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Hurricane researcher Andra Garner on what happened in Acapulco.
Last week, I spoke with researcher Andra Garner about how hurricanes are increasingly sneaking up on us. She had recently published a new study in Scientific Reports, which found that Atlantic hurricanes are “more than twice as likely to strengthen from a weak Category 1 hurricane to a major Category 3 or stronger hurricane in a 24-hour period than they were between 1970 and 1990.”
In her comments to me, Garner had stressed that “when storms intensify quickly, they can become more difficult to forecast and to plan for in terms of emergency action plans for coastal residents.” Less than a week later, her warning has seemingly come true in the form of Hurricane Otis, which made landfall near Acapulco, Mexico, on Wednesday morning as a record-breaking Category 5 storm. It had intensified from a tropical storm in a mere 12 hours and taken meteorologists almost completely by surprise.
On Wednesday, I checked back in with Garner about how Hurricane Otis factors into her research. Our correspondence via email has been lightly edited and condensed, below.
Would you expect similar results to your Atlantic hurricane intensification findings if you were to look at the northern East Pacific, where Otis formed? Or are there different trends to account for in the region?
While my work did focus on the Atlantic, rather than the Pacific, there are certain physical factors that are very favorable for hurricane formation, regardless of where you are in the world. Warm ocean waters are one of those factors, and Hurricane Otis certainly had plenty of warm ocean water.
Typically, the minimum ocean water temperature that can support hurricane formation and strengthening is 26 degrees Celsius (about 79 degrees Fahrenheit); last night, as Otis moved towards land, the storm was traveling over a patch of water that was near 31 degrees Celsius (about 88 degrees Fahrenheit) — substantially warmer than necessary, and plenty warm enough to support quick strengthening. Considering those kinds of factors, I think what we saw with Hurricane Otis lines up pretty well with what my research suggests that we should expect in a warmer climate.
You mentioned to me last week that future projections were outside the scope of this research, but if single-day intensification is more than twice as likely now as it was between 1970 and 1990, is there any reason to think it won’t be twice as likely again by, say, 2070?
This is a great question. I think that what my work shows is that, if we don’t change anything about our behavior, it is reasonable to expect that we might expect this trend to continue and to possibly worsen. In my research, across the time periods 1971-1990 and 2001-2020, the speed and degree of hurricane intensification were significantly different.While more research would be needed to really discern all the potential factors causing that strengthening to occur, I think that, to the extent that warmer ocean waters are involved, we could expect more of the same if we don’t limit our emissions moving forward.
I was pretty shocked to see in Acapulco exactly what you’d warned about in your email to me last week: that there is an “increased risk of hazards for our coastal communities” because of the difficulty of preparing for a storm that jumps from a tropical storm to a Category 5 in less than 24 hours. You spoke a little about this before, but would there be anything you’d want to add now that we’ve seen what you warned about actually unfold?
I’d just say that, as you mentioned, it is surprising to see this happen so soon after publishing research that really tells us this is what we might expect. I think knowing that something is expected because of a warming climate, and actually seeing it play out before your eyes, are two different things. Even though I have the data and the analyses to tell me that this is what we should expect, it’s still a little mind-boggling to see a storm like Otis transform from a Tropical Storm into a Category 5 hurricane in about 12 hours.
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Did a battery plant disaster in California spark a PR crisis on the East Coast?
Battery fire fears are fomenting a storage backlash in New York City – and it risks turning into fresh PR hell for the industry.
Aggrieved neighbors, anti-BESS activists, and Republican politicians are galvanizing more opposition to battery storage in pockets of the five boroughs where development is actually happening, capturing rapt attention from other residents as well as members of the media. In Staten Island, a petition against a NineDot Energy battery project has received more than 1,300 signatures in a little over two months. Two weeks ago, advocates – backed by representatives of local politicians including Rep. Nicole Mallitokis – swarmed a public meeting on the project, getting a local community board to vote unanimously against the project.
According to Heatmap Pro’s proprietary modeling of local opinion around battery storage, there are likely twice as many strong opponents than strong supporters in the area:
Heatmap Pro
Yesterday, leaders in the Queens community of Hempstead enacted a year-long ban on BESS for at least a year after GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, other local politicians, and a slew of aggrieved residents testified in favor of a moratorium. The day before, officials in the Long Island town of Southampton said at a public meeting they were ready to extend their battery storage ban until they enshrined a more restrictive development code – even as many energy companies testified against doing so, including NineDot and solar plus storage developer Key Capture Energy. Yonkers also recently extended its own battery moratorium.
This flurry of activity follows the Moss Landing battery plant fire in California, a rather exceptional event caused by tech that was extremely old and a battery chemistry that is no longer popular in the sector. But opponents of battery storage don’t care – they’re telling their friends to stop the community from becoming the next Moss Landing. The longer this goes on without a fulsome, strident response from the industry, the more communities may rally against them. Making matters even worse, as I explained in The Fight earlier this year, we’re seeing battery fire concerns impact solar projects too.
“This is a huge problem for solar. If [fires] start regularly happening, communities are going to say hey, you can’t put that there,” Derek Chase, CEO of battery fire smoke detection tech company OnSight Technologies, told me at Intersolar this week. “It’s going to be really detrimental.”
I’ve long worried New York City in particular may be a powder keg for the battery storage sector given its omnipresence as a popular media environment. If it happens in New York, the rest of the world learns about it.
I feel like the power of the New York media environment is not lost on Staten Island borough president Vito Fossella, a de facto leader of the anti-BESS movement in the boroughs. Last fall I interviewed Fossella, whose rhetorical strategy often leans on painting Staten Island as an overburdened community. (At least 13 battery storage projects have been in the works in Staten Island according to recent reporting. Fossella claims that is far more than any amount proposed elsewhere in the city.) He often points to battery blazes that happen elsewhere in the country, as well as fears about lithium-ion scooters that have caught fire. His goal is to enact very large setback distance requirements for battery storage, at a minimum.
“You can still put them throughout the city but you can’t put them next to people’s homes – what happens if one of these goes on fire next to a gas station,” he told me at the time, chalking the wider city government’s reluctance to capitulate on batteries to a “political problem.”
Well, I’m going to hold my breath for the real political problem in waiting – the inevitable backlash that happens when Mallitokis, D’Esposito, and others take this fight to Congress and the national stage. I bet that’s probably why American Clean Power just sent me a notice for a press briefing on battery safety next week …
And more of the week’s top conflicts around renewable energy.
1. Queen Anne’s County, Maryland – They really don’t want you to sign a solar lease out in the rural parts of this otherwise very pro-renewables state.
2. Logan County, Ohio – Staff for the Ohio Power Siting Board have recommended it reject Open Road Renewables’ Grange Solar agrivoltaics project.
3. Bandera County, Texas – On a slightly brighter note for solar, it appears that Pine Gate Renewables’ Rio Lago solar project might just be safe from county restrictions.
Here’s what else we’re watching…
In Illinois, Armoracia Solar is struggling to get necessary permits from Madison County.
In Kentucky, the mayor of Lexington is getting into a public spat with East Kentucky Power Cooperative over solar.
In Michigan, Livingston County is now backing the legal challenge to Michigan’s state permitting primacy law.
On the week’s top news around renewable energy policy.
1. IRA funding freeze update – Money is starting to get out the door, finally: the EPA unfroze most of its climate grant funding it had paused after Trump entered office.
2. Scalpel vs. sledgehammer – House Speaker Mike Johnson signaled Republicans in Congress may take a broader approach to repealing the Inflation Reduction Act than previously expected in tax talks.
3. Endangerment in danger – The EPA is reportedly urging the White House to back reversing its 2009 “endangerment” finding on air pollutants and climate change, a linchpin in the agency’s overall CO2 and climate regulatory scheme.