Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Dry Winter Edition
La Niña seems to be cranking it up.
Archive of entries posted by jfleck
This Morning’s Low: 37
This morning’s low temperature at the National Weather Service’s Albuquerque station was 37. As I wrote in this morning’s newspaper, we’re near the record for the latest first freeze of autumn. It’s been warm here, especially the overnight lows.
desert haiku
I’ve always loved the minimalism of the desert. Like everything, it’s more complicated than you think, but it’s easier in the desert to see how the pieces fit together. Nora captures that brilliantly in a little bit of business from her novel that she posted on her blog: “When I was growing up, I read …
A Little Help Please With A Conversion?
Can one of my European readers help with a currency conversion? How does Euros per MWh translate into dollars per ton of carbon? The context: RWE will proceed with the construction of two, 1,530 MW coal-fired plants in Germany, believing that the units will make money even if carbon dioxide costs of up to Eur30.00/MWh …
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In Defense of Andrew Revkin
I was, by coincidence, in the midst of reading Bjorn Lomborg’s book this week when Andrew Revkin’s New York Times piece on the sloppy center came out. There is much to like about the book, and much to disagree with (more on that later, when I’ve finished it). But the most important thing is that …
Energy Costs
A couple of handy graphics from the Energy Information Administration that answer questions I’ve had:
Disaster News Network
Sometimes the line between Onion and Not Onion is a bit confusing. But the Disaster News Network is apparently not a joke. Some headlines: UN: Planet in peril, time to act is now Long road seen for wildfire recovery ‘Superbug’ not new, danger remains After fires, sifting through the ashes Blog categories include (really, I …
A Teaching Moment
Kim Hannula, who teaches earth sciences to undergrads, raises an interesting question: can the “benthic bacteria” global warming hoax paper be used as a teaching tool? If you showed this fake paper to students, what would you ask them to look out for?
Water in the Desert: Japanese Garden Edition
Japanese Garden, Albuquerque botanical gardens Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. No doubt there’s a rich literature out there about the idea of the “park,” a human-created faux natural setting, so I won’t try to reinvent it here. This is the new Japanese Garden at the city of Albuquerque’s beautiful botanical gardens. It just opened, it’s lovely, …
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The Promise of Nukes
The discussion of nuclear energy’s role in combating anthropogenic climate changing continues to be one of the most interesting bits of the political dynamic around this subject. The latest bit comes from Platts (my new favorite energy news source – great at stripping away the he-said/she-said and just explaining the underlying economic forces): A Delaware …