Month: November 2023

Inevitable: On the Eve of EVs Everywhere

Goldman Sachs:

It wasn’t long ago rising demand and component shortages sparked concern that “greenflation” would drive up prices for the batteries used in electric vehicles. That’s subsiding as prices cool for battery metals, which could help make EVs more competitive with traditional cars more quickly. 

Goldman Sachs Research now expects battery prices to fall to $99 per kilowatt hour (kWh) of storage capacity by 2025 — a 40% decrease from 2022 (the previous forecast was for a 33% decline). Our analysts estimate that almost half of the decline will come from declining prices of EV raw materials such as lithium, nickel, and cobalt. Battery pack prices are now expected to fall by an average of 11% per year from 2023 to 2030, writes Nikhil Bhandari, co-head of Goldman Sachs Research’s Asia-Pacific Natural Resources and Clean Energy Research, in the team’s report.

As battery prices fall, Goldman Sachs Research estimates the EV market could achieve cost parity, without subsidies, with internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles around the middle of this decade on a total-cost-of-ownership basis. 

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Magnolias in Boston: New Plant Growth Guidelines Show Climate Change

Phys.org:

Southern staples like magnolia trees and camellias may now be able to grow without frost damage in once-frigid Boston.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s ” plant hardiness zone map ” was updated Wednesday for the first time in a decade, and it shows the impact that climate change will have on gardens and yards across the country.

Climate shifts aren’t even—the Midwest warmed more than the Southeast, for example. But the map will give new guidance to growers about which flowers, vegetables and shrubs are most likely to thrive in a particular region.

One key figure on the map is the lowest likely winter temperature in a given region, which is important for determining which plants may survive the season. It’s calculated by averaging the lowest winter temperatures of the past 30 years.

Across the lower 48 states, the lowest likely winter temperature overall is 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) warmer than when the last map was published in 2012, according to Chris Daly, a researcher at Oregon State University’s PRISM Climate Group, which collaborates with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service to produce the map.

Boston University plant ecologist Richard Primack, who was not involved in the map project, said, “Half the U.S. has shifted to a slightly warmer climatic zone than it was 10 years ago.” He called that “a very striking finding.”

Primack said he has noticed changes in his own garden: The fig trees are now surviving without extensive steps to protect them from winter cold. He has also spotted camellias in a Boston botanical garden and southern magnolia trees surviving the past few winters without frost damage. These species are all generally associated with warmer, more southern climates.

Can Forest Gardens Contain the Sahara?

Video by Permaculture expert Andrew Millison of Oregon State University.

He profiles the work of Trees for the Future, a organization devoted to ecological restoration based on tree planting. This current work draws from 30 years of experience and missteps in tree planting efforts, with, it would appear, a well thought out program aimed at creating profit making permaculture environments for communities across the southern end of the Sahara, to preserve and expand livelihoods for families, as well as curb the expansion of the desert.

For this video, the makers claim that they will plant a tree for every comment made, so consider doing that.
A companion video, made by a collaborating organization, Planet Wild, adds more detail, below.

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In San Antonio, Solar Parking, Rooftops, and Hoops

Solar panels going up at city facilities can also create shade for outdoor activities

Texas Public Radio:

The San Antonio City Council on Thursday approved the largest of its kind municipal solar project.

The nearly $31 million project will result in the installation of roof top, parking, and park canopy solar photovoltaic systems at 42 city facilities. 

The newly approved services agreement with San Antonio-based Big Sun Solar will also make progress towards the city’s 2040 goal of zero net energy for all municipal buildings.

The projected electricity generated annually from the 42 sites is expected to offset an estimated 11% of the city’s electricity consumption from its buildings.

In addition, 23 of the installations will be parking canopies that will power on-site municipal operations and provide shade and hail protection to people and vehicles.

It will also be a job creator. Big Sun Solar reports more than 15 full-time jobs will be dedicated to the project.

“Today’s vote was a big win for San Antonio,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said. “The project will reduce the amount of electricity that the city takes from the grid and sets a national example for innovative approaches to reducing carbon emissions and ensuring a healthier future for our community.” 

Solar installations will begin in the spring of 2024, with an anticipated completion in the fall of 2026.

Another benefit of the massive project is the shade the solar canopies will create over parks and community centers.

Farmers, Labor, Speaking up in Support of Solar

Michigan has adopted one of the most aggressive clean energy standards in the country.
Success will depend on siting reform, which under the new bills gives final say to the State Level Michigan Public Service Commission.
But the bills don’t take effect for a year, so for now, local boards and planning commissions still hold sway.
Many of those bodies now understand that they can no longer pass illegal siting ordinances with “poison pill” clauses to kill projects, something that has been happening a lot as hordes of Facebook frenzied conspiracist yahoos have disrupted meetings, harassed and physically threatened board members and clean energy supporters.
Presque Isle County Planning Commission was the first such meeting I’ve been to since the passage of the legislation, and, although a number of naysayers did speak up, the board clearly understood what their responsibility was.

Above, Ryan Charney of IBEW speaks in favor of solar development, November 9, 2023, at Belknap Township Hall near Rogers City, MI.

Below, Farmer Ron Garrett compares solar productivity to Ethanol.


The PC voted 7 to 1 in favor of approving the Special Land Use permit for the solar facility, the most important permit for the project.

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The World is Not on Track for Climate Goals

We kinda knew this.

Washington Post:

Among the many dramatic ways society must transform to limit the worst effects of climate change, the world is only moving fast enough on one of them — the uptake of electric vehicles, according to a new report from seven climate organizations looking at 42 indicators of climate progress.

On the other 41 points of transformation, change is either too slow, too hard to measure, or going in the wrong direction. For example, the global rate of deforestation ticked up last year. The carbon intensity of steel production is increasing when it needs to be falling. Government financing for fossil fuels has risen for the first time since 2018.

While the takeaway is familiar — that the world is well shy of its stated goal to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — the State of Climate Action report provides a detailed diagnosis of the factors leading the planet astray. Those factors touch on almost every aspect of life, from how power is generated, how people commute, how food is produced, how buildings function and how readily finance flows to developing countries.

“We are woefully off track,” said Kelly Levin, the chief of science, data and systems change at the Bezos Earth Fund, one of the groups involved in the research. (The fund was created by Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post.)

The 42 indicators are not formally written into the Paris agreement, but were instead derived by the nonprofit organizations, which analyzed how various sectors would need to transform by 2030 to meet the 1.5 goal. Using similar methods last year, the groups found that the world was off track on every count.

The rise of EVs, then, points to a bright spot in the effort to cut down on emissions. Last year, EVs accounted for 10 percent of all new vehicles sold — up from 1.6 percent in 2018. Prices are falling. Incentives, particularly in developed countries, are juicing growth. The report judged that EVs are at the early stage of a stratospheric leap, and can meet the goal of accounting for at least 75 percent of sales by 2030.

Still, road transport accounts for less than 6 percent of total global emissions.

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Musk Sets Fire to Tesla Brand with Hate Tweet

For God’s sake, what does somebody have to do to get fired over at “X”?

NBC News:

Tech billionaire Elon Musk faced a third day of backlash Friday from Jewish leaders, the White House and media advertisers including Disney and Apple after he embraced an antisemitic conspiracy theory earlier in the week, the latest in a pattern of his echoing anti-Jewish bigotry going back years. 

Musk sparked the criticism with six words he posted Wednesday afternoon on X, the social media app he purchased a year ago. Responding to another user who had accused Jews of hating white people and who had expressed indifference to antisemitism, Musk wrote: “You have said the actual truth.” 

Musk, the CEO of the automaker Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX, followed up his first tweet with criticism of the Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, an organization founded by Jews to oppose antisemitism. Musk has been feuding with the ADL for months over its efforts to reduce extremism on social media, a campaign that Musk says has cost X ad sales. 

Comcast now “pausing’ advertising on X, along with NBC Universal, Xfinity, Bravo, Paramount, Disney, Apple, IBM, and Lionsgate
Changing hourly.

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John Abraham: Ocean Warming is Global Warming

More from my conversation with Thermal Science expert Dr. John Abraham.
Juxtaposing with some amplifying text from this week’s newly released US National Climate Assessment.

US National Climate Assessment:

Critical habitats such as coral reefs, seagrass beds, and kelp forests have experienced large-scale degradation due to climate-related stressors, threatening their ability to support commercially and ecologically important fish, shellfish, turtles, and marine mammals. Degradation of nursery habitats, spawning areas, and other essential habitats has the potential to affect the productivity and distribution of species.

Marine species are shifting their geographic distributions even faster than terrestrial species and are changing the timing of seasonal activities. As changes cascade from microbes to top predators across food webs, these shifts are decoupling some predator–prey relationships and amplifying others. For example, shifts in species have reduced prey availability for seabirds, driving large-scale starvation events and breeding-colony failures.

While warming has benefitted some marine resources in poleward portions of their range (such as an increased abundance of American lobster in the Gulf of Maine), many species—especially those that are cold-adapted, fixed in place, or have complex life histories—have been negatively affected. Protected and endangered species with limited population resilience, including multiple species of coral, salmon, and whales, are particularly vulnerable to impacts of unfavorable physical and ecosystem conditions

Gretchen Whitmer Energy Bills Vaults Michigan to Top of Clean Energy Aspirants

If there was ever a time in history to go big on clean energy, that would have been 30 years ago.
But a good second choice would be now.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, perhaps emboldened by a summer of choking air and weather extremes across the state, put forward a wildly ambitious suite of energy legislation a couple months ago.
Last week, they passed the Democratically controlled Michigan legislature.

Now, the challenge is to execute in the face of fierce and desperate opposition from fossil fuel interests.

Greg Sargent in the Washington Post:

Few Democrats would deny that the party must win back working people. Yet one of the party’s long-term conundrums is whether they can pursue ambitious efforts to combat climate change without threatening those very workers’ wages or jobs.

In coming days, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is set to sign a package of bills that would transition the state to 100 percent clean electricity by 2040. The bills — which also include robust provisions for workers — are among the most ambitious efforts undertaken by any state to move toward a carbon-free future in a manner that is actively good for working people. Significantly, Democrats are testing this approach in a swing state in the heart of the industrial Midwest.

In coming days, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is set to sign a package of bills that would transition the state to 100 percent clean electricity by 2040. The bills — which also include robust provisions for workers — are among the most ambitious efforts undertaken by any state to move toward a carbon-free future in a manner that is actively good for working people. Significantly, Democrats are testing this approach in a swing state in the heart of the industrial Midwest.

Passed through Michigan’s Democratic-controlled state legislature last month, the package would mandate the generation of electricity with 80 percent carbon-free sources by 2035 and 100 percent by 2040 — sources that can include wind, solar, nuclear and natural gas combined with carbon capture. While many states have such mandates, only a few require such a rapid transition; the New York Times reports that Michigan’s pace will rival that of California.

Adrian Daily Telegram (Southern Michigan – paywall):

LANSING – Testimony and reaction from a local farmer and an advocacy group illustrate the opposition and support for legislation on siting of new wind and solar projects that passed the Michigan Legislature last week.

The Michigan Senate gave its OK Wednesday to legislation that overrides local government control over where new wind and solar projects can be placed.

Instead, House Bills 5120 and 5121 would give ultimate authority for approving such projects to the Michigan Public Service Commission, a three-member body whose members are appointed by the governor. No more than two commissioners can come from the same political party.

The bills were approved in party-line votes, 20-18. They then returned to the House, which had OK’d them earlier, because amendments were made in the Senate. The House signed off on the changes late Wednesday, sending the bills on to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is expected to sign them.

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