Month: March 2024

Fox Station’s Hailstorm of Bullshit after Solar Panels Damaged

Fox Station’s report above is likely to get wide coverage on the anti-clean energy social media networks.

For the record, solar panels damaged in a storm will be replaced and the facility will get back to producing clean electricity.

Big storms are getting bigger, but as we have seen in many examples, extreme weather is affecting every kind of power generation, from coal, to gas, to nuclear. Also worth noting that conventional electrical generating sources produce a steady stream of toxic byproducts, usually combustion effluent, when they are operating normally and as designed.

We now have an emerging genre of anti-solar stories that focuses on supposed dangers of broken solar panels. This one, above, is from a Houston area Fox station.
The idea rests on the mistaken claim that solar panels are full of toxic material just waiting to leak out and contaminate soil or groundwater. The fact that no such incident has ever been documented does not stop the fossil fuel media apparatus from repeating it.

The Fox Station report above follows a time worn script. Describe the event, find an ignoramus with an agenda and an uninformed take, – in fact, they make it clear that the “regular person” they interview has been a long time solar opponent – they fail to seek out any credible or knowledgeable person, (there are plenty in Houston area) and report it as “news”.

Here’s some fact, from my resource page, sun101.org:

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EV Sales Include More Plug-ins

Tried to buy a plug-hybrid Prius. Had the money, ready to go. Dealer said sorry, they’re all out in California.
Why can’t you get ’em here? People want ’em.
He shrugged.
GM blew it big time when they shit-canned the Chevy Volt.

Wired:

The US Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule, long in the works, that will require automakers selling in the United States to dramatically boost the number of battery-powered vehicles sold this decade, putting a serious dent in the country’s carbon emissions in the process. By 2032, more than half of new cars sold must be electric.

Automakers will have more leeway in choosing how to reach the government’s new tailpipe emissions goals, thanks to changes made between when the rules were first introduced in draft form nearly a year ago and now. One big, important shift: Plug-in hybrids are part of the picture.

In the draft of the rule, auto companies could only meet the gradually ratcheting zero-emissions goals by selling more battery-electric cars. But after lobbying from automakers and unions, which both argued that the EPA’s proposals were unrealistic, manufacturers will now be allowed to use plug-in hybrids to meet the standards.

This means that now carmakers can satisfy federal rules by ensuring that two-thirds of their 2032 sales are battery electric—or that battery-electric vehicles are just over half of their sales, and plug-in hybrids account for 13 percent.

Expect automakers to take advantage of these types of hybrid vehicles—which are powered primarily by electric batteries but supplemented by a gas-powered engine once the batteries deplete—as they race to meet the nation’s most ambitious climate goals yet.

There will be a lot of these things on the road. But the technology has a climate hitch: It’s only as emission-free as its drivers choose to be.

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Ocean’s Dead Zones on the Rise

Warmer water holds less oxygen. I’m sure it will be fine.

Really high quality, informative video from Oregon State University above.

Oregon State University:

Low oxygen conditions that pose a significant threat to marine life are widespread and increasing in coastal Pacific Northwest ocean waters as the climate warms, a new study shows.

Researchers found that in 2021, more than half the continental shelf off the Pacific Northwest coast experienced the low-oxygen condition known as hypoxia, said the study’s lead author, Jack Barth of Oregon State University.

“We’ve known that low oxygen conditions are increasing based on single points of study in the past, but this confirms that these conditions are occurring across Pacific Northwest coastal waters,” said Barth, an oceanography professor in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. “The 2021 season was unusually strong compared to past years but with climate change, we are headed in a direction where this may be the norm.”

The new study, published recently in Nature Scientific Reports, is based on data collected by an unprecedented number of research vessels and autonomous underwater gliders that were collecting measurements in the ocean during summer 2021.

The vast amount of data gave researchers a more complete and nuanced understanding of hypoxia’s severity and spatial distribution in the coastal waters of the northern California Current, said Barth, who also serves as special advisor to OSU’s Marine and Coastal Opportunities program

“This picture has been needed for a long time by policymakers and fisheries managers who make decisions about ocean uses,” he said.
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Will Canada’s Fires and Toxic Air Be Back?

British Columbia shifting to year-round wildfire readiness. The season doesn’t end anymore.
Conditions remained abnormally warm and dry thru the winter across Canada, but especially in the western provinces. Abnormally large number of “zombie fires” smoldered thru the winter and have been erupting in to activity in recent weeks.

British Columbia Wildfire Dashboard:

There are 90 active holdover fires from the 2023 season that have smouldered beneath the winter snow cover. All of these incidents are Under Control. The number of holdovers in primarily the northeast region of the province is unsurprising given the widespread fire activity of this past season and ongoing drought conditions. As the snow melts and the air becomes drier with moderate winds, there is the potential for increased fire activity. Personnel continue to closely monitor holdover fires and establish response priorities as conditions allow. 

Bloomberg:

As skiers glide down the slopes of British Columbia’s Whistler Mountain and ice fishers drop their lines into frozen lakes in Alberta, dozens of the fires whose smoke darkened North America’s skies last year are still burning — with some smoldering beneath layers of snow. 

These so-called “zombie fires” are a sign of a grim new normal that’s wreaking havoc even in far northern countries like Canada: a fire season that almost never ends.

The western province of BC had 90 zombie blazes still burning as of mid-March, holdovers from last year’s record fire season, while neighboring Alberta started the year with 64 fires carried over from 2023 — more than 10 times the five-year average. As spring temperatures melt snow and uncover land parched by drought, those fires and new ones are poised to flare up, posing a fresh threat to Canada’s forests, not to mention the world’s atmosphere.

“We really don’t get out of wildfire season like we have historically,” said Rob de Pruis, director of consumer and industry relations at the Insurance Bureau of Canada. “They’re a real and present danger, and wildfires are happening right now.”

The worst fire season on record in Canada made global headlines last year when smoke from the blazes blotted out the skies above New York and other US cities, spawned a rare pyro-tornado and forced the evacuations of an estimated 232,000 people. The fires burned an area that was more than seven times the historic average — or about 4% of the country’s forests, according to a new study. 

The flames caused more than C$1 billion ($740 million) in insured damages, according to the insurance bureau. They also may have released emissions that are more than twice the annual carbon output of the nation’s economy, a top government scientist has estimated. 

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US Loan Approved to Restart Nuclear Plant

Powermag:

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Loan Programs Office (LPO) announced a conditional commitment of up to $1.52 billion for a loan guarantee to Holtec Palisades LLC to finance the restoration and resumption of service of the Palisades Power Plant, an 800-MW nuclear generating station in Covert Township, Michigan.

The project aims to bring the single-reactor unit back into commercial operation by the end of 2025. It was retired by previous owner Entergy in May 2022. If finalized, Holtec Palisades would be the first recommissioning of a shutdown nuclear power plant in the U.S.

“Holtec is committed to helping the nuclear and energy industries meet challenges and find solutions. Repowering Palisades helps ensure we have enough reliable, around-the-clock electricity to keep the lights on for Michigan families and small businesses while also helping mitigate climate change through safe, reliable, and carbon-free generation,” Nick Culp, Palisades Nuclear Generating Station’s senior manager for Governmental Affairs with Holtec Decommissioning International, told POWER. “Our repower efforts have been buoyed by the strong broad-based support this effort has received from our federal, state, and community partners who recognize the strategic importance of the plant to the state and nation’s clean energy future.”

The DOE said the Palisades project highlights President Biden’s “Investing in America” agenda to “support good-paying, high-quality job opportunities in communities across the country while also expanding access to affordable clean energy resources.” The project is expected to support or retain up to 600 jobs in Michigan––many of them filled by workers who have been at the plant for more than 20 years––with approximately 45% of the workforce at the site being union labor upon restart. In addition to the workers supported by the facility’s restart, if finalized, the loan guarantee would support more than 1,000 jobs during the facility’s regularly scheduled refueling and maintenance periods every 18 months.

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