Tony mentioned the August recap yesterday and I will add a little to that today. It turns out that it was the second month in a row (and only the second month this year) with above normal temperatures. In this case (August) the average temp was about 1.5 degrees above normal. It was never really hot during the month but consistently a little warmer than normal.

As Tony noted yesterday, precipitation was well above normal, but it might not have seemed that way because the last coupe of weeks have been somewhat dry. The lion’s share of the rain, a bit over 4 inches, feel in the first week, including a record rainfall of 2.43 inches on August 6th – the only daily record for the month. I was glad to see that we made it through the most critical part of the growing season with adequate rainfall. The crops in most of the area are maturing well and even if we did not see another drop of rain this year, we will still have food on the table. Here are the official stats for Wausau as compared to normal:

Average High: 79.1  (normal: 77.7)

Average Low: 58.6  (normal 57.0)

Precipitation: 5.36″  (normal 4.16″)

Highest Temp: 85 on the 6th and the 19th

Lowest Temp: 51 on the 28th

Besides the record rainfall on the 6th of the month, the most significant event was the Clark county tornado on the 23rd. As far as interesting trends in the numbers, there were not many. The average high for the month was 79.1 so it is mildly interesting that we hit 79 on 6 different days but that was not the most common number of the month. We had a high temp of 81 on 7 different days.

Back to the precipitation trend. It is a good thing that the growing season is about over because it does not look like there will be much chance of rain for the next couple of weeks. The highest chance of heavier rainfall will be tomorrow morning (maybe a quarter to half inch in a few a spots if storms form), otherwise no major storm systems are foreseen, only minor fronts and chances of widely scattered showers. This will no doubt cause the abnormally dry conditions in a couple parts of the state to expand a bit. The latest US Drought Monitor indicates the abnormally dry category has already spread a bit since last week. I suspect that central Wisconsin will be in this category by late next week – if no heavy rain falls tomorrow morning.

Unfortunately, the deep south and southwestern U.S. is still suffering under exceptional drought. The good news is that a tropical system is forming in the gulf of Mexico and it could move toward Louisiana and far southeast Texas by this weekend, and it will probably stick around for a few days. This would be just what the doctor ordered for some of these areas – a tropical system that could bring a lot of rain, all the while not getting strong enough to cause damage.

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In alternative energy news there was a depressing development yesterday. It was something I foreshadowed in the blog last week. It just goes to show you that this blog is worth checking out for current trends. The news is that solar panel manufacturer Solyndra declared bankruptcy yesterday. Here is another article about the demise of Solyndra with a good comment discussion. It is unfortunate, but typical for a U.S. government supported business venture. Tax-payers spent 535 million on Solyndra. I am quite aware of the argument that alternative energy sources will be hard to develop on a mass scale without some sort-of federal government support, but I don’t buy it. First of all, there are enough state programs and enough early adopters to keep things moving forward. Second of all, the price of traditional fossil fuels remains high which makes the alternatives more attractive. Thirdly, entrepreneurs operating in what is left of the free market are much more adept at delivering what people truly need than what the federal government thinks they need. A good sign is that some bigger companies think they need more alternative energy and are willing to spend some money. Volkswagen in Germany recently announced that it would make a big investment into alternative energy sources.

Of course, a lot of basic research is essentially publicly funded through Universities (maybe not the optimal method of progress, but it has worked reasonably well for the last half century or so) and that is where we find a little more positive news this week.

Fuel cell technology caught the eye of many when the University of Kentucky and University of Louisville announced that they have “discovered” a method to produce hydrogen from water and sunlight – that’s it. I put discovered in quotes because the researchers did not actually build the device. They used computer simulations to predict how water would react with a special semi-conductor material (a metal alloy) when exposed to light. The results of their numerical simulation showed hydrogen would be produced. Now the most critical step it to actually make the product – which in most cases takes years, if not decades.

If and when the hydrogen is being produced with this new special alloy, researchers at the University of Southern California may have come up with the best way to store it (given current materials and technology). They propose to use ammonia borane. It is the first material proposed for hydrogen storage that is air stable and re-usable.

As you know, I am not big on fuel cells and hydrogen as the dominant competition to traditional fossil fuels, but I am certainly not against people pursuing this avenue, as there are some useful applications – storing energy from wind and solar power plants being one of them. Perhaps some modes of transportation could benefit. A University in England has manufactured and is testing a barge that runs on hydrogen fuel cells. It is not the “ultimate” solution for shipping but at least it proves it can be done.

Have a nice Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Drought, Monthly Recap, Technology

At one point a few days ago, the rain chances for Tuesday and Wednesday looked rather iffy and I was getting depressed about the thought of constantly spending time watering my gardens and plants. The nice steady rain of yesterday and today have brought a smile to my face, as mentioned yesterday. Ray commented (see comments section, and feel free to leave your own) that rainy weather often means cool weather. It is interesting that the last 2 years have been drier than normal with more sunny days than average, and yet temps have been a bit below normal during the last two summers. Can you imagine how cool our summers would have been if we had received normal or above normal rainfall? Speaking of cool weather, it looks like temps will average a couple degrees below normal through early next week with high temps generally in the 65 to 70 range.

The rain will continue for most of the area today. Some locations in central Wisconsin could pick up an inch or so. At the time of this writing Wausau had already picked up a half inch, Wisconsin Rapids had about 0.80 inches, and Stevens Point already measured about 1.30 inches. The only locations that will miss out on the steady rain will be the far north around highway 70. Park Falls, Butternut, Springstead, and Mercer will likely only receive some drizzle or sprinkles. The rain will taper off tonight and then the next chance of significant precipitation will be Sunday evening when some thunderstorms could develop. The rain is melting some of the snow on Rib Mountain but it still looks like it will last a couple more days – so no winners yet in the snowmelt contest.

Alternative Energy News:

This has been a hot topic as of late and I am definitely getting more behind “electrification” of the economy. Even though there are a lot of reasons to support electric transportation as the heir to liquid hydrocarbons, there is a big government-industrial complex that has built up around ethanol and hydrogen. Bio-fuels do have some uses but funding is drying up and some ethanol producers are starting to go bankrupt. Hydrogen fuel cells still have some momentum but the case for using hydrogen in transportation is a tough one. First and foremost and entire new infrastructure has to be built across the entire continent. It just isn’t feasible. Most of the distribution and manufacturing capability for electric transportation is already in place. In any case, hydrogen fuel cells could still find very important use in helping to develop clean energy. Wind and solar energy is intermittent. Fuel cells could be one of the best ways to store electricity from these sources during peak times and release that energy during down times. So here are some recent developments on the hydrogen front:

An interview with energy secretary Chu where he dismisses the case for hydrogen-based transportation (and also talks about nuclear power plants)

Material with record high surface area could store a lot more hydrogen.

New metal substance could split water into oxygen and hydrogen more efficiently.

In a somewhat related story, the city of Seattle has found that plug-in hybrids are not doing as well on fuel efficiencyas originally hoped. Their fleet is averaging 51 mpg. They expected to achieve nearly 100 mpg. The unexpected low efficiency has to do with “real world” driving situations. What works in the “lab” does not always work in the street. People might not plug them in as often as they should, or they might not drive with fuel efficiency in mind.

Also, a little article on what an electric car fleet mightlook like. You have probably seen many of the pictures before in this blog.

Lastly, Tesla is more likely to survive the economic downturn after Daimler bought a 10% stake in the company.

Space News:

Is anyone else amazed at how long the Rovers have lasted on Mars? They have been going over 5 years now. Some problems related to “wear and tear” have been cropping up, but both Rovers are still functional. Spirit’s latest trouble is getting stuck in sand. Mission controllers think it might have gotten stuck deep enough to actually bottom out. The “belly” of the rover might be resting on sand, which would be a tough situation to get out of. Engineers are busy working with an analogue rover here on earth trying to simulate the conditions on Mars. They hope to devise a method for Spirit to get moving again. Opportunity is not stuck, in fact it has just passed the 10 mile mark on its odometer. Even though it is moving, it still has more than a year to go before reaching its next target crater. One thing I think the Rover designers should think about with the next robots to travel to Mars is a “fast” mode. It shouldn’t take a year to travel a couple miles, especially when the rover is traveling through a flat desert like Opportunity is.

Every once in a while I take a look at the raw images of the rovers (see here), just to see how the landscape differs as they move to new areas of the planet. Here is one picture I viewed today.

Opportunity Navigation Camera Image

 Another nice shot of the desolation in the area called Meridiani Planum where Opportunity is exploring. The interesting part of the photograph is the little white streak in the upper left hand corner. (direct link to large image here) If this was a photo on earth you would immediately think it was a jet contrail. Or if it was night-time someone might suggest it was a meteorite (falling star). I am not sure what to make of it, since it is on Mars. My best guess is that it is an artifact of the camera lens. Maybe a glint of light or a reflection. I suppose a meteorite or asteroid cannot be ruled out. Interesting none-the-less.

In another exciting development, more testing of robotic underwater probes is occurring in Antarctica. Back in 2008 a prototype was tested right here in Wisconsin at lake Mendota during the middle of winter. Thes tests are occurring in preparation for a future trip to Jupiter’s moon Europa. Under the icy crust of Europa is a potential spot for life in the solar system.

Have a nice Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Space

If you are keeping track of the Snowmelt Contest, take a look here: Corporate Cove Skycam. (it will be focused on Rib Mountain through midday). As you can see, today will not be the last day of snow on Rib Mountain in 2009. Eight people predicted today’s date. Good try. Way to go out on a limb and take a chance. To me it still looks like there is a little less snow up there than the last couple of years. I have a sneaky feeling it will melt before the end of May. Of course, it depends somewhat on the weather. If we have a heat wave with a lot of rain (not gonna happen this week) then it could be gone by the 20th of May. If it remains cool and relatively dry (I hope not), then the snow could last through the middle of June.

Thankfully this week we will have a couple good chances of rainfall. On Wednesday it looks like a 70% chance of showers and thunderstorms with a slight risk of severe storms in the southern half of the area (south of Marathon county). On Friday afternoon and evening there will be a 60% chance. The rain on Friday night should clear up just in time for the weekend, but that doesn’t not mean the weather will be perfect. High temps on Saturday will only be around 60 – a little cool for this time of year but not quite as cool as last weekend.

Energy News:

“Lasting longer than the logical expiration date”. I have talked about this topic before in regards to other science topics and it rears its head again with regard to biofuel. In my opinion, the time for discussing biofuel as a legitimate liquid fuel replacement for gasoline has come and gone.You can look back in my blog posts over the last few years and find my enthusiasm for the exploratory effort to develop biofuels, test them out, calculate the production efficiency, and EROI. I even have close friends involved in the industry and I do not want to spoil their lifeblood, but the verdict is very close to being in. Could biofuels provide an emergency stop-gap fill in for times of disrupted oil supply? Probably. Could new methods of producing biofuels and different types of biofuels find important niche markets? Definitely. Is biofuel a realistic alternative to oil and gasoline? No. The train has left the station on that last question and it is chasing after electric vehicles and other proposals. Is electric ready for prime time? No. But it is looking more promising than the alternatives. This is the general opinion of many people in the transportation and energy fields.

Yet biofuels continue to make news. Companies like Mascoma are developing cheaper waysto produce cellulosic ethanol. OriginOil is making biofuel from algae. It is a unique process to produce the biofuel but the current average cost of algea biofuels between $400 to $1,600 per barrel! They have a long way to go before becoming competitive with fossil fuels.

So biofuels currently cost more, but that is not the only drawback. The biggest hurdle is that there is not enough biomass or land to grow it on in order to replace more than a single digit percentage of our current fossil fuel. Using biofuels instead of underground sources of fossil fuels is theoreticallycarbon neutral but you still have the problem of air pollution. Using biofuels to produce electricity is more efficient that burning it in a car engine. Another problem is that producing biofuels takes too much water.

Methanol

A more positive research development in biofuel production is a new more energy efficient process to take carbon dioxide out of the air and make methanol. This process could have some “legs” because if it can be perfected it will appease the AGW and biofuel groups at the same time.

Even though there are plenty of people still promoting biofuels and a lot of money pouring into the industry (my friends will have a job for a while yet), the bloom might be off the biofuel judging by this recent web poll. It list the top ten alternative energy bets for the future. Biofuels are not on it. It is nice to see nuclear near the top. I wonder if people were thinking about nuclear fusion or cold fusion when voting, because current nuclear energy production (nuclear fission) has a bad rap. Other highlights of the poll – different versions of solar make the list at number 3 and number 1. The only drawback to solar is the tremendous amount of space needed for large scale replacement of our current energy production methods. That is the same drawback for wind power. (Aside, speaking of wind power it is amazing to see more environmentalist backlash against wind farms, first it was the hypocrites in Nantucket sound, now coastal Oregon environmentalists are balking at the idea. They want the electricity but they don’t want the wind mills in their backyard.) Also, making the list is hydrogen vehicles (#8), but I get the feeling that if this poll is taken again next year, hydrogen might not be on the list. Geothermal was ranked pretty high, perhaps because of its simplicity, however, there was a recent setback (underground explosion) for a big Australian geothermal production facility. Hopefully the engineering problems can be solved.

Have a nice Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy