In this edition we hear from Hank Duncan about the Bloomington’s ongoing efforts to improve bikeabilty and alternative transit options.
As we enter the colder months of the year, national meteorologists are getting a clearer picture of what winter might look like. This winter was originally thought to be dominated by the La Niña phenomenon. But now, the Climate Prediction Center believes it will be a “weak and a short duration La Niña” – if it appears at all. In an update issued Thursday, the Climate Prediction Center lowered its chances of a La Niña occurring this fall and winter. The odds it forms by November are now at 60%. Conditions are looking less favorable for a strong La Niña, the agency added. A weaker La Niña means we’re less likely to see La Niña’s typical impacts: cold, wetter weather up north and dry, warmer weather down south.
In the absence of La Niña or its counterpart, El Niño, conditions are “ENSO-neutral.” When that happens, “the crystal ball is even blurrier than usual,” said Michelle L’Heureux, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologist with the Climate Prediction Center. “ENSO-neutral effectively means that conditions across Tropical Pacific are closer to average, so there isn’t a big disruption in the atmospheric circulation that is offered by El Niño or La Niña.” Given these uncertainties, the forecast issued October 17 suggests the winter in Indiana will be slightly warmer and wetter.
USA Facts reports that as of 2022, residential solar panels generated 37 million megawatt-hours, meaning residential solar panels generated enough electricity to power 3.4 million homes in 2022. Solar energy is one of the fastest-growing renewable energy sources in the US, according to the Department of Energy. The US had about 3.9 million photovoltaic solar power systems installed at residences at the end of 2022, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. That number has grown by an average of 37% per year since Congress passed a federal tax credit for solar power in 2005.
In 2022, Congress passed additional tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act to help more Americans invest in rooftop solar installation. A small percentage of all homes (2.7%) had solar panels installed by the end of 2022. Overall, residential solar generates a small fraction of total US energy, making up less than 1% of all electricity production in 2022. This number is surprisingly low in view of the low cost of generating electricity. Indiana solar is more expensive because of barriers placed by the legislature. The barriers serve to favor the coal industry.
The New York Times has a story of how climate disasters are making mobile homes a huge risk. Millions of Americans, many poor and vulnerable, live in mobile and manufactured homes. When catastrophe strikes, they’re often on their own. Mobile homes built before 1976 were typically not required to meet any type of building code. That year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development set the first building standards for mobile homes, and it has since updated them several times. Prefabricated houses built after that year are called manufactured homes. Across the United States, there are 1.3 million mobile homes built before 1976, according to data compiled by the Urban Institute, and they are generally considered unsafe in a disaster. In the North Carolina counties hit by Helene, there were 19,000 of these aging mobile homes. In the Tampa area, there were about 50,000. It is unclear how many were destroyed by the storms.
In Manatee County, at the Bradenton Tropical Palms mobile park, many of the homes predate 1976. Three days after Milton, David Kraus was examining the damage to two of his homes, both of which were built in 1969 and had lost their roofs. He estimates repairs will cost up to $20,000 per home, neither of which was insured. “I’m tired of hurricanes,” said Mr. Kraus, 76, who plans to resettle in Alabama. The manufactured home industry maintains that homes built under modern federal standards are as safe as conventional structures if they are correctly installed, though experts say proper installation isn’t guaranteed. Taking no chances before Milton hit, officials in the Tampa Bay area ordered people in all manufactured homes, regardless of when they were built, to evacuate.
Inside Climate News reports the inaugural tribal energy summit and critical minerals and sovereignty take center stage. Panelists hopeful for tribal control of mineral decisions on their lands warned that a history of theft and deceptive business practices could repeat if Indigenous concerns are not prioritized in the energy transition. “Critical minerals are Indian minerals,” said Daniel Cardenas, a member of the Hammawi Band of the Pit River Tribe of California, at the Tribal Energy Summit held last week at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. “The energy transition must go through Indian country to be successful. That’s a huge opportunity and a huge responsibility as well.”
More than 60 percent of the cobalt and lithium, and nearly 90 percent of the nickel and copper for clean energy technologies like solar panels and batteries “lie either underneath Indian reservations or within 35 miles of one,” said Cardenas, the chief executive officer of both the American Indian Infrastructure Association and the National Tribal Energy Association. Those facts highlighted the importance of this first summit, which focused on how tribal communities can profit from and participate in the boom of new energy development.
Historically, the posture from energy companies and the federal government toward tribes with valuable natural resources often has been predatory, some tribal attendees noted. Troy Eid, a lawyer who has mediated energy disputes between tribes and corporations, cited the example of Peabody Energy, a coal company that paid royalties to the Navajo Nation that were 10 times lower than the market price of the coal the company was mining on the reservation for most of the second half of the 20th century.
Feature ReportIn this week’s feature Zero Roze speaks with the City’s Bicycle Pedestrian Coordinator, Hank Duncan, on developments fostering accessibility, walkability, alternative transit and local bikefrastructure.
Credits:
On Air………………………………….Julianna Dailey
On Air……………………………………..Robert Shull
Headlines…………………………………..Norm Holy
Feature Report………………………….Robert Schull
Script…………………………………..Julianna Dailey
Events Calendar……………………….Julianna Dailey
Engineer……………………………..Branden Blewett
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