Kees van der Leun  Profile picture
Sep 3, 2020 26 tweets 8 min read Read on X
September heatwave in California: Sunday temperatures expected to hit 43°C (110F) in much of the state, 49°C (121F) in Palm Springs, and 51°C (124F) in Furnace Creek, Death Valley. Wildfire risk would seem high once more.
New rapidly growing wildfire in California: 125,000 acres = 500 km².
Over 14,000(!) firefighters battling California's many wildfires now.
Massive wave of wildfires in California (and Oregon):
This wildfire, north of Sacramento, traveled over 40 km in one day!
And this one, in southern Oregon, already forced 80,000 people to evacuate.
This is what’s left of Mill City, Oregon (population 2,000).
The Creek fire, one of many, grew to 570 km2 in just 4 days, and is still 0% contained. Expected containment date: 15 October(!). Tough times for @CAL_FIRE
Early afternoon in Stayton, northern Oregon:
Cameras often adjust pictures to correct for darkness. This gives a good impression.
Smoke from California's wildfires now stretching across the US, from the Pacific Ocean to the NE Atlantic coast.
US National Weather Service, Bay Area: The smoke situation in California is "beyond the scope of our models".
.. Barack Obama uses clear language.
Combined satellite views show the extent of the wildfires in California and Oregon, and their smoke field over the Pacific Ocean.
This is incredible: 4 of California’s largest wildfires on record are burning right now! Three from the August wave still burning, one recent fire jumping into the top-10 too now.
(252,000 acres = 1,000 km2)
Massive fires in Oregon too; the current wave already burned 3,700 km² there!
.. and what that looks like on the ground:
. @latimes is clear about climate change as a driving factor behind California's massive wildfire wave:
The August Complex fire has now become California's largest on record (1900 km² burnt), pushing the 2018 Mendocino fire into 2nd place.
And several fires merging have created the 1,000 km² Elkhorn fire, not too far away.
So the situation got even more extreme: half of California's top-10 largest wildfires in 90 years of records is burning right now!
Those 5 ongoing Californian wildfires alone have now already burned 1.7 million acres (almost 7,000 km2). That’s 1.6% of California, and 1/6 of the total area of the Netherlands!

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More from @Sustainable2050

Jun 8
Nasty climate tipping point in sight, especially for NW-Europe! "Nothing drastic will happen at the moment we cross it - which might be soon - but after that the collapse of the current will be unstoppable." And could lead to rapid regional cooling, not so far away from us.
This is a simplified map of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), bringing heat from the South Atlantic, via the Caribbean to the European side of the North Atlantic. On cooling there, the water sinks to 2-3 km depth and takes the cold to the South. Image
Without the AMOC, the North of Europe - especially Iceland, Scandinavia, and Britain - would be much colder than it now is. Image
Read 43 tweets
May 16
Agreement between right-far-right Dutch coalition parties published now. Thread with some points on climate and energy. These are the plans, but execution will of course be key. Wilders and his PVV are in full climate denial, like much of the EU's far right.
1/
- Stick to existing agreements, no higher ambitions than EU policy
- No rules for improving energy efficiency of owner-occupied homes. Obligation (from 2026) to install heat pump on replacing gas-fired heating boiler canceled.
- End of EV subsidies in 2025.
2/
- Study how zero-emission zones in cities kan be delayed to create exceptions for entrepreneurs, but creating such zones remains decision of municipality.
- An end to subsidies for Bio-energy with CCS (for negative emissions) as soon as possible.
3/
Read 9 tweets
Mar 16
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🧵 Image
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) Image
Made it to Rotterdam, at least ;)
Bit very early, but hey, why hurry on a Saturday morning? (3/n)
Image
Image
Read 69 tweets
Jan 28
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. Image
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. Image
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.
Read 16 tweets
Nov 14, 2023
"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. Image
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%". Image
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 ... Image
Read 17 tweets

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