The globe recorded its sixth warmest February since record keeping began in 1880, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA’s) National Climatic Data Center. NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies rated February 2010 the second warmest, behind 1998. The year-to-date period, January – February, is the 5th or 2nd warmest such period on record, according to NOAA and NASA, respectively. NOAA rated February 2010 global ocean temperatures as the 2nd warmest on record, next to 1998. February land temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere were the warmest on record, but in the Northern Hemisphere, they were the 26th warmest. The relatively cool Northern Hemisphere land temperatures were due in part to the much-above average amount of snow on the ground–February 2010 snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere was the 3rd highest in the 44-year snow cover record. For the entire winter, the Northern Hemisphere had the 2nd greatest snow cover on record, the U.S. had its greatest snow cover, and Eurasia had its 4th most. ~ via Wunder Blog : Weather Underground.
I don’t think this requires a comment from me…But you should follow the link and check out the charts.
I know…about 20% of the world considers this all just a big conspiracy theory…But, for the other 80%, you may want to start selling that ocean front property. Especially if it’s in hurricane alley. If you live elsewhere, snowshoes and cross-country skis might be a good investment if this past winter turns out to be typical.
Wind power generation in Texas is growing so quickly that it is testing the limits of the state’s electrical grid. The state set a record on March 5 when wind turbines generated 6,272 megawatts of energy, or about 19 percent of the electricity on the state’s main power grid. That peak far exceeded the 6.2 percent average for wind power in Texas, whose 9,410 megawatts of total wind capacity make it the nation’s wind power leader. But wind power’s growth poses a critical challenge for the state’s booming wind industry, which includes a 180-megawatt wind farm completed last fall near Corpus Christi in South Texas. On some days wind turbines are slowed or shut down because the state doesn’t have enough transmission wires to send the energy from remote areas, where wind resources are great, to cities that need it, including Dallas and Houston. The state is planning to spend more than $5 billion to expand and update its transmission system.[1]
I guess this could be why I never seem to be charged the contract max on my electrical bill…For those of you still living in the 20th century of utility companies, Texas deregulated it’s electrical markets quite a while back. Sadly the savings promised by competition(at least if you listened to the proponents) never materialized. Texas electrical rates now rank as some of the highest in the nation. With over half of all electricity coming from coal burning facilities, you are offered the option of paying more for “green” energy. We do and since I signed my last two year contract we have never paid the contractual maximum per kWh. While I appreciated the “generosity” of my retail electrical company, I wondered what was causing their generosity…It’s pretty clear that they are able to purchase power at a cost much less than what they anticipated.
It would seem it would be time to update the infrastructure…Wouldn’t it? Just think…we have the capacity to generate more power without degrading the environment at all, yet we slow or stop the generators due to a lack of transmission capabilities. And, as I understand it, there are more facilities coming online regularly.
So…Does this mean more and more of these units will be operating at lower capacities than they are designed for?
[1] Yale Environment 360: Record Wind Generation Tests Texas’s Transmission System.
and get these muses automatically anywhere you go.