As a sign of trouble in the EV industry, May sales of EVs dropped year over year. They were down 12%, led by the largest market–Germany, where sales fell 30%. One reason for the German drop is that it cut subsidies for EV purchases. According to Reuters, “Demand for EVs in Europe has cooled in recent months, after rising strongly for several years, while competition to produce more affordable models has grown.” Climatecrisis247 believes that the news must be chilling for EV manufacturers. US EV sales have slowed as well. Car companies have invested billions of dollars into EV production, only to see their forecasts fall apart,
Climate Deaths –Mecca 550 People
Climate Deaths –11,000 In The US
AI energy use will strain US demand to the breaking point, bringing the largest investors into the industry. They believe they can make billions of dollars by providing supply. Most recently, huge Japanese conglomerate and investor Softwbabnk said it would enter the market. Reuters reported, “Japan’s SoftBank Group will ramp up its power generation business primarily in the United States to supply power to generative artificial intelligence projects worldwide, founder Masayoshi Son.” Softbank is not the only company that sees electricity for AI as an opportunity. Google has, as well. Semafor said, “Google revealed last week that it had signed a first-of-its-kind deal involving the Nevada utility NV Energy and the geothermal power startup Fervo. The Nevada deal is an untested iteration on the traditional power purchase agreement (PPA), a type of clean power contract that Google also pioneered nearly a decade ago.” Climatecrisis247 believes that private companies are doing what utilities and the government have not. Electricity from fossil fuels and delivery over the old US grid could not provide enough power for new AI applications. These decisions will help the AI industry and will be profitable for new energy providers.
US Energy Need
The US needs more nuclear power to provide for huge jumps in demand, many caused by Bitcoin mining and new AI applications. Americans remain worried about the danger of nuclear power generation, a fear that goes back as far as the 1979 reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island. The Senate passed a bill to speed up building nuclear power facilities. It will make getting permits for plants faster and offer government incentives to build the installations. Climatecrisis247 believes that alternative energy, primarily wind and solar, has yet to demonstrate that it can deliver enough electricity to solve the demand problem. The US has to follow the example of China and several European nations to bring more nuclear power online.
Mexico’s Deadly Heat
Scientists have determined climate change’s role in the massive heat jump in Mexico and America’s southwest. According to a paper titled “Extreme heat killing more than 100 people in Mexico hotter and much more likely due to climate change” published The World Weather Attribution non-profit, “To determine the role of climate change we combine observations with climate models and we conclude that human-induced warming from burning fossil fuels made the 5-day maximum temperature event about 1.4 degrees hotter and about 35 times more likely.” The dates used were in May and June. Climatecrisis247 believes that the number of scientific discoveries about the contribution of fossil fuels to global warming continues to increase. Unfortunately, the number of realistic solutions to the crisis has barely grown.
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