Also on today’s menu:
Meeting Wind Energy Challenges
What To Do With Plastics
Tackling The Effects Of Drought
The National Hurricane Center’s 8 a.m. update placed Hurricane Ian about 105 miles southeast of Charleston, South Carolina, where powerful wind gusts bent tree branches and sent sprays of rain sideways along streets that were largely empty. A “life-threatening storm surge” with hurricane conditions is forecast along the Carolina coastal area later today. Winds were continuing at 85 mph.
At least six people were confirmed dead from Ian’s sweep of Florida on Thursday, including two who died Thursday afternoon when their car hydroplaned and overturned in a water-filled ditch in north Florida’s Putnam County. A chunk of the Sanibel Causeway fell into the sea, cutting off access to the barrier island where 6,300 people live.
Three other people were reported killed in Cuba after the hurricane struck there on Tuesday.
Meeting Wind Energy Challenges
A day-long New Hampshire Offshore Wind Summit in Portsmouth this week focused on the benefits and challenges of the offshore wind farms proposed for the Gulf of Maine. Governor Chris Sununu said it is important to have the involvement of “all the right stakeholders” because, “At some point we’ve got to make decisions whether to go or not go, where the costs and where this is going to be, and how it plays into what’s happening in New England.”
While New Hampshire is poised to benefit from the electricity generated by offshore wind, it does not currently have the transmission infrastructure necessary to take advantage of that power.
“My job,” Sununu said, “is to be super, super selfish only for the 1.4 million people in the 603 … and we’ve got to make sure we’re putting them first every single time and fighting for their interests above all else every single time.” That includes making sure the state is entitled to any mitigation funds for those who might be adversely affected by wind farms — whale watches, fishermen, lobstermen, and fishing charters, for example.
“The offshore wind sector requires significant coastal infrastructure for manufacturing, construction, marshaling, and operations and maintenance,” said James Andrews, president of Granite Shore Power, a wholesale energy company that operates five power stations in New Hampshire. “In each of these areas, significant investment is required to satisfy the unique needs of the sector, all necessary to develop an offshore wind installation.”
What To Do With Plastics
Plastics executives are acknowledging that their industry has produced a “linear” economy in which plastic products are made from fossil fuels and end up as litter or waste in landfills, waterways, and incinerators. Now they are embracing “climate solutions” that include “advanced recycling.”
Their climate solutions involve making and using more plastic products, but with advanced recycling — also known as chemical recycling — to address the problem of seeing less than 6 percent of plastic waste being recycled in the United States. That solution, however, will require “industry-friendly” legislation and subsidies.
They are promoting a “circular” plastics economy that produces little or no waste by heating and treating plastic waste products with chemicals that turn them into fuels or new plastic feedstocks. The processes for doing this are new and, so far, largely unproven.
Tackling The Effects Of Drought
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has announced new measures to address the dry conditions in the Colorado River system, unveiling plans to use part of the $4 billion it received as part of the recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act for “short-term conservation” that would update aging canals and remove water-intensive grass in cities and suburbs.
Kimery Wiltshire, president of Confluence West, a group of water leaders in the region, said she was struck by bureau’s use of the words “seek” and “encourage,” saying that voluntary measures would not do much, especially if payouts to growers are relatively low. “Unfortunately, I don’t think that what they’re proposing is going to get us to where we so desperately need to go, very quickly,” Wiltshire said. “Frankly, what Interior really can’t do a whole heck of a lot about is getting to the underlying causes. We don’t have the demand management that we need. We’re consuming too much water. We need to go to significantly less thirsty crops than what we’re growing right now.”
The Bureau of Reclamation also hinted at more reductions in the water released from the basin’s reservoirs in 2023. The agency has already announced some mandatory cuts to some water users in the lower Colorado River basin, and this latest announcement suggested that the agency may alter those agreements.
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