Long time viewers will know the work of Emily Fairfax, and the positive benefits of Beavers as engineers of the landscape, with benefits for fire resistance, aquifers, and wetlands.
There must have been a press conference on this the other day, because two new videos, both worthwhile, have popped up from Vox and CBS news, updating the story.
Old idea has new relevance as California staggers under record temperatures.
While temperatures surge in California this weekend—straining the electric grid as millions of people crank up air-conditioning—some electric cars will automatically adjust when they charge to help avoid blackouts. The cars will always be ready to use when drivers need them. But by tweaking the timing, the system can help keep the grid running smoothly.
WeaveGrid is a San Francisco-based startup that builds software to connect EV drivers to the grid. It’s working with the local utility, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), to pilot a new program that pays drivers to enroll their cars in smart charging. “We’re talking about thousands of drivers,” says WeaveGrid cofounder and CEO Apoorv Bhargava. “So that’s a pretty huge amount of load that we’re going to be moving off of peak.”
It’s similar to “virtual power plant” software in homes, which can help automatically adjust thermostats or run appliances at the best time to keep the grid operating in the face of increasing challenges from climate change. WeaveGrid’s pilot with PG&E will also take into account the risk from wildfires. When the weather is especially hot, dry, and windy, the utility may have to shut down some power lines to help avoid sparking a fire. But the system can ensure that when a shutoff is planned, electric cars are charged in advance.
Eventually, electric cars will also likely be used as batteries, helping store extra power from renewable energy, and sending it back into the grid when it’s needed. “As renewables become more prominent in electricity generation, you will see spikes—it’s not like it used to be with coal plants or nuclear plants, where the amount of electricity generated is more or less uniform through time,” says Heta Gandhi, a PhD student at the University of Rochester who has studied how vehicle-to-grid charging can benefit both the grid and drivers. “It depends on how much wind we have, or how much sun we have. When there are those spikes, you can charge your electric vehicle, and it can act as a storage device.”
Right now, most drivers don’t yet have bidirectional chargers that can send power back to the grid, and car companies and utilities also need to set up systems so EVs can be used in that way. (Some pilots are already underway, including with larger electric vehicles like school buses.) But even if cars simply adjust the timing of when they charge, that alone can make a huge difference.
Continue reading “How EVs Can Back Up the Grid”“Our goal here at the company is to ensure that EVs are not going to be a challenge to the grid,” says Bhargava. “Yeah, at the end of the day, EVs are a massive new type of load. But what we’re trying to enable is that they can become a really powerful asset to the grid, rather than being a liability.” If cars charge when there’s extra renewable energy available, for example, grid operators can avoid curtailing wind or solar power.
US “natural” gas prices soaring, and Europe is completely off the chart – where “fuel poverty” is a buzz word.
Reliance on gas causing pain everywhere – huge stimulus to renewables.
Above, Solar and wind cost estimates under high prices following the Ukraine invasion.
Below, todays one-year graph for US natural gas prices. (Henry Hub)
The largest “sink” for methane in the atmosphere is the destruction of methane by hydroxyl radicals created continuously by sunlight striking water vapor. The radicals only last for a brief moment, but are critical to life as we know it. (see animated explainer below)
Among their many functions – destroying methane molecules and helping to maintain the earth’s radiative balance.
More in a continuing series on methane and its pathways in the atmosphere. Still trying to get my arms around all this, stay tuned.
The road to clean energy goes thru America’s small towns and rural communities.
Fossil fuel interests have found it in their interest to use social media to spread toxic misinformation and myths about clean energy. Citizens like Paul Wohlfarth of Riga Township, in Southeast Michigan, are pushing back successfully against the tide of nonsense.
Paul Wohlfarth in the Adrian (Michigan) Telegram (paywall):
Our newspapers are filled daily with climate change weather disasters seldom seen decades ago. Here in southeast Michigan we’ve been spared most of these disastrous events.
We do experience greater numbers of extreme precipitation events affecting farmers and flooding communities. Many have an attitude that if it doesn’t affect me, it’s not my problem. Well, the world has realized it is a major problem as heat indexes soar and water sources dry up around the world causing instability .
Recently, our government stepped up its commitment and allocated $375 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act that is mostly aimed at moving away from man-made, climate-changing fossil fuels. Here in southeast Michigan, we are ground zero in a growing green energy economy. The area has the most radiant energy available for solar projects in Michigan and is being viewed as a growth target.
A week ago I was given tax records of a Monroe County solar farm. The records show that previously, when it was a 100-acre hay farm, it produced $4,498 in taxes to the community. Now, as a solar farm, it’s paying out $296,771 annually. Let that sink in for a minute: $4,498 as a hay farm to $296,771 as a new solar farm. Wow! That’s the promise of this new business opportunity developing in our area.
The problem we face is we have a network of groups hell-bent on stopping this new business opportunity. They network across the country sharing slick misinformation and travel from township to township pestering local officials with their outrageous claims. Their backers spend money on yard signs and postcards to sway the residents of these communities.
The fact is, solar farms are not destroying farmland; urban sprawl is. Urban sprawl never is a win-win for a community. It always raises taxes with new needs for ever increasing schools, crime-fighting police and exponential infrastructure needs. There are few benefits from this real estate boom, while most are taxed to death and, in the farmers’ case, sell out ending their farm’s legacy. Solar farms do not destroy farmland, can still be farmed in many cases and is still ruled as Public Act 116 eligible. The solar facility doesn’t use or need community infrastructure but does pay huge tax increases from its original use, which can lower all taxes in the community.
Solar farms are a stop-gap to the sprawling development eating up our farms across the country. They lock the farmland for 30 years, saving it from total destruction and sparing neighbors of noisy traffic congested sprawl. They do not pollute as opposed to industrial farming that is reliant on pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. In some cases, biosolids applied to fields have increasingly poisoned many farms with heavy metals and PFAS unknown to neighbors or farmers themselves. This all ends up in our lakes and streams, but we can reduce the problem.
So don’t buy the organized naysayers who have an agenda that isn’t good for communities you live in. It’s a new day in southeast Michigan!
Paul Wohlfarth lives in Riga Township, MI
After seeing the ad above, I wondered.
Someone did a fact check.
True.
Ukraine and Russia traded accusations over each others’ actions around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Friday as a team of inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog tried to check the safety of the facility and avert a potential disaster.
Ukraine’s state nuclear company said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission had not been allowed to enter the plant’s crisis centre, where Ukraine says Russian troops are stationed, and would struggle to make an impartial assessment.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Ukraine was continuing to shell the plant, raising the risk of a nuclear catastrophe.
The site, 10 km (6 miles) from Ukrainian positions across the Dnipro river, was captured by Russian forces soon after they invaded Ukraine in late February and has become the focus of concern.
It has come under repeated shelling over the past month, with Kyiv and Moscow trading blame for the firing. The plant is still run by Ukrainian staff and Russia has rejected calls for it to withdraw its troops.
