First US city to replace fossil natural gas with renewable power

For many years, for west Los Angeles on midsummer afternoons, engineers will turn on what they call a "peaker," a natural gas-burning power plant in Long Beach.


It is needed to help the area's other power plants meet the day's peak electricity consumption. As air conditioners max out and people arriving home from work turn on their televisions and other appliances, the power needed will be there.


Five years from now, if current plans work out, the afternoon "peaker" will be gone, replaced by the world's largest storage battery, capable of holding and delivering over 100 megawatts of power an hour for four hours. It will have spent the morning charging up with cheap solar power that might have otherwise been wasted.


Early the next morning, the battery will be ready for a second peak that happens when people want hot water and, again, turn on their appliances. It has spent the night sucking up cheap power, mostly from wind turbines.


The economics are there because the local utility, Southern California Edison Co., picked the designer of the battery, AES Corp., an Arlington, Va., company, against 1,800 other offers to replace the existing natural gas powered peaker.


It was the first time an energy storage device had won a competition against a conventional power plant.


The Long Beach facility, when it is completed, will have 18,000 battery modules, each the size of the power plant of the Nissan Leaf car.


The United Kingdom is shopping for energy storage systems to be installed around London; and New York state, Hawaii and Chile are looking at energy storage as an alternative to building more expensive power plants.


From:
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http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060039876
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From a recent interview with a climate scientist from Texas:


I attend an Evangelical church. We’re living in Texas where it isn’t just 20 or 30 percent of the people around me [rejecting climate science]. Depending on where I am and what I’m doing, it could be 99 percent of the people around me who don’t think climate change is real.


Even among people who accept the science — and we’ve gotten to the point now where the majority of Republican voters do accept the science — the level of concern is abysmal. The biggest issue is that people don’t think it’s affecting us now in ways that matter. It’s still about the polar bear. It’s not about us.


If I were speaking to a Republican candidate, I would ask, “What is your free market solution to climate change?” If I were talking to Democrats, though, I would ask, “What is the solution to climate change that you would implement as soon as you were in office?”


We’re starting with the assumption that someone’s heart is in a good place. Someone’s heart has good values. We’re just trying to show how the values already in their heart connect with the issue of climate change.


We know about the Six Americas of Global Warming. Even though the alarmed and the dismissive categories at the very end are the smallest categories, they’re the loudest voices. So when people attack me online, when people send nasty hate mail, e-mails, those are not coming from people who are cautious or disengaged. And most of them are not coming from doubtful people. They come from dismissive people.


What we have to realize is dismissive people only represent 10 percent of the population. There are many more people out there who are doubtful, or maybe even cautious, or maybe just checked out and disengaged. So can we change dismissive people’s minds? I don’t think we can because for a dismissive person to change their mind on climate, it is like asking them to cut off a body part. That is how much rejection of the sciences is part of their core identity. They would feel like they were a different person if they changed it. The way I think of dismissives is that literally a brand new set of stone tablets from heaven hand-delivered by an angel with “Global warming is real” written on them would still not be enough to change their mind.


But there’s a much larger percentage of the population that ranges from doubtful to concerned. That’s where the bulk of people are, and those are where the minds can be changed.



I’ve actually talked to people whose minds have changed again and again. And sometimes, they may not be very gracious about it. Sometimes they may be like, “Well, I didn’t think this thing was real, but you addressed all the reasons why and so now I’d have to come up with some new reasons if I’m going to still think that.” You know that they’ve moved.


We’ve actually been running studies at some Christian colleges where [the researchers] show a video that I’ve made, and they do the Six Americas of Global Warming assessment before and after the video to see if there is significant change in attitudes, actions and perspectives. And thank goodness, there is.


If it were 25 years ago, I don’t think we would be in the situation we are today, politically or culturally. That is why bringing in unusual voices is so important — from the business community, from the national security community, etc. If someone such as a Navy Seal commander [is talking about climate change], you’re not exactly going to tell that person, “You’re involved in a worldwide communist conspiracy.” Bringing in faith leaders is important, but they’re not as important as people thought they were.


Back in the ‘90s and early 2000s, there was this whole movement to find Evangelical leaders, put them on boats, take them to the Arctic … take them to Africa. [Environmental leaders] figured, “If you see it with your own eyes, you’re going to change your mind.” One of two things happened.


Either that person came back with their mind totally changed, made a big statement about it and completely lost all position to influence or they came back and said, “Wow, this really is serious and real,” but then they looked around and realized, what’s going to happen if I start talking about it? Then they said, is it worth it? Is this the hill I want to die on? Probably not. And they just pulled their head back into their shell and went on their way.



Most people in the United States live in places where the climate has been changing in a way that makes it a more favorable place to live based on how people pick where to live. People don’t pick where to live based on flood risk, drought risk or hurricane risk. They pick a place like Phoenix because they want to retire to a pleasant, mild climate. So by saying it’s the warmest March on record, most people in the United States live in a place where a warm March is a good thing.


Just because we are climate scientists does not mean that we necessarily have to be communicating about this issue because many of us, personality-wise, are not made to be good communicators. It is not something that comes naturally. Many of us are terrible at it. I worked really hard.


For me the turning point was back when I was involved in writing a report with the Union of Concerned Scientists. It was a scientific report on climate change impacts on the Great Lakes. So we did all of our science-y stuff, and they had a technical editor that just made sure it was grammatical and all that. Then we showed up for our final meeting, and it was a media-training workshop. I went to this workshop, and it was like these scales fell from my eyes. I thought, “Oh my goodness. There’s a science to communication? There are ways to design messages? There are ways to answer questions that actually reflect these messages back?” I felt like there was this alternate universe that had always existed, and I never even knew it was there.


I think it really is important to work with thought leaders and organizations of influence in very different communities, in marginalized communities where they often feel environmental issues are a luxury of the rich. And climate change really isn’t environmental. I think it’s a human issue.


From:
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http://ensia.com/interviews/katharine-hayhoe-bridging-the-climate-change-divide/
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Now to New York City:
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On Tuesday, a remodelled Governors Island will be unveiled to the public.


The 172-acre fragment of land, a seven-minute ferry ride from the southern tip of Manhattan, now has an undulating park covering the southern portion of the island that aims not only to be aesthetically pleasing but also to provide a blueprint for how New York can cope with the ravages of climate change.


West 8, a Rotterdam-based architecture firm, was selected in 2007 to revitalize the area of Governors Island that will now be known as “the Hills”.


While the northern, elevated part of the island has housed a military base and a coast guard, the southern part was rather neglected after being created by dumping landfill material from the Lexington Avenue subway line in 1905. “The island is ice cream cone-shaped and the historical part is the ice cream,” as Leslie Koch, president of the Governors Island Trust, puts it.


What the Dutch brought to the project was an appreciation of climate change mitigation that was to become almost immediately prescient. Just five months after work started at Governors Island, Hurricane Sandy hit New York in October 2012, causing dozens of deaths in the city as well as a $60 billion cleanup bill.


“A 13ft wall of water hit us on all sides,” said Koch. “I live in a neighborhood on elevated ground and cars were crushed by massive trees, so I could only imagine what had happened on Governors Island. I thought we’d see a devastated historical district and all that landfill in the New York harbor.”


To Koch’s surprise, she found the new project was “bone dry” due to the early decision to raise the previously pancake-flat southern part of the island by 15 feet.


The finished Hills area, a selection of four raised areas, the highest peak being 70ft, provides a series of defenses against rising seas and future flood, with barely a seawall to be seen. Indeed, the previous seawall has been broken up and scattered around the hills, supplemented by nearly 3,000 new trees.


A stone shelf juts out from the coast into the sea, covered by large rocks which absorb and dissipate the pounding waves. Should water breach this, a further, subtle barrier is set back from the cycle path that encircles Governors Island (golf carts, rather than cars, are the alternative transport on the island). Finally, the four hills themselves, created from landfill from demolished buildings that dotted the southern part of the island, are arranged in such a way that would sap the strength of even another Sandy.



Sandy had “brought the future sooner than we expected”, pointing out that the storm surge was a foot above what New York City considers to be a once-per-century flood.


In the future, weather events that would have once only been expected every 500 or 1,000 years are predicted to become dramatically more common. The Hills has been designed with the assumption that the tide will rise 2ft by 2100.


Average sea levels have already risen around New York by more than 1ft over the past century, about double the global average. A report put out by the city last year found that a further 21 inches of seawater could be added by 2050, rising to 6ft by 2100. It could be even more than that if warming temperatures help disintegrate Antarctica’s vast ice cap. [Ignore the denier bullcrap about more ice on the ocean surface around Antarctica- this has nothing to do with sea level rise].


In the shorter term, the example of Governors Island could show the city that simply flinging up large seawalls won’t solve the problem. In fact, the walls could just push the water elsewhere, on to the soggy feet of people in Brooklyn or Queens.


Building design is already starting to adapt, too; parking garages in Rotterdam, for instance, can store excess water, while the Perez Art Museum in Miami has been crafted to withstand hurricanes and floods.


“I think it’s going to be a mixture of things because this is our reality now. It’s not an ‘if’, it’s a ‘when’,” said Koch.


“It’s not that we have to retreat from the coast but you have to assume the coast will become wet. Look at South Ferry subway station [which was inundated during Sandy]. It opened 10 months before Sandy and it’s still out of service. It’s extraordinary to me that you would build a new piece of infrastructure next to the water and let that happen.”


From:
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/19/governors-island-remodelled-climate-change-new-york
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Ever here the old axiom " no such thing as a free lunch"?

"Lithium mining impacts
Lithium is found in the brine of salt flats. Holes are drilled into the salt flats and the brine is pumped to the surface, leaving it
to evaporate in ponds. This allows lithium carbonate to be extracted through a chemical process.
The extraction of lithium has significant environmental and social impacts, especially due to water pollution and depletion.
In addition, toxic chemicals are needed to process lithium. The release of such chemicals through leaching, spills or air
emissions can harm communities, ecosystems and food production. Moreover, lithium extraction inevitably harms the soil
and also causes air contamination.13
The salt flats where lithium is found are located in arid territories. In these places, access to water is key for the local commu-
nities and their livelihoods, as well as the local flora and fauna. In Chile’s Atacama salt flats, mining consumes, contaminates
and diverts scarce water resources away from local communities.14 The extraction of lithium has caused water-related conflicts
with different communities, such as the community of Toconao in the north of Chile15. In Argentina’s Salar de Hombre Muerto,
local communities claim that lithium operations have contaminated streams used for humans, livestock and crop irrigation.16
There has been widespread speculation about whether Bolivia could become a lithium superpower, possibly overtaking Chile,
by unlocking its massive resources, which may exceed 100m tonnes in its salt flats.17
Lithium exploration and investment is also taking place outside the Andean region. The American Nova mining corporation,
for example, is moving ahead with the purchase of licensing agreements for lithium mining properties in Mongolia, in
response to the current boom in sales of electronic goods.18
Bolivia has, so far, resisted large-scale industrial mining of lithium, although it has plans to build a pilot project as a precursor
to the possible development of a lithium mining industry in the future.19 However, the lithium-rich Salar de Uyuni is near to
the San Cristóbal Mine, which, since it opened in 2007, has caused an “environmental and social disaster that affects all of
Southwest Potosí” including through the use of 50,000 litres of water per day.20"

The extraction of lithium has significant environmental and social impacts, especially due to water pollution and depletion. In addition, toxic chemicals are needed to process lithium. The release of such chemicals through leaching, spills or air emissions can harm communities, ecosystems and food production. Moreover, lithium extraction inevitably harms the soil and also causes air contamination."

A recent study looked in great detail at how Lithium is used to produce batteries, and the entire life cycle of the batteries. The findings were compared to the environmental impact of conventional internal combustion cars. The study measured environmental impact in a number of ways, including global warming potential, cumulative energy demand, an Ecoindicator 99 and an Abiotic Depletion Potential that measures resource depletion. Interestingly, the study found that the environmental impact of Lithium was relatively small, but that other elements of these batteries have a higher impact. For example, lithium batteries take a tremendous amount of copper and aluminum to work properly. These metals are needed for the production of the anode & the cathode, cables and battery management systems. Copper and aluminum have to be mined, processes and manufacturing which takes lots of energy, chemicals and water which add to their environmental burden."

http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/the-path-to-lithium-batteries-friend-or-foe.html

 

No free lunch, ever.

Lithium is also quite rare, and will likely become a lot more expensive as it becomes more difficult to mine, unless it is replaced by something else more plentiful.

It seems like we are always waiting for the next Edison to solve a lot of problems, some we do not even know exist.

1 + 1 sometimes equals 4 (for a wife and husband that have twins).

 

What does that ^^ mean ?? Are there any subsidies or tax incentives for the batteries ?? Have the subsidies for solar and wind turbine power generation been factored in ?? How much power is required for the peak situation and how large will the ultimate battery pack be to equal that ?? And how much will the global average temperature in the year 2100 be reduced by the implementation of this project ??

 

Rule 11 thread closure

Shangrila
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