big whoop dee do Archives - Community Energy Systems

Russians Go To Nuclear War – Without firing a single rocket

Doug Nicodemus — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 20:14:21 +0000

Isn’t Russia Special. They are so inept they want to cause a second nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. Seriously does the world need a bigger excuse to intervene? Hell, we started a War in Vietnam over shots that WEREN’T fired. China has taken over countries just because a 1,000 ago they were part of China. But messing with multiple Nuclear Power Plants ain’t enough? Earth’s Countries are going to mess around here and have a real disaster on its hands.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-chernobyl-nuclear-plant-russia-power-outage/

The power supply was cut to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on Wednesday, Ukrainian authorities said, blaming Russia’s invading forces for the blackout and warning that it could lead to “nuclear discharge.”The U.N.-backed global nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, downplayed concerns of an imminent radioactive release, but a Ukrainian national emergency services agency said if power to the plant’s cooling systems — which keep spent nuclear fuel safely surrounded by water — is not ensured, it could create a “radioactive cloud” to blow over “other regions of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Europe.”The Chernobyl power plant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986, “was fully disconnected from the power grid,” Ukraine‘s national energy operator Ukrenergo said Wednesday in a statement on its Facebook page, adding that military operations meant there was “no possibility to restore the lines.”

Go there and be terrified. More next week if we are still here.

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When Utility companies Scream Bloody Murder – You know something is going right

Doug Nicodemus — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 21:06:34 +0000

Passed ON. That is what all this ruckus is about. What does the non technical phrase – pass on mean? Large corporations always say things like, “if you tax us we’ll just pass the costs on customers”. Well that assumes the government is going to let you do that. If the government says, “Nope – can’t do that”. Well, like 2 yros, they can cry and pout, but they can also get sent to their collective rooms. Leave it to PG&E and FLP to try to weasel out of the future.

Then who are these environmental groups in the headline, oh media writer? Its one group in California. Towards the bottom of the piece, and I mean the BOTtom – he says MOST environmental groups are “closer to solar’s position”. Great reading if you are stuck inside by a foot of snow and road conditions that are dangerous. Thank you very much.

https://news.yahoo.com/florida-and-california-consider-changes-that-could-decimate-the-rooftop-solar-market-experts-say-100018985.html

Florida and California consider changes that could ‘decimate the rooftop solar market,’ experts say

Ben Adler

·Senior Climate Editor

Wed, February 2, 2022, 4:00 AM

California and Florida are considering revoking a policy that has encouraged homeowners to install rooftop solar panels — causing fear among solar panel owners and installers, and creating divisions in the environmental community.

Utility companies in the two states, some sympathetic politicians and even some environmental advocacy groups are taking aim at subsidies to purchase and install solar panels because they say those costs are ultimately passed on to other ratepayers.

The crux of the issue is a practice called “net metering,” in which the electricity solar panel owners send back to the grid is removed from their monthly bill. The credits are applied at the same retail rate at which electricity is sold to consumers. That’s a higher rate than the wholesale price at which utilities buy electricity from large-scale producers. For example, if the retail rate is 30 cents per kilowatt hour, the amount a utility would pay a bulk producer — like a commercial wind farm — might be 15 cents per kilowatt hour. The difference covers the costs of building and maintaining the electric grid and the utility’s other overhead costs. (Utilities’ profit margins more typically come from their capital investments.)

Go there and read as much as you can stomach. More next week.

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Screw Batteries – Alternative energy doesn’t need them

Doug Nicodemus — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 19:59:35 +0000

That’s right. Batteries are great for houses and cars, but that’s about it. For every other purpose there are better alternatives and for large scale reproduction of power. This is the newest and the best.

https://www.wired.com/story/energy-vault-gravity-storage/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Matt Reynolds

Backchannel

01.04.2022 07:00 AM

Gravity Could Solve Clean Energy’s One Major Drawback

Finding green energy when the winds are calm and the skies are cloudy has been a challenge. Storing it in giant concrete blocks could be the answer.

In a Swiss valley, an unusual multi-armed crane lifts two 35-ton concrete blocks high into the air. The blocks delicately inch their way up the blue steel frame of the crane, where they hang suspended from either side of a 66-meter-wide horizontal arm. There are three arms in total, each one housing the cables, winches, and grabbing hooks needed to hoist another pair of blocks into the sky, giving the apparatus the appearance of a giant metallic insect lifting and stacking bricks with steel webs. Although the tower is 75 meters tall, it is easily dwarfed by the forested flanks of southern Switzerland’s Lepontine Alps, which rise from the valley floor in all directions.

Thirty meters. Thirty-five. Forty. The concrete blocks are slowly hoisted upwards by motors powered with electricity from the Swiss power grid. For a few seconds they hang in the warm September air, then the steel cables holding the blocks start to unspool and they begin their slow descent to join the few dozen similar blocks stacked at the foot of the tower. This is the moment that this elaborate dance of steel and concrete has been designed for. As each block descends, the motors that lift the blocks start spinning in reverse, generating electricity that courses through the thick cables running down the side of the crane and onto the power grid. In the 30 seconds during which the blocks are descending, each one generates about one megawatt of electricity: enough to power roughly 1,000 homes.

This tower is a prototype from Switzerland-based Energy Vault, one of a number of startups finding new ways to use gravity to generate electricity. A fully-sized version of the tower might contain 7,000 bricks and provide enough electricity to power several thousand homes for eight hours. Storing energy in this way could help solve the biggest problem facing the transition to renewable electricity: finding a zero-carbon way to keep the lights on when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. “The greatest hurdle we have is getting low-cost storage,” says Robert Piconi, CEO and cofounder of Energy Vault.

Go there and read. More next week.

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Carbon Sequestration – Suck it up buttercup

Doug Nicodemus — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 20:21:21 +0000

I used to think that “air filters” or carbon capture methods from “fresh” air directly were a bunch of baloney or poppycock. Pick your adjective as you may. But lately I have been changing my mind.This is partly because of the scale ( 10 thousand) and partly because of their energy source. In this case geothermal is, for human purposes, endless. If those sources were located around the world and enough of these were built at those sites they could save the day. Then all we would have to figure out is how to get it back out of the oceans and large lakes. Still it’s a start.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-quest-to-trap-carbon-in-stone-and-beat-climate-change/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Vince Beiser

Backchannel

12.28.2021 06:00 AM

The Quest to Trap Carbon in Stone—and Beat Climate Change

On a barren lava plateau in Iceland, a new facility is sucking in air and stashing the carbon dioxide in rock. The next step: Build 10,000 more.

IT was undoubtedly the most august gathering ever convened on the uninhabited lava plains of Hellisheidi, Iceland. Some 200 guests were seated in the modernist three-story visitors’ center of a geothermal power plant—the country’s prime minister and an ex-president, journalists from New York and Paris, financiers from London and Geneva, and researchers and policy wonks from around the world. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on miles of moss-carpeted rock, luminously green in the September morning sunlight. Transmission towers marched away to the horizon, carrying energy from the power plant to the capital, Reykjavik, half an hour’s drive away.

The occasion: the formal unveiling of the world’s biggest machine for sucking carbon out of the air. The geothermally powered contraption represented a rare hopeful development in our climatically imperiled world—a way to not just limit carbon emissions but shift them into reverse. Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir declared it “an important step in the race to net zero greenhouse gas emissions.” Former president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson predicted that “future historians will write of the success of this project.” Julio Friedmann, a prominent carbon expert at Columbia University, hailed it as “the birth of a new species” of planet-saving technology.

Jan Wurzbacher and Christoph Gebald, cofounders of Climeworks, the company behind the carbon capture plant, strode up to the front of the room together. The fresh-faced Germans, both 38, were dressed in nearly identical white shirts and blue suits. They spoke in well-rehearsed, Teutonically accented English. “This year could turn into a turning point in how climate change is perceived,” said Wurzbacher (slightly taller, stubbly brown beard). “Thirty years down the road, this can be one of the largest industries on the planet,” enthused Gebald (slightly broader, curly brown hair).

Go there and read. Alot. More next week.

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Antarctica Is Melting – Just like the wicked witch of the East

Doug Nicodemus — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 20:17:04 +0000

People all over the world have been saying, “When Antarctica melts then I will believe in Global Warming”. Well it is melting!

Yah I know Nobody Ever Said That. I thought it was a cool lead, or as they say cool lede, now. AND I know Antarctica is hard to care about. It’s just like Greenland. So what if it melts. I live in the mid west. When we flood, the world will really be flooded. No Florida, no Louisiana, no Southern Georgia, and no Southern Alabama and Mississippi. AND no Beaches.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/journey-to-antarctica-is-this-what-a-climate-catastrophe-looks-like-in-real-time?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Journey to Antarctica: Is This What a Climate Catastrophe Looks Like in Real Time?

Scientists aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer watched a 25-mile-wide section of ice crumble into the sea.

Rolling Stone

Jeff Goodell

This is a dispatch in a series from Jeff Goodell, who was aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer in Antarctica in 2019 , investigating the effect of climate change on Thwaites glacier.

Yesterday, the Nathaniel B. Palmer left Antarctica behind and made the turn toward home. The last science experiments were completed, and the ship headed north, toward Punta Arenas, Chile, where our two-month journey will end. Scientists on board are packing up equipment and writing rough drafts of papers based on discoveries they made during our adventure into uncharted waters around Thwaites glacier. But an almost existential question looms above it all: Did we just witness what amounts to a climate catastrophe playing out in real time?

On March 3rd, 2019, Bastien Queste, an oceanographer at the University of East Anglia who is a key member of the science team aboard the ship, got a WhatsApp message from a colleague back in the UK. She had sent him a satellite image of Thwaites glacier and the surrounding region in West Antarctica. At the time, we had just completed our own close encounter with the awesome craggy blue glacier and were only a few miles away, mapping the seabed in front of the glacier with the ship’s sonar device.

Go there and cry. More next week.

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Bill Nye Thinks We Can Beat The Heat – I have never been this upbeat

Doug Nicodemus — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 19:41:22 +0000

I do not know what to say. I have never argued against Bill Nye and I do not propose to start here. If Bill Nye thinks we can beat climate change by a combination of Massive investments and New technology. Then today I believe him. Tomorrow will be something else.

https://news.yahoo.com/bill-nye-to-congress-im-scared-too-about-climate-change-205114192.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9sb2dpbi55YWhvby5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMm1u5c7vwGY8bbrr24UhPXel7HWK3P-VSFsYW_Td-hoOHSkcldT4qMeksmSKF0P3nM-08WaNE9ujFXwZr_fFvDQnm9ACKQh2nrSm7JQw6puItFU8VgE8B8J8HT0qYIGQjAXLgmdQaY6gJpTreqfz_ySThTJuAvWJgm1ZFzM3qrH

That is the biggest header I have ever seen.

Bill Nye to Congress: ‘I’m scared too’ about climate change

David Knowles

·Senior Editor

Tue, June 8, 2021, 3:51 PM·3 min read

Testifying before the House Committee on Homeland Security on Tuesday, Bill Nye told lawmakers that he was “scared too” about climate change, and that the U.S. needed to “invest in a big way” to solve the problem.

Nye, whose public television program “Bill Nye the Science Guy” has helped educate children in the U.S. on a wide range of scientific topics, testified on his own behalf. Asked by Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, how the nation could address climate change when so many people did not believe it was real, Nye recounted his own dealings with skeptics.

“I’ve fought this for 30 years: trying to get people to accept the science of climate change. I offered four bets to two notorious climate deniers. I offered them $10,000 that 2016 would be the hottest year on record, 2010-2020 would be the hottest decade on record. Neither one of them would take either one of the bets,” Nye responded.

He added: “They wouldn’t take the bets because they’re scared.

Go there and read happy thoughts. More next week.

We get requests for links all the time, so readers this is a link for Black Owned Businesses:

https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/support-black-owned-businesses/

This one is for people wishing to buy a Husky Dog:

https://yourdogadvisor.com/alaskan-husky/

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We Are Living in a Climate Emergency – According to the f%$!ing Scientific American

Doug Nicodemus — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 19:49:28 +0000

This according to 13,000 scientists who think it is now or never for things to change. This is a stunning development. One I never thought would happen until the END. And I will be honest here, we are nowhere near the end. I think we have at least 20 years before things are completely out of control. I never thought I hear these kinds of statement until it was too late. Like hearing “the Titanic is sinking” when it is already half way down and there is no going back. But then again – maybe i better rethink. Anway:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-are-living-in-a-climate-emergency-and-were-going-to-say-so/

Climate | Opinion

We Are Living in a Climate Emergency, and We’re Going to Say So

It’s time to use a term that more than 13,000 scientists agree is needed

By Mark Fischetti on April 12, 2021

Increasingly dangerous wildfires are just one consequence of climate change. Here, a man watches in 2013 as the Springs fire in California approaches. Credit: David McNew Getty Images

An emergency is a serious situation that requires immediate action. When someone calls 911 because they can’t breathe, that’s an emergency. When someone stumbles on the sidewalk because their chest is pounding and their lips are turning blue, that’s an emergency. Both people require help right away. Multiply those individuals by millions of people who have similar symptoms, and it constitutes the biggest global health emergency in a century: the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now consider the following scenarios: A hurricane blasts Florida. A California dam bursts because floods have piled water high up behind it. A sudden, record-setting cold snap cuts power to the entire state of Texas. These are also emergencies that require immediate action. Multiply these situations worldwide, and you have the biggest environmental emergency to beset the earth in millennia: climate change.

Given the circumstances, Scientific American has agreed with major news outlets worldwide to start using the term “climate emergency” in its coverage of climate change. An official statement about this decision, and the impact we hope it can have throughout the media landscape, is below.

The planet is heating up way too fast. It’s time for journalism to recognize that the climate emergency is here

Go there and read. We will see if it catches on. More next week.

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Happy New Year – MORE NEXT WEEK

Doug Nicodemus — Thu, 31 Dec 2020 21:53:04 +0000

Seriously

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What Could Go Wrong With A Russian Nuke – That’s what Lithuanian thought

Doug Nicodemus — Wed, 11 Nov 2020 20:51:55 +0000

After Chernobyl who would trust the Russians to build a Nuclear Power Plant? Nobody that’s who. Except the blind, the feeble, the retarded, the old and Belarus. I need to say no more. This is a very bad idea.

https://news.yahoo.com/belarus-cranks-1st-nuclear-plant-122609420.html

Belarus cranks up 1st nuclear plant; Lithuania is fearful

Associated PressNovember 3, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — Belarus’ first nuclear power plant began operating Tuesday, a project that has spooked its neighbor Lithuania, which immediately cut off importing electricity from Belarus at the news.

The Russian-built Astravyets nuclear power plant, 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, has been connected to Belarus’ power grid and has started producing electricity, according to Belarusian electricity operator Belenergo.

Lithuanian authorities long have opposed the plant’s construction, arguing that the project has been plagued by accidents, stolen materials and the mistreatment of workers. In line with the country’s law banning electricity imports from Belarus once the plant starts, Lithuania’s Litgrid power operator cut the inflow of electricity from Belarus upon receiving data that the Astravyets nuclear reactor had started producing energy.

Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom, which built the plant, has rejected the Lithuanian complaints, saying the plant’s design conforms to the highest international standards as confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. watchdog.

Go there and read. More next week.

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The Kids May Save Us – The planet Earth that is

Doug Nicodemus — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 18:43:03 +0000

This such a fun and upbeat story. I know you are saying – Doug doesn’t do upbeat or fun. I do not do exclamation marks, ever. So you will just have to take my word on this. This younger generation and these kids in particular could make the difference between human extinction or not.

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/09/9952945/gen-z-climate-change-anxiety?utm_source=digg

Gen Z’s Radical, Virtual Quest To Save The Planet

Molly Longman

Last Updated September 25, 2020, 9:00 AM

It’s time to wake up. On Global Day of Climate Action, VICE Media Group is solely telling stories about our current climate crisis. Click here to meet young climate leaders from around the globe and learn how you can take action.

Many people first started paying attention to the youth climate movement in 2018, when now-17-year-old Greta Thunberg began protesting outside Swedish Parliament in her home country. Her small act of civil disobedience had a ripple effect. Students across the globe began striking by refusing to attend classes, which eventually turned into the “Fridays For Future” movement.

It may sound like a ploy to get out of chemistry, but it’s not. Gen Z ranks climate change as the most important issue of our time, according to last year’s Amnesty International survey of more than 10,000 members of 18- to 25-year-olds. “Older generations were not out there protesting in the streets on this issue the way Gen Z is,” asserts Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo, PhD, who teaches political science and environmental policy at Christopher Newport University. These under-25 activists have formed organizations like Fridays For Future and Zero Hour, a movement that focuses on helping young people take action. Others have sued their state or even the United Nations. They’ve staged hunger strikes. They’ve performed spoken word poetry.

These kids care. A lot.

“Younger people see the total mess that Boomers and, to a lesser extent, millennials have left, and they have to figure out how to fix it,” says Jessica Green, PhD, an associate professor focused on climate governance at the University of Toronto.

Go there and rejoice. Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah More hopefully next week.

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