Opinion:
¶ “Victoria’s Blackout Had Nothing To Do With Renewables. Claiming That It Did Won’t Fix The System” • As workers and system managers scrambled to get power back on, after storms blacked out 500,000 electricity customers, some people were unable to resist blaming renewable energy. But it was a coal plant and transmission lines that failed. [The Guardian]
Loy Yang power station (Marcus Wong, CC-BY-SA 3.0)
¶ “The Unstoppable Rise Of Renewable Energy: Solar, Wind, And Beyond” • In the evolving world of energy, renewables are taking center stage, transforming the global landscape and redefining power dynamics. Here, two leading academic thinkers engage in a riveting discussion on the trends shaping the world energy market. [BNN Breaking]
Science and Technology:
¶ “24M Claims The 1000 Mile Battery Is Nearly Here” • 24M’s unique liquid electrolyte, Eternalyte™, used with Impervio™, provides a low cost way to eliminate the metal dendrites of lithium-ion batteries and achieve excellent cycle life with low electrical resistance to cathode active materials. This paves the way for better lithium batteries. [CleanTechnica]
24M Electrode-to-Pack Tecnology (24M image)
World:
¶ “January 2024 Breaks Global EV Sales Record: Take That, Haters” • Reports kept coming along of bad EV sales. Then some researchers at Rho Motion actually crunched the numbers. They found that a record 660,000 EVs sold globally in January of 2023, but this year’s January EV sales blew past that mark by 69% for a total of more than 1 million. [CleanTechnica]
¶ “The Romanian City of Galați Invests In 40 New e-Buses” • The authorities of Galați, Romania, selected Solaris to supply forty electric buses. Solaris is to deliver twenty battery buses in a 9-meter version and twenty with a length of 12 meters. The e-buses will be equipped with plug-in charging and rails for inverted pantographs. [CleanTechnica]
Solaris electric bus (Solaris image)
¶ “Turkey Sets Ambitious Goal Of 7,500 MW Of Renewable Capacity For Industrial Use In 2024” • Turkey declared a large increase in its renewable energy sector, allocating 7,500 MW of renewable capacity for industrial use this year. The Energy and Natural Resources Minister stated that $5 billion in investments would be implemented promptly. [SolarQuarter]
¶ “Only Asia On Track To Triple Renewable Energy Capacity By 2030, Fuelled By Growth In India And China: Report” • Driven by growth in India and China, Asia is at this time the largest contributor to additional global renewable energy capacity needed to triple production by 2030, report from global think tank Climate Analytics said. [Swarajya]
Wind turbines in India (Thangaraj Kumaravel, CC-BY-SA 2.0)
¶ “Permanent Magnet Motor Market Surges Amidst EV And Renewable Energy Boom” • In a world racing towards a cleaner and more sustainable future, the permanent magnet motor market is seeing an unprecedented boom. With the increasing popularity of EVs and renewable energy sources, the demand for these motors is soaring. [BNN Breaking]
¶ “Spending Watchdog Launches Investigation Into Sellafield” • Britain’s public spending watchdog launched an investigation into risks and costs at Sellafield, the UK’s biggest nuclear waste dump. The National Audit Office, scrutinises use of public funds. It announced it will examine whether the site is managing and prioritising the risks effectively. [The Guardian]
Sellafield (Simon Ledingham, CC-BY-SA 2.0)
US:
¶ “First February Tornadoes In Wisconsin Caused $2.4 Million In Damages” • The first tornadoes ever recorded in Wisconsin in the usually frigid month of February caused damage of over $2.4 million, officials said. They struck Rock County on February 8. They hit thirty homes, killed some cattle, and damaged farming equipment and buildings. [ABC News]
¶ “Why Ice Did Not Form In The Great Lakes This Winter” • This is the winter that wasn’t in the upper Midwest and Great Lakes regions. The ice cover has just kept melting away since last week’s Great Lakes ice analysis showed that it was only 5.9%. With climate change, the Great Lakes are among the fastest-warming lakes in the world. [ABC News]
Lake Michigan, near Muskegon, on February 11 (Jen Day, NOAA)
¶ “US EV Sales Up 385% Since 2019, Normal “ICE” Vehicle Sales Down 14%” • In sales trends of the past four years, sales growth for EVs crushed that for combustion engine vehicles. Comparing 2023 and 2022 totals, EVs saw 47% growth while combustion cars saw 10% growth. Comparing 2023 and 2021, EVs grew 142% while combustion cars fell 3%. [CleanTechnica]
¶ “Texas Shatters Own Solar Power Record, Weird Political Situation Or Not” • Texas has emerged as the renewable energy pace-setter in the US, despite top public officials who don’t have very nice things to say about clean power. The big dollars are flowing into clean energy, and Texas now gets more electricity from the sun than from coal. [CleanTechnica]
Solar power (American Public Power Association, Unsplash)
¶ “US DOE Challenges Solar Industry to Triple Community Solar by End of 2025” • At the US DOE’s National Community Solar Partnership Annual Summit, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Jeff Marootian, challenged the community solar industry to commit to a target of 20 GW of community solar by 2025, up from 7 GW today. [CleanTechnica]
¶ “Vogtle Unit 4 Reaches First Criticality” • Operators have started the nuclear reaction at Vogtle Unit 4, an announcement from Georgia Power said. This step, known as initial criticality, is when the nuclear fission reaction becomes self-sustaining so it can generate enough heat to produce electricity. The step will be followed by testing. [Power Engineering]
Have an utterly superb day.
geoharvey 
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