Our future depends on peace, justice, and care of our common home
The founder of Earth Day, John McConell, dreamed of a peaceful global future. “Survival of life on our planet is in serious jeopardy. By its actions, humanity has condemned life to extinction. There is an urgent need to understand the causes of this mindless decision.
“The causes are addiction to war, ignorance, selfishness, and rationalization. Throughout history, nations have fought one another over their differences. We lack good information about ourselves, about individuals, groups, and nations that appear to threaten us, and about choices in spending and lifestyle that will destroy vital natural resources and processes. We are beset by our own shortsighted self-interest, lust, greed, and ambition. There is no limit to the good arguments that people make for a bad cause,” McConell wrote in his 2011 book Earth Day – when he was 96 years old. His words describe our current crisis.
Last week the U.S. blocked a U.N. resolution for Global Peace during the pandemic. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made new threats to China with unsupported claims of spreading Covid-19. Trump threatened new tariffs unless China imports $50 billion of U.S. crude oil by the end of next year, creating additional carbon emissions from frackers drilling approximately 5 billion additional barrels of crude oil.
The climate emergency escalates every day regardless of the pandemic. Air quality has improved in large cities with reduced carbon emissions from combustion engines, but the intense use of internet resources, lights, and A/C have increased carbon emissions from burning oil and natural gas at power stations.
Carbon emissions are the byproduct of human activity unless the energy is generated onsite with solar and wind energy. Wars, injustice, and destruction of nature are ignorant, self-serving, abuses of power.
Trump wants to be our president and nothing else matters. Opening the “economy” with minorities at high risk justifies his ambition. Blaming China and defunding the World Health Organization is irresponsible.
Last week, “Bulk carbon emissions” portrayed the grid as an ominous liability, owned by ratepayers and managed by utilities. Attempts to add “smart meters” and make the “grid smarter” are silly, like mounting high-speed performance tires for a 1910 Ford Model T.
In the 1900s the grid was a fair-weather solution driven by bulk thermal power stations without power storage. The electrons you are using as you read were generated somewhere a few seconds ago. To balance the grid and have all the generators synchronized at 60 cycles per second, stand-by generators, transmission lines at 50 percent capacity, and a massive layer of communication and control systems are required.
Generators, power transformers, and power lines “trip” all the time, becoming “lost” to the grid. Tree branches, squirrels, and aging wood poles are the main causes of outages. Transmission lines are added with made-up forecasts of increasing demand by Regional Transmission Operators to benefit utilities building transmission lines.
Grid resiliency and security
Cyberattacks and other physical vulnerabilities are security threats. Grid security is an issue of software design and asset management unrelated to the large transformers made in China.
Resilient energy solutions provide constant, quality operation under severe weather. The opposite of brownouts, power surges, and blackouts. Ironically, the carbon emissions ignored as fossil fuel emission “externalities” polluting communities near bulk power plants, make the giant grid obsolete.
Decentralized energy systems
New low-cost, emissions-free, silent, solid-state, storage devices based on electrochemical energy and molten metal are changing the game. One 10 megawatt-hour grid-level battery stores enough energy to meet the needs of 1,000 households. Community solar and wind-powered microgrids built around stationary batteries are resilient, carbon-free energy solutions.
Peace and a carbon-free economy
Transitioning our linear, carbon-based economy into a circular, renewable energy-based economy is the single biggest challenge of our time. The energy sector plays a crucial role in tackling this challenge.
Every day is Mother’s Day, Gaia, our Mother. See ArkansasPeaceWeek.com, a time for community action and justice.
Dr. Luis Contreras
How to make the grid resilient to squirrels and extreme weather
This is Larry. He’s a squirrel. He likes nuts.
In 2019, he went into an electric box in Kettering, Ohio.
Is this a nut? It was not a nut.
He broke the electric box.
And caused a blackout for 20,000 people.
Larry isn’t alone. Squirrels do this all the time.
Here’s a map of their exploits, just last year.
But here’s the thing: Blackouts happen all the time, for all kinds of reasons.
Like wildfires.
Or storms.
And in the last half-century, there have been more and more power outages because of weather.
And it’ll only get worse because of our changing climate.
https://youtu.be/5igJv_otlKE
Trump’s $200 billion trade deal with China already at risk due to coronavirus
May 12, 2020 — Exports to China will likely only total $57 billion this year.
China’s commitment to purchase $200 billion in U.S. exports by the end of 2021 has been badly sidelined by the dual supply-and-demand shock delivered by the coronavirus.
U.S. exports to China of manufacturing, agriculture, energy and services will only total a combined $57 billion this year, a fraction of what was stipulated in the phase one agreement both countries signed in January, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“In light of what is going on right now, I think it’s important to recognize the impact that the crisis has had on the ability to meet those commitments,” said Dean Pinkert, senior counsel at the law firm of Hughes Hubbard & Reed and a former commissioner with the International Trade Commission.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/200-billion-trade-deal-china-already-risk-due-coronavirus-n1204326
May 11, 2020 — Global trade faces a major fallout as tensions between the US and China continue to rise.
Back in January, the world’s largest economies reached a truce after two years of tariffs and trade restrictions suppressing global growth. But global trade tensions threaten the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the coronavirus broke out in Wuhan, China, US President Donald Trump has continually repeated speculation that the deadly virus originated in a laboratory.
Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, also claimed China “has a history of infecting the world”.
https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/1280800/us-china-trade-war-global-trade-fallout-us-economy-china-coronavirus
April 2020 – Investing $billions in grid resilience
Resilience investments are urgently needed, according to DOE research published in the April edition of Nature.
“In some modeled scenarios, climate change-related extreme weather created a gap of as much as 34% between supply and demand, and as climate change worsens, the extreme scenarios are more likely, DOE reported.”
The data used in a January 2020 assessment by Moody’s of climate risks for 49 regulated U.S. investor-owned utilities (IOUs) also showed “87% of U.S. utilities are exposed to heat stress and 22% are exposed to floods,” and those impacts “are likely to worsen over the next 10 to 20 years.”
Climate change “increases financial, as well as physical, risk” for IOUs, Moody’s concluded. And consequences of climate-related events “will affect every aspect of an electrical power system, from generation, transmission and distribution to end-user demand.”
The “sharp increases or declines in energy demand” could compromise utility earnings and create “cash flow volatility” that threatens financial stability, Moody’s added.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/as-extreme-weather-spurs-billions-in-utility-resilience-spending-regulator/576404/
Arkansas Peace Week 2020 – – Make Peace our Natural State
During the third week of September, in observance of the United Nations International Day of Peace, Arkansas Peace Week includes numerous events hosted by dozens of organizations throughout the state.
These events feature education, service, dialogue and outreach activities promoting our mission.
We invite all like-minded groups and organizations to plan an event during Arkansas Peace Week.
Please visit our website http://www.arkansaspeaceweek.com or http://www.facebook.com/groups/ArPeaceWeek/