February 2022 – Page 11 – This is Not Cool

Coal Powered, Facebook Frenzied NIMBYs and the No Good, Horrible, Very Bad “Sounds” of Solar Energy

Years ago when the clean energy was mostly about wind turbines, I half-jokingly remarked, “Wait till solar energy really comes on strong, then you’ll be hearing about “noise” from solar panels.”

I say half-jokingly, because the anti-clean energy crowd is pretty much of the same cloth as the “vaccines will make me magnetic” crowd. If you haven’t been near a working solar panel, I can tell you that photons turning into electrons is a completely silent process. If you happen to be very close to an inverter that is part of the assembly, you might hear a mild hum, but not more than a few feet away.

Above, 1 minute vid from the University of Illiinois solar facility in Champaign, IL.

Below, anti-clean energy activist Kevon Martis is a self described “Senior Fellow” of the coal-funded “Think Tank” E&E Legal, famous for harassing, threatening, and attempting to bully climate scientists like Michael Mann, Malcolm Hughes, and Jonathan Overpeck.
He recently played a recording at a township board meeting in southern Michigan, that he alleged was the sound that one would hear living near a solar array, created by an inverter.

Draw your own conclusions.

Texas Grid Wobbles, but Holding in Winter Storm

WFAA Dallas:

DALLAS — Officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) say they’ve received notice from natural gas providers of “some instances” of reduction in supply in the North Texas area, though energy experts don’t anticipate a major impact on the statewide power grid.

The reductions, known as curtailments, are expected to result in a loss of energy reserves between 1,200 and 2,600 megawatts, according to ERCOT.

Power generators that are impacted by the curtailments “will be able to use alternative fuels stored onsite or use alternative pipelines,” ERCOT officials told WFAA.

Judah's paper isn't in a text book (yet), but this winter so far is a text-book example of his proposed mechanism linking climate change to severe winter weather. Bottom line: global warming does not equal end of winter. https://t.co/n3kuxRp9QY
— Dr. Jennifer Francis (@JFrancisClimate) January 31, 2022

While the impact of the loss in megawatts remained unclear Wednesday, 1,200-2,600 megawatts can power anywhere between 60,000-520,000 homes at peak demand, according to estimates on ERCOT’s website and an energy expert.

Still, ERCOT officials have remained confident in the state power grid, saying Wednesday that the grid remained “strong” heading into the winter storm.

ERCOT interim CEO Brad Jones said “there is always a chance for local” outages during winter storms, due to ice and fallen tree limbs. But Jones said local outages “are not related to the amount of electricity generated and put on the grid.”

“While grid conditions remain strong with enough capacity, our weather forecasts show there is potential for significant frozen precipitation behind this week’s cold front,” Jones said.

Research: Ocean Layers Losing Oxygen due to Warming

This is alarming. Modeling study, but still.

American Geophysical Union:

By 2080, around 70% of the world’s oceans could be suffocating from a lack of oxygen as a result of climate change, potentially impacting marine ecosystems worldwide, according to a new study. The new models find mid-ocean depths that support many fisheries worldwide are already losing oxygen at unnatural rates and passed a critical threshold of oxygen loss in 2021.

Oceans carry dissolved oxygen as a gas, and just like land animals, aquatic animals need that oxygen to breathe. But as the oceans warm due to climate change, their water can hold less oxygen. Scientists have been tracking the oceans’ steady decline in oxygen for years, but the new study provides new, pressing reasons to be concerned sooner rather than later.

The new study is the first to use climate models to predict how and when deoxygenation, which is the reduction of dissolved oxygen content in water, will occur throughout the world’s oceans outside its natural variability.

It finds that significant, potentially irreversible deoxygenation of the ocean’s middle depths that support much of the world’s fished species began occurring in 2021, likely affecting fisheries worldwide. The new models predict that deoxygenation is expected to begin affecting all zones of the ocean by 2080.

The results were published in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters, which publishes high-impact, short-format reports with immediate implications spanning all Earth and space sciences.

The ocean’s middle depths (from about 200 to 1,000 meters deep), called mesopelagic zones, will be the first zones to lose significant amounts of oxygen due to climate change, the new study finds. Globally, the mesopelagic zone is home to many of the world’s commercially fished species, making the new finding a potential harbinger of economic hardship, seafood shortages and environmental disruption.

Rising temperatures lead to warmer waters that can hold less dissolved oxygen, which creates less circulation between the ocean’s layers. The middle layer of the ocean is particularly vulnerable to deoxygenation because it is not enriched with oxygen by the atmosphere and photosynthesis like the top layer, and the most decomposition of algae — a process that consumes oxygen — occurs in this layer.

Clean Energy an “Opportunity” for Conservatives

Just don’t say climate. Yet.

WISpolitics:

The head of the Wisconsin Conservative Energy Forum says Republicans in the state have a “political opportunity” in clean energy given widespread support seen in poll results.

“We do polling every year across the country, we do polling here in Wisconsin, it doesn’t matter if you’re polling right-of-center voters, middle or left-of-center, clean energy is very universally popular,” Executive Director Scott Coenen said recently during Renew Wisconsin’s annual Renewable Energy Summit in Madison. “75, 80 percent — the numbers are always there. People like this stuff.”

GOP lawmakers in the state have recently introduced bills related to community solar projects and third-party financing, as well as electric vehicles and EV charging stations. While some have seen more movement than others, Renew Wisconsin Director of Government Affairs Jim Boullian said these efforts represent “some real breakthroughs” with more conservatives eyeing clean energy issues.

Coenen explained that Republicans and Democrats are approaching these topics from very different perspectives, and that has a big impact on related messaging.

“In all materials, the supporting stuff we put together for all of those kind of right-of-center renewable energy, clean energy bills, you will not see the word climate mentioned once. Not once, right? Not a motivating factor,” he said, noting that applies to both GOP voters and political leaders.

By avoiding the question of climate and focusing on factors like competition, consumer choice, free market opportunities, jobs, infrastructure investment and national security, Coenen says lobbying efforts aim to appeal to Republican values.

“That doesn’t necessarily build bipartisanship or common ground necessarily, but it at least I think gets everybody rowing in the same direction, right, and does it matter why we’re rowing that boat if we’re all kind of moving in the same direction? Not necessarily,” he said.

Assembly Minority Leader Rep. Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, said during last week’s event that she appreciates the work done by Coenen and Sen. Rob Cowles, R-Green Bay, to advance some of these issues.

“Really glad that conversation has expanded, continued,” she said. “While it may not be the way that I would draft the bill, I’m glad to see progress, I’m glad to see discussion happening in the Capitol.”

To Deter Russia, Leverage the Green Transition

More evidence that informed opinion in Europe and the West view the Ukraine crisis as a potential turning point in linking western security to the green energy transition.

Nikos Tsafos (@ntsafos) is the James R. Schlesinger Chair in Energy and Geopolitics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Nikos Tsafos in Euractiv:

As tensions over Ukraine escalate, the United States and Europe need to deter Russian aggression. The energy sector is a logical target given its centrality to Russia, with the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that links Russia and Germany has emerged as a likely avenue for pushing back.

That is unfortunate. Nord Stream 2 is a poor lever to pull on – and even if played well, it will offer a limited reprieve.

The United States and Europe need to think bigger: they should target Russia’s role in the new energy economy. Without long-term access to the European energy market, Russia is barely an economically viable country. This makes the new energy economy an ideal domain to combat Russian adventurism. And it is a strategy that delivers pain today and offers a framework for engaging with Russia for years, if not decades.

The logic for targeting the new energy economy, as opposed to hydrocarbons, is informed by history. The United States has tried to stop Europe from buying Russian hydrocarbons for sixty years. These efforts have failed because the commercial logic of this trade is too strong. The current moment is no different. Germany has said it might target the recently completed Nord Stream 2 pipeline if Russia invades Ukraine. On the face of it, that seems like a serious theat.

But delaying the start-up of Nord Stream 2 is a short-term fix. Delay approval for too long, and Russia might conclude that the pipeline is doomed regardless of its actions in Ukraine. The deterrent threat is lost. Nor is stopping Nord Stream 2 the prize it is often portrayed to be. Stopping the pipeline forces Russia to deal with Ukraine but does not change Russia’s dominant position in the European market. If Nord Stream 2 never operates, Russia will lose face, but this is a Pyrrhic win for the West.

One Year After Epic Fail, Texas Grid to be Stress Tested

Following last year’s Texas debacle, I spoke to Chris Tomlinson at the Houston Chronicle about “lessons learned”.
Guess what he told me?

Utility Dive:

It was a year ago this month that Winter Storm Uri hit Texas, freezing a variety of energy infrastructure and leading to more than 50,000 MW of lost generation. ERCOT, utility regulators and state lawmakers have all tried to ensure the situation does not repeat, and this week’s cold front may present the first real test.

ERCOT is now expecting peak demand of almost 75 GW for Friday morning, Doug Lewin, an energy analyst and president of Stoic Energy, said in a Sunday tweet, and outages at thermal plants are higher than the grid operator had expected. Last winter’s peak was about 77 GW, he said.

“That’s a lot of power,” Lewin wrote. “This is still nothing like last February and I’m not worried.”

Former Democratic Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, now a candidate to replace Gov. Greg Abbott, R, has launched a statewide “Keeping the Lights On” tour to highlight what he sees as Abbott’s failure on grid resilience.

Since that disaster in February the state has “still failed to fix problems within the grid,” O’Rourke told news station KFOX14 on Monday.

“All of us hope and pray the grid stays together, and power continues to be produced and transmitted,” he said.

ERCOT issued a statement acknowledging the weather forecast, but said it is taking early steps to ensure the lights stay on.

“ERCOT will deploy all the tools available to us to manage the grid effectively during this winter weather,” ERCOT CEO Brad Jones said. The grid operator is coordinating with the Texas Division of Emergency Management, the Public Utility Commission and elected officials, he added, along with electric generators and transmission and distribution utilities.

“We have ordered power plants across the region to postpone planned outages and to return from outages already in progress,” Jones said.

This is something.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott in November: "I guarantee the lights will stay on."
Governor Abbott just now: "No one can guarantee that there wont be a 'load shed event.'"
A 'load shed event' is a planned blackout.
— Mose Buchele (@MoseBuchele) February 1, 2022

Missing Link in Extreme Weather – Climate Jacked Humidity

The stunning sequence of extreme events in North America and across the world over the last year has had me asking scientists if some kind of threshold had been crossed in the climate system, that was taking us into entirely new territory.

The best answer I got was from Daniel Swain, above, a researcher at UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. It’s not that something has suddenly changed, so much as we are seeing evidence of how much gradual accumulated change has already occurred.

This new research provides a missing piece, with new measurments of atmospheric moisture, which is a key indicator how much additional energy is now in circulation, and ready to explode when normal storm fronts form and become super charged.

Associated Press:

When it comes to measuring global warming, humidity, not just heat, matters in generating dangerous climate extremes, a new study finds.

Researchers say temperature by itself isn’t the best way to measure climate change’s weird weather and downplays impacts in the tropics. But factoring in air moisture along with heat shows that climate change since 1980 is nearly twice as bad as previously calculated, according to their study in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The energy generated in extreme weather, such as storms, floods and rainfall is related to the amount of water in the air. So a team of scientists in the U.S. and China decided to use an obscure weather measurement called equivalent potential temperature — or theta-e — that reflects “the moisture energy of the atmosphere,” said study co-author V. “Ram” Ramanathan, a climate scientist at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Cornell University. It’s expressed in degrees, like temperature.