Potential for renewables is big in Texas

While many are worried about the intermittency of solar and wind power, this article (based on this research) contends that it's actually better at coping with shutdowns. The researchers note that mid range batteries, built to provide energy for lots of folks for just a few hours, are pretty good at coping with short term outages. And long-term outages are best avoided by having lots of sources around, and importing energy where possible. I do notice that there is some geothermal or hydroelectric in the background, though.

Of course the potential for renewables to improve human health and clean up the environment are huge. Seven million people die a year because of air pollution, and many asthma cases are tied to that as well. 

One curiosity: "Transitioning to all clean, renewable energy could also decrease energy demand in California by 60 percent." Apparently a lot of energy actually goes into producing more energy, and once we get through the transition to renewables (which will not be easy) overall demand should drop. Interesting...

US is (in some sense) energy independent

Wow, I didn't see this one coming. As of 2020, the USA is exporting more petroleum products than it imports. From Axios using the EIA's information.

I have to say, I do wish that translated to a decreased reliance on countries that are less than stellar global citizens (i.e. Saudi Arabia & Russia) but in today's news (Feb. 17th) it seems like we aren't really there yet. Surely what's imported and what's exported are not the same products, so the figure is somewhat misleading, but it still shows a promising trend. Maybe someday we won't be quite as reliant on those countries!

It's not you

 Today, in "it's not you," courtesy of NPR:

What's so special about this ice?

Beijing organizers switched from using ammonia to carbon dioxide refrigerants for the new venue's surface. The change is the same as planting upwards of 1.2 million trees, according to organizers.

Nordhagen on Bittman (and MLK)

 Nice Twitter thread on the book, "Animal, Vegetable, Junk" by Bittman. She writes that food workers are quite underpaid, to the benefit of folks higher up the "food chain" as it were. Gratuitous picture:

• 8 of the 10 worst-paying jobs in the US involve food. Of 20 million food system jobs, almost all earn near-poverty-line wages.
• Over 1/3 of US farmworkers earn less than the official poverty wage (20K USD / yr / family).
• Food workers use food stamps at > 1.5 times the rate of the rest of the US workforce

Addressing these issues require the market price of food to be much closer to the true cost of food, including a fair price for the labor that brings it to farm to fork (and beyond) -- while ensuring low-income households can still afford nutritious foods.

Update: yes, I'm back on Twitter, but check this out: Martin Luther King Junior on government spending on agricultural workers.

Food for thought

Not gonna lie, I wrote off vegans for a long time. I am not a big beef eater (motivated in part by graphs like this, showing the massive impacts of cattle on climate change) but when looking for protein I've mostly eaten fish, dairy, and eggs. However, graphics like this show just how large the impact of even dairy and eggs are. 

From the Economist

Future of Oil & Gas

Interesting opinion piece in the NYT by a couple of professors of policy and international affairs. They ask, "Assuming that renewable energy sources continue to make inroads, what does that mean for countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia who produce a lot of fossil fuels?" What it does NOT mean is that they will fade away: their products will be in demand for awhile, though of course the overall demand for them will drop. The authors conclude

1) Price volatility will continue: demand will rise and fall, and that will create winners and losers. Unfortunately Russia and Saudi Arabia can produce fossil fuels really cheaply, so through the ups and downs they are likely to continue to run the show. 

2) As pressure rises on Western companies such as BP and Shell, and those companies begin scaling back their use (and invest more into renewables) that will clear the way for Russia & the Saudis to have even more influence over the market. 

3) At least some amount of fossil fuels will be continue to be relied on for the foreseeable future, and those countries will be the providers. 

"OPEC and its partners will make up a growing share of a shrinking pie, giving them outsize influence until demand falls to much lower levels. The same is likely to be true for the share of Europe’s natural gas that comes from Russia, which is the lowest-cost supplier to the continent."

Followup, 2/2/22, from the boss himself: "'We have an OPEC+ agreement, and I have to honor my colleagues and my friends,' Saudi oil minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told S&P Global Platts in January at a conference in Dubai."

Dairy wasteland

An interesting conundrum: in this Tweet, this Professor takes issues with a giant Chinese project that turns desert into a giant dairy yard. While advocates (linked in the tweet) talk about all of the positive environmental consequences, Prof. Hayek concludes the reverse, that it will have a huge and overwhelmingly negative impact on the environment.

While the particulars are different, California is more or less the same thing: they irrigated some tremendously fertile soil... that happens to be in a desert... and now it's really productive land. The California central valley averages 5-20 inches of rainfall a year in different parts, but uses that water (heavily supplemented by pumping out aquifers) to produce $17 billion worth of over 250 crops. 

As a fairly random aside, a large share of the world's supply of almonds is among these crops. Estimates for 2021 show that California was on track to produce over 3 billion pounds, On the other hand, the rest of the world's entire production capacity was about a tenth of that. See FAO and OWID for bits of data.