On this hottest day of the year (106F) I’m sitting here in the air conditioning checking out the status of the Texas Power Grid on the ERCOT Dashboard. Seems all is well. Renewables about a third with two thirds still gas and coal. Did see this list on Forbes about priorities for Electrifying Everything.
I keep seeing these stories about how the Energy Transition is stalling. I’m not sure what is so hard to understand about more modern electricity generation replacing ones from previous centuries. Maybe clean, cheap electricity just sounds too good to be true.
Saw this rain and flooding mentioned on the news. Did not see that it was a “once in 1,000 year” rainfall. Of that it happened twice that day, at different times, 35 miles apart.
Last year China added more solar capacity than the US has in total. From Quartz.
Landlords use this sort of software (and I presume pay to use it) because it increases rents they collect. So that part of the question is easy. Is this collection and centralizing of data illegal? Well it’s good for landlords, perhaps very good. And bad for renters (perhaps very bad). If you haven’t been involved in renting an apartment in a major US city in recent years you may not realize how abusive it has become.
Sad news. From the BBC.
The original scientific publications describing greenhouse gasses and climate change to back to at least 1824.
I always wondered why there wasn’t more of this in the US and the world, especially as climate disasters become more common and more severe. From the BBC.
Whenever I travel, if there is public rail transport I try to take it. Mostly just to have a look. I didn’t realize that the US was actually ahead in public rail until somewhat recently. Of course older cities like Boston, New York and Washington DC have subways, but newer “Sunbelt” cities have relied exclusively on cars. I have a deep suspicion that you can’t be a world class city without good public mass transit. Some cities like Dallas, Phoenix and Atlanta are trying to add rail, but after building out a cars-only city it may be a tough job. From The Urban Condition.
A story about what happens when big tech get is wrong, or at least not right.
Steven A. Guccione 