Forecasters Are Horrified By Hurricane Milton

Current conditions: What remains of former Hurricane Kirk could bring heavy rain and dangerous winds to Europe • Wildfires in Bolivia have scorched nearly 19 million football fields worth of land this year • It is 55 degrees Fahrenheit and rainy today at the Alpe du Grand Serre, an 85-year-old Alpine ski resort in France that announced it will close for good due to a lack of snow.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Hurricane Milton’s rapid intensification shocks forecasters

Hurricane Milton has horrified meteorologists with its swift transformation into a monster system, exploding from a Category 1 storm into a Category 5 storm in about 18 hours. As of this morning it has maximum sustained winds of 155 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center, and is expected to make landfall near Tampa, Florida, overnight on Wednesday. Milton will likely weaken slightly as it approaches the Sunshine State but will nonetheless bring life-threatening wind, rain, and storm surge to an area still in tatters from last month’s Hurricane Helene. “If Milton stays on its course this will be the most powerful hurricane to hit Tampa Bay in over 100 years,” the Tampa Bay National Weather Service said. “No one in the area has ever experienced a hurricane this strong before.”

NHC/NOAA

Veteran Florida meteorologist John Morales broke down in tears reporting on Milton’s remarkable drop in air pressure – generally the lower a storm’s pressure, the greater its strength. “This is just horrific,” Morales said. “The seas are just so incredibly, incredibly hot. You know what’s driving that. I don’t need to tell you: Global warming.”

2. Onslaught of weather disasters tests FEMA

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is under strain from back-to-back extreme weather events, including Hurricane Helene and looming Hurricane Milton. Last week Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that FEMA “does not have the funds” to get through the rest of hurricane season. The agency’s former administrator, Craig Fugate, told Bloomberg the damage from Milton could be more costly than Helene’s. Staff shortages are compounding funding shortfalls, with just 9% of FEMA workers available to respond to disasters as of Monday, as personnel struggle to address a number of recent disasters in other parts of the country. “The agency is simultaneously supporting over 100 major disaster declarations,” Brock Long, who led FEMA during the Trump administration, said. “The scale of staffing required for these operations is immense.”

3. Kerry joins Steyer’s green investing firm

John Kerry has joined billionaire Tom Steyer’s sustainable investing firm, Galvanize Climate Solutions, as co-executive chair alongside Steyer and Katie Hall. The former secretary of state and top U.S. climate diplomat “will focus on expanding the resources and reach of Galvanize’s investment strategies, originating differentiated opportunities, and leveraging firsthand knowledge as to how technology, policy, and geopolitics are shaping the energy transition,” the firm said in a statement. Steyer and Hall launched Galvanize in 2021. It manages around $1 billion and focuses on “generating long-term value from the energy transition.” Kerry said Galvanize would play a key role in the energy transition by “bringing competitive, commercially viable solutions to market.”

4. Lithios raises $12 million to unlock new sources of lithium

Lithios, a Massachusetts-based startup with a novel method of lithium extraction, just raised a $12 million seed round. Energy market analysts predict that the world is hurtling towards a global lithium shortage by the 2030s, but Lithios is aiming to help unlock previously untapped lithium sources around the world, specifically salty groundwater deposits, a.k.a. brines. The company’s CEO, Mo Alkhadra, told Heatmap’s Katie Brigham that while about two-thirds of the world’s lithium is contained in brine rather than hard rock, only about 15% to 20% of these brines are currently worth mining. Lithios, he said, will get that number up to around 80% to 85%, in theory. The funding is led by Clean Energy Ventures with support from Lowercarbon Capital, among others. The round included $10 million in venture funding and $2 million in venture debt loans from Silicon Valley Bank.

5. White House eyes more decomissioned nuclear plants for revival

The Biden administration wants to restart more nuclear power plants that have been decommissioned in an effort to provide zero-emission electricity to meet soaring demand, according to White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi. Two revivals are already in progress: The Department of Energy finalized over $2.8 billion in loans and grants to help restart the Palisades plant in Michigan, and tech giant Microsoft made a deal with energy company Constellation to revive Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear plant. Zaidi said he could think of at least two other plants that could be brought back online, but didn’t get specific.

THE KICKER

“Governments come and go and they may change things, but the energy transition has passed the inflection point.” –Martin Pochtaruk, CEO of solar-module maker Heliene, which this week announced a strategic equity investment of up to $54 million that will support its new manufacturing operation in Minnesota.