Energy and Economics
Al Zelicoff and Troy Simpson have their latest video up in a series the Albuquerque Journal is doing on stuff you can do to save energy and money. My favorite bit is the fact that Al fills up so rarely that he forgets which side of the car the gas tank is on.
update: I was suspicious, but Troy swears Al really didn’t remember which side the gas tank was on.
the day they bombed Mesa del Sol
There is not much to see on this windy scrap of desert south of Albuquerque, which is probably a good thing.
On the eastern edge of the planned Mesa del Sol community south of Albuquerque, this is the site of one of the United States’ most notorious nuclear weapons accidents.
A plane on approach to Kirtland Air Force Base in 1957, 1,700 feet above ground, accidentally dropped what was, at the time, the largest hydrogen bomb in the U.S. arsenal.
The weapon’s dangerously radioactive plutonium core had been removed before it fell from the plane, and there was no nuclear blast. But the high explosives used to trigger a nuclear weapon’s explosion did go off on impact, creating a crater 25 feet wide and 15 feet deep in the desert scrub.
There’s been some confusion over the years about the exact location, so I took the liberty of making a map:
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The Roundabouts of Albuquerque: Birthday Edition
So it turns out the Google satellite image is not live, so you’ll have to take my word for it that I saw an elephant down by the Rio Grande on my bike ride today. The Google Mapness is a little bit squirrelly, but I think I’ve got this working:
Scroll in really tight to see me riding around in circles:
It took a little bit of jigging to get the 49 miles in in honor of my 49th birthday tomorrow, but there you have it. I am easily amused.
My Connolley Number: 1
Next to Al Gore, William Connolley may be the world’s most influential person in the global warming debate.
I’ll just point out that my Connolley number is 1. I am one degree of separation from greatness.
California Dry
California’s snowpack is collapsing, according to the LA Times:
California communities face a strong possibility of water shortages and even mandatory rationing this summer because of record dry weather in March and April, a fast-shrinking snowpack and below-normal reservoir levels, state officials said Thursday.
Desalination
Nice piece in the New Mexico Independent today by Joel Gay about desalination as a source of water here in New Mexico:
Coastal communities have been taking the salt out of seawater for years, but inland cities are starting to join them out of need. El Paso was in danger of exhausting its aquifer when it decided to build a desalination plant, according to El Paso Water Utilities. Opened in 2007 at a cost of $87 million — including $27 million in federal funding — it churns out 27.5 million gallons of fresh water a day, or roughly a quarter of the city’s demand.
Tucson, Phoenix and Las Vegas are pondering desalination projects, too.
In early April, the state District Court in Alamogordo cleared the way for that city to tap the Tularosa Basin for about 1.3 billion gallons of brackish water a year. Work has already started on the desalination plant.
(I’ve been meaning to blog about the Independent – cool project, involving a number of former colleagues of mine for whom I have a great deal of respect. Good journalists, pursuing a different model. I’m excited about it.)
Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere
More on climate science in the New Mexico Republican Senate race, this time printed on pieces of paper and thrown in people’s driveways, old school style. (the Intertubes version is here):
In taking those positions, Wilson and Pearce are out of step with the vast majority of climate scientists, who agree that Earth is warming and that humans are very likely to blame. The stability of the majority of climate scientists on the issue is about as solid as scientific views on a public policy question ever get. But climate scientists won’t be selecting the Republican party’s candidate for U.S. Senate come June 3 — New Mexico Republican voters will. And in staking out the positions they have, Pearce and Wilson appear to be in sync with Republican voters.
Food Prices Down Slightly
This week’s Economist Food Price Index: 253.9, down 4 percent from last week.
(Could someone do me a favor and let me know if the Economist link works? I’ve got a paid subscription now, so I’ve no idea what is free and what is behind their pay wall.)
What I need from climate science
Enough already with the global numbers. I get it. What I need from you smarty-pants climate scientists is better regional-scale modeling. Which is the point of this piece by Fred Pearce:
“POLITICIANS seem to think that the science is a done deal,” says Tim Palmer. “I don’t want to undermine the IPCC, but the forecasts, especially for regional climate change, are immensely uncertain.”