News roundup, 13 May 2026

- A man walked onto an active runway at Denver International Airport and into the path of a Frontier Airlines Airbus A321 on its takeoff roll in an apparent suicide. Unfortunately he was sucked into one of the engines. The cockpit and cabin immediately filled with smoke, and the pilots successfully aborted the takeoff. The ensuing evacuation of the 231 passengers and crew, however, was chaotic; not only were passengers wasting time trying to get their stuff, but three passengers jumped onto a slide before it had properly inflated, putting it out of commission (and hopefully injuring themselves in the process). Juan Browne (blancolirio), besides praising the pilots and strongly condemning the behaviour of the passengers, reports that the entire fan on the front of that engine was gone, and raises the possibility that this might have released oil that could have gone into the bleed air system, causing the smoke issue. If so it's fortunate that the crew were able to abort the takeoff; exposure to that stuff is potentially fatal.

- Another passenger from that Dutch plague ship in the Atlantic appears to be close to death. The passenger, a French woman, is said to be in the "final stage of supportive care"; the outbreak has already killed three people. The ship has now been fully evacuated and is on its way back to the Netherlands to be disinfected.

- A report the from International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) concludes that the cost of battery storage has dropped by 90% since 2010, making solar and wind cost competitive with fossil fuels. Parts of Europe are already seeing drops in their electricity prices as a result.

- Residents of the Rural Municipality of Ritchot, Manitoba are up in arms about plans from a Las Vegas based company, Jet.AI, in collaboration with Vancouver-based Consensus Core, to build a data centre north of the community of Île des Chênes. The provincial government is aware of the plan but has not yet made a decision on the matter.

- A 35 year old fugitive from Greenbriar, Tennessee was arrested in Winnipeg on child sex abuse charges. The man had somehow slipped across the border, possibly through farm fields, and potentially carrying several firearms, although the guns weren't in his possession when he was caught. He was captured after getting caught speeding.

- A Winnipeg funeral home owner, who has announced his intention to run for mayor, has been accused of sexual harassment by a former employee. Mike Vogiatzakis of Voyage Funeral Homes claims that this was a disgruntled employee who only made the allegations after being fired, but then he would, wouldn't he. More info about the allegations may be found here. Even if the claims are false, he's someone that thoughtful voters will hopefully stay far away from; he's already been spreading far-right conspiracy theories about the "15 minute city", and folks here allege that he has gang connections as well.

- South Korea's military is looking at using robots in some non-combat roles (e.g. reconnaissance and logistics) to make up for declining enlistment due to the country's low birthrate. 

News roundup, 20 March 2026

- Iran's retaliatory measures seem to have escalated. A strike on natural gas facilities in Qatar has reportedly wiped out 17% of the country's export capacity for at least three years. Whether the MAGAts will be able to draw a connection between their Dear Leader's war and the inevitable increase in the cost of home heating is an open question. While a handful of those people might actually change their ways, the best possible outcome for most of them would be for them to become sufficiently disillusioned that they don't bother to vote anymore. And some will stubbornly keep voting for Trump and his associates out of sheer spite, taking consolation in the fact that it's directly hurting people that they hate - assuming that there are even meaningful elections by then.

- Generally, in a functioning democracy law enforcement is supposed to get a warrant to access private information such as cellphone location data. But what if this data is already being sold by data brokers? The FBI under Kash Patel has been buying data from said brokers in order to track people; defenders of the practice argue that this is publicly available information and thus a warrant should not be necessary. Maybe the real question we should be asking is whether this sort of data should be allowed to be sold on the open market in the first place. For instance, if the authorities can buy this data, then presumably so can a stalker.

- London mayor Sadiq Khan is calling on Labour to campaign on rejoining the EU in the next general election. Certainly some recent polling suggests that this might be a good move; the extent to which this would translate into actual votes is far from clear, though.

- The war in Iran has helped to focus the minds of European leaders on renewable energy. Trump wants to export more American natural gas to Europe, but the spike in prices instead incentivized Europeans to try to replace natural gas with renewables.

- In some parts of the world, you can buy solar panels that just plug into a regular outlet and feed power back into your house's wiring. In some US states, electric utilities are trying to keep them out, claiming that it's a safety concern for their lineworkers (suggesting that it could still lead to power being supplied to a line that a worker thinks is dead because it's not being powered by the utility). Advocates say that this hasn't been a problem in other places and suspect that what the utilities are really concerned about is the "safety" of their shareholders' investments.

- Russia has issued new guidelines for physicians, calling on doctors to ask women how many children they want and to refer them to psychologists if they give "zero" as an answer. The country has already imposed restrictions on abortion and prohibited "childfree propaganda", but evidently those measures aren't doing the job in bringing the birth rate up to a level acceptable to Putin.

- Two Texas-based scientists have found a way to make usable soil from simulated lunar surface material, by combining it with vermicompost and certain fungi which are effective at sequestering heavy metals so they aren't taken up by plants so much. They've managed to grow chickpeas to the point of producing seed, though the success of those seeds in producing new plants remains to be seen.

News roundup, 9 March 2026

- The late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will be succeeded by his son Mojtaba. According to some diplomatic cables that turned up on Wikileaks back in the noughties, the Americans seem to have thought he was pretty much running things anyway; meanwhile one member of the country's main religious body claims that the elder Khamenei apparently did not want his son as a successor, and in any case the current Iranian state was supposed to be a republic, not a monarchy, so this could prove divisive. Also divisive was the statement by the country's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who had apologized for the strikes on Gulf states but then withdrew the apology following criticism from hardliners who called his stance "unprofessional, weak and unacceptable".

- Oil prices have surged by more than 25% since the start of the war, due to the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz and damage to oil infrastructure. If a Democrat were in power when oil prices surged like that, no matter the reason, you can be sure that the MAGA crowd would not shut up about it. I'm not counting on this to make them worry about their Dear Leader's role in this now, though, since in the minds of many of those people the license he gives them to be mean and hateful is worth paying more for gas. In terms of the impact on the energy market, the impact could be mixed; on the one hand it could push people and countries to switch to renewables faster, but it could also lead to the use of more coal in place of natural gas.

- The Manitoba government has refused to allow the City of Winnipeg to change the default speed limit on residential streets to 40 km/h from 50. Premier Wab Kinew rationalizes the decision by saying that "they can do it on their own". Well technically it's true that they could put signs at the entrance to each and every residential street, but realistically that's not going to happen - the cost of the signs alone would be considerable. This is disappointing, but not all that surprising; for all of Kinew's virtues (and they are considerable) he has a populist streak to him that comes out at times like this. And maybe he still clings to hopes of winning back constituencies like Interlake and doesn't want to deal with the rage from people who come into the city from out in the sticks and don't pay attention to the changes to the "unless otherwise posted" signs at the city limit.

- A 45 year old woman who worked as a personal support worker was ambushed and stabbed to death outside a client's home in the Windsor suburb of LaSalle. Nancy Grewal was also a social media influencer in the Sikh community, and had been a vocal critic of the Khalistan independence movement, leading to suspicions that this was the motivation for her killing. It's certainly possible, but I was under the impression that stabbing tends to be more common when the motive is personal, rather than a professional job. It could be that this was one enraged individual rather than an arranged hit, but I do hope police are considering other possibilities (such as a stalker or an ex-partner).

- A white supremacist dating site called WhiteDate, described by some as "Tinder for Nazis", was hacked and had its data published. Some of the data was published on a website called OK Stupid, while more sensitive data was provided only to journalists and researchers; the CBC used some of the latter data to find information implicating current members of the Canadian military. 

News roundup, 5 March 2026

- A LNG tanker suspected of being part of Russia's "shadow fleet" has exploded in the Mediterranean between Malta and Libya. The crew were rescued; there are indications that a drone attack may have been the cause. Russia blames Ukraine for the attack.

- While the MAGA movement was pretty solidly opposed to renewable energy until recently, the matter is now getting more complicated as its merits become harder to ignore. While Trump continues to ramble about how awful it is, rightwing influencer Katie Miller (who is married to Trump's domestic policy chief) has lately started to talk about the virtues of solar. So have Kellyanne Conway, Newt Gingrich, and other prominent figures. And solar and related technologies continue to move ahead, even in the US, despite Trump's efforts - for instance, nearly 58 GWh of battery storage was installed in the country last year. The war with Iran could make renewables even more attractive, especially if a lot of fossil fuel infrastructure in the Middle East is damaged. And there are fears that the major US automakers could find themselves reduced to making niche vehicles that hardly sell outside the US.

- The Manitoba government will be introducing legislation in the upcoming session to make it harder to use the notwithstanding clause from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The bill will compel any future government using the clause to explain its reasoning to an appeals court judge, who would then advise on whether the proposed use of the clause would violate certain sections of the Charter. While the judge's ruling would be nonbinding, it would also be public, which would hopefully force the government to explain its move to the public at election time.

- Winnipeg-based bus manufacturer New Flyer has expanded its Winnipeg facility and is once again manufacturing entire buses in the city for the first time in 15 years. The company's practice of late has been to manufacture the shells here but complete the buses in the US to meet American content rules, and this will continue for the US export market, but it will no longer be necessary to ship the shells to the States and then ship the completed product back here for the domestic market.

- The European Union is moving forward with plans to require companies that receive public money to meet minimum thresholds for EU-made parts and require a minimum number of European workers for foreign investors.

News roundup, 22 Dec 2025

- Less than a day after a large dump of Epstein-related documents on the US Justice Department's website, several of the files were suddenly removed, including a photo of Trump with Epstein. Other information seems to have not been posted in the first place, given how few of the photos and documents refer to Trump. Naturally the DoJ has not held back on stuff connecting Epstein to other people, such as Bill Clinton. Information from court documents and other sources reportedly suggests that Trump tried to have his name removed from the files entirely (not that we didn't all already suspect that). Two co-sponsors of the House resolution that ordered the release of the files are now calling for Attorney General Pam Bondi to be held in contempt of Congress.

- The largest isolated power grid in the world, the South West Interconnected System which serves Western Australia, is scheduled to close all of their coal plants by 2029. Interestingly, while a spike in natural gas usage is expected at that time, the spike is not expected to last long as battery storage will enable renewables to pick up much of the slack.

- Manitoba premier Wab Kinew has announced that a public inquiry will be held as early as next year into the outgoing Conservative government's attempts to approve the Sio Silica project in Springfield.

- The company that makes Jim Beam bourbon will be suspending production at its main location in Kentucky for all of 2026, ostensibly to upgrade the facility. Distillers in that state have lost some $75 million this year due to the Trump regime's trade policies and the resulting boycotts.

- Russian Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov, who headed the military's operational training department, was killed by a car bomb in Moscow this morning. Russian authorities suspect Ukrainian intelligence services were involved in the bombing. This may very well be true; on the other hand, it's also possible that this was "defenestration by other means".

- Bari Weiss, the news editor for CBS, spiked a story on the mistreatment of detainees who had been sent to El Salvador by the Trump regime. The piece had been scheduled to run on yesterday's edition of 60 Minutes, but Weiss ordered the story pulled because it did not include an on-the-record comment from an official of the regime.

- A fire at a PG&E substation in San Francisco cut power to 130,000 residents for several hours. Notably, it also revealed an interesting problem with Waymo robotaxis - they don't know what to do at an intersection if the traffic signals aren't working.

- An EasyJet A319 preparing to take off from Malaga, Spain on a flight to to London, England was delayed for 12 hours after flight attendants discovered that one of the passengers was dead. The deceased, an 89 year old British woman, had been wheeled onto the plane by relatives, who said that she had fallen asleep after feeling unwell at the airport, but further investigation showed that she was not, in fact, just resting. Many passengers suspected that she may have already been dead by the time she was wheeled on; perhaps her family didn't realize, or maybe they hoped to avoid the inconvenience of having to report a death in a foreign country.

News roundup, 17 July 2025

- The possibility of Donald Trump firing Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell is still looming. Powell has refused to cut interest rates as Trump wants; he needs some sort of a pretext to do this, though, and the alleged mismanagement of the renovations on two Federal Reserve buildings just might be it. Trump has already been polling Republican legislators on the issue. He's denying, however, that he actually plans to do so, perhaps leery of what such an unprecedented move might do to the markets. Interfering with their central banks didn't do Hungary and Turkey any favours, after all.

- The Trump regime is doing its utmost to stop the expansion of renewable energy, even as China races ahead. China already has five times the amount of renewable energy in its grid as the US - and they have greatly expanded electricity supply without increasing their fossil fuel consumption as a result. Their crackdown on offshore wind now has Massachusetts and New York looking to buy power from an offshore project in Nova Scotia.

- The matter of the Epstein files continues to cause problems for Donald Trump. Some think that this could be thing that finally makes the MAGA crowd question their previously unquestioning loyalty to the orange monster. Then again, it might just as easily make them question their previously unquestioned belief that sexual abuse of minors is a bad thing.

- A plastic surgeon in Utah who allegedly destroyed more than $28,000 worth of government provided COVID-19 vaccines and gave kids saline shots so they would answer yes when asked if they had been vaccinated has had all charges against him dropped by the Department of Justice under Pam Bondi. Dr. Michael Kirk Moore Jr. had allegedly accepted cash bribes to distribute fraudulent vaccination cards as well.

- Two people have been arrested after allegedly using a tow truck to steal several vehicles in Transcona.  

News roundup, 23 Jan 2025

- Many of Donald Trump's promised changes would require a major overhaul of how government works. In particular, the political independence of various government agencies is in the firing line, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission, and potentially the military as well. This could potentially enable the Trump regime to, for instance, follow through on hints that he might get the FCC to pull the licenses of broadcasters that are insufficiently loyal to the regime (which might explain why a CBS affiliate in Wisconsin just fired their meteorologist for calling Musk out on his Nazi salute), or to purge the military of generals that are too "woke". And, of course, Trump has ordered all federal staff devoted to anything that he lumps under "DEI" to be put on administrative leave (with permanent dismissal expected to follow).

- One of the prisoners pardoned by Trump is Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road website on the "dark web". Ulbricht had been sentenced to life in prison in 2015 on charges related to facilitating drug trafficking, hacking, and money laundering; he was also alleged to be involved in up to six homicides. But he's a hero to the crypto bros, so obviously he had to be released.

- The White House has removed the US Constitution from its website; they insist that it will be back soon. No word on whether the new page will say "no animal may kill another without cause", though.

- Despite the new administration's attack on clean energy, many in the industry say that progress is unstoppable. Whether this is true or just an attempt to put on a brave face, one thing is clear - China is moving full steam ahead on solar and wind power in any case; in addition to the climate costs of delays in the US, the Americans will risk permanently ceding the industry to the Chinese if they don't change course.

- Germany's parliament will be debating a bill to ban the far-right AfD. Under Germany's constitution, for such legislation to be legal it must be shown that the party is "aggressively opposed" to the constitution itself. The bill is supported by the Social Democrats, Greens, and Left Party. Some members of the centre-right Christian Democrats also favour the move, but not all - one senior CDU MP fears that this could "allow the AfD to represent itself as martyrs".

- The ceasefire in Gaza was followed shortly thereafter by a major military operation in the West Bank; in addition to the above-board operations there are reports of rampages by Israeli settlers in Palestinian villages in the territory.

- A planned ecological corridor along the Little Saskatchewan River in western Manitoba has been cancelled following an outburst of populist rage from the locals.

- Amazon is closing its warehousing facilities in Quebec and laying off around 1,500 people. The company is returning to the contracted-out delivery model that they used in the province before 2020. They insist that it's not because the facility recently unionized, but not too many people believe them.

- A US border patrol agent was fatally shot in Vermont close to the border with Quebec during a traffic stop; the killing is under investigation.

News roundup, 26 Aug 2024

 - Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, has been arrested in France on suspicion of facilitating various crimes, including "fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, organised crime and promotion of terrorism" through his company's app. Durov is a Russian-French dual citizen, and Russia is accusing France of "totalitarian" behaviour. Now that sounds pretty rich coming from the Russians; that said, it's worth questioning whether making it possible to securely communicate, which is no doubt useful for the above and other crimes, is sufficient grounds for considering you complicit in those crimes.

- The Trudeau government has slapped a 100% surtax on all Chinese-made electric vehicles, ostensibly to support the EV industry at home. This follows the lead of the US, which took similar measures earlier this year. The editorial board at the Globe and Mail are arguing that this is a necessary move, even as they claim that tariffs are generally a bad thing. I'm not sure it is so good on the big picture, though; while it's definitely true that Chinese EVs are subsidized heavily by the state, subsidies to shift away from environmentally damaging things such as internal combustion engines are a sound and reasonable move, and notably the Trudeau government is not above such measures themselves when it benefits Canadian workers.

- The Canada Industrial Relations Board has ordered an end to the lockout at Canada's two main railways. This was seen as necessary due to the economic impact of the dispute; however, the union plans to fight it in court, and raises concerns that such a move could make it harder for other unions in federally regulated industries.

- A startup called Form Energy plans to build the world's largest battery in Maine, as a measure to maintain the stability of New England's power grid and improve the capacity for the use of renewable energy on the grid. The battery is a new type called an iron-air battery that doesn't require a lot of the hard-to-secure materials needed to build many battery types.

- A new poll suggests that Texas might be within reach for Kamala Harris. While Trump still holds onto a 5% lead, which is outside the margin of error, things could get interesting if his lead continues to slip. Also notable is that of those who planned to support Robert F. Kennedy Jr. prior to his withdrawal, 44% had switched their allegiance to Harris, while only 21% had switched to Trump. If that holds nationwide, this is very good news.

- Manitoba health minister Uzoma Asagwara has announced that prescription birth control medications will be made available free of charge in the province. The measure has been applauded by many, though some would like to ensure that the "morning after" pill is covered as well, which it currently is not due to its not being available by prescription.

- Some cycling advocates in Winnipeg are calling for the introduction of the "Idaho stop" law in Manitoba. Under this proposal, cyclists would be permitted to treat stop signs as motor vehicles treat yield signs, and to treat red lights as motorists would treat stop signs. The part relating to stop signs makes a great deal of sense, since it enables cyclists to clear the intersection faster (which is beneficial to them as well as to motorists). I used to be more skeptical about the part related to traffic signals until someone tried to bikejack me at a red light last year. Getting a government to resist populist fury sufficiently to introduce such a measure might be a challenge though.

News roundup, 22 July 2024

- Joe Biden has abandoned his bid for reelection and endorsed Kamala Harris. European leaders are praising him for his decision (even if it comes a bit late in the game) as well as for his actions as President. One thing is clear - you likely won't see much talk about the candidates' ages coming from the Republicans anymore.

- Many Republican strategists fear that their legislative agenda will alienate women. Many Democrats hope for that very thing; certainly if Harris becomes the candidate as expected she is expected to put this front and centre. And there are promising signs that the Republicans may have peaked too early; hopefully a relatively fresh and young candidate will be able to take advantage of this.

- While OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has publicly made statements about the need for caution with AI, whistleblowers from his company say that in actual practice he is using the traditional Silicon Valley "move fast and break things" approach.

- Over half of Turkey's power grid is now supplied by renewables, though they have a long way to go to catch up with places like the EU. The shift has been recent, and seems to be primarily motivated by a desire to reduce dependence on Russia, who supplies most of their fossil fuels.

- The zebra mussel situation at Clear Lake in Riding Mountain National Park is not looking good. Parks Canada is still looking at what measures they can take, but this ship may well have sailed. In other invasive species-related news, some lakes in Manitoba seem to have been illegally stocked with largemouth bass (a popular species with sport anglers). This is a potential problem for native trout and pickerel species.

- Manitoba's Residential Tenancies Branch has ordered the owners of that North End apartment block to reverse the eviction of all their tenants. Still not a good look, especially given that the landlord threw out some tenants' possessions without warning. The province warns that additional orders, and charges, may be pending. In other somewhat promising Winnipeg housing news, a long-vacant block in the Riverview neighbourhood has been purchased by Fisher River Cree Nation and may well be up and running by next year.

- CO₂ levels are now comparable to what they are thought to have been in the middle of the Pliocene epoch, around 3 million years ago. At that time the mean global temperature is estimated to have been about 3°C above present levels; this can be expected to happen over the next few decades unless dramatic changes are made right quick (and possibly even then). Much of Greenland was ice-free at the time; sea level may have been close to 10 metres above current levels. For an idea of what that might look like, check out this site.

- It's so hot in parts of the US that pop cans are under significantly more pressure than usual. When carried in airplanes, they're sometimes bursting as a result. In 20 cases, injuries have resulted.

- A former Ukrainian MP was fatally shot on Friday. She had been a member of an ultranationalist party and had drawn criticism for not considering Russian-speaking Ukrainians to be properly Ukrainian; nonetheless, this is not the optimal way of dealing with people with problematic views.

- Thefts of catalytic converters have dropped significantly in the past year. Some of this may be attributable to legislation that makes it harder for thieves to sell them, but a big part of it is simply that the precious metals in them aren't worth as much as they were before.

- At least 12 Russian soldiers died after eating poisoned watermelons in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

Can "enhanced geothermal" solve our energy problems?

Most Manitobans are familiar with geothermal energy in its mild form, the "heat pumps" used for heating and cooling buildings. What fewer people realize is that if you drill deep enough, it gets hot enough to boil water, which can be used to spin turbines and thus drive generators. The Guardian's Damian Carrington thinks it offers all the benefits of nuclear fission, without the problems:

By mass, 99.9% of the Earth is hotter than 100C. That means that not far below our feet is the power to boil unlimited water and generate clean, renewable energy. Is the UK throwing all it can at this extraordinary opportunity? Of course not, who do you think we are? Germans?

That contrasts strikingly with the more glamorous sister of deep geothermal energy, nuclear power. Both ultimately tap the heat generated by the decay of radioactive elements. Geothermal plants send water down holes to bring to the surface the heat from natural radioactive decay deep in the mantle. Nuclear power mines the radionucleides, concentrates them, sends them critical and then wonders what to do with the leftover mess - not very elegant by comparison.

The coalition government has pledged that nuclear power will receive no taxpayer subsidies. But it can receive financial support by other means which are subsidies in all but name.

So what support is there for deep geothermal projects? Nothing. As Tim Smit - founder of the Eden project where one of just two projects in the UK is sited - put it last night at a Renewable Energy Association event in Westminster: "I'd like the same 'lack of support' the government is giving to nuclear."

Geothermal energy has been tapped in the UK since Roman times, via the hot springs at Bath and elsewhere. Shallow geothermal projects - such as ground source heat pumps - are slowly growing. But even Decc's own and very conservative estimate is that deep geothermal - a few kilometres down - could provide 10% of the UK's electricity.

And how! It runs 24 hours a day, so perfect for baseload. The water circulates in a closed-loop, so it's clean and sustainable. It is virtually zero carbon and the plants have a small surface footprint, so it's pretty NIMBY-proof.

Sounds like a great idea. Carrington isn't the first to suggest this either (I heard Gwynne Dyer advocating it on the radio several years back, for instance). Of course, it's not entirely trouble-free; there is some evidence linking deep geothermal systems to earthquakes in some cases, and I also wonder about localized problems from the release of subterranean gases (such as sulphur dioxide) when you drill several kilometres into the ground. Still, it's worth looking very seriously at this as an alternative to coal and natural gas (and eventually fission).

Biofuels that don't compete with food crops

The idea of biofuels from microbial sources has been around for a while, but if this company's claims hold up, it would be a huge breakthrough:

In September, a privately held and highly secretive U.S. biotech company named Joule Unlimited received a patent for “a proprietary organism” – a genetically adapted E. coli bacterium – that feeds solely on carbon dioxide and excretes liquid hydrocarbons: diesel fuel, jet fuel and gasoline. This breakthrough technology, the company says, will deliver renewable supplies of liquid fossil fuel almost anywhere on Earth, in essentially unlimited quantity and at an energy-cost equivalent of $30 (U.S.) a barrel of crude oil. It will deliver, the company says, “fossil fuels on demand.”

We’re not talking “biofuels” – not, at any rate, in the usual sense of the word. The Joule technology requires no “feedstock,” no corn, no wood, no garbage, no algae. Aside from hungry, gene-altered micro-organisms, it requires only carbon dioxide and sunshine to manufacture crude. And water: whether fresh, brackish or salt. With these “inputs,” it mimics photosynthesis, the process by which green leaves use solar energy to convert carbon dioxide into organic compounds. Indeed, the company describes its manufacture of fossil fuels as “artificial photosynthesis.”

Joule says it now has “a library” of fossil-fuel organisms at work in its Massachusetts labs, each engineered to produce a different fuel. It has “proven the process,” has produced ethanol (for example) at a rate equivalent to 10,000 U.S. gallons an acre a year. It anticipates that this yield could hit 25,000 gallons an acre a year when scaled for commercial production, equivalent to roughly 800 barrels of crude an acre a year.

By way of comparison, Cornell University’s David Pimentel, an authority on ethanol, says that one acre of corn produces less than half as much energy, equivalent to only 328 barrels. If a few hundred barrels of crude sounds modest, recall that millions of acres of prime U.S. farmland are now used to make corn ethanol.

From the Globe. I have to quibble with the claim that "we're not talking biofuels"; of course these are biofuels -- they're fuels from biological sources, after all. I kind of get what Reynolds means, though; they don't have the drawbacks that most biofuels we see today have. And I'm pretty sure you'd at least need some minerals to nourish the bacteria. Nonetheless, this could be great news.

Of course, as the article admits, the company is extremely secretive about their process. Naturally, this doesn't necessarily mean it's hokum; they may be trying to protect trade secrets as they claim. Time will tell whether this is the real deal, or just another bit of vapourware (by the way, has anyone heard any news of EEStor lately?)

Yet more water troubles

This time it's in Syria:

AR RAQQAH, Syria — The farmlands spreading north and east of this Euphrates River town were once the breadbasket of the region, a vast expanse of golden wheat fields and bucolic sheep herds.

Now, after four consecutive years of drought, this heartland of the Fertile Crescent — including much of neighboring Iraq — appears to be turning barren, climate scientists say. Ancient irrigation systems have collapsed, underground water sources have run dry and hundreds of villages have been abandoned as farmlands turn to cracked desert and grazing animals die off. Sandstorms have become far more common, and vast tent cities of dispossessed farmers and their families have risen up around the larger towns and cities of Syria and Iraq.

From the New York Times. This should be a familiar refrain to regular readers of this blog (see for example this or this). And we're not likely immune to this stuff either. Danny Blair, a climatologist at the University of Winnipeg, thinks we should be preparing in advance for trouble:

It's time for Canadians to wake up to the reality of climate change. Many already do understand that the consequences of climate change for our part of the world and the world as a whole are profound, but many do not. Of course, there are both positive and negative aspects to climate change, but it is increasingly clear the climate trends that will almost certainly prevail throughout this century will leave us with a world in which the benefits of climate change will be swamped by its environmental, economic and humanitarian costs.

From the Free Press. And what might some of these costs be?

On the other hand, insects and weeds will also flourish in a warmer world, perhaps necessitating an increase in the use of pesticides. Warmer summers will also increase the demand for energy to cool our buildings and will increase the frequency of heat-related health problems. Forest fires will become more frequent and the winter recreation season will be shortened. Importantly, the network of winter roads across Manitoba will become even less reliable than is already the case, causing significant and costly impacts.

Impacts related more directly to water are likely to be even more significant. Climate change will likely result in higher annual precipitation totals across Canada, but they also show that the summers will be drier. With more of the annual precipitation falling in the winter and more heat available to evaporate surface water, it is quite likely that the Prairie provinces will have to suffer through more frequent and more severe droughts. Ironically, it is also likely that floods will become even more problematic than they are today, as the hydrological cycle kicks into a higher gear. Thus, the survivability of the settlements of the southern prairies already stressed by the ups and downs in agricultural productivity may become even more tenuous.

It's worth noting that when scientists try to predict the fine details of the effects of climate change there is an element of speculation involved (and it should be noted that Blair is cautious himself, using words like "likely" rather than making definitive statements). Climate is pretty complicated stuff, and we should be preparing for a number of eventualities.

One eventuality that Manitoba should definitely be preparing for, though (and yes, I've harped on this in the past) is the melting of the glaciers in the Rockies. Right now, the Saskatchewan and Churchill Rivers are flowing very nicely indeed, fed by the melting glaciers... but in a few decades the glaciers will be gone, and then those rivers will be a lot smaller. The probably won't dry up entirely, since it will still rain and snow periodically, but Manitoba Hydro should be planning for this now by getting other clean energy sources online as quickly as possible. Ideally, what we should have is enough solar and wind capacity to keep Jenpeg closed enough of the time that Lake Winnipeg can be kept near its current level. Will we do it? That remains to be seen...

Construction begins on St. Joseph wind farm

Not without hurdles, but it's underway:

Construction has started on the St. Joseph Wind Farm after Manitoba Hydro announced they would loan Pattern Energy $260 million towards the $345 million project.

After years of delays and changes to the original plan, Pattern Energy will have 60 Siemens SWT-2.3 MW turbines producing 138 MW in operation by Christmas of this year.

"These things don't generally take more than six to 12 months to build," Colin Edwards, senior developer Canada said.

The construction may be quick but getting there was not. In 2007 the call for submissions was put out by Manitoba Hydro. In November 2008, they announced they would go with a bid by Babcock and Brown Canada to build a 300 MW wind farm. That deal never materialized after their Australian parent company faced financial distress. The North American wind division was turned into Pattern Energy, with many of the same names that were involved in the first proposal.

From the Altona Red River Valley Echo. Not a moment too soon -- we're going to need a lot more of this soon, especially once the flow rates of the Assiniboine, Saskatchewan, and Churchill rivers start to decline as the glaciers on the Rockies vanish. The more wind and solar capacity we have the better, because when it's producing power it will be possible to reduce the flow rate through the control structure at Jenpeg, thus keeping Lake Winnipeg as full as possible.