Arizona

Lake Mead could run out of water by 2021, says study

There’s a 50-50 chance that the Arizona- and Nevada-bordering, human-made Lake Mead will become Dry Ditch Mead by 2021, according to a study to be published in the journal Water Resources Research. Oh, and that’s a conservative estimate, say the study authors, as is this one: By 2017, there’s an equally good chance that water […]

Storage helps the sun keep shining even on cloudy days

New project and technology announcements have kept solar energy in the news lately. But, as with wind, the issues of intermittency and the grid still lurk in the shadows. Some still argue that intermittency isn't a problem, or that it can be solved without storage.

In a new piece in the Arizona Daily Star, reporter Tom Beal talks about those issues. As we've previously argued here, here, and here, energy storage has a big role to play in enabling solar and wind to compete with the big boys -- coal, gas, and nuclear.

The engineers that actually operate the grid on a minute-to-minute, day-to-day basis know that intermittency is a technological problem that must be solved one way or another if solar and wind are to generate more than a token percentage of our electricity. Storage needs its own day in the sun, and now that sun is in the limelight, maybe storage will finally get some respect as well.

Full piece below the fold:

Regulatory infrastructure will be crucial

I was traveling last week and missed "solar's inevitable dominance."

I disagree. There is nothing at all inevitable about solar. Sure, the technological potential exists. But the problem is not technology. The technology works great. The problem is policy.

Right now, if solar panels were free -- handed out on street corners -- you still would not see market uptake anywhere near the technical potential. Why? Because we do not yet have the right regulatory infrastructure.

Let me give you an example. Last year, the Arizona Corporation Commission passed a huge increase in the state's renewable energy standard. It will require upwards of 2,000 MW of solar, and there's somewhere around a billion dollars worth of funding to help.

So what happens?

Sky Islands getting crispier

Just when you thought Arizona couldn't get any hotter, right? Yesterday's NYT article on how that state's Sky Islands, the uniquely biodiverse plateaus, are changing due to higher heat regimes is borne out not only by news of such destructive fires but also by daily observation on the ground. A friend who works for the Sky Island Alliance in Tucson says her staff, while out ripping up roads or monitoring wildlife corridors, has been noticing that species are disappearing from islands, being squeezed out by the changes.

It really brings home that no matter what kind of activism we're involved in on a daily basis, whether it's knee-deep in a watershed or coordinating youth development efforts in inner-city neighborhoods, we've all got to turn out with our friends and families and Step It Up in April. It all comes back to the climate.

From the U. of Arizona

The U. of Arizona put together an impressive seminar series on climate change this past fall. There were seven talks by different U of A professors, covering almost all important aspects of the "climate change problem." The talks are now online.

I have a video iPod, and I downloaded the seminars and watched them during my recent trip to the AGU meeting. It's a worthwhile way to pass a 4-hour plane trip. If you want to learn more about climate change, I recommend you check them out. (They also have audio-only versions.)

Why not more solar power in Tucson?

I did not see a single cloud in my four days in Tucson last week. But what really surprised me was that I also did not see a single solar panel. The University of Arizona, which I suspect may be an intellectual bubble in the middle of Tucson, did spawn a large number of Priuses. Most people drive pickup trucks. The strip malls and subdivisions stretched out until they bumped up against a national park or a mountain range.

If there ever was a place suited for solar power, it is Tucson.

Property-rights initiatives threaten environmental protections in four Western states

Field of dreams or field of nightmares? It depends who you ask. Photos: iStockphoto When you hear the phrase “a perfect storm,” it’s likely to conjure images of roiling whitecaps, perhaps a daring Coast Guard rescuer dangling from a helicopter to pull half-drowned sailors from their foundering vessels. Chances are the last thing it will […]

Where There’s Smoke

Navajo pageant winner is an enviro star

Outfitted in moccasins and traditional dresses, the four contestants in the 49th Miss Navajo Nation Pageant — held this past September in Window Rock, Ariz. — demonstrated a dazzling array of cultural skills. They discussed, in Navajo, the Treaty of 1868. They carded and spun wool, and they displayed rugs they had woven. They prepared […]