“Climate change added, for the average person around the world, 26 extra days of extreme heat”.
Month: May 2024
Vogtle Plants Online. Should There Be More?
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp called for more new nuclear energy at an event Wednesday celebrating the first new nuclear reactors built in the U.S. in decades, at Plant Vogtle near Augusta, Georgia. The construction of those reactors, known as Vogtle Units 3 and 4, cost more than twice its original budget and ended years behind schedule.
“Today, we celebrate the end of that project,” Kemp told the crowd of state officials and utility executives. “And now, let’s start planning for Vogtle Five.”
That could be a tough sell to Georgians who have seen their bills go up multiple times to pay for the new reactors and for shareholders of the power plant’s largest owner, who had to absorb some of the costs. Originally billed as the dawn of a new nuclear era and priced at $14 billion, the Plant Vogtle project was plagued by repeated delays and ultimately cost an estimated total of more than $31 billion.
When lead contractor Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy in 2017, prompting South Carolina to abandon its own nuclear project, Vogtle became the only new nuclear construction in the country. It still is.
“If building more nuclear were a good idea, other states would be jumping on the bandwagon now,” said Liz Coyle, executive director of the consumer advocacy group Georgia Watch. “The fact that they’re not, I think, speaks volumes.”
For their part, the elected officials and utility executives at Wednesday’s event spoke of Plant Vogtle as a success story.
“Vogtle 3 and 4 don’t just represent an incredible economic development asset for our state and … a milestone for our entire country,” Kemp said. “They also stand as physical examples of something that I remind myself of every day: Tough times don’t last. Tough people do.”
Continue reading “Vogtle Plants Online. Should There Be More?”National Hurricane Director on Extreme Predictions
Relentless Storms, Gorilla Hail Continue in Texas
SMRs Still Challenged by Cost
Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis:
A key tenet for SMR proponents is that the new reactors will be economically competitive. But the on-the-ground experience with the initial SMRs that have been built or that are currently under construction shows that this simply is not true.
There currently are three operating SMRs worldwide—two in Russia and one in China, plus a fourth under construction in Argentina. Costs for all four have been significantly higher than originally forecast.
Mexico City on the Brink of Water Crisis. Lessons from Africa May Help
Water experts will tell you that in stressed areas like California, there are still many opportunities to squeeze more efficiencies and make do even in times of severe scarcity. We’ll need every hack to deal with what’s coming.
June 26 is the day the largest city in North America may run out of water. There’s a race to find solutions.
In Mexico City, more and more residents are watching their taps go dry for hours a day. Even when water does flow, it often comes out dark brown and smells noxious. A former political leader is asking the public to “prioritize essential actions for survival” as the city’s key reservoirs run dry. Meanwhile, 2,000 miles south in the Colombian capital of Bogotá, reservoir levels are falling just as fast, and the city government has implemented rotating water shutoffs. The mayor has begged families to shower together and leave the city on weekends to cut down on water usage.
In warning about the potential for a Day Zero in the water system, both cities are referencing the famous example set by Cape Town, South Africa, which made global headlines in 2018 when it almost ran out of water. The city was months away from a total collapse of its reservoir system when it mounted an unprecedented public awareness campaign and rolled out strict fees on water consumption. These measures succeeded in pulling the city back from the brink.
Six years later, Cape Town stands as a success story in municipal crisis management, but experts say its playbook will be hard for Mexico City and Bogotá to replicate. Instead of focusing primarily on changing public behavior, these cities will need to make big investments to improve aging infrastructure and shore up their water supplies. How they fare in these endeavors will in turn inform future efforts to make the world’s fast-growing cities resilient to increasing climate volatility.
Continue reading “Mexico City on the Brink of Water Crisis. Lessons from Africa May Help”Hurricane Rapid Intensification Rising
Music a little over dramatic, but worth knowing that rapid intensification of hurricanes is becoming more common, and makes storms more dangerous.
Delhi Hits 126° F as Asian Heat Soars
A temperature reading collected in Delhi, India’s capital territory, may have broken national records as the country grapples with a blistering heat wave. The reading — 52.9 degrees Celsius or 126.1 degrees Fahrenheit — was preliminary and technically an outlier compared with others taken in Delhi on the same day, officials said. But, if confirmed, it would be the highest temperature ever registered anywhere in India.
The temperature reading came from a substation in Mungeshpur, a neighborhood in Delhi. Located in the northwest, India’s capital territory — which includes its capital city, New Delhi — is home to almost 30 million people and covers about 600 square miles of land. The Indian Meteorological Department said in a news release that the reading out of Mungeshpur could be due to a sensor issue or some other error, and that it would examine the data and the sensor. In Delhi, substations in various locations generally registered temperatures between 45.2 degrees and 49.1 degrees Celsius, which corresponds roughly to 113 degrees and 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
Gas Prices Staying Low. Thank an EV
Global petrol demand growth could halve in 2024, squeezing second-half refinery margins, analysts said, driven by a shift to electric cars in China and the United States and a return to normal consumption after last year’s bounce following COVID-19.
In the lowest growth since 2020, demand is likely to rise 340,000 barrels per day (bpd), to stand at 26.5 million bpd this year, says consultancy Wood Mackenzie, down from growth of 700,000 bpd last year, as China nears the point of peak transport fuel demand and the U.S. has surpassed it.
“Penetration of electric vehicles has been increasing in U.S. and China,” said Woodmac analyst Sushant Gupta.
“For this year Chinese demand will grow by only 10,000 bpd, due to higher EV uptake.”
Consultancy Rystad Energy pegs global gasoline demand at about 26 million bpd in 2024, up about 300,000 bpd from growth of about 700,000 bpd in 2023, fuelled by the consumption boom after the pandemic, said analyst Mukesh Sahdev.
China, once the world’s driver of gasoline demand, is expected to account for more than half of all EV sales this year, the International Energy Agency has said.
For every sign of an EV slowdown, another suggests an adolescent industry on the verge of its next growth spurt. In fact, for most automakers, even the first quarter was a blockbuster. Six of the 10 biggest EV makers in the US saw sales grow at a scorching pace compared to a year ago — up anywhere from 56% at Hyundai-Kia to 86% at Ford. A sampling of April sales similarly came in hot.
Continue reading “Gas Prices Staying Low. Thank an EV”Michael Mann on Climate and Hurricanes
“The Atlantic is bathtub warm, and that’s due to climate change”.