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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now O!
by Frack Check WV: admin 15 Jan '23

15 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now O!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/15/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-o/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/E22C77E5-45BB-4234-9299-CFF865A71F08-234x300.jpg)](… content/uploads/2023/01/E22C77E5-45BB-4234-9299-CFF865A71F08.jpeg) The objections & limitations to technological solutions necessitate human interventions **OBJECTIONS or Limitations to Progress for Tech Solutions!** . . >> From an [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 . . **“SEEKING NETZERO”** . . . **“The gap between wishful thinking and reality is vast. “So observes Vaclav Smil, a professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba.** The observation could apply to almost anything; Smil, who has written more than a dozen books about energy and society, is concerned with the gap between the aspiration to fight climate change and the immense on-the-ground effort entailed in actually doing so. Studies that purport to show how the world could radically reduce or eliminate its carbon emissions by one date or another tend, he argues, to presuppose what they claim to be proving. To arrive at their foregone conclusions, many tech projects are based on a variety of unreliable assumptions — that project renovations can take place very rapidly, or that nonexistent technologies will be deployed at fantastic rates, or that humanity’s ever-growing appetite for energy will suddenly be curbed, or some combination of all three. Smil labels such studies “the academic equivalents of science fiction.” **Everything I have written, from “despair” onward, is vulnerable to Smilian objections.** Consider “flight.” It’s possible that, in a few years, Alias ferrying pallets of cargo will zip between regional airports. It’s also possible that electric passenger planes will one day make short hops, between, say, Boston and Hyannis. But that could be the limit. The world’s best-selling passenger plane, the Boeing 737, can transport some two hundred people coast to coast. To electrify such a "flight would require more than eight hundred tons’ worth of current-generation lithium-ion batteries, or four hundred tons of lithium-ion batteries functioning at their maximum theoretical capacity. To get off the runway, though, a 737 can’t weigh more than eighty tons, passengers and crew included. **A recent paper by researchers at Carnegie Mellon concluded that the demands of larger aircraft lie beyond the “feasibility limits” of known battery technologies.** **Or consider “green concrete.” As promising as CarbiCrete may be, the niche it fills, much like the Alia’s, is a narrow one. Since it has to be cured in chambers filled with concentrated CO2, CarbiCrete can’t be poured at a work site; it can be used only for pre-cast products, such as cinder blocks or patio tiles.** Meanwhile, though the blocks and tiles absorb CO2 as they harden, a great deal of CO2 is released in the process of producing the slag that went into them; globally, the steel industry is responsible for roughly the same number of tons of emissions as the concrete industry — around three billion. **To say that amazing work is being done to combat climate change and to say that almost no progress has been made is not a contradiction; it’s a simple statement of fact.** At the time of the Rio summit, fossil fuels provided roughly eighty per cent of the world’s primary energy. Thirty years later, fossil fuels still provide roughly eighty per cent of the world’s primary energy. In the meantime, total global energy use has increased by almost two- thirds. As Smil puts it, “The inertia of large, complex systems is due to their basic energetic and material demands — as well as the scale of their operations.” #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See also:** [Tech Can’t Fix It - The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/10/technology/tech-solutions.html), Shira Ovide, New York Times, October 14, 2022 Climate Change and other big problems won’t be solved by technology alone. Think about some of the big issues that Americans are facing, in no particular order: the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, disagreements over the appropriate role of government, a reckoning over systemic racism, inequality in wealth and health, increases in homicides and other public safety threats and educational and social safety systems that fail many people. Technology didn’t cause these problems, nor should we put too much faith that technology can solve them. I worry that when we vilify or glorify what technology and tech companies do, it makes us lose focus on what’s actually important. Technology is part of the solution, perhaps, but mostly we have to find the answers through collective human will and effective action. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/15/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-o/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now N!
by Frack Check WV: admin 14 Jan '23

14 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now N!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/14/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-n/) [![Professor Sarah Marie Wiebe addresses the Climate Emergency](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/CAAD2B22-275E-48E8-BB8A-9322FA6D2694.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2023/01/CAAD2B22-275E-48E8-BB8A-9322FA6D2694.jpeg)**“N” = Narratives as Spoken or Written Accounts of Connected Events, Now the Climate Change Emergency** [Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), November 28, 2022 **Narratives are socially constructed ‘stories’ that make sense of events,” thereby lending “direction to human action.” So observes a paper published recently in the journal Climatic Change by a team of European researchers.** Climate-change **narratives** , the team notes, typically foreground “doom and gloom.” Often they emphasize risk. If they’re not retailing the latest warming-related disasters (fires, floods, food shortages), they’re predicting a future !lled with even grimmer warming-related disasters (bigger fires, more severe "flooding, famines that threaten entire regions). This approach, the researchers argue, can be counterproductive: “ **Narratives** of fear can become self-fulfilling prophecies.” If people believe that things will only get worse, they feel overwhelmed. If they feel overwhelmed, they’re apt to throw up their hands, thus guaranteeing that things will only get worse. A diet of bad news leads to paralysis, which yields yet more bad news. What’s needed instead, the paper goes on, are **narratives** that “empower people to act.” Such narratives tell a “positive and engaging story.” They “articulate a vision of ‘where we want to go’ ” and outline steps that could be taken to arrive at this metaphorical destination. **Positive stories** can also become self-fulfilling. People who believe in a brighter future are more likely to put in the effort required to achieve it. When they put in that effort, they make discoveries that hasten progress. Along the way, **they build communities** that make positive change possible. Particularly compelling, by the researchers’ account, are “win-win” speech pressing for a “ **global green new deal** ,” Achim Steiner, then the administrator of the U.N.’s Environment Programme, described the “enormous economic, social, and environmental benefits likely to arise from combatting climate change.” One of the key proponents of the Green New Deal in the U.S., Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, has argued that a crucial step toward building a more just, more environmentally sustainable future is **imagining** what this future would look like. “We can be whatever we have the courage to see,” she has said. “ **Optimism** is a choice,” notes Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican diplomat who led the effort to get the Paris climate accord approved. “Do you know of any challenge that mankind has had in the history of humankind that was actually successful in its achievement that started out with pessimism, that started out with defeatism?” Figueres asked at a conference a few years ago. “There isn’t one,” she said, answering her own question. #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See Also:** [**What Does it Mean to Declare a Climate Emergency?**](https://climate.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/a_Sarah- Climate-Change-Conference-Lightening-Talk-January-14-2020.pdf) [Why Narratives Matter in the Movement to Address Climate Change](https://climate.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/a_Sarah-Clima… Change-Conference-Lightening-Talk-January-14-2020.pdf) Dr. Sarah Marie Wiebe, Department of Political Science | Assistant Professor January 14th 2020 | Hā o ke kai Climate Change Conference East-West Centre, University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/14/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-n/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now M!
by Frack Check WV: admin 13 Jan '23

13 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now M!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/13/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-m/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/E89128C9-A01A-4DAF- BAB3-B2729E2BD587.jpeg)](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/E89128C9-A01A-4DAF-BAB3-B2729E2BD587.jpeg) OMG! Have you seen the most recent Lancet Countdown on the climate — code red! **Math Matters to Climate Crisis ~ Why do small degrees of warming matter?** From an [Article by Seth Borenstein & Dana Beltaji, Associated Press](https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment), November 6, 2022 On a thermometer, a tenth of a degree seems tiny, barely noticeable. But small changes in average temperature can reverberate in a global climate to turn into big disasters as weather gets wilder and more extreme in a warmer world. In 2015, countries around the world agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and pursue a goal of curbing warming to 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) as part of the Paris Agreement. Two degrees of difference might not be noticeable if you’re gauging the weather outside, but for global average temperatures, these small numbers make a big difference. “Every tenth of a degree matters,” is a phrase that climate scientists around the world keep repeating. The Earth has already warmed at least 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, giving the world around 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.7 Fahrenheit) of more heating before passing the goal and suffering even more catastrophic climate change events, scientists have said. These tenths of a degree are a big deal because the temperatures represent a global average of warming. Some parts of the world, especially land mass and northern latitudes like the Arctic have already warmed more than the 1.1 Celsius average and have far surpassed 1.5 Celsius, according to estimates. It’s helpful to look at temperatures like a bell curve, rather than just the average which doesn’t reveal “hidden extremes,” said Princeton University climate scientist Gabe Vecchi. “On the far end where the bell shape is very narrow, that is telling you the odds of very extreme events,” he said. “If you have a slight shift of the average of the peak of that bell to the warming direction, what that results in is a substantial decrease in the odds of extremely cold temperatures and a substantial increase in the odds of extremely warm temperatures.” It’s a similar picture with sea level rise, where the average obscures how some places are seeing much higher sea level increases than others, he said. Most nations — including the world’s two largest emitters, the U.S. and China — aren’t on track to limit warming to 1.5 Celsius or even 2 Celsius, according to scientists and experts who track global action on climate change, despite promises to cut their emissions to “net zero”. If temperatures increase by about 2 more degrees Celsius by the end of the century, the world will experience five times the floods, storms, drought and heat waves, according to estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “All bets are off” when it comes to how climate systems will respond to more warming, warned Brown University climate scientist Kim Cobb. The threat of some irreversible changes and feedback loops that amplify warming, such as the thawing of permafrost that traps massive amounts of greenhouse gas, could trigger even more heating. “It’s just staggering to think about how many people will be under immediate threat of climate-related extremes in a two degree world,” Cobb said. >>> Follow Associated Press (AP) climate and environment coverage at <https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment> #######+++++++#######+++++++####### [**The 2022 Global Report of the Lancet Countdown**](https://www.lancetcountdown.org/2022-report/) The health of people around the world is at the mercy of a persistent fossil fuel addiction. People around the world are increasingly feeling the impact of climate change on their health and wellbeing and these compounding crises are amplifying those harms. Yet governments and companies in both high- and low-income countries continue to prioritise fossil fuel interests. This year’s report launches as countries and health systems grapple with the health, social and economic implications of climate change, which now compound the impacts of the the global energy crisis, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Our 2022 Report tracks the relationship between health and climate change across five key domains and 43 indicators, revealing that the world is at a critical juncture. While a renewed overreliance on fossil fuels could lock in a fatally warmer future with exacerbated health impacts, a health-centred, low-carbon response offers a renewed opportunity to deliver a future in which world populations can not only survive, but thrive. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/13/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-m/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now L!
by Frack Check WV: admin 12 Jan '23

12 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now L!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/12/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-l/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/DF1587F0-5A0D-4228-9A79-F72DF124718B-300x300.png)](… content/uploads/2023/01/DF1587F0-5A0D-4228-9A79-F72DF124718B.png) African and Asian countries should leapfrog to renewable energy **“L” is for Leapfrogging! India is Overdue to Leap Forward!** >> From an [Article on Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), Nov. 28, 2022 In 1947, the year India gained its independence, telephones were a rarity in the nation; there were fewer than a hundred thousand in the entire country. In the decades that followed, they remained scarce; as late as 1989, India had just four million phones for eight hundred and fifty million people. Three- quarters of rural villages lacked any phone connection at all; the official wait time for a line was almost four years, and, when one was finally installed, service was often dismal. Then, practically all at once, phones were ringing everywhere. In 1994, the country auctioned off its first round of cellular licenses. The auction process was deemed “a mess”; nevertheless, cell service exploded. By 2010, six hundred million Indians were subscribers. (The country’s 2011 census revealed that more households had phones than had toilets.) In 2015, cell subscriptions hit a billion. **India effectively skipped fixed-line phones and went straight to wireless, a process that’s become known as leapfrogging.** **Today, India is home to 1.4 billion people. They consume a thousand watts per person, less than one-tenth of what Americans use. Were India to follow the fossil-fuel-slicked development path pursued by China, Europe, and the U.S., the result would be planetary disaster. Yet asking India to forgo prosperity on the ground that prosperous nations have already consumed too much is obviously impossible.** Fewer than half of all households in the country own a refrigerator. Only one in ten owns a computer. And, even though temperatures in Delhi reached a hundred and twenty-one degrees this past spring, just one in four has air- conditioning. **Leapfrogging represents a way — maybe the best way, maybe the only way — out of this dilemma. India is sun-drenched. Instead of building out a grid that relies on coal and natural gas, it could shift to one that relies on solar power and iron-air batteries.** Most Indians have never owned a car, so the country could skip over gas- guzzlers and go straight to E.V.s. Ditto for flying. The vast majority of Indians have never been on a plane; the first one they board could be an electric aircraft like the Alice. The same holds true even for stoves. More than five hundred million people in India still cook with wood or dung; instead of transitioning through gas, they could jump straight to induction. In other words, electrify everything! “India is in a unique position to pioneer a new model for low-carbon, inclusive growth,” the International Energy Agency recently declared. And what goes for India, the I.E.A. noted, also goes for “a whole group of energy- hungry developing economies.” India “hasn’t contributed much to the climate problem,” Ashish Gulagi, a researcher at Finland’s Lappeenranta University of Technology, told me. “But it can contribute to the solution.” #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **[Light Pollution ~ National Geographic Society](https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/light-pollution), World Wide Web, January 2023** **People all over the world are living under the nighttime glow of artificial light, and it is causing big problems for humans, wildlife, and the environment. There is a global movement to reduce light pollution, and everyone can help.** <https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/light-pollution> URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/12/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-l/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now K!
by Frack Check WV: admin 11 Jan '23

11 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now K!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/11/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-k/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/03C1535E-D2CF-4034-A3D6-4ABDD9A4693F-300x249.png)](… content/uploads/2023/01/03C1535E-D2CF-4034-A3D6-4ABDD9A4693F.png) KEELING CURVE ~ Carbon dioxide has increased worldwide from 315 ppm in 1958 to over 420 ppm in just 64 years **[The Keeling Curve on the National Geographic Society Website](https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/keeling-curve)** The Keeling Curve is a graph that represents the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Earth’s atmosphere since 1958. The Keeling Curve is named after its creator, Dr. Charles David Keeling (1928 to 2005). Keeling began studying atmospheric carbon dioxide in 1956 by taking air samples and measuring the amount of CO2 they contained. Over time he noticed a pattern. The air samples taken at night contained a higher concentration of CO2 compared to samples taken during the day. He drew on his understanding of photosynthesis and plant respiration to explain this observation: Plants take in CO2 during the day to photosynthesize—or make food for themselves—but at night, they release CO2. By studying his measurements over the course of a few years, Keeling also noticed a larger seasonal pattern. He discovered CO2 levels are highest in the spring, when decomposing plant matter releases CO2 into the air, and are lowest in autumn when plants stop taking in CO2 for photosynthesis. Keeling was able to establish a permanent residence at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawai'i, United States, to continue his research. At Mauna Loa, he discovered global atmospheric CO2 levels were rising nearly every year. By analyzing the CO2 in his samples, Keeling was able to attribute this rise to the use of fossil fuels. Since its creation, the Keeling Curve has served as a visual representation of Keeling’s data, which scientists have continued to collect since his death in 2005. #######+++++++#######+++++++####### [**The Keeling Curve Hits 420 PPM, Scripps Institution of Oceanography,**](https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/2022/05/31/2114/) May 31, 2022 Levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide eclipsed 420 parts per million for the first time in human history in 2021. Scripps Institution of Oceanography updated this animation, which explains the rise of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere over the past 300 years and the measurement our researchers collect at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, known as the Keeling Curve. When Scripps Oceanography scientist Charles David Keeling first began taking measurements in 1958, CO2 levels were at 315 parts per million. [Check out more details at Scripps Oceanography:](https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/2022/05/31/2114) <https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/2022/05/31/2114> URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/11/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-k/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now J!
by Frack Check WV: admin 10 Jan '23

10 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now J!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/10/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-j/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/52437564-6989-4BCC-A6CA-76115F87160F.jpeg)](https:/… content/uploads/2023/01/52437564-6989-4BCC-A6CA-76115F87160F.jpeg) Community solar projects provide solar energy directly to individual users. **“J” is for Jobs. Get a Job and Work for Yourself, Your Family & Your Community** >> From an [Article on Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), Nov. 28, 2022 **Jobs, jobs, jobs ~ Six years ago, Beta and Form didn’t exist, and CarbiCrete consisted of four men holding meetings at a Starbucks. Today, more than four hundred people work for Beta, three hundred work for Form, and forty work for CarbiCrete. Ørsted’s operations in North America employ more than six hundred people directly and thousands indirectly, through contracts for components, shipping, and logistical support.** Study after study has concluded that cutting emissions creates jobs. Recently, a Princeton-based team issued a report detailing how the U.S. could reduce its net emissions to zero by 2050. The researchers considered several possible decarbonization “pathways.” Consider the extreme case. The pathway labelled “high electrification” would, they projected over time, eliminate sixty-two thousand (62,000) jobs in the coal industry and four hundred thousand (400,000) in the natural-gas sector. But it was expected to produce nearly eight hundred thousand (800,000) jobs in construction, more than seven hundred thousand (700,000) in the solar industry, and more than a million (1,000,000) in upgrading the grid. **“For too long, we’ve failed to use the most important word when it comes to meeting the climate crisis,” President Biden declared last year. “Jobs, jobs, jobs. For me, when I think climate change, I think jobs.”** #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See Also:** [West Virginia Looks at Community Solar as Legislative Priority,](https://www.governing.com/next/west-virginia-looks-at-community- solar-as-legislative-priority) Mike Tony, The Charleston Gazette-Mail, November 7, 2022 **(TNS) —West Virginia 's leaders, from Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito to Gov. Jim Justice and members of the state Public Energy Authority, have a pet phrase for their preferred approach to energy policy: “All of the above.”** **Community solar allows customers to receive solar energy without having to install their own systems, allowing them to benefit from energy generated offsite, and could save residential customers about 10 percent in electricity costs.** URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/10/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-j/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now I!
by Frack Check WV: admin 09 Jan '23

09 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now I!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/09/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-i/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/FA4BD6B9-A45E-4A10-A026-A4EADDF7A737-300x168.jpg)](… content/uploads/2023/01/FA4BD6B9-A45E-4A10-A026-A4EADDF7A737.jpeg) WTAP News reports new battery plant for Weirton, WV on 12/26/22 **“I” is for Iron, I is for Imagination and Intention and Innovation!** [Rusty Batteries Could Greatly Improve Grid Energy Storage](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rusty-batteries-could- greatly-improve-grid-energy-storage/) >> _From an Article by John Fialka, E &E News, December 21, 2022_ A U.S. company is designing a large battery that it says could help decarbonize the nation’s power sector more cheaply than lithium-ion storage systems — and with domestic materials. Iron-air batteries have a “reversible rust” cycle that could store and discharge energy for far longer and at less cost than lithium-ion technology. The concept, known as the “iron-air battery,” has impressed U.S. experts. Unlike current lithium-ion batteries that require expensive materials mostly from other countries such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite, the proposed battery stores electricity using widely available iron metal. It operates on what scientists call the principle of “reversible rusting.” The low cost and high availability of iron could allow iron-air batteries to store electricity for several days during periods of low solar and wind power generation. One such iron-air battery is being designed by Form Energy, a company based in Massachusetts that’s co-run by a former Tesla Inc. official. Although iron-air batteries were first studied in the early 1970s for applications such as electric vehicles, more recent research suggests that it may be a “leading contender” to expand the nation’s future supplies of green electric power for utilities, according to George Crabtree, director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research at Argonne National Laboratory. Lithium-ion batteries, which are used in cars and for utility-scale storage, discharge electric power for about four hours. The much larger iron-air battery can store and then discharge power for as long as 100 hours, giving utilities four days of electricity to bridge renewable power gaps that can occur in U.S. grids. Crabtree, a physicist, predicted that the iron-air battery would also help the U.S. decarbonize industrial operations and buttress the Defense Department’s plans to rely more on renewable energy. Crabtree pointed out that while U.S. researchers helped invent the lithium-ion battery in 1970, it took until 1991 to reach the market. Sony Group Corp., a Japanese company, was the first to sell it. After that, companies based in China took the lead, and they continue to dominate the world’s lithium-ion battery market. Form Energy was born in 2017. It emerged from a consolidation of two smaller U.S. energy storage companies, one of which was led by Mateo Jaramillo, a former executive at Tesla. The co-founders shared a vision to reshape the global electric system by creating a new class of low-cost multiday storage batteries. They began testing several different chemistries to make a competitive and domestically produced battery. They landed on the iron-air battery, which includes a slab of iron, a water- based electrolyte and a membrane that feeds a controlled stream of air into the battery. When discharging, the battery breathes in oxygen from the air and converts iron metal to rust. While charging, an electrical current converts the rust back to iron and the battery breathes out oxygen. Since its founding, the company has raised $832 million from investors, including Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures and ArcelorMittal SA, a Luxembourg-based multinational steel company. Since 2021, Form Energy has signed contracts to build battery storage facilities for two utilities. One is Georgia Power Co., the largest subsidiary of Southern Co. The other is Great River Energy, Minnesota’s second-largest electric utility, which supplies power to electric cooperatives. Form Energy is working with ArcelorMittal to develop iron materials that the steel company would supply to Form Energy. The battery company declined to say when it would announce the construction of its first factory, or where it would be. “We’re not talking about that yet,” Jaramillo said in an interview. His company’s executive team includes Yet-Ming Chiang, its chief science officer and a materials expert who teaches at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds over 100 U.S. patents. The initial storage battery, about the size of a home washer-and-drier combination, will be too big and heavy for cars, but it could replace lithium- ion batteries for utility-scale storage because it would be one-tenth the cost and its capacity will be much larger, according to Form Energy. Jaramillo graduated from Harvard University with an economics degree and later studied theology at Yale Divinity School. “It probably helped me in more ways than I could articulate,” he said of his religious studies. “It helped me stay grounded about what solutions look like in this world. There is nothing perfect.” Crabtree, of Argonne National Laboratory, says he’s impressed by Form Energy’s accomplishments so far. Compared with the 21-year effort by the U.S. to develop the lithium-ion battery, Form Energy may develop the iron-air battery in less than nine years. “It shows that it is possible to move quickly when it comes to climate change. That’s the critical answer,” Crabtree said. #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **See Also:** [Climate Change from A to Z, Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/28/climate-change-from… to-z), November 28, 2022 URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/09/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-i/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now H!
by Frack Check WV: admin 08 Jan '23

08 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now H!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/08/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-h/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/F8B5233F-5224-4B64-ABE2-03F781B0076E-300x165.png)](… content/uploads/2023/01/F8B5233F-5224-4B64-ABE2-03F781B0076E.png) Cambridge Energy Storage Project, a demonstration plant in Minnesota operated by Great River Energy that will use Form Energy’s “iron-air” battery technology. **H is for Hope! Hope for Better Batteries! Hope for the Best!** [From an Article by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), 11/28/22 “Hope is the pillar that holds up the world,” Pliny the Elder is supposed to have observed. “Hope is the dream of a waking man.” Go looking for hopeful climate stories and they turn up everywhere. Not long ago, I came across one in a defunct wine distributorship, in Somerville, Massachusetts. The cavernous warehouse had been taken over by a company called Form Energy, whose waking dream concerns rust. Rusting usually proceeds in one direction, and the end result is a corroded nail or screw that winds up in the trash. But, as iron oxidizes, it gives up electrons. Therefore, if a current is applied to rust in solution, the process will run in reverse. At Form, the goal is to use this reverse-rusting trick to make a new kind of battery, one so cheap and durable it could power an entire city. Billy Woodford, Form’s chief technology officer, studied material science at M.I.T. “Batteries have cool technical problems,” he told me as we descended into the warehouse turned research lab. The huge room was lined with experimental chambers that resembled glass-fronted refrigerators. Each was labelled, according to an inside joke that I never quite got, with the name of a different Oreo variety, like lemon or s’mores or gluten free. Inside the chambers were collections of some kind of high-tech Tupperware, with wires poking through the lids. The containers, in turn, held plates of iron bathing in liquid. Woodford explained that these were test batteries: “We’ll put in different iron — there’s different versions, depending on whether it’s produced, say, in Texas or Germany — and then different electrolytes.” **_Iron-air batteries’ active components are iron, salt water, and air. They can soak up energy from wind farms, feeding it into the grid when needed. Form Energy 's full-scale batteries will be packaged into modules of fifty, each about the size of a washer and dryer placed side by side. Ten of the modules will be big enough to fill a shipping container. On blustery days, they charge, using an electric current to convert rust into iron. On calm days, the iron rusts and releases electricity into the grid._** The first thirty shipping containers’ worth have been promised to Great River Energy, a Minnesota-based utility that buys a lot of wind power. (See the conceptual plant layout photo above.) Form’s C.E.O., Mateo Jaramillo, studied theology and later became a Tesla executive. While at Tesla, he worked on lithium-ion batteries, which are the sort used in most electric vehicles (and in the Alia), and also, in a slightly different form, in laptops and cell phones. “Lithium-ion is fantastic,” Jaramillo told me. “And yet, if that’s the only tool you have, you still have a really hard time replacing high- capacity coal and natural-gas plants. To replace those, you need something that’s at least an order of magnitude cheaper than lithium-ion.” The materials needed for reversible rusting — air, salt water, and iron — are available in practically limitless quantities. “Besides coal, iron is the most-mined mineral on earth,” Jaramillo said. “So it scales.” #######+++++++#######+++++++####### **[Billionaire-backed ‘Iron-Air’ Battery Maker Picks WV Site for First Factory](https://www.powermag.com/billionaire-backed-iron-air-battery-maker- picks-wv-site-for-first-factory/)** , Darrell Proctor, POWER Magazine, December 23, 2022 A battery manufacturing company with plenty of high-profile financial backing said it has picked a site for its first factory that will build “iron-air” batteries. Form Energy touts its technology as a breakthrough for long- duration storage of solar and wind power. Form, which counts Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and British tycoon Richard Branson among its supporters, was founded in 2017 by veterans of the energy storage sector. The group said its mission was to create low-cost, multi-day energy storage systems. Company officials have said their iron-air battery can store electricity for as much as 100 hours. They’ve also said the technology will be competitive with electricity produced by traditional power plants. **Form, which is headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, on Dec. 22 said it will begin construction of its first factory in Weirton, West Virginia, in 2023. The company expects to begin manufacturing commercial iron-air battery systems the following year. The plant’s cost is estimated at about $760 million, and officials said the project would create 750 jobs. Form completed a $450 million Series E funding round in October.** Incentive Package ~ West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said his state is providing Form with an incentive package worth as much as $290 million in what he called asset-based, performance financing for the factory’s construction. The package includes $75 million for land purchase and building construction in Weirton. Justice said he will work with state lawmakers and the federal government to obtain an additional $215 million. Mateo Jaramillo, Form’s CEO and co-founder, said Weirton was chosen from among more than 500 possible locations for the company’s manufacturing plant. He called Weirton “a historic steel community that sits on a river and has the rich heritage and know-how to make great things out of iron.” Jaramillo, who headed Tesla’s energy-storage business before leaving in 2016, said his company expects “to be generating meaningful revenue in 2025.” URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/08/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-h/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now G!
by Frack Check WV: admin 07 Jan '23

07 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now G!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/07/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-g/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/8C8E6D5D-9049-480B-8BB6-807489E3B070-300x155.png)](… content/uploads/2023/01/8C8E6D5D-9049-480B-8BB6-807489E3B070.png) CarbiCrete building blocks made from slag (cement substitute) **Green Concrete ~ Gee! Cement Substitute Without Releasing Carbon Dioxide!** Article by [Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Magazine](https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/elizabeth-kolbert), 11/28/22 “We are doing freeze-and-thaw tests here in this lab,” Mehrdad Mahoutian said. He pried the lid off a plastic container of the sort usually used to store leftovers. Inside was a gray block about the size of a juice box. It was sitting in a half inch or so of ice-fringed water. “This is cement-free concrete,” Mahoutian said, indicating the block. “And this is salt water. For eighteen hours, they go into the freezer. And, for six hours, they get melted, basically.” I managed to find the headquarters of the company named **CarbiCrete** , in an industrial area of Montreal. Mahoutian, one of the company’s founders, was showing me around the R. & D. facility. Every few minutes, he was interrupted by a very loud rumble. “That’s the blocks being made,” he shouted over the din. We passed into a second room, where two test walls of cinder block stood perpendicular to each other. Both were equipped with a shower apparatus made from PVC pipe, which was dripping water. A fan blew the water toward the blocks. Mahoutian explained that one test wall had been constructed with ordinary cinder blocks, the other with a new kind of block fabricated by **CarbiCrete**. The shower arrangement was gauging how the two walls compared in terms of water penetration. “In a few hours, we’ll measure the dampness and do some calculations,” he told me. Concrete represents one of the world’s most obdurate carbon problems. Its key ingredient, Portland cement, is made by grinding up limestone, adding clay, and heating the mixture to more than two thousand degrees. The process demands a lot of energy, which is usually supplied by burning coal. But, more fundamentally, the issue with cement is its chemistry; heating limestone to the point that it transforms into quicklime unavoidably releases CO2. In 2021, some thirty billion tons of concrete were produced worldwide, almost four tons for every single person on the planet. The associated carbon dioxide emissions accounted for roughly eight per cent of the global total— more than aviation and shipping combined. Producing cement-free concrete, or what is sometimes referred to as green concrete, isn’t sexy, but it’s essential. [In place of cement, CarbiCrete makes use of a waste product](https://www.waste360.com/medical-waste/waste-based-cement- alternative-provides-functional-benefits-while-capturing-and) — the slag left over from steel production. It pounds the slag into powder and mixes in crushed rock and water. The resulting slurry, which looks a lot like conventional concrete, can then be molded into blocks or tiles. Gee! C **arbiCrete bills its product, which for the time being is also known as CarbiCrete, not just as carbon-neutral but as carbon-negative.** Mahoutian led me to a row of machines that resembled rice cookers. Each one was attached to a cannister of CO2. Inside the machines, little blocks of damp CarbiCrete were reacting with carbon dioxide; instead of releasing the gas, the blocks were soaking it up. “Please touch,” Mahoutian instructed. The machines were hot. This, he explained, was because the reaction, rather than requiring heat, generated it. For now, CarbiCrete buys its CO2 from a supplier. The plan, though, is eventually to use carbon dioxide that’s been captured at, say, a power plant or a steel mill. “What we are doing basically is killing three birds with one stone,” Mahoutian told me. “We are not using cement. We are permanently capturing CO2. And we’re reducing the need for land!lls.” As I was getting ready to leave, Mahoutian asked if I wanted a CarbiCrete tile or cinder block to bring home with me. I thought for a while and then decided to take both. Gee! URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/07/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-g/>

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Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now F!
by Frack Check WV: admin 06 Jan '23

06 Jan '23

# [Climate Change Resists Narrative, Yet the Alphabet Prevails (A to Z): Now F!](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/06/climate-change-resists-narrativ… yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-f/) [![](https://www.frackcheckwv.net/wp- content/uploads/2023/01/228AB5DF-B26A-4F97-8621-4C897D6087F6-300x120.jpg)](… content/uploads/2023/01/228AB5DF-B26A-4F97-8621-4C897D6087F6.jpeg) (new) Dolls Run Well Pad for Drilling & Fracking in Monongalia County, WV (click on photo to expand) **OMG! Opening Public Lands to Drilling & Fracking Without Restraint!** >>> _Technical Article on[Fracking by Randi Pokladnik](https://ohvec.org/author/randi/), Submitted January 1, 2023_ **The Republican dominated Ohio Senate and House recently passed the Amended HB 507 bill. It now awaits a signature from Gov. DeWine who can veto the bill or allow it to go into law after a ten-day period. The bill was originally intended to address poultry sales and food safety, however, at the last minute an amendment, (134-3853) was added to HB 507 in the Senate. Basically, the amendment will force state agencies to open their land to oil and gas drilling with no exceptions. The amendment creates an atmosphere where citizens are basically locked out of any public review process and refused the ability to make comments on the leasing process. It by-passes any considerations of impacts to the environment and recreation.** Pre-19th century, Ohio was 95 percent forested. Today only 30 percent of forested land remains (8.0 million acres) and only 11 percent is owned by state and local governments. The Ohio State Park system encompasses about 170,000 acres of land and over 31 million visitors come to Ohio parks each year. For many people, both in and out of the state, state parks and forests remain a sanctuary; a place for them to escape their hectic lives and find the peace that nature offers. It also provides a space for recreating, bird watching, fishing, hunting, hiking, canoeing and biking. Additionally, a study by The Ohio State University determined that outdoor recreationalists’ trips bring in $8.1 billion to Ohio’s economy and the sector employs 133,000 workers. **Fracking and all the build-out that this industry requires will dramatically change the landscape of Ohio’s parks and forests.** Who wants to hike through a park with frack pads and fracking infrastructure? Who wants to ingest wild game and fish taken from areas where fracking is occurring? **Since 2005, and the passage of the Energy Policy Act, also known as the Haliburton Loophole, fracking remains virtually unregulated. Who will guarantee that every stage of the process will be conducted in a way so as not to disrupt the state lands that supposedly belong to Ohio’s citizens?** **A[study in West Virginia](https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06022011/natural-gas-drilling- fells-1000-trees-w-va-forest-scientists-say/) showed forest ecosystems are negatively affected by forest clearing, erosion, and road building during fracking.** Vegetation death was also noted after frack fluids were sprayed on the surrounding trees. [Peer reviewed studies show that watersheds surrounding frack well pads test positive for the radioactive substances found in frack waste water, which consists of fracturing fluid and salts, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, and radioactive material accumulated from natural underground sources.](https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1890/13032… **[Fracking well pads and infrastructure will require clearing areas (cutting trees and vegetation).](https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1890/1…) This will require areas of anywhere from four to twenty-five acres.** Not only will this fragment the forest it will cause other effects that to date are still not clearly understood or studied. [This includes additional fragmentation that could affect plant reproduction](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16913941/). Fracking can also introduce and encourage the [spread of invasive species](https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/shale-gas-development-promote… spread-of-invasive-plant-species/article/498352) via the gravel delivered to build pads and roads, and in mud on the tires and undercarriages of trucks traveling those roads. Traffic in the region will increase tremendously, becoming a maintenance burden on roads, and also a hazard to local citizens and visitors. [Each well drilled requires approximately 592 one-way trips](https://studylib.net/doc/7349071/known-and-potential-impacts), with a truck that carries between 80-100,000 lbs. The traffic from the development of one well is equivalent to 3.4 million car trips. **The process of high-pressure hydraulic fracking necessitates the use of 4-6 million gallons of water per well. This surface water will no doubt be withdrawn from the local streams, resulting in harm to aquatic organisms.[Fracking fluids contain chemical additives, e.g. friction reducers, biocides and surfactants, many of which are known carcinogens and endocrine disruptors.](https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1409535) Very little is known about the potential effects of the chemicals, metals, organics or other contaminants once they enter terrestrial or aquatic food webs.** **Climate change, the elephant in the room, is being exacerbated by our reliance on fossil fuels.** [Fracking operations release fugitive methane emissions and are much higher than the industry reports. Methane gas is about 86 times as potent as carbon dioxide in magnifying heat related to climate change.](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/fracking-bo… tied-to-methane-spike-in-earths-atmosphere) The aesthetic beauty as well as biodiversity of the forest will be impacted by allowing fossil fuel companies to frack the landscape. Once again, Ohio’s politicians place the interests of the oil and gas industry ahead of Ohio’s citizens. In a word, “fracking”! >>> Randi Pokladnik is a Scientist residing at Tappan Lake, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683. She was born and raised in Ohio. She earned an associate degree in Environmental Engineering, a BA in Chemistry, MA and PhD in Environmental Studies. She is certified in hazardous materials regulations and holds a teaching license in science and math. URL: <https://www.frackcheckwv.net/2023/01/06/climate-change-resists- narrative-yet-the-alphabet-prevails-a-to-z-now-f/>

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