Energy – Page 6 – Things Are Good

Iraq Looking to the Sun to Power its Future

Solar panels on grass

Iraqi oil fields have a lot of fossil fuels ready to be exported, and that’s a problem. The Iraqi population, like many oil states, don’t benefit from the cheap oil that corporations extract and export. As a result Iraqis have now turned to solar power for their local energy needs. The current installation of solar panels is relatively small, but they are gaining in popularity and being a nation that gets a lot of sun we can only hope that more people see the light. Let’s keep oil in the ground and put up solar panels.

In nearby Sulaymaniyah, the second-largest city in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, only 500 out of the 600,000 households are equipped with solar panels, said Sirwan Mahmud, a spokesman for the province’s electricity department.

Solar power had seen “rapid progression”, he said, after the region’s parliament adopted incentives in 2021 to compensate households for any excess electricity that they generate.

The region aims to build three commercial solar power plants with a total capacity of 75 megawatts (MW), he added.

In Cold Weather, Heat Pumps Outperform Fossil Fuel Furnaces

AI generated image of energy efficient home

If you don’t already have a heat pump then you’re going to want one ASAP. These machines that act as heaters in the winter and air conditioning in the summer are already more efficient than traditional AC units. Now, the current version of heat pumps even outperform fossil fuel furnaces in the cold of winter. At their core heat pumps transfer heat from one space to the next which means they can be anywhere from 200-500% efficient compared to the paltry 98& efficiency of a planet-killing fossil fuel burning fossil. If you own a home then you really should get a heat pump because we need to stop burning fossil fuels as soon as possible.

Efficiency measurements don’t measure comfort, explained Gibb, but he said there are consumer surveys showing those who use heat pumps fare well in cold temperatures. A 2022 consumer analysis in Europe found 81 per cent of respondents said their comfort improved after installing a heat pump. Another study conducted in New York and Massachusetts, which installed monitoring equipment in heat pump users’ homes, found 32 of the 42 people who participated said they were more comfortable post-heat pump.

Climate Solution Simulator

Avoiding a bigger climate catastrophe should be a concern for everyone, but understanding how to do that could be a challenge for some. The EN Roads simulator is a way for people to easily understand how to end our destructive energy practices. It’s an easy to use interface that has tons of educational resources behind it, and if you like it you can get training on how to use it to train other people on the how we can save the climate.

Developed by Climate Interactive, the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative, and Ventana Systems, En-ROADS is a system dynamics model carefully grounded in the best available science, and has been calibrated against a wide range of existing integrated assessment, climate, and energy models. En-ROADS runs on an ordinary laptop in a fraction of a second, is freely available online, offers an intuitive user-friendly interface, and is available in over a dozen languages.

En-ROADS helps people make connections between things they care about and the possibilities available to help ensure a resilient future. Users can quickly see the long-term effects of the global climate policies and actions they imagine. The goal? To break through the noise and equip elected officials, business leaders, and others with the knowledge they need to implement equitable and high-leverage climate solutions. You can learn more about the science behind the simulator here.

Better Solar Helps Bitter Hops

Agrivoltaic setups aren’t new to regular readers of this site as we’ve seen many times that certain crops benefit from the shade solar panels provide; and, the solar panels benefit the farmers by producing clean energy. Now we know that hops, which flavour beer, thrive under solar panels. A German experiment with a special solar setup for hops has proven more successful than expected since the hops fared better against disease.

Which crops thrive under solar panels depends on many factors, and for a crop like hops a default solar field setup is not a good one. Hops like to grow straight up which means that the solar panels need to be elevated high off the ground. The hops then grow up to the solar panels and get lots of benefit from the cooling effects of the panels themselves.

The pilot project — a collaboration between Wimmer and local solar technology company Hallertauer Handelshaus — was set up in the fall of last year. The electricity made at this farm can power around 250 households, and the hops get shade they’ll need more often as climate change turbocharges summer heat.

Solar panels atop crops has been gaining traction in recent years as incentives and demand for clean energy skyrocket. Researchers look into making the best use of agricultural land, and farmers seek ways to shield their crops from blistering heat, keep in moisture and potentially increase yields. The team in Germany says its effort is the first agrivoltaic project that’s solely focused on hops, but projects have sprouted around the world in several countries for a variety of grains, fruits and vegetables.

Putting Names on the Climate Crisis

The people who make decisions to continue us on a path of climate catastrophe have names and addresses. We need to shame people who are actively engage in profiteering off of killing every living thing on the planet, and that’s exactly what Environmental Defence has started to do. They have created a list of the Canada’s climate villains – those in positions of power that delay climate action and/or encouraging more environmental destruction. The good news about this is that Canadians who care about the climate are upping their game to call out those that are profiting from our demise. The more climate action we take the better – we only have one planet so let’s not burn it down!

Canada’s climate villains:
Brad Corson
Dave McKay
Susannah Pierce
Arthur Irving
Michael Binnion
Alex Pourbaix
Lisa Baiton

Canada’s Oil and Gas industry has long been the biggest barrier to climate action. Despite the harmful impacts that people in Canada and around the world are suffering daily from the warming climate and lack of action, the oil and gas industry continues to spew pollution and rake in record profits and receive billions in government subsidies. We are done taking the blame as individuals. The time to expose the true climate villains is now!