Solar Farms Out at Sea Are Clean Energy’s Next Breakthrough

Bloomberg News
Thu, July 13, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Buffeted by waves as high as 10 meters (32 feet) in China’s Yellow Sea about 30 kilometers off the coast of Shandong province, two circular rafts carrying neat rows of solar panels began generating electricity late last year, a crucial step toward a new breakthrough for clean energy.

The experiment by State Power Investment Corp., China’s biggest renewable power developer, and Norway-based developer Ocean Sun AS is one of the most high-profile tests yet of offshore solar technology. It’s a potential advance in the sector that would enable locations out at sea to host renewables, and help land-constrained regions accelerate a transition away from fossil fuels.

Most initial trials of solar-at-sea have involved small-scale systems, and there are numerous challenges still to overcome — including higher costs and the impacts of corrosive salts or destructive winds. Yet developers are increasingly confident that offshore solar can become a significant new segment in renewable energy.

“The application of this is virtually unlimited,” because many regions have constraints on the use of land, including parts of Europe, Africa and Asia along with locations like Singapore and Hong Kong, said Ocean Sun’s Chief Executive Officer Børge Bjørneklett. “In these places, you see there’s a huge interest for this technology.”

Shandong, the industrial hub south of Beijing, plans to add more than 11 gigawatts of solar offshore by 2025, and to ultimately build 42 gigawatts, more than the current power generation capacity of Norway. Neighboring Jiangsu has a target to add 12.7 gigawatts, while provinces like Fujian and Tianjin are also studying proposals. Japan, the Netherlands and Malaysia are among other nations conducting or preparing test projects.

Even with investments in solar forecast to surpass spending on oil production for the first time this year, many regions face challenges in finding land to install vast arrays of panels, either because of a lack of available space, as a result of inhospitable terrain, or because to do so would require deforestation.

That’s spurring the push to examine new, and sometimes unlikely, sites for solar that’s already seen hundreds of floating projects delivered on lakes, reservoirs, fish farms and dams. Japan has dozens of smaller arrays, China and India have added major operations, and facilities have been built in nations including Colombia, Israel and Ghana. In January, the largest floating solar project in the US was brought fully online, supplying enough power for 1,400 homes from panels at the Canoe Brook water treatment plant in New Jersey.

“Renewables installation must grow, but the realistic question is where to build,” said Li Xiang, head of the solar-on-water unit at Hefei, China-based Sungrow Power Supply Co., one of the world’s largest renewable energy equipment makers. “We think water surfaces have great potential.”

Stretched out across the dark green water of an artificial lake in Huainan, in China’s eastern Anhui province, is an installation of about half a million floating solar panels clustered into vast blocks, with white geese swimming by. The project built by Sungrow, on the site of a former coal mine since filled with water, covers the size of more than 400 soccer pitches and generates power for more than 100,000 homes.

Adding solar systems on existing reservoirs could theoretically allow more than 6,000 global cities and communities to develop self-sufficient power systems, researchers including Zeng Zhenzhong, an associate professor at Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, said in a paper published in March. “We don’t need to fight for farmlands, nor do we need to cut forests or even go to the deserts,” Zeng said in an interview.

Yet more assessments are needed of the potential long-term consequences of covering water bodies with panels, the researchers found. China’s authorities have become wary too. New developments in some freshwater locations were banned last May amid concerns about the impacts on ecosystems and flood control. A solar installation in Jiangsu province that covered 70% of a lake’s surface was partially dismantled after local officials raised objections.

While solar plants on freshwater sites are forecast to continue to expand globally, some of those concerns — and the potential of projects at sea — are helping to drive activity in the offshore sector. China’s Ministry of Science and Technology has made it a key priority to develop near-shore floating technologies by 2025, while companies such as Sungrow are among those collaborating with researchers.

Ocean-based solar arrays that can handle waves of up to four meters could be ready for commercial deployment within a year, and systems able to withstand 10-meter high swells will take at least three years to perfect, according to Ocean Sun. Viable technology could be ready within one to two years, according to Southern University’s Zeng, who is also studying offshore developments.

Developers are experimenting with differing concepts. Ocean Sun’s ring-shaped floaters, made of high-density plastic pipes and a membrane with panels laid out across the surface, undulate with the movement of waves. Rotterdam-based SolarDuck AS mounts panels on triangular platforms and has agreements to test its systems, including in Tokyo Bay and in a project off the coast of Tioman Island in Malaysia.

Questions remain about the ultimate scale of the offshore solar market. Developing panels at sea could be around 40% more expensive thanks to more complex installations and costly subsea cables, according to BloombergNEF estimates. Unlike offshore wind, which produces more power than onshore farms because of stronger gusts and larger turbines, there’s no major benefit to power generation in harvesting the sun’s rays at sea versus land.

“Offshore solar in some ways is the worst of both worlds,” said Cosimo Ries, an analyst with Trivium China. “You get the higher installation costs, but you don’t get the higher power output.” Solar-at-sea is likely to end up a niche sector, mostly serving land-starved coastal cities like Singapore, Ries said.

Advocates insist the technology is fast improving, and will win a role in helping nations with large populations and a lack of land to curb emissions and — for many developing economies — to meet still rising energy demand.

Longi Green Energy Technology Co., the world’s biggest producer of panels, is developing modules specifically suited for conditions at sea, and has a study underway in Jiangsu province. While it sees the market size as limited now, there’s “relatively large potential for offshore solar,” the company said in a March conference presentation in Xiamen.

China alone has potential to host about 700 gigawatts of offshore solar — about as much as the combined electricity generation capacity of India and Japan — according to a State Power Investment forecast.

“It is not going to be difficult,” said Southern University’s Zeng. “People have not yet realized how much potential it has.”

Bloomberg Businessweek

Opinion

Letters to the Editor: We ignored Al Gore in 2000. We're paying the price of climate denial

Fri, July 14, 2023 

People watch the Ottauquechee River rise after extreme rainfall in Quechee, Vt., on July 10. 

(Jessica Rinaldi / The Boston Globe )

To the editor: Wildfires, flooding, hurricanes, abhorrent heat, ocean temperatures rising to unheard of amounts — this is not the "new abnormal," but most likely the "new normal." ("Fires, floods, heatwaves. Is the extreme weather from coast to coast ‘a new abnormal’?" July 12)

Twenty-three years ago, Al Gore, then running for president, pointed to scientific reports that predicted all of this. Millions of us heard it but chose to disregard it or not believe it.

It's hard to believe that many in this country are still in climate-change denial or at least pretend to be. And why is that? Because as Gore said, it is an "inconvenient truth."

Linda Cooper, Studio City

.
To the editor: There's been buzz about the beginning of a new geological epoch caused by human activity for more than 20 years, but it now appears to be on the way to becoming official — the Anthropocene began between 1950 and 1954.

However, a 2015 study published in Nature says the Anthropocene probably began around 1610, with the exchange of species between continents.

Previous epochs began and ended owing to factors including meteorite strikes, sustained volcanic eruptions, the shifting of the continents and climate change. Now human activity has driven Earth into a new epoch. We're very clever but haven't been very wise.

We're finally wising up. Can we stop burning fossil fuels and changing Earth's climate and atmosphere? Can we can stop depleting groundwater and changing Earth's geology? Can we can stop driving the species we depend on to extinction?

Maybe. It's theoretically possible, but can we overcome human nature?

Carol Steinhart, Madison, Wis.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Shell Explores Selling Stake in Renewable Power Unit

William Mathis and Dinesh Nair

BLOOMBERG
Thu, July 13, 2023

(Bloomberg) -- Shell Plc is exploring options for its global renewable power operations, including a potential stake sale to outside investors, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The UK energy giant is working with advisers to study a range of possibilities that could also include separating the business into a more independent unit, the people said. It’s approached a number of international investors to gauge their interest in buying a stake, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.

The deliberations come as Chief Executive Officer Wael Sawan focuses the company’s investments on fossil fuels in a bid to increase shareholder returns and narrow the valuation gap with Shell’s US peers.

Discussions are still at an early stage, and there’s no certainty they will lead to a transaction, the people said. Shell may also consider introducing outside investors into some other operations such as its downstream assets, one of the people said.

A representative for Shell declined to comment beyond a capital markets day presentation in June, when the company flagged plans to divest certain power assets through 2025, but also make selective investments in the business.

If a deal does happen, it could be a significant shift in Shell’s green strategy. The oil major has spent more than two decades trying to figure out just how big of a player it wants to be in renewables. Over the years, some CEOs have set targets for low-carbon alternatives to oil and gas, only for their successors to focus more squarely on the fuels that drive most of the company’s profits, but also cause climate change.

It could also be seen as a concession to activist investor Dan Loeb, whose Third Point LLC fund built up a significant stake in Shell in 2021 and urged previous CEO Ben van Beurden to break off its natural gas and renewables operations into a standalone business. There is a precedent for such a move — Italian oil giant Eni SpA has separated its renewable-energy assets into a separate entity called Plenitude.

Shell’s approach in recent years was emblematic of the European oil majors’ efforts to position their businesses for a world that cuts carbon emissions and relies less on fossil fuels in the coming years. It’s been a stark contrast to their US peers Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., which have stuck more closely to their core businesses of oil and gas.

Under van Beurden, Shell rapidly grew its green power business and briefly sought to become the world’s biggest electricity producer. The company’s portfolio, which had 6.4 gigawatts in operation or development at the end of last year, includes offshore and onshore wind farms in Europe and the US. It recently acquired Indian solar developer Sprng Energy, Danish biofuels producer Nature Energy and American renewable power company Savion.

So far investors have rewarded the US oil majors’ strategy, pushing their valuations far above their European competitors.

Shell’s renewable-power business has come under pressure as Sawan pursues what he’s called a “ruthless” approach to prioritizing returns, meaning the unit has to generate profits in addition to cutting the company’s carbon footprint. While Sawan said he will continue to invest in renewable power, he’s vowed to be more selective and only pursue projects that create sufficient value.

As Shell’s approach to green power has shifted at the top, some executives in the business have departed. Renewable-power boss Thomas Brostrom quit to pursue another job. Shell’s UK head of offshore wind, Melissa Read, also left the company.

Shell leaves experts fuming with latest admission on 2050 pledge: ‘They are making so much money right now’

Erin Feiger
Sat, July 15, 2023 

Shell has backpedaled on its climate change pledges to provide bigger payouts to shareholders, in a move slammed by many as shady.

What’s happening?

After a surprising announcement last year, in which Shell set 2050 as its target to reach net-zero planet-overheating gas pollution, the company became the latest to join others like BP in scaling back their climate pledges, according to Euronews.green.

Shell said oil production levels will remain stable until 2030, justifying it by saying selling its interest in the Permian Basin oilfield in 2021 allowed it to reach production reduction goals until then.

Euronews.green further reported that the company will invest $40 billion in oil and gas production through the next 13 years, all of this amid record profits, leaving many questioning the dirty energy company’s alleged commitment to shift to clean energy.

Mark van Baal, founder of Follow This, which unites shareholders to push Big Oil to clean up its act, told the Washington Post, “We have to regain momentum, or these companies will keep on saying they can continue with oil and gas because the majority of shareholders want them to do that. The fact that they are making so much money right now is not helping.”

Carla Denyer, co-leader of the U.K. Green party, told Euronews.green that Shell’s actions are “pure climate vandalism,” with Friends of the Earth adding that “like other fossil fuel giants which have also scaled back their ambitions, Shell now admits that it has no plans to change its business model.”

Why is this climate pledge pivot concerning?

Dirty energy sources, like oil, gas, and coal, are the largest contributor to Earth’s rising temperatures, accounting for more than 75% of the world’s overall heat-trapping gas pollution and nearly 90% of harmful carbon pollution, according to the U.N.

Because they’re such a huge part of the problem, dirty energy companies like Shell need to be a big part of the solution.

Making pledges like the ones Shell is now scaling back on to convince us that the company is a friend to our planet is called greenwashing, which is when a company makes false or misleading statements about the environmental benefits of one of its products or practices.

Greenwashing is a particularly sinister problem because it prevents real and very necessary progress from being made, while duping customers into spending our money with companies that are lying to us and hurting our planet.

What can be done?

Many organizations are working to hold Big Oil companies accountable for enacting real change, but it’s a long road.

As individuals, we can work to mitigate the harm done by these big companies by moving away from using their dirty energy sources.

We can switch from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles, limit the amount of single-use plastics we use, and switch to alternative sources of power at home when possible.

Nations call for swift fossil fuel exit to tackle climate change

AFP
Fri, July 14, 2023 

No target for ending the use of fossil fuel use has yet been set 

(Valentine CHAPUIS)

The world needs an "urgent" exit from fossil fuels as part of efforts to slash planet-heating emissions and rein in global warming, a coalition of countries including EU economies and climate-vulnerable nations said Friday.

In a statement released at the close of climate talks in Brussels, the High Ambition Coalition said the year-end COP28 talks must pave the way for "an urgent and just transition to renewables, a more climate resilient world, and climate justice for all".

"We must accelerate the global energy transition away from fossil fuels," said the statement, signed by representatives of countries including Germany, France and the Marshall Islands, as well as the European Commission.

It called for greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2025 at the latest and be cut by 43 percent by 2030, compared to 2019 levels, in line with recent updates from UN climate experts.

"This requires systemic transformations across all sectors, driven by an urgent phase out from fossil fuels, starting with a rapid decline of fossil fuel production and use within this decade," the countries said.

The statement follows a ministerial summit in Belgium where the incoming COP28 president outlined priorities for the crunch Dubai meeting.

With global temperatures hitting record highs last week and countries buffeted by floods, storms and crop-withering heatwaves, the world remains far off track to meet its climate goals.

That has prompted some countries to call for a decision at COP28 to entirely phase out planet-warming fossil fuels from the global energy mix.

- Fossil focus -

Emirati oil boss Sultan Al Jaber, who will head up the COP28 talks, has said he expects fossil fuels to continue to play a role, albeit reduced and with the use of often controversial technologies to "abate", or neutralise, the emissions.

Jaber said on Thursday that a phase down of fossil fuels is both "inevitable" and "essential", but has been reluctant to spell out a time frame.

But "I don't have a magic (wand)" as to when that will happen, he told AFP in Brussels.

Countries have raised concerns about any reliance on carbon capture and storage technologies -- for example those that trap emissions from power plants and store them permanently underground -- which have so far not been used at scale.

"Abatement technologies must not be used to green-light continued fossil fuel expansion, but must be considered in the context of steps to phase out fossil fuel use," the statement said.

It added that these technologies had a "minimal role to play" in the decarbonisation of the energy sector.

Among the concrete targets Jaber proposed as COP28 priorities include a host of 2030 targets, like tripling the world's renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency improvements.

This is in line with what the International Energy Agency says is needed to meet the Paris deal target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times.

bl-klm/rl

AI startups bringing dollars but lean workforces to ailing San Francisco

 AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand miniature


By Anna Tong
Thu, July 13, 2023 

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - In a frenzy unseen since the birth of social media in the early 2000s, investors are pouring billions into generative AI and fueling a startup boom in San Francisco.

At the same time, they are fueling hopes that the nascent AI sector will help revive the city's decaying downtown after the pandemic.

But the rapid growth of the artificial-intelligence business may not be a panacea for the city's economic and commercial real-estate woes, according to a dozen tech industry professionals interviewed by Reuters. Unlike past tech booms that have touched San Francisco, the generative AI craze brings fewer jobs, because AI firms excel at staying lean and automating work.

"I think we should curb our optimism that San Francisco commercial real estate will bounce back because of AI," said Silicon Valley investor Jeremiah Owyang. "The mentality of AI startups is AI-first. So you get AI to do the job before humans do it."

Eleven of the country's top 20 AI companies are in San Francisco and have raised $15.7 billion collectively between 2008 and 2023. However, they employ a total of only 3,400 people in the city, according to an analysis from San Francisco Mayor London Breed's office which used data from venture capital firm NFX.

That amount is just 2.3% of the estimated 150,000 daily workers that downtown San Francisco lost during the pandemic. Office workers accounted for nearly three-quarters of the city's gross domestic product before COVID-19 hit.

Generative AI, which learns from past data to create brand new content, is seen as a game-changer for workplace efficiency, especially for software engineers, the bread and butter of San Francisco's tech workforce. AI has already reshaped their work: according to research from popular code hosting platform GitHub, 92% of software developers use AI, and developers that used GitHub's coding assistant were able to complete a coding task 55% faster.

"These (AI) companies almost certainly won't have thousands of employees and corporate cafeterias, like Airbnb or Dropbox," said Erin Price-Wright, a partner at San Francisco-based Index Ventures. Airbnb and Dropbox, both based in San Francisco, employ about 10,000 people combined.

In contrast, Microsoft-backed OpenAI, which developed the smash-hit ChatGPT chatbot, has raised over $11 billion in eight years and has around 500 employees, according to the company. Headquartered in the city's hipster Mission district, the company uses AI to help solve its problems.

For instance, when faced with a deluge of support tickets, OpenAI chose to train its own AI to help its staff answer these tickets more efficiently, according to an OpenAI employee with direct knowledge of the project.

A spokesperson for OpenAI said the company uses its products to help with its work, but is also actively recruiting, including in customer support.

"We are getting to the point where AI can function as a real employee," said Matt Schlicht, CEO of Octane AI, which tailors online shopping to a person's needs. "Within your lifetime, you will likely see a one-person team start a billion-dollar company."

THREE AI EVENTS PER DAY

San Francisco, even as it battles societal issues like drugs, homelessness and unaffordable housing, has gained a reputation as the "AI capital of the world," as the city's mayor recently called it.

For instance, Dubai-based entrepreneur Mike Grabowski told Reuters that in June he saw a tweet from Owyang, the Silicon Valley investor, which said, "In SF, there are 44 AI events in two weeks, about three a day."

Grabowski, who has started a company that uses AI to write content for social media influencers, hopped on a flight to San Francisco on the same day. Two days later, jetlagged but optimistic about meeting prospective investors, he went to an AI event hosted by Owyang, who said he received 560 applications to attend the meetup.

The excitement about AI is palpable at tech events in the city, reminiscent of the decade before the pandemic when companies like Alphabet's Google opened offices and startups colonized more industrial parts of town.

The "City by the Bay" became a tech hub coinciding with an eight-year tax break dubbed the "Twitter tax break" aimed at encouraging tech companies to relocate there.

Recently, though, San Francisco's problems have made headlines.

Office buildings are over 30% vacant, according to real estate firm CBRE, as people continue to work from home, venture capital firms choose calmer parts of town, and many large tech firms have slashed workforces. Ridership on the BART rapid-transit system in downtown San Francisco is still at one-third of pre-pandemic levels, according to city government data.

As the crises of drugs and homelessness have spiraled, tourists and business visitors have stayed away, pushing some hotels to the brink of default. Dismal foot traffic has prompted companies including Nordstrom to shut their downtown stores.

Some tech professionals think that in time, AI will still buoy the city's economy, even if it scripts a different destiny from the previous tech boom.

Since AI makes it easier to run a company, there will be more small firms hiring dozens of people, as opposed to a few big tech companies that previously hired thousands, said Lee Edwards, a technology investor at San Francisco-based Root VC.

Others think it will be more of the same, and that rewards from the technology will go to fewer people, exacerbating the inequality that already plagues California's third-largest city.

"Generative AI is even more concentrated than previous waves of digital technologies, and a handful of companies are going to be at the forefront," said Daron Acemoglu, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies how technology affects inequality.

"Top executives and their upper cadre of engineers, programmers, managers are going to benefit a lot more."

(Reporting by Anna Tong in San Francisco; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh, Anna Driver and Matthew Lewis)

GLASS HALF FULL
Fossil-Fuel Demand for Electricity May Have Peaked Globally

Priscila Azevedo Rocha
Thu, July 13, 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- The exponential growth of renewable energy is pushing down global electricity prices and helping remove so much carbon from power systems that fossil fuels are no longer economical, and their use has peaked, according to a report.

From China to Europe, the capacities of solar, battery and wind power are surging, the Rocky Mountain Institute said in an analysis released Thursday in conjunction with the Bezos Earth Fund. That means sending demand for gas, oil and coal linked to electricity generation into a steep decline, a critical step toward curbing emissions linked to climate change.

“Fossil-fuel demand in the electricity system, specifically, has clearly peaked in 2022,” Kingsmill Bond, senior principal at RMI, told reporters. Moving forward, it’s “very hard actually for fossil-fuel demand to grow from these levels simply because of the speed of which these alternative technologies grow.”

The shift comes as governments and industries rebuild their energy infrastructure following supply shortages and skyrocketing prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The high rates of deployment also are driving down prices for renewables, rendering higher cost hydrocarbons uncompetitive.

Solar Beats Coal in Europe for First Time - But There’s a Glitch

Solar panels and wind turbines will supply more than a third of global electricity by 2030, compared with about 12% today, the RMI forecasts. Those sources should produce as much as 14,000 terawatt-hours, overtaking fossil fuels.

While China and Europe lead the growth in clean energy, deployment is reaching other parts of the globe. Namibia, the Netherlands, Palestine, Jordan and Chile have boosted solar and wind generation at sufficient rates for five years, the report said.

Renewables are already considered a cheaper form of electricity, with costs plummeting during the past decade, according to BloombergNEF. Solar and battery costs declined 80% between 2012 and 2022, offshore wind dropped 73% and onshore wind fell 57%, the data show.

The increasing adaptation of clean-tech is set to halve its prices by 2030 — falling to as low as $20 a megawatt-hour for solar from $40-plus now, RMI said. The shift in capital out of fossil fuels is also set to boost investment in low-carbon forms of energy.

“Change is happening faster than we think,” Christiana Figueres, an architect of the Paris Agreement on climate, said during a roundtable discussion. “The tripling of renewables by 2030 is not guaranteed but is more possible today than it ever was because of the exponential trends that we are seeing.”

FRACK TEK

Here's how geothermal energy heats and cools a home



Groundwater squirts up during drilling for a geothermal heating and cooling system at a home in White Plains, N.Y., Monday, May 8, 2023. A water-filled loop installed several hundred feet deep either carries heat away from, or into the house, depending on the season. Industry experts see the technology becoming increasingly popular in the coming years. 

(AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

ISABELLA O'MALLEY
Thu, July 13, 2023

Some homeowners looking to switch out their heating and cooling systems are turning to home geothermal — also known as ground source — heat pumps. It's a technology that relies on a simple physical fact: Dig several feet below Earth's surface, in the coldest winter or the hottest summer, and the temperature will be around 55 degrees.

Geothermal takes advantage of that constant temperature by pushing water with some antifreeze through a loop of flexible pipe that runs deep underground. The water gets circulated by a heat pump system, usually located in the basement.

When the house needs cooling — say on an 85-degree July day — a refrigerant, which is a special fluid, absorbs unwanted heat indoors and transfers it to water in the long piping, circulating it underground, giving it time to cool to the constant mid-50s below. House air blows across the cool fluid. Having dumped its heat, it can absorb more for transfer to the outdoors.

Warming the building works much the same, in reverse. On a sub-freezing January day, the system circulates the water underground, warming it to about 55 degrees. Arriving back at the pump, the water in the loop now heats the refrigerant, making it want to expand. An electric pump then compresses it, which spikes the temperature. The system then pushes air over the hot refrigerant and into the house until the air in the house reaches thermostat temperature.

In apartment buildings, schools or other commercial buildings, the underground loop may be just a few feet deep and extend horizontally over a wide area. For smaller residential lots, the solution is to drill deeper — as much as 300 feet or more — to get a loop that is long enough for the water be in contact with the ground and equalize with its constant temperature.

Geothermal systems cost more up front than typical furnaces, sometimes tends of thousands of dollars. Supporters say lower operating costs eventually make that worthwhile, because the superpower of ground source heat pumps is that they use very little electricity to move heat around. They're designed to last more than 50 years for the underground parts, with the above-ground components expected to last 25 years or more. Gas furnaces typically last 15 to 30 years on average.

Geothermal or ground-source heat pumps are still the exception rather than the rule. Air-source heat pump are far more common and work by extracting energy from outdoor air to both heat and cool the home.

___

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Doctors reattach boy's head after car accident thanks to 'amazing' surgery

NOT WHAT YOU THINK

Drs. Ohad Einav and Ziv Asa with 12-year-old Suleiman Hassan, center, at Hadassah Medical Center following Hassan's recovery.

Peter Aitken
Thu, July 13, 2023 

Surgeons in Israel performed a miracle surgery and managed to reattach a boy’s head after he was hit by a car while riding his bike, a Jerusalem hospital announced this week.

Suleiman Hassan, a 12-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank, suffered what is known as an internal decapitation, with his skull detached from the top vertebrae of his spine — officially known as a bilateral atlanto occipital joint dislocation, according to The Times of Israel.

Hassan was riding his bike when a car hit him. The boy was rushed to Hadassah Medical Center and immediately put into surgery in the trauma unit. The doctors said his head was "almost completely detached from the base of his neck."

Dr. Ohad Einav, the orthopedic specialist who led the operation, said the procedure took several hours and required the doctors to use "new plates and fixations in the damaged area."

"Our ability to save the child was thanks to our knowledge and the most innovative technology in the operating room," Einav said, adding that the team "fought for the boy’s life."

Einav and his team said that Hassan has a projected survival rate of only 50%, and his recovery is nothing short of a miracle, according to i24 News.

The operation occurred in June, but doctors waited a month to announce the results. The hospital recently discharged Hassan with a cervical splint and will continue to monitor his recovery.

The sun shines on Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.

"The fact that such a child has no neurological deficits or sensory or motor dysfunction and that he is functioning normally and walking without an aid after such a long process is no small thing," Einav said.

According to Israel's TPS news agency, Hassan’s father did not leave his son’s bedside during the recovery process, saying he had nothing but a "big thank you" for the medical staff.

"Bless you all," the father said. "Thanks to you, he regained his life even when the odds were low and the danger was obvious."

"What saved him were professionalism, technology and quick decision-making by the trauma and orthopedics team," TPS reported the father as saying.

Dr. Marc Siegel, Clinical Professor of Medicine and a practicing internist at NYU Langone Medical Center and Fox News contributor, told Fox News Digital that the "amazing" surgery was only possible if major blood vessels remained intact.

"The key is preserving blood flow to the brain," Siegel said. "It sounds like — from the story — that the major blood vessels were likely not severed and that this involved an orthopedic rebuilding — probably using rods and reattaching ligaments and possibly bone grafts and implants."

Einav stressed that the surgery is "extremely rare," but the large size of a child’s head relative to an adult means they are "more susceptible."

"This is not a common surgery at all, and especially not on children and teens. A surgeon needs knowledge and experience to do this," he said.

ICYMI
Extreme weather is terrorizing the world. It's only just begun.



Li Cohen
Fri, July 14, 2023

Boiling heat and raging floods have taken the world by storm this week, plummeting millions of people across the world into dangerous and deadly conditions. But it's not a temporary trip of bad luck – it is becoming the new norm.

The heat waves causing record temperatures, storms dumping record rain on cities and wildfires raging across thousands of acres of land are all the impact of an undeniable source: climate change.

Just last week, preliminary data showed that the world had its hottest week on record, following the hottest June on record. El Niño is believed to have spawned the latest events as it comes at the onset of warmer sea surface temperatures, but experts have warned that the current situation won't suddenly vanish when El Niño departs.

"We are in uncharted territory and we can expect more records to fall as El Niño develops further and these impacts will extend into 2024," said Christopher Hewitt, head of international climate services for the World Meteorological Organization. "This is worrying news for the planet."

In a news release Thursday, the WMO highlighted issues that included heat waves causing sweltering conditions in areas around the U.S. to North Africa.

"The extreme weather – an increasingly frequent occurrence in our warming climate – is having a major impact on human health, ecosystems, economies, agriculture, energy and water supplies," WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in the news release. "This underlines the increasing urgency of cutting greenhouse gas emissions as quickly and as deeply as possible."

Here's what the world has faced in recent days.

Dangerous heat waves across the world

Heataves are one of the deadliest hazards to emerge in extreme weather, and they're occurring on a global scale.

The Southwest U.S. has been battling extreme heat for days, and as of Friday, the National Weather Service predicts that the "dangerous heat wave" will continue. At least 93 million people in the U.S. are under excessive heat warnings and advisories Friday morning as the intense heat continues its stretch from the West Coast to the Gulf Coast, the agency said.

The Southwest will see high temperatures surpassing 120 degrees Fahrenheit in some parts, while Texas and Louisiana could see temperatures up to 115 degrees Fahrenheit, the agency said.

And Death Valley, which holds the world record for the highest air temperature ever measured, is expected to see temperatures near that temperature. The record occurred on July 10, 1913, hitting 134 degrees Fahrenheit. This weekend, it could hit just shy of that at 130 degrees Fahrenheit, The Weather Channel's Stephanie Abrams said on Friday, seeing a low of just around 100 degrees.

"This type of heat is going to continue through at least next week," the meteorologist said. "Preliminary daily data shows that we passed the hottest average global temperature on July 3 and have been above that value every day since, setting a new record on July 6."



Flagstaff, Arizona, is also nearing a record-high, with the NWS expecting it to hit 95 degrees on Sunday – just 2 degrees less than its all-time record hit in 1973.

But the extreme heat isn't constrained to the U.S. – Europe has been facing its own battle.

Records were broken in France, Switzerland, Germany and Spain, the European Union's earth observation service, Copernicus, said earlier this week. On Tuesday, satellite imagery determined that some areas of Spain saw land surface temperatures, which measure the temperature of soil, exceeding 60 degrees Celsius – 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

Extreme land surface temperatures were seen in Spain earlier this week, in some places surpassing 60 degrees Celsius

. / Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-3 imagery

Spain's State Meteorological Agency shared on Friday that parts of the country could reach 42 degrees Celsius (more than 107 degrees Fahrenheit). On Thursday, it was even warmer, reaching 44.9 degrees Celsius in The Village of San Nicolás.

And it's not over. Over the next two weeks, the WMO said above-normal temperatures are expected across the Mediterranean, with weekly temperatures up to 5 degrees Celsius higher than the long-term average.

Canada's wildfires continue their record season

Only seven months into 2023, Canada has already been faced with more than 4,000 wildfires that have burned up 9.6 million hectares of land, more than 37,000 square miles. As of Thursday, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre reported 906 active fires across the nation, more than half of which are considered "out of control."

On July 6, the Canadian government said this season "has already been Canada's most severe on record."

An aerial view of wildfire of Tatkin Lake in British Columbia, Canada on July 10, 2023.  Credit: BC Wildfire Service/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

"Current projections indicate that this may continue to be a significantly challenging summer for wildfires in parts of the country," officials said, as projections continue to show "higher-than-normal fire activity" is possible for most of the country. Warm temperatures and ongoing drought are to blame, they said.

Deadly, record-breaking monsoon

India has been inundated with a Southwest monsoon that covered the entire country on July 2, India's Meteorological Department said. Last week, the capital of the country, New Delhi, was hit with the highest-single day of rain in 40 years, getting half a foot of rain in a single day. The flash floods and landslides caused by the rain have killed dozens across the country.

Water from the capital city's Yamuna River spilled over its river banks this week as its water level hit a 45-year high on Thursday at 684 feet. The previous record of 681 feet was hit in 1978. The record rain and water prompted officials to urge the 30 million people who live there to stay inside.

On Friday, flash flood threats of varying degrees continued throughout many areas in the country.

A man floats on thermacol through a flooded street after Yamuna River overflowed due to monsoon rains in New Delhi on July 14, 2023. 

/ Credit: ARUN SANKAR/AFP via Getty Images

Record heat in the world's oceans

Copernicus said Friday that it's not just land and air experiencing extreme heat, but the oceans as well. The service found that the northern Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea have both seen record temperatures in recent months.

Citing research institute Mercator Ocean and its own observations, the service said the western Mediterranean is seeing a "moderate" sea heatwave that "appears to be intensifying."

"The Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly along the coasts of Southern Spain and North Africa was approximately +5°C above the reference value for the period, indicative of the escalating heatwave conditions," Copernicus said Friday.

Data shows that the Atlantic and Mediterranean oceans are experiencing record-breaking temperatures. / Credit: European Union, Copernicus Marine Service Data

The data comes just a few months after researchers found that the oceans have been warming so rapidly, that it's an amount equal to the energy of five atomic bombs detonating underwater "every second for 24 hours a day for the entire year." It also comes just days after climate experts issued another warning that ocean temperatures have hit unprecedented levels that are "much higher than anything the models predicted."

By September, NOAA believes that half of the world's oceans could be experiencing heat wave conditions. Normally, only about 10% of oceans experience such conditions, experts said.

The future of extremes is now the present

The future of extreme weather that has the potential to devastate billions of people is no longer a far-off possibility. It's happening here and now.

A wide range of experts – from global agencies to national organizations and individual climate experts – have been warning for decades of the impact that warming global temperatures could have on the state of the planet. As temperatures continue to rise across the world – mostly from the burning of fossil fuels – extreme weather will only intensify.

The impact of such extremes is hard to miss.

Major cities like Chicago are seeing ground temperatures so warm due to the rising air temperatures that it's causing buildings to sink as underground materials shift. The heat also poses deadly consequences, with officials worldwide warning people to avoid extended periods of exposure. Extreme storms that swept through the Northeast last weekend have left cities totally isolated from floodwaters and businesses and homes completely destroyed. The smoke from Canada's wildfires has had harsh ramifications for air quality across the U.S., even going as far as Europe.

"It's getting worse and worse," Hannah Cloke, a climate scientist and professor at Reading University, told Reuters, saying that the way to prevent extreme weather from getting even worse is by drastically – and quickly – reducing greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases, primarily emitted from the burning of fossil fuels, work to trap heat within the atmosphere, amplifying global temperatures.

But it's important to realize, she added, that doing so will only prevent the absolute worst outcomes.

"We must realize we are locked into some of these changes now and we will continue to see records broken," she said.

GLASS HALF EMPTY

Forecasters see overwhelming chance El Niño will last through early 2024



Nick Robertson
Thu, July 13, 2023 

Forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) believe the new El Niño water temperature phenomenon has a greater than 90 percent chance of lasting through the winter and into 2024.

El Niño conditions mean that ocean temperatures in the eastern Pacific are higher than normal, which can cause a less severe winter for much of the northern U.S. and more rain for the south, as the jet stream is forced north.

Eastern Pacific waters more than 0.5 degrees Celsius above normal are considered El Niño conditions. Temperatures were 0.8 degrees above average as of June and are anticipated to rise to as much as 1.5 degrees above average in the last few months of the year, when El Niños usually peak.

However, NOAA forecasters said the standard effects of an El Niño — milder winters and fewer hurricanes — may be reduced by a globally warmer ocean.

“One potential outcome is a weaker atmospheric response than we might otherwise expect. The strength of the atmospheric response is related to the pattern of sea surface temperature throughout the tropics,” Emily Becker, a University of Miami climatologist, wrote for NOAA.

“However, when the western Pacific and the rest of the tropics are also warm, the response may be more muddled,” she added.

Earlier this month, hurricane forecasters at Colorado State University (CSU) said that this hurricane season is expected to be above average despite the El Niño, because Atlantic Ocean temperatures are also above average.

“The extreme anomalous warmth in the Atlantic may counteract some of the typical El Niño-driven wind shear,” CSU’s Phil Klotzbach said.

NOAA forecasters said there is an 80 percent chance that the peak of the El Niño this winter will be at least in the normal temperature range, a 50 percent chance that it is at least severe and a 20 percent chance that it will be very severe — or more than 2 degrees Celsius above average.

An El Niño is caused by weaker than normal trade winds in the Pacific, which causes warmer water to stick around in the eastern Pacific instead of being blown west. In years where trade winds are stronger than normal, called La Niñas, the eastern Pacific is colder than normal, usually causing more severe winters in the northern U.S., droughts in the south and more hurricanes than normal.

NO BDS FOR HELEN, JUST BS

Helen Mirren Gives Shoutout To “My Tribe Of Actors’ At Jerusalem Film Festival As SAG-AFTRA Strike Hits: “Actors Are Wonderful People”

Melanie Goodfellow
Thu, July 13, 2023

Helen Mirren dedicated a Jerusalem Film Festival life-time achievement award to actors around the world on Thursday, just an hour before a looming SAG-AFTRA strike was made official.

The actress received the honorary prize ahead of the Israeli premiere of Guy Nattiv’s Golda as the festival’s opening film, in which she stars as iconic late stateswoman Golda Meir.

“I would just like to say, I am a member of a tribe and members of my tribe can be found in Germany, in Belgium, America… they are Palestinians, they are Israelis, they are Africans,” she told the 6,000-strong crowd at the outdoor opening ceremony in the shadow of Jerusalem’s Old City walls.

“They are the tribe to whom I really want to dedicate this award and that is the tribe of actors. Actors are wonderful people.”

Mirren gave a special mention to the Israeli cast members on Golda who included Lior Ashkenazi as David ‘Dado’ Elazar and Rami Heuberger as Moshe Dayan.

“I was lucky enough to work with fantastic Israeli actors on Golda. I had the greatest of times with them because immediately I felt I belonged. I was with my tribe, so thank you to my wonderful tribe of actors all over the world, in every language there is.”

Mirren had spent the morning doing promotional duties on Golda with local outlets, but interviews were wrapped by 3pm local time (5am PT).

She did not talk directly about the looming strike at a press conference in the morning or in her comments at the opening ceremony, but her appearance ended an hour before the strike was officially declared.

Other honorees on Thursday included Oliver Stone as well as Belgian directorial duo Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne. Further guests this year include directors Claire Denis and Florian Zeller who are on the jury.

The strike is expected to impact the film festival circuit as actors stop promotional and red carpet events as part of their industrial action.

With Mirren’s attendance done and dusted before the strike kicked off, disruption to the Jerusalem Film Festival will be minimal with few other big U.S. and UK acting names due to attend this year.

Mirren has long-standing ties with Israel having first visited the country in 1967 and spending a month working at the Kibbutz Ha’on at the foot of the Golan Heights.

She recounted how she had begun her stint at the kibbutz combing the grapes on the Golan Heights.

“This was just after the Six Day War so there were a few shells going off… When they realized this was a bit too dangerous for a ‘shiksa’ from London, they yanked me out of the grapevines and put me in the kitchen,” she said.

“Little did I think in that moment that one day I would be standing here in this beautiful, historic magical, difficult complex city of Jerusalem.”

Golda explores Meir’s life and legacy through the then Israeli prime minister’s controversial handling of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which Israel was taken by surprise by a combined joint attack by Egypt and Syria to its southern and northern borders.

Mirren’s casting as Meir sparked controversy when UK actress Maureen Lipman publicly criticized the casting of a non-Jewish actress in the role.

Israelis appear to have enthusiastically embraced Mirren in the role, but the topic came up once again in the press conference earlier on Thursday.

Mirren, who deflected a similar question at the Berlinale in February to Nattiv, spoke-up this time.

“I adhere to both camps. At the same time as believing that anyone can play anything, I also believe that sometimes the absolute right person for a role is the very person who can profoundly understand the issues involved,” she said, referring to Troy Kotsur’s performance in Coda as an example of the latter.

“I’m personally ambivalent. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to inhabit Golda because it was just such an amazing place for me to be in this woman’s mind. It was an incredibly profound journey for me, and I’m very, very grateful for it but at the same time, my mind is open.”

The Jerusalem Film Festival runs from July 13 to 23.


Helen Mirren visits Jerusalem for new film 'Golda,' says she is inspired by anti-government protests





 Helen Mirren arrives at the world premiere of "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" on Tuesday, March 14, 2023, at the Regency Village Theatre in Los Angeles. Helen Mirren, who plays Israel’s first female prime minister in her latest film, says she has been inspired by the widespread protests against the country’s current prime minister. Mirren plays the late Golda Meir during the 1973 war between Israel and a coalition of Arab states in “Golda.” 

(Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

JULIA FRANKEL
Updated Thu, July 13, 2023 

JERUSALEM (AP) — Helen Mirren, who plays Israel's first female prime minister in her latest film, says she has been inspired by the widespread protests underway against the country's current premier, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mirren, who portrays the late Golda Meir during the 1973 war between Israel and a coalition of Arab states in “Golda,” is visiting an Israel similarly beset by crisis as mass demonstrations take place against Netanyahu's plan to overhaul the country's judicial system.

Mirren told a news conference before the opening of the Jerusalem Film Festival that she is inspired by the protests.

“I’m personally very moved and excited when you see these huge demonstrations,” she said. “I think it’s a pivotal moment in Israeli history.”

Netanyahu's coalition government, which took office in December, is the most hard-line ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox in Israel’s 75-year history.

For over six months, hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest the proposed judicial overhaul. Netanyahu's allies say the plan is needed to rein in the powers of an unelected judiciary. His opponents say it is a thinly veiled power grab that will destroy the country's fragile system of checks and balances.

Mirren contrasted the leadership of Meir — who often served coffee to her military advisers as they convened in her kitchen to discuss strategy — with that of Netanyahu, who has a reputation for being aloof and out of touch with everyday Israelis.

“She had immense power, but she was perfectly happy to toddle around in the kitchen, making everyone coffee and being the grandmother,” Mirren said. “It’s a very different attitude toward power — from the male, Netanyahu type of power to the Golda Meir kitchen power.”

Mirren's visit also comes at a time when Netanyahu's government is moving to deepen its hold on the West Bank. His government has approved plans for thousands of homes in West Bank settlements, and tensions with the Palestinians are rising.

Over 150 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire this year in the occupied West Bank, and Palestinian attacks targeting Israelis have killed at least 25 people. Israel says most of the Palestinians who were killed were militants, though stone-throwers and people uninvolved in violence have also been among the dead.

Some of Netanyahu's allies are West Bank settler leaders who have sought to deny the national aspirations of Palestinians, a sentiment which Meir famously expressed in 1969.

“There was no such thing as Palestinians,” Meir said in an interview with the Sunday Times. Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich echoed Meir recently, stating, “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people."

Lior Ashkenazi, the Israeli actor who plays the head of the Israeli army in the film, said he thought Meir would support efforts to annex the West Bank.

“Even though she was a socialist,” Ashkenazi said, “I think she would definitely support the settlers.”

The film, directed by Guy Nattiv and written by Nicholas Martin, focuses on Meir’s leadership during the 1973 Mideast war, when a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria launched an attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

Under the leadership of Meir and Israeli military officials, Israel emerged victorious from the war, its forces standing within 70 miles (120 kilometers) of the Egyptian capital of Cairo. The war’s outcome laid the groundwork for a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.

But Israel suffered heavy losses during the war, and Meir was criticized for the government's lack of preparation and refusing to act on intelligence indicating an attack was imminent. Meir resigned the following year, and the national trauma in the wake of the war set off a process that would bring the right-wing Likud party, which Netanyahu currently leads, to power in 1977.

Mirren, a British-born actor, has won both Oscar and Emmy awards for performances ranging from Queen Elizabeth II in “The Queen,” and Sofia Tolstoy in “The Last Station."