The National Weather Service Warns of a Catastrophic Windstorm in Los Angeles. Massive Preemptive Power Outages Planned

Because of my research on western U.S. wildfires, I keep close tabs on the weather in southern California.

So I was more than a little interested in the extreme warnings made by the National Weather Service for densely populated portions of southern California (see below).

They call this a LIFE THREATENING AND DESTRUCTIVE WINDSTORM.  An EXTREME RISK demanding immediate action.   Folks are warned to stay away from windows.

Specifically, tomorrow and Wednesday morning, the NWS is predicting north to northeast winds of 30-45 mph, with gusts as high as 80 mph.  They suggest the winds will blow down many trees and powerlines and that travel will be difficult.  Loose objects could be blown down and fires can be started and rapidly spread.  

So what is going on?   The large-scale models (such as the GFS forecast of sea-level pressure and surface winds shown below for 10 PM Tuesday) predict strong high pressure over Nevada and unusually low pressure over southern Arizona, producing unusually strong northeasterly winds between them (wind speeds indicated by color shading).

To better check out the forecast, the best place to turn is the high-resolution NOAA/NWS HRRR model.

By tomorrow (Tuesday) morning the HRRR model predicts 50-60 mph winds over the mountains north of LA

These winds strengthen during the day, reaching 70 mph over the hills by 4 PM.

Ominously, the crazy strong NE winds are predicted to descend to lower elevations overnight, particularly near Malibu, where the fires occurred several weeks ago (4 AM Wednesday is shown).

And the situation remains very serious at 8 AM Wednesday.

Folks, this wind event has the potential to produce major wildfires, and as a result, Southern California Edison is planning massive power shut-offs the next day (see map below). The yellow circles with the bell symbols are where they plan on having Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPSs). Tens of thousands of customers will lose electricity in the hope of preventing powerlines from starting fires. 

Finally, let me note that this event is very, very unusual for this time of the year. 

 I can show this by displaying the heights and winds at 925 hPa (about 780 meters above sea level).  You can see the low over southeast Arizona.  The shading is something called the standardized anomaly from climatology (sorry).  All you need to know is that the light gray areas indicated the winds were essentially unprecedented. 

Horse Manure, Climate Change, and Nuclear Energy

The "Great Manure Crisis" of the late 19th century offers some serious lessons for those worried about the "existential threat" of global warming from CO2 emissions.   

A predicted crisis that never occurred because of new technology.

Just before the dawn of the 20th century, there was desperate talk about the huge accumulation of horse manure on the streets of major world cities.  Not only was rising levels of horse poop inhibiting travel, but it threatened to become a major health hazard.  For example, New York City had 150,000 horses, each producing 15-30 pounds of manure daily.  And yes, tens of thousands of gallons of urine.

Extrapolating the problem, not unlike current climate activists projecting the effects of global warming during the coming century, the Times of London in 1894 predicted: "in fifty years, every street in London would be buried under nine feet of manure."  People were encouraged to travel less, avoid unnecessary trips, work at home, and collect the refuse their animals produced.   

Sounds familiar?

You can also imagine the stories in the Seattle Times (then known as the Seattle Daily Times) if some wealthy Seattle foundation had given them funds for a "Health Lab":

This terrible poop crisis never happened.  Why?  

Because of a new transportation technology, powered by the internal combustion engine.  

A good lesson for us today: it is problematic to extrapolate problems into the future assuming technologies will remain static.

Today we have a new crisis dominating the media, global warming resulting from increasing greenhouse gases. 

Yes, CO2 and other greenhouse gas concentrations are increasing due to human emissions, and the earth is slowly warming as a result.    

But it is silly to simply extrapolate rising greenhouse gas concentrations into the future because energy production technology will profoundly change during the next decades....and I am not talking about solar or wind power.

Nuclear power, starting with fission, but rapidly displaced by fusion power, will provide essentially limitless clean energy.

The False Hope of Wind and Solar

There is a lot of talk about wind and solar being the solution to the global warming problem, but the truth is that they will only make a minor contribution for many reasons, with their intermittency (only available during the day and during windy periods), environmental impacts, and low energy density being significant problems.   

Furthermore, the demand for energy, and particularly electricity, is going up much faster than renewables can be installed.  Why?   Because billions of people are moving out of poverty and the huge energy demands of data centers.  To name only a few.

Consider the U.S.  energy consumption statistics (below).   Energy use has increased rapidly during the past decades with fossil fuels still dominating (but more gas and less coal).  Wind and solar are very small in comparison.

The U.S. is actually one of the most renewable-friendly nations.  Considering the whole world (below), fossil fuels are even more dominant.

Solar and wind are not mankind's long-term energy solutions.  

Nuclear is.  Fission in the short term and fusion in the long term.  

Fission power is heavily used in some nations (such as in  France, where 70% of the electricity is from fission) and today about 9% of world energy is from fission.  No major safety issues and fission power is clean, with no air quality issues.   New designs of small modular fission reactors will make them much cheaper, more reliable, and make melt-downs impossible.

Major energy users, such as Amazon, are already committing to using such new technology fission reactors.

And there is fusion.   Fusion power is essentially limitless and does not produce nuclear waste.

The uninformed make jokes about fusion always being 20 years away.   They are wrong.  There are no theoretical reasons in the way of practical fusion reactors.  Dozens of private sector firms are working on prototypes, including Seattle's Helion.   

Break-even fusion has already been achieved.

Microsoft has agreed to purchase fusion-generated power from Helion starting in 2028

Folks...this going to happen.  Even if delayed a decade or two, fusion power will completely change the world's energy story in the same way the internal combustion engine ended the manure "crisis" over a century ago.

And one more thing.  With virtually unlimited energy from fusion, we can take CO2 out of the atmosphere, something called CO2 sequestration.  Several companies, such as Carbon Engineering of BC, are already working on prototypes.

So next time you hear end-of-the-world catastrophic predictions about global warming, think about horse waste.😀