Tag: climate change

bookmark_borderGreen Energy Storage: The Sand Battery

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by Daniel Brouse

One of the main problems with solar and wind energy is storage. They are great for making electricity when the sun is out or the wind is blowing, but how can you store energy for dark windless nights in the cold of winter of the heat of summer? Neither lead acid nor lithium batteries offer the ability to store electricity on an industrial scale. For applications like the power grid, we need much better and environmentally friendly storage.

The most efficient alternative batteries are based on membrane technology. My favorite is the membrane based battery that can be 100% efficient and never losses it’s ability to hold a charge. There are quite a few other battery types that do not involve mining or exploitation of natural resources. These include underwater bladders that solar electricity pumps up when the sun is out. Then, air is let out to turn turbines when batteries are needed. Another method is buried rocks that are heated up by solar during the sunlight and geothermal energy is used for batteries.

The most practical alternative battery that is currently in use is the sand battery. The battery uses low-grade sand and is charged up with heat made from from solar or wind electricity. The sand stores the heat near 932 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Whenever there’s like this high surge of available green electricity, we want to be able to get it into the storage really quickly,” says Markku Ylönen, one of the founders of Polar Night Energy who have developed a sand battery.

Battery scientist and climate change expert Sidd Mukherjee says, “It’s a heat store… nice and simple. You can get better by using a phase change material like Glauber’s salt, but at the expense of more complexity. Sand is nice and simple. So is water.”

How a sand battery works.
How a sand battery works.

What about solar energy? Can’t we use solar for everything?

How to go net zero now. Free and easy. Save thousands. Save the planet.

The Human Induced Climate Change Experiment

bookmark_borderObtaining Net Zero: Can we use solar to electrify everything?

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by Daniel Brouse
June 25, 2022

Q: What about solar energy? Can’t we use solar for everything?

A: Solar can provide all the energy we need for cars. Solar can provide around 50% of our overall electric needs. However, solar will not work for ships and jets… nor steel or cement. Solar could produce green hydrogen to do the job; however, it would be at the expense of providing electricity to the grid. (also green hydrogen is only a 40% efficient way to store solar power.) Some countries are using wind or nuclear to make the green hydrogen. Some countries are creating their green hydrogen in other countries (eg Germany > Australia) using solar, than importing their green hydrogen (hopefully, in green hydrogen powered ships.)

Q: Is hydrogen really “green” or is that green washing from fossil fuel companies? Essentially as I understand hydrogen is more of a form of energy storage- as the water. Also, I’m intrigued by mechanical batteries for long term terrestrial storage more than chemical batteries but exciting to see what chemistry we can come up with.

A: Green hydrogen that is made from solar or wind is green hydrogen. Natural gas (methane) that is used to make hydrogen is blue hydrogen. There is yet another method for transitioning… that is a mix of 80% natural gas (methane) and 20% hydrogen. The importance of all the above is getting from here to then. Most of Europe and the UK (and much of the USA) heat their homes with natural gas. The 80/20 mix can start to be used with the existing infrastructure. Long-term we will need to upgrade the infrastructure to go with pure hydrogen. The reason being — hydrogen is the smallest atom… it can even leak between copper or steel atoms that make a pipe. As for batteries, I’ve been involved with batteries and fuel cells for a long, long time, too. The most efficient batteries are based on membrane technology. There are quite a few other battery types that do not involve mining or exploitation of natural resources. These include underwater bladders that solar pumps up when the sun is out… air is let out to turn turbines when batteries are needed. Another method is buried rocks that are heated up by solar during the sunlight and geothermal energy is used for batteries. My favorite is the membrane based battery that can be 100% efficient and never losses it’s ability to hold a charge.

Q: Things have evolved rapidly in the solar space. 90% reduction in costs in less than a decade. Now we can truly scale this exponentially and power everything relatively cheaply and abundantly, can’t we?

A: Yes, solar and battery are coming down in price quickly. But, the problem you seem to be missing is — we can not power everything with electricity. You can not make cement with electricity. You can not make steel with electricity. A blast furnace requires blast. You can’t fly passenger or cargo jets with electricity. You can’t power a cargo ship with electricity. The storage size exceeds the vessel. You can’t heat Europe, the UK, and the USA on electricity. Neither the grid, the solar resources, nor storage capacity are currently available. We need to think beyond our electricity needs when it comes to solar. That is not our biggest threat. Are largest threats are industry (providing mass consumption fashion and goods emitting that result in greenhouse gases) and land use (eg damage of building dams for hydro, taking down trees to put up solar panels, using bio-fuels that emit more pollution than fossil fuels, etc.) The roles of residential solar and EV transportation are already going good. I’m skeptical we can get people to stop their mass consumption (eg look around). I have more optimism that we can change our land and soil usage. Stop mining 100% Stop drilling 100%. This is obtainable now.

How to go net zero now. Free and easy. Save thousands. Save the planet.

The Human Induced Climate Change Experiment

bookmark_border2022 Climate Refugees in the USA

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Climate change will eventually cause most American’s real estate to become worthless and uninhabitable.

“Currently, we have crossed the tipping point when human induced climate change triggers a chain reaction of feedback loops. The Earth will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius (average global surface temperature over the surface of the earth for ten years) by the 2040’s and a societal collapse will ensue. For the most part, the Earth will be uninhabitable for humans by 2070 UNLESS immediate action is taken.” — Daniel Brouse and Sidd Mukherjee (climate scientists)

In an article entitled “A safer haven? How the Midwest can be a refuge amid climate change—if we prepare” the Detroit Business Journal reports:

In the early 21st century, global climate change is spawning a new kind of migrant to the Upper Midwest: “Climigrants” seeking refuge from the forest fires of Western states, flooding along the saltwater coasts and ever-rising temperatures causing drought in different corners of the continent.

The reason for their arrival here is as old as time: Humans reacting to a threatening change in the environment around them and seeking a more habitable place to live.

That’s because climate forecasts are grim. A new report from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration warns that the U.S. coastline will see up to a foot of sea level rise by 2050 due to climate change.

Many climigrants to the Great Lakes region would most likely come from eastern and southern coastal areas, from the drought-stricken Southwest and West, and from wildfire-vulnerable parts of California and the Pacific Northwest.

Some will leave ahead of disaster with enough resources to resettle comfortably.

Other climigrants may be devastated financially when their homes or businesses are destroyed and they lack flood or other insurance, raising social justice questions for the communities they might move to.

More on Climate Change Refugees

More on Climate Change

bookmark_borderHow to Go Net-zero and Beyond

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by Daniel Brouse and Sidd Mukherjee
June 22, 2022

Reaching “net zero” is easy, cheap, and saves you thousands of dollars, not to mention, you can help save the planet. Here are some things I’ve done to reach net zero without sacrificing my standard-of-living. In fact, I’ve gone beyond net zero in an attempt to eliminate all my pollution. The easiest way to get started is to conserve energy. Don’t use what you don’t need. Turn things off. Unplug things. Buy low energy use products.

1) Electricity and heat are the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.
* choose an electric company that uses nuclear, solar, and/or wind generation
* insulate your house (Be careful not to over insulate. Indoor pollution is as large a health concern as outdoor pollution. An air-tight house needs an air exchange system with a rigorous filter maintenance program.)
* zone heat. In the winter, keep your main temperature at 50 degrees Fahrenheit and only keep the room you are occupying at a comfortable level (68 degrees). Wear warm clothes.
* an air to air heat exchanger and humidity exchanger (Note that humidity is as important as temperature.)
* plant shade trees and eliminate your need for central air
* plant windscreens, such as, evergreens

2) Food and land use is the second largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
* eat less meat
* reduce transportation of food by buying local
* grow your own garden and windowsill gardens
* plant trees, and more importantly, maintain old growth
* reduce impervious surfaces

3) Transportation is the third largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
* buy an EV or high MPG manual transmission (I get 50 MPG in a 4-wheel drive SUV with a 6 speed.)
* make fewer trips, take public transportation, avoid air travel

4) Invest in green technologies. Here are a few suggestions:
RYCEY — Rolls Royce / mini-nuclear plants
HDRO — Defiance Next Gen H2 ETF / green hydrogen
BE — Bloom Energy Corp / fuel cells, green hydrogen
BLDP — Ballard Power Systems Inc / proton exchange membrane fuel cell, green hydrogen
TOSYY — Toshiba Corp / mini-nuclear plants
BP — British energy / green hydrogen, solar, wind
BAESY — BAE Systems / mini-nuclear development
SIEGY — Siemens / wind, green hydrogen

Thank you. My life depends on it.

A song about The Human Induced Climate Change Experiment

bookmark_borderCost of Property Insurance in Florida

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Florida Politics reports in their article, As climate in Florida sets ‘new normal,’ cost of property insurance will separate haves, have-nots:

“Insurers believe that due to climate change, this is the new normal. They’re finding that catastrophic and non-catastrophic weather events are increasing in severity every year,” said Paul Handerhan, president of the Federal Association for Insurance Reform, a national nonprofit advocacy organization based in Fort Lauderdale.

The consequences of climate change not only include catastrophic — and increasingly expensive — weather such as hurricanes and wildfires, but also more everyday events such as storms that pelt residential and commercial properties with straight-line wind and hail.

The actuarially sound way to respond to the new normal is to raise rates, reduce coverage, or throw in the towel, as eight property insurance companies in Florida have done since 2018. Just this week, three others asked state insurance regulators to approve hefty rate increases — as high as 49 percent on policyholders not among the tens of thousands who recently lost coverage altogether due to non-renewals.

Over time, Handerhan said, property insurance coverage will become so expensive that only the wealthiest of the wealthy can “afford to live in paradise.”

“This market is completely,100% out of control,” said Barry Gilway, president, CEO, and executive director of Citizens, during the board of governors meeting. “It all has to do with the total collapse of the overall Florida marketplace, and that collapse continues.”

More articles on Flood Insurance, Rising Sea Levels and Global Warming.

bookmark_borderObserved Increases in Well-mixed Greenhouse Gases

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2021 saw the largest emissions of greenhouse gases in human history.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported:
The Current State of the Climate

* It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.

* Observed increases in well-mixed greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations since around 1750 are unequivocally caused by human activities. Since 2011 (measurements reported in AR5), concentrations have continued to increase in the atmosphere, reaching annual averages of 410 parts per million (ppm) for carbon dioxide (CO 2), 1866 parts per billion (ppb) for methane (CH 4), and 332 ppb for nitrous oxide (N 2O) in 2019.6 Land and ocean have taken up a near-constant proportion (globally about 56% per year) of CO2 emissions from human activities over the past six decades, with regional differences (high confidence).

* Each of the last four decades has been successively warmer than any decade that preceded it since 1850.

* Human influence is very likely the main driver of the global retreat of glaciers since the 1990s and the decrease in Arctic sea ice area between 1979–1988 and 2010–2019 (decreases of about 40% in September and about 10% in March).

* It is virtually certain that the global upper ocean (0–700 m) has warmed since the 1970s and extremely likely that human influence is the main driver. It is virtually certain that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main driver of current global acidifcation of the surface open ocean.

Anthropological Climate Change and Pollution

bookmark_borderFrequency of Flash Floods

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As the climate warms, the air holds more moisture. Theoretically, there is a 7% increase in atmospheric water holding capacity per degree Celsius warming. A recent study published in Nature The conterminous United States are projected to become more prone to flash floods in a high-end emissions scenario suggests extreme precipitation might be increasing even more due to changes in storm structure, storm dynamics, and large-scale weather patterns resulting in even more severe flash flooding that previously projected.

“Flash floods are largely driven by high rainfall rates in convective storms that are projected to increase in frequency and intensity in a warmer climate in the future. US floods are becoming 7.9% flashier by the end of the century assuming a high-emissions scenario. The Southwest (+10.5%) has the greatest increase in flashiness among historical flash flood hot spots, and the central US (+8.6%) is emerging as a new flash flood hot spot. Additionally, future flash flood-prone frontiers are advancing northwards.”

More articles on Flood Insurance, Rising Sea Levels and Global Warming.

bookmark_borderHomeowners Insurance and Extreme Weather Events

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Homeonwers insurance is becoming more expensive or even unavailable due to the increase frequency and intensity of extreme weather events caused by climate change.

NOLA newspapers reports:
Louisiana’s homeowners insurance market straining under weight of 600,000 claims
Two active Atlantic hurricane seasons in a row have made some insurers insolvent.

It’s the latest sign of a deepening crisis taking shape once again in Louisiana, where the legacy of Hurricane Katrina and other storms still looms large. As big national insurers pulled out of coastal areas in the southeast, homeowners increasingly relied on less-regulated regional insurance providers to make them whole in case of catastrophe. Now, even some of those companies — once willing to make a risky bet — are leaving.

In Calcasieu Parish, nearly three out of every four occupied homes filed an insurance claim after Hurricane Laura, according to a Times-Picayune analysis of state and census data. One in four filed claims again less than two months later after Delta made landfall about 10 miles west of where Laura came ashore.

Failures not ‘anomalies’
The flurry of storms was too much for some insurance companies to bear. The Department of Insurance has already seized control of three firms because they could not afford to pay claims.

“I wish I could say I thought they were anomalies, but I don’t,” said Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon. He said a fourth insurer that’s in dire financial straits will likely be placed under the care of the Louisiana Insurance Guaranty Association.

“I would say our property insurance market is in crisis,” said Jeff Albright, CEO of the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of Louisiana. “The sad part of it is we’re reliant on these small, thinly capitalized companies instead of having large national carriers that have lots of assets and can weather the big storms.”

Donelon said five companies have withdrawn entirely from the state and another five or six have stopped writing policies. As a result, Donelon said he expects the number of policies under Louisiana Citizens to double this year as the state launches headlong into another hurricane season.

More articles on Flood Insurance, Extreme Weather Events and Global Warming.

bookmark_borderUN Climate Report: It’s Now or Never

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A new flagship UN report on climate change indicating that harmful carbon emissions from 2010-2019 have never been higher in human history, is proof that the world is on a “fast track” to disaster, António Guterres has warned, with scientists arguing that it’s ‘now or never’ to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.

Reacting to the latest findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN Secretary-General insisted that unless governments everywhere reassess their energy policies, the world will be uninhabitable.

His comments reflected the IPCC’s insistence that all countries must reduce their fossil fuel use substantially, extend access to electricity, improve energy efficiency and increase the use of alternative fuels, such as hydrogen.

Unless action is taken soon, some major cities will be under water, Mr. Guterres said in a video message, which also forecast “unprecedented heatwaves, terrifying storms, widespread water shortages and the extinction of a million species of plants and animals”.
Horror story

The UN chief added: “This is not fiction or exaggeration. It is what science tells us will result from our current energy policies. We are on a pathway to global warming of more than double the 1.5-degree (Celsius, or 2.7-degrees Fahreinheit) limit” that was agreed in Paris in 2015.

Providing the scientific proof to back up that damning assessment, the IPCC report – written by hundreds of leading scientists and agreed by 195 countries – noted that greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activity, have increased since 2010 “across all major sectors globally”.

In an op-ed article penned for the Washington Post, Mr. Guterres described the latest IPCC report as “a litany of broken climate promises”, which revealed a “yawning gap between climate pledges, and reality.”

He wrote that high-emitting governments and corporations, were not just turning a blind eye, “they are adding fuel to the flames by continuing to invest in climate-choking industries. Scientists warn that we are already perilously close to tipping points that could lead to cascading and irreversible climate effects.”

IPCC Climate Change Mitigation 2022

The Human Induced Climate Change Experiment

bookmark_border99% of Population Breathes Air Pollution

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7 Million people die from air pollution related illness every year.

“After surviving a pandemic, it is unacceptable to still have 7 million preventable deaths and countless preventable lost years of good health due to air pollution,” said Dr. Maria Neira, head of WHO’s department of environment, climate change and health. “Yet too many investments are still being sunk into a polluted environment rather than in clean, healthy air.”

WHO reports:
Almost the entire global population (99%) breathes air that exceeds WHO air quality limits, and threatens their health. A record number of over 6000 cities in 117 countries are now monitoring air quality, but the people living in them are still breathing unhealthy levels of fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide, with people in low and middle-income countries suffering the highest exposures.

The findings have prompted the World Health Organization to highlight the importance of curbing fossil fuel use and taking other tangible steps to reduce air pollution levels.

WHO Air Quality Database and Report 2022

The Human Induced Climate Change Experiment