The Environment Thread

[blue_gold_84]

A slowdown is not a hiatus*. The science is not settled. Those were the two points I refuted because they were disingenuous comments on your part.

I wouldn't lecture anyone on here about reading comprehension if I were you, BTW. Your grasp on many things intellectual is utter garbage.

* hi·a·tus

  /hīˈādəs/

  noun

  noun: hiatus; plural noun: hiatuses

1. a pause or gap in a sequence, series, or process.

    

Edited March 29, 2019 by blue_gold_84
correction made, definition added

[Mark F]

6 minutes ago, blue_gold_84 said:

A pause is not a hiatus. The science is not settled. Those were the two points I refuted because they were disingenuous comments on your part.

I wouldn't lecture anyone on here about reading comprehension if I were you, BTW. Your grasp on many things intellectual is utter garbage.

 

I blocked that person, but it's still worth refuting his posts. Pretty easy to do that, but it gets tiresome.

 he  doesn't read past the headline of his own links.

[Mark F]

2 hours ago, blue_gold_84 said:

A slowdown is not a hiatus*. The science is not settled. Those were the two points I refuted because they were disingenuous comments on your part.

 

There was no pause or hiatus.  The science is gold standard. To say otherwise is nonsense.

Quote

 

 

The current studies, coming on the heels of the recentspecial report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the fourth National Climate Assessment, "put to rest" any lingering notion of a pause in global warming, said Brenda Ekwurzel, the Union of Concerned Scientists' director of climate science.

"It's very clear that the climate is warming faster," Ekwurzel said. "Climate change is real, it's due to us primarily, and we have a choice about the future emissions that continue to contribute to warming global mean surface temperature."

 

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18122018/global-warming-hiatus-pause-never-happened-studies-explain-climate-change-risbey-oreskes-mann

Edited March 29, 2019 by Mark F

[Mark F]

On Thursday, Florida Power and Light (FPL) announced that it would retire two natural gas plants and replace those plants with what is likely to be the world's largest solar-powered battery bank when it's completed in 2021.
 

Quote

 

FPL, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy, serves approximately 10 million customers in Florida. The utility says its plan, including additional efficiency upgrades and smaller battery installations throughout its service area, will save customers more than $100 million in aggregate through avoided fuel costs. FPL also says its battery and upgrade plan will help avoid 1 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

 

The plan calls for the construction of a 409 megawatt (MW) / 900 megawatt-hour battery installation at what will be called the FPL Manatee Energy Storage Center. For context, the largest battery installation in the world was built by Tesla at a Hornsdale wind farm in South Australia; that has a capacity and power rating of 100 MW / 129 MWh.

The batteries will be charged by an existing solar plant in Manatee County, FPL said. Being able to store solar power in batteries is a huge advantage to the utility. Solar photovoltaic panels are intermittent sources of energy, because they only produce power when the sun is shining. Generally, that happens in the morning and toward the middle of the day, when power demand tends to be low. If a utility can store excess power in a bank of batteries, it can deploy that electricity later in the afternoon when people return home from work and turn on their air conditioners, running up electricity demand.

There's a huge shift in the past year, from batteries being viewed as pixie dust for dreaming greens, to batteries being viewed as a normal thing that every utility buys lots of.

That's pretty close to overnight.

 

 

 

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/03/florida-utility-to-close-natural-gas-plants-build-massive-solar-powered-battery/?comments=1

 

Thanks to Elon Musk for his guarantee to Australia a year or two ago about his battery storage: 

"Tesla’s Australia battery project is garnering global recognition and forcing companies to rethink the traditional energy power plants structure.

The Tesla 100MW/129MWh powerpack project in South Australia proved to pay some dividends or at the very least save tens of millions of dollars according to a recent report, again delivering on a promise made by the eccentric founder Elon Musk."

article about Musks battery in Australia:

Quote

 

For the uninitiated, last year Elon Musk promised to deploy a massive 100 MWh battery to the South Australian government. What proved to be an ambitious plan proved to be very beneficial to the Australian people.

This region suffered from countless blackouts and with Tesla’s super-powered battery they were able to easily solve the problem all within 100 days. 

The owner of the Tesla’s battery system recently released a report stating that within its first 12 months of operations the Li-ion battery system saved approximately $40 million.

To put that into perspective the Tesla battery offers South Australia the same energy services as the surrounding plants but quicker, and with zero emissions. In fact, the system is so efficient it actually made $1 million upon its first days of operation. Again, the entire project cost Tesla only $66 million meaning, within less than a second year, this battery project will basically pay for itself.

 

good article:  https://interestingengineering.com/tesla-battery-installed-in-south-australia-saved-the-region-40-million-in-its-first-year

rewnewable will win:  cheaper, more reliable, and reduces emissions of greenhouse gas.

Edited March 30, 2019 by Mark F

[Mark F]

edit

Edited March 30, 2019 by Mark F

[FrostyWinnipeg]

Story tonight on 60 Minutes about how permafrost is a ticking time bomb and one Russians idea on what to do about it.

[Mark F]

Quote

 

At the Stanford Global Energy Forum last month, Lei Zhang, founder and CEO of Envision Energy, made an extraordinary pronouncement. He said the cost of manufacturing EV battery cells would fall below $100 per kWh by 2020 and would be less than $50 per kWh by 2025

The conventional wisdom is that when the price for EV battery cells falls below $100 per kWh, that is when electric cars will become price competitive with conventional cars and the EV revolution will go into hyperdrive. We can’t know for sure, but many industry observers believe Tesla is very near that threshold for the battery cells it manufactures at its Gigafactory 1 in Nevada, if it has not already crossed over it. In general terms, the current industry standard for EV battery cells is believed to be $145 per kWh. Battery pack prices are believed to be around $190 per kWh.

Not only would cheaper batteries give a jolt to EV sales, it would make it possible for auto manufacturers to actually make a decent profit on electric cars. Once that happens, they will have no more excuse for holding on to their dream of building cars with internal combustion engines the way a person who has fallen off a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean holds on to a life raft.

Battery research is proceeding at a furious pace around the world

 

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/12/07/envision-energy-says-ev-battery-cell-costs-will-fall-below-50-kwh-by-2025/

discussion of curve 

Quote

 

The cell price per kWh has been on a technology curve for at least two decades.
The most famous technology curve is Moore's Law about semi conductor prices and capacity.

But is not the only technology curve, there are at least a few dozen more curves known. The battery curve halves the price per kWh every 5 years. $100kWh in 2020 and $50kWh in 2025 should have been known to all industry followers.

 

looks like change is coming fast.

[Wideleft]

3 minutes ago, Mark F said:

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/12/07/envision-energy-says-ev-battery-cell-costs-will-fall-below-50-kwh-by-2025/

discussion of curve 

looks like change is coming fast.

It's all about the batteries.  EV's already require less upkeep than combustion vehicles, so they're already superior in that regard.  Once an EV will get you the range of a similarly priced combustion vehicle (and we're talking $20,000-$35,000 for a car and $45,000-$55,000 for a truck) all bets are off.  The majority of all new vehicles purchased will shift to EV in 10 years max.

[Mark F]

Going to buy gas at Shell. I guess Shell wants to survive more than fifteen or twenty years, unlike the big American oil companies who want to make max CEO pay, right now.

Quote

 

In its first review of its association with 19 key industry groups, the company (Shell oil) said it had found “material misalignment” over climate policy with the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) and would quit the body in 2020.

The review is part of Shell’s drive to increase transparency and show investors it is in line with the 2015 Paris climate agreement’s goals to limit global warming by reducing carbon emissions to a net zero by the end of the century.

Last year, Shell caved in to investor pressure over climate change, setting out plans to introduce industry-leading carbon emissions targets linked to executive pay. Its chief executive, Ben van Beurden, has since repeatedly urged oil and gas producers to take action over climate and pollution. 

“The need for urgent action in response to climate change has become ever more obvious since the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015. As a result, society’s expectations in this area have changed, and Shell’s views have also evolved,” van Beurden said in the report.

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-shell-afpm/shell-to-quit-u-s-refining-lobby-over-climate-disagreement-idUSKCN1RE0VB?utm_source=reddit.com

Edited April 2, 2019 by Mark F

[Wideleft]

"Canada is, on average, experiencing warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world, with Northern Canada heating up at almost three times the global average, according to a new government report.

The study — Canada's Changing Climate Report (CCCR) — was commissioned by Environment and Climate Change Canada. It says that since 1948, Canada's annual average temperature over land has warmed 1.7 C, with higher rates seen in the North, the Prairies and northern British Columbia."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/canada-warming-at-twice-the-global-rate-leaked-report-finds-1.5079765

 

 

[JCon]

5 minutes ago, Wideleft said:

"Canada is, on average, experiencing warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world, with Northern Canada heating up at almost three times the global average, according to a new government report.

The study — Canada's Changing Climate Report (CCCR) — was commissioned by Environment and Climate Change Canada. It says that since 1948, Canada's annual average temperature over land has warmed 1.7 C, with higher rates seen in the North, the Prairies and northern British Columbia."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/canada-warming-at-twice-the-global-rate-leaked-report-finds-1.5079765

 

 

Then why is there still snow on the ground in April, geniuses?!

Game. Set. Match. 

[pigseye]

On 2019-03-29 at 9:05 AM, blue_gold_84 said:

A slowdown is not a hiatus*. The science is not settled. Those were the two points I refuted because they were disingenuous comments on your part.

I wouldn't lecture anyone on here about reading comprehension if I were you, BTW. Your grasp on many things intellectual is utter garbage.

* hi·a·tus

  /hīˈādəs/

  noun

  noun: hiatus; plural noun: hiatuses

1. a pause or gap in a sequence, series, or process.

    

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682618306229?dgcid=raven_sd_aip_email#!

The hiatus in global warming is manifest in several global datasets in the decadal period 2002–2013.

 

[Mark F]

Quote

 

A recent announcement by electric utility Arizona Public Service could mark the tipping point in the way utilities think about building resources to meet peak demand.

Historically utilities built “peakers,” usually gas turbines fueled by natural gas, to meet spikes in demand, but in recent solicitations Arizona Public Service chose battery storage projects over peakers. “This is a watershed moment that the utility is signaling,” says Manish Kumar, managing director for energy storage at AES Corp. The linchpin in the peaker-storage debate is the rapidly declining costs of lithium-ion batteries. The APS solicitation shows “the predicted crossover point has now been reached,” says Jesse Jenkins, a postdoctoral Environmental Fellow at Harvard University, who wrote a 2016 paper predicting batteries were on their way to winning out against gas peakers.

 

https://www.enr.com/articles/46550-batteries-edge-out-natural-gas-peaking-plants-in-arizona-rfp

[Wideleft]

"Electric vehicles are now the norm in Norway when it comes to new car sales, accounting for 58% of all car sales in March. Tesla's mass market Model 3 was especially popular, accounting for nearly 30% of new passenger vehicle sales, the Norwegian Information Council for Road Traffic, or OFV, says."

https://www.npr.org/2019/04/02/709131281/electric-cars-hit-record-in-norway-making-up-nearly-60-of-sales-in-march?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20190402&fbclid=IwAR1skp3nitJra_cboaQU5g9YQOD_gQpIjKnAE_zPeToFrFpdoODfD4LoKXg

[JCon]

2 hours ago, Wideleft said:

"Electric vehicles are now the norm in Norway when it comes to new car sales, accounting for 58% of all car sales in March. Tesla's mass market Model 3 was especially popular, accounting for nearly 30% of new passenger vehicle sales, the Norwegian Information Council for Road Traffic, or OFV, says."

https://www.npr.org/2019/04/02/709131281/electric-cars-hit-record-in-norway-making-up-nearly-60-of-sales-in-march?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20190402&fbclid=IwAR1skp3nitJra_cboaQU5g9YQOD_gQpIjKnAE_zPeToFrFpdoODfD4LoKXg

And what will happen on a cloudy, windless day? No power, no productivity. 

Another win for the Flat-Earthers!

[Mark F]

Quote

 

A cobalt junior miner and processor, that's leaning toward restarting a northeastern Ontario refinery, received some good news.

Toronto's First Cobalt announced April 3 it has successfully produced a battery grade cobalt sulphate.

The company bought a mothballed refinery outside the town of Cobalt in 2017.

However, the testing was not done there, but at SGS Canada's labs in Lakefield, Ont. using the same process and the same equipment as at the refinery.

First Cobalt stated the high purity of their product meets the specifications of potential customers, and positions them to be the first North American producer of processed cobalt to supply battery plants in the U.S.

"With no cobalt sulphate production in North America today, First Cobalt stands to become the first such producer for the American electric vehicle market."

https://www.baytoday.ca/local-news/northeastern-cobalt-refiner-brews-up-a-promising-batch-1357998

Quote

 

Cobalt is a town in the district of Timiskaming, in the province of Ontario, Canada, with a population of 1,118 according to the Canada 2016 Census.

In the early 1900s, the area was heavily mined for silver; the silver ore also contained cobalt. By 1910, the community was the fourth highest producer of silver in the world.[3] Mining declined significantly by the 1930s, together with the local population. In late 2017 one publication referred to Cobalt as a ghost town, but the high demand for cobalt, used in making batteries for mobile devices and electric vehicles, is leading to great interest in the area among mining companies.

The silver mines of Cobalt, and the prospectors and miners who discovered them and worked them, left an indelible mark on Canadian history, and the town is known as the birthplace of hard rock mining in Canada. 

 

 Hope for the locals sake this pans out.

Edited April 7, 2019 by Mark F

[Fatty Liver]

"A new report suggests cleaning up all of the old and unproductive oil and gas wells in Alberta will cost between $40 billion and $70 billion.  The number of wells in the province slated to be remediated is about 3,000, however, there are more than 100,000 unproductive wells that will need to be cleaned up."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/orphan-wells-alberta-aldp-aer-1.5089254

Edited April 9, 2019 by Throw Long Bannatyne

[Mark F]

interesting article about American Southwest water, Colorado river. 

https://e360.yale.edu/features/the-wests-great-river-hits-its-limits-will-the-colorado-run-dry

Quote

 

Some scientists believe a long-term, climate change-driven aridification may be taking place, a permanent drying of the West. That renders the uncertainty of water flow in the Colorado off the charts. While not ruling out all hope, experts have abandoned terms like “concerned” and “worrisome” and routinely use words like “dire” and “scary.  "I hate to use the word dire, because it doesn’t do justice to the good-thinking people and problem solvers that exist in the basin, but I would say it is very serious,” said Brad Udall, a senior scientist at the Colorado Water Institute. “Climate change is unquantifiable and puts life- and economy-threatening risks on the table that need to be dealt with. 

"Even in rock-ribbed conservative areas, those who use the water of the Colorado say they are already seeing things they have never seen before — this year state officials in Colorado cut off lower-priority irrigators on the Yampa River, a tributary of the Green, and recreation had to be halted, for example — and have grudgingly come to believe “there is something going on with the climate.”

 

 

They actually irrigate the desert to grow alfalfa, to feed cattle. completely nuts.

Edited April 9, 2019 by Mark F

[Wideleft]

"Climate change is often thought of as a partisan issue in the United States, but New York Times journalist Nathaniel Rich says that wasn't always the case. Rich says that from 1979 until 1989, climate change was viewed as a bipartisan problem — then the the oil industry "descended and bared its fangs" and everything changed."

 

https://www.npr.org/2019/04/08/710992579/losing-earth-explores-how-oil-industry-played-politics-with-the-planet-s-fate?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20190408&fbclid=IwAR10nNtdI3hlm0jEGukWLXP7rLP9pVUPzn2JZo7j3BTTD38TRVlyCAaElrQ

[Mark F]

Quote

 

Record flooding is destroying farms, crops, livestock, lifetime of work, in US midwest.

WINSLOW, Neb./CHICAGO (Reuters) - Midwestern farmers have been gambling they could ride out the U.S.-China trade war by storing their corn and soybeans anywhere they could - in bins, plastic tubes, in barns or even outside.

Now, the unthinkable has happened. Record floods have devastated a wide swath of the Farm Belt across Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and several other states. Early estimates of lost crops and livestock are approaching $1 billion in Nebraska alone. With more flooding expected, damages are expected to climb much higher for the region.

As river levels rose, spilling over levees and swallowing up townships, farmers watched helplessly as the waters consumed not only their fields, but their stockpiles of grain, the one thing that can stand between them and financial ruin.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” said Tom Geisler, a farmer in Winslow, Nebraska, who said he lost two full storage bins of corn. “We had been depending on the income from our livestock, but now all of our feed is gone, so that is going to be even more difficult. We haven’t been making any money from our grain farming because of trade issues and low prices.”

“The water came so fast,” said John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union. “We know our farmers didn’t have enough time to move all the cattle or empty all their grain bins.”

The roads are so bad that Nebraska’s National Guard on Wednesday will push hay out of a military helicopter to feed cattle in Colfax County stranded by floodwaters, Major General Daryl Bohac said. Cattle carcasses have been found tangled in debris or rotting in trees, while tractors and other expensive machinery are stuck in mud, unable to be moved. At Geisler’s farm in Winslow, Nebraska, two trucks and a tractor were seen buried in mud in wooden barns where water pooled.

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-weather-agriculture/us-farmers-face-devastation-following-midwest-floods-idUSKCN1R12J0

excellent NY Times article: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/us/nebraska-floods.html

This was all before the second record storm that just hit the same people over the last few days.

 

Edited April 13, 2019 by Mark F

[FrostyWinnipeg]

Pace of Bering Sea changes startle scientists

https://apnews.com/0c9a94b339974e9ca9d860fa180d45ea

[pigseye]

Pretty much sums it up

https://theclimatelemon.com/why-climate-change-is-about-human-rights/

 

[Mark H.]

8 hours ago, pigseye said:

Pretty much sums it up

https://theclimatelemon.com/why-climate-change-is-about-human-rights/

 

Very interesting article - not one I would have expected you to post. Thanks. 

[pigseye]

11 hours ago, Mark H. said:

Very interesting article - not one I would have expected you to post. Thanks. 

I thought it summed things up pretty accurately. My take away from it, climate change is inevitable and the Paris Agreement signatories are being asked to compensate the third world $100B annually so they can adapt. Do you see it differently?

[pigseye]

Why the laughter, it's right there in black and white,

https://unfccc.int/topics/climate-finance/the-big-picture/climate-finance-in-the-negotiations

Quote

and that prior to 2025 the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties (CMA) to the Paris Agreement shall set a new collective quantified goal from a floor of USD 100 billion per year, taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries.

But it's not a transfer of wealth, sure.........