energy production – Page 4 – Desdemona Despair

Smoke from Canadian wildfires enveloped Washington, D.C. in June 2023. Photo: Kenny Holston / The New York Times

August 5, 2023

U.S. Republican energy strategy for 2024 denies climate change, calls for more drilling and less clean energy – “This agenda would be laughable if the consequences of it weren’t so dire”

By Lisa Friedman 4 August 2023 (The New York Times) – During a summer of scorching heat that has broken records and forced Americans to confront the reality of climate change, conservatives are laying the groundwork for future Republican administration that would dismantle efforts to slow global warming. The move is part of a sweeping strategy dubbed […]

Center for Industrial Progress President Alex Epstein speaks at a House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee hearing in March 2023. Photo: Francis Chung / POLITICO

July 31, 2023

“It’s called summer”: U.S. Republicans brush off record 2023 heat wave – “Thank God for air conditioning”

By Chris D’Angelo and Igor Bobic 28 July 2023 (Huffington Post) – Unless you’ve been living underground or have a vested interest in turning a blind eye to reality, you know that climate change has sent temperatures soaring to dangerous levels around the planet this summer. Two global climate organizations on Thursday confirmed that July […]

Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, shown here in Beijing in 2023, gave the directive about a decade ago to write software for vehicles that gave drivers “rosy” estimates of driving range, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. Tesla employees were instructed to thwart any customers complaining about poor driving range from bringing their vehicles in for service. In summer 2022, the company quietly created a “Diversion Team” in Las Vegas to cancel as many range-related appointments as possible. Photo: Tingshu Wang / REUTERS

July 30, 2023

Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints – “They’ve gotten really good at exploiting the rule book and maximizing certain points to work in their favor involving EPA tests”

By Steve Stecklow and Norihiko Shirouzu 27 July 2023 AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – In March 2023, Alexandre Ponsin set out on a family road trip from Colorado to California in his newly purchased Tesla, a used 2021 Model 3. He expected to get something close to the electric sport sedan’s advertised driving range: 353 miles […]

Primary energy global consumption (left) and share of global primary energy by source (right), 2000-2022. Primary energy demand growth slowed in 2022, increasing by 1.1 percent, compared to 5.5 percent in 2021, and taking it to around 3 percent above the 2019 pre-COVID level. Consumption increased in all regions apart from Europe (-3.8 percent) and CIS (-5.8 percent). Renewables’ (excluding hydro) share of primary energy consumption reached 7.5 percent, an increase of nearly 1 percent over the previous year. Fossil fuel consumption as a percentage of primary energy remained steady at 82 percent. Graphic: Energy Institute

July 24, 2023

World energy system struggled in face of geopolitical and environmental crises in 2022 – Coal production reached record high – CO2 emissions reached record level – “We are still heading in the opposite direction to that required by the Paris Agreement”

26 June 2023 (EI) – The Energy Institute (EI) and partners KPMG and Kearney today released the 72nd annual edition of the Statistical Review of World Energy, presenting for the first time full global energy data for 2022. Five key themes emerge from the data EI President Juliet Davenport OBE HonFEI said: “The EI Statistical Review […]

Correlation of significant shifts in or appearances of markers between sites documenting the onset of the Anthropocene. Collectively, the 12 reference sites, via analysis across many sites using similar multiple proxies, show the extent to which the proxies at each site cluster at an approximately coincident level around the mid-20th century, consistent with the Great Acceleration Event Array (GAEA) proposed by Waters et al. (2022). This demonstrates the degree to which the primary marker chosen at a site represents the range of critical changes encompassed by that section. Each site team has identified a level where significant changes cluster, these ranging in age between 1945 and 1968 CE, though for most sites the level chosen dates to the 1950s. Graphic: Waters, et al., 2023 / The Anthropocene Review

July 23, 2023

Canadian lake sediments reveal start of Earth’s Anthropocene epoch – “Clearly, the biology of the planet has changed abruptly. We cannot go back to a Holocene state now.”

By David Stanway 11 July 2023 (Reuters) – Sediment deposited at Crawford Lake, a small but deep body of water in Canada’s Ontario province, provides unmistakable evidence that Earth entered a new human-driven geological chapter – the Anthropocene epoch – some seven decades ago, a team of scientists said on Tuesday. The members of the […]

Graph showing energy generation mix in China in the first four months of both 2019 and 2023. Data: National Bureau of Statistics of China. Graphic: David Stern and Khalid Ahmed

July 23, 2023

China is pumping out carbon emissions in 2023 as if COVID never happened – “China’s new path seems to be less sustainable than before”

By David Stern and Khalid Ahmed 9 July 2023 (The Conversation) – Carbon emissions from China are growing faster now than before COVID-19 struck, data show, dashing hopes the pandemic may have put the world’s most polluting nation on a new emissions trajectory. We compared emissions in China over the first four months of 2019 […]

The California State Capitol in Sacramento. Photo: Rschlie / Getty Images

July 23, 2023

Oil and gas lobbying threatens California’s game-changing climate bills – Legislation aims to shine a light on corporate climate pollution and carbon offsets – “Delay is the new denial”

By Aaron Cantú 26 June 2023 (Capital & Main) – Two transparency bills in the California Legislature would require corporations to disclose more information about their emissions and their efforts to fight the climate crisis. The oil and gas industry is spending millions to kill them. The bills would force big companies that do business in California to […]

Steam rises from the cooling towers of the Electricite de France nuclear power station of Le Bugey in Saint-Vulbas near Lyon, 13 April 2015. Robert Pratta / REUTERS

July 15, 2023

High river temperatures to limit French nuclear power production – Hot weather likely to halve available power from two plants

By Forrest Crellin 12 July 2023 PARIS (Reuters) – Output restrictions are expected at two nuclear plants along the Rhone River in eastern France due to high temperature forecasts, nuclear operator EDF (EDF.PA) said, several days ahead of the similar warning last year, but affecting fewer plants. The hot weather is likely to halve the available power […]

Construction site of the Gemini solar project in southern Nevada. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife show the bureau’s Las Vegas field office drafted several versions of a “record of decision” that would have denied the permit application for Gemini. The drafts listed several objections, including harm to desert tortoises, loss of space for off-road vehicle drivers and disturbance of the Old Spanish National Historic Trail, which runs through the project site. Photo: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

July 3, 2023

Solar sprawl is tearing up the Mojave Desert. Is there a better way?

By Sammy Roth 27 June 2023 (Los Angeles Times) – High above the Las Vegas Strip, solar panels blanketed the roof of Mandalay Bay Convention Center — 26,000 of them, rippling across an area larger than 20 football fields. From this vantage point, the sun-dappled Mandalay Bay and Delano hotels dominated the horizon, emerging like […]

A car moves through a neighborhood in West Austin that lost power on 18 February 2021 during blackouts that left millions of Texans without power or heat following a devastating winter storm. Photo: Jordan Vonderhaar / The Texas Tribune

July 2, 2023

Texas power struggle: How the top wind power state in the U.S. turned against renewable energy – State lawmakers push bills to support fossil fuel-burning power plants and restrict renewable energy development – “Right now, the wind blows strongly against renewables, and that’s where we are”

By Emily Foxhall, Kai Elwood-dieu, and Zach Despart 25 May 2023 (Texas Tribune) – State Rep. Jared Patterson disagreed with his Republican colleague that Texas should keep supporting the booming renewable energy industry here. Rep. John Smithee was arguing on the House floor in early May that certain solar and wind farms should be eligible […]