Month: December 2025

“Like Kansas in May” – California Taking a Major Hit

You’re not in California anymore, Dorothy.

Storm Chaser Colin McCarthy on X:

I have never seen a model predict an arc of supercell thunderstorms making landfall in California like this before. The severe weather setup we will see tonight is something you might only experience in this part of the world once a decade, or even less often. The

@NWSBayArea discussion puts it into perspective: “In fact, our next shift just walked in and one of the meteorologists said it feels like Kansas in May out there.” The most dangerous line of severe storms, with the highest tornado threat, will make landfall after midnight along the coast from the Central Coast up to the North Coast. However, lines of strong storms will begin making landfall after 7 PM. Expect widespread wind gusts of 50+ mph, with isolated gusts over 70 mph tonight.

Continue reading ““Like Kansas in May” – California Taking a Major Hit”

Rains Come to Southern Cal

On the heels of the under-reported but massive Atmospheric rivers that devastated the Northwest, California is now in the path of heavy bands of moisture beating down on Fire-ravaged hillsides.
Another example of the compounding effects of climate extremes.

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GE Executive: SMRs will be “More Expensive”

Ya think?
Since I keep hearing, wherever I go, that bringing new nuclear on line is as simple as just walking down the the street to the nukyalar plant store and buying a nukyalar plant, I offer these collected resources as my gift to all the internet’s uninformed unfortunates.

Speaking to Wall Street Week, above, the top Executive of GE-Vernova, which expects to be one of the largest builders of Small Nuclear Reactors, states the facts.

SMRs will be “more expensive” than other forms of energy, until, he hopes, “we come down the cost curve as we gain more volume”.
But who pays for the first 5, or 10, or 100, as they “come down the cost curve.” Taxpayers of course.

SMRs may or may not be a good idea, and they are coming, but have no illusions about what they will cost, or when they will be available.

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Trump Wants to Give “Clean Beautiful Coal” for Christmas

Raw Story:

Trump: “Five hours from now, Santa will be coming down your chimney and will have a beautiful present for you. What would you like Santa to bring?”
“Uh… not coal?” said the child.

“Not coal, you don’t want coal. Well coal is — you mean clean, beautiful coal,” said Trump. “I had to do that, I’m sorry. Coal is clean and beautiful, just remember that. But you don’t want clean, beautiful coal, right?”

Music Break: Sith Imperator

Ok, serious question, is this entirely made with AI? I mean in particular the sax solo..

From the Description:

This video is an AI-generated parody. No real people or minors are shown . All characters are fictional.
This is not intended for children The video was created with:
images – freepik
video – mostly Vidu Q2, I would say 90%, the rest were varios others
msuic – suno

China’s Generation Set to Fall

Happy Holidays.

Bloomberg:

China’s fossil fuel power plants are on track to chart their first annual drop in generation in a decade as renewables flood the grid to meet rising demand. 

Thermal electricity output fell 4.2% in November, according to data published by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday. Generation from coal and gas-fired plants is down 0.7% this year, on track for the first annual decline since 2015 unless there’s a sharp jump in December.

China’s massive fleet of coal power stations is the world’s leading source of greenhouse gases fueling global warming. Even though the nation is continuing to build more of the plants, their use is plateauing as huge investments in renewables meet growing consumption needs.

Wind power jumped 22% in November from the previous year, while large solar farms saw a 23% rise in generation, additional data released Monday showed.

Meme Check: Australian Wind Turbines and Asbestos – Tap the Brake Pads..

Meme: Wind turbines found to have asbestos.
Reality: meh

Australian Broadcasting (ABC):

A second company has confirmed the presence of white asbestos in wind turbine lift brake pads imported from Chinese company 3S Industry.

International renewable energy company Vestas, which has 44 wind farms across the country, recorded a positive test for asbestos in brake pads at its Golden Plains wind farm in regional Victoria, about 130 kilometres west of Melbourne.

It was previously revealed energy company Goldwind Australia, responsible for about 5 per cent of the country’s renewable energy, had found asbestos in lift brake pads used across its wind farms.

Newest NIMBY meme is less than meets the eye

The brake pads are used in lifts that enable technicians to travel up and down turbine towers.

In a statement, a Vestas spokesperson said 3S Industry told Vestas the lift pads it supplied may contain asbestos.

“Vestas has taken immediate action to ensure that the limited number of turbines that may have a risk of exposure to asbestos are quarantined, and hoists potentially replaced while further investigations are carried out,” the spokesperson said.

“Vestas maintains a zero-tolerance policy on the use of asbestos in our purchase specification, and the supplier has taken responsibility for not adhering to our policy.

Continue reading “Meme Check: Australian Wind Turbines and Asbestos – Tap the Brake Pads..”

Data Centers in Space?

May the Schwartz be with them.

Scientific American:

To hear Silicon Valley tell it, artificial intelligence is outgrowing the planet that gave birth to it. Data centers will account for nearly half of U.S. electricity demand growth between now and 2030, and their global power requirements could double by the end of this decade as companies train larger AI models. Local officials have begun to balk at approving new server farms that swallow land, strain power grids and gulp cooling water. Some tech executives now talk about putting servers in space as a way to escape those permitting fights.

Orbital data centers could run on practically unlimited solar energy without interruption from cloudy skies or nighttime darkness. If it is getting harder to keep building bigger server farms on Earth, the idea goes, maybe the solution is to loft some of the most power-hungry computing into space. But such orbital data centers will not become cost-effective unless rocket launch costs decline substantially—and independent experts warn they could end up with even bigger environmental and climate effects than their earthly counterparts.

In early November Google announced Project Suncatcher, which aims to launch solar-powered satellite constellations carrying its specialty AI chips, with a demonstration mission planned for 2027. Around the same time, the start-up Starcloud celebrated the launch of a 60-kilogram satellite with an NVIDIA H100 GPU as a prelude to an orbital data center that is expected to require five gigawatts of electric power by 2035.

Those two efforts are part of a broader wave of concepts that move some computing off-planet. China has begun launching spacecraft for a Xingshidai “space data center” constellation, and the European Union is studying similar ideas under a project known as ASCEND.

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Trump “Envoy” to Greenland – We’ll Bring them “Great Cajun Food”

So far beyond parody. Idiocracy was a documentary.

The Premier of Greenland has released a response:

“This morning, I am both saddened and grateful.

Saddened, because during a press conference last night, the President of the United States once again expressed a desire to take over Greenland. With such statements, our country is reduced to a question of security and power. That is not how we see ourselves, and it is not how Greenland can or should be spoken about.

We are a people with a long history, a strong culture, and a vibrant democracy. We are a country with responsibility for our own territory and for our own future. Our territorial integrity and our right to self-determination are firmly anchored in international law and cannot simply be ignored.

That is also why I am grateful.

Thank you to everyone here at home for the clear support and unity that has been shown. The calmness and dignity with which you have met this situation send a strong signal of a people who stand firm in their values and in their responsibility.

I would also like to thank heads of government and partners around the world who have clearly and unequivocally expressed their respect for Greenland, for our democratic institutions, and for the fundamental principles of international law. That support confirms that we here at home do not stand alone.

Once again: Greenland is our country. Decisions are made here. And I will at all times fight for our freedom and our right to decide for ourselves and to shape our own future.

For now, I hope that the peace of Christmas can settle over us all.

Merry Christmas 🇬🇱💙