Six narwhals outfitted with transmitters explored remote East Greenland waters for three years, bringing back data showing that warm Atlantic water is reaching glaciers located deep within East Greenland’s fjords | Science Advances
Climate scientist Andrew Dessler just pointed out that the effects of climate change are tied to warming, not specifically to emissions. He pointed to this new preprint by Gyuleva and colleagues to indicate that our models may be underestimating the heat we are headed for. Here is the author’s summary of that article: “We show that the energy imbalance is a potentially strong new line of evidence to narrow our uncertainty about future warming. Our findings indicate that it becomes increasingly difficult to exclude models with strong future warming…. An update to the calibration of simple climate models, carbon budgets, and climate models may be required, if the faster-warming models are indeed the more realistic ones.”
GREENING
Google and several other firms including Rewiring America announced a partnership with the California utility PG&E to offer residential customers discounts on heat pumps combined with battery energy storage in Alameda and Santa Clara counties. The first 25 homeowners to sign up will get $10,000 off; after that the discount is $5,000. SHARE is a first-of-its-kind VPP proof-of-concept that combines enrollment of existing home energy devices with regional deployment of privately funded new electrification technologies to address growing electric demand.
Fervo Energy inked a landmark deal to supply Google with nearly 400 megawatts of clean electricity from the startup’s geothermal project in southwest Utah. The agreement is the largest of its kind for a next-generation geothermal system. Google’s previous arrangement with Fervo was much smaller. (Canary)
In China, auto giant BYD is now rolling out its ultra-fast chargers, which can restore a vehicle’s battery as quickly as you can fill up a gas tank. Just a few months ago, BYD marked its 5,000th Flash Charger deployment. Now it’s up to 10,000 across 300 different centers. (InsideEVs )
Holtec announces its Michigan nuclear plant has begun loading fuel as the company plans to restart a shuttered nuclear facility for the first time in U.S. history. Holtec also plans to build its first two 300-megawatt small modular reactors at the site. Based on the industry’s standard pressurized water technology, the company has received hundreds of millions from the Department of Energy to support its construction. (news release)
The New England grid experienced record-breaking offshore wind output on Aug. 30, when 930 MW flowed from the three wind farms connected to the system. (RTO Insider)
CLIMATE DESPOLIATION
A major new assessment from the United Nations concludes the world will inevitably pass the IPCC 1.5-degree benchmark within the next few years. Under current policies, we’re on track to hit 2.6C degrees of warming between now and 2100. The report says overshoot is inevitable, and the only path forward is carbon removal to get back to 1.5C. The NYTimes considers comments from climate scientists and organizations regarding the study.
According to a new forecast, “natural disasters” are now expected to cost $450bn globally in a typical year, with as much as 62% of those losses uninsured.
Waste water from fracking often contains organic carcinogens like benzene; naturally-occurring poisons like arsenic and cadmium; radioactive isotopes like radium; as well as new human-made poisons like PFAS, or forever chemicals. Now the Permian has run out of places to inject it back into the earth and the oil and gas industry is asking for permits to treat it and put it on farms and in rivers that supply drinking water. They admit fracking operations will halt if permits are denied. There is scant evidence treating would make it safe. (Heated Substack)
Turkmenistan has started plugging the mega-leaks of methane that spew from its aging oil and gas facilities. The country had three of the six worst leaks detected in the world by Mars in last six months, and nine of the top 50. Turkmenistan responded to about 20% of the alerts with on-the-ground information about the leaks and potential plans to fix them. In contrast, the US was sent the second highest number of alerts – 138 – but responded to none and had fixed no leaks in the last year. Other nations that failed to respond to any alerts were Iran, Russia and China.
Nuclear energy has been gaining adherents in the face of high electricity demands. However, the effects of heat waves on European nuclear plants is a warning. Bulgaria’s sole nuclear plant throttled supply. Romania blew up a rock to keep the water flowing but was eventually forced to shutter both of its reactors. Hungary narrowly avoided shutting down its only nuclear plant, which provides half the country’s electricity, but slashed production by three-quarters. In France, a record number of reactors had to halt or cut output. (Cited by Politico Surge)
DARK AGE CLIMATE POLITICS
Rachel Wagoner, the former head of CalRecycle, who helped draft, negotiate and usher in the regulations for the single-use plastics bill left the waste agency in March 2024, and was quickly enveloped in scandal after accepting employment as chief executive of the industry group representing plastics producers and packagers under the law. According to lobbying disclosures, she’s back trying to dismantle the law and since July of last year, has been paid close to $150,000 by groups intent on destroying not only the single-use plastics law, but other state recycling laws too. (Boiling Point)
A federal judge has struck down New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act, ruling that it “conflicts with” federal authority. The legislation would have required fossil fuel companies to help cover the costs of adapting to climate change, but it operates in an area of the law “in which the federal interest is so dominant that it cannot be enforced,” according to the judge’s ruling. (Inside Climate News)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has blocked an effort to keep the state’s most successful virtual power plant program funded through next year. State budget language finalized last week does not authorize additional money for the Demand Side Grid Support program, one of the biggest VPPs in the country. (Canary Media)
The Department of Transportation moved to loosen fuel efficiency standards for medium- and heavy-duty commercial trucks that were established under the Obama administration. (The Hill)
A judge blocked the approval of the first data center on U.S. public lands Tuesday, saying the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management’s move to switch a solar farm to a data center failed to prove the projects would have similar environmental footprints. The order may be more of a speed bump than a roadblock, writes Alex Guillén.
An analysis found oil and gas companies spent more than $17 million during the first half of the year lobbying against California legislation proposing stricter regulations and new costs and liabilities for the fossil fuel industry. (Grist)
The California Coastal Commission unanimously objected to an oil company’s proposal to frack 16 offshore wells at Platform Gilda in the Santa Barbara Channel. The commission cited oil spill risk and aging infrastructure as grounds for its objection HERE.
After Republicans voted to undo much of the Inflation Reduction Act, a few cleantech professionals set out to exact electoral revenge. So far, it seems to be working with three anti-renewables candidates targeted and all three losing in primaries. (Canary Media)
Take Action! (along with Friends of the Eel)
We’ve all heard how years of negotiations arrived at a plan to remove the Potter Valley dams from the Eel river. Then the Trump administration stepped in. Here is a chance to have your voice heard by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has to provide final approval. Apparently FERC agrees with the need for dam removal!
Tuesday, September 15 & Wednesday, September 16 @ Eureka: FERC Scoping Hearings on Eel River Dam Removal, additional dates. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will hold an evening session Sept. 15 at 6pm and a daytime session Sept. 16 at 9am, at the Wharfinger Building, 1 Marina Way, Eureka. Friends of the Eel River will hold a rally at 5pm before the hearing on September 15th. The deadline for written comments has been extended until Sept 18.
And here’s a link to more details, talking points, and instructions for filing comments electronically.
“The most important message you can send to FERC is that you support their timely initiation of the NEPA process, and that you agree with their Scoping Document that keeping the dams is not an option.”
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