There's now so many wildfires burning in northern California that they were given group names: here's the SCU Lightning complex and the LNU lightning complex fires on Google Maps.
The SCU Lightning Complex consists of 20(!) different wildfires with a total area of 140 km² (35,000 acres) with hardly any containment so far.
California severely short on firefighting crews. The state usually relies on large numbers of prisoners, but many of them are unavailable due to a Covid-19 outbreak in a North-Californian prison. sacbee.com/news/californi…
Climate scientist and Californian wildfire expert Daniel @Weather_West is stunned by the size of the current wildfire explosion. 2,400 km² burnt in a week, and situation not under control. Thread.
I don't know if anyone is still keeping track on the total number of people evacuated in N-California now, but it's massive. In a way, these people are climate refugees, although they can of course hope to return home in days or weeks.
California's wildfire crisis is made worse by Covid-19:
- much less prisoners available to fight the fires, since Covid-19 was found in a prison used for their training.
- lungs under threat from wildfires and Covid-19 at the same time
- masks hard to get
Total area burnt in this week's California wildfires, so far: 3,670 km² (918,000 acres). The LNU and SCU Lightning Complex fires are now #2 and #4 in state history. latimes.com/california/sto…
That's an area larger than the Dutch province of Zuid-Holland (Rotterdam, The Hague).
Starting a week-long business & pleasure trip to Spain, by train!
Hope to be in Barcelona this evening :)
I'll keep you posted in this🧵
The plan for today: Utrecht - Rotterdam - Paris - Barcelona. The tricky part is changing trains in Paris. Theoretically 2 hours should be more than enough to get from Paris-Nord to Gare de Lyon (the rail planner irresponsibly proposed 1 hour), but @Eurostar is often delayed (2/n)
Made it to Rotterdam, at least ;)
Bit very early, but hey, why hurry on a Saturday morning? (3/n)
Reading the Dutch "Action agenda congestion low-voltage grids".
The accelating energy transition already brings grid issues here. In the low-voltage distribution grid, the growing number of solar panels (PV), electric cars (EV) and (hybrid) heat pumps ((h)WP) is the challenge.
Without measures, a large and growing number of households would experience periods with too high or too low voltage (over- resp. onderspanning) or risk of grid failure.
Measures are categorized in: 1) accelerating grid expansion 2) more efficient use of the grid capacity 3) saving energy as much as possible.
1) already gets a lot of attention, and each of the three main DSOs plans to spend around €1 billion/year. Many hurdles though.
"Transition doesn't make energy cheaper, but to the contrary, significantly more expensive"
Headline in Dutch @Volkskrant yesterday, 9 days before the elections here. "Consumers and companies will pay 92% more for electricity and natural gas by 2030".
Hmm, let's look into that.
Firstly, as others have already pointed out too, it's a comparison between 2020 and 2030. In 2020, energy was cheap: Covid reduced demand, and Russia hadn't started its energy war and attack on Ukraine yet.
Compared with 2023, not a lot would remain of the "+92%".
Looking into the forecasted price increase 2020-2030 it has three components: 1. Tax (Belasting) +€5 billion. That'd be a political choice, which has little to do with the energy transition. 2. Grid (Netbeheer) +€5 billion. Increase to be expected indeed.
But ...
A problem for French nuclear power producer EDF: its total production cost (in the old power plants) is 60 €/MWh, according to the regulator, but govt forces it to sell a big chunk at 42 €/MWh.
60 €/MWh is not a bad cost in the current European electricity market, but it's also a reality check for those here who think nuclear power is practically for free after the investment in the power plant is done.
Tomorrow, @KornelisBlok's 40+ years of wide-ranging, thorough, and groundbreaking work on the energy transition will come together in his "Need for Speed" lecture. Recommended!
Time: 15:00 CEST
Link: lnkd.in/e6hbsKQc #energytransition#tudelft
Time to tune in!
.@KornelisBlok's 1984 analysis of 100% renewable energy for the Netherlands! Including heat pumps and electrolysis.