Category: Intersections

Meet the power plant of the future: Solar + battery hybrids are poised for explosive growth

Intersections

Joachim Seel, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Bentham Paulos, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Will Gorman, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (from The Conversation) America’s electric power system is undergoing radical change as it transitions from fossil fuels to renewable energy. While the first decade of the 2000s saw huge growth in natural gas generation, and the 2010s were the decade of wind and solar, early signs…

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Severe weather in the U.S. Midwest

Intersections

Thank you to the Iowa Environmental Mesonet (Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA). ‘Strong storms fired over and near Iowa on Tuesday evening [April 12, 2022]. The featured lapse is of GOES-16 imagery courtesy of the College of Dupage between about 4 and 11 PM. The imagery shows “long wave” radiance with brighter colors indicating colder temperatures. These cold temperatures are associated with the tops of…

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Thawing permafrost is roiling the Arctic landscape, driven by a hidden world of changes beneath the surface as the climate warms

Intersections

Mark J. Lara, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (from The Conversation) Across the Arctic, strange things are happening to the landscape. Massive lakes, several square miles in size, have disappeared in the span of a few days. Hillsides slump. Ice-rich ground collapses, leaving the landscape wavy where it once was flat, and in some locations creating vast fields of large, sunken polygons. It’s evidence that…

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Into the future with COVID: stress, depression, endemic/pandemic … will there ever be “normal” again?

Intersections

Will we ever return to the world of 2019? A time before COVID-19 dominated the education, work, mental and physical health–the very existence of billions of people. Globally, millions have died, hundreds of millions have tested positive, and those estimated numbers are surely all undercounts (Johns Hopkins University, Coronavirus Resource Center). The coronavirus is still with us and will continue to be into the future….

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Extreme weather and a changing climate

Intersections

Is there a connection between extreme weather events (torrential rain, polar cold, heatwaves, extended droughts, hail, hurricanes, tornadoes, and more) and a changing climate? Yes. Are extreme weather events happening more frequently? Yes. Are these extreme weather events having a greater impact–-deaths, economic losses, human migration, loss of plant and animal species and even extinction, worsening human physical and mental health, and more. Yes, again….

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