[GWSG] Hot battery; flywheels & salt caverns; new ag projects; nuclear bankruptcy; management by tunnel; Bloomberg on Paris

[Tilley, Al]

1.  A new competitor for the role of cheap, safe, long-lived utility scale battery is Ambri's liquid metal box. It operates at 900F, and generates its own heat to keep it there, while still storing power at 80% efficiency. It plans to go commercial within the next two years.  http://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2017/03/27/ambri-molten-battery



2.  Canada's NStor is competing for the big battery market with massive flywheels magnetically levitated, and compressed air stored in a salt cavern which seals its own leaks.  http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2017/03/canada-firm-uses-salt-tesla-and-flywheels-in-clean-energy-race.html?cmpid=enl_rew_energystoragenews_2017-03-30&email_address=atilley@unf.edu&eid=291059574&bid=1709830



3.  Norway's Sahara Forest Project is one of a number of experiments in growing food in arid areas with little water and no fossil fuels.  http://news.trust.org/item/20170331000814-n7zjp/



4.  Westinghouse's bankruptcy signals at least a hiatus in US nuclear power construction. Our local utility, JEA, has obligations to the two Vogtle plants now dead in the water in Georgia.  As construction ceases and aging plants close, it becomes more urgent to replace the lost capacity renewably.  http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2017/0330/Westinghouse-bankruptcy-What-does-it-mean-for-US-nuclear-power



5.  EPA head Scott Pruitt is behind on climate science. Over 150 years behind.  Fourier could have set him straight on the greenhouse effect, and Tyndall on the role of CO2.  Arrhenius could have provided specific measurements of the effects of the buildup of atmospheric CO2 from the industrial revolution. (These guys could still enlighten him if he would read about them in Weart's The Discovery of Global Warming.)  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/mar/31/scientists-understood-the-climate-150-years-ago-better-than-the-epa-head-today  Employees of the Department of Energy are reported to avoid using the words "climate change," "emissions reduction," or "Paris Agreement" so as not to offend Secretary Perry and his administrative associates.  http://www.salon.com/2017/03/30/trumps-innovative-solution-to-climate-change-dont-mention-climate-change/  It is becoming more understandable why our Secretary of State would rather you not speak to him, and not look him in the eye.  He has had to deny the undeniable and defend the indefensible, tasks well served by such techniques.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/secretary-of-state-rex-tillerson-spends-his-first-weeks-isolated-from-an-anxious-bureaucracy/2017/03/30/bdf8ec86-155f-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html?utm_term=.757bed6d82bc





6.  Michael Bloomberg is confident that the US will meet its obligations under the Paris Agreement despite Trump. Coal use is declining because renewable energy is cheaper and cleaner. Out of self-interest cities, states, and businesses are continuing in directions already taken toward the energy transition.   https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/opinion/climate-progress-with-or-without-trump.html?emc=edit_th_20170331&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=43628374  ?

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