John Oliver explains the U.S. power grid and the challenge of upgrading it for America’s electric future
Peter Weber, Senior editor – November 8, 2021
“Electricity is such an integral part of modern life it is hard to believe that we used to have to sell people on the idea of electric appliances,” John Oliver said on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, showing a TV ad from 1959. “Specifically tonight we’re going to talk about the power grid, the system of generators that produce electricity and the vast latticework of wires that get it to our homes. The grid is probably something that you probably don’t think much about until it goes down — which, unfortunately, has been happening more and more in recent years.”
“While things are bad now, they could get a lot worse in the future, because the U.S. has a goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 — which we absolutely must meet,” Oliver said. “But one study estimates that’s going to require a 40-60 percent in peak electricity consumption,” with the shift to electric cars and heating, and “all that electricity is going to have to come from somewhere.”
The U.S. power grids — 600,000 miles of transmission lines and 5.5 million miles of local distribution lines — have been called the “supreme engineering achievement of the 20th century,” Oliver said. But most power lines are long past their 50-year life expectancies, and climate change has made them more vulnerable.
Upgrading the grid will require lots of little changes, but “our shift to renewable energy is going to require a fundamental shift in what our grid looks like,” Oliver said. You can build coal plants near large coastal cities, but most wind farms will need to be in middle America, and it may be an “uphill battle” to convince “a Midwestern farmer ‘We need to build something in your backyard so someone in California can power their electric car.'” Luckily, “the physical generation of renewable energy isn’t really the problem here,” he said. “The key issue is the transmission of it.” And there are fixes for that, too, though not easy or cheap ones.
“For far too long, whenever we’ve experience blackouts, we’ve tended to think of it as the power grid failing,” Oliver said, “but the truth is, it’s not failing us — we are failing it by asking it to do something it was not designed to do in conditions that it was not designed to handle.” He ended his show with a bang, then a slight whimper.
John Oliver Unloads on Democrats for Election Losses: ‘Voters Have Turned on Them’
Marlow Stern – November 7, 2021
HBO
On Sunday night’s edition of Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver took aim at the Democrats for getting clobbered in this past week’s elections.
“The Democrats had a rough time in Tuesday’s election. They lost the governor’s race in Virginia and nearly lost the governorship of New Jersey. But perhaps the clearest sign of just how much voters have turned on them was this,” explained Oliver before throwing to a clip of Republican Edward Durr. The truck driver with no political experience won a Senate seat in the state of New Jersey over Democratic incumbent Steve Sweeney, the president of the New Jersey Senate. Durr spent just $2,300 on his campaign compared to Sweeney’s $600,000.
“OK, I know there’s a lot to process there,” offered Oliver. “But what I did not need to be told there is that the name of his vanquisher—this man—is Ed Durr.”
He then put up a photo of Durr dressed in an ill-fitting suit and suspenders, adding: “Because when you look like this, the ‘Ed Durr’ is very much assumed. I see this image and I immediately know three things: He’s a white middle-aged guy, his style icon is Larry King, and his name is unavoidably ‘Ed Durr.’”
“Now this was a huge upset,” Oliver continued. “And if you’re thinking, well, maybe Ed Durr simply captivated people with his unique and powerful vision of New Jersey, good luck with that argument.”
When asked on Fox News what the first thing he would do once he got to the capital in Trenton would be, Durr replied, “I really don’t know. That’s the key factor. I don’t know what I don’t know, so I will learn what I need to know.”
“Oh, come on, Ed Durr! You could have answered anything there!” exclaimed Oliver. “You could have said, ‘I’m going to lick every door handle’ or ‘I’m doing to get to the bottom of this Epstein thing,’ or you could have just said ‘Durr’—any of which would have been better than, ‘I don’t know.’”
On top of that, Durr has compared COVID mandates to the Holocaust and claimed that the Prophet Muhammad was a “pedophile” and that Islam is “a false religion.”
Bees, sheep, crops: Solar developers tout multiple benefits
John Flesher, Tammy Webber November 4, 2021
Climate Solar Restoring the Landscape
Sheep graze at a solar farm at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., Friday, Sept. 24, 2021. As panels spread across the landscape, the grounds around them can be used for native grasses and flowers that attract pollinators such as bees and butterflies. Some solar farms are being used to graze sheep.(AP Photo/Heather Ainsworth)
Solar farms surround trees at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., Friday, Sept. 24, 2021. As panels spread across the landscape, the grounds around them can be used for native grasses and flowers that attract pollinators such as bees and butterflies. Some solar farms are being used to graze sheep. (AP Photo/Heather Ainsworth)
Cornell University researcher Niko Kochendoerfer stands among sheep grazing at a solar farm at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., Friday, Sept. 24, 2021. Kochendoerfer says initial data from her three-year study shows light grazing produces abundant bees and wildflowers, while keeping plants from shading panels. Some rare bee species are turning up. (AP Photo/Heather Ainsworth)
Crops grow under solar panels at Jack’s Solar Garden on Sept. 14, 2021, in Longmont, Colo. As panels spread across the landscape, the grounds around them can be used for native grasses and flowers that attract pollinators such as bees and butterflies.(AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)
Sheep graze and rest at a solar farm at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., Friday, Sept. 24, 2021. As panels spread across the landscape, the grounds around them can be used for native grasses and flowers that attract pollinators such as bees and butterflies. Some solar farms are being used to graze sheep. (AP Photo/Heather Ainsworth)
MONTICELLO, Minnesota (AP) — Silflower was among native plants that blanketed the vast North American prairie until settlers developed farms and cities. Nowadays confined largely to roadsides and ditches, the long-stemmed cousin of the sunflower may be poised for a comeback, thanks to solar energy.
Researchers are growing silflower at nine solar installations in the Minneapolis area, testing its potential as an oilseed crop. The deep-rooted perennial also offers forage for livestock and desperately needed habitat for bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.
“We need a lot of plots spaced pretty far apart to measure silflower’s effects on pollinators,” said crop scientist Ebony Murrell of The Land Institute, a research nonprofit. “The solar industry is interested in restoring pollinator habitat. This seemed to be a good partnership.”- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html
Solar is a renewable energy source that can help wean the world off fossil fuels that produce greenhouse gases. But it also could benefit the environment and economy in ways not as well known.
As the industry grows, solar arrays will sprawl across millions of acres (hectares) — wasting farmland, critics say. But advocates see opportunities to diversify crop production and boost landowner income, while repairing ecological damage to ground plowed under or paved over.
“There’s lots of spaces where solar could be integrated with really innovative uses of land,” said Brendan O’Neill, a University of Michigan environmental scientist who’s monitoring how planting at a new 1,752-panel facility in Cadillac, Michigan, stores carbon.
Elsewhere, solar installations host sheep that reduce need for mowing. And researchers are experimenting with crop growing beneath solar panels, while examining other potential upsides: preventing soil erosion, and conserving and cleansing water.
The U.S. has about 2,500 solar operations on the electric grid, most generating one to five megawatts, according to the Energy Information Administration. A five-megawatt facility needs around 40 acres (16 hectares). While some occupy former industrial sites, larger installations often take space once used for row crops.
Depending on how quickly the nation switches to renewable electricity, up to 10 million acres (4 million hectares) could be needed for solar by 2050 — more than the combined area of Massachusetts and New Jersey, an analysis by Argonne found.
Solar developers and researchers hope projects with multiple land uses will ease pushback from rural residents who don’t want farmland taken out of production or consider solar panels a blight.
“We need healthy agricultural communities, but we also need renewable energy,” said Jordan Macknick, the renewable energy lab’s lead analyst for InSPIRE.
BUZZ AND FUZZ
At Cascadilla Community Solar Farm in upstate New York, sheep munch grasses among solar panels while bees and butterflies collect pollen from native flowers.
Cornell University researcher Niko Kochendoerfer says initial data from her three-year study shows light grazing produces abundant bees and wildflowers, while keeping plants from shading panels. Some rare bee species are turning up.
Farmers get $300 to $550 per acre yearly to graze sheep at solar sites, increasing farm income while sparing them the cost of renting or buying pasture, said Kochendoerfer, who owns about 400 sheep with her fiance, Lewis Fox. Grazing is less expensive than traditional site management, she said.
Fox has sheep at solar sites from southern Pennsylvania to Vermont.
“Certain times of the year … the sites will be like a butterfly house in a zoo — there’s just butterflies everywhere,” he said.
Sheep are feeding at solar installations in more than 20 states, said Lexie Hain, director of the American Solar Grazing Association and Fox’s business partner. It’s also happening in the United Kingdom, other parts of Europe, Uruguay and Australia.
VEGETABLES IN SOLAR SHADE
In Longmont, Colorado, Jack’s Solar Farm offers another example of solar meeting agriculture. Instead of wheat and hay as before, the farm’s 24 acres (about 10 hectares) host 3,276 panels, generating enough power for about 300 homes. Beneath them grow tomatoes, squash, kale and green beans.
Researchers are comparing vegetables grown under panels six or eight feet (about two to 2½ meters) off the ground with others in open sunlight. Results were mixed during the recently concluded initial season but shaded plants appeared to have a longer growing season.
“We don’t have to leave the soils underneath our solar panels across our country denuded or just left to weeds,” owner Byron Kominek said. “Elevating the panels a little bit more provides agricultural jobs as well as an opportunity to do more with the land.”
“Agrivoltaics,” or growing produce beneath panels, is especially promising in hot, arid regions, say experts who have planted cherry tomatoes and peppers beneath them at the University of Arizona’s Biosphere 2 laboratory.
Those crops usually match or exceed ones in a traditional environment, according to the team’s findings. With less direct sunlight, they lose less water to evaporation, reducing irrigation demand. And the plants keep panels cooler, boosting performance.
How widely such farming could happen remains to be seen, said Greg Barron-Gafford, a biogeography professor at Arizona. Large-scale agriculture requires mechanized planting and harvesting that might be difficult beneath panels.
“But the vast majority of farms across the country are small farms that are breaking even or losing money,” Barron-Gafford said, adding that leasing land for solar energy while still growing food could generate profits.
POLLINATOR HABITAT
While commercial prospects for agrivoltaics are unknown, scientists say it’s certain that solar grounds are ideal for native grasses and flowers that draw pollinators, many facing extinction.
A team led by Oregon State University researcher Maggie Graham reported this year that bees and other insects visit plants partly or totally shaded by panels. They also may pollinate crops in nearby fields, boosting yields.
Compared to farmland, solar sites planted with pollinator-friendly native vegetation would provide a three-fold increase in habitat quality for pollinators, a recent Argonne study concluded. Pollinator-friendly sites would have two-thirds more carbon storage potential, nearly one-fifth less water runoff and 95% less soil erosion than traditionally cultivated land, it said.
Some solar developers are resisting because plants for pollinators are more expensive than lawn used at many sites. But over time that’s offset by lower maintenance, said Reed Richerson, chief operating officer of U.S. Solar, a Minneapolis developer.
The popularity of saving bees and butterflies is attracting the likes of Walmart, which buys power from dozens of pollinator-friendly U.S. Solar installations.
More than a dozen states have standards or guidelines based on qualities such as ground cover density and diversity, and the amount of land involved.
“We wanted to avoid greenwashing — planting a little patch of clover and petunias and saying, ‘There’s my pollinator-friendly contribution,’” said Michael Noble, director of Minnesota-based Fresh Energy, which helped develop the standards.
Many more nature-based solar gardens are needed as global warming and species losses accelerate, said Rob Davis, spokesman for Connexus Energy.
Three years ago, he said, one of the Minnesota co-op’s solar projects risked rejection by a suburban planning commission until supporters brought up the pollinator benefits and their visual appeal.
“The technology of solar energy is unfamiliar and foreign,” Davis said. “But everyone understands what a meadow is.”
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Tammy Webber reported from Fenton, Michigan. AP video journalist Brittany Peterson contributed from Longmont, Colorado.
Granderson: You can’t be a Republican by today’s standards if you won’t go along with the ‘Big Lie’
LZGranderson –November 3, 2021
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who voted to impeach Donald Trump, announced Friday that he will not seek reelection in 2022. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades / Associated Press)
I first met Rep. Adam Kinzinger nearly 10 years ago at a time in which he was a rising star within the Republican Party. Not only was he in his early 30s and a natural on television, he went into the House with a good deal of gravitas, having served in the Air Force in both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
Over the years, we’ve discussed his views on social issues as well as his thoughts about President Obama’s military strategy. Sometimes I would agree with him, sometimes I would not. But regardless of whether we saw eye to eye on the topic, I always knew where he stood. That’s not to say Kinzinger didn’t play politics. You don’t get to serve six terms in Congress without your share of vague answers and long walks along the party line. But his core principles never changed — he is conservative on gun control, immigration and abortion.
He’s just no longer a Republican.
At least not by today’s standards.
Last week, he became the second Republican House member who voted to impeach President Trump to announce he was not seeking reelection in 2022. He joins Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio), a former college football and NFL star who also came into office with some cachet, only to see it evaporate as his party fell into Trumpism. In response to the Kinzinger news, Trump issued a statement that read in part: “2 down, 8 to go!”
It was like watching Thanos collect another infinity stone during “Avengers: Endgame.”
Consider this: The polling analysis website FiveThirtyEight has Kinzinger voting in support of Trump’s policies more than 90% of the time. He won the Republican primary in 2018 with 68% of the vote and went unopposed in the primary in 2020 and won the general election with more than 64% of the vote. Kinzinger even voted against the first impeachment in 2019. None of that seems to matter. He along with Gonzalez, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and a handful of others now find themselves out of favor with the party because they wouldn’t go along with Trump’s Big Lie.
Talk about what have you done for me lately.
“The Republican establishment now — whether it’s the [National Republican Congressional Committee], whether it’s Kevin McCarthy — have held onto Donald Trump,” Kinzinger said to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. “They have continued to breathe life into him, and so actually, it’s not really handing a win as much to Donald Trump as it is to the cancerous kind of lie and conspiracy — not just wing anymore — but mainstream argument of the Republican Party.”
Kinzinger was supported by the tea party insurgency that fueled the Republican landslide in the 2010 midterm election; it helped him defeat another Republican in the GOP primary in 2012. Those days of being a GOP darling are over.
“It’s not on Liz Cheney and I to save the Republican Party,” Kinzinger said. “It’s on the 190 Republicans who haven’t said a dang word about it, and they put their head in the sand and hope somebody else comes along and does something.”
Yeah, but what exactly?
There hasn’t been a consequential third-party candidate since Ross Perot received 19% of the popular vote in 1992. And while political analysts disproved the theory that Perot cost George H.W. Bush reelection, the truth remains that those 20 million votes Perot received did not go to Bush or Bill Clinton. Given the thin margin of victory in states such as Arizona and Georgia, how comfortable would Kinzinger be as a third-party candidate if his presence opens the door to a second Trump term?
And given Trump’s intense support among the GOP base — and continuing efforts by Republicans to sabotage voting laws — can anyone be sure that Trump won’t secure a second term, even without a third-party spoiler?
This is what makes Kinzinger’s departure so noteworthy. Over the course of one term, he went from rock star to GOP pariah all because he wouldn’t toss his core conservative values off a cliff.
In 2011, Kinzinger was listed on Time magazine’s “40 Under 40” list of future national leaders in American politics. Ten years later, Kinzinger is fulfilling that promise albeit not in the fashion he or the editors of the magazine imagined.
Kinzinger has said this is the end of his career in the House but not in politics. That could mean he’s eyeing a run for an Illinois Senate seat; both are currently held by Democrats. Sen. Richard J. Durbin will be close to 80 when he seeks reelection in 2026. But it’s doubtful Kinzinger will wait that long. Sen. Tammy Duckworth is up for reelection in 2022, but Kinzinger will have a hard time making it through the Republican primary with Trump still hanging over his shoulders.
Perhaps the governor’s office? Maybe president? Whatever Kinzinger decides to do next, one thing is crystal clear: Democrats won’t be his only opponents and facts won’t be much of an ally.
