2 dead now accounted for in this week’s F3 Tornado in Gaylord, MI – the last town of any size as you drive north to the Mackinac Bridge.
We’re not used to this kind of thing in the North Country. People don’t have storm shelters. These are the kind of pictures we are used to seeing from Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas.
The dramatic changes in detection technology of the last 30 years make it hard to assess climate’s impact on tornado numbers or severity, but some progress is being made. I’m working on a piece for Yale that should be done, fingers crossed, soon. One expert I spoke to was Martha Shulski, the Nebraska State Climatologist, and a professor at University of Nebraska.
Month: May 2022
In Graphs: The Coming Shock to Natural Gas Prices
Above, US fossil gas price this weekend is at 8 USD per MMBtu.
Below, Europe’s price is 32.
US Energy Information Agency, one week before Ukraine invasion:
We estimate that the wholesale spot price of natural gas at the U.S. benchmark Henry Hub will average $3.92 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2022, an eight-year high, and will average $3.60/MMBtu throughout 2023. We expect these elevated prices will drive continued increases in U.S. drilling activity and natural gas production.
Free markets being what they are, a lot of US gas is being attracted to Europe. The US is now neck and neck with Qatar as the leading exporter of Liquified Natural Gas, being limited only by the capacity of LNG processing and port facilities.
Qatar regained leadership in May, by a nose.
Continue reading “In Graphs: The Coming Shock to Natural Gas Prices”Reposting: Carl Sagan on Climate in 1985
Wobbly Texas Grid has Energy Lessons for All of Us
Texans have so far dodged a bullet in this early season heat wave, while weathering the failure of a half dozen gas and coal plants.
Rice University engineer Daniel Cohan has a new book on the grid’s state of Gridlock, which I’m reading – I interviewed him, above, following the Texas blackout of February 2021, and below, on the current state power generation in Texas, and everywhere else.
It’s not even summer yet, but Texans are already being asked to turn up our thermostats and leave appliances off each afternoon amid a heatwave that has driven power demand to springtime records. Meanwhile, our aging coal and gas power plants continue to falter. The largest coal plant near Houston caught fire just days before six gas plants tripped offline.
So far, the lights have stayed on, thanks largely to solar output that doubled yet again this year. But the close calls in May bode poorly for what is forecast to be a hotter than normal summer.
Other Americans may dismiss these woes as a uniquely Texan problem. Texas alone operates its power grid as an island, isolated from the two main grids that span other states. That lets the state skirt federal oversight and prevents us from importing power when we need it most.
But the lessons from this spring’s heatwave extend far beyond our borders. Climate change is straining both supply and demand of electricity not just in Texas but globally. Only by transitioning away from the fossil fuel plants that exacerbate warming can we build back better grids and achieve a more affordable, reliable and resilient power supply than ever before.
Power plants rank just behind transportation as our nation’s biggest source of climate-warming emissions, and rank first globally. Thus, we can’t tackle global warming without cleaning up electricity.
In fact, as I explain in my new book “Confronting Climate Gridlock: How Diplomacy, Technology, and Policy Can Unlock a Clean Energy Future,” clean electricity is the most crucial pillar for building a clean energy future. That’s because we’ll need clean electricity not only to power the uses of today, but also to electrify vehicles, heating and industry. Even plans to capture carbon from the air or split hydrogen from water depend on clean and affordable electricity.
Continue reading “Wobbly Texas Grid has Energy Lessons for All of Us”Fossil fuels still provide more than 60 percent of our nation’s electricity, belching out more than 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year. President Biden issued an executive order to eliminate power plant emissions by 2035, but Congress has yet to pass legislation to achieve that.
Climate Politics: Australia’s Pro Coal PM is Gone
Above, Scott Morrison famously brought a lump of coal into Australia’s Parliament, prior to becoming Prime Minister.
Australia delivered a stinging defeat to the country’s ruling conservative coalition on Saturday in what amounted to a personal rebuke of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s abrasive brand of leadership.
The result paves the way for opposition leader Anthony Albanese to become the next prime minister. But it was unclear whether his center-left Labor Party would win an outright majority or be forced to negotiate with a handful of independent and Greens candidates elected on platforms of combating climate change.
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Independent and Greens candidates appeared on track to win around a dozen seats — thanks, in part, to a focus on climate change, an issue that exit polling suggested was on many voters’ minds.
“I think there was a real attempt from Liberal and Labor to bury it as an election issue,” Greens leader Adam Bandt told the ABC. “And we were really clear about the need to tackle climate by tackling coal and gas.”
Zali Steggall, an independent who retained her seat on Sydney’s north shore, said a failure to address climate change had hurt both major parties.
“Climate change simply did not feature in the policies and platforms from the major parties and in particular from Scott Morrison,” she said. “It’s like he forgot that over the last three years, we were ravaged by bush fires and floods and somehow, it was swept under the carpet.”
Now Cheaper to Switch to Renewables than Gas
Renewables outcompeting gas. This has been true for a while, even before recent events have spiked the price of fossil gas. See vids above and below.
CNBC:
- According to the findings of climate analytics firm TransitionZero, it is now cheaper to switch from coal to clean energy, compared to switching from coal to gas.
- That’s thanks to the falling cost of renewables and battery storage, coupled with the rising volatility of gas prices.
- Investing in renewables provides a hedge against climate change risks, said Jacqueline Tao, an analyst at TransitionZero.
Record-high coal and gas prices have been pushing prices higher for consumers and businesses alike, but there could be a silver lining.
According to the findings of climate analytics firm TransitionZero, it is now cheaper to switch from coal to clean energy, compared to switching from coal to gas — thanks to the falling cost of renewables and battery storage, coupled with the rising volatility of gas prices.
“The carbon price needed to incentivize the switch from coal generation to renewable energy for storage has dipped to a negative price,” said Jacqueline Tao, an analyst at TransitionZero.
“So essentially that means that you can actually switch to renewables at a cost saving,” she told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Wednesday.
The report claims that the global average cost of switching from coal to renewable energy has plunged by 99% since 2010, compared to switching from coal to gas.
Using its Coal to Clean Carbon Price Index — or C3PI project — the company measured the carbon price level it takes to motivate 25 countries to switch fuels, from existing coal to renewables such as new onshore wind or solar photovoltaics plus battery.
In Australia: Political Fallout from Climate
Australia is a land of portent for the many dangers posed by climate change. The fires, storms, heat waves and other catastrophes that climatologists predict for the planet are already routine here. They also loom over national elections on May 21.
Not for the first time. Two of the country’s last three elections hinged in some measure on the climate-versus-jobs debate, with Mother Nature losing out. But recently the political temperature has changed. The rising toll exacted by extreme weather — particularly mega-fires in 2019 and 2020 — is resonating with the public.
That’s bad news for Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Climate inaction helped to propel Mr. Morrison to the leadership of the conservative Liberal-National coalition in 2018, but he’s in a tough fight now. Polls this week showed the opposition Labor Party with 51 percent of votes, to 49 percent for the coalition. If that bears out, Australia may serve not merely as a preview of climate peril, but of the risks faced by politicians who shrug it off.
Continue reading “In Australia: Political Fallout from Climate”Ignoring climate concerns wasn’t always a weak point for Mr. Morrison. The coalition government that he now leads was first elected in 2013 in part on a promise to rescind attempts at carbon pricing by the previous Labor government. This policy won support from the mining lobby and voters who were fed fearful rhetoric about environmentalism’s relentless creep on local industry and jobs. It was an effective strategy in a country that is a major exporter of fossil fuels and home of the world’s largest coal port. A belt of parliamentary seats runs through communities where well-paid jobs in mines represent rare and precious economic opportunity and carry enough weight to influence elections.
Top Soil and Civilization. You Need the Former to Keep the Latter
When White settlers reached the Great Plains, topsoils were in the range of 6 feet deep.
Now it’s more like 6 inches, with a large portion of it blown away or flushed down the Mississippi to create a “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, the size of Massachusetts.
Sequestering carbon in soils is potentially an important puzzle piece in decarbonizing the economy.
“Weaponising soils” to boost carbon sequestration is part of Somerset dairy Yeo Valley’s long-term plans to fight climate change, while producing nutritious, healthy food.
The organic dairy brand has set itself the target of increasing soil carbon by 25% in the next 40 years at its two dairies in Blagdon, Somerset.
By doing so, the farms will carry a net carbon footprint of zero, which will help to reduce the overall carbon footprint of the brand.
Farming is a key area for attention since it is responsible for 74% of the business’s total carbon footprint.
In 2020, Yeo Valley Farms, with the help of the Farm Carbon Toolkit (FCT), sampled their 809ha (2,000 acres) of farmland to get an indication of soil carbon levels.
Their reasoning was linked to figures from Iowa State University, which showed soils store more carbon than the atmosphere and all of the world’s plants and forests combined.
Tim Mead, director of Yeo Valley Farms, says it is important to recognise this “huge climate asset”, determine base level carbon stocks and ways to raise them.
With one-third more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than 60 years ago, he believes regenerative agriculture is part of the solution to reversing climate change.
Regenerative farming is focused on agricultural practices that build soil health and increase biodiversity and water cycling with the aim of fighting climate change.
Raising soil organic matter is one way to bolster soil’s carbon storage potential, while also bringing production benefits.
Becky Willson, business development and technical director for FCT, says: “There is a really nice link [between] soil organic matter, soil organic carbon, soil resilience and soil health.” (See “The numbers”).
This means building organic matter and carbon can help with factors such as nutrient cycling, water infiltration and production of quality forage.
EV Sales Exponential Growth Curves
Update from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, “supporting the work of the Zero Emission Vehicle Transition Council, an international forum that convenes governments representing over half of the world’s car market, to accelerate the pace of the global transition to zero-emission vehicles.”
- Global passenger electric vehicle (EV) sales grew by 103% in 2021, to nearly 6.6 million units. ZEVTC member countries combined were responsible for 50% of these EV sales. About 70% of global EV sales were pure battery electric vehicles, which are zero-emission at the tailpipe. Around 30% were plug-in hybrids, while fuel cell vehicles were below 1% of the market.
- Globally, EVs accounted for 13% of passenger vehicle sales in 4Q 2021, or 9% when excluding plug-in hybrids. If plug-in hybrids are included, countries such as Norway (97%), Sweden (60%), Netherlands (51%) and Denmark (49%) have reached very high sales penetrations as of 4Q 2021, demonstrating true mass-market demand for cleaner vehicles. Other countries are still getting their markets started.
- The public charging infrastructure base is growing steadily. The typical ZEVTC country added about 20-30% to its installed base of public charging connectors in 2021, while some (notably India and Italy) added connectors at a much higher rate.
- Several automakers with headquarters or major operations in ZEVTC countries have surpassed 10% EVs in their sales mix: BMW, Geely, Mercedes-Benz and VW Group. Tesla has been the leading EV manufacturer since 2018.
- Sales of zero-emission trucks are still very low, putting commercial vehicle decarbonization far behind the progress made in passenger vehicles. However, three major truck manufacturers have recently presented plans for zero emission medium- and heavy-duty trucks. Between 2019-2021, these three manufacturers (Daimler, Volvo and Traton) sold around 450,000 units annually in ZEVTC countries, accounting for about 30% of the market.
- Global oil demand in road transport reached roughly 43.7 million barrels per day in 2021, a slight increase since 2015. The adoption of electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles avoided almost 1.5 millions of barrels of oil per day in 2021 – about 3.3% of total demand. The displaced demand is roughly equivalent to one-fifth of Russia’s total oil and oil products exports prior to the war, and roughly double Germany’s imports of Russian oil and products at the end of 2021.
Offshore Wind a Big Part of Plan to Push Back Putin
Are we sick enough of fossil fuel wars to actually do something about them?
Pushback starts with renewable energy.