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On ominous forecasts, Ford’s hybrid pivot, and Disney’s Autopia ride
Current conditions: Nearly 4,000 schools in the Philippines have suspended in-person classes due to extreme heat • Large parts of the central and southern High Plains are under red flag fire warnings • It will be 57 degrees Fahrenheit and rainy in Baltimore today for President Biden’s visit to the site of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge.
The coastal United States and Caribbean should prepare for an “extremely active” 2024 hurricane season. That’s the message from Colorado State University researchers, who yesterday released their preseason extended range forecast for the region. They estimate there will be more named hurricanes than usual (11 compared with the 30-year average of 7.2) and that five of them could be major storms. There’s an above-normal chance (62% compared with 43% historical averages) that at least one of these major hurricanes will make landfall somewhere along the continental U.S. coastline. While these are just predictions, the team says they are more confident than in past years in their forecast “given how hurricane-favorable the large-scale conditions appear to be.”
NOAA forecast for El Niño and La Niña. Black arrow indicates the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season.CSU
They’re referring to two factors: Unusually warm sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic, and an expected transition out of El Niño and into La Niña. Warmer waters provide more energy for storms, and La Niña “typically increases Atlantic hurricane activity through decreases in vertical wind shear.” Ocean temperatures last year were the hottest ever recorded, driven by both El Niño and climate change from burning fossil fuels. “A key area of the Atlantic Ocean where hurricanes form is already abnormally warm,” explainedThe New York Times, “much warmer than an ideal swimming pool temperature of about 80 degrees and on the cusp of feeling more like warm bathtub water.” The oceans have absorbed 90% of the excessive heat generated by greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations.
Ford is delaying production of its next-generation electric pickup and its long-awaited three-row electric SUV, with the vehicles now set to be available in 2026 and 2027, respectively. In the near-term, the company plans to follow market trends by focusing on hybrids. Sales of hybrids climbed last quarter by 45% in the U.S., compared with 2.7% growth in sales for EVs. And more than half of the Ford Maverick compact pickup trucks sold last quarter had conventional hybrid engines, “a sign of how rapidly hybrids and plug-in hybrids are ascending in the American car market,” says Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer. Ford plans to offer hybrid versions of its entire gas-powered lineup in North America by 2030. “We are committed to scaling a profitable EV business, using capital wisely and bringing to market the right gas, hybrid and fully electric vehicles at the right time,” said Ford president and CEO Jim Farley.
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A Boston-based battery startup called Alsym Energy has raised $78 million in a new funding round. The company has created a rechargeable battery that’s lithium- and cobalt-free, which means it’s less flammable and not as vulnerable to supply shortages. As VentureBeatexplained: “When it comes to batteries, we’ve put all our eggs in one basket. Non-lithium batteries help diversify the global battery mix so that lithium-ion supply chain disruptions or pricing volatility don’t derail the clean energy transition.” The company will use the new funds to hire more people and build production lines to provide samples to customers, according toTechCrunch.
Germany’s transport minister dismissed reports that the country’s autobahn may introduce speed limits in order to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Germany is unique among industrialized countries in that many of its highways have no nationwide speed limits. Studies suggest lowering top speeds to 75mph could cut 6.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year. Germany aims to become carbon neutral by 2045, but the country’s transport sector has been the slowest to cut emissions, reported Reuters. Support for speed limits has been growing, even though Transport Minister Volker Wissing said “people don’t want that,” according toPolitico.
Disneyland’s Autopia ride is ditching its gas-powered cars and going electric as part of its plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2030. The attraction, which lets visitors drive around a miniature motorway in small cars, is located at Disneyland’s Tomorrowland in Anaheim, California. When Tomorrowland opened in 1955, Walt Disney called it “a step into the future, with predictions of constructive things to come.” But Autopia’s existing cars are loud and produce noxious fumes, prompting complaints from visitors and climate activists alike. This week Disney announced it will swap them out for electric versions “in the next few years,” though it didn’t say whether the new cars would be fully electric or hybrid. Bob Gurr, who helped Walt design Tomorrowland in the ‘50s, told the Los Angeles Times it’s time to “get rid of those God-awful gasoline fumes.”
“The transition to all-electric buildings is so well underway that legal obstacles thrown up by the fossil fuel industry and its allies won’t be enough to stop it.” –The LA Times editorial board says Berkeley’s decision to abandon its natural gas ban is just a “bump in the road.”
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Plus 3 more outstanding questions about this ongoing emergency.
As Los Angeles continued to battle multiple big blazes ripping through some of the most beloved (and expensive) areas of the city on Thursday, a question lingered in the background: What caused the fires in the first place?
Though fires are less common in California during this time of the year, they aren’t unheard of. In early December 2017, power lines sparked the Thomas Fire near Ventura, California, which burned through to mid-January. At the time it was the largest fire in the state since at least the 1930s. Now it’s the ninth-largest. Although that fire was in a more rural area, it ignited for many of the same reasons we’re seeing fires this week.
Read on for everything we know so far about how the fires started.
Five major fires started during the Santa Ana wind event this week:
Officials have not made any statements about the cause of any of the fires yet.
On Thursday morning, Edward Nordskog, a retired fire investigator from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, told me it was unlikely they had even begun looking into the root of the biggest and most destructive of the fires in the Pacific Palisades. “They don't start an investigation until it's safe to go into the area where the fire started, and it just hasn't been safe until probably today,” he said.
It can take years to determine the cause of a fire. Investigators did not pinpoint the cause of the Thomas Fire until March 2019, more than two years after it started.
But Nordskog doesn’t think it will take very long this time. It’s easier to narrow down the possibilities for an urban fire because there are typically both witnesses and surveillance footage, he told me. He said the most common causes of wildfires in Los Angeles are power lines and those started by unhoused people. They can also be caused by sparks from vehicles or equipment.
At about 27,000 acres burned, these fires are unlikely to make the charts for the largest in California history. But because they are burning in urban, densely populated, and expensive areas, they could be some of the most devastating. With an estimated 2,000 structures damaged so far, the Eaton and Palisades fires are likely to make the list for most destructive wildfire events in the state.
And they will certainly be at the top for costliest. The Palisades Fire has already been declared a likely contender for the most expensive wildfire in U.S. history. It has destroyed more than 1,000 structures in some of the most expensive zip codes in the country. Between that and the Eaton Fire, Accuweather estimates the damages could reach $57 billion.
While we don’t know the root causes of the ignitions, several factors came together to create perfect fire conditions in Southern California this week.
First, there’s the Santa Ana winds, an annual phenomenon in Southern California, when very dry, high-pressure air gets trapped in the Great Basin and begins escaping westward through mountain passes to lower-pressure areas along the coast. Most of the time, the wind in Los Angeles blows eastward from the ocean, but during a Santa Ana event, it changes direction, picking up speed as it rushes toward the sea.
Jon Keeley, a research scientist with the US Geological Survey and an adjunct professor at the University of California, Los Angeles told me that Santa Ana winds typically blow at maybe 30 to 40 miles per hour, while the winds this week hit upwards of 60 to 70 miles per hour. “More severe than is normal, but not unique,” he said. “We had similar severe winds in 2017 with the Thomas Fire.”
Second, Southern California is currently in the midst of extreme drought. Winter is typically a rainier season, but Los Angeles has seen less than half an inch of rain since July. That means that all the shrubland vegetation in the area is bone-dry. Again, Keeley said, this was not usual, but not unique. Some years are drier than others.
These fires were also not a question of fuel management, Keeley told me. “The fuels are not really the issue in these big fires. It's the extreme winds,” he said. “You can do prescription burning in chaparral and have essentially no impact on Santa Ana wind-driven fires.” As far as he can tell, based on information from CalFire, the Eaton Fire started on an urban street.
While it’s likely that climate change played a role in amplifying the drought, it’s hard to say how big a factor it was. Patrick Brown, a climate scientist at the Breakthrough Institute and adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, published a long post on X outlining the factors contributing to the fires, including a chart of historic rainfall during the winter in Los Angeles that shows oscillations between very wet and very dry years over the past eight decades. But climate change is expected to make dry years drier in Los Angeles. “The LA area is about 3°C warmer than it would be in preindustrial conditions, which (all else being equal) works to dry fuels and makes fires more intense,” Brown wrote.
And more of this week’s top renewable energy fights across the country.
1. Otsego County, Michigan – The Mitten State is proving just how hard it can be to build a solar project in wooded areas. Especially once Fox News gets involved.
2. Atlantic County, New Jersey – Opponents of offshore wind in Atlantic City are trying to undo an ordinance allowing construction of transmission cables that would connect the Atlantic Shores offshore wind project to the grid.
3. Benton County, Washington – Sorry Scout Clean Energy, but the Yakima Nation is coming for Horse Heaven.
Here’s what else we’re watching right now…
In Connecticut, officials have withdrawn from Vineyard Wind 2 — leading to the project being indefinitely shelved.
In Indiana, Invenergy just got a rejection from Marshall County for special use of agricultural lands.
In Kansas, residents in Dickinson County are filing legal action against county commissioners who approved Enel’s Hope Ridge wind project.
In Kentucky, a solar project was actually approved for once – this time for the East Kentucky Power Cooperative.
In North Carolina, Davidson County is getting a solar moratorium.
In Pennsylvania, the town of Unity rejected a solar project. Elsewhere in the state, the developer of the Newton 1 solar project is appealing their denial.
In South Carolina, a state appeals court has upheld the rejection of a 2,300 acre solar project proposed by Coastal Pine Solar.
In Washington State, Yakima County looks like it’ll keep its solar moratorium in place.
And more of this week’s top policy news around renewables.
1. Trump’s Big Promise – Our nation’s incoming president is now saying he’ll ban all wind projects on Day 1, an expansion of his previous promise to stop only offshore wind.
2. The Big Nuclear Lawsuit – Texas and Utah are suing to kill the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s authority to license small modular reactors.
3. Biden’s parting words – The Biden administration has finished its long-awaited guidance for the IRA’s tech-neutral electricity credit (which barely changed) and hydrogen production credit.