Today is the delayed #GeorgiaPrimary and George Floyd's funeral. We keep hearing that voting is the answer, but #VoterSuppression is intensely real.
I've hesitated to tell this story but have been told it might be useful precisely bc I'm a privileged white person, so here goes:
The long and short of it: in 2018, my white husband was falsely recorded as Black in the system. I watched him fill out the form, at a voting drive in a Black neighborhood. He did not incorrectly mark his race.
He was unable to vote that year.
We had to vote early due to some travel. The system now shows his reg date as ~2 weeks before we went to vote early. That day, though, he wasn't in the system and wasn't able to vote.
I actually re-registered in person because I was worried the confirmation was taking so long. My reg date reflects that later registration, and I was able to vote.
#VoterSuppression is extremely real. Was this story just a mistake? Maybe. But for today's primary, both of us requested absentee ballots by the deadline. Neither of us received them in time to mail back, and I just found out our voting location changed.
People are waiting hours for today's election -- the one that didn't get straight up cancelled this year. In my county, I am seeing that once again, machines aren't working, locations are confused, etc. etc.
I know what I'm doing after my meetings today. But this is injustice.
ETA explicitly, since I seem to have deleted it while threading:
Yes, I think Georgia's #VoterSuppression is racist and that the fact my husband was recorded as Black is why he was unable to vote last time. (It's also true that it's hard to vote generally.)
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Ok I’m going to live my dream: a living thread of Google reviews of power plants. These are hilarious to me because they are completely unsolicited and often rule. Will post as the spirit moves me…kicking off with —
On the occasion of the @IPCC_CH Synthesis Report (coincidentally!) -- if you'd like to spend 8 minutes with me on a journey about fossil phaseout & why we need to plan it carefully & righteously (#midtransition), have I ever got a TED talk for you.
Fossil fuels support ~80% of commercial energy consumption, which means we have an enormous amount of stuff to retire over the next couple of decades, while simultaneously building a replacement system /and/ dealing with worsening climate change effects.
🚨new paper🚨 on the water consumption of electrolytic hydrogen 🫧 that I have literally been working on since before modern hydraulic fracturing was a thing
Under deep decarb electrolytic H2 could consume ~15% of today's water for energy
Big headlines: 1) a lot of processes we think we might need for deep decarb (sustainable aviation fuels, various kinds of CDR, hydrogen) might use a LOT of water
(and electrolytic hydrogen is probably on the low end for water intensity of proposed ways to make hydrogen)
2) decarbonization also dewaters the grid (see doi.org/10.1016/j.jhyd…) so we should think about both what the water needs are /now/ and what they would be for a mature industry
this new piece uses NZA and ZCAP scenarios for both H2 production & grid mix projections
As many of you know I'm obsessed with physical infrastructure & want to invite you on this journey re: fossil fuel supply chains in a decarb'd future with me.
Basically: examine claims of future small fossil use critically. A lot of these systems have minimum viable scale.
The ("the") neat thing about flow renewables like wind & solar is that they do fuel harvesting & conversion at the same place, with the same equipment.
Not so for fueled systems (e.g., fossil). You need multiple industries, mostly private in the US, to keep operating.
If I have one wind turbine I can just run it or not (ofc there are construction supply chains -- but I'm talking once it's built). If I have one gas plant I need a gas well, a processing plant, pipelines, safety inspectors, reservoir engineers, educational infrastructure...
Re: CCS in the IRA 1) emissions cuts model suggests ~1b tons of CO2 sequestered 2024-2031 due to IRA 2) Senate finance committee suggests ~0.04b tons of CO2 claiming 45Q credit 2022-2031 (0.05b if it's all tied to EOR, or 0.3b if EOR & no multiplier)
These cannot both be true.
Plus, the lack of requirement to capture on an entire plant (it's unit only) means the CCS part could effectively subsidize the uncontrolled units if the math works, which it might--particularly if the capture is coupled to $90/bbl EOR.
🔥🏭 NEW from your methane attribution dream team, Diana Burns & me🏭🔥
How much do CH4 emissions contribute to GHG footprint of US natural gas-fired power, CCS, and DAC?
*Unit, utility, BA, & NERC region-level #s for power
*AR6 GWPs. Doc drop-->pub'd in 40 hours ain't bad!
HEADLINES: methane matters, a lot, and emissions are spatially variable. We used our state-level consumer-attributed emissions estimates (iopscience.iop.org/article/10.108…) + the usual EIA & EPA data suspects to see what's up. What's up is CO2e: +13-48% of CO2 ems for utility gas fleets.
The top 10 utilities with highest methane burden are largely out West, and the lowest methane burdens are heavily associated with the low-leakage Marcellus. (Btw: if people claim a low CH4 emitting supply, ask: are you blessed with Marcellus gas, or did you do something?)