Renewable Energy Is The Future

[aerohead]

We loved the 117- 120F. Can't wait for more records to fall.
Grapefruit-size hailstones are another tasty delusion we can't get enough of.
And hey!, to heck with 4th of July fireworks this year, just give us more of those community-wide lightning-strike transformer explosions, from all those hypothetical, 60,000-foot convective heat plumes; WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY more sexy than any pyrotechnics.

[freebeard]

all those hypothetical, 60,000-foot convective heat plumes

Explain like I'm five years old.

[oil pan 4]

Renewable energy isn't the way to go if you actually care about "reducing mu globull wurmin".

[freebeard]

All that renewable infrastructrure had better be Ice Age proof.

Anything less is hubris.

[oil pan 4]

Anything that can't help black start the power grid isn't ice age proof.
Natural gas lines will hydrate plug in the cold so thats no good.
Coal plants need a natural gas and a few megawatts of electricity to get blowers going, pumps going so the boiler can warm up. So they're no good unless they have oil fired backup boilers and enough diesel generators that can power the small boilers and pumps and blowers for the big boilers.
Wind and solar won't connect unless there's a stabile grid connection so they're useless.
Most Nuclear plants want to run at full power, so they can't black start. The only ones that can run at partial power are ones that run highly enriched fissile fuel such as subs and aircraft carriers.
Some 3% enriched boiling water reactors will run at partial power I doubt they can black start, they may island them selves in a large outage.
Hydro electric can black start the grid.

[freebeard]

It's an engineering problem.

The Boring Company can probably tunnel through solid ice like it's ...butter?

An entire arcology structured as a solar thermal collector could float in a meltwater lake on the ice sheet. With a Thorium reactor in it's belly to keep the lights on.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Explain like I'm five years old.

The 'warmer than ever recorded' sea surface temperatures' are providing the warm, moist, buoyant air, which provides the convective-available-potential- energy ( CAPE ) which busts through the upper-level, cold, sub-freezing air inversion 'cap', feeding the water vapor which will spawn the record-sized hailstones that are killing cattle, sending people to emergency rooms, creating the lightning storms spawning forest wildfires, killer straight-line wind, Derechos; flash-flooding, as well as killer tornadoes, and killing heat-index.
This week, all-time tropical storm records for the N. Atlantic fell with Brett and Cindy.
Mexico is experiencing the highest temperatures ever recorded and got it's first hurricane yesterday.
The smoke from trees killed in Canada by sub-tropical storm Fiona a few years ago, then converted to 'fuel' by two years of record heat, made New York City's air, the most-polluted on Earth a week ago.
I'm in the third week of 100+ degree temps.

[rmay635703]

Source: Solar helps Texas carry energy load as heatwave puts power grid to test | Environment | The Guardian

As a deadly, record-breaking heatwave puts Texas’ grid to the test, renewable power sources are helping the state maintain energy reliability, contrary to some of the state’s lawmakers claims that clean energy is less reliable.

Texas has for more than two weeks been blanketed by an oppressive heat dome, and federal forecasters say there is “no end in sight”. The sweltering temperatures have forced people to stay in their homes with their air conditionerscranked, causing energy demand to soarto record levels.

An atypically large number of the state’s ageing, run-down coal and gas-fired power plants have failed amid the spikes. That’s especially troubling because as the only state in the continental US with its own grid – a decision made to avoid federal regulation – Texas can access very little power from other states.

But even amid three-digit temperatures, the state has still managed to avoid rolling blackouts this month. A key reason, energy analysts say, is the state’s abundant supply of solar power, which has doubled since early 2022.
. . .
It’s a fact that clashes with the narrative pushed by some Texas lawmakers who insist on blaming renewable energy for the grid’s vulnerability to outages.

“There is a group of elected officials,” said Lewin, “that routinely trash renewables.”

[freebeard]

Glitches in the Hadley Cell circulation?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadley_cell

Observations and climate modelling indicate that the Hadley circulation has expanded poleward since at least the 1980s as a result of climate change, with an accompanying but less certain intensification of the circulation; these changes have been associated with trends in regional weather patterns. Model projections suggest that the circulation will widen and weaken throughout the 21st century due to climate change.


Average vertical velocity (in pascals per second) at the 500 hPa pressure height in July from 1979–2001. Ascent (negative values) is concentrated close to the solar equator while descent (positive values) is more diffuse; their distribution is an imprint of the ascending and descending branches of the Hadley circulation.

[Piotrsko]

Oooh nice catch on explanation