March 2025 – Page 2 – This is Not Cool

Compromised Musk Getting Secret Briefings at Pentagon

At least in Europe he’s not running the damn governments.
But Elon’s pretty toxic over there, as well.
Today, the oligarch who could not pass a security clearance, will reportedly get a briefing on top secret Pentagon war plans.

New York Times:

The Pentagon was scheduled on Friday to brief Elon Musk on the U.S. military’s plan for any war that might break out with China, two U.S. officials said on Thursday.

Another official said the briefing would be China focused, without providing additional details. A fourth official confirmed Mr. Musk was to be at the Pentagon on Friday, but offered no details.

Hours after news of the planned meeting was published by The New York Times, Pentagon officials and President Trump denied that the session would be about military plans involving China. “China will not even be mentioned or discussed,” Mr. Trump said in a late-night social media post.

It was not clear if the briefing for Mr. Musk would go ahead as originally planned. But providing Mr. Musk access to some of the nation’s most closely guarded military secrets would be a dramatic expansion of his already extensive role as an adviser to Mr. Trump and leader of his effort to slash spending and purge the government of people and policies they oppose.

Batteries Bring Power When We Need It. And Calm Down about Fires.

There’s been a lot of smoke and little light since a large battery fire in California at the Moss Landing facility, which was, when built, state of the art, but now represents long obsolete technologies.

You may remember that once, long ago, Apple had a problem with MacBooks catching fire on the assembly line. I only wish I had bought 10,000 dollars worth of Apple stock that week.

New York Times, Sept. 16, 1995:

Some of Apple’s newest portable machines have burst into flames, and the company is recalling them.

The setback is one of a series that have plagued Apple, which has been struggling to protect its declining market share against machines that use Microsoft’s operating system software. Yesterday, analysts began slashing their earnings estimates for the company, the second-largest personal computer maker, after Compaq Computer.

The company’s stock price, which fell 5.6 percent on Thursday, plunged 10.3 percent today after the company reported the fires and said that its revenues would be “significantly below” expectations for its fourth quarter. The stock skidded $4.125 in Nasdaq trading, closing at $35.875. Its loss for the week was nearly $9 a share.

All year, Apple has been forgoing sales because of an inadequate supply of machines based on the PowerPC chip. The company had been hoping to get back on track with its eagerly awaited new line of Powerbook portable computers, which are based on the PowerPC.

But on Thursday night Apple announced that it was recalling its new Powerbook 5300 laptop computers, which were introduced in August, after several of the machines caught fire while being recharged at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.

Utility Dive:

Energy storage experts note that the Moss Landing facility was housed indoors and used a type of battery more prone to thermal runaway, among other potential safety issues. Utility-scale lithium-ion battery installations’ overall safety track record is impressive, with just 20 fire-related incidents over the past decade despite a 25,000% increase in installed capacity since 2018, a spokesperson for the American Clean Power Association told Utility Dive last month.

But the Moss Landing incident has nevertheless focused utilities, regulators and lawmakers attention on lithium-ion battery safety. It could also create an opening for non-lithium energy storage technologies to compete, some experts say.

Secretary of Energy Fact Checked by Mr Global

Above, Matt Randolph, aka Mr Global, VP of Sentinel Energy, an oil/gas firm in Oklahoma.

Below, the interview with Energy Secretary Chris Wright that Randolph was commenting on.
Wright came into this job with all kinds of talk about how smart he is, but the more I see him, the more struck I am by his shameless sycophancy toward Donald Trump, but also some striking gaps between his statements and the real world.

US Southeast is New High Risk Area for Wild Fire

Perfect firestorm for hurricane damaged areas. Florida, Carolinas home insurance risk keeps rising.

Wildfire Today:

A spike in wildfire activity throughout the United States has kicked off an early fire season, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

An estimated 9,520 wildfires have burned 269,986 acres across the nation as of March 14, the NIFC said. The year’s ongoing fire total is above the 10-year average of 6,629 wildfires, but below the 10-year average burned acreage of 431,052.

Over the past decade, the only years that have had more wildfires as of March 14 were 2022 with 12,088 wildfires, and 2017 with 10,328 wildfires.

The trend doesn’t look to be slowing down in the coming months. Numerous states will have significant wildland fire potential between March and June, according to the center’s outlook.

Large portions of multiple southeast states, including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, have heightened wildfire potential for all four months, driven in part by past hurricane damage.

New Column: Climate deniers shift focus to renewable energy skepticism

My column is starting to get good coverage across Michigan. A lot of people who don’t read The New York Times still look to their local paper as a credible source.
This column is starting to break into local papers in small towns, where clean energy siting is gaining momentum.

Peter Sinclair in the Midland Daily News:

“I don’t run into climate deniers that much anymore to be honest,” Andy Dessler told me.
Dr. Dessler is a professor of Atmospheric Science at Texas A&M University.
“Most people for whom credibility matters will not dispute the basic idea that the earth is warming, humans are to blame, and the future warming is going to be geologically large,” he said. “Those people have morphed their arguments.”

The battlefield has changed from climate science to energy science. The same people that 10 years ago were disputing the science of climate change are now disputing whether renewable energy is cheap or whether you can run the economy on it.

“It’s exactly the same people, they’ve just changed climate change to energy,” Dessler said.
A perfect example would be Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy Chris Wright.

Wright is a fracking executive whose portfolio stands to gain dramatically in a world where fossil fuels are aggressively promoted. He preaches a soft form of climate denial, grudgingly acknowledging the physics, but deceptively minimizing the impacts, and denying the viability of clean energy solutions.

In a video recorded a year ago, Wright asserted: “There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either.”

“We have seen no increase in the frequency, or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, or floods,” Wright said, “despite endless fear mongering of the media, politicians and activists. This is not my opinion, these are the facts, as contained in the ‘Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change Reports.’”

Dr Jeff Masters: Are There Any Climate Havens?

More from my conversation with Dr. Jeff Masters.

A number of the places that have been thought of as “climate havens” – areas thought to be minimally exposed to climate risks going forward, have turned out to be, in fact, uniquely and precariously vulnerable. Case in point, Asheville North Carolina, and Northern Vermont.

Jeff and I both live in Michigan, which has some strong advantages in that we access to water, at least the communities that draw directly from the Great Lakes.
There are a lot of communities that rely on ground water, which has vulnerabilities, and a large percentage of the population is dependent on septic fields, increasingly difficult to maintain as precipitation extremes increase.
The Great Lakes also offer a buffer against extremes of heat and cold, although the potential for Lake Effect Snowstorms is enhanced in parts of the western lower peninsula, and parts of the Upper peninsula on Lake Superior.

Last week, when strong windstorms stirred up massive dust clouds and wildfires across the Great Plains, we escaped much of the rash of tornadoes and damaging winds, but got smacked with Beijing-style air quality over much of the state, including the second largest city, Grand Rapids. It brought back fresh memories of the nightmarish toxic pawl that covered much of the east in 2023.

Big Investor Calls for Elon to Choose Tesla or DOGE

“The Only Generation Available Right Now”- Gas Struggles While Solar, Wind Soar

It might seem unlikely that an annual meeting of the Oil and Gas industry would produce so many headlines favorable for solar, wind, and battery technology – but here we are.

Canary Media:

In just the first week of March, the ERCOT power grid that supplies nearly all of Texas set records for most wind production (28,470 megawatts), most solar production(24,818 megawatts), and greatest battery discharge (4,833 megawatts). Only two years ago, the most that batteries had ever injected into the ERCOT grid at once was 766 megawatts. Now the battery fleet is providing nearly as much instantaneous power as Texas nuclear power plants, which contribute around 5,000 megawatts.

“These records, along with the generator interconnection queue, point towards a cleaner and more dynamic future for ERCOT,” said Joshua Rhodes, a research scientist studying the energy system at The University of Texas at Austin.

The famously developer-friendly Lone Star State has struggled to add new gas power plants lately, even after offering up billions of taxpayer dollars for a dedicated loan program to private gas developers. Solar and battery additions since last March average about 1 gigawatt per month, based on ERCOT’s figures, Texas energy analyst Doug Lewin said. In 2024, Texas produced almost twice as much wind and solar electricity as California.

When weather conditions align, the state’s abundant clean-energy resources come alive — and those conditions aligned last week amid sunny, windy, warm weather. On March 2 at 2:40 p.m. CST, renewables collectively met a record 76% of ERCOT demand.

Latitude Media:

Engie is withdrawing a major gas project from consideration for a Texas program that provides low-interest loans for new or expanded dispatchable energy generation, citing equipment procurement delays.

Death Threat Crisis at Antarctic Base

There are strange things done in the midnight sun – Robert Service

Guardian:

A member of a South African research team on a remote Antarctic base has accused a colleague of physical assault and making a death threat, pleading for “immediate action” to be taken.

The accusations were made in an email sent from the base that was shared with the South African newspaper the Sunday Times.

The person making the allegations said they feared for their own and their colleagues’ safety at South Africa’s Sanae IV research base, demanding “immediate action”, the newspaper reported, quoting an email it said was sent last month.

South Africa’s environment minister, Dion George, whose department manages the country’s Antarctic programme, confirmed that an assault had taken place and that he was “considering options”, without specifying what these were.

Tesla, Unguided, in Free Fall

Tesla had one of the greatest brands in history just a few years ago.
Elon Musk seems to be doing to Tesla what Trump is trying to do to the United States of America.

Inside EVs:

Electric-vehicle maker Polestar wants to capitalize on growing discontent around Tesla. Apparently, it’s working.

Last week, Polestar announced a special $5,000 discount for Tesla driverslooking to lease the company’s new Polestar 3 crossover. With that deal and another $15,000 of incentives to lessees, Tesla owners could get a $20,000 lease discount to become ex-Tesla owners.

On Friday, the brand’s U.S. head of sales said in a LinkedIn post: “This week saw some of the highest order days for Polestar 3, and the response to our Tesla Conquest Offer has been incredible.”