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Geothermal Energy Storage is Making a Big Leap in Texas

On the EarthStore project, nuclear-powered ships, and plastic pollution.

Geothermal Energy Storage is Making a Big Leap in Texas
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Hurricane Ernesto could strengthen into a category 3 storm by Friday • Several days of heavy rain in Majorca, Spain, flooded streets and grounded flights • The heat index is hovering around 115 degrees Fahrenheit for parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Texas to host first grid-connected geothermal energy storage project

Plans are underway in Texas to build what will become the first geothermal energy storage project to deliver power to the grid. The 3-megawatt EarthStore project will be located in Christine, Texas, and operated by Sage Geosystems. It will connect with the ERCOT grid, storing energy to be deployed on demand. Advanced geothermal reservoirs harness the heat under the Earth’s surface to generate energy. They can store power that’s been generated by wind or solar in the form of hot water or steam, and some research suggests this process could be more efficient and perhaps cheaper than using batteries. Either way, as renewable capacity ramps up, the more storage options, the better. The project is expected to be ready by the end of 2024.

2. Greece assesses damage from wildfire near Athens

The wildfire on the outskirts of Athens this week burned 40 square miles of land, or an area about twice the size of Manhattan, according to satellite data from the Copernicus Emergency Management Service. One person was killed and at least 78 homes were lost to the flames. Intense drought conditions, combined with soaring temperatures, have turned Greece into a tinderbox, with more than 3,500 fires ignited since May, up nearly 50% from the same period last year. More than one-third of the forests surrounding Athens have been scorched by wildfires over the last eight years.

Copernicus Emergency Management Service

3. Report: U.S. will back global plastics treaty

The U.S. will support a United Nations treaty to cap the amount of new plastic produced annually, Reutersreported. America is one of the world’s most prolific plastic makers, and has previously supported the idea that each country should be able to manage its own production. But many other nations have called for limiting and phasing down new plastic production to curb pollution and toxic chemicals, an initiative the U.S. seems to be warming to. Most plastics are made from fossil fuels, and major producers like China and Saudi Arabia have argued that the focus should be on recycling and reusing, instead of limiting production overall. The final talks over the UN plastics treaty are scheduled for November.

4. Maersk joins initiative to study nuclear-powered ships

Danish shipping giant Maersk is interested in studying the feasibility of nuclear-powered cargo ships. The company will team up with maritime services firm Lloyd’s Register and Core Power to figure out how a nuclear reactor could be fitted on a vessel, plus what kinds of safety precautions and regulations would need to be in place. “Nuclear power holds a number of challenges related to for example safety, waste management, and regulatory acceptance across regions, and so far, the downsides have clearly outweighed the benefits of the technology,” Ole Graa Jakobsen, Maersk’s head of fleet technology, said in a statement. “If these challenges can be addressed by development of the new so-called fourth-generation reactor designs, nuclear power could potentially mature into another possible decarbonization pathway for the logistics industry 10 to 15 years in the future,” he said. The shipping sector accounts for about 3% of global carbon dioxide emissions, and guidelines from the International Maritime Organization set out in 2023 require companies to cut emissions by 40% by 2030.

5. China’s OceanX floating wind turbine reaches wind farm

This week a giant, two-headed, floating offshore wind turbine has been on a 50-hour, 191-nautical-mile journey from Guangzhou, China, to its final destination in the Qingzhou IV Offshore Wind Farm in Yangjiang. Yesterday it finally arrived safely. The OceanX is the world’s largest floating wind turbine platform in terms of capacity. The company behind it, Mingyang Smart Energy, says the platform can produce 54 million kWh annually, enough to power 30,000 households. It’s made to be used in deep water and the company says it can withstand the kind of high winds and waves generated by typhoons.

THE KICKER

New analysis finds that enacting the policies outlined in the conservative blueprint Project 2025 would result in 1.7 million fewer jobs, 2,000 pollution-related premature deaths, and boost U.S. emissions by about 780 million metric tons per year by 2030.

Yellow

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A destroyed house and a blueprint.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Recovering from the Los Angeles wildfires will be expensive. Really expensive. Insurance analysts and banks have already produced a wide range of estimates of both what insurance companies will pay out and overall economic loss. AccuWeatherhas put out an eye-catching preliminary figure of $52 billion to $57 billion for economic losses, with the service’s chief meteorologist saying that the fires have the potential to “become the worst wildfire in modern California history based on the number of structures burned and economic loss.” On Thursday, J.P. Morgan doubled its previous estimate for insured losses to $20 billion, with an economic loss figure of $50 billion — about the gross domestic product of the country of Jordan.

The startlingly high loss figures from a fire that has only lasted a few days and is (relatively) limited in scope show just how distinctly devastating an urban fire can be. Enormous wildfires thatcover millions of acres like the 2023 Canadian wildfires can spew ash and particulate matter all over the globe and burn for months, darkening skies and clogging airways in other countries. And smaller — and far deadlier fires — than those still do not produce the same financial roll.

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Why the L.A. Fires Are Exceptionally Hard to Fight

Suburban streets, exploding pipes, and those Santa Ana winds, for starters.

Firefighters on Sunset Boulevard.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

A fire needs three things to burn: heat, fuel, and oxygen. The first is important: At some point this week, for a reason we have yet to discover and may never will, a piece of flammable material in Los Angeles County got hot enough to ignite. The last is essential: The resulting fires, which have now burned nearly 29,000 acres, are fanned by exceptionally powerful and dry Santa Ana winds.

But in the critical days ahead, it is that central ingredient that will preoccupy fire managers, emergency responders, and the public, who are watching their homes — wood-framed containers full of memories, primary documents, material wealth, sentimental heirlooms — transformed into raw fuel. “Grass is one fuel model; timber is another fuel model; brushes are another — there are dozens of fuel models,” Bobbie Scopa, a veteran firefighter and author of the memoir Both Sides of the Fire Line, told me. “But when a fire goes from the wildland into the urban interface, you’re now burning houses.”

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Climate

What Started the Fires in Los Angeles?

Plus 3 more outstanding questions about this ongoing emergency.

Los Angeles.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

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 some of the same reasons we’re seeing fires this week.

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