Friday Linkage 1/3/2020

Welcome to 2020.  What will the New Year and new decade bring?  I have a list of things I hope will happen, but I do not want to jinx the possibility of actual progress by writing those things downs.

I hope that everyone had an enjoyable holiday and is ready to make 2020 a great year for all people.

On to the links…

Trump Vs. Toilets (And Showers, Dishwashers And Lightbulbs)—This is like your drunk Uncle Carl from Thanksgiving getting to be President of the United States.  Just when you think the situation is at its nadir, Trump steps up to the podium and delivers a new stream of drivel.  What will the campaign bring out from this monster?

Rise Of The Wind Turbines – The Force Is With Them And They Are Great For America—Trump may not like wind turbines because a wind farm in Scotland “mars” his view from his golf course, but the verdict is that wind turbines are good for the economy and the environment.

Who’s Gonna Win The Race For Floating Offshore Wind Turbines, Maine Or California?—Whoever wins the race means that we all win as offshore wind comes online in the United States.  If you thought onshore wind was a good thing then you will love offshore wind.  Imagine wind turbines bobbing near markets along the eastern seaboard.

Fossil Fuels Fall to Record Low Proportion of UK Energy Mix—Almost 39% of electricity from renewables seems amazing for an entire country for an entire year.  We’re not talking about a day or a week or a month, but a year.

With Most Electricity From Renewables, South Australia Has Lowest Utility Cost—So, in South Australia you get more than 50% of your power from renewables and it has the lowest cost compared to others.  What am I missing?

California Will Require Solar Panels on All New Homes. That’s Not Necessarily a Good Thing.—I am of the mind that this is a good thing.  Yes, California will overbuild solar capacity but this will lead to innovations in demand shifting and energy storage.  If the power is cheap or free, someone will figure out a way to use it at a different time when it would be expensive.

Coal-Killing Long-Duration Energy Storage For Vermont—We are already starting to see solutions for so-called long-duration energy storage.

3 Breakthroughs That Could Shake The Energy World In The Next Decade—I think that number three on this list could also be a big factor if the reverse is true.  Rising fossil fuel costs could accelerate the transition to renewables.  Nothing will make an EV looks more attractive than $4 a gallon gas in the United States.

Shipping Fuel Regulation to Cut Sulfur Levels Comes into Force—Maritime shipping emissions are a big deal because each of these ships is like an outdated power plant spewing pollution out its smokestacks.  Considering how much global trade is moved via ships this is one of those “boring, but important” changes.

10 Ways That Car Dealerships Can Step Up To Sell Electric Vehicles—The number one thing missing from this list is for most dealerships to stop being dicks to their customers.  If you want to understand why customers are willing to buy relatively expensive cars sight unseen from an app—yes, I am talking about Teslas—walk into the average new car dealer and tell me about the experience.

The Missing 99%: Why Can’t We Find the Vast Majority of Ocean Plastic?—Man, this is just depressing.  When future generations look back on our time period they will just shake their head at the sheer stupidity of people in general.

A Recycling Renegade Is Out of Prison—and Ready to Tackle the Electric Vehicle Battery Crisis—Eric Lundgren went to jail because of a quirk in digital copyright law, but now he is back with a plan to tackle the rising tide of battery refuse from the EV industry’s growth.  I wish him the best of luck.

Replanting Britain: ‘It’s About the Right Tree in the Right Place’—Reforestation is one of the best tools that we have to fight climate change, but the experience in Britain shows that it is not as simple as just planting a tree wherever.  However, it is instructive that we have the knowledge to actually do reforestation right.

Snow Machines and Fleece Blankets: Inside the Ski Industry’s Battle with Climate Change—The future does not look too good for those of us who enjoy winter sports.

Mystery Pork Will Soon Hit The Stores—This reminds me of the quintessential line from Fast Food Nation: There is shit in the meat.

Those ‘Flushable’ Bathroom Wipes May not be so Flushable After All—Can we just stop using these damn things?

Go Slow to Help Slow the Climate Crisis—I think this is a solution to so much more than the climate crisis.  We are all stuck in a loop where we think going faster will help us accomplish more, but all it does is put pressure on us to do more faster.  It is a treadmill you cannot escape.

Wily Coyotes Take up Residence at Trump’s New York City Golf Course—I can already see the campaign rally rant about coyotes.  Trump will stand at the podium and riff about how it used to be glorious when you could just shoot animals onsite.  Donny Jr. will take the stage with his lame ass beard and pressed camouflage attire to rile up the crowd while asking daddy for permission to rid the golf course of this animal invasion.  It may sound like a fever dream, but it is oh so plausible.

Friday Linkage 8/2/2019

I say this a lot on this blog, but I have a hard time believing that it is already August.  My kids are three weeks away from going back to school, people are starting to talk about fall sports, and my mind starts to wander to thoughts of skiing.  Pretty soon the miles on the bike will start to decline and the trips to the weight room will increase.  Gotta’ get the knees ready for big days on the mountain.

On to the links…

Just 10% of Fossil Fuel Subsidy Cash ‘Could Pay for Green Transition’—When someone says that we cannot afford to transition to 100% clean energy what they are really saying is that we are choosing not to afford the transition.  There is more than enough money sloshing around in government and corporate coffers to make a renewable energy world possible.

A Wind Turbine Farm The Size Of Delaware Could Power The Entire United States—Take a look at the map and understand just how much or how little area we are talking about here:

Now imagine we actually utilize the offshore wind resources.  Look at how much coastline there is to develop.  We can make this happen.

Low-Carbon Energy Makes Majority of UK Electricity for First Time—This is not a small island being powered by solar.  This is a large island with a post-industrial economy that got over 53% of its electricity in 2018 from low or no carbon power sources.

Coal’s Demise Quickens in Europe as Market Shift Idles Plants—If no one is lining up to buy the power then the plants will sit idle.  The market is working.

Ohio just Passed the Worst Energy Bill of the 21st Century—This is what you get with Republicans in control.  It is crony capitalism at its finest.  Private companies line their pocket with the public’s money with the consent of elected officials.

Angry about No Pay, Kentucky Miners Block Train Loaded with Coal—The coal industry does not care about the people in their employ.  These companies have never treated their employees with anything but contempt at best and deadly intent at worst.  As coal companies go bankrupt they will continue to use the legal and political system to destroy the land and line their pockets at the expense of the communities in which they operate.

Most EV Charging Infrastructure Is Wasted Due To Lack Of New Thinking—It is not that EV charging spots are not numerous enough considering that anyone with a garage or dedicated parking space probably has access to some level of charging.  It is that the charging infrastructure that exists today may not align with how we drive our EVs.

Minnesota Town Makes do Without being Connected to Power Grid—I know that a lot of us imagine living off the grid, but this is what the reality looks like.

Beyond Meat’s Competitor Impossible Foods Plans to Launch in Grocery Stores in September after getting FDA Approval—I am really looking forward to buying a sleeve of Impossible Burgers and throwing them on my own grill this fall.  What I really want to see is Beyond Meat or Impossible Burger selling sleeves of their plant based goodness at Costco.

Plant-Based Eggs Land their First Major Fast Food Deal—Slaughter houses get a bad rap because they are nasty places, but our eggs are also produced in some fairly brutal conditions.  First the plant based substitutes came for our hamburgers, now they are coming for our eggs.  I welcome the transition.

Can Chefs Learn to Love Cooking Without Fire?—Can we just stop our love affair with primal fire?  I get that something about the flame speaks to our lizard brain, but as someone who has cooked with electricity daily for the past twenty years there is no reason to rely on piping explosive gas into our homes to fuel our gastronomic adventures.

Why Republican Baby Boomers are More Likely to Share #fakenews on Facebook—I rag on Baby Boomers pretty hard, but until someone can show me how this generation has actually made the country a better place I am going to keep piling on.

Friday Linkage 12/7/2018

France and Paris, in particular, are burning because of a protest movement that started off being about fuel taxes but has morphed into something more.  The anger seen in the streets was sparked by a tax but it represents a question about who the modern state serves.

As we have seen in the United States, time and time again, the state is designed to serve the interests of its most privileged citizens at the expense of everyone else.  Don’t believe me?  Look at tax cuts.  Most of the benefits go to the richest 1%.  Sure, those are the people that make the most money so it stands to reason that they would benefit the most.  However, in order to pay for these gifts to the rich everyone else is asked to take a cut in what the state may provide them.  Food stamps?  Sorry, gotta’ get Bezos his tax cut.  Pell grants?  Sorry, Zuckerberg needs to buy another house.

On to the links…

China Is Both the Best and Worst Hope for Clean Energy—This is the world we live in now as the U.S. has ceded leadership of any kind on global issues because of…reasons?  Europe is a mess which threatens to devolve into its preferred path toward fascism.  So, we are left looking to China.  This is problematic.

Almost Half Coal Power Plants Seen Unprofitable to Operate—Well, I can raise a solar panel or eight to that news.

Wall Street Cleans up on ‘Clean Coal’—What are the odds this scam program gets renewed?  I am guessing 100% because what Goldman Sachs wants, Goldman Sachs gets.

The Most Important Country for the Global Climate no one is Talking About—Deforestation is like the “eat your vegetables” of the climate change action plans.  Everyone likes to talk about coal, renewables, electric cars, etc. but the single biggest thing we could do today would be to stop deforestation.

This New NASA Mission Will Create an Unprecedented, 3D Map of Earth’s Forests—It is hard to save the trees if you do not know where the trees are located.

Video Games Consume More Electricity Than 25 Power Plants Can Produce—At what point do we realize that modern life is just one big energy suck?

THE BIG PICTURE: Wind Turbine Trends—Here is the punch line: Bigger and more powerful.  See for yourself:

How the Food Industry Uses Big Tobacco Tactics to Manipulate the Public—Here’s a public service announcement: Most of the stuff in the grocery store with an ingredient list more than three items long is not good for you.

How the Indigenous Bison Bar was Appropriated—Big food is stealth.  It is incumbent upon you, the consumer, to be educated and make the right choice.

Altria in Talks to Buy Cannabis Company Cronos Group—This is the moment when you know that the legalization of cannabis in the United States is coming.  Altria would not put its money into a market if it thought that federal prohibition was long for this world.

NRA Cuts More Operating Costs—and Lavishes Executives With Perks—This is what collapse looks like.  An organization faced with dwindling resources lavishes its grandees with perks in a final orgy of greed.  This could not happen to a nicer bunch of a-holes.

Amateur Scuba Divers Train to be “Ghost Net Busters”—Ghost nets are a big problem.  I am happy to see people taking the initiative to be part of the solution, but there needs to be some form of regulation that outlaws this kind of dumping.  Think like a deposit system.

Millennials are Killing Canned Tuna, but the Industry is Fighting Back—Dude, can we quit it with all the stuff millennials are supposed to be killing?  Baby boomers do not get blamed for all the stuff they killed, like the planet.

Friday Linkage 4/20/2018

4/20…heh, heh,heh…

Sorry, I had to because every year around this time the Denver Post turns into a newsprint edition of High Times.  It blows my mind that we now live in a time and place where people openly purchase, possess, and consume marijuana in multiple states.  Sure, reefer madness will never truly leave us until the generation that elected Donald Trump makes their last trip to the Cracker Barrel but the time is coming.

On to the links…

White Castle Goes Highbrow? Now Famous Slider can come with Fake Beef—We also live in a time where there is a vegetable based burger patty being served at White Castle.  Oh yeah, your favorite stoner dream food is now plant based.  And how does it taste?  Apparently, it works.

Trump may Greenlight an $8 Billion Attack on Competitive Energy Markets—Trump, his Trumpkins, and the rest of the right wing love free markets right up until free markets ding the pocket books of the barons—that feels so Into the Badlands to say—who pay to keep them in office.  This is an idea supported by Rick Perry.  Yes, the same Rick Perry who could not remember the name of the three government agencies he was committed to eliminating.  One of which he currently serves at the helm.  Irony.

Trump’s EPA Embraces an Odd Argument against Fuel Economy: It will Kill People—No, this is not your Grandpa Earl telling you how much safer cars were in the 1950s because his Bel Air was made with thousands of pounds of good ol’ American steel:

Grandpa Earl is wrong.  Trump is wrong.

Former Administrators say Pruitt’s Impact on EPA can be Reversed—The end of the Trump administration, whether it comes in January 2021 or sooner, will feel like waking up from the flu after a week of shuffling around the house.  Everyone will feel better, but it will take time and some effort to feel right again.

UK Emissions are Falling Fast. Now the Country might try for Zero.—By 2017 the U.K.’s CO2 emissions are 42 percent below 1990 levels:

Imagine if the U.S. had pulled this off?

173 Countries Agree to Slash Shipping Industry Emissions in Historic Deal—If you do not think that your buying stuff is driving a lot of emissions just think about what it costs in terms of energy to move goods from China to the United States.

Renewable Energy Meets 100% Of Portugal’s March Electricity Needs—This is damn impressive.  Even more impressive to me is that the low for a percentage of production was 86%.

China made Solar Panels Cheap. Now it’s Doing the Same for Electric Buses.—I know that we all love rail mass transit, but the humble electric bus may be the way to slash transportation emissions for hundreds of millions if not billions of people.  China spent a lot of money to make solar panels cheap and now they are on the same path for busses.

These Huge New Wind Turbines are a Marvel. They’re also the Future.—Bigger wind turbines make more power and are more efficient.  Plus, we can begin replacing existing turbines—which already have the infrastructure in place for power transmission—with bigger turbines to produce more power.  And there is that whole offshore wind thing as well.

New 3 in 1 Roof Solar Tiles Power your House for Half the Price of a Tesla Roof—These may be a little clunkier than the Tesal roof tiles but if they can actually deliver them for half the cost and similar performance it will be a winner.  I would like to add some more solar photovoltaic capacity to my roof—it’s never enough once you get some solar PV—but I really like the idea of covering my roof in solar roof tiles.

Sydney’s First Battery Powered Apartment Block Halves Residents’ Power Bills—Australia feels like the future of solar.  It’s like they are living in tomorrow and we are all waiting to get there soon.

6 Solar Roads Shaking up Infrastructure around the World—With so many roofs and parking lots that could be covered in solar panels are solar roads even something we should care about?

Scientists Accidentally Produce an Enzyme that Devours Plastic—This feels like the plot to a bad science fiction movie from the mid-1990s.  You know, attractive female scientist and roguish male outsider team up to figure out why the world’s plastic is disappearing.

We Have More than Enough Money to Decarbonize Our Energy System

If I ever hear another American politician say that we cannot afford the transition to clean energy I will scream.  Why you ask?

In 2012 it was estimated that consumers in the U.S spent approximately $65 billion on soda.  In that same year it was estimated that consumers in the U.S. spent approximately $11 billion on bottled water.  [1] That is to say that American consumers spent over $75 billion on unnecessary drinks and, in the case of soda, a product that is generally regarded to be detrimental to your health.  Not to mention the environmental impact of disposable, single use containers.

Okay, why is that relevant in the terms of this discussion?  In 2016, the most recent year for which full year data is available, the U.S. invested $44 billion in clean energy including both private investing and government expenditure.  [2]

Therefore, we spend more than 50% more on soda and bottled water per year than we invest in clean energy.  If we just directed the money from soda and bottled water to clean energy investment it would represent an increase of 172%.  That is a lot of solar panels and wind turbines.

Someone may argue that this scenario is impractical, but I would challenge such an argument on several fronts.  One, spending on soda and bottled water—for the most part—is totally discretionary.  No one needs a Diet Coke to survive and other than emergency situations no one needs bottled water.  It could be argued that it would be better if no one consumed bottled water given the economic and environmental impact of a product that can also be obtained from municipal water supplies.  Two, by and large individuals now have the power to redirect their discretionary spending toward renewable energy.  As long as you have the capital or alternative financing arrangements are available you can put solar panels directly on your roof.  Thus, your Diet Coke and Evian habit can be turned into clean energy.  A direct substitution, so to speak.

My point is to illuminate that when we discuss the level of investment necessary to decarbonize our energy system it needs to be placed in direct comparison to some broader economic choices.  Is the future our planet worth skipping that Dr. Pepper?

1. http://classroom.synonym.com/how-much-do-americans-spend-on-soft-drinks-12081634.html

2. http://www.businessinsider.com/us-2015-renewable-energy-investments-2016-5