It isn’t officially a drought – the latest US Drought Monitor doesn’t even show abnormally dry conditions – but it is getting close. Officially in Wausau there was 0.01 inches of rain yesterday and that brings our monthly total up to 0.56 inches, which is about an inch and a quarter below normal for the month of August and puts us about the same amount below normal for the year. Some lucky folks ended up under some of the heavier showers yesterday and are not doing too bad. One viewer near Wittenberg emailed a rainfall report of 0.80 inches. A couple of our weather watchers also had some decent amounts: Dick in Merrill reported 0.28 inches, Gitsy in Wild Rose had 0.60 inches, Pat in Arkdale checked in with 0.25 inches, and Tom in Nekoosa reported 0.50 inches.

Once again today there will be some "lucky" spots with a bit heavier showers or thunderstorms, but most of us will end up dry. By this evening a big high pressure system will move in from the north and completely take over the weather picture. This high pressure system should keep the skies mostly clear tonight and all the way through the weekend. It will be beautiful late summer weather, just a little too dry. High temps should be in the mid 70s today, climb into the upper 70s Friday, reach the low 80s on Saturday, and then top out in the low to mid 80s from Sunday through Tuesday.

The weather will turn more humid during the middle of next week and a storm system should approach the area from the south. This will bring a chance of thunderstorms with the potential for heavier rain (Wednesday and Thursday). High temps will remain in the low 80s late next week.

The Concrete Life (3) (Part 1 , Part 2)

So the problem of congestion, expansion, and pollution in U.S. urban areas seem insurmountable. Opinions and attitudes are entrenched, people own gas guzzlers, houses have been built, and superhighways stretch for miles. It is hard to imagine houses and freeways being DE-constructed or DE-commissioned and more green space returning. Politicians attempting to institute such measures would likely lose their jobs. What could be the driving force to more efficiency? The one factor that no one can avoid is the high cost of fossil fuels. Even though the price has com down some in recent weeks, it is unlikely to fall much further. The most optimistic forecasters say the price of a barrel of oil could get as low as $70 within a year. I don’t believe it. It is a "tight" commodity and the price will not come down dramatically until a new, abundant, cheap energy source is developed. This is where the incremental changes I mentioned yesterday will come into play. We will likely see the adoption of different energy sources and transportation options develop gradually over the next decade or so before there is a tipping point. The only way to make it happen quicker would be to raise taxes on fossil fuels so that the price of gas was $10 or more dollars a gallon, such as Al Gore proposed when he wrote "Earth in the Balance". Taxing the profits of oil companies will do nothing but cause American oil companies to go bankrupt and cause even more of our money to be spent on foreign oil.

With the high price of gas and concern over the climate more people are looking into the alternatives and more companies are developing better products. Just today a Canadian company Day4 Solar announced a better solar cell design that boosts the energy efficiency up silicon cells up to 17%. The commercial industry standard is 14%. The is the type of incremental change that matters. Companies like First Solar continue to pump out thin film solar products. More countries are starting to invest in billion dollar solar projects – such as India. We read about these developments everyday, but since the improvements are incremental, it doesn’t seem like life has changed all that much. Even without fancy new technology, we can cut down on our impact through simple measures – as this study from the University of Minnesota has found. Small changes in behavior and the adoption of smaller cars could cut fossil fuel usage by 30%. This article claims the U.S. could cut its oil and gas usage by 30 to 50% by 2035 by switching over to hybrid vehicles, and there is huge demand for hybrids and plug-in hybrids. According to this article, there are over 30,000 people already waiting to buy the Chevy Volt. Why such an interest in plug-in hybrids? They will go farther than an electric car because they have gas back-up power. If you only drive 10 or 20 miles, you can run on electric. If you need a little more, then you use some gas. As batteries and ultracapacitors develop higher energy densities, eventually, people will go all electric. So how long will those 30,000 people have to wait for a Volt? Two more years. Which makes me wonder what the delay is. GM should be working on the Volt 24/7 365 days a year. They have all the pieces together and are testing it on test tracks right now. Why the heck will it take 2 more years to release it? Knowing how well GM (and the other American car companies) have executed things in the last few years, I suspect Honda, Toyota, Saab, Volkswagen, and Kia, will get the hybrids out sooner and completely dominate the market.

The one technology I don’t think will have too much of an impact in the auto industry is hydrogen (although hydrogen fuel cells might work good for storing electricity from intermittent alternative sources like solar and wind). In the case of hybrid and electric cars, all the technology is already here and the infrastructure is in place. All we have to do is plug and go. With hydrogen, nothing is ready to go and experts say it will be at least 10 or 20 years before the hydrogen concept would be widespread and reasonably affordable. Yet some states are already spending millions of dollars building hydrogen gas stations and promoting hydrogen vehicles. I know their hearts are in the right place, but they need to get their heads out of the dirt. Using hydrogen is not as efficient as just going with electricity and the infrastructure is going to cost a gazillion dollars (as if supporting the concrete life was not enough to break the bank already). You might have heard about this hydrogen car tour going across the country right now. Could someone please stop them. In the past when data was sparse, a bad project could be excused – maybe there was just not enough information to make accurate predictions about the future. That is not an excuse nowadays. It is easier to find what works and move in that direction. The hydrogen car push is a huge waste of time and money.

So change is coming slow and it doesn’t look like the expansion of buildings and freeways will stop anytime soon, but at least with the adoption of hybrid and electric vehicles there will be less noise and cleaner air. It is a start.

Space News:

How about those Enceladus pictures coming from Cassini? The mission scientists say that you can see blocks of ice in the fissures on the surface, but I have had a hard time spotting them. Also, even though Cassini passed within 30 miles of the surface, all of the useful images were taken from a couple thousand miles away. What is up with that? I wonder why they were unable to get images from close-up? Perhaps the spacecraft was moving too fast.

If you don’t like photographs of alien lands such as Enceladus, how about a beautiful sunrise photograph from here on earth. This picture was taken by Donna Zygarlicke of Marshfield

Posted under Uncategorized