Scotland Is Generating So Much Wind Energy It Could Power Two Scotlands

In the first six months of the year, wind turbines in Scotland generated nearly 10 million megawatt-hours of electricity which is almost twice the entire country’s domestic power requirements. In other words, enough energy was created by the country’s renewables to power two Scotlands!

Scotland is generating enough wind-energy to power two Scotlands.

Weather Energy figures show that between January and June wind turbines provided enough electricity to power the equivalent of 4.47million homes, which is nearly twice the number of homes in Scotland. March was the record-breaker month with nearly 2.2 million megawatt-hours produced but May was the low-water mark of the period with nearly half that.

Last year Scottish Power became the first major UK energy firm to completely drop fossil fuels in favor of wind power. Over the next four years, the company plans to invest £5.2 billion to more than double its renewable capacity. These are all steps to fulfill the United Kingdom’s pledged to be carbon neutral in 30 years.

Read the story from Intelligence Living by Andrea D. Steffen - “Scotland Is Generating So Much Wind Energy It Could Power Two Scotlands.”

The air conditioning trap: how cold air is heating the world.

On a sweltering Thursday evening in Manhattan last month, people across New York City were preparing for what meteorologists predicted would be the hottest weekend of the year. Over the past two decades, every record for peak electricity use in the city has occurred during a heatwave, as millions of people turn on their air conditioning units at the same time. And so, at the midtown headquarters of Con Edison, the company that supplies more than 10 million people in the New York area with electricity, employees were busy turning a conference room on the 19th floor into an emergency command centre.

The warmer it gets, the more we use air conditioning.
The more we use air conditioning, the warmer it gets. 

Inside the conference room, close to 80 engineers and company executives, joined by representatives of the city’s emergency management department, monitored the status of the city power grid, directed ground crews and watched a set of dials displaying each borough’s electricity use tick upward. “It’s like the bridge in Star Trek in there,” Anthony Suozzo, a former senior system operator with the company, told me. “You’ve got all hands on deck, they’re telling Scotty to fix things, the system is running at max capacity.”

Read the story from The Guardian by Stephen Buranyi - “The air conditioning trap: how cold air is heating the world.”

Colossal rain to test New Orleans’ barriers as hurricane threatens

New Orleans’ new storm defence systems will be tested as the USA’s first tropical storm of the year threatens to turn into a hurricane.

New Orleans resident Terrian Jones as flooding hits parts of
the city ahead of a potential hurricane making landfall. 

A state of emergency has been declared in the state of Louisiana where already high river levels are causing flooding ahead of the storm.

There are fears that colossal rainfall – rather than than wind – could lead to life-threatening conditions, with New Orleans’ $20 billion levees and seawalls predicted to near capacity.

Tropical Storm Barry is currently spinning through the Gulf of Mexico and expected to intensify into a hurricane and make landfall on Saturday local time.

Read the story from The New Daily - “Colossal rain to test New Orleans’ barriers as hurricane threatens.”