What to Know About the Rare Severe Solar Storm Watch

Current conditions: Central Florida could see severe storms today • The cicadas are out in St. Louis • Kenya’s president declared today a public holiday to mourn the 238 people who have died in recent flooding.

THE TOP FIVE

1. NOAA issues rare severe solar storm watch

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a rare “severe geomagnetic storm watch” due to intense explosions on the sun that are spewing solar material toward Earth. This week a “large sunspot cluster” that’s about 16 times the diameter of Earth has produced at least five mass coronal ejections, huge bursts of plasma and magnetic fields that can damage satellites and disrupt electrical grids. They will start to hit Earth today and could continue to do so through the weekend. NOAA is advising operators of satellites and grids to prepare. On the plus side, the event could mean people as far south as Alabama will be able to see the Northern Lights.

NOAA

NOAA

2. Biden slated to announce China tariffs on EVs and other tech

Looking ahead to next week: On Tuesday, President Biden is expected to announce new China tariffs targeting “strategic sectors” including electric vehicles, batteries, and solar cells, according to Bloomberg. Existing levies will remain in place. Biden wants to “contrast his approach” with that of former President Trump heading into the November election, Reuters added. Trump has proposed sweeping tariff hikes on China that some analysts say would boost inflation. But both candidates no doubt want to be seen as tough on China, which largely dominates in global EV sales and is a major producer of cheap solar and battery tech. The Biden administration is worried “that Chinese dominance of the global market for these essential technologies would harm the U.S. economy and national security,” as Somini Sengupta explained for The New York Times.

Earlier this week, climate envoy John Podesta sat down with his Chinese counterpart Liu Zhenmin to discuss climate issues ahead of COP29 later this year. No word yet about what came out of those talks…

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3. Trump reportedly asked Big Oil execs for $1 billion to boost his presidential campaign

And speaking of Trump, a bombshell Washington Post report details the goings on at a Mar-a-Lago dinner where the former president rubbed shoulders with oil executives and lobbyists last month. Unnamed sources say Trump told the wealthy attendees to raise $1 billion to help him take back the White House, and in return, he promised to:

• reverse the pause on LNG export terminal permits on “the first day”
• increase auctions for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and green light Alaskan oil drilling
• ditch emissions targets for car manufacturers that are projected to spur on the EV transition

Biden campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa told the Post that “Donald Trump is selling out working families to Big Oil for campaign checks. It’s that simple.”

Heatmap’s Jeva Lange reported recently on how allies of Big Oil pumped more than $6.4 million into Trump’s joint fundraising committee in just the first three months of 2024 — on pace to surpass the $6.9 million the industry contributed in all of 2023.

4. LNG producers push for priority in Panama Canal as drought eases

Water levels are rising in the lake that supplies the Panama Canal, and authorities say they expect the passage to be back to its full operating capacity by early 2025. The canal is one of the world’s biggest shipping routes, moving some $270 billion worth of cargo every year. But a record prolonged drought in the region has reduced the number of daily crossings over the last year or so. Increased rainfall means the drought is beginning to ease, and authorities will start slowly permitting more traffic over the coming months.

As Reuters reported, U.S. liquified natural gas exporters are jostling for some of those additional slots, and the canal’s administrator Ricaurte Vasquez is exploring how to reasonably accommodate them. “They have very big aspirations in which they would like to have a canal dedicated to them,” Vasquez said, “but that is not possible, since this is a canal that should be open to every type of commerce internationally.”

The canal authorities have been exploring ways to safeguard against future droughts brought by a warming climate. One suggestion involves creating a “dry canal” that would move cargo using existing infrastructure like roadways, railways, and ports. The president-elect Jose Raul Mulino this week said he would speed up permitting for building new water reservoirs by 2030.

5. Atmospheric CO2 concentration sees record jump

The amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere jumped in March, marking the biggest year-over-year increase ever recorded. According to UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the global average concentration of CO2 in March was 4.7 parts per million (ppm) higher than in March last year, which is a greater leap than the previous highest increase of 4.1 ppm recorded in 2016. “We sadly continue to break records in the CO2 rise rate,” said Ralph Keeling, director of the CO2 program at the institute. “The ultimate reason is continued global growth in the consumption of fossil fuels.”

The unusual jump is due partly to the El Niño event and an “unusual dip” in March 2023. But the records show that the rate of growth is generally increasing as we continue to burn fossil fuels. Keeling added that a very high growth rate could continue for several more months. “This recent surge shows how far we still need to go to stabilize the climate system,” he said. “Stabilization will require that CO2 levels start to fall. Instead, CO2 is rising faster than ever.” Back in 2022, NOAA confirmed that modern CO2 concentration levels match those not seen since 4 million years ago, when “sea levels were between 5 and 25 meters higher than today, high enough to drown many of the world’s largest modern cities.”

THE KICKER

“Now that I’ve seen a glimpse of what’s going on in China, the Western manufacturers, particularly the American ones, don’t seem like they’re trying at all.” –Kevin Williams writing for Inside EVs about his trip to the Beijing Auto Show, where he realized just how advanced China’s EVs really are.