#Mark Z. Jacobson

[currentclimate]

Stanford engineering professor and renewable energy expert Mark Z Jacobson tweeted the other day, “Given that scientists who study 100% renewable energy systems are unanimous that it can be done why do we hear daily on twitter and everywhere else by those who don’t study such systems that it can’t be done?” A significant percentage of the general public speaks of climate change with a strange combination of confidence and defeatism: confidence in positions often based on inaccurate or outdated or maybe no information; defeatism about what we can do to make a livable future. Maybe they just get their facts from other doom evangelists, who flourish on the internet, no matter how much reputable scientists demonstrate their errors.

This is a bullshit article.

The premise is not incorrect: humanity could convert 100% to renewable energy.

The conclusion is that will save us from the horrors of climate change. This conclusion is WRONG.

It is not simply a matter of converting humanity to renewable energy sources. If the climate change fix was this easy, we would have already done it.

The problem is the carbon pollution already in the atmosphere.

The problem is the accelerating consequences of the carbon that is already in the atmosphere, and how this pollution is creating unprecedented, deadly consequences for all life on this planet.

Even if we convert entirely to renewable energy sources, we still have to pull gigatons of carbon OUT of the atmosphere to have any hope of stabilizing the earth's climate in a way that makes life fruitful on this planet.

The problem is the ongoing consequences, which will continue to rapidly get worse.

The problem is tipping points, some of which have already been passed, and these tipping points point to a climate system already broken and getting exponentially worse.

So, Rebecca Solnit, keep your sunny-sided (one-sided) optimism to yourself. It does not help. It only hurts. It only puts a false belief into people's heads, an optimism that is founded a false hope, reasoning, and an incomplete understanding of what is happening all around us, of what is happening outside everybody's front door.

Doomerism is bad if it's the truth. It it's reality. And, it is reality, right now, that humanity has totally fucked itself right into a desperate corner, and any attempt to sugar-coat these facts is ignorant, damaging, and dumb.

[energynews247]

India's Report Card Against Short List Of Climate Actions Is Better Than Most Realize

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News! For several years I’ve been iterating The Short List of Climate Actions That Will Work. The work of organizations like Mark Z. Jacobson’s Stanford team around energy and Carbon Drawdown’s around everything are excellent in different ways, but also indigestible to most people. The short list really is that.…

[christinamac1]

No Miracles Needed

The current edition of Beyond Nuclear board member, Karl Grossman’s “Enviro Close-Up” TV program features renowned energy expert, Dr. Mark Z. Jacobson, discussing his new book,  “No Miracles Needed: How Today’s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air”. It will be broadcast this coming Saturday, May 20, on Free Speech TV on nearly… “No Miracles Needed” — Beyond Nuclear

[newswireml]

We don’t need ‘miracle’ technologies to fix the climate. We have the tools now | Mark Z Jacobson#dont #miracle #technologies #fix #climate #tools #Mark #Jacobson

Nearly 7 million people die each year from air pollution. Moreover, global warming is already causing catastrophic damage. We have only seven years to eliminate 80% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions – and 12 to 27 years to eliminate the rest – to avoid 1.5C global warming since the 1850 to 1900 period. We are already 1.1C above average. The world also faces serious energy-security risks…

[qudachuk]

Wind, water and solar energy is cheap, effective and green. We don’t need experimental or risky energy sources to save our planetNearly 7 million people die each year from air pollution. Moreover, global warming is already causing catastrophic damage....

[acekatherineplumber]

End-of-year book asks!

How many books did you read this year? 500. No, that's not a typo

Did you reread anything? What? I reread a lot of things/ I reread RW&RB, The House in the Cerulean Sea, A Christmas Carol, Vinegar Girl, Written in the Stars, Romeo and Juliet, The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Giver, The Handmaid's Tale, War and Peace, Pride and Prejudice, Macbeth, The Count of Monte Christo, Les Mis, Taking Flight: From War Orpha to Star Ballerina, Hamlet, the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Windsnap books 1 and 2, Ballet Shoes, The Testamants, Annie On My Mind, The Mark of Athena, Alexander Hamilton, I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You, Fun Home, Orange is the New Black, Simon vs the Homo Sapiens, and Rhinoceros. I read Les Mis and Rhinoceros at least once a year because they're so relevant.

What were your top five books of the year? In no particular order, Sailing By Orion's Star by Katie Crabb, The Hate You Give (Angie Thomas), Macbeth (Jo Nesbo), The Language of Fire (Stephanie Hemphill), The Hacienda (Isabel Canas)

Did you discover any new authors that you love this year? Dhonielle Clayton, Jo Nesbo, Hafsah Faizal, Jess Rothenberg, Stephanie Hemphill, Julia Ember, Alice Oseman, Katie Zhao, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Isabel Canas, Sarah Penner, Samantha Cohoe, Ashley Herring-Blake, Maya Prasad, Amanda Bestor-Siegal, Grace Li, Vaishnavi Patel, Farrah Rochon, Courtney Kay, Darcy Coates, and Celeste Ng

What genre did you read the most of? Fantasy

Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to? Babel, The Ballad of Never After, Foul Lady Fortune, Bloodmarked, and The Shattered City

What was your average Goodreads rating? Does it seem accurate? 3.7. I'd say it's accurate/

Did you meet any of your reading goals? Which ones? My goal for the year was a 50 states plus DC challenge, and I managed to do it!

Did you get into any new genres? Underwater horror! Yes, that's a thing.

What was your favorite new release of the year? Sailing By Orion's Star by Katie Crabb

What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read? The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas

Any books that disappointed you? This Is Not the Real World by Anna Carey. It was unnecessary.

What were your least favorite books of the year? Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson, Hotel Magnifique by Emily Taylor, Husband Material by Alexis Hall, and Shylock is My Name by Howard Jacobson

What books do you want to finish before the year is over? I'm done reading for 2022. All current reads are going to be counted towards 2023.

Did you read any books that were nominated for or won awards this year (Booker, Women’s Prize, National Book Award, Pulitzer, Hugo, etc.)? What did you think of them? I don't keep track of that sort of thing.

What is the most over-hyped book you read this year? Her Majesty's Royal Coven

Did any books surprise you with how good they were? Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser

How many books did you buy? At least 20

Did you use your library? Every single week

What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations? Foul Lady Fortune, and idk, I haven't read it yet

Did you participate in or watch any booklr, booktube, or book twitter drama? I keep out of drama

What’s the longest book you read? Les Mis at 1,463 pages (my travel edition)

What’s the fastest time it took you to read a book? 30 minutes

Did you DNF anything? Why? Plenty. For even petty little things. There are too may good books out there to continue reading bad ones.

What reading goals do you have for next year? I'm doing an A-Z challenge!

[vita88t]

PDF 100% Clean, Renewable Energy and Storage for Everything -- Mark Z. Jacobson

Download Or Read PDF 100% Clean, Renewable Energy and Storage for Everything - Mark Z. Jacobson Free Full Pages Online With Audiobook.

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[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:

It is seen by many as the clean energy of the future. Billions of dollars from the bipartisan infrastructure bill have been teed up to fund it.

But a new peer-reviewed study on the climate effects of hydrogen, the most abundant substance in the universe, casts doubt on its role in tackling the greenhouse gas emissions that are the driver of catastrophic global warming.

The main stumbling block: Most hydrogen used today is extracted from natural gas in a process that requires a lot of energy and emits vast amounts of carbon dioxide. Producing natural gas also releases methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas.

And while the natural gas industry has proposed capturing that carbon dioxide — creating what it promotes as emissions-free, “blue” hydrogen — even that fuel still emits more across its entire supply chain than simply burning natural gas, according to the paper, published Thursday in the Energy Science & Engineering journal by researchers from Cornell and Stanford Universities.

To arrive at their conclusion, Dr. Howarth and Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford and director of its Atmosphere/Energy program, examined the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of blue hydrogen. They accounted for both carbon dioxide emissions and the methane that leaks from wells and other equipment during natural gas production.

They also took into account the natural gas required to power the carbon capture technology. In all, they found that the greenhouse gas footprint of blue hydrogen was more than 20 percent greater than burning natural gas or coal for heat.

Such findings could alter the calculus for hydrogen. Over the past few years, the natural gas industry has begun heavily promoting hydrogen as a reliable, next-generation fuel to be used to power cars, heat homes and burn in power plants.

In the United States, Europe and elsewhere, the industry has also pointed to hydrogen as justification for continuing to build gas infrastructure like pipelines, saying that pipes that carry natural gas could in the future carry a cleaner blend of natural gas and hydrogen.

While many experts agree that hydrogen could eventually play a role in energy storage or powering certain types of transportation — such as aircraft or long-haul trucks, where switching to battery-electric power may be challenging — there is an emerging consensus that a wider hydrogen economy that relies on natural gas could be damaging to the climate. (At current costs, it would also be very expensive.)

In Washington, the latest bipartisan infrastructure package devotes $8 billion to creating regional hydrogen hubs, a provision originally introduced as part of a separate bill by Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, a major natural gas producing region. Among companies that lobbied for investment in hydrogen were NextEra Energy, which has proposed a solar-powered hydrogen pilot plant in Florida.

Some other Democrats, like Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, have pushed back against the idea, calling it an “empty promise.” Environmental groups have also criticized the spending. “It’s not a climate action,” said Jim Walsh, a senior energy policy analyst at Food & Water Watch, a Washington-based nonprofit group. “It’s this is a fossil fuel subsidy with Congress acting like they’re doing something on climate, while propping up the next chapter of the fossil fuel industry.”

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Study casts doubt on carbon capture

One proposed method for reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere -- and reducing the risk of climate change -- is to capture carbon from the air or prevent it from getting there in the first place. However, research from Mark Z. Jacobson at Stanford University, published in Energy and Environmental Science, suggests that carbon capture technologies can cause more harm than good.

"All sorts of scenarios have been developed under the assumption that carbon capture actually reduces substantial amounts of carbon. However, this research finds that it reduces only a small fraction of carbon emissions, and it usually increases air pollution," said Jacobson, who is a professor of civil and environmental engineering. "Even if you have 100 percent capture from the capture equipment, it is still worse, from a social cost perspective, than replacing a coal or gas plant with a wind farm because carbon capture never reduces air pollution and always has a capture equipment cost. Wind replacing fossil fuels always reduces air pollution and never has a capture equipment cost."

Jacobson, who is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, examined public data from a coal with carbon capture electric power plant and a plant that removes carbon from the air directly. In both cases, electricity to run the carbon capture came from natural gas. He calculated the net CO2 reduction and total cost of the carbon capture process in each case, accounting for the electricity needed to run the carbon capture equipment, the combustion and upstream emissions resulting from that electricity, and, in the case of the coal plant, its upstream emissions. (Upstream emissions are emissions, including from leaks and combustion, from mining and transporting a fuel such as coal or natural gas.)

Read more.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

AAS NOVA A Fast, Blue “Koala” Shines Bright in a Distant Galaxy By Astrobites Furry Animals and Relativistic Transients Astrophysicists love clever titles, and in transient astronomy, we can get some fun ones! Transient sky surveys discover thousands of new explosions every year, with each one receiving a name based on when it was discovered. For example, in 2018, a peculiar transient called Astronomical Transient (AT) 2018cow was discovered and aptly deemed “the Cow” after the last letters of its International Astronomical Union (IAU) name. Coincidently, the Cow happened to be so unique that it received worldwide acclaim as one of the most exciting discoveries of 2018! Following its discovery, the Cow became the prototypical transient in a new class of explosions called Fast Blue Optical Transients (FBOTs), whose name is reflective of their unique observational signatures. After detection, FBOTs rise to peak brightness in only a few days (i.e. fast!) and have extremely hot temperatures, which makes them appear bluer in color than typical supernova explosions. However, astrophysicists are still puzzled at how objects like the Cow are formed: a black hole shreds a white dwarf? Or maybe a massive star implodes to form an accreting black hole or magnetar? Either way, FBOTs present a fresh mystery that can only be solved by finding and studying similar events! Innocuous Bear or Violent Explosion? The authors of today’s paper present the discovery of a fuzzy new FBOT, ZTF18abvkwla, which was nicknamed the “Koala” after the last four letters of its official transient name. Furry animals keep making their way into astrophysics! Unlike Earth-based koalas, this transient creature is anything but docile: observations spanning the electromagnetic spectrum revealed that the Koala was a luminous event whose turbulent explosion resulted in high temperatures and rapid ejection of stellar material. The Koala was first observed by the Zwicky Transient Factory and is located in a distant dwarf galaxy with a high star formation rate of 7 solar masses per year. The large number of new stars in the Koala’s host galaxy may indicate that this FBOT came from the explosion of a young massive star rather than from an older star system containing a white dwarf. As shown in the centre image, the authors demonstrate that the Koala’s luminosity evolution (i.e., light curve) is very similar to the Cow’s: rising to peak brightness in only a few days, very blue colors and a rapid decline in magnitude. Consequently, studying how FBOT light curves evolve in time is a powerful tool in uncovering the origin of these mysterious explosions. For instance, FBOTs rise and fade too quickly (day timescales) to be powered by radioactive decay of heavy elements, which is the mechanism invoked for most supernovae and occurs on about week timescales. To produce both a luminous and rapidly evolving light curve like the Koala’s, the author’s discuss the possibility that the explosion was powered by the collision of outflowing material with gas in the local environment. However, this gas must also be quite opaque to radiation since the spectrum (lower image) does not show hydrogen or helium emission lines that typically occur from an explosion interacting with material surrounding the progenitor star. Contrary to the comfortable climates of Australia’s native bear, the Koala’s spectrum revealed that it was an incredibly hot explosion that reached temperatures > 40,000 Kelvin! The final piece of the puzzle discussed in today’s paper is the detection of luminous radio emission coming from the Koala. Shown in the bottom image, the Koala has one of the highest radio luminosities of any FBOT-like event (black stars), which is an important clue in deciphering the mechanisms behind the explosion. Similar to the Cow, the authors conclude that the Koala’s observed radio emission arose from an outflow of material moving at almost half the speed of light. That’s 100 million times faster than a koala running on Earth! This turbulent ejection of material in the Koala may be linked to the formation of a central engine like a black hole or rapidly rotating neutron star. Such a compact object could accrete material from an exploded star and violently expel semi-relativistic gas that would be visible as radio emission. While not your average woodland critter, the Koala has exposed how little we know about where FBOTs come from and the physics behind their energetic explosions. Unfortunately, understanding their complex origins will be difficult, as the authors conclude that the revised rate of FBOT discovery is almost 3 orders of magnitude less than that of typical supernovae. Nonetheless, new advancements in sky surveys will increase the number of new FBOTs and, with any luck, they will have more animal-themed names! TOP IMAGE....Researchers have found a Koala in a distant galaxy. No, not that kind... [Transient: ESO/M. Kornmesser; Koala: David Iliff (license: CC BY-SA 3.0)] CENTRE IMAGE....Optical light curve of the Koala (points) and prototypical FBOT, the “Cow” (lines). The remarkable evolution of the Koala shows that it rose and fell in luminosity in only 5 days, but it had an energy output similar to a normal supernova explosion! [Ho et al. 2020] LOWER IMAGE....Optical spectrum of the Koala with host galaxy emission lines marked in black. The spectrum indicates that the Koala had a temperature >40,000 Kelvin. [Ho et al. 2020] BOTTOM IMAGE....Radio luminosities of different transients: FBOTs (black), gamma ray bursts (orange), relativistic/normal supernovae (red/blue) and tidal disruption events (purple). Another study on new FBOT CSS161010 was published soon after today’s paper. The Koala’s high radio luminosity suggests an accelerated outflow of material from a central compact object. [Ho et al. 2020] Title: The Koala: A Fast Blue Optical Transient with Luminous Radio Emission from a Starburst Dwarf Galaxy at z = 0.27 Authors: Anna Y. Q. Ho et al. First Author’s Institution: California Institute of Technology Status: Accepted to ApJ Furry Animals and Relativistic Transients Editor’s note: Astrobites is a graduate-student-run organization that digests astrophysical literature for undergraduate students. As part of the partnership between the AAS and astrobites, we occasionally repost astrobites content here at AAS Nova. We hope you enjoy this post from astrobites; the original can be viewed at astrobites.org. About the author, Wynn Jacobson-Galan: Hi there! My name is Wynn (he, him, his) and I am an NSF Graduate Research Fellow at Northwestern University where I work with Prof. Raffaella Marguti on supernova progenitor systems and transient astronomy. I am fascinated by the final moments of stellar evolution before a star dies and becomes the violent supernova explosions we observe across the universe everyday. Consequently, as a researcher, I am both a stellar physician and a mortician: I use observational astronomy to wind back the cosmic clock in order to understand how certain stars were “living” right before their explosive “death.” Outside of research, I enjoy reading (specifically 20th century literature) and skateboarding. Also, if

[christinamac1]

NextEra Energy finds that small nuclear reactors (SMRs) really are the biggest boondoggle of all

NextEra Energy finds that small nuclear reactors (SMRs) really are the biggest boondoggle of all

 There were a couple of interesting developments in June in regards to electric power. One was that NextEra Energy issued its Investor Conference Report 2022 to its stockholders. Another was a paper from Stanford University, “Low-cost solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy insecurity for 145 countries,” (LCS study) by Mark Z. Jacobson, et al. Looking into them is rather…

[skippyv20]

Thank you😁❤️❤️❤️❤️

Ancient Roman air pollution cooled Europe’s climate

The people of the Ancient Roman Empire lit so many fires that it caused a level of air pollution that slightly cooled the climate in Europe, scientists say. This recent finding supports evidence that human societies have been affecting Earth’s climate for thousands of years.

Researchers have estimated the amount of air pollution, including soot and organic carbon particles, that would have been produced by Ancient Roman citizens. From this they concluded that the dominant cooling effect of air pollution would have lowered the European climate of the time by 0.3°F.

Anina Gilgen of ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and her colleagues estimated the impact of the air pollution produced by the Romans on the climate of Europe. “We looked for the first time at whether anthropogenic aerosol impacts had an impact on climate a long time ago,” Gilgen told the New Scientist.

Nero fiddling while Rome burns

Researchers used existing research and statistics on how much land the Romans used for farms, homes, and other purposes to estimate the amount of air pollution that would have created and then factored this into a model of European climate at the time.

Interestingly, an exceptionally warm climate during the same period likely countered the cooling effect. The Roman Warm Period, which lasted from around 250 B.C. to 400 A.D., was a very hot time. Previous studies have shown that this was a natural phenomenon.

The Great Fire of Rome burned for 6 days in 64 AD

Nonetheless, the team believes that human activities such as burning crop residue or using wood to heat homes would have potentially altered the climate in different ways.

Scientists have been studying the effect of past human activity on the planet, estimating if major pollution-caused changes were first seen during the Industrial Revolution. Célia Sapart of Utrecht University led a team of fifteen scientists examining a 1,600-foot-long ice core taken from the Greenland ice sheet. They wanted to know whether methane levels increased during warmer periods because of increased bacteria in wetlands.  However, they did not find a straightforward relationship. “The changes we observed must have been coming from something else,” Sapart says.

The Roman Empire at its height under Emperor Trajan

Air pollution undeniably goes back quite a way. Smithsonian said, “First it was wood fires in ancient homes, the effects of which have been found in the blackened lungs of mummified tissue from Egypt, Peru, and Great Britain. And the Romans earn the dubious credit of being perhaps the first to spew metallic pollutants into the air, long before the Industrial Revolution.”

“We saw the harmful effects of air pollution even in Roman times,” said Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, author of the textbook Air Pollution and Global Warming: History, Science, and Solutions.

Ancient Romans referred to their city’s smoke cloud as gravioris caeli (“heavy heaven”) and infamis aer (“infamous air”), much like the smog to be found in some large modern cities. Several complaints about its effects can be found in the written record, said Smithsonian. “No sooner had I left behind the oppressive atmosphere of the city [Rome] and that reek of smoking cookers which pour out, along with clouds of ashes, all the poisonous fumes they’ve accumulated in their interiors whenever they’re started up, than I noticed the change in my condition,” wrote the philosopher and statesman Seneca in 61 A.D.

In 535 A.D.,  Emperor Justinian proclaimed the importance of clean air as a birthright. “By the law of nature these things are common to mankind—the air, running water, the sea,” he wrote.

[overthedoors]

Ricette anti-Co2: acqua, vento e sole non bastano

Ricette anti-Co2: acqua, vento e sole non bastano

Uno studio spiega come si potrebbe arrivare nel 2050 a un sistema energetico mondiale basato solo su acqua, vento e sole. È uno scenario estremo, forse tecnicamente irrealizzabile. Soprattutto, non considera gli enormi costi di una simile soluzione. Solo vento, acqua e sole Mentre l’Italia lottava strenuamente contro il caldo agostano, la rivista Joule pubblicava un lavoro dal titolo “100% Clean…

[eideard]

139 countries could be 100% powered by wind, water, and solar energy by 2050

139 countries could be 100% powered by wind, water, and solar energy by 2050

❝ The latest roadmap to a 100% renewable energy future from Stanford’s Mark Z. Jacobson and 26 colleagues is the most specific global vision yet, outlining infrastructure changes that 139 countries can make to be entirely powered by wind, water, and sunlight by 2050 after electrification of all energy sectors. Such a transition could mean less worldwide energy consumption due to the efficiency of…