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In particular, this is a challenge to California's ability to regulate CO2 emissions from vehicles.

"Our findings indicate that the spatial risk of TC-induced damage to OSW turbines along the US Atlantic and Gulf Coast regions is broadly expected to increase, with strong intermodel agreement on the sign of change (i.e., increase or decrease) in all regions assessed. Detailed regional estimates and their associated uncertainties are outlined in Table 1. Significant increases in yielding risk are expected for the Gulf Coast and Florida peninsula resulting from 20- and 50-year storms (Fig. 1), with the average risk of turbine yielding estimated to increase by nearly 40% for a 20-year storm (Fig. 1c) and 27% for a 50-year storm (Fig. 1f). The Atlantic Coast exhibits similar changes, with projected increases in turbine yielding risk of about 35% for 20-year TCs and 31% for 50-year TCs.

Buckling, being a more acute damage state than yielding, requires higher wind speeds to surpass the structural limit. Historically, the probability that 20- or 50-year storms would induce turbine buckling has been below 10% across all regions assessed. However, under future climate change, this probability is estimated to rise to as high as 57% (Table 1), with the strongest increases and future risk expected for the Southeast and Gulf Coast regions (Fig. 2). For the Gulf Coast and Florida, buckling risk from a 20-year storm is projected to increase from nearly 0% to almost 18% (Fig. 2c). This increase is far more severe when considering a 50-year storm, with the buckling risk in this region expected to grow by almost a factor of eight. Along the Atlantic Coast, the likelihood of TC-induced turbine buckling is projected to rise as well, with anticipated increases in risk of about 9% for a 20-year TC and 34% for a 50-year TC. For both turbine yielding and buckling, the likelihood of damage is markedly higher for the Southeast than the Northeast, differing by almost 12% historically and by over 24% in a simulated future climate (Table 1)."

The key thing in there is that the relative cost of electricity and fossil fuels matters enormously when it comes to getting industry to shift. Making electricity cheap is very important.

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The pledge was born out of shareholder activism — and was withdrawn as regulators crack down on greenwashing.

This whale’s death comes at an interesting time: Only a few weeks ago, researchers from Brown University published a new paper tracing the extensive links between offshore wind opponents, who have cast themselves as whale defenders, and the fossil fuel industry. The misinformation that “wind kills whales” hasn’t only been repeated by politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump, or by Fox News—though these right-wingers are saying it a lot. Local wind project opponents, some of whom appear to have environmental values and commitments, have also made this argument in recent years.

“Beyond Dark Money,” published in Energy and Social Science in November, clarified the complicated status of these groups, which aren’t simply astroturf fronts for corporate interests; nor are they purely grassroots efforts. The researchers found that groups in southern New England opposing offshore wind were supported extensively by what the researchers called “information subsidies” from the fossil fuel industry. That means that the industry and its think tanks provide the groups with false narratives, misleading facts, and fake experts. These relationships have helped broaden the coalition opposing wind energy to include people concerned about the environment and many other citizens who wouldn’t normally find common ground with the fossil fuel industry.

“Wind power kills whales” is one of the fake stories generated by this network. One of the groups mentioned in the report, Save Right Whales, founded in 2021, warns on its home page, “They survived whaling, but right whales won’t survive wind energy.” On its home page, Save Right Whales doesn’t mention any threat to whales other than wind energy.

Beyond dark money: Information subsidies and complex networks of opposition to offshore wind on the U.S. East Coast

The California Energy Commission, the state agency that oversees energy policy, approved a $1.4 billion plan Wednesday that regulators said would result in nearly 17,000 new chargers for passenger vehicles statewide, adding to the more than 152,000 public and private chargers available today. The money will be spent over the next four years. In a news release, state regulators said least 50 percent of the funds would go to parts of the state that bear a disproportionate share of pollution, such as communities near major highways, oil refineries and landfills.

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Title & subtitle from the article version of this newsletter

The questions are:

1. Why has the Earth been so much hotter than expected?
2. How can A.I. help climate science?
3. How should the scientific community think about geoengineering?

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