31 March 2017, Climate Central, ‘Critical’ NASA Climate Missions Targeted in Budget Cuts. In his most recent weekly address, President Trump praised NASA’s “mission of exploration and discovery” and its ability to allow mankind to “look to the heavens with wonder and curiosity.” But left out of his statements was the work NASA does to peer back at our home planet and unravel its many remaining mysteries — a mission targeted for cuts in his administration’s budget outline released earlier this month. In a budget otherwise scant on specifics, four climate-related NASA satellite missions were proposed for termination, including one already in orbit. Those missions are aimed not only at helping scientists learn more about key parts of the climate system and how global warming is changing them, but also at practical matters such as monitoring the health of the nation’s coastal waters and providing earlier warnings of drought stress in crops. The proposed cancellations mesh with statements made by Trump, administration officials and some members of Congress who have argued that NASA should be focused on outer space and leave the job of observing Earth to other agencies. But NASA’s unparalleled experience and expertise in developing new observational technologies and launching satellites makes it a crucial part of the Earth science enterprise, many experts say. Read More here
Monthly Archives: March 2017
29 March 2017, The Conversation, Hazelwood closure: what it means for electricity prices and blackouts. Victoria’s Hazelwood power station will be shut down this week after nearly 50 years of supplying electricity. The imminent closure has led to concerns about blackouts, raised most recently by Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, and rising electricity prices. So what does the evidence suggest? Blackouts ahead? Last week The Age reported that Victoria is facing “72 days of possible power supply shortfalls over the next two years”. While that sounds bad, it does not mean the state is facing imminent blackouts. This was based on a report from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), which is in charge of making sure that Australia’s energy markets work. Every week, AEMO produces something called the Medium Term Projected Assessment of System Adequacy. This report assesses the expected supply and demand of electricity for the next two years. In a recent report, AEMO did indeed forecast a “reserve shortfall” for 72 days in Victoria in the coming two years. AEMO has actually been forecasting many days of reserve shortfall, since early November last year when Engie announced the closure of Hazelwood. AEMO has also been forecasting an even greater number of days of reserve shortfalls in South Australia for well over a year. The shortfall forecast is based on a combination of factors. This includes the amount of local energy supply, the import and export of electricity from other states, the maximum daily demand for electricity, and the “reserve requirement”. The reserve requirement is essentially “spare” capacity that can be used to maintain a reliable supply if something goes wrong. If there is not enough supply to meet this requirement, there is a reserve shortfall. Forecasting maximum demand is incredibly challenging and uncertain. AEMO does it by using probabilities. This gives us a measure of the probability of a particular demand forecast being exceeded in a year. For example, a 10% chance would be expected to be exceeded one year in ten. A 50% chance would be expected to be exceeded one year in two. To illustrate the point, AEMO forecast that demand over the past summer in Victoria had a 10% chance of exceeding 9,900 megawatts. In reality, the maximum demand was only 8,747MW. That’s not to say the forecast was wrong, but rather that it was not an exceptional (one year in ten) summer. Read More here
29 March 2017, Renew Economy, How AEMO’s new boss will reform Australia’s energy vision. Audrey Zibelman, the new chief executive of the Australian Energy Market Operator, has been in the job for little over a week, but is already making her mark, signalling the biggest shift in energy management philosophy in a generation. If Australia’s fossil fuel industry had hoped that last September’s state-wide blackout would lead to a u-turn on the shift to cleaner and decentralised energy system, then the release of the Australian Energy Market Operator’s final report in the event would leave them bitterly disappointed. And if they had any thoughts that the new CEO of AEMO, Audrey Zibelman, was going to afford them the indulgences that they had gotten used to over the last few decades, then they are going to be disappointed on that too. Several hundred energy market participants converged on Adelaide’s Hilton Hotel on Wednesday to hear the findings from the final report into the now notorious system black and, more crucially, to hear the first public insights from the new AEMO boss. “Thank god you’re here,” said the Grattan Institute’s Tony Wood, referring to a former TV program, but echoing the mood of most. And while many in mainstream media chose to focus on the role of wind farms in South Australia’s “system black,” and wonder why the shuttered Northern coal fired station is not being fired up again, both AEMO and its new boss were looking to the future, and with a sense of urgency. Zibelman is the former head of New York’s Public Service Commission, charged with implementing that state’s ambitious Reforming the Energy Vision program, and its target of 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030, which is going to focus a lot on decentralised generation. “When I arrived on the scene in New York, it was just after Hurricane Sandy,” she said in her opening comments on Wednesday. “After seeing New York city witout electricity for a number of days and people living in 40-storey buildings walking down to get water and cell phones charged – these were not young people, these were grandmas and granddads – it was clear that this industry was going to have to fundamentally change.” And Australia, she says, is actually going to lead the world on this, both on the breadth and the scale of what she, chief scientist Alan Finkel and many others describes as the inevitable and unstoppable energy transition. “We built systems in the 20th century around large centralised power plants,” Zibelman said. “That made a lot of sense. Now the industry is changing, cutomer preferences are changing, choices are changing, so we are creating what lot of people are calling the internet of things. “The idea is that you need to create a very flexible network that can respond in real time, and truly real time, to a lot of different events and a lot different sequences. “That is going to need a whole different approach … and my excitement about Australia is that, quite frankly, Australian is going to be leading the world on this.” Read More here
28 March 2017, Climate Central, Trump Moves to Dismantle U.S. Climate Rules. President Trump signed a sweeping executive order Tuesday rescinding numerous federal climate policies and calling for the review and replacement of the Obama administration’s most ambitious effort to control climate pollution — the Clean Power Plan. The order is Trump’s most aggressive move yet to dismantle federal climate regulations even as established climate science shows that man-made global warming is a growing threat to human life and the economy. In all, Trump’s executive order targets at least 23 federal rules, regulations, executive orders, memorandums and reports related to energy and climate change, many of which are likely to be tied up in years of legal wrangling before being decided. The total number is likely much higher because the order directs federal agencies to tally up all their rules and regulations that can be interpreted to “constrain” energy production and prepare them to be rescinded if they’re deemed to be a “burden” on energy production and use. Legal experts and climate scientists say the move abdicates U.S. leadership on climate change and incentivizes nearly unfettered fossil fuels development across the country. Those steps could diminish the chances that countries can prevent the world from warming to levels that scientists consider dangerous — 2°C (3.6°F). ….The details of Tuesday’s executive order show the breadth of the Trump administration’s desire to dispense with existing U.S. climate and energy policy. Read More here