Month: October 2021

On Eve of Glasgow, Polls Show Americans Concerned, Still Divided on Climate

I posted recently on the spike in climate concern among Americans – new polling adds nuance on the eve of the COP 26 meeting in Glasgow, as congress scrambles to provide the US with a coherent policy.

Even Republican officials, with an eye especially to key demographics like women, hispanics, and the young, are scrambling to come up with a “me too” position on climate – the subject of an upcoming video.

2 new polls in particular point to the somewhat fuzzy gap between those who understand climate change is happening, and who also understand the human causes.

Associated Press:

President Joe Biden heads to a vital U.N. climate summit at a time when a majority of Americans regard the deteriorating climate as a problem of high importance to them, an increase from just a few years ago.

About 6 out of 10 Americans also believe that the pace of global warming is speeding up, according to a new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. 

As Biden struggles to pass significant climate legislation at home ahead of next week’s U.N. climate summit, the new AP-NORC/EPIC poll also shows that 55% of Americans want Congress to pass a bill to ensure that more of the nation’s electricity comes from clean energy and less from climate-damaging coal and natural gas. 

Only 16% of Americans oppose such a measure for electricity from cleaner energy. A similar measure initially was one of the most important parts of climate legislation that Biden has before Congress. But Biden’s proposal to reward utilities with clean energy sources and penalize those without ran into objections from a coal-state senator, Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, leaving fellow Democrats scrambling to come up with other ways to slash pollution from burning fossil fuels.

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In all, 59% of Americans said the Earth’s warming is very or extremely important to them as an issue, up from 49% in 2018. Fifty-four percent of Americans cited scientists’ voices as having a large amount of influence on their views about climate change, and nearly as many, 51%, said their views were influenced by recent extreme weather events like hurricanes, deadly heat spells, wildfires and other natural disasters around the world.

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Seventy-five percent of Americans believe that climate change is happening, while 10% believe that it is not, the poll found. Another 15% are unsure. 

Among those who say it is happening, 54% say that it’s caused mostly or entirely by human activities compared to just 14% who think — incorrectly, scientists say — that it’s caused mainly by natural changes in the environment. Another 32% of Americans believe it’s a mix of human and natural factors.

And while Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say climate change is happening, majorities of both parties agree that it is. That breaks down to 89% of Democrats and and 57% of Republicans.

The poll also gauged Americans’ willingness to pay for the cost of cutting climate-wrecking pollution as well as mitigating its consequences. 

Fifty-two percent said they would support a $1 a month carbon fee on their energy bill to fight climate change, but support dwindles as the fee increases.

Another poll from Vice News/Guardian muddies things.

Vice News:

Nearly half of Americans still don’t think climate change is caused by human activities, but Democrats were far less likely than Republicans to hold those views, a new VICE News and Guardian poll has found. 

Continue reading “On Eve of Glasgow, Polls Show Americans Concerned, Still Divided on Climate”

Twin Cyclones Stormed the West last Week

The West’s Torrential Rains, Drought, and La Nina

As a torrential “atmospheric river” drowns the west, breaking, for the moment, a historic drought, it’s worth remembering that the emergent pattern of precipitation coming more often in giant dumps is not ideal to get out of a dry spell.

Cloudbursts and gullywashers tend to run off quickly, as opposed to the more frequent, slow, soaking rainfall that actually feeds soil and aquifers in a sustainable way.
I put the question to Kevin Trenberth a few years ago and got a lucid explanation, above.
Below, Daniel Swain updates on the California situation.

Below, more perspective from my recent chat with Park Williams of UCLA.
He points out, importantly, that rising temperature means more precipitation will fall as rain rather than snow at high altitudes, affecting the snow storage capacity of mountain reservoirs, and snow melts off sooner in the spring, leaving a longer period for unprotected soil to dry out.

Continue reading “The West’s Torrential Rains, Drought, and La Nina”

Hertz So Good: Rental Giant’s 100k Order Puts Tesla in Driver’s Seat

Significantly, further down, article notes that Hertz will be investing in 3000 new charging stations, both at rental locations and in “suburban areas”.

Associated Press:

DETROIT (AP) — Hertz announced Monday that it will buy 100,000 electric vehicles from Tesla, one of the largest purchases of battery-powered cars in history and the latest evidence of the nation’s increasing commitment to EV technology.

The purchase by one of the world’s leading rental car companies reflects its confidence that electric vehicles are gaining acceptance with environmentally minded consumers as an alternative to vehicles powered by petroleum-burning internal combustion engines.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Mark Fields, Hertz’ interim CEO, said that Teslas are already arriving at the company’s sites and should be available for rental starting in November. 

Hertz said in its announcement that it will complete its purchases of the Tesla Model 3 small cars by the end of 2022. It also said it will establish its own electric vehicle charging network as it strives to produce the largest rental fleet of electric vehicles in North America. 

Fields wouldn’t say how much Hertz is spending for the order. But he said the company has sufficient capital and a healthy balance sheet after having emerged from bankruptcy protection in June.

The deal likely is worth around $4 billion because each Model 3 has a base price of about $40,000. It also ranks at the top of the list of electric vehicle orders by a single company. In 2019, Amazon ordered 100,000 electric delivery vans from Rivian, a startup manufacturer of electric van, pickup trucks and SUVs. Amazon is an investor in Rivian.

Shares of Tesla hit an intraday record Monday before pulling back slightly. They were up 7% to $973.85 by mid-morning. The share price increase boosted the market value of Tesla, the world’s most valuable automaker, to just over $900 billion.

Continue reading “Hertz So Good: Rental Giant’s 100k Order Puts Tesla in Driver’s Seat”

Clean Energy Mining Footprint Tiny Compared to Fossil Fuels

Climate activists including Vanessa Nakate from Uganda and Leonie Bremer of the German Fridays for Future movement, visit the Garzweiler open-cast coal mine in Luetzerath, western Germany, Oct. 9, 2021.

Kind of what I’ve been telling people for a long time.
Rice University experts ran some numbers for the Dallas Morning News.

Dallas Morning News:

Dangerous misconceptions about the energy transition are taking hold in the energy policy community. Some analysts argue that the shift to renewable power is reprising America’s risky dependence on dirty mining and corrupt regimes, just as the country has achieved hard-fought independence in fossil fuels.

Our research suggests these claims are off base. Even though renewables require imports of raw material and manufactured components, clean energy systems are bringing deep declines in mining, in energy-related trade and in political risks to the U.S. energy supply.

It’s true that building solar arrays and wind farms requires more materials (iron, copper, rare earths, cobalt and others) than fossil fuel plants of equivalent output.

But over their operating lifetimes, wind and solar are far less mining-intensive than fossil fuels, and far less exposed to political risk.

Take coal as an example. The 7.7 billion metric tons of coal mined globally in 2020 were also combusted in 2020 or soon after. That coal must be replaced in 2021 and in every subsequent year until the plants burning it are decommissioned.

By contrast, renewable systems only need raw materials during manufacturing. The 22 million metric tons of transition metals produced in 2020 were utilized in solar arrays, wind turbines, storage systems and wires that will generate, store and transport carbon-free power for decades. There is zero further mining for the life of that equipment. In many cases, the materials can be recycled once the equipment’s useful life is done.

Our research shows that installing just 1 gigawatt of wind capacity to replace coal on a grid like that in Texas reduces total mining by 25 million metric tons over 20 years. That includes not just the extraction of ores for steel, copper, rare earths and other materials, but all earth moved in the process, including overburden and waste.

Over two decades, five times more power would be produced by mining an equivalent amount for wind rather than coal.

These disparities are structural. Economists refer to fossil fuels as “stocks” that can be traded and stored but used only once. Renewable energy takes the form of “flows,” air or sunlight, captured by long-lived infrastructure.

This crucial distinction allows for enormous reductions in materials. In 2020, for example, the world consumed 350 times more coal and 190 times more oil than all transition materials combined.

Trade in oil, gas and coal represent between 5% and 10% of total international trade by value and around a third of seaborne trade by volume. Raw materials and components for the energy transition will never come close, even as they replace those fuels.

Even if the world increased the annual global production of all rare earths, graphite, cobalt and copper 12-fold, and increased lithium production 24-fold — in line with requirements to meet the Paris Agreement’s goals — the tonnage produced would comprise just 3% of 2020 coal production.

Yes, it will be challenging to develop sufficient mining. Shortages will slow the transition at times. But the tradeoffs of replacing fossil fuels also include huge gains in energy security.

The massive reduction in materials alone helps mitigate supply chain risk.

But the real payoff arises because we only need these materials during manufacturing and construction. Once the solar arrays and wind turbines are producing power, their exposure to supply chain risk is finished. For fossil fuel plants, switching them on is when the risk exposures begin.

Continue reading “Clean Energy Mining Footprint Tiny Compared to Fossil Fuels”

In a Big Dry, a Wet Extreme Out West

Unfortunately, we would need a decade of wet weather to reverse the drought conditions that currently exist.

Water’s for Fightin’ – Utah Girds for Water War

Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting. – attributed to Mark Twain

Salt Lake Tribune:

The state Senate approved a bill Wednesday that would establish the so-called Colorado River Authority of Utah, along with a $9 million “legal defense fund,” intended to ensure that the state receives its allotted share of the Colorado’s dwindling flows.

“Our surrounding states have spent the last several years spending millions and millions of dollars to fight against our having our share,” Sen. Don Ipson, R-St. George, said on the Senate floor, offering no evidence to support the assertion. “It’s important to our state to stop running our share of the water down the Colorado River. We need to recapture it. It’s our water. They’re making moves every day to posture in the surrounding states to take our water right away from us.”

Utah has shared the Colorado River’s flow with six Western states under a century-old agreement, but the Beehive State has been slow to push its stake, according to backers of HB297. Accordingly, Utah uses 54% of its share, Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, said shortly before the Senate approved the measure in a 24-3 vote.

Critics say this new water agency is really geared toward advancing the proposed Lake Powell pipeline and risks igniting a water war with the six other states, now on record opposing the pipeline that would funnel Colorado River water to St. George.

“This bill has been railroaded through the Utah Legislature despite widespread criticism about its climate change denial, lack of transparency and the bill’s exemption from conflict-of-interest laws,” said Sen. Derek Kitchen, D-Salt Lake City. “We do not need an expensive agency. We need transparency. We need more conservation.”

The proposed Colorado River Authority of Utah would marshal a team of experts and lawyers to match the resources that California, Arizona and Nevada devote to asserting their interests in the river, according to Adams and co-sponsor House Speaker Brad Wilson, R-Kaysville.

“The factor limiting growth isn’t our infrastructure, it’s not our land, even though almost 70% of our land is owned by the federal government. It’s water,” Adams said. “We know that 60% of the population of Utah relies on the Colorado River. … What this bill does is help preserve and conserve Utah’s right to the Colorado River. It’s very important that we hire and use the most technical specialists, both engineers, planners and those that want to conserve water.”

The bill now returns to the House for some minor amendments that require that chamber’s approval.

Ipson and other lawmakers allege the Colorado’s Lower Basin states are tapping Utah’s share of the river.

“This bill, and the products of this bill, will help us stop that nonsense,” Ipson said. “If the water that we turn loose down the Colorado were held behind the Glen Canyon Dam — that is our portion — Lake Powell would look a lot different today than it does.”

The Utah legislature has a shameful history of climate denial, as demonstrated recently when legislators used the anti-science “Prager University” as a resource on renewable energy, rather than actual experts.

Continue reading “Water’s for Fightin’ – Utah Girds for Water War”