Climate Change

Solar power has been eating away at coal’s dominance in generating electricity for quite a while. While coal power is still the largest single source of electricity across the globe, most new generation capacity is coming from solar and wind. However, coal power is fighting back, and not in a good way.

Over the past seven years, there have been an increasing number of deployments of co-called “megaconstellation” satellite systems, far outstripping the number of satellites orbiting the earth that had been launched over the previous 60 years.

Rising seas are threatening coastal towns and cities all over the world. According to an analysis by researchers at Tulane University, Yale, and other institutions, coastal Louisiana faces sea level rise of 10 to 23 feet as this century moves forward. It is one of the lowest lying regions in the world, and New Orleans is particularly exposed. It sits in a bowl-shaped basin, mostly below sea level, in the middle of a rapidly shrinking delta.

The Colorado River is experiencing a crisis. Its flow has reduced by an average of 20% compared to the 20th-century average. Its system reservoirs are critically low and water storage across its major lakes is at about 35% of capacity. The Colorado supplies water and irrigation to about 40 million people across seven U.S. states and northern Mexico.

Solar power has been experiencing a massive boom for fifteen years, with an annual growth rate of 28% over the last decade. More recently, grid storage batteries have established a boom of their own. These battery banks, which can store the energy produced by solar and other sources, are expanding rapidly.

Congress is considering a bill that would establish an annual fee to be paid by owners of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid cars. The purpose is to have owners of these vehicles pay their fair share of the cost to repair roads.

Hydrogen has long been envisioned as the ideal clean energy source for society. Used as a fuel, it releases only water as it is burned. Thus, it could be a direct replacement for fossil fuels in applications where it is difficult to find viable clean alternatives. In fuel cells, hydrogen can be used to generate electricity. But hydrogen faces a major problem: where to obtain it.

The late May heatwave in Europe has broken records in more than half a dozen countries. For example, in Oxford, England, where a continuously operating weather station has been keeping records since 1815, a new May record was set on the 26th at nearly 93 degrees Fahrenheit. London reached 95 degrees; the highest temperature ever registered this early in the year.

On the global scale, renewable energy continues to grow by leaps and bounds. This past April saw an important milestone: for the first time ever, wind and solar power produced more electricity than natural gas did for a whole month.

The largest electric power plant in the world is the Three Gorges Dam in China, that has a capacity of 22.5 gigawatts. The largest in the US is also a hydroelectric plant: the Grand Coulee Dam that has a capacity of nearly 7 gigawatts. But solar panels keep getting cheaper and developers keep getting better at installing them. As a result, there are bigger and bigger solar projects that are taking over the lead in giant power plants.