Climate Letter #1587

A quick look at US greenhouse gas emissions for years 2005 through 2019 (Inside Climate News).  What the charts show is a generally slow decline in overall emissions, entirely created by improvements within the electric power sector.  All other sectors are flat.  Within the power sector coal is the one big source of decline.  Natural gas and renewables have both doubled their generating capacity, with gas being quite the larger of the two while having substantially growing emissions of its own.

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Fossil fuel companies continue to spend heavily on lobbying and campaign contributions (Yale Climate Connections).  In the two-year election cycle 2017-18 their total was $359 million versus just $26 million by renewable companies.  Many donations are listed here by individual receivers and by states—Mitt Romney was the top receiver in the Senate.
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A new approach to achieving power from nuclear fusion shows considerable advantages over current methods (University of Osaka).  Existing problems in the ignition stage are apparently being solved by the application of high-energy laser beams.  Reaching the goal of cheap, emission-free energy production from this activity would be a useful addition to the overall growth of renewable energy, and would also suppress the arguments calling for revival of nuclear fission energy plants that most people don’t want.
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Important progress in the cost and performance of flow batteries (Chinese Academy of Sciences).  “Flow batteries with a thin-film composite membrane could work at higher current density. This would allow the use of a smaller battery stack to generate higher power and reduction in the cost of battery stacks.”  Flow batteries have great promise for solving problems of energy storage in wind and solar-based electric power grids that always have intermittent inputs.
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Researchers are experimenting with fascinating new ways to keep things cool (Nature – News feature).  Their work is based on the fact that some of the longwave energy emitted from the Earth, from a limited part of the wavelength spectrum, passes directly out to space without being trapped by any of the different kinds of greenhouse gases.  Some materials are being made that can be applied as coatings that take advantage of this phenomenon.  The story describes a number of variations on this theme, some of which could become practical as energy savers within a few years.
Carl

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