Giant Plumes of Methane

Russian scientists have discovered hundreds of plumes of methane gas, some 1,000 meters in diameter, bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean. Scientists are concerned that as the Arctic Shelf recedes, the unprecedented levels of gas released could greatly accelerate global climate change.

Great.

Times Are Changing

Anecdotal: both High Schools in Chico have solar arrays covering their parking lots, Butte Community College is one of the first colleges to be grid positive, a farm in rural Butte county has four wind turbines and a solar roof, and a farm along side I-5 in Northern California is deploying a solar array on some of its farmland. Couple this with David Roberts post on Grist last week showing the above maps, and renewables are appearing more and more in daily life. First one 1970, second one 2011.

 

Apple's New Headquarters Will Have the Largest Solar Roof in US

Seth Weintraub:

Today’s updated Apple Headquarters Spaceship campus plans include a roof made almost entirely out of solar cells, according to details released today. With a building as large as Apple’s, that puts it in the top corporate solar installations in the world and the biggest in the US.  The current title holder is the 4.26 MW system in Edison New Jersey and another being built by ToysRus in sunny NJ is rated 5.38W

Clearly, this won’t be enough power to power all of operations, but as Steve Jobs mentioned in his case to the Cupertino City council, Apple will be able to generate a lot of its own power and will run from an on-site power facility.

(Via The Loop)

On the Impracticality of the Cheeseburger

Waldo Jaquith:

A cheeseburger cannot exist outside of a highly developed, post-agrarian society. It requires a complex interaction between a handful of vendors—in all likelihood, a couple of dozen—and the ability to ship ingredients vast distances while keeping them fresh. The cheeseburger couldn’t have existed until nearly a century ago as, indeed, it did not.

Great quote. Good article describing his quest to make his own cheeseburger from scratch, all of it from scratch.

 

Save or Destroy?

Humans have been unintentionally geoengineering the earth for thousands of years. Intintional geoengineering aimed at reversing global climate change is an increasingly talked about idea. However, it's fraught with controversy as well as many many unknowns (unknowables?).

Arthur Max (AP):

They could be physical — unintentionally changing weather patterns and rainfall. Even more difficult, it could be political — spurring conflict among nations unable to agree on how such intervention, or geoengineering, will be controlled.

As Plan A (reducing CO2 emissions through international cooperation) begins to lapse and fail, will once wild ideas like geoengineering seem so crazy and dangerous in the next 100 years? 

Boondoggle or Cutting Edge?

California's high-speed rail project set to go amidst harsh criticism that it will end up a boondoggle, a giant waste of money. Is this the kind of politics that built extensive high-speed rail in Europe, Japan, and now China? 

Adam Nagourney:

But for many Californians, struggling through a bleak era that has led some people to wonder if the state’s golden days are behind it, this project goes to the heart of the state’s pioneering spirit, recalling grand public investments in universities, water systems, roads and parks that once defined California as the leading edge of the nation.

Sign of the times for the US: crumbling 19th and 20th century infrastructure. Not good, and little evidence that we can make these projects work. 

Environmental historian Richard White:

What they are hoping is that this will be to high-speed rail what Vietnam was to foreign policy: that once you’re in there, you have to get in deeper. The most logical outcome to me is we are going to have a white elephant in the San Joaquin Valley.