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Wind and Solar Costs Continue to Drop Below Fossil Fuels. What Barriers Remain for a Low-Carbon Grid?

           

Energy Innovation's Michael O'Boyle and Silvio Marcacci outline the barriers to high-penetration wind and solar in the least-cost era

The following is a viewpoint from Michael O'Boyle, electricity policy manager for Energy Innovation, and Silvio Marcacci, communications director for Energy Innovation

utilitydive.com - by Michael O'Boyle, Silvio Marcacci - March 21, 2018

Wind and solar are now cheaper than virtually anyone predicted, and renewable technologies have reached an inflection point: Rapid cost declines made renewable energy the cheapest available sources of new electricity, even without subsidies, in 2017.  In many locations across America, building new wind energy projects is cheaper than running existing coal-fired power plants.

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Why the Bomb Cyclone Hitting the East Coast is So Unusual

           

Alora Freeman, 8, watches as ice builds along a downtown water fountain in Atlanta, Jan. 3, 2018.  David Goldman / AP

wired.com - by Megan Molteni - January 3, 2018

NOW, THE FIRST thing you should know about a bomb cyclone is it’s just a name—and unlike a sharknado, it’s not a literal one. The very real scientific term describes a storm that suddenly intensifies following a rapid drop in atmospheric pressure. Bombing out, or “bombogenesis,” is when a cyclone’s central pressure drops 24 millibars or more in 24 hours, bringing furious winds that can quickly create blizzard conditions and coastal flooding.

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CLICK HERE - ‘Bomb Cyclone’: Rare Snow in South as North Braces for Bitter Cold

CLICK HERE - Winter storm slams Southeast, forecast to explode as 'bomb cyclone' in Northeast

 

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Our Moral Opportunity on Climate Change

           

Floodwaters filled the streets after heavy rains in Bangladesh in July. Credit Munir Uz Zaman/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

nytimes.com - by Justin Welby - Nobember 3, 2017

. . . “As people of faith, we don’t just state our beliefs — we live them out. One belief is that we find purpose and joy in loving our neighbors. Another is that we are charged by our creator with taking good care of his creation . . .

. . . The moral crisis of climate change is an opportunity to find purpose and joy, and to respond to our creator’s charge. Reducing the causes of climate change is essential to the life of faith. It is a way to love our neighbor and to steward the gift of creation . . .

. . . People of faith have a unique call to address the causes of climate change. As we stand together in our support for the survivors of extreme weather, let us act together in ways that will safeguard our shared gift of creation — and the lives of those who will inherit it from us.” . . .

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Climate Change Isn’t Just Hurting the Planet – It’s a Public Health Emergency

           

‘Local air pollution around the world kills about 6.5 million people annually.’ Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Doctors have revealed that millions are already suffering the effects, in the spread of infectious diseases, uneven crop yields and longer allergy seasons

CLICK HERE - STUDY - The Lancet - Health and climate change - The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: from 25 years of inaction to a global transformation for public health

theguardian.com - by Christiana Figueres - October 31, 2017

A report just published in the Lancet from the specially created Lancet Countdown initiative, reveals just how bad climate change is for public health. The diagnosis reveals that hundreds of millions of people are already suffering the health impacts of climate change. Its insidious creep is being felt in multiple ways: rising temperatures are hastening the spread of infectious diseases; crop yields are becoming uneven and unpredictable, worsening the hunger and malnourishment for some of the most vulnerable people on the planet; allergy seasons are getting longer; and at times it is simply too hot for farmers to work in the fields.

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This is how your world could end

The 2014 El Portal fire burning near Yosemite National Park, California. Scientists have warned that rising global temperatures will lead to more wildfires in Yosemite and elsewhere. Photograph: Stuart Palley/EPA  theguardian.com - Peter Brannen - September 9th 2017

Image:  The 2014 El Portal fire burning near Yosemite National Park, California. Scientists have warned that rising global temperatures will lead to more wildfires in Yosemite and elsewhere. Photograph: Stuart Palley/EPA

theguardian.com - Peter Brannen - September 9th 2017

Many of us share some dim apprehension that the world is flying out of control, that the centre cannot hold. Raging wildfires, once-in-1,000-years storms and lethal heatwaves have become fixtures of the evening news – and all this after the planet has warmed by less than 1C above preindustrial temperatures. But here’s where it gets really scary.

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Wildfires Hit Greenland After Record Temperatures

           

This satellite photograph depicts the wildfire raging in Greenland, as seen from space last week. - NASA Earth Observatory

phys.org - August 14, 2017

Police in Greenland warned people to stay away from western areas of the island as wildfires scorched swathes of scrubland . . . 

 . . . Denmark's meteorological service BMI said the island registered its hottest-ever temperature of 24.8 degrees (77 Fahrenheit) on August 10.

Last year was Greenland's hottest on record.

The Danish territory has lost about 4,000 gigatons of ice since 1995, British researchers said in June, making ice melt on the huge island the biggest single contributor to rising sea levels.

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PHOTOS: A 'Massive' Wildfire Is Now Blazing In Greenland
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/08/542305822/photos-a-massive-wildfire-is-now-blazing-in-greenland

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Climate Report: Hottest Year, Highest Greenhouse Gas Marks, Record Sea Levels

CLICK HERE - American Meteorological Society - State of the Climate in 2016 - Special Supplement to the - Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society - Vol. 98, No. 8, August 2017 - (298 page .PDF report)

cnn.com - by Steve Almasy - August 10, 2017

The records highlighted in the "State of the Climate in 2016" report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sound ominous.

• Global land surface temperatures last year were highest in 137 years of record keeping.

• Sea surface temperatures were also at their highest.

• Sea levels were at record highs in the 24 years that satellite record keeping has been used.

• Greenhouse gas marks rose faster than any year and carbon dioxide readings were above a 400 parts per million average for the year for the first time.

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Britain to Ban Sale of All Diesel and Petrol Cars and Vans from 2040

Plans follow French commitment to take polluting vehicles off the road owing to effect of poor air quality on people’s health

           

Ministers believe poor air quality poses largest environmental risk to public health in UK. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

theguardian.com - Anushka Asthana and Matthew Taylor - July 25, 2017

Britain is to ban all new petrol and diesel cars and vans from 2040 amid fears that rising levels of nitrogen oxide pose a major risk to public health.

The commitment, which follows a similar pledge in France, is part of the government’s much-anticipated clean air plan, which has been at the heart of a protracted high court legal battle. 

The government warned that the move, which will also take in hybrid vehicles, was needed because of the unnecessary and avoidable impact that poor air quality was having on people’s health.

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ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE - Electric cars win? Britain to ban new petrol and diesel cars from 2040

 

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When Will Electric Cars Go Mainstream? It May Be Sooner Than You Think

           

A Volkswagen e-Golf electric car being charged in Dresden, Germany, in March. Volkswagen and Tesla each have plans to produce more than 1 million electric vehicles per year by 2025. Credit Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters

CLICK HERE - Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) - Electric Vehicle Outlook 2017

nytimes.com - by Brad Plumer - July 8, 2017

As the world’s automakers place larger bets on electric vehicle technology, many industry analysts are debating a key question: How quickly can plug-in cars become mainstream?

The conventional view holds that electric cars will remain a niche product for many years, plagued by high sticker prices and heavily dependent on government subsidies.

But a growing number of analysts now argue that this pessimism is becoming outdated. A new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a research group, suggests that the price of plug-in cars is falling much faster than expected, spurred by cheaper batteries and aggressive policies promoting zero-emission vehicles in China and Europe.

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Rising Seas to Force Billions from Home

           

weather.com - by Pam Wright - June 28, 2017

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CLICK HERE - STUDY - Impediments to inland resettlement under conditions of accelerated sea level rise

An estimated 2 billion people will be displaced from their homes by 2100 due to climate-driven rising seas, a new study says.

Roughly one-fifth of the world's population may become climate change refugees, according to Cornell University. The majority of those will be people who live on coastlines around the world, including about 2 million in Florida alone.

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ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE - Cornell University - Rising seas could result in 2 billion refugees by 2100

 

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