Eco Report – June 30, 2023

And now for your environmental reports:

Temperatures around the world for June have been at their highest levels in decades for this time of year. The spike reflects two factors that are shaping what forecasters say could be a multiyear period of exceptional warmth for the planet: humans’ continued emissions of heat-trapping gases and the return, after three years, of the natural climate pattern known as El Niño. Both factors are also setting the thermodynamic stage for more-severe hot spells, droughts, wildfires and even hurricanes, which acquire their destructive energy from heat in the oceans.

The short version is: Expect surprises, Rick Spinrad, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in an interview on Monday. We’re putting heat into the system — through climate change, through the greenhouse effect — and that heat is going to manifest. That energy is going to manifest in any number of different ways. 

In recent weeks, it has manifested in Canada, where many areas are still dealing with huge forest fires that have churned toxic smoke into the United States. It has manifested in Siberia, which has been roasted by extreme heat, and around Antarctica, where the extent of the surrounding sea ice last month reached a record low for May.

—Norm Holy

The heat index, which includes humidity, climbed as high as 125 degrees Fahrenheit in some Gulf Coast cities, straining the state’s power grid and prompting health advisories and pleas for energy conservation from officials.  While the Lone Star State has so far managed to avoid the kind of rolling blackouts caused by an intense spring heat wave last year and a vicious cold snap in the winter of 2021, Texans may be surprised to learn that solar energy and batteries played a large role in preventing power outages over the last two weeks—even as other energy sources struggled to stay online. 

Last week, one of the four nuclear units in Texas stopped producing power, Doug Lewin, president of  Austin-based Stoic Energy, wrote on Twitter last Friday. A new fast acting backup reserve ( mostly batteries) stabilized the grid and prevented bigger problems. 

A second outage occurred when a coal power plant went offline, Lewin noted. This happens a lot during extreme temperatures. Happily for Texans, battery storage filled in the gap, he wrote. Storage replaced 75 percent of the lost coal in minutes.  It’s the kind of narrative that goes against what utility companies have long argued is the biggest weakness regarding renewables: that relying on solar and wind too much would make the energy grid unreliable. Clean energy advocates, however, have argued for years that pairing solar and wind with battery storage could be even more reliable than the systems we use today. 

—Norm Holy

In fact, many top Texas Republicans have been the staunchest opponents to renewable energy. When a powerful winter storm hit the state in 2021, contributing to about 250 deaths, Texas leaders falsely blamed renewable energy. They blamed renewables again for power outage risks the state faced last year due to heat waves. Independent experts have said failing fossil fuel power plants were much more to blame in both of those scenarios. 

Solar, too, played a role in preventing blackouts this week. Texas now leads the nation when it comes to renewable energy, with a total of 17 gigawatts of solar power operational this year—or the equivalent of 17 nuclear power plants—which delivered much-needed electricity to the grid as demand skyrocketed.

Lewin said he doesn’t expect Texas energy officials to tout how much clean energy has helped the grid over the last two weeks, even as those systems continue to prevent outages through what’s expected to be a prolonged heat wave. They have this narrative that they push that they need more dispatchable power plants and need more gas plants, he said. It’s a very politically driven narrative by many of the state leaders.

Many clean energy advocates have said that that political dynamic is holding back Texas, which continues to outpace other states when it comes to installing renewable energy. Without that political resistance, the advocates say, Texas could be installing even more clean energy every year as federal dollars from the Inflation Reduction Act aimed at boosting renewables start to roll out.

Climate change has generally made extreme weather more intense across the United States. But Texas has been hit especially hard by such events in recent years. That’s largely due to the state’s location in relation to the jet stream. And a series of legislative decisions have left the Texas power grid more vulnerable during such events by isolating it from the rest of the country and leaving it reliant on older fossil fuel power plants.

Indiana has a large battery storage system for the power utility in Indianapolis. The storage facility is located at AES Indiana’s Harding Street Station, the lithium-ion battery array is housed in a large building and looks very similar to a data center. The Battery Energy Storage System is a modular design. There is a total of 97,600 lithium-ion batteries in storage.

—Norm Holy

Local wells in the area have gone dry since the construction of multiple utility-scale solar projects near Desert Center — threatening the only water source for hundreds of people and a handful of local businesses. Solar farms typically don’t use much water when operating, but during construction, the law requires developers to mitigate dust—which can spread health problems like Valley Fever. That requires water. 

Seven utility-scale solar projects stretching out across nearly 19,000 acres of mostly public land have been approved, with more projects under consideration. Together they would provide close to 3,000 megawatts of electricity—enough for around 2 million homes.   That would be enough power to cover two-thirds the number of homes in Indiana. The cost of power in Palm Springs is 16 cents per kilowatt hour. Currently solar supplies only one percent of the power generated in Indiana. 

—Norm Holy

The scientists found that about 90% of the ice loss is from human activities. Sea ice has also been on a sharp decline since 2000, according to the study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change previously predicted a loss of summer Arctic sea ice by the 2050s without emissions cuts in a high-emissions scenario. Their predictions have often proven to underestimate the speed of climate change. 

—Norm Holy

And now, we go to Environmental Correspondent Zyro Roze, who spoke with Steven Stewart earlier this week about the smoke from Canadian wildfires that blanketed all of Indiana and the region, prompting air quality advisories and creating health hazards for millions in multiple states.

And now for some upcoming events:

Goose Pond Fish and Wildlife Area is hosting a Bats & Brownies program in the Visitor Center tonight on Friday, June 30th, from 8 to 10 pm.  Learn all about bats while you eat yummy brownies.  You will be outside for part of the evening to look for bats.