McCormick: When severe weather strikes, renewable energy has your back
Letter to the editor
In the weeks following Hurricanes Helene and Milton, as an environmental advocate I’ve been hearing from people across the southeast United States about how renewable energy helped them through this hurricane season. One resident of Milledgeville, Georgia, told me, “I have a solar panel and Tesla battery backup system. The night Helene came through our area winds were gusting at 50 mph. The first big gust hit and our electricity went out immediately. The switch to the power wall was seamless and quiet. I do not miss pulling out my generator from under the house. I definitely don’t miss the noise.”
Following Helene, the CEO of the largest electric cooperative in North Carolina said that utilities are “facing a complete rebuild of electrical infrastructure.” In Florida, Hurricane Milton left more than 3 million homes and businesses without power, some for weeks.
As we look to rebuild our power infrastructure and think about becoming more resilient, we should include renewable energy in the heart of our plans. It just makes sense. There is growing evidence that renewables offer grid resilience during extreme weather events – and they reduce the carbon pollution that makes “super storms” more likely in the first place.
Florida and North Carolina have a firm renewable foundation to build on – we have been among the top states for solar power and battery storage growth since 2013.
The priority in the coming months must be helping our communities rebuild their lives and be better prepared for future severe weather, but it would be irresponsible to ignore the opportunity to diversify our energy sources. Burning fossil fuels is energy intensive and pollution heavy, with emissions that trap heat in our air and water. Warmer water means more intense storms, more bacteria and toxic algal blooms, and unlivable conditions for many sea creatures, like coral. Rebuilding with solar options is a better choice for storm resiliency and for our environment.
We are encouraged by the rapid growth of clean, renewable energy, primarily solar and wind in the United States. The project of powering America with renewable energy is now truly national, with growth in every state. Five of the 10 fastest-growing solar states in percentage terms, including South Carolina, Virginia and Alabama, are located in the Southeast. Meanwhile, Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma and Kansas topped the charts for wind power growth in 2022. Southeast states like Florida, should seize the unintended opportunity that our active hurricane season brought and rebuild stronger and more resilient than before.
Whether you live in a red, blue or purple state, clean energy is now just common sense. It’s cheap, resilient, reliable, better for our health and our planet. Maybe that’s why we are seeing more bipartisan support for national policies that support renewable energy. Real life and common sense has a way of overcoming division polarization. Just as many people put aside differences to help each other during the storms, we’re also seeing Americans of all stripes, in all states, embrace the benefits of renewable energy. If Florida does so too, we’ll not only be more storm resilient, we’ll be helping to ensure a more stable environment for future generations.
Mia McCormick, Advocate for Environment Florida and Environment Florida Research & Policy Center
The opinions expressed by letter or opinion writers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AlachuaChronicle.com. Assertions of facts in letters are similarly the responsibility of the author. Letters may be submitted to info@alachuachronicle.com and are published at the discretion of the editor.
Sounds great…..if all you want is to charge your cell phone? However, if you want to run a refrigerator or AC unit you better have a generator as solar panels don’t put out out enough amps to power those…especially on a cloudy (hurricane) day.
That’s false. Without batteries and it’s cloudy or dark, yes. With batteries, no.
I’ve been involved in solar energy on some of the homes I’ve built.
Nah… I prefer coal and/or natural gas.
Maybe the infrastructure needs to be revisited – like running lines underground. Problem is that will run billions of dollars.
Another problem, the capability of storing the energy required to meet the needs of hundreds, maybe thousands, and as mentioned, millions of those affected doesn’t exist. Yet.
Nuclear power provides clean energy for years and should be the primary consideration until storage has been made available. Once fusion becomes a viable source, all of the above becomes a moot point. Except for the transmission part – still have to get the power from A to B.
Storing renewable energy in a safe, easily accessible form has always been the core issue. Interesting new technologies abound… gravity batteries and sand batteries just to name a couple.
Smoking something
Every home should have solar panels and Tesla wall packs. Never mind that the expense easily runs to $50k. And the batteries and panels don’t last forever. By the way, there is no empirical evidence that hurricanes are getting stronger. And the Great Barrier Reef is at its highest point in decades. But your “mm mainstream” news sources winitell you that.
“….Since the 1980s, the hurricane record has shown a more active period in the North Atlantic Ocean. On average, there have been more storms, stronger hurricanes, and an increase in hurricanes that rapidly intensify. Thus far, most of these increases are from natural climate variations. However, one recent study suggests that the latest increase in the proportion of North Atlantic hurricanes undergoing rapid intensification is a bit too large to be explained by natural variability alone. This could be the beginning of detecting the impact of climate change on hurricanes, the paper states. In contrast, the frequency of hurricanes making U.S. landfall (a subset of North Atlantic hurricanes) has not increased since 1900, despite significant global warming and the heating of the tropical Atlantic Ocean….”
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/a-force-of-nature-hurricanes-in-a-changing-climate/
“Abstract
Although global warming is leading to more frequent mass coral bleaching events worldwide, parts of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have consistently escaped severe coral bleaching. Modeling and satellite observations show that climate refugia are created by the upwelling of cooler water to the surface through the interactions of tides and currents with dense reef structures. Here, we use a high-resolution nested regional ocean model to investigate the future status of two relatively large refugia. On the basis of model projections under a high-emission scenario, we find that the upwelling mechanisms will stay active in a warming climate, and these regions are likely to remain approximately more than 1°C cooler than surrounding waters until at least into the 2080s, providing thermal relief to corals. Identification and protection of these refugia may help facilitate reef survival and related biodiversity preservation by allowing their corals time to acclimatize and adapt and ultimately provide source populations to replenish the rest of the reef.”
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ado6884
PS Keith, your denialist news sources aren’t telling you the facts.
Every National Academy of Science in the World, the American Association of Science, and all relevant scientific organizations in the world endorse anthropogenic climate change and it’s danger to human civilization. None dissent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statements_by_major_scientific_organizations_about_climate_change
Biomass plant was renewable energy…how’d that work out?
The rare earth metals to make solar panels & batteries is very polutie.
Nuclear is the way to go!
Nuclear has an extremely dangerous bi-product, so like the other alternatives, must be properly planned, and with an eye toward technical improvements which can minimize the dangers and other downsides. This is also true of oil and coal, as coal has historically killed millions of city inhabitants through lung diseases and with oil produced high levels of CO2 which is transforming the world’s environment in ways dangerous to the stability of human civilization.
We’re smart and highly adaptable survivors, so we need to continue the work of figuring out and solving the problem. Unfortunately, too many ignored this issue and elected an ignoramus as president who will waste another 4 years avoiding the future and even worse, taking us backwards. No wonder he lost the youth vote so decisively.
What you going to do with all of those heavy metals required for batteries?
Trump lost the youth vote because he didn’t tell them the government would write off their loans…the loans they signed. I guess that contradicts “smart” regarding the offspring some are birthing nowadays.
As noted above, not the only problem to be overcome with energy sources, including oil, coal, and natural gas, which have and are affecting our environment in massive ways.
The percentage of young voters with high student loan balances is miniscule compared to those who will face the consequences of our energy policy – 100%
That’s the route you want to take with that?
That miniscule number of voters are those making the most noise, saying the system isn’t fair, think people like yourself and others “owe” them something instead of getting off their lazy asses and doing something besides protesting plastic straws to save the planet. They do all of that while “tik toking” or “instagramming” their sit-ins on the latest mobile technologies. That same group of young voters who get upset when they lose internet connectivity.
That group of self-gratifying hypocrites? You’re probably right, that’s likely a huge number compared to those who voted for Trump.
“Roughly 80 percent of new clean energy manufacturing investments announced since the Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022 have flowed to Republican congressional districts, according to data from Atlas Public Policy, a research firm.”
Article shows GOP and Democratic districts receiving Biden and Democrats legislation addressing climate change with technology and manufacturing investments. Given the federal funds coming their way, many GOP legislators will probably oppose Trump’s pledge to overturn this legislation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/03/us/politics/biden-trump-legislation-republicans.html
PS
“New data released this week show that since President Joe Biden and Vice President [Kamala] Harris took office, announcements of private sector investments in clean energy and manufacturing in the United States have now surpassed $1 trillion.”
Although the infrastructure act was labeled bipartisan, only 13 House Republicans and 19 Senate Republicans voted for it — though many more took credit. On the Chips and Science Act, Republican participation was nearly as meager (24 House, 17 Senate Republicans). And not a single Republican from either chamber voted for the Inflation Reduction Act (which contained subsidies, credits and loans for green energy conversion). Simply put, if it were up to Republicans (and it was for four years during Donald Trump’s first term) this achievement never would have come about.
The massive economic plan was not a matter of the federal government picking winners and losers, as some like to characterize industrial policy. The administration set out broad parameters — e.g., chip manufacturing, green energy, high-speed internet — while governors and/or the private sector prioritized projects. And, remember, the $1 trillion was not government spending taxpayer dollars. This was private money recognizing the utility of investment once government got the ball rolling….”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/12/03/biden-investment-private-sector/
Your still supporting the lamest and worst president in American history. He is giving Africa a billion dollars to keep up the slave labor in the mines to keep digging that EV (BS) Gold. You’re TDS is getting the better of you.
“… 154 historians and presidential experts see it: They rate Biden in the top third of U.S. presidents, while Trump ranks dead last.
The 2024 edition of the Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey has Biden in 14th place, just ahead of Woodrow Wilson and Ronald Reagan. Trump comes in 45th, behind fellow impeachee Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan, the perennial cellar-dweller in such ratings due to his pre-Civil War leadership….
Experts responding to the survey who self-identified as conservatives rated Biden No. 30, while liberals put him 13th and moderates ranked him 20th. All three of those same groups ranked Trump, whose presidency was marked by his flouting of historical norms, in the bottom five….”
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/19/1232447088/historians-presidents-survey-trump-last-biden-14th
Trump still won. Your candidate didnt. Your TDS still needs to be addressed.
It really shouldn’t matter where it flows, as long as the “issue” is addressed.
Nuclear is, until other viable options have proven themselves, the best option for providing a reliable and efficient source of power for all of those EVs some are attempting to force us into.
By the way, what type of vehicle(s) do you or your construction workers drive?
I drive a 2005 F-150 king cab on days I’m a go-for and a 30 mpg 2004 BMW on other days – as much for the fun as the economy. Most guys in construction drive an older “work truck” pick-up or van.
Cool…seems you’re no closer to an EV than I am.