This reporter looks about the way I look on an average work day, and that makes me feel seen.
In Greenland: Old US Bases are Key Infrastructure
Much has been made of the (purported) need for US bases in Greenland, to insure national security. (It’s clear now the need related more to the Orange Toddler’s in-security)
Many Americans might not remember that in the early days of the Cold War, the Strategic Air Command had forward bases in the arctic for radar installations (the DEW, or Distant Early Warning, line).
Google Gemini gives this:
The DEW (Distant Early Warning) Line in Greenland refers to the eastern extension of Cold War radar stations, known as DYE Stations, built to detect Soviet bombers, with notable sites like DYE-2 and DYE-3 on the ice cap built on massive stilts to withstand deep ice. These stations, operational from the late 1950s to the late 1980s, were crucial for North American defense, supported by the U.S. Air National Guard, and also collected vital scientific data before being abandoned, leaving behind unique architectural relics in the Arctic.
When I visited there, in 2013, we were on our way to take samples deep in the interior of the ice sheet, where, as far as Lead Scientist Jason Box knew, no one had ever flown in by helicopter. (Jason had maintained a weather station at that location for years, going in via snow machine)
The Dye 2 station, about an hour by chopper from Kangerlussuaq, was a stop on the way, because although the military mission was abandoned, an American scientific base was maintained there, and they had fuel reserves that we were able to fill up with.
Personel came out to meet us in snow machines, and I noted that the American flag planted at the site drew no notice or comment from anyone, including our Danish ex-military pilot.
More Inconvenient Truths about Small Reactors
Of particular interest here, some info about Russian and Chinese SMR efforts, which, it turns out, have had challenges.
Climate Amped Winter Extremes put Pressure on Ukraine
Warm Arctic, cold continents = signature of climate change.
Russia using climate extremes as a weapon against Ukraine, in brutally cold winter as attacks on energy infrastructure continue.
Conversation below gives a first person update. “They’re not going to break.”
Gas Soars Ahead of Vortex Blast
As I have noted before, the larger a given state’s exposure to natural gas, the more likely electric rates will be higher, according to recent research from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
Gas has always been notoriously volatile. Some states have a bit of a buffer in that rates are set by Public Utility Commissions and don’t jump around, but in Texas, for instance, prices can fluctuate during times of high demand, and gas tycoons can make a killing during moments of crisis, such as the one that seems to be developing now.
I just spoke to a knowledgeable former State regulator, who told me that in times past, gas demand would peak in the winter heating season, so that during the rest of the year utilities could stock up and fill storage facilities.
Now, as we generate much more electricity from gas, the peaks are coming in the summer AC season as well, so price spikes in a “W” configuration, with peaks now in summer and winter.
Natural-gas prices have jumped 63% this week in response to forecasts calling for some of the coldest, snowiest weather in years to freeze the country from the West Texas desert to the Great Lakes.
The forecasts have stoked fears of a repeat of the deadly winter storm that froze Texas in 2021 and left millions of people without electricity for days. Energy producers and utilities are preparing for the worst. The Energy Department late Thursday ordered grid operators to be prepared to take extraordinary steps to tap in to backup power generation.
Subzero temperatures are in store for Minneapolis, Chicago and Detroit starting Friday. New York and Washington, D.C., are expecting to be buried in snow by the end of the weekend.
The big concern in energy markets is for Texas and other parts of the southern U.S., where uncommonly cold temperatures threaten to ice some of America’s most prolific oil-and-gas fields and wreak havoc on the power grid. Prices for electricity this weekend are already surging in Texas.
The biggest gains in natural-gas prices have been for near-term deliveries. Futures for February delivery of the heating and power-generation fuel had their biggest three-day percentage gain on record. Futures settled Thursday at $5.045 per million British thermal units, up from $3.103 at the end of last week.
Straining To Break Wind, Trump only Passes Gas at Davos
“I haven’t been able to find any wind farms in China.” – see below.
Politico: (paywalled)
The world’s two biggest climate polluters are racing in opposite directions: The U.S. is chasing fossil fuels while China entrenches its dominance over clean energy.
That divergence was on full display this week in Davos, Switzerland, where global leaders attending the World Economic Forum got an earful from President Donald Trump on “money-losing windmills” and how much oil the U.S. will get from Venezuela.
China’s vice premier struck a far different tone, Sara Schonhardt writes. He Lifeng spoke of the country’s aim for “closer partnerships” that boost clean energy and “ensure the free flow of quality green products globally.”
China already dominates clean energy supply chains and is rapidly installing wind and solar capacity. The U.S. is the leading exporter of fossil fuels, boosted by a liquefied natural gas industry whose booming exports surged even more under former President Joe Biden after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But while Biden also poured billions of dollars into building a domestic clean energy industry, Trump aims to tear it down. His energy pet peeve: wind.
“One thing I’ve noticed is that the more windmills a country has, the more money that country loses and the worse that country is doing,” Trump said in Davos. “China makes almost all the windmills and yet I haven’t been able to find any wind farms in China. Do you ever think of that?”
Continue reading “Straining To Break Wind, Trump only Passes Gas at Davos”In Wake of Storm, Get Ready for Flood of Weather Conspiracies
If the coming winter storm lives up to advance billing, a lot of people are going to be inside their homes, at their keyboard, furiously pumping out conspiracy theories about weather modification.
Marjorie Taylor Green is most famous for the formulation “Jewish Space Lasers”, which is actually a bit unfair to the congress woman.
In fact, I may have had a hand in that meme with my original post entitled “GOP Q-anon Kook CongressCritter: California Fire Started by Jewish Laser Beam from Space” , where I quoted a report from Media Matters:
Rep. Greene is a proponent of the Camp Fire laser beam conspiracy theory. She wrote a November 17, 2018, Facebook post — which is no longer available online — in which she said that she was speculating “because there are too many coincidences to ignore” regarding the fire, including that then-California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) wanted to build the high-speed rail project and “oddly there are all these people who have said they saw what looked like lasers or blue beams of light causing the fires.” She also speculated that a vice chairman at “Rothschild Inc, international investment banking firm” was somehow involved, and suggested the fire was caused by a beam from “space solar generators.”
Prep Day – Storm will Be a Test of Models, Infrastructure, and Grid
A sure indicator of catastrophic weather, Senator Cruz bugs out from Texas ahead of predicted ice storm.
Commerce Secretary Bombs at World Forum with Coal Push
Recommends a move back to coal. Seriously.
US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick was heckled at a World Economic Forum dinner in Davos, with European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde walking out during his speech.
The gathering on Tuesday night descended into uproar after combative remarks from Lutnick, according to several people present, with widespread jeering amid appeals for calm from BlackRock’s Larry Fink, the host of the event and interim co-chair of the WEF.
Lagarde was among the attendees who walked out during the speech, according to people familiar with the matter.
Lutnick told his audience that the world should focus on coal as an energy source rather than renewables, according to one person present, and made dismissive comments about Europe.
He had earlier on Tuesday written an op-ed for the FT in which he said: “We’re not going to Davos to uphold the status quo. We’re going to confront it head-on.”
He also wrote: “We are here at Davos to make one thing crystal clear: With President Trump, capitalism has a new sheriff in town.”
One chief executive present described the atmosphere as “tense”, while another said it was “noisy and spicy”. One of the hecklers was Al Gore, the former US vice-president, according to two executives present.
Trump’s Historic Greenland Humiliation
I don’t know who the creators are of these videos, above, but damn – that’s impressive turn-around time. This was out just hours after Trump’ humiliating turn-tail-and-run about face on Greenland.
The combination of international revulsion, horrendous polling data in the US, and violent reaction by stock and bond markets, lead President Trump to a dumbfounding turnaround in his bellicose campaign to rupture the global order and take control of another sovereign state.
Incredible, and perhaps permanent damage done nonetheless to the global order that has preserved peace and created unprecedented global prosperity over the last 80 years.
In an hour-long speech before global leaders, Trump humiliated the United States, and all of those who support this President, (granted many of them will not know or understand).
Escalating tensions over Greenland are supercharging a dynamic that was already under way: a shift in the world economic order that had put the U.S. at the center of the global economy.
Continue reading “Trump’s Historic Greenland Humiliation”