Governors Wind Energy Coalition
Comparing the actual US grid to the one predicted 15 years ago Source: By John Timmer, ARS Technica • Posted: Thursday, April 15, 2021
Demand and carbon emissions are way down, renewables far more common than expected.
On Monday, the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley Lab released a report entitled “Halfway to Zero,” referring to a goal of a zero-emission US electric grid. The report’s headline claim is a bit bogus, in that we’ve not cut our emissions in half relative to any point in history. Instead, they’re down to half of where they were projected to be in a report issued back in 2005.
To a certain extent, the Chicago native (who moved to Greece at 10 or 11 to live with an uncle s family after the death of his mother) will be returning home four decades after graduating from the U of C with a chemistry degree.
Of the trustees who gave him the nod, nearly a dozen were on campus then. Financier Byron Trott and Brady Dougan, who endowed a professorship in molecular engineering, were classmates of Alivisatos. Andrew Alper, former board chair, was a year ahead.
Alivisatos specializes in nanoscience, the study of extraordinarily tiny matter and how it can be manipulated to form new materials or speed computation. His personal lab at Berkeley turned out research into quantum dot crystals for video display screens and spawned two startup companies, one sold to a larger firm and another whose accumulated revenue has topped $250 million.
Warmer Temperatures May Offer California Farmers a Rare Silver Lining: Fewer Frosts
A new study finds that the state’s profitable orchard crops will suffer less frost exposure under climate change, saving water and energy.
By Liza Gross
February 21, 2021
Icicles created by drip irrigation are illuminated by a car s headlights during a cold snap January 17, 2007 in Orange Cove, California. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
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Few things affect where fruit and nut trees can thrive more than temperature. Nuts and many fruit trees need enough cold hours to produce quality yields, whereas too much cold, especially at the wrong time, can prove disastrous.