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Minute 0:
Energy Week #419: 5/20/2021
Thursday, May 13
Fracking (Image courtesy of NASA, ClimateKids)
Minute 2
¶ “Want A Heart Attack? Move Closer To A Natural Gas Fracking Site” • Fracking might not be good for your heart. The Journal of Environmental Research published a study that found middle-aged men living near fracking sites in Pennsylvania were more than 5% more likely to die of a heart attack than their counterparts where fracking is banned. [CleanTechnica]
Cheshire, Ohio in 2004 (Analogue Kid, CC-BY-SA 2.5)
Minute 5
¶ “The Strange Deal That Created A Ghost Town” • The JM Gavin coal-burning power station is the seventh-largest emitter of CO₂ of all power stations in the US. In 2019 it emitted 12.9 million tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere. The power plant’s emissions are also responsible for the demise of the entire community of Cheshire, Ohio. [BBC]
Bitcoin (André François McKenzie, Unsplash) Bitcoin does not acutaly have physical reality.
Minute 8
¶ “Tesla Suspends Bitcoin Vehicle Purchases Due To Impacts Of Mining And Transactions On The Environment” • In the past, Tesla has accepted Bitcoin as payment for cars. But Elon Musk has tweeted that Tesla suspended use of Bitcoin for vehicle purchases. He said the reason was Bitcoin’s growing dependence on energy from fossil fuels. [CleanTechnica]
Friday, May 14
Paris (John Towner, Unsplash)
Minute 11
¶ “Paris Seeks To Ban Through Traffic In City Center By 2022” • A plan to drastically reduce car traffic in the center of the French capital Paris by 2022 has been put forward by the city council. The scheme would ban through traffic in four central districts, giving priority instead to cyclists, pedestrians, and the public transportation system. [BBC]
Colonial Pipeline (Image by Colonial Pipeline Co, via BBC) The map is wrong, and Tom is right. Lindon, the terminal for the Colonial Pipeline, is opposite New York City.
Minute 13
¶ “‘An 8th-Grader Could Have Hacked’ The Colonial Pipeline” • Its owners should not be surprised that the Colonial Pipeline was hacked. An outside audit of its cyberattack defenses, delivered to the company more than three years ago, described “atrocious” information management practices and “a patchwork of poorly connected and secured systems.” [CleanTechnica]
Smoke from a PyroCb (David Peterson, NASA Earth Observatory)
Minute 16
¶ “The Most Intense Firestorms In The World” • When a wildfire reaches epic proportions, it changes everything around it – even creating its own weather. A pyrocumulmonimbus, or “pyroCb” is a thunderstorm generated by fire that creates positive feedback loops, with winds, lightning, and sometimes deadly downdrafts that spread the fire outwards. [BBC]
Saturday, May 15
Nuclear plant (Frédéric Paulussen, Unsplash)
Minute 19
¶ “Does Nuclear Power Really Keep The Lights On?” • The nuclear industry is fond of telling us the sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow. But things are a bit more complicated than that. Advances in renewable energy and storage mean that baseload power provided by nuclear reactors is no longer needed. [MSN]
California (Vladimir Kudinov, Unsplash)
Minute 22
¶ “US West Likely To Have Tough 2021 Due To Drought” • US officials expect climate-fueled heat and drought to drive a fire season in the West at least as bad as last year. Projections are so bad that hatcheries in Northern California are trucking salmon to the ocean instead of releasing them into dangerously low rivers with unsafely warm waters. [CleanTechnica]
Ravenswood Generating Station in Queens (King of Hearts, CC-BY-SA 4.0)
Minute 24
¶ “Ravenswood Generating Station On Track To Become A Renewable Energy Hub” • Ravenswood Generating Station could be home to renewable energy transported from upstate New York by 2026, its owner announced. The proposed Catskills Renewable Program would supplying an estimated 15% of New York City’s energy. [Queens Daily Eagle]
Sunday,May 16
Crane in Spain (Santiago Lacarta, Unsplash)
Minute 27
¶ “Flying Giant Returning To Ireland After 300 Years” • Giant birds that have been part of Irish folklore could be returning to the island after an absence of more than 300 years. There is a pair of cranes nesting on a rewetted peat bog owned by former peat producer Bord na Móna. The peat harvests had stopped at the site in January. [BBC]
Minute 30
Heavy waves (Barth Bailey, Unsplash)
¶ “May 15 Is The New ‘Unofficial’ Start To Hurricane Season” • Officially, the hurricane season starts on June 1. But named tropical systems have formed earlier than that in the Atlantic every year for the past six years. The National Hurricane Center is now issuing their routine ‘tropical weather outlook’ forecasts starting on May 15, rather than June 1. [CNN]
Pump jack (Zbynek Burival, Unsplash)
Minute 32
¶ “Exxon Mobil’s Messaging Shifted Blame For Warming To Consumers” • Exxon Mobil Corp has used language to systematically shift blame for climate change from fossil fuel companies and onto consumers, according to a paper by researchers at Harvard University. The paper was published in the journal One Earth. [Scientific American]
Monday, May 17
Wind farm (Mārtiņš Zemlickis, Unsplash)
Minute 35
¶ “Air Compression To Be Used In The World’s Largest Non-Hydro Energy Storage System” • The world’s largest advanced compressed-air long-duration energy storage (A-CAES) system is set to be constructed in California. Canadian company Hydrostor has announced that it is developing two A-CAES projects, each of 500-MW / 5-GWh. [Energy Matters]
Yallourn Power Station (Stephen Edmonds, CC BY-SA 2.0)
Minute 38
¶ “Coal Generators Bleeding Money As Renewables, Rooftop Solar Push Prices Down” • Revenue for the operators of coal burning power stations has plunged by $5.4 billion as coal use continues to decline. This is impetus for AGL, which burns more coal than any other company in Australia, to bring forward its coal closure timeline. [Mirage News]
West Virginia solar energy (Revolt Energy image)
Minute 40
¶ “The Dam Has Broken And West Virginia Has Awoken To Solar Power” • The tight grip the coal industry has on West Virginia is loosening. Consider the case of Nitro Construction Services, a provider of electrical, mechanical, and technological services. Its roots are in the coal industry but it is now ramping up its new solar business. [Forbes]
Tuesday, May 18
Impossible burger (Impossible Foods image)
Minute 43
¶ “Impossible Foods To Reach New Generation Through US School Nutrition Programs” • The plant-based meat company Impossible Foods has taken another big step on the path to mass adoption of its products. It secured Child Nutrition Labels for its Impossible Burger. They can now be served in US schools as part of school nutrition programs. [CleanTechnica]
Madrid (Jorge Fernández Salas, Unsplash)
Minute 46
¶ “Spain Bans New Oil And Gas Exploration As It Supercharges Renewables” • Spain has joined the growing number of European countries banning new oil and gas exploration with far-ranging legislation. It is also prohibiting the sale of fossil-fuel vehicles by 2040 and making it illegal to produce fossil fuels in the country from the start of 2043. [Upstream Online]
St Croix (Jpheym, CC-BY-SA 3.0)
Minute 48
¶ “Refinery That Rained Oil Is Shut Down By EPA In St Croix” • Less than 48 hours after an EPA employee sent to the Virgin Islands to investigate the Limetree oil refinery told colleagues “there is oil on my windshield,” the agency took the remarkable action to shut down the entire refinery, citing an “imminent” threat to human health. [CleanTechnica]
Wednesday, May 19
Minute 51
Yummy! (Colton Jones, Unsplash)
¶ “This Supplement Can Reduce Methane In Cows And Make Farmers Money” • Cattle farming accounts for nearly 10% of all greenhouse gases generated by human activity. Most of that is from methane they produce, but a new feed supplement based on garlic and citrus extracts could reduce those emissions by an average of 30%, its makers say. [CNN]
Highview Power model (Highview Power image)
Minute 54
¶ “Highview Power Developing 2 GWh Spanish Storage Project” • Highview Power is developing up to 2 GWh of long duration, liquid air energy storage projects across Spain. With an estimated investment of around $1 billion (€0.81 billion), these projects should enable several Spanish regions to move towards their net zero emissions target. [reNEWS]
Offshore oil rig (Zukiman Mohamad, Pexels, public domain)
Minute 56
¶ “International Energy Agency Says Oil And Gas Exploration And Coal Plant Construction Must Stop Now” • The International Energy Agency said in a wide-ranging report that countries must immediately stop exploiting new oil and gas fields and building coal-fired power plants, if global temperatures are to be kept within safe limits. [CleanTechnica]
Minute 59: Finis
Notes:
Energy Week #419: 5/20/2021
George Harvey, blogger, author, and journalist for Green Energy Times and CleanTechnica, computer engineer
Tom Finnell, electrical engineer, transmission grid expert, world traveler, philanthropist, and philosopher
Energy, renewable energy, wind power, Solar, batteries, Nuclear, coal, oil, gas, Climate Change
Energy Week with George Harvey and Tom Finnell 