about a phenomenal plant ally that I knew nothing about.

My concern would be invasive species potential in the wrong environment, but another reminder that research on the treasures of the biome is just scratching the surface.

The Conversation:

If plants could be superheroes, the Moringa (Moringa oleifera) tree would be one of them. Although native to the foothills of the Himalayas in India, moringa can thrive in most tropical and subtropical regions. It is drought tolerant, grows rapidly, has leaves that can be used as a biofertiliser, and has seeds that can help purify water. Today, moringa is most commonly found in India and the Philippines but its cultivation is increasing throughout Asia, Africa, Central America, and the Caribbean.

Even more interesting about this tree, is that it’s a food, a vegetable, and a medicine. Every part of the tree can be consumed; leaves and young fruits (pods) as food; and the seeds, bark, flowers, and roots as medicine.

The leaves are highly nutritious. Once harvested and dried, they contain30% protein, all essential amino acids, and have abundant levels of vitamins and minerals.

The trees have a natural defence mechanism against environmental stress and pests. These are unique chemical compounds, known as phytochemicals, which include antioxidants and defence compounds. When consumed these compounds they also protect people against various conditions and diseases.

As a postdoctoral research at Rutgers University working with botanicals to treat obesity and diabetes, we demonstrated a simple way to harness the potent anti-inflammatory compounds in moringa leaves.

Moringa’s safety and efficacy have been reviewed, and have shownpromise for the management of diabetes and risk of cardiovascular diseases.

How it works

Many phytochemicals, especially plant defence compounds used to ward off insects, are stored as inactive compounds. When the leaves are crushed, or chewed by an insect, an enzymatic reaction occurs, releasing the activated compound. While these can act as a deterrent to bug, tasting bitter or spicy, these compounds act as a potent anti-inflammatory agents in our body.

Continue reading “Drought Resistant Tree May be Super-Medicine, Super-Food”

As usual in the renewable space, prices have been dropping unexpectedly rapidly for offshore wind in Europe, and that means unsubsidized offshore wind is becoming a reality.
The potential US offshore wind resource is vast..and it appears that even the Trump administration is enthusiastically supporting development.

Yale Environment 360:

This summer, the Norwegian energy company, Statoil, will send a vessel to survey a triangular slice of federal waters about 15 miles south of Long Island, where the company is planning to construct a wind farm that could generate up to 1.5 gigawatts of electricity for New York City and Long Island — enough to power roughly 1 million homes. Construction on the “Empire Wind” project, with scores of wind turbines generating electricity across 79,000 acres of leased federal waters, is scheduled to begin in 2023, with construction completed in 2025.

Farther south, 27 miles off the coast of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Avangrid Renewables, an Oregon-based company, has already begun planning for a major wind energy farm on 122,000 acres of federal waters, a project that could eventually generate 1.5 gigawatts of electricity.

And about 10 miles off the New Jersey coast, between Atlantic City and Cape May, Danish clean-energy giant Ørsted, which has a large portfolio of offshore wind farms across Europe, is talking with local officials, securing state permits, and doing seafloor surveys on a 160,000-acre site, where it plans to build its 1–gigawatt Ocean Wind project. Company officials say they are hopeful that the wind farm will come online between 2020 and 2025.

After years of false starts and delays, the offshore wind industry in the United States finally seems to be gaining some momentum. Although far behind the burgeoning offshore wind energy industry in Europe, companies such as Statoil, Avangrid, and Ørsted are joining other wind energy developers — both from the U.S. and Europe— to pursue a slate of projects along the U.S. coast.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, more than 25 offshore wind projects with a generating capacity of 24 gigawatts are now being planned, mainly off the U.S. Northeast and mid-Atlantic coasts. And although some of these projects may not be built, and only one commercial offshore wind farm has actually been constructed —the tiny, five-turbine “Block Island Wind”project off Rhode Island — analysts say that U.S. offshore wind is expected to enjoy significant growth in the coming decade.

Continue reading “In the US, Offshore Wind Finally Breezing up”

Racism, climate denial, and this.

Huffington Post:

Eugene Koprowski’s temper earned him a reputation around the office pretty quickly.

Koprowski started work as the marketing director at the Heartland Institute, a right-wing think tank based outside Chicago, in July 2015. Former colleagues say he frequently raised his voice and threw tantrums if they questioned him. One described him as “violent generally.” He sent condescending emails to a female colleague, reprimanding her in almost comically sinister terms: “We will have no more insubordination.”

Despite these outbursts, former colleagues say Koprowski enjoyed protected status in the office because of his friendship with Joseph Morris, a conservative Chicago lawyer who is also a major fundraiser for Heartland and a close ally to its chief executive, Joseph Bast.

HuffPost spoke to three former staffers who confirmed these accounts, but requested anonymity for fear of retribution or jeopardizing future employment in the libertarian policy community.

 

Heartland, they said, fostered a culture that allowed Koprowski, 52, to relentlessly harass a female subordinate half his age ― to the point where she took out a restraining order against him in October 2015. And though Koprowski was apparently fired sometime after the woman complained to human resources, her former colleagues say his termination came in response to other misbehavior ― not his repeated, undesired romantic pursuit of the woman who reported to him.

Even after he was allegedly fired, Heartland kept the former executive in its protective orbit, former staffers say. Morris, who is listed on Heartland’s website as a policy adviser, is defending Koprowski in court against charges racked up when he contacted the woman over and over again, violating the protective order. Some of those charges were dropped in December, days after the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that a cyberstalking law used to charge Koprowski was unconstitutional, but the case is ongoing.

Continue reading “Heartland Climate Deniers are Creepy Stalkers. Who Could have Guessed? Well, #Metoo”