“What I Did on My Summer Vacation” is going to get increasingly darker going forward.
Thanks Exxon!
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis blamed both the wildfires and storms on climate change. “I am afraid that the careless summers, as we knew them … will cease to exist and from now on the coming summers are likely to be ever more difficult,” he said.
As horrendous images keep coming in from Europe and all over, are climate deniers ramping up newer and even crazier responses?
Below, Jesse Watters trial balloons “maybe it’s Laser beams – I’m just asking questions..”.
Not a joke.
Someone is seriously probing the limits of what the next fallback position will be for increasingly untenable blanket climate denial.
Is the base so split from reality at this point that they’ll buy Deep State Weather Modification as the response to increasingly wild climate extremes?
MTG and Alex Jones have been doing some of the advanced R&D on this for years, and I’m seeing instances of random no-name social media posters picking up on it.
A story that’s being repeated all across America.
I happen to know about this one because I’ve met and interviewed School Superintendent Bill Chilman several Times, see above and below.
Sounds like the Turbines are bringing in even more money than Bill told me a couple years ago.
“…none of the schools will raise taxes in their respective communities. Superintendent Chilman says in Beal City, that’s because of the taxes on Wind Farms built in the area.
“After the windmills, one mil that generated almost $75,000 is going to generate almost $260,000,” said Chilman. “So the taxable value in the district has risen.”
Beal City plans to use the funds to build 3 additional classrooms and extend their cafeteria. They also plan to expand the bathrooms to make them ADA compliant.
Outside of the classroom, the district also wants to build a new fieldhouse and remodel the school stage.
“We really want to get our district up to modern code and have some of the more modern things that a lot of schools and most public buildings have these days,” said Chilman.
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Rapid intensification predicted as this storm moves into record warm water.
NREL (National Renewable Energy Lab):
After severe weather events—like hail or major windstorms—fielded solar panels should be inspected for damage, usually with either complex electrical equipment or by removal for indoor lab testing. Often, these inspections reveal minimal damage but still require system downtime and high costs to confirm their health.
A new system, developed by National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) photovoltaic reliability researchers with input from industry partners, simplifies and streamlines this process by relying on photoluminescence—a fundamental property of the semiconductors in solar cells. The PLatypus device shines light on the solar cells, which then re-emit light back to the device’s cameras. Damaged cells will shine less brightly, quickly indicating the health of the panels.
An entire system can be checked at a fraction of the time and cost previously required—all without any disconnection of the system’s electronics. The PLatypus device is under development as part of the Durable Module Materials Consortium (DuraMAT), funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office and led by NREL.
Solar panels are built to be extremely resistant to the elements, but hit anything hard enough, and it will break. In this summer of extremes, we had an example of baseball sized hail hitting a solar field in Scottsbluff, Nebraska.
Even with buffeting like this, the panels remain largely intact, due to the tough coating of “encapsulent”, Ethylene Vinyl Acetate, the same stuff that keeps auto windshields from shattering in an accident.
What is the source? That’s Easy!
The world is moving away from oil.
What happens to all those oil rigs out there in the water?
Sabin Center for Climate Law Columbia University:
More than 12,000 offshore oil and gas installations straddle the globe, and industry analysts anticipate annual offshore oil and gas investments to reach USD 173 billion by 2024. A number of oil companies are expected to significantly expand their offshore drilling activities in the coming years.
At the same time, many jurisdictions face a growing need to decommission their offshore oil and gas infrastructure, whether because it is aging, the resources are depleted, or net-zero strategies require certain producing assets to be decommissioned earlier than expected. A 2021 forecast by IHS Markit estimated that global offshore decommissioning spending could cost nearly USD 100 billion between 2021 and 2030, a period that S&P Global Commodity Insights has described as a potential “decade of offshore decommissioning.” In the face of increasing demand for decommissioning, some have predicted that decommissioning costs may increase significantly.
Offshore oil and gas infrastructure also faces an existential threat: the increasingly pressing need to address the climate emergency. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects that GHG emissions from existing and planned fossil fuel infrastructure will push global warming past the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C threshold, and detailed regional projections estimate that “nearly 60 per cent of oil and fossil methane gas . . . must remain unextracted to keep within a 1.5 °C carbon budget.” Increased public focus on reducing GHG emissions, coupled with the global push for electrification and declining prices for renewable energy, may cause a rapid decline in oil and gas demand that forces the mass closure of offshore installations. Even without policy changes or concerted climate action, the increasing adoption of renewable energy systems and energy-efficient technologies is likely to depress demand for fossil fuels.
These combined dynamics may create serious risks for the public in a rapid phase-out scenario involving the widespread cessation of offshore oil and gas activities. Decommissioning offshore oil and gas infrastructure can be a laborious and expensive process. Most countries with significant offshore oil and gas resources have laws, regulations, and contracts that require private offshore oil companies to bear the cost of decommissioning their facilities. A formal assignment of legal liability, however, does not guarantee that decommissioning will occur or that funds will be available when decommissioning obligations arise. Governments often sit as the “decommissioner of last resort,” and if oil companies default in their decommissioning obligations, the public will be left footing the bill.
Not just Big Rigs. Texas Monthly has more.
Continue reading “Big Oil’s Big Liability: Decommissioning Offshore Oil”