Articles include: Canadian methane emissions; Hawaiian coral reefs; phase-out of non-EVs; better highways; funding focus changes on infrastructure; Japan & hydrogen; South Korea funding coal plants; wildfires and Alaska; Utilities and clean energy standards; clean hydrogen energy; US and China – foes; 3% of ecosystems remain intact – study.
Tag: Hawaii
Global warming’s extreme rains threaten Hawaii’s coral reefs
ABC News: Global warming’s extreme rains threaten Hawaii’s coral reefs. Recent flooding in Hawaii caused widespread and obvious damage.
As muddy rainwater surged from Hawaii’s steep seaside mountains and inundated residential communities last month, the damage caused by flooding was obvious — houses were destroyed and businesses swamped, landslides covered highways and raging rivers and streams were clogged with debris.
But extreme rain events predicted to become more common with human-caused global warming not only wreak havoc on land — the runoff from these increasingly severe storms also threatens Hawaii’s coral reefs.
“These big events are the ones that have the greatest damage because they are the ones that put the most sediment and nutrients out onto the reef,” said C. Mark Eakin, senior coral advisor to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the former director of the agency’s Coral Reef Watch program.
Yale Climate Connections, March 26, 2021
Articles include: The choice is clear: Fair climate policy or no climate policy; Zero emissions drive would grow U.S. economy; Cartoonists – left, right, and center – have their say on Texas freeze and power outage; The making of a one-of-a-kind climate change PR professional; Why some Christians are participating in a ‘carbon fast’ for Lent; Artist and scientist install fake bakery storefront in Chicago to draw attention to climate change; Scientists work to make solar panels more efficient; Food rescue group in Hawaii reduces food waste, feeds community; NASCAR drivers try out racing version of Ford’s all-electric Mustang Mach-E.
The Daily Climate, March 12, 2021
Articles include: Hawaii’s rains, floods cited as examples of climate change; First-ever study of all Amazon greenhouse gases suggest the forest is worsening climate change; How Biden can invest in energy efficient homes; HSBC plans to phase out coal financing by 2040; New US vehicles must be electric by 2030 to meet climate goals – report; 10 years after Fukushima, safety is not the biggest problem for the us nuclear industry.
The Plan to Build a Global Network of Floating Power Stations
Wired: The Plan to Build a Global Network of Floating Power Stations. A lot of thermal energy is trapped in the ocean. An ex-NASA researcher has figured out how it might generate unlimited clean power for aquatic robots.
EARLY LAST YEAR, just a few weeks before the pandemic brought life in the United States to a standstill, Yi Chao and a small team of researchers dropped a slender metal tube into the Pacific Ocean off the Hawaiian coast. After nearly two decades as an oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Chao had left the space agency to commercialize a seafaring generator that can harness the limitless thermal energy trapped in the world’s oceans. His company, Seatrec, is based just down the road from his old NASA stomping grounds in Pasadena, but Chao regularly travels to Hawaii to test hardware in the tranquil, cerulean waters around the Big Island. On this trip, Chao and his team planned to push their invention deeper than it had ever gone before.
Yale Climate Connections, December 18, 2020
Articles include: ‘How much will it cost to slow climate change?’; More CO2 hurts key plants and crops; Report: November 2020 among warmest Novembers on record; Global warming is real, so why is it cold outside?; Sixteen-year-old First Nations advocate; Drug traffickers fuel deforestation in Central America; Farming the way Hawaii’s Indigenous people; As sea levels rise; oysters adapt to ocean acidification, researcher says
Why The Navy Is Becoming A Powerful Force For Clean Energy
Civilbeat.org discusses Why The Navy Is Becoming A Powerful Force For Clean Energy. As the pandemic highlights fragile supply chains, the Navy is working with Hawaii to harness the sun and other natural elements for power.
As the Navy looks to the future of its operations in the Pacific, it’s increasingly exploring renewable energy and other new technologies to get the job done. That gives it something in common with Hawaii.
For years the military has opened up space on island bases to local utility companies to develop energy generation projects, including solar and wind farms, that provide power to both civilian customers and the bases themselves.
In October, Naval Facilities Engineering Command Hawaii began soliciting renewable and fossil fuel-based proposals from developers to plan, finance, construct, own, operate and maintain an energy generation system and storage system on about 160 acres of land at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
Report: How Efforts To Save Hawaii’s Forests Are Preventing A ‘Freshwater Crisis’
CivilBeat.org discusses How Efforts To Save Hawaii’s Forests Are Preventing A ‘Freshwater Crisis’. Landowners, volunteers and an army of local hunters are helping the state fight an uphill battle to protect Hawaii’s forests — and its drinking water.
Five years in, a report to the Legislature showed the project had removed invasive species and built fences to protect about 133,000 acres of priority watershed across the state. That initiative was replaced in 2015 by Gov. David Ige’s goal to protect 30% of the state’s priority watersheds, about 253,000 acres, by the year 2030. With 10 years left to meet the goal, 55% of the earmarked watersheds are under high-level protection.
Study: Sea level rise will have major impacts in the Honolulu area for decades to come
Acuweather discusses how sea level rise will have major impacts in the Honolulu area for decades to come. New research from the University of Hawaii has determined that sea level rise will likely cause large percentages of land in the Honolulu, Hawaii, area to be impacted by three flood mechanisms at the same time. [No study link is provided.]
A simultaneous combination of ocean water washing directly over the shoreline, groundwater inundation as the water table rises closer to the surface and reverse flow through the city drainage system may contribute to flooding, especially during extreme high tide events.
Key excerpt from the EurekAlert report…
“This is significant because many people think that sea level rise can be mitigated by seawalls,” said Shellie Habel, lead author of the study and coastal geologist and extension agent with the University of Hawai’i Sea Grant College Program and UH Coastal Geology Group. “But a seawall will not stop groundwater inundation. Our results highlight the need to readjust our thinking regarding the flooding that accompanies sea level rise. We want to be sure to implement flood management strategies that will be effective at mitigating flooding.”
Clean Water Act Covers Groundwater Discharges, Supreme Court Rules
The New York Times discusses a Supreme Court ruling that affirms that the Clean Water Act covers groundwater discharges. In a 6-to-3 ruling, the court rejected arguments by a county in Hawaii and the Trump administration that only pollution discharged directly into navigable waters requires permits.
The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the Clean Water Act applies to some pollutants that reach the sea and other protected waters indirectly through groundwater.
The case, County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, No. 18-260, concerned a wastewater treatment plant on Maui, Hawaii, that used injection wells to dispose of some four million gallons of treated sewage each day by pumping it into groundwater about a half-mile from the Pacific Ocean. Some of the waste reached the ocean.
Environmental groups sued, calling it “the clean water case of the century.” A ruling in favor of the treatment plant “would open a massive loophole for every polluter in the country to avoid regulation,” David L. Henkin, a lawyer with Earthjustice, said in November.