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NickB79
NickB79's Journal
NickB79's Journal
March 25, 2024
Looks like ISIS really was the perpetrator.
ISIS releases bodycam footage of Moscow terrorist attack
Source: Yahoo
The Islamic State on March 23 released footage of the March 22 Crocus City Hall terrorist attack in a Moscow suburb.
The video was released through the Amaq News Agency, which is affiliated with the terrorist group.
Several gunmen opened fire at the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, a Moscow suburb, on the evening of March 22, killing at least 137 people and injuring at least 140, according to the latest updates by the Russian authorities.
Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/isis-releases-bodycam-footage-moscow-162732464.html
Looks like ISIS really was the perpetrator.
March 22, 2024
Snip
God. Damn.
Why is US energy demand soaring - putting climate goals at risk?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/21/why-is-us-energy-demand-soaring-climate-crisisDemand for power is soaring, creating a new energy crisis for the United States – one that could make the climate crisis even worse.
After more than 30 years of falling or flat demand for electricity, forecasts say the nation will need the equivalent of about 34 new nuclear plants, or 38 gigawatts, over the next five years to power data centers and manufacturing and electrify buildings and vehicles, according to filings made to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and compiled by Grid Strategies.
Since those filings, several utilities have said they will need even more power.
After more than 30 years of falling or flat demand for electricity, forecasts say the nation will need the equivalent of about 34 new nuclear plants, or 38 gigawatts, over the next five years to power data centers and manufacturing and electrify buildings and vehicles, according to filings made to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and compiled by Grid Strategies.
Since those filings, several utilities have said they will need even more power.
Snip
Data mining is driving demand in Texas, where bitcoin and other crypto miners have requested the equivalent of roughly 41 new nuclear power plants to power their energy-intensive computer processes to generate the cryptocurrency.
God. Damn.
March 20, 2024
Well, so much for that idea 🤬
Lab-Grown Meat's Carbon Footprint Potentially Worse Than Retail Beef
https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/lab-grown-meat-carbon-footprint-worse-beef?fbclid=IwAR0sP2J9f1ncAOMxzvi6umcLYyOiEuG1y0fTnMYpbD1_0kmLab-grown meat, which is cultured from animal cells, is often thought to be more environmentally friendly than beef because it’s predicted to need less land, water and greenhouse gases than raising cattle. But in a preprint, not yet peer-reviewed, researchers at the University of California, Davis, have found that lab-grown or “cultivated” meat’s environmental impact is likely to be “orders of magnitude” higher than retail beef based on current and near-term production methods.
Researchers conducted a life-cycle assessment of the energy needed and greenhouse gases emitted in all stages of production and compared that with beef. One of the current challenges with lab-grown meat is the use of highly refined or purified growth media, the ingredients needed to help animal cells multiply. Currently, this method is similar to the biotechnology used to make pharmaceuticals. This sets up a critical question for cultured meat production: Is it a pharmaceutical product or a food product?
Researchers conducted a life-cycle assessment of the energy needed and greenhouse gases emitted in all stages of production and compared that with beef. One of the current challenges with lab-grown meat is the use of highly refined or purified growth media, the ingredients needed to help animal cells multiply. Currently, this method is similar to the biotechnology used to make pharmaceuticals. This sets up a critical question for cultured meat production: Is it a pharmaceutical product or a food product?
Well, so much for that idea 🤬
March 16, 2024
They've eaten their way through the ash trees around the Twin Cities already.
It also doesn't help that we didn't have a winter this year. Instead of -30F nights, it barely went below 0F. And most of Minnesota is in drought because we didn't get any snow, further stressing the trees.
A ravenous beetle now threatens Minnesota's North Woods
https://m.startribune.com/a-ravenous-beetle-now-threatens-minnesotas-north-woods/600351514/?clmob=y&c=n&clmob=y&c=nREMER, MINN. - Along a lonely stretch of road inside the Chippewa National Forest, a stand of black ash trees is under attack.
Discovered last fall, it signals the farthest and coldest known place a hungry forest menace has come in northern Minnesota. For now the infestation is helping University of Minnesota researchers study the emerald ash borer's ability to adapt to cold — and whether milder winters will hasten its spread into the vast acreage of ash trees so prevalent in the north.
Discovered last fall, it signals the farthest and coldest known place a hungry forest menace has come in northern Minnesota. For now the infestation is helping University of Minnesota researchers study the emerald ash borer's ability to adapt to cold — and whether milder winters will hasten its spread into the vast acreage of ash trees so prevalent in the north.
They've eaten their way through the ash trees around the Twin Cities already.
It also doesn't help that we didn't have a winter this year. Instead of -30F nights, it barely went below 0F. And most of Minnesota is in drought because we didn't get any snow, further stressing the trees.
March 11, 2024
Unintended consequences indeed.
Solar-Powered Farming Is Quickly Depleting the World's Groundwater Supply
https://www.wired.com/story/solar-energy-farming-depleting-worlds-groundwater-india/There is a solar-powered revolution going on in the fields of India. By 2026, more than 3 million farmers will be raising irrigation water from beneath their fields using solar-powered pumps. With effectively free water available in almost unlimited quantities to grow their crops, their lives could be transformed. Until the water runs out.
The desert state of Rajasthan is the Indian pioneer and has more solar pumps than any other. Over the past decade, the government has given subsidized solar pumps to almost 100,000 farmers. Those pumps now water more than a million acres and have enabled agricultural water use to increase by more than a quarter. But as a result, water tables are falling rapidly. There is little rain to replace the water being pumped to the surface. In places, the underground rocks are now dry down to 400 feet below ground.
That is the effective extraction limit of the pumps, many of which now lie abandoned. To keep up, in what amounts to a race to the bottom of the diminishing reserves, richer farmers have been buying more powerful solar pumps, leaving the others high and dry or forcing them to buy water from their rich neighbors.
The desert state of Rajasthan is the Indian pioneer and has more solar pumps than any other. Over the past decade, the government has given subsidized solar pumps to almost 100,000 farmers. Those pumps now water more than a million acres and have enabled agricultural water use to increase by more than a quarter. But as a result, water tables are falling rapidly. There is little rain to replace the water being pumped to the surface. In places, the underground rocks are now dry down to 400 feet below ground.
That is the effective extraction limit of the pumps, many of which now lie abandoned. To keep up, in what amounts to a race to the bottom of the diminishing reserves, richer farmers have been buying more powerful solar pumps, leaving the others high and dry or forcing them to buy water from their rich neighbors.
Unintended consequences indeed.
March 10, 2024
Ukraine Shoots Down Two of Russia's A-50 Radar Planes. Russia Prepares A Replacement A-50. Ukraine Targets It's Factory
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/03/09/first-ukraine-shoots-down-two-of-russias-a-50-radar-planes-then-russia-prepares-a-replacement-a-50-so-ukraine-targets-the-replacement-at-its-factory/?sh=1665aa5e45a1A Ukrainian drone damaged an A-50 on the ground in Belarus last year. On Jan. 14, a long-range Ukrainian missile shot down an A-50 over the Sea of Azov in southern Ukraine. Six weeks later on Feb. 23, another Ukrainian missile blew up a third A-50 in the same area.
The Russian air force swiftly grounded its surviving A-50s and scrambled to replace the two or three lost planes. That meant cycling at least one older and possibly unflyable A-50—out of several dozen Beriev built in the 1980s—through Beriev’s Aviation Scientific and Technical Complex in the Russian city of Taganrog, on the Azov Sea coast just 80 miles from the front line.
So of course the Ukrainians promptly droned the Taganrog factory. They obviously are determined to extinct the lumbering A-50 before the Russians can recover the species. The ostensible next-generation replacement for the A-50, the A-100, has been mired in testing for years and may never become a front-line aircraft.
It’s unclear exactly what happened in Taganrog and what the implications are. We know the Ukrainians targeted the Aviation Scientific and Technical Complex late Friday or early Saturday. We can surmise, from Russian reports, that it mostly was a drone assault.
The Russian air force swiftly grounded its surviving A-50s and scrambled to replace the two or three lost planes. That meant cycling at least one older and possibly unflyable A-50—out of several dozen Beriev built in the 1980s—through Beriev’s Aviation Scientific and Technical Complex in the Russian city of Taganrog, on the Azov Sea coast just 80 miles from the front line.
So of course the Ukrainians promptly droned the Taganrog factory. They obviously are determined to extinct the lumbering A-50 before the Russians can recover the species. The ostensible next-generation replacement for the A-50, the A-100, has been mired in testing for years and may never become a front-line aircraft.
It’s unclear exactly what happened in Taganrog and what the implications are. We know the Ukrainians targeted the Aviation Scientific and Technical Complex late Friday or early Saturday. We can surmise, from Russian reports, that it mostly was a drone assault.
March 8, 2024
They also had bad news for green hydrogen, mainly due to the fact that hydrogen itself is a potent greenhouse gas when it leaks into the atmosphere.
Blue hydrogen could contribute 50% more to global warming than fossil fuels (and green hydrogen isn't immune either)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/blue-hydrogen-could-contribute-50-more-to-global-warming-than-fossil-fuels/ar-BB1iNk4ZSome previous analyses have estimated total potential emissions reductions from the use of blue hydrogen at around 70%, the researchers note. They say a worst-case scenario could actually see near-term global warming increase by 50% compared with fossil fuels.
The study assumes a 60% carbon capture rate rather than the 98% often cited by CCS and blue hydrogen advocates, principally because the technology has not yet come close to removing total on-site emissions at commercial scale, explain the researchers.
The study assumes a 60% carbon capture rate rather than the 98% often cited by CCS and blue hydrogen advocates, principally because the technology has not yet come close to removing total on-site emissions at commercial scale, explain the researchers.
They also had bad news for green hydrogen, mainly due to the fact that hydrogen itself is a potent greenhouse gas when it leaks into the atmosphere.
For green or renewable hydrogen, which is made from the renewables-powered electrolysis of water, the near-term climate benefits also drop by 25% when the full climate impact of hydrogen is factored in. Hydrogen, the smallest known molecule in the universe, “is a leak-prone gas with a potent indirect warming effect in the near-term due to the fact that its chemical oxidation in the atmosphere increases other short-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – methane, tropospheric ozone, and stratospheric water vapour”, the paper explains.
February 18, 2024
2 police officers and 1 firefighter killed responding to a domestic incident outside Minneapolis, governor says
Source: CNN
(CNN
—
Two police officers and a firefighter are dead and other officers were injured after responding to a domestic incident in Burnsville, Minnesota, according to the state’s governor.
“Horrific news from Burnsville. While responding to a call of a family in danger, two police officers and one firefighter lost their lives, and other officers were injured,” Gov. Tim Walz posted online.
“We must never take for granted the bravery and sacrifices our police officers and first responders make every day. My heart is with their families today and the entire State of Minnesota stands with Burnsville,” Walz said. The governor added that flags would be flown at half-mast across Minnesota on Monday and the state Department of Public Safety is “coordinating with local law enforcement to conduct an investigation.”
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/18/us/burnsville-minnesota-officers-shooting/index.html
February 11, 2024
I have fond memories from my childhood of trees filled with thousands of monarchs as they grouped up for fall migration. The last time we saw a large flock on our land in our trees was 8 yr ago. My daughter barely remembers it. I wonder if she'll ever see another. I doubt her children ever will.
Why there may be much fewer monarch butterfly sightings in the US this summer
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/fewer-monarch-butterfly-sightings-us-summer/story?id=107098635Monarch butterfly sightings may be sparser than usual in the U.S. and Canada following a drastic drop in populations wintering in Mexico, researchers told ABC News.
The annual census of the number of monarchs that winter in Central Mexico showed that the population decreased "precipitously," the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, which conducts the research alongside the World Wildlife Fund-Mexico, announced on Wednesday.
The annual census of the number of monarchs that winter in Central Mexico showed that the population decreased "precipitously," the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, which conducts the research alongside the World Wildlife Fund-Mexico, announced on Wednesday.
I have fond memories from my childhood of trees filled with thousands of monarchs as they grouped up for fall migration. The last time we saw a large flock on our land in our trees was 8 yr ago. My daughter barely remembers it. I wonder if she'll ever see another. I doubt her children ever will.
February 11, 2024
Habitat loss. Climate change. Outdoor cats. Windows. In that order.
Expert explains why North American bird populations are declining
https://phys.org/news/2024-01-expert-north-american-bird-populations.amp"Habitat loss due to agricultural intensification and urbanization is arguably the biggest threat to birds, along with climate change," says Ashley Dayer, an associate professor in the College of Natural Resources and Environment and a Global Change Center affiliated faculty member at Virginia Tech. She also points to cats and window collisions playing a role in their deaths. Data shows up to one billion birds die each year after hitting windows. Cats are estimated to kill more than 2.4 billion birds annually in the U.S. and Canada.
Habitat loss. Climate change. Outdoor cats. Windows. In that order.
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