China Unveiled Another Massive Wind Turbine

Current conditions: The U.K. government is warning people to prepare for flooding this winter • Hurricane forecasters are keeping a watchful eye on another storm lurking in the Atlantic • The Orionid meteor shower will peak this week, but a bright moon is likely to reduce visibility.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Report: Hurricanes don’t change GOP lawmakers’ views on climate

Despite two back-to-back devastating, record-breaking hurricanes in the southeast in recent weeks, Republican lawmakers are not considering pushing for more government action on climate change, E&E News reported. The outlet contacted 42 members of the House and Senate, “asking if they believed the severity of the storms were exacerbated by global warming and if those storms would motivate lawmakers to endorse reducing greenhouse gas emissions — many of them from burning fossil fuels — that scientists call the major cause of climate change.” Just three of the politicians responded, and none of them were willing to connect the storms’ severity to climate change, let alone fossil fuel emissions.

2. Carmakers show of low-cost EVs at Paris Auto Show

The Paris Auto Show, the largest car show in Europe, kicks off today. The focus this year is on low-cost electric vehicles as some governments cut their EV subsidies, EU emissions standards loom next year, and European manufacturers try to compete against Chinese rivals. Some new models to know about, and their European price tags:

• Renault: The R4 (€35,000) and R5 (€25,000), the Dacia Bigster SUV, and a prototype for the electric Twingo (€20,000)
• Stellantis: The Leapmotor B10 SUV (expected for less than €37,000), and Citroën C3 Aircross compact SUV (€27,400)
• BYD: The electric Sea Lion 07 SUV, which will rival the Tesla Model Y

Nine Chinese brands will be unveiling their latest models, Reuters reported, and BYD will have the largest presence.

The Renault R4 Renault

3. Study: Selective breeding can boost coral heat tolerance

The first attempt to selectively breed adult coral to be more tolerant to heat looks like it was a success. In a study published today in the journal Nature Communications, researchers found that selecting parent colonies for high heat increased the heat tolerance of adult offspring. “Our finding on the heritability of coral heat tolerance indicates that selective breeding could be a viable tool to improve population resilience,” the researchers wrote. But they also warned that the tolerance they selected for is unlikely to be enough to keep up with the pace of global warming. They call for further research to scale and optimize selective coral breeding.

4. China unveils world’s first 26 MW offshore wind turbine

Chinese company Dongfang Electric Corp. over the weekend announced it has built a new offshore wind turbine with a power-producing capacity (26 megawatts) that is 31% bigger than its nearest competitor (18 MW), and “surpasses even the largest models announced but not yet constructed,” Bloomberg reported. Big turbines that generate lots of power can reduce the costs of offshore wind operations by limiting the amount of equipment needed. China is a leader in both offshore wind installations and large turbines. Last week another Chinese company, CRRC Corp., said it had made the world’s largest floating offshore wind turbine, with “a diameter of 260 meters and a swept area of 53,100 square meters, roughly the size of seven standard soccer fields.”

5. Biden administration to designate Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary

The White House today will commemorate the designation of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, a 4,543-square-mile area of ocean off the coast of California that is to be protected from oil and gas drilling and mining. The sanctuary will be the third largest in the U.S., and the first to be led by Indigenous people, the Northern Chumash Tribe. NPR noted that the protected area is smaller than initially proposed in order to accommodate potential offshore wind operations and subsea electrical transmission cables, but NOAA said it “will consider a potential expansion of the sanctuary in the coming years, after transmission cables have been laid.”

Chumash Sanctuary

THE KICKER

“I’m sure when we went from buggies to cars people complained about that. It’s a transition.”–Andy Edmondson, a school superintendent in Illinois, on community skepticism around electric school buses.