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Today — 14 January 2025Fuels

Volts community thread #14

✇Volts
By: David Roberts
13 January 2025 at 17:29

David’s Notes

1. 🛣️ Like Willie, I’m on the road again, this time to Texas, which generates two times as much renewable energy as California. I’ll be doing two times the live events with Canary Media:

  • Austin, Jan 28: This event includes a Volts episode taping at UT-Austin. Tickets are FREE and first come, first served. Please please please only sign up if you truly plan to come. Here’s the link.

  • Houston, Jan 30: A star-studded panel at Greentown Labs; we’ll be taping a Volts episode with Tim Latimer, CEO of the advanced geothermal company Fervo. We're giving away 20 free tickets to paid subscribers! 🏆 Register your interest here. I (or Sam) will randomly pick winners and email them on Wednesday. And of course, anyone can buy a ticket using this link.

2. ⚠️ Potential new perk? ⚠️ In a few weeks, audio engineer Kyle will edit together a recap episode that bundles 5-10 minute snippets of each Volts episode from January. The goal is to give time-strapped listeners the ability to preview conversations so that 1) they can access a TL;DR when they’re at their busiest, and 2) they can circle back to episodes that sound intriguing. If y’all like it, it’ll become a regular monthly perk for paid subscribers!

3.

4. Remember back in February of last year, I told you about adopting Abner? Well, it turns out he's a nightmare dog. He's very sweet with us at home and generally sweet with people, but he is insanely reactive toward other dogs when he is out on a leash. This has made walking the dog — previously my favorite activity — into an anxious and furtive undertaking. We took him to get assessed by some trainers, to see if he could get in the “growly dogs” class, but they deemed him too high-strung and too violent in his reactivity to be eligible. Bummer. If anyone knows of a specialist in severe reactivity in the Seattle area, hit me up.

Our adorable little nightmare.
Our adorable little nightmare.

5. ✅ Community comment of the month: During our recent episode on residential VPPs, I asked the CEO of Renew Home about the potential to shift demand using existing water heaters. It sounded like the company is focused on making sure that the next gen [electric] water heaters have this capability, but Clay D. found a company that can make "dumb" water heaters into smart ones right now:

At least one company makes an after market add on water heater controller.

https://aquanta.io/

Monthly Thread — How It Works

This is your monthly opportunity to share! Use the comments section in this community thread to:

  • CLIMATE JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES: Share climate jobs/opportunities

  • SHARE WORK, ASK FOR HELP, FIND COLLABORATORS: Share your climate-related work, ask for help, or find collaborators

  • CLIMATE EVENTS & MEETUPS: Share climate-related events and meetups

  • EVERYTHING ELSE: Discuss David’s Notes or anything else climate-related

  • MAILBAG QUESTIONS: Ask a question for this month’s mailbag episode (anyone can ask a question but mailbags are a paid-sub-only perk). Volts has a form for those who are shy, but David prioritizes questions posted in this thread.

🚨 To keep organized, please only “REPLY” directly under one of Sam’s headline comments. Anything inappropriate, spammy, etc may be deleted. Be nice! Check out our Community Guidelines.

Visited the Portrait Gallery when we were in DC over the holidays. RIP to this guy. His kind of dignity seems a distant memory already.
Visited the Portrait Gallery when we were in DC over the holidays. RIP to this guy. His kind of dignity seems a distant memory already.

Volts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The eighth U.S. liquefied natural gas export terminal, Plaquemines LNG, ships first cargo

✇Today in Energy
13 January 2025 at 13:00
On December 26, 2024, Plaquemines LNG—the eighth liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal in the United States—shipped its first cargo after achieving first LNG production in mid-December. Plaquemines LNG is one of two U.S. LNG export terminals that started LNG production in 2024. Corpus Christi Stage 3 (an expansion of the existing Corpus Christi LNG export terminal) also began LNG production in December 2024.

Circulation problems in the brain's seat of memory linked to mild cognitive impairment in older adults

✇Latest Science News -- ScienceDaily
14 January 2025 at 01:28
Mild cognitive impairment is linked to blood vessel dysfunction in the brain's temporal lobes -- the seat of memory -- according to a new study. The findings, seen in people with and without signs of amyloid buildup in the brain, suggest that microvascular trouble may be an important, early biomarker for dementia as well as a potential target for therapy.

Wind turbines impair the access of bats to water bodies in agricultural landscapes

✇Latest Science News -- ScienceDaily
13 January 2025 at 21:11
Bats depend on open bodies of water such as small ponds and lakes for foraging and drinking. Access to water is particularly important for survival in the increasingly hot and dry summers caused by climate change, the time when female bats are pregnant and rear their young. A scientific team has now shown that access to drinking sites is hampered by wind turbines in agricultural landscapes: Many bat species avoid the turbines and water bodies located close to the turbines for several kilometers.

Hubble reveals surprising spiral shape of galaxy hosting young jet

✇Latest Science News -- ScienceDaily
13 January 2025 at 21:11
The night sky has always played a crucial role in navigation, from early ocean crossings to modern GPS. Besides stars, the United States Navy uses quasars as beacons. Quasars are distant galaxies with supermassive black holes, surrounded by brilliantly hot disks of swirling gas that can blast off jets of material. Following up on the groundbreaking 2020 discovery of newborn jets in a number of quasars, aspiring naval officer Olivia Achenbach of the United States Naval Academy has used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to reveal surprising properties of one of them, quasar J0742+2704.

A 'volume dial' for missed signals produced by our bodies

✇Latest Science News -- ScienceDaily
13 January 2025 at 21:11
Scientists have adapted a sensing platform to detect and even measure chemicals at low enough concentrations to have use outside the lab. The system, which is 10 times more sensitive than previous sensors built by the team, opens the door for the system to be applied to disease detection and monitoring in the human body for nucleic acids and bacteria.

Atop the Oregon Cascades, team finds a huge buried aquifer

✇Latest Science News -- ScienceDaily
13 January 2025 at 21:11
Scientists have mapped the amount of water stored beneath volcanic rocks at the crest of the central Oregon Cascades and found an aquifer many times larger than previously estimated -- at least 81 cubic kilometers. The finding has implications for the way scientists and policymakers think about water in the region -- an increasingly urgent issue across the Western United States as climate change reduces snowpack, intensifies drought and strains limited resources.

DNA nanorobots can alter artificial cells

✇Latest Science News -- ScienceDaily
13 January 2025 at 18:47
Scientists have succeeded in controlling the structure and function of biological membranes with the help of 'DNA origami'. The system they developed may facilitate the transportation of large therapeutic loads into cells. This opens up a new way for the targeted administration of medication and other therapeutic interventions. Thus, a very valuable instrument can be added to the toolbox of synthetic biology.

Wrong place, wrong time: Why Zika virus hijacks a protein needed for brain growth

✇Latest Science News -- ScienceDaily
13 January 2025 at 18:43
The mosquito-borne Zika virus is known for causing microcephaly, a birth defect in which abnormal brain development results in a smaller-than-expected head. A new study shows that the Zika virus hijacks a host protein called ANKLE2, which happens to be important for brain development, to assist its own reproduction. Because Zika, unlike most related viruses, can cross the placenta, this can have disastrous consequences in pregnancy.

Differences in strength by position among football players

✇Latest Science News -- ScienceDaily
13 January 2025 at 18:41
It's long been known that different positions on the football field fit different body types. A study led by the University of Kansas has gone beyond knowing that linemen are bigger with more body mass than receivers and tested a team of college football starters, finding differences in strength, power, jumping ability and more. The findings could help improve strength training designed to optimize performance for different types of players, researchers argue.
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