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What you need to know

Planet warmer than any time in last 125,000 years

I know that. Good. Do something about it.
Just out of interest, how about a graph that frightens me? Okay, here’s the hottest January ever that is ‘mystifying scientists’ .
Read more: Copernicus 

Hydrogen plane: Dumb idea delayed, no-one surprised

What? Airbus’ hydrogen plane: originally 2030, now 2035. But it ain’t happening, ever.
Not sensible? Hydrogen needs large, heavy refrigerated tanks; is super expensive; and leaks like hell… plus if it catches fire, the flames are invisible. You want it in your plane?
Read more: SeekingAlpha

Massive James-Bond-baddie-power-station demands Labour give it £2m subsidy PER DAY, for burning US wood… because we, um, like electricity

Bond? Drax isn’t actually named after Sir Hugo Drax from Moonraker, but given how many people hate it, it might as well be. Biggest UK power station & burns 3m tonnes of imported wood.
Importing wood to burn, what the..?! Sounds mad, but it’s probably better than gas/coal (not all agree).
Does Drax matter? Produces about 5-10% of the UK’s electricity on any given day, and stabilises grid & stuff. So, yes.
Will they get the cash? Drax’s argument to successive governments is: “Do you want electricity, or prefer people live in the dark?” Ministers laugh, then talk to experts, then grimace a bit - before paying up.
Outcome? Expect a row, but even James Bond can’t beat this villain.
Read more: Guardian

One thing to worry about

James Hansen, grandfather of climate science, has an update. TL;DR? We’re all doomed: climate change is accelerating (Inside Climate News).

Biggest risk: the AMOC will shut down, plunging temperatures in Europe.

Get terrified about AMOC by listening to this 10 Minute Climate episode. Excellent if you like staring into the mid-distance pondering your own mortality.

One thing to be optimistic about

Clean power costs will fall again this year, by up to 11% (Reuters).

In the next ten years - will drop by half. 🥳

If you’ve got more time, don’t watch this…

The internet is loving a video of the new US Energy Secretary Chris Wright slamming renewables and lauding oil & gas.

While I agree that we need energy abundance for humans to prosper - he’s got it backwards.

Fossil fuels can’t power the world indefinitely, nor lift 6bn people from energy poverty. Too little left, too expensive to extract… even if you don’t believe it’ll kill us all.

Mr Wright complains we poured $2 trillion into clean tech. But it wasn’t wasted: the tech outcompetes fossils.

• Almost all new generating capacity being built in the world is renewable (even in the US) - because it’s cheap

• Solar + batteries are simple, scalable, have no moving parts and are infinitely recyclable.

• Heat pumps are outselling gas boilers in the US, for the third year running

• Multiple national and regional grids are running for weeks or months on renewable power alone (thought to be impossible)

• Electric cars were up 24% last year - because they use a third of the energy, and are faster, quieter and don’t gas children’s lungs

There are plenty of challenges. Expanding the grid, high upfront costs, and we need storage. But we’re human, we can solve these.

China is not building renewables at epic scale simply to look good to kale-eating middle class Westerners, like some sort of virtue-signalling supermarket. They do it because it works for them.

Good news: an era of energy abundance will shortly be upon us.

Sadly, the US is stuck staring at the past.

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