sunshine hours

The World’s Largest Solar Plant Just Torched Itself

Published on May 22, 2016May 22, 2016 by sunshinehours1Leave a comment

Misaligned mirrors are being blamed for a fire that broke out yesterday at the world’s largest solar power plant, leaving the high-tech facility crippled for the time being. It sounds like the plant’s workers suffered through a real hellscape, too.

zr1ss21dikjfa3p4kibp — Damaged steam ducts and water pipes. (Image: San Bernardino County Fire Department via AP)

A small fire was reported yesterday morning at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) in California, forcing a temporary shutdown of the facility. It’s now running at a third of its capacity (a second tower is down due to scheduled maintenance), and it’s not immediately clear when the damaged tower will restart. It’s also unclear how the incident will impact California’s electricity supply.

Putting out the blaze was not easy task, either. Firefighters were forced to climb 300 feet up a boiler tower to get to the scene. Officials said the fire was located about two-thirds up the tower. Workers at the plant actually managed to subdue the flames by the time firefighters reached the spot, and it was officially extinguished about 20 minutes after it started.

JAXA/MASIE Sea Ice Extent (Antarctic and Arctic and Global) – Day 142 – 2016

Published on May 22, 2016May 22, 2016 by sunshinehours1Leave a comment

JAXA sea ice extent data from Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency.

MASIE shows a very low Arctic as well. But not as low as JAXA.

JAXA Sea Ice Extent (Antarctic and Arctic and Global) – Day 141- 2016

Published on May 21, 2016May 21, 2016 by sunshinehours1Leave a comment

JAXA sea ice extent data from Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Ontario Plans to Deindustrialize Its Economy (They Just Call It Decarbonize)

Published on May 20, 2016May 20, 2016 by sunshinehours1Leave a comment

Ontario plans to ~~decarbonize~~ deindustrialize.

The latest news out of Queen’s Park is that Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals plan to deindustrialize Ontario. Of course they don’t call it that; they prefer the term “decarbonize.” But for an industrial economy, the government’s new climate action plan, leaked to reporters this week, amounts to the same thing.

The proposed scheme beggars belief. Having phased out coal-fired power, the province now plans to phase out natural gas, the only reliable alternative for non-baseload generation. Despite electric cars being extremely costly and unpopular, more than one in 10 new car sales will need to be electric, and every two-car household will have to own at least one electric car. All homes listed for sale will require a costly energy audit. Home renovations will have to be geared around energy efficiency as the government defines it, not what the homeowner wants.

Around the time that today’s high-school students are readying to buy their first home, it will be illegal for builders to install heating systems that use fossil fuels, in particular natural gas. Having already tripled the price of power, Queen’s Park will make it all but mandatory to rely on electricity for heating.

There will be new mandates and subsidies for biofuels, electric buses for schools, extensive new bike lanes to accommodate all those bicycles Ontario commuters will be riding all winter, mandatory electric recharging stations on all new buildings, and many other Soviet-style command-and-control directives.

Fahrenheit 451 in Portland

Published on May 20, 2016May 20, 2016 by sunshinehours15 Comments

Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury published in 1953. It is regarded as one of his best works.The novel presents a future American society where books are outlawed and “firemen” burn any that are found.

Portland Public Schools are now burning books.

In a move spearheaded by environmentalists, the Portland Public Schools board unanimously approved a resolution aimed at eliminating doubt of climate change and its causes in schools.

“It is unacceptable that we have textbooks in our schools that spread doubt about the human causes and urgency of the crisis,” said Lincoln High School student Gaby Lemieux in board testimony. “Climate education is not a niche or a specialization, it is the minimum requirement for my generation to be successful in our changing world.”

The resolution passed Tuesday evening calls for the school district to get rid of textbooks or other materials that cast doubt on whether climate change is occurring and that the activity of human beings is responsible. The resolution also directs the superintendent and staff to develop an implementation plan for “curriculum and educational opportunities that address climate change and climate justice in all Portland Public Schools.”

China’s Cheap Coal Slows Switch To Natural Gas

Published on May 20, 2016May 20, 2016 by sunshinehours1Leave a comment

Fracking has really dropped the price of natural gas in the USA leading to major switch from coal to natural gas in power plants.

But China is resisting this change because of costs.

China’s effort to promote natural gas over coal to cut pollution is facing resistance from buyers who prefer cheaper to cleaner. The world’s largest energy consumer seeks to raise the share of less-polluting natural gas to 10 percent of its energy mix by 2020 from 6 percent last year. Yet even with the government cutting the cost of gas, it remains almost three times more expensive than coal when used to generate electricity. That’s putting a damper on the switch from a fuel that now accounts for more than 60 percent of demand.

Electricity generated from gas costs almost three times that from coal — about 0.6 yuan a kilowatt-hour in eastern China, while coal-fired output costs 0.22 yuan.

The Shanghai city-gate price — a wholesale cost of gas delivered to distributors — was cut in November to 2.18 yuan a cubic meter. That’s about $9 per million British thermal units, compared with $2.039 for U.S. benchmark prices and $4.24 in the U.K. as of Thursday.

JAXA Sea Ice Extent (Antarctic and Arctic and Global) – Day 140- 2016

Published on May 20, 2016May 20, 2016 by sunshinehours1Leave a comment

JAXA sea ice extent data from Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Maybe Al Gore Should Be The Subject of a RICO Investigation

Published on May 19, 2016May 19, 2016 by sunshinehours13 Comments

RICO is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Recently a bunch of scientists with the noses deep in the trough tried to get a RICO investigation going against their enemies — which means anyone who exercises their right to free speech.

Now a House committee is looking into this. But I want to know when Al Gore will be charged.

13 Science, Space, and Technology Committee Republicans sent letters to 17 state attorneys general and eight environmental activist organizations. The letters request documents related to the groups’ coordinated efforts to deprive companies, nonprofit organizations, scientists and scholars of their First Amendment rights and their ability to fund and conduct scientific research free from intimidation and threats of prosecution.

“On March 29, 2016, you and other state attorneys general – the self-proclaimed ‘Green 20’ – announced that you were cooperating on an unprecedented effort against those who have questioned the causes, magnitude, or best ways to address climate change,” the letter states. “The Committee is concerned that these efforts to silence speech are based on political theater rather than legal or scientific arguments, and that they run counter to an attorney general’s duty to serve ‘as the guardian of the legal rights of the citizens’ and to ‘assert, protect, and defend the rights of the people.’”

Former Vice President Al Gore spoke at the March 29 press conference and addressed the need to prosecute fossil fuel energy companies for engaging in fraud. Gore and the Green 20’s efforts are part of a larger strategy to achieve the president’s sweeping, job-killing climate change agenda.”

Reports show 14 green-tech firms that Gore invested in benefited from over $2.5 billion in loans, grants and tax breaks as part of the administration’s push to fund U.S. renewable energy industry with taxpayer funds.

Of course, you can’t kill all of the bacteria, or the cow would die

Published on May 18, 2016May 18, 2016 by sunshinehours14 Comments

There is always a catch with AGW “solutions”

Most attempts to tackle climate change focus on cutting greenhouse gases from cars and factories, but a small group of scientists think the key may lie in cutting emissions of a different kind.

Methane produced by livestock farming accounts for around 18 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions in the form of flatulence and belching, according to official estimates.

But researchers at Aarhus University in Denmark believe they may be able to reduce this by feeding cos oregano to alter the balance of bacteria in their digestive systems.

Methane produced from cows is 21 times more harmful to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. With the demand for milk and steak showing no sign of slowing, this problem can only get worse.

They think the essential oils from the herb, and its potent antimicrobial properties, will kill off the bacteria growing in cows stomachs that emit methane.

Dr Kai Grevsen, a senior researcher involved in the project, told NPR: ‘Oregano has essential oils with a mild antimicrobial called carvacrol, which can kill some of the bacteria in the cow’s rumen that produce methane.

‘Of course, you can’t kill all of the bacteria, or the cow would die.’

I wonder if you make spaghetti sauce with ground beef from cows who have eaten a lot of oregano … can you skip adding oregano?

La Niña coming? Deep pool of cool water is making its way across tropical Pacific

Published on May 18, 2016May 18, 2016 by sunshinehours13 Comments

La Nina is coming …

One of the strongest El Niños on record has been dominating the tropical Pacific Ocean for the past year. But beneath the surface, a deep pool of cool water has been sliding slowly eastward for the past couple of months. This massive, slow-motion wave is a favorable sign that La Niña—the cool phase of the ENSO climate pattern—might develop.

This animated gif shows where temperatures in the top 300 meters (~1,000 feet) of the Pacific Ocean at the equator were warmer or cooler than average during 5-day periods centered on three dates this spring: March 14, April 13, and May 3.

As the weeks pass, the layer of warm water at the surface contracts to the central Pacific and becomes very shallow, a sign that the current El Niño is on its way out. By the final frame of the animation, the cold pool is just breaching the surface of the eastern Pacific off South America. (You can see these cool-water breakthroughs in our map of April 2016 surface temperatures.)