The spotlight is a weekly, categorized compilation of links and excerpts from environmentally related posts at Daily Kos. Any posts included in the collection do not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of them. Because of the interconnectedness of the subject matter, some of these posts can be placed in more than one category.
CLIMATE EMERGENCY & EXTREME WEATHER
Apocalyptic Texas Panhandle Wildfires Now Largest in State History by Irontortoise. From ABC NewsThursday: Several large wildfires continue to tear through northern Texas, including one that has grown into the largest blaze in state history. The Smokehouse Creek Fire that ignited in Hutchinson County remained active as of Thursday morning, having burned an estimated 1,075,000 acres and was just 3% contained, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. The flames, which cover an area larger than the size of Rhode Island, have spread across state lines, with 1,050,000 acres burned in Texas and 25,000 acres burned in Oklahoma. Earlier, Gov Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties in northern Texas, and the Pentax nuclear weapons plant outside Amarillo was briefly evacuated due to the fast-moving fires — with normal operations there paused until further notice. Some further background as to how and why these fires spread so rapidly:
Americans marvel at warm weather in the dead of winter, with early wildfire outbreaks in the plains by Pakalolo. It was 68 F in my neck of the woods. Can anyone top that?
Antarctic sea ice has undergone an “abrupt, critical transition” and evidence of a "regime shift" by Pakalolo. It's the ocean's stupid. Antarctic sea ice around the frozen continent has dropped to a scary low for the third year in a row per the US National Snow and Ice Data Center. The sea ice was again below 2 million square kilometers, which The Guardian noted had never been breached until 2022 since satellite records began. From the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership (AAPP): Good things don't come in threes for Antarctic sea ice. Lead author Dr Will Hobbs, of the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership (AAPP) at the University of Tasmania, said a ‘regime shift’ is an abrupt change in the behaviour of a system. “The extreme lows in Antarctic sea ice have led researchers to suggest that a regime shift is under way in the Southern Ocean, and we found multiple lines of evidence that support such a shift to a new sea-ice state.”
Scientists found that a fracture at Pine Island Glacier opened at 80 mph by Pakalolo. Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica's highly vulnerable Amundsen Sea Embayment a 2014 rift was under study by satellite with seismic data taken from instruments on the ice shelf when a massive rift was found to have "shattered like glass" for 6.5 miles at 80 mph. If other rifts are doing the same, sea level rise could occur much faster than anyone had thought possible. Ice shelves provide the critical ability to cork the inland ice streams from dumping land ice into the ocean and raising sea levels across the world's coastlines. Hannah Hickey from the University of Washington writes the presser:A critical question is how warmer oceans might cause glaciers to break apart more quickly. University of Washington researchers have demonstrated the fastest-known large-scale breakage along an Antarctic ice shelf. Their study, recently published in AGU Advances, shows that a 6.5-mile (10.5 kilometer) crack formed in 2012 on Pine Island Glacier—a retreating ice shelf that holds back the larger West Antarctic ice sheet—in about five and a half minutes. That means the rift opened at about 115 feet (35 meters) per second, or about 80 miles per hour. "This is to our knowledge the fastest rift-opening event that's ever been observed," said lead author Stephanie Olinger, who did the work as part of her doctoral research at the UW and Harvard University, and is now a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University. "This shows that under certain circumstances, an ice shelf can shatter. It tells us we need to look out for this type of behavior in the future, and it informs how we might go about describing these fractures in large-scale ice sheet models."
Kitchen Table Kibitzing: Thurs, Feb. 29 by boatsie. A WAPO article reported on a study by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy which found that the greenest car on the road today is the Toyota Prius Prime SE, a plug in hybrid. The car only travels 44 miles on electric before switching to gas but additional factors such as the vehicle’s weight, the size of its battery and its overall efficiency were taken into account. “While a gigantic electric truck weighing thousands of pounds might be better than a gas truck of the same size, both will be outmatched by a smaller, efficient gas vehicle. And the more huge vehicles there are on the road, the harder it will be for the United States to meet its goal of zeroing out emissions by 2050.” The GreenerCars report analyzes 1,200 cars available in 2024, assessing both the carbon dioxide emissions of the vehicle while it’s on the road and the emissions of manufacturing the car and battery. It also assesses the impact of pollutants beyond carbon dioxide, including nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and particulate matter — all of which can harm human health.
Comic: Climate Change is not real because snowballs ... ☃️ by jtg. There is a blizzard in California now. Some climate change deniers cite any sign of cold or snow as “proof” that global warming is fake because, how could there be cold anywhere if global warming were real? Contrary to deniers’ beliefs, this snow and cold results from climate change and global warming. Warmer weather in the tropics causes more ocean evaporation, resulting in more moisture being transferred via wind or “atmospheric rivers” north and south to the colder latitudes where said moisture condenses as rain, hail, or snow. Now you know more than you ever thought possible.
WATER & INFRASTRUCTURE
Harder Leads Coalition Urging Army Corps of Engineers to Deny Permit for Delta Tunnel Water Grab by Dan Bacher. Representative Josh Harder (CA-9) has led a group of his Delta region colleagues urging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deny a permit for the now-infamous Delta Tunnel, the zombie project that just keeps coming back. “The State recently released an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) confirming that the project will threaten endangered fish populations, destroy farmland, and harm water quality,” according to a press release from Harder's Office. “Harder is calling attention to the deeply concerning long-term impacts that the Delta Tunnel project would have on the Delta itself, the local agriculture industry, and the environment.” “The Delta Tunnel water grab would be a disaster for our region. We’ve been saying it for years and Sacramento’s own report shows the damage it would do, but they won’t listen and they’re steamrolling ahead,” said Rep. Harder. “Delta communities are united in opposition to this boondoggle project because water is the lifeblood of our way of life. The Army Corps needs to do what’s right, look at the real dangers this project will cause, and deny a permit.” Last month, Harder and his Delta region colleagues urged the US Bureau of Reclamation to deny Sacramento’s request for federal participation in the Delta Tunnel project.
Breaking: 830,000 Fall-Run Chinook Salmon Fry Die from Gas Bubble Disease in Klamath River by Dan Bacher. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) announced this morning that hundreds of thousands of fall-run Chinook salmon fry, released for the first time from its Fall Creek Fish Hatchery in Siskiyou County, are “presumed to have succumbed to gas bubble disease in the Klamath River” as the dam removal process moves forward. The Department said that they released approximately 830,000 fall-run Chinook salmon fry on Monday, February 25, into Fall Creek, a tributary of the Klamath River above Iron Gate Dam. [...] “The salmon fry experienced a large mortality based on monitoring data downstream,” the agency continued. “Indications are the cause of mortality is gas bubble disease that likely occurred as the fry migrated though the Iron Gate Dam tunnel, old infrastructure that is targeted for removal along with the Iron Gate Dam itself later this year. Gas bubble disease results from environmental or physical trauma often associated with severe pressure change.”
CRITTERS & THE GREAT OUTDOORS
Comic: Climate Change is not real because snowballs ... ☃️ by jtg. There is a blizzard in California now. Some climate change deniers cite any sign of cold or snow as “proof” that global warming is fake because, how could there be cold anywhere if global warming were real? Contrary to deniers’ beliefs, this snow and cold results from climate change and global warming. Warmer weather in the tropics causes more ocean evaporation, resulting in more moisture being transferred via wind or “atmospheric rivers” north and south to the colder latitudes where said moisture condenses as rain, hail, or snow. Now you know more than you ever thought possible.
The Daily Bucket. Blizzard to hit my NorCal mountains today. Good thing I went out yesterday, huh by funningforrest. Looks like we’re about to get whammied up here in and around Quincy, CA. Quincy is in the “one-to-four feet of snow” elevation range; 3,419’ a.s.l. We had a beaut of a snow storm (Snow’s all I got, s’know what I mean?) in March of last year. Hoo boy, as a kid I sure loved a heavy snow storm. Maybe even school would close, but actually that was pretty rare. Our dratted school bus drivers knew how to chain up. Here’s what could happen.
This Story Bugged Me by nailkeg. It is already in our food. Cricket flour is also known as cricket powder or acheta powder. You can probably find it already listed on the ingredients of products on the shelf. I would not be surprised if the name will be changed just as was done for sugar. You may not recognize the new name and it may blend in with all the other unpronounceable names listed. For example, you may see; “Bug flour and cricket flour are types of insect-based flours, which is a growing trend in sustainable, protein-rich foods. “Bug flour” is a general term that can refer to flour made from any edible insects – crickets, mealworms, grasshoppers, silkworms, etc”. Talk Commerce “… insects can be used as a substitute for flour of cereals, for the enrichment of snacks because of their high content of proteins, lipids, and fiber… Bioactive compounds, as antioxidant agents, insulin regulators, and anti-inflammatory peptides, are high-value products that can be obtained from insects. Fatty acids that play a significant role in human health and lipids from insects have showed positive impacts on coronary disease, inflammation, and cancer… edible insects contain essential nutrients such as proteins, vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids….In addition, insects are also high in minerals like copper (Cu), selenium (Se), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), manganese (Mn), and phosphorus (P), as well as vitamins like biotin, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, and folic acid.
Daily Bucket: Friday Sequence; a sequence of poses of recent birds in Seattle by Jeff Graham. I wanted to share a few of the birds that flit my way recently. I tried to show a couple of poses of each bird. This will be a simple show and tell, you are the ones that will be doing most of the telling :) This is my 77th Bucket or Dawn Chorus. Equal to my present age. A record of some of my experiences recording life around me.
Daily Bucket - Can't see them, but can hear them by CaptBLI. I was checking recent bird sightings from the Mississippi Ornithological Society’s page and saw that a friend of mine had reported seeing and hearing Woodcocks at her home. Andrea Walker lives 8 miles from me so I drove over to talk with her. She described every detail of where the birds were (when she saw them) and had plans to document them last night (she had another birder coming to help verify the event). I decided to observe as well. We all were thrilled to hear the birds when they started calling late in the evening. I am thrilled that these were lifers for both women. I didn’t get the quality audio I wanted but formed a plan for today to gather better film.
Daily Bucket - Nesting; high & low, big & small by CaptBLI. I witnessed wonderful and intimate moments between two species of birds. I’ll start with the smallest (not the species in the title photo). Killdeer are loud, little and active birds that makes them irresistible. I had the pleasure of watching (and filming) the courtship rites of a male enticing a female. Like many species, there is a display of color, specific calls and special skills to get the female’s attention. The photo below shows the tail fanned out (which quivers when displayed) while the male bows. The male has one more trick to lure the female to him. He will create a nest site for their eggs. He does this by resting on his chest and kicking (displacing debris) to create a circular depression. While the nest site is being constructed, the female will inspect. If she approves, she will offer herself to the male.
The Daily Bucket -- A Lark in the Snow by Clickadee. I’d subtitle this diary as “One of the reasons I love Midwest winters.” I’ve been doing a fair amount of birding lately, but always seem to go on the days we return to typical SE Michigan winter instead of the early spring days. But sometimes those cold days bring unexpected benefits. Light snow on the ground last weekend in Ohio brought Horned Larks to the roadside. I see them often, but at a distance. And they blend in well in the agricultural fields where I usually see them in winter. [...] When snow covers the ground, they come to roadsides and paths to forage. One very cooperative Lark stayed close to the road instead of disappearing into the stubble.
Dawn Chorus: Winter raptors of the Ninepipes grasslands by giddy thing. At 47° latitude and 3,000 ft elevation, winter has yet to turn the corner in Montana’s Mission Valley. While I’m envious of your reports of warming days and flowering fruit trees, I don’t mind slogging through another few weeks of cold, ice, and snow if it means enjoying the company of local wintering raptors. Forgive me for prolonging your winter, but I didn’t think offering a photo diary of gorgeous raptors would be too tortuous for my Dawn Chorus comrades. This is my fifth winter in Mission Valley and I’ve gained a fair understanding of how raptors use this landscape. But each winter is different, and that insight is always getting upended. It’s humbling, but I’m here for it. [...] The focal area of this diary is Ninepipes National Wildlife Refuge, located in northwestern Montana on the Flathead Indian Reservation, with the spectacular, snow-capped Mission Mountains as backdrop. The refuge and surrounding state, tribal, and private lands make up an 18,000-acre sprawling complex of wetlands and grasslands managed as staging and breeding habitat for native birds, primarily waterfowl and waterbirds.
AGRICULTURE, GARDENING & FOOD
Self pollinating plants, what could go wrong? by nailkeg. According to the USDA “During the past 30-plus years, our nation’s pollinator populations have suffered serious losses due to invasive pests and diseases, such as mites and viral and fungal pathogens, exposure to pesticides and other chemicals, loss of habitat, loss of species and genetic diversity, and changing climate.” While making a study on Pansies in France, scientist determined that the plants were self pollinating at a 27% greater rate than 30 years ago. With less insects available because of environment factors related to chemicals, climate change and farming methods. This might seem like a good deal If we don’t have enough pollinating insects left then the ability of the plant to pollinate itself would be a good deal. The problem is that without pollen from different flowers, the ability to adapt to varying conditions is limited. Our rapidly changing climate means that we need plants that can carry on with the genes that enable them to survive. This comes from the strongest surviving plants and if they can’t transfer this through pollinators, then the change of climate can be devastating.
Dark Brandon Is Saving Salmon: Boosting Biden Day 41 by GoodNewsRoundup. As the Center for Biological Diversity has warned us, historical pressures combined with new threats from climate change have pushed more than a dozen salmon species close to extinction. Joe Biden is doing something about it! First, in September 2023 he signed an historic agreement with tribal nations to reintroduce salmon into blocked areas in the Upper Basin of the Columbia River. The memorandum highlighted tens of millions of dollars that are going to projects vital to native fish recovery in the Columbia River Basin. They include work expanding tribally led fish hatcheries; removing the disused Enloe Dam and taking out culverts to help salmon migrate more freely; and reducing toxins in fish and water throughout the Basin.
Biden Is Giving Farmers Big Bucks to Go "Climate Smart": Boosting Biden Day 44 by GoodNewsRoundup. There are many steps we need to take to a sustainable planet, and many possible paths. One path involves steering America’s farmers and ranchers toward greener food production. Joe Biden is doing just that. According to a recent article in Politico: Agriculture produces about 10 percent of U.S. carbon emissions, and it’s been a priority of Biden’s climate plan to nudge the nation’s farmers and ranchers toward greener, less carbon-intensive ways of producing food. The move: The Democrats used their marquee climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, to authorize funding to jump-start the transition of American agriculture toward less carbon-intensive practices. In total, the IRA aims to spend roughly $20 billion on climate-smart agriculture over the next eight years. It will also target $300 million to develop more reliable and accurate standards for measuring, monitoring, reporting and verifying greenhouse gas emissions reductions in agriculture. The impact: The money will bankroll farmers’ transition to practices the U.S. Department of Agriculture deems climate-smart, like planting cover crops, reducing tilling, and rotating cattle-grazing zones, all of which can reduce and sequester emissions of atmosphere-warming carbon, nitrous oxide and methane.
Climate Action: Help me design an educational garden by Gardening Toad. For the past few years I’ve been working on a garden in my friend’s large yard in San Antonio, Texas. Here are links to two previous diaries about this garden. Local ecosystem restoration and food forestry. and Small community action. The latest addition I plan for this project is an environmental education/outreach garden along the new sidewalk, especially focusing on the importance of our yards in combating and adapting to climate change. The neighborhood where the garden resides is mostly single family and small apartments in an old part of town. The population is politically primarily Democratic with a smattering of trumpians and Republicans. Spanish is a first or second language for many folks here. I’m asking DK for ideas on what you would like to see in such an educational garden, and especially ideas about signage. Signs will need to be small, simple, and bi-lingual.
Saturday Morning Garden Blogging Vol. 20.09 Tomato & Pepper Season is Underway! by Downheah Mississippi. I struggled with my tomato grow list this year; only Big Beef, Sully’s Pink, Sully’s Dwarf Gina (named in honor of our own GCNY, who sent me the original Sully Project seeds) and HPRM F2, a trial that CWalter and I are working on as a side gig from over at Doc’s were locked in. In the end, I decided on several varieties from TimothyT, a tomato/pepper breeder of some renown from NC. Alma’s Century Pink, Carolina Dusk and Dusky Maiden are all new to me this year. You can look at some of his work Here. Other varieties include Maria, Triple-L-crop and Campari (from seeds saved from a Kroger tomato). These will be ready for up potting in a couple of weeks… The Pepper Patch is coming along nicely. Seeds were planted out first week in January; all have been potted since then. I’m going with some of my old favorites, jalapenos, Prarie Spice, Rooster Spur and Hinkelhatz. I’m also going with some very hot/super hot varieties this year; Carolina reaper, scotch bonnet, and several purple varieties including Purple Ghost Pepper, and Purple Fatalii. Also, Chocolate Habanero…
ENERGY, EMISSIONS & TRANSPORTATION
EV Charging: Tesla and Ford do good by Judeling. Ford has started shipping the adapters to allow access to the Tesla Fast charging network. This is actually a big deal for the future of EV adoption. Throughout the year other manufacturers will be added and thus the convergence on a standard is now underway. Thousands of charging locations have now become accessible to non-Tesla EVs basically overnight. This will be reducing range anxiety and enhancing the Administrations policies towards EVs. Why not CCS as the standard? Basically because the US was late to the game. It was almost inevitable that a pure EV manufacturer was going to end up driving the standard if they became successful. Tesla was all but forced to develop their charging network if they wanted to sell cars. The charge at home model only takes you so far, especially in the California car culture. That worked alright with smaller mainly second car EVs or super high end toys, but for profitable upper and mid priced vehicles another option was required. After briefly toying with battery swap the complexity and added manufacturing costs and constraints on design had them opting for fast charging as the alternative. The vehicle already had a port for home charging after all. As with many other aspects it was soon clear that outside suppliers would never devote the resources towards an upstart [so] Tesla ended up doing it internally.
Energy (and Other) Events Monthly - March 2024 by gmoke. These kinds of events below are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Mitigation and Reversal Strategies Solutions for a Sustainable Future, Thursday, February 29, 11-12 GMT-5. Online. RSVP at here. Homegrown National Park, Thursday, February 29, 12–1pm EST, Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA. And online. RSVP here. The Great Deployment: A Look at How the Financing of Climate Technology is Rapidly Evolving. Thursday, February 29, 12 to 1pm PST, Stanford, Y2E2 Building, 382, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305. And online. RSVP here. Scientist Rebellion Turtle Island Welcome Meeting. You can choose to attend one or more of the following sessions: March 3, 3pm; April 7, 3:pm; May 5, 3pm. RSVP here. Riding the Waves: Adaptation to Extreme Temperatures in a Changing Climate, Monday, March 4, 11:05am EST [4:05pm GMT], Oxford, Lecture Theatre, Manor Road Building. And online. RSVP here.
Want Green Energy? Then you need more mining, much more mining by zman1527. I would imagine that few if any of my fellow Kossacks would consider themselves friendly to mining. Understandable, as mining is always considered to be nothing but environmental devastation. But you know what? You will not and cannot have the green energy revolution without mining, and a lot more of it. That is just an irrefutable fact. Just looking at autos, you are going to need lots and lots of copper and lithium and cobalt, among other things (see below). I am a committed lib (big Bernie fan) but I am also a geologist who works in the mining “space”, so I see both sides of the equation. And yes, another irrefutable fact is that mining is environmentally destructive, inherently so, as it is all about tearing apart rocks and sediments. But it is not the environmental Armageddon that too many believe. Here is an example: have any of you ever been to Salt Lake City? I lived there for 25 years. It is truly one of the most beautiful cities in the nation, and vastly under recognized for that. It butts up immediately to beginning of the Rocky Mountains and has spectacular scenery. Here is an image that is taken right in the middle of the urban area. But you know what you would see if I panned to the right of that image? One of the world’s largest and deepest open pit copper mines, the Bingham Canyon mine. It has been there for over 120 years in operation the whole time. Its there and no one (in general) is bothered by it. Its part of the background, it is not causing basically anyone any heartburn or tearing of the their hair (as some comments I have read here one would think would be commonplace). And there is even an active gravel pit right in a high value subdivision in Salt Lake.
Hydrogen Update: There may be reserves just waiting to be tapped - drill baby drill for green H2? by Xaxnar. Back on January 29, 2024 I posted a diary: Hydrogen - fuel of the future? There may be some changes coming. I described some of the pros and cons of using hydrogen as a non-fossil fuel and for energy storage, some ways a hydrogen economy is taking shape — and how this could all be affected by the possibility that there are extensive natural reserves of green hydrogen in the ground waiting to be found and tapped. The big item behind this discussion was a Yale Environment 360 report entitled: Natural Hydrogen: A Potential Clean Energy Source Beneath Our Feet. The big question is — do such reserves actually exist, and what does it take to find them? The Yale article cited a spring in West Africa where hydrogen bubbling up is being collected and used to provide power for the local village where the spring is. The article describes where the hydrogen may be coming from, and how it is being created by geochemical processes. There’s a hunt underway to find reserves that can be tapped. Well, we may have an example or two of just what people have been looking for
The Sorry Legacy of Leaded Gasoline in America by martinjedlicka. I’m part of a Leaded Generation. Growing up, we lived in homes and played with toys slathered with lead paint, used cosmetics and medicines dosed with the stuff, drank and bathed with water delivered through leaded pipes and fixtures. But by far our greatest exposure to lead came from gasoline sold with tetraethyl lead as a practically universal additive. Leaded gas profiteers poisoned our planet at massive scale and have since provided a shining model for the tobacco, asbestos, pesticide, firearms and fossil fuel industries, among other corporate bad actors, for evading obvious evidence that their products are harmful by cloaking themselves within a politicized mantle of self-righteous scientific uncertainty. All in the name of monetary gains. All at the great expense of human life and health. During the peak era of leaded gasoline in the United States, which ran from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, the average blood–lead level for the general US population was three to five times higher than the current reference value for medical concern. Burning leaded gasoline puts about four grams of lead into the atmosphere per gallon. While these exposures were deemed harmless at the time thanks to industry funded ‘research’, animal studies and epidemiological evidence gathered since show us that such exposures likely disrupted healthy development across multiple organ systems (particularly the brain, bone, and cardiovascular systems), resulting in significant deficits in cognitive ability, fine motor skills, and emotional regulation. These harms actually worsen with age.
California sees 11% decline in oil reserves, but still 5th most in U.S. by Dan Bacher. Construction Coverage has just released a new report about which U.S. states have the most oil reserves. As California regulators transition from fracking and approve fewer and fewer new oil drilling permits each year, California has seen an 11.2% decline in its crude oil reserves, but it still has the fifth most in the U.S., the report revealed. California has 1,716 million barrels in crude oil reserves, according to the report. The five year change in provien reserves is 11.2 percent and -217 million barrels. Although a number of key climate bills managed to get through the Legislature despite the all-out lobbying spending frenzy by Big Oil in 2023, the oil and gas regulators in California, the seventh largest oil producing state in the nation, continued to issue new and reworked oil drilling permits.
Big Oil pumped $25.4 million into lobbying California officials in 2023 by Dan Bacher.Big Oil spent more money on lobbying in California in 2023 than any other year on record besides 2017. Big Oil spent $25,445,606 on lobbying in California in 2023 and $25,445,606 in 2017, according to the research team at Sunstone Strategies in their “Crude Truth” newsletter. The group analyzed the California lobbying filings of every registered oil company in California, in putting 2023 trends into the context of industry lobbying for the past 20 years dating back to 2004. While in an earlier report on oil spending I used the raw data on fossil fuel spending from the filings on the California Secretary of State’s website, the newsletter used a slightly different methodology.“Topping the lobbying spending charts in 2023 was Chevron, the second biggest oil producer in the state and the leading crude oil refiner. Trailing at number two: its trade association, the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA),” wrote Sunstone Strategies.
Renewable Tuesday: Solar and Storage to Dominate in 2024 by Mokurai. Solar energy and battery storage expected to dominate in US in 2024 by Paige Bennett EcoWatch: In 2024, there are currently plans to add 62.8 gigawatts of utility-scale electric generating capacity, about 55% higher than the 40.4 gigawatts of capacity added last year. New solar electric generating capacity is predicted to make up most of the share of new capacity added in 2024 at around 58%, and battery storage is expected to make up about 23%, according to EIA’s Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory. Solar growth could nearly double last year’s numbers, reaching an added 36.4 gigawatts of new utility-scale electric generating capacity in 2024 compared to the 18.4 gigawatts of solar electric generating capacity added in 2023. Initially, there were 29.1 gigawatts of planned solar development for 2023. Solar had been on the rise from 2010 to 2021, but then declined from 2021 to 2022. Now, it is back on the rise with this year’s predictions.
Maine is going big for heat pumps by Xaxnar. The percentage of households burning home heating oil is the highest in the country. Yet no other state is adopting climate-friendly heat pumps as fast. Some numbers from the article:
- According to Efficiency Maine, replacing propane or oil with a heat pump can save $1,000+ annually.
- If every U.S. home adopted heat pumps, it’d be the equivalent of taking 32 million cars off the roads.
- Maine met a goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps 2 years ahead of schedule, with another 175,000 by 2027.
- In 2022 56% of Maine households burned oil for heat, highest percentage in the nation.
MISCELLANY
Our journey to a carbon neutral home - if we can do it, any homeowner can! by AnotherMassachusettsLiberal. The house was heated by oil with forced hot water, and did not have central air. Our first major renovation was to install a ground-sourced geothermal heating and cooling system - we removed the oil furnace (it was only 3 years old) and donated it to Habitat for Humanity. I knew about geothermal systems from my years of environmentalism, but I wasn't up on the latest trends - Jen was bubbling over with info about how great they are today, and I was stunned at the newest info. The system went live in late February, 2021, along with an electrical service upgrade to 200 Amps. The system uses a ground loop filled with anti-freeze so that there's a constant heating/cooling source at 55 degrees F. They drilled a single well 380 feet into the front yard and trenched over to the side of the house where the furnace room was located. In the winter, the system will cool that antifreeze and use the heat to warm the house, through ductwork we had installed along with it. In the summer months, the system is reversed and it uses the ground loop to cool the house VERY efficiently. Our first summer, we kept the house at 73 degrees 24 x 7, and our biggest electric bill was $150 (we used just 768 kWH of electricity that month). We also have a super efficient air-sourced heat pump water heater, with a pre-heat tank and a de-superheater so that any heat left in the system pre-heats our hot water before being applied to the ground loop. Essentially, we get free hot water all summer long by running the air conditioning.About a month after the geothermal system went in, we had the house insulated through a state/utility program. We had to pay $3,500 for over $7,500 worth of insulation - $500 out of pocket, and $3,000 financed at 0% on our electric bill. Part of the financing for the geothermal system is also on a loan paid on our electric bill, and part of that is a bank loan at 3%.
Overnight News Digest: N Atlantic temperatures are “just astonishing. Like, it doesn’t seem real.” by Magnifico. 7,000 Humpback Whales May Have Starved to Death During the ‘Blob’ Heatwav. From Smithsonian Magazine: Between 2012 and 2021, around 7,000 humpback whales died in the North Pacific Ocean, likely from starvation caused by a marine heatwave. Researchers came to this sobering conclusion after reviewing observations from a massive citizen science database. They traced the species’ population trends over the last two decades in a new paper published Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science. Once hunted to the brink of extinction, humpback whales have made a major comeback—aided in large part by a moratorium on commercial whaling that the International Whaling Commission implemented in 1986. (The moratorium remains in place today.)
AntiCapitalist MeetUp 'Vast Scope Of Exploitation Of The Ocean' by annieli. In Global Fishing, five countries — China, Spain, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea — accounted for 85 percent of all high-seas fishing. One of many articles such as this one from 2012 (Campling, Havice, Howard 2012) provide an introduction to the problem of globalized overfishing as well as the geospatial resources that become important as food production moves into more unsustainable realms. Beyond revenue loss and ecological impact there are also informal economies that extend exploitation and inequality to all coastal economies. In one Ghana example below imperialism and globalization continues to make what was a thriving local fishing activity into a dependency on the by-catch or the excess catch of industrial factory ships. The valorization of ‘by-caught’ fish becomes the basis for critique of fishery political economy.
A Bill Burch win could save Texas' environment. Democrats must go on offense on the economy by Egberto Willies. Democratic Texas Railroad Commission candidate is intent on winning to save the environment from lax regulation destroying our groundwater and more. Democrats must tag greedflation as they go on offense on the economy.