[Randito]

[Parked Out]

[drm]

[Parked Out]

Good read from The Atlantic on expert predictions. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/06/how-to-predict-the-future/588040/

[MtnGoat]

[CC]

[Randito]

[MtnGoat]

[MtnGoat]

You could

[Randito]

[MtnGoat]

Yes, I claim that if you actually asked me, instead of so cleverly alluding to me but intentionally addressing some virtual audience instead, you'd already have gotten an answer. But the performative aspect of posting, was more important than the actual question. When people speaking in good faith want an answer, they don't need to employ such games. What do I mean by slash standard of living? Paying more for the exact same electrons than we otherwise would without boutique power sources which require standard backup anyway. Paying more for transportation of all kinds. Raising prices on everything whose production, transportation, or use, requires energy. Getting less at higher cost will slash standards of living.

[Randito]

[drm]

An article in Scientific American called Rough Weather Ahead, by Jennifer Francis, senior Scientist at Woods Hole, describes how recent research is connecting extreme weather events to climate change. I have not been able to find a link to it online. Their three "in brief" points:

• Scientists can now show that specific extreme weather events are made worse by climate change, not just natural variability
• Global climate change factors include more heat in the world's oceans and more heat and vapor in the atmosphere
• Regional factors include an expanding tropical zone, a "cold blob" in the Atlantic Ocean and a disrupted polar vortex ; all can interact with natural variability

The article describes how climate change interacts with natural variability to make weather events more extreme in some cases. I have seen other similar articles. Not all extreme events are exacerbated by climate change, but there is disagreement on the edges as to where that boundary is. Blocking highs in particular are causing extreme weather to stagnate in place, leading to more extreme rain events. We have seen this frequently both with hurricanes that just sit on the coast for days, as well as other kinds of rain events that get stuck in one place.

[Parked Out]

Excellent new video by the youtuber Real Engineering that explains why actually relying on intermittent energy (as opposed to merely adding it, while still relying on traditional sources to meet demand) is projected to be so incredibly expensive. The video looks at the hypothetical example of replacing the Moss Landing natural gas plant in Monterey Bay, CA with solar power & battery storage.

More or less the same story with simplified back-of-the-envelope calculations, from Roger Andrews on the Energy Matters blog: http://euanmearns.com/the-cost-of-wind-solar-power-batteries-included/ Same story again, this time from the MIT Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611683/the-25-trillion-reason-we-cant-rely-on-batteries-to-clean-up-the-grid/

[Doppelganger]