Home Page        Cutting Emissions        Daily Tips        Links        Decoder Ring        What's the Catch?        Blog        The Fine Print
Home Page
Blog
Cutting Emissions
Daily Tips
Links
Decoder Ring
What's the Catch?
Election 2019
The Fine Print

Because apparently we can't have a website anymore without a blog


The blah-blah-blog

As time permits, I'm going to put the esoterica I encounter related to climate change here rather than trying to update the various pages. So this will be in reverse chronological rather than logically organized within the structure of the rest of this website. Please don't rely on this as a consistent and current source for climate change information updates. Sadly, we cannot rely on our corporate-controlled mass media for good information on this, and my time is limited.

Past blog pages:
2019: May    June    July    August    September    October    November    December   
2020:
January    February    March    April    May    June    July [COVID gap]
2021: [COVID gap] October-December
2022: January-February    March    April    May-August    September    October    November-December
2023: January    February    March-April    May-July    August-September    October-November    December
2024: January    February    March    April    May    June    July    August    September   


2024.05.29 The study states that the "social cost of carbon" could be around US$1,056 per tonne of carbon dioxide emissions

Climate change costs the world 12% of GDP for every 1°C of warming (Sonnenseite)
This is why your quality of life is falling while oil industry profits soar.


2024.05.27 Wind turbines could protect agricultural land and provide a barrier to urban sprawl

Scientists explain misconception about wind turbines: 'This study might allow folks to take a fresh look' (TCD)


2024.05.25 Still going in the wrong direction, with the gas pedal pushed to the floor

Researchers issue warning after data shows record-breaking increase in air pollution levels: 'It's sad what we are doing' (Yahoo)


2024.05.23 Someone did the research and math for you. If you think nuclear energy is a solution, read this article.

'One Big Chart: how does the cost of nuclear power compare to renewables? (New Guardian)


2024.05.23 Is zero-carbon cement possible?

'Absolute miracle' breakthrough provides recipe for zero-carbon cement (New Atlas)


2024.05.23 The graphs deliver a powerful message

Powering Up: How Canada keeps the lights on (National Observer)


2024.05.22 When climate change ends growing food on land and harvesting food from the ocean, what are you going to eat?

'Boiling not warming': Marine life suffers as Thai sea temperatures hit record (Reuters)


2024.05.22 If you're not in China and want low-cost electricity, it's time to load up on the discount PV panels

Price wars, infrastructure hurdles hurt China's solar industry (Semafor)


2024.05.22 Manufactured scarcity much? The answer is storage; clean electricity doesn't have to be a lost opportunity.

Germany has too many solar panels, and it's pushed energy prices into negative territory (Markets Insider)


2024.05.22 JIT delivery works for trucks and air freight, but it's news for on-water shipping?

Ridiculously simple idea cuts cargo ship emissions by 17.3% in first trials (World Atlas)


2024.05.21 This is about simple end-use efficiency; it does not consider the climate change impacts

We get more useful energy out of renewables than fossil fuels (Ars Technica)


2024.05.21 How did the fossil fuels industry let this get to press?

Big Tech employees missed out on $5.1 billion in 401(k) gains over the last decade because of fossil fuels, new research finds (Fortune)


2024.05.21 One approach would be for governments to hold the oil majors to their previously published voluntary targets

Top oil firms' climate pledges failing on almost every metric, report finds (The Guardian)
Oil Change International's Press Release<
Report summary here Download the full report (63 page PDF) here


2024.05.21 Yet coastal communities around the world still aren't taking sea level rise seriously.

Ocean water is rushing miles underneath the 'Doomsday Glacier' with potentially dire impacts on sea level rise (CNN)


2024.05.21 Coal-fired generation in the U.S. was already plummeting, because burning coal costs more than new-build renewables

The coal industry, running on fumes, likely to shrink more with new EPA power plant rule (USA Today)


2024.05.20 Phytoplankton density is shifting with climate-change driven warming oceans

Why the world's oceans are changing colour (BBC)


2024.05.20 Raising PV efficiency should make solar electricity less expensive, and produce more in a smaller space

All-perovskite tandem PV cell based on carboranes hits 27.2% efficiency (pv magazine)


2024.05.20 Make money while reducing GHG emissions - it's not environment vs economy; it's the environment IS the economy

"We saved $17,000 in one hour:" Australia's first electric truck show gives taste of the future (The Driven)


2024.05.19 Each time we have to repair and replace damaged infrastructure caused by climate change, your standard of living takes a hit.

UK rail faces fight to stay on track as climate crisis erodes routes (The Guardian)


2024.05.19 Shore power is a thing and is as clean as local grid (and most of those are improving with time)

Ships in some UK port cities create more air pollution than cars (The Guardian)


2024.05.18 For a family of four, that's $3,400 and counting, to make climate change worse.

You paid $850 for the Trans Mountain pipeline. Here's why (CBC - 6-minute video)


2024.05.17 Now do you understand why your standard of living is falling? Petro-subsidies and climate change.

Economic damage from climate change six times worse than thought - report (The Guardian)


2024.05.17 Rail could have cleaned up their act, but chose not to act. Now, electric trucks are going to eat their long-haul lunch.

Electric Trucks Are Already Lower Carbon Than Rail In Much Of North America (Clean Technica)


2024.05.17 Canada is a climate change action laggard, and eastern Canada is doing better on emissions reductions.

The great Canadian climate divide (National Observer)


2024.05.16 We could do this with smart people designing truly smart grids for smart applications

World's biggest grids could be powered by renewables, with little or no storage - if we are smart enough (Renew Economy)


2024.05.16 Individuals should have to be doing the heavy lifting here, but as industry and governments aren't pulling their weight ...

Revving up individual's climate action: How our plates and wheels can drive down carbon emissions (Phys.org)


2024.05.16 Nope, it's easy. Put a realistic price on GHG emissions and stop funding the CCS scam.

Coal proves hard to dislodge from US power system (Reuters)


2024.05.16 Fossil fuel growth has stalled while wind and solar are growing

'Turning point in energy history' as solar, wind start pushing fossil fuels off the grid (Yale)


2024.05.16 Carbon pricing works, major meta-study finds

"Based on 483 effect sizes extracted from 80 causal ex-post evaluations across 21 carbon pricing schemes, we find that introducing a carbon price has yielded immediate and substantial emission reductions for at least 17 of these policies, despite the low level of prices in most instances. Statistically significant emissions reductions range between -5% to -21% across the schemes (-4% to -15% after correcting for publication bias)."
Systematic review and meta-analysis of ex-post evaluations on the effectiveness of carbon pricing (Nature communications)


2024.05.15 Now do you understand why your costs are rising, your income isn't and your standard of living is falling?

Economic damage from climate change six times worse than thought - report (The Guardian)
Let the expert quoted in the article really drive that point home for you:
"Bilal said that purchasing power, which is how much people are able to buy with their money, would already be 37% higher than it is now without global heating seen over the past 50 years. This lost wealth will spiral if the climate crisis deepens, comparable to the sort of economic drain often seen during wartime."


2024.05.15 Nice graph of the automakers box-score on shifting to sustainable - worth the click on the link.

Automakers Continue To Lobby For Global Heating, Against EVs (CleanTechnica)


2024.05.15 The shift to clean energy in the U.S. picks up the pace

In a milestone, the US exceeds 5 million solar installations (electrek)


2024.05.15 And free fuel for years or decades

Wind turbines pay back life cycle carbon emissions in less than 2 years, NZ study finds (Renew Economy)


2024.05.15 In ancient times, we also let livestock graze in pastures in rotation (ley farming) to accomplish much the same results.

Herd of 170 bison could help store CO2 equivalent of almost 2m [petrol] cars, researchers say (The Guardian)


2024.05.15 Interesting factoid, but we need more renewables online to charge the storage, pumped or battery.

Battery storage is about to overtake global capacity of pumped hydro (Renew Economy)


2024.05.15 Once renewables can deliver more than total grid demand, like Germany hit on May 13, BESS can spread the joy

Germany solar power output jumps to record highs (Reuters)


2024.05.15 Regulatory barriers and big banks that make big money off big oil and gas with government guarantees?

Why cheap renewables are stalling (The Conversation)


2024.05.14 What an opportunity for a clean energy demonstration and education site

Given the grid/substation connections are already in place, this is a natural fit for a major battery storage facility to support the Greater Vancouver region. On top of it, solar panels could be mounted to provide some additional generation, along with a wind turbine or two. Then, in the middle of it, an education and demonstration centre that looks out onto a restored shoreline, possibly a marina. Then, include a facility like Enwave has in the GTA to provide district heating and cooling to the site and beyond into the adjoining area.
So, given BC's record on foresight in the energy sector, we'll probably get a parking lot with no EV charging stations.

BC Hydro to dismantle decommissioned natural gas power plant in Port Moody (Global News)


2024.05.14 If you don't want to be sued by Exxon Mobil, it's time to divest your shares. Ain't delusion grand?

Column: Exxon Mobil is suing its shareholders to silence them about global warming (Yahoo)


2024.05.14 Short term profits are more important than the survival of their customer base; are we going to end up with just BYD and Tesla?

Nearly all major car companies are sabotaging EV transition, and Japan is worst, study finds (The Driven)


2024.05.14 Countries - as representatives of humans living in them - need to have more power than fossil fuel multinationals

Fossil fuel firms forcing countries to compensate them, Mary Robinson says (The Guardian)


2024.05.14 If we actually want renewables, we have to make space for them in the commercial market. We could start by ending subsidies for fossil fuels.

Renewable diesel glut hits US refiner profits, threatens nascent industry (Reuters)


2024.05.14 All part of the oil industry's deny, delay, deflect, disinform campaign

Solutions: short to mid-haul overland - high speed rail; over water: electric; save the biofuels for long-haul.
'Magical thinking': hopes for sustainable jet fuel not realistic, report finds (The Guardian)


2024.05.13 This BESS alone has almost the delivery capacity of the polluting fossil methane plant planned for Napanee

Canada's largest battery storage facility coming to region (Recorder & Times)


2024.05.13 If climate-change-halo countries (sorry Canada, that's not you) want to shift this, GHG import tariffs are the way.

China and India still rely heavily on coal, climate targets remain 'very difficult' to achieve (CNBC)


2024.05.13 Drop-in biofuels: still a viable solution for reducing net GHG emissions quickly at minimal cost

CSL biofuel program makes a comeback (Offshore Energy)


2024.05.13 Yes, 'the climate is always changing'. But not like this in human memory.

Chemical analysis of natural CO2 rise over the last 50,000 years shows that today's rate is 10 times faster (Phys.org)


2024.05.13 Q: Why is this easy for Portugal? A: It isn't; they have been working at it for over a decade.

Renewable energy averages 95 pct share in Portugal in month of April, 90 pct in year to date (Renew Economy)


2024.05.12 2 things. Not V2G, but V2C plus net metering. Will the trucks be back before peak demand starts?

Delaware waste trucks to push power back into the grid (Smart Energy International)


2024.05.11 If a community didn't take the fossil methane bait, they could have something like this.

125-megawatt energy storage facility to be built near Woodstock (London Free Press)


2024.05.11 A Wyoming media outlet found a PV hater, and tried to make a story out of it, ignoring farms that will get a sweet revenue stream

Massive $1.2 Billion Panel Solar Farm Planned For South Cheyenne (Cowboy State Dailiy)


2024.05.09 Looks like the Australian electricity market in New South Wales got Enron'ed by coal generators

There is a solution: ramp up renewables generation hard (Australia has a super solar resource and wind power), and install more battery storage as fast they can buy it. Then, mark those coal generators as unreliable power, so they'll be last invited to supply power to the grid in the future.
Energy giants burst market limits as 3GW of coal goes missing, and consumers pay the price (Renew Economy)


2024.05.09 So, IESO can buy battery storage capacity at a lower cost than a natural gas plant equivalent generation, but buys the NG anyway?

So, IESO is going to lock Ontario electricity ratepayers / taxpayers into 3-4 decades of additional GHG emissions, rising generation costs (prices) due to GHG pricing, and polluting the air in eastern Ontario instead of saving money on the initial purchase. Seriously?!
According to the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, the cost per MW for peak power production is 60% lower using the battery solution instead of new build natural gas generation.
Did I mention that the NG plant proponent also offered a $4.8 million dollar sweetener to the Napanee town council? (Hamilton Spectator)


2024.05.08 What else do we need to be told to understand the situation? How are we debating the existence of a 'carbon tax', instead of increasing it dramatically?

We asked 380 top climate scientists what they felt about the future ... (The Guardian)


2024.05.08 And yet it's as though our governments think we can fix this by burning more fossil fuels - keep increasing those subsidies.

World's top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target (The Guardian)


2024.05.08 This is what a truly 'smart grid ' would enable, but it require a degree of price signal intelligence still generally missing from the solution set.

Buildings can offer gigawatts of new peak capacity as 'batteries' (pv magazine)


2024.05.07 Shell's Shell game - where's the captured carbon? Nowhere, complete fiction, but they took the money.

I guess it's easier to make record profits if you sell something you never had. We used to call that stealing. In the oil industry, it's BAU, or is it another government subsidy?
Shell sold millions of carbon credits for carbon that was never captured, report finds (CBC)


2024.05.07 How bad is it when the captured AER has to throw a penalty flag? But it did take 3 years.

Calgary-based oil and gas company fined for violating methane emission rules (Global News)


2024.05.06 LNG is not a climate solution; it is politcal window-dressing to delay actual climate solutions.

The inescapable math of emissions, LNG, and international trade (Canadian Climate Institute)


2024.05.06 Did the Alberta Premier tell a fib about renewable energy? Now, we'll see renewable investment money flee the province.

'Ministerial desires': a behind-the-scenes timeline of the Alberta government’s push for a renewables pause (The Narwhal)


2024.05.06 The system is working as the oil industry designed it.

Oil Companies Contaminated a Family Farm. The Courts and Regulators Let the Drillers Walk Away. (ProPublica)


2024.05.06 Alberta doubles down on killing renewables

New rules on renewable energy are driving away investment, Alberta government told (Globe and Mail)


2024.05.05 Does anybody actually sell real, verified carbon credits?

Shell's Shell Game: Selling Smoke and Mirrors with 'Phantom' Carbon Credits! (Royal Dutch Shell PLC.com)


2024.05.05 Survey by Volvo

Study says 64% of Canadians are eying a ZEV as their next car (Drive Tesla))


2024.05.04 So, how does paying a few cents a litre on fossil fuels stack up against losing your newly uninsured house to a climate-change induced flood or wildfire?

State Farm announces major insurance policy change affecting tens of thousands of households: 'This decision was not made lightly' (TCD)


2024.05.04 When it gets really hot, moving air isn't enough to keep us safe.

Fans won't cool you down when temperature goes up, new study finds (CBC)


2024.05.03 Does it make you wonder what they're hiding? Spoiler: they leak a lot more than they report.

Enbridge tells staff to vote against more thorough emissions reporting (The Narwhal)


2024.05.03 Electric car fires make news because they're rare. Gas car fires: daily event.

Car Fires by Vehicle Type (meme) (CleanTechnica)


2024.05.03 Dropping battery prices and higher production volumes mean EVs will be more affordable

What EV skeptics are missing as the industry hits some growing pains (Business Insider)


2024.05.03 When we have cooked the pollinators, what are you going to eat?

Scientists Reveal 'Major' New Factor in Bumblebee Decline (Newsweek)


2024.05.03 AB has killed the appetite for renewables investment, and NG isn't showing up for work, so here's an opportunity for MB and BC renewables

Varcoe: TransAlta shelves wind project, pauses three other developments, amid upheaval in Alberta power market (Calgary Herald)


2024.05.03 Ideological policy generally makes for bad policy

A senior Alberta official found the renewables pause 'very troubling.' He was pressured to support it anyway (The Narwhal)


2024.05.03 As we watch greenwashers face legal challenges and massive fines, we will also see companies investing in genuinely sustainable products.

What's the difference between greenwashing and lying? (National Observer)


2024.05.02 AB has killed the appetite for renewables, and NG isn't showing up for work, so here's an opportunity for MB and BC renewables

Storing energy with compressed air is about to have its moment of truth (Ars Technica)


2024.05.02 Renewables plus batteries means less expensive baseload electricity because NO fuel required

Neoen sees more "baseload renewable" contracts as it rolls out five new big battery projects (Renew Economy)


2024.05.02 Same news, but different headline than 'carbon price goes up and so do emissions'

Canada's emissions drop to lowest in 25 years, barring pandemic lows (Global News)


2024.05.02 About that list of things that battery-electric drive will never be able to do ...

A fully-electric 10,000 ton container ship has begun service equipped with over 50,000 kWh in batteries (electrek)


2024.05.02 Expect crop failures in India in 2024

Summer heat hits Asia early, killing dozens as one expert calls it the "most extreme event" in climate history (CBS News)


2024.05.02 Maybe Genessee CCUS isn't feasible because Boundary Dam showed CCUS can't hit its advertised capture numbers.

Missed emissions goals at Sask. carbon capture project raising questions (CBC)


2024.05.02 Another CCUS (allegedly CCS) mirage goes up in smoke.

Weird, not financially feasible, given the value of CCUS (not CCS) is in producing more oil and gas via enhanced oil recovery (EOR).
Plans for $2.4B carbon capture and storage project near Edmonton have been cancelled (CBS)


2024.05.02 What is the oil industry trying to hide? Oh, right, methane and carbon dioxide emissions.

Methane emissions from gas flaring being hidden from satellite monitors (CBC)


2024.05.01 The oil industry consciously and repeatedly deceived people about climate change?! BAU.

Here's how Big Oil repeatedly misled the public over their private downplaying of climate crisis (euronews)


Past blog pages:
2019: May    June    July    August    September    October    November    December   
2020:
January    February    March    April    May    June    July [COVID gap]
2021: [COVID gap] October-December
2022: January-February    March    April    May-August    September    October    November-December
2023: January    February    March-April    May-July    August-September    October-November    December
2024: January    February    March    April    May    June    July    August    September   

You can find many earlier postings (going back to year 2000) related to climate change at:
Keith's List Archive and
the Sustainable Biofuel List Mail Archive.

I present a lot of information in this blog and on this website. If you need some help sorting through the noise level and getting a forward-looking, proactive approach to climate change for your business, I can do that work for you via my consulting business. Contact

Home Page        Cutting Emissions        Daily Tips        Links        Decoder Ring        What's the Catch?        Blog        The Fine Print

This site is powered by renewable energy! (All material on this Web site © Darryl McMahon unless otherwise indicated.)