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Will Space Weather Blow Out My Solar Panels?
You have probably heard by now that there’s a big solar storm on its way toward us. (If not, sign up for Heatmap AM, our daily roundup of climate and energy news.) On Wednesday, the sun started ejecting massive columns of geomagnetic activity out into space in Earth’s direction. That geomagnetism is due to arrive around 11p.m. ET on Friday, triggering huge fluctuations in the Earth’s geomagnetic field.Those fluctuations can actually generate their own electric current. And too much of that current can wreak havoc on the electrical grid.The last time we got a heads up like this about...
Batteries Are the Least Popular Part of a Carbon-Free Grid
Here’s a shocker: Americans aren’t exactly unified in their takes on the energy transition. In a new Heatmap poll conducted by Embold Research, about a third of the more than 2,000 adults surveyed agreed that “renewable energy offers many significant benefits, with few downsides,” while about half that number said renewables have “many significant downsides, with few benefits.” Go figure. Dig beneath the surface, however, and some fascinating fault lines begin to emerge. Often, these divides cut across class, gender, and even party affiliation. Take the public’s opinion on batteries, for instance. Of all the possible sources of zero-carbon power we...
What to Know About the Rare Severe Solar Storm Watch
Current conditions: Central Florida could see severe storms today • The cicadas are out in St. Louis • Kenya’s president declared today a public holiday to mourn the 238 people who have died in recent flooding. THE TOP FIVE 1. NOAA issues rare severe solar storm watch The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a rare “severe geomagnetic storm watch” due to intense explosions on the sun that are spewing solar material toward Earth. This week a “large sunspot cluster” that’s about 16 times the diameter of Earth has produced at least five mass coronal ejections,...
What to Know About the Rare Severe Solar Storm Watch
Current conditions: Central Florida could see severe storms today • The cicadas are out in St. Louis • Kenya’s president declared today a public holiday to mourn the 238 people who have died in recent flooding. THE TOP FIVE 1. NOAA issues rare severe solar storm watch The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a rare “severe geomagnetic storm watch” due to intense explosions on the sun that are spewing solar material toward Earth. This week a “large sunspot cluster” that’s about 16 times the diameter of Earth has produced at least five mass coronal ejections,...
The Anxiety Behind America’s New Economic Order
The Scene On Thursday, the top climate diplomats from the world’s two most polluting countries are meeting in Washington, D.C. John Podesta, America’s climate envoy, and Liu Zhenmin, China’s climate envoy, will hold their first formal session and lay the groundwork for the United Nations climate conference in Azerbaijan later this year. They will discuss, among other topics, boosting climate finance and making further cuts to methane emissions, according to Axios.Both men are new to their posts, with their predecessors John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua having each stepped down in the past year. That could prove important. Kerry and...
10 Regions Where the DOE Wants to Boost Power Transmission
Current conditions: Severe overnight storms in Central states killed at least three people • London is gearing up for a “mini heat wave” • Residents in California’s San Bernardino County are being told to stay away from Silverwood Lake due to a toxic algal bloom.THE TOP FIVE1. DOE proposes 10 electric transmission corridors The Department of Energy yesterday announced the 10 “corridors” where new power transmission infrastructure could be expanded quickly in order to bolster the U.S. electrical grid. The potential National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (or NIETCs) have been identified by the DOE as areas where “consumers are...
Clean Energy Is on the Ballot in Alaska
When you think of climate change, you think of Alaska whether you realize it or not. With its pipelines, polar bears, and dramatic, calving glaciers, the state has contributed an outsized amount of stock footage to global warming montages over the years. Combined with a nearly unbroken record of backing Republican presidential candidates and an increasingly young and diverse voting-age population, there’s a popular impression — among outsiders, anyway — of the state as a front line in the battle between continued fossil fuel dependence and a clean-energy future. Somewhat ironically, Alaskans themselves don’t typically view things that way....
Climeworks’ Newest Direct Air Capture Plant Is Officially Live
If one company has set the pace for direct air capture, it’s Climeworks. The Switzerland-based business opened its — and the world’s — first commercial DAC plant in 2017, capable of capturing “several hundred tons” of carbon dioxide each year. Today, the company unveiled its newest plant, the aptly named Mammoth. Located in Iceland, Mammoth is designed to take advantage of the country’s unique geology to capture and store up to 36,000 metric tons of carbon per year — eventually. Here’s what you need to know about the new project.1. Mammoth is, well, huge Mammoth is not yet operating at...
Global Power Emissions Probably Already Peaked
Current conditions: Wildfires in India have killed at least five people • A heat wave in Mexico caused rolling blackouts • Central states will get some relief from severe storms as the system weakens and begins moving east today. THE TOP FIVE 1. Global power sector emissions likely peaked last year as renewables surge I am delighted to start today with some uplifting news. A new Global Electricity Review from climate think tank Ember is positively brimming with encouraging data about the growth of renewables. The topline takeaway? Rapid expansion of wind and solar projects in 2023 likely brought the peak in...
Elon Musk Is Putting the EV Transition in Peril
Tesla is now facing its worst crisis in years. Last week, CEO Elon Musk laid off the automaker’s roughly 500-person Supercharger team and what remained of its policy and new vehicle teams. Before that, it reported its first-quarter financial results — and they were even worse than the lackluster performance that investors were expecting. Already this year, Tesla has cut around 10% of its employees. Now Musk is promising that it will shift toward becoming an “AI” company. And on Wednesday — after we recorded this episode — Reuters reported that the Justice Department is investigating Tesla for lying about...
What Happens in Texas When Summer Comes Early
It’s getting hot in Texas. Forecast highs for Tuesday are 89 degrees Fahrenheit in Houston, 92 in San Antonio, and 90 in Dallas. ERCOT, which operates the energy market that covers around 90% of the state, issued an “extreme hot weather event” warning and a “weather watch” due to “unseasonably high temperatures” — and “high levels of expected maintenance outages.” The whole country, but particularly Texas, is playing chicken with its existing fleet of natural gas-powered electricity infrastructure. While the weather-dependence of solar and wind are both obvious and well-known, gas, too, can be susceptible to nature’s fluctuations. High temperatures...
Will 2024 Be Hotter Than 2023?
Current conditions: Tornadoes terrorized Oklahoma overnight • Flash floods killed two people in China’s Guangxi region • It is 75 degrees Fahrenheit and clear in Rafah, where Israeli troops have seized the Gaza side of the border crossing with Egypt. THE TOP FIVE1. April broke heat records, but wild temperatures could moderate slightly soon Temperature data for last month is rolling in, and the takeaway is that it was the hottest April on record for planet Earth. That marks 11 straight months of record heat, and researchers are starting to do some informed analysis on whether 2024 will displace 2023 as...
Turns Out, NET Power Hasn’t Delivered Net Power
NET Power’s power plants are an oil exec’s fantasy, an environmentalist’s nightmare, and an energy expert’s object of fascination. The company builds natural gas-burning power plants that, due to the inherent design of the system, don’t release carbon dioxide or other health-harming pollutants. If the tech can scale, it could be a key contender to complement solar and wind energy on the grid, with the ability to dispatch carbon-free power when it’s needed and run for as long as necessary, unconstrained by the weather.The company is especially well-positioned now that the Environmental Protection Agency has finalized emissions standards for...
The Make-or-Break Projects of the Energy Transition
The energy transition happens one project at a time. Cutting carbon emissions is not simply a matter of shutting down coal plants or switching to electric cars. It calls for a vast number of individual construction projects to coalesce into a whole new energy system, one that can generate, transmit, and distribute new forms of clean power. Even with the right architecture of regulations and subsidies in place, each project must still conquer a series of obstacles that can require years of planning, fundraising, and cajoling, followed by exhaustive review before they can begin building, let alone operating. These 10...
From Texas to Brazil, a Look at Extreme Weather Events Unfolding Right Now
Current conditions: The Sierra Nevada received more than two feet of snow, marking the region’s snowiest day of the season • Tropical Cyclone Hidaya lost strength over the weekend • It will be about 80 degrees Fahrenheit and clear in Cape Canaveral for the launch of Boeing’s Starliner space capsule.THE TOP FIVE1. A severe weather roundupIt feels appropriate today to begin by acknowledging the extreme weather events happening around the world right now. There are so many that spotlighting only one risks ignoring the underlying reality that climate-driven natural disasters of all kinds are becoming more frequent and severe.Houston’s...
Why I’ve Finally Lost Faith in Tesla
When I finally succumbed and opened Threads, Mark Zuckerberg’s algorithm sized up my demographics and fed me two kinds of posts it thought would juice my engagement. First were the people shouting, incorrectly, that IPA is a bad style of beer and framing themselves as too hip to sip something so basic. Second: Posts from the loud, dedicated cadre of Threads users who are actively rooting against Tesla. I understand the spite. When I bought my Model 3 five years ago, Elon Musk had begun his public heel turn. Some of the signs of what was to come were already...
Big Oil’s Big Spending on U.S. Elections
Current conditions: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a disaster declaration across 88 counties as flooding there continues • 48 people have died in China after record rainfall caused a landslide that swept away part of a highway • Louisville is forecast to see a brief dry spell during the Kentucky Derby, but rain ahead of the race could still leave the track muddy.THE TOP FIVE1. Oil and gas cash covering Trump’s legal feesIndividuals who’ve gotten wealthy from the oil and gas industry funneled more than $6.4 million into Donald Trump’s joint fundraising committee, the Trump 47 Committee, in...
The Oil Money Funding Trump’s Legal Defense
With $6.4 million, you could pay to remove 4,923 tons of carbon from the atmosphere. You could buy 533 used Chevy Bolts — far more than enough to give one to every incoming freshman at Swarthmore College — or supply an entire county with low- and no-emissions buses. Or, if you’re the oil and gas industry, you could donate it to the former president of the United States to help cover his mounting legal fees. According to new analysis by the strategic communications group Climate Power, allies of Big Oil pumped more than $6.4 million into Donald Trump’s joint fundraising committee...
3 Ways to Make Sense of Elon Musk’s Supercharger Massacre
“Delete, delete, delete,” Elon Musk reportedly told his biographer, Walter Isaacson, describing his approach to management. “Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn't delete enough.” Musk has taken his own advice: He is slicing to the bone. Earlier this week, he dismissed the head of Tesla’s Supercharger network, Rebecca Tinucci, as well as her more than 500-person team. As of today, Tesla has only a barebones crew, at best, tasked with maintaining and expanding...
America Has a Growing Power Outage Problem
Current conditions: Heavy rain in southern Brazil killed at least 10 people • Flood watches are in effect across North Texas • It will be 75 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny today in California’s Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, which has just been expanded by 13,700 acres.THE TOP FIVE1. One key moment from the Big Oil hearingDemocratic lawmakers testified at a congressional hearing yesterday that Big Oil companies were guilty of decades of “denial, disinformation, and doublespeak” on climate change. The hearing followed the release of damning internal documents suggesting executives from major fossil fuel producers sought to “deceive the...
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