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S. W. Lawrence, MD

@swlawrence.bsky.social

Writer of climate fiction or cli-fi. But my work is preapocalyptic and optimistic, unlike most works in this space.

567 Posts656 Follower132 Folgt
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 13h ago

OilPricedotcom: "Tidal Energy Could Cover 57% of US Electricity Demand, NREL Study Finds." While the National Renewable Energy Lab is a reliable source of data, it is more than ironic that this article appears on OilPrice.com, basically a bastion of support for all things fossil fuel.

"NREL estimates US marine energy sources could generate 2,300 terawatt-hours a year, or 57% of the country's 2019 electricity output, yet the US has zero commercial tidal plants running today." An Alaska-based startup is piloting a small modular tidal turbine in Cape Cod's fast-moving currents to test its durability. "Similar pilots are underway in the Great Lakes and off the California coast, as US works to close the gap with Europe's lead in tidal and wave energy investment." Tapping into the country’s tidal energy potential could be a major game changer for homegrown energy security in America. "While the US + Canada boast the highest surveyed levels of wave energy potential, the technology could provide a significant amount of the world’s energy needs if fully exploited." A new report from Ocean Energy Europe concluded that ocean energy has the potential to supply 21% of the European Union’s current energy consumption + a whopping 13% of global electricity demand.  "This could be revolutionary for Europe as the continent struggles to establish energy independence and wean itself off of fossil fuel imports against the backdrop of seemingly endless energy crises." Europe is currently leading in terms of spending on tidal energy research and development, but the US is quickly catching up thanks to ‘substantial’ funding programs from the Department of Energy. I would add that the USDOE is also lending full support for geothermal energy, in spite of crippling hostility to wind + solar. So let us hope that in graphs of electric generation sectors will begin to blossom with tidal + geothermal categories. Incidentally, the graphic for this post is only 1 of many types of design.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · yesterday

EIA: "Hourly peak load in ERCOT set a new record, exceeding 91 GW on July 22." "Hourly peak load in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the regional transmission organization serving most of Texas, reached a record 91.1 gigawatts (GW) on July 22, 2026."

This according to data reported to us for [the] Hourly Electric Grid Monitor." The July 22 peak was 6% greater than the previous peak of 85.5 GW, set on August 10, 2023 according to ERCOT. Peak occurred at 6:00 p.m. CT and was primarily met with generation from natural gas (48%) and solar (32%) resources according to data reported to EIA." Peak occurred during a heat wave and could be surpassed again this summer, especially if Texas experiences another heat wave. "Electricity demand and generation in ERCOT have been increasing in Texas." But note how the solar buildout contributed to stability, not even mentioning wind power. Abutting the Texas border, "more recently, electricity demand in the Southwest Power Pool reached a record 57.9 GW on July 27 at 5:00 p.m. CT." The SPP, unlike ERCOT, serves multiple states. The SPP region lies in the central southern U.S., serving all of the states of Kansas and Oklahoma, and portions of New Mexico, Texas [the part not served by ERCOT], Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, Iowa, Wyoming, and Nebraska. FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, is concerned that the SPP may be the U.S. entity most likely to fall short in providing enough generation assets as electricity prices climb. In regions with increasing electricity demand and generation, periods of high demand, such as heat waves, are likely to continue to set records. You can bet your bottom dollar on it. But, when you flip that coin, don't let it fall on asphalt, as it may stick.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 2d ago

CanaryMedia: "California was mostly solar-powered in May—a global first." "While Trump administration busy pointing out that the sun doesn’t shine at night, solar is breaking records around the world, including in sunny California." Solar panels produced 51% of California’s electricity in May.

Solar panels produced 51% of California’s electricity in May, the first time the clean energy source surpassed the halfway mark for an entire month. Amazingly, for once the data included both utility-scale + rooftop distributed solar installations on residences + commercial + industrial locations. "This isn’t just a milestone moment for California; it’s a milestone for the entire world." Think tank Ember says the state is the globe’s first major economy to cross the 50% threshold. (Hungary, at 47% in June 2025, is knocking at the door, though it has a far smaller GDP.) "Natural gas is the only fossil fuel that California power plants burn at appreciable levels, and solar is steadily squeezing it out of the system," as it must. "Case in point: Solar outproduced gas not only during its record month of May but throughout every month in 2026 leading up to it, too." Solar could not have reached these heights alone. "It needed batteries to get here—and California has that crucial energy storage in spades." The California Independent System Operator [CAISO], which manages most of the state’s grid, now boasts 16 gigawatts [GW] of batteries that can shift abundant midday solar production to later in the evening. "It’s not uncommon for batteries to meet over one-quarter of the state’s electricity demand for a portion of the night." Dan McCarthy, the author of the article, calculated that storage had grown by—26,129% over the last decade, 'a number so cartoonishly large' that he was almost hesitant to print it. The energy revolution, the progress toward an 'electrostate' is happening in real time, racing to solve our climate dilemma while we still have time.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 6d ago

OpenLibraryBioscience: "Airway immune signatures of protection and disease progression in recent human tuberculosis household contacts." Fortunately, most individuals infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis do not progress to active tuberculosis (TB).

"Branchett et al. used single-cell sequencing approaches to profile immune cells in the lungs of individuals who were recent household contacts for patients with TB." They 'interrogated' the airway immune response at single-cell resolution in bronchoalveolar lavage [fluid from lung endoscopy] with positron emission + computed tomography-characterized recent TB household contacts, who either controlled the infection or progressed to symptomatic disease, as well as of patients with active TB at diagnosis. They found an inverse relationship between airway neutrophils or 'pus cells' vs. T-cells, which are 'lymphocytes' involved in the immune response to infection. [Additionally, single-cell sequencing revealed interferon-dependent + interferon-independent 'signatures' in the neutrophils]. T cells showing signatures of exhaustion, cytotoxicity + cell death were found in progressors + patients with active TB, thus with a neutrophil-dominated airway profile. Conversely, they identified T cell signatures of protection in nonprogressor contacts dominated by genes related to regulation, quiescence and a stem-cell-like profile. "Our findings from early human airway responses in TB contacts reveal genes, pathways and cell states that may dictate infection outcome and inform strategies for developing effective host-directed therapies and vaccines." Personally, I was never a progressor, never had active disease, but did develop a positive TB skin test during the early 1980s when I was taking care of a number of TB-infected patients. After some months of isoniazid [INH] therapy, my lifetime risk of TB is basically zero + I will never be infectious for others, at least as long as I avoid immunosuppression.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 7d ago

AAAS: "These insects should implode during deep dives. An unusual organ keeps them alive." "Every day, tiny insect larvae descend into the murky depths of Lake Malawi, one of Africa’s deepest bodies of water."

There, sometimes more than 200 meters down, these transparent “glassworms”—the young of the phantom midge fly (Chaoborus edulis)—wait it out while predatory fish roam the shallower waters. "At night, the larvae return to the surface to feed under the cover of darkness." This daily migration means withstanding pressures 20 times greater than normal—a feat that would kill most humans and one thought impossible for insects, whose respiratory systems should implode under such conditions. "Four long, banana-shaped air sacs expand and contract to adjust the glassworm’s buoyancy, yet they remain rigid enough to avoid being crushed—an adaptation not see in any other insect, researchers report [this wk] in Science." Instead of lungs, insects have a tracheal system of air-filled tubes that run through their bodies, delivering oxygen + removing CO2. "Part of this system includes sacs that act as short-term storage for air." But unlike other insects, Chaoborus fly larvae don’t use these sacs to help them breathe, instead, they’ve converted them into organs that help them control their buoyancy. "In 2022, Phil Matthews, a comparative physiologist at the University of British Columbia (UBC), + his team found that the air sacs were made up of bands of cuticles and resilin, a flexible protein, which itself is surrounded by a protective layer of tissue." Chemical changes in the larvae’s body cause the air sacs to expand “like an accordion” or shrink. "To discover the limits of this system, Matthews and his colleagues turned to Lake Malawi." When Chaoborus larvae pupate and emerge as flies, he says, they “erupt out of the lake.” Using sonor, they found the glassworms reached a depth of 213 meters, though they sometimes dove as far as 258 meters = 846 ft. Consider this your deep dive for today into insect physiology.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · last wk.

Grist: "A swarm of solar ‘bees’ are coming to western North Carolina community hubs." In the photo you can see solar arrays + batteries + associated gear being installed in a pair of standard shipping containers [red stars].

These small-scale solar microgrids for Appalachian communities could help keep communities warm + fed during future blackouts. Nearly 2 years ago, Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina hard with flooding + grid outages. With the Appalachian mountains repeatedly battered by extreme rain + flash flooding in recent years, small-scale energy resilience projects are catching on. "The state Department of Environmental Quality invested $5 M in 26 microgrid projects last August, in partnership with a coalition of nonprofits dedicated to the expansion of sustainable energy."  The goal is to build 24 stationary microgrids + 2 mobile ones.  "This mirrors similar projects in storm-battered communities across the United States and its territories." Private + nonprofit microgrid networks have helped keep Puerto Rican communities electrified through increasingly violent hurricanes + an aging grid prone to frequent blackouts. Hurricane Ida prompted churches + community centers in New Orleans to launch a string of privately funded “lighthouses.” Stationary microgrids remain in one place, while mobile microgrids are found throughout the country, sometimes powering essential infrastructure like hospitals + wastewater treatment plants. "The small, portable, trailer-mounted systems, which the renewable energy advocates at the nonprofit Footprint Project call “beehives,” feature batteries and work in sunny and cloudy weather alike. "Cooler bees” include fridges and freezers for medications + food, “power bees” provide charging stations for phones + other devices, “water bees” filter water.   Sara Nichols of the economic development group Land of Sky Regional Council says they "are essentially setting the model and the precedent for what we hope will be a much bigger statewide and national project to duplicate." That's the kind of American resilience I like to see. These storms are not going away.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · last wk.

Stanford: "Hotter, drier weather could double water bills in some cities." "The average cost of tap water in the United States has increased 3 times faster than inflation over the past 2 decades, driven largely by aging infrastructure and deferred maintenance."

Climate change is layering a new and poorly understood pressure on top of those existing strains. "Hotter, drier conditions driven by climate change could nearly double water bills in some cities by mid-century." "Climate change stresses water supplies + forces utilities to build expensive new infrastructure to maintain reliability,” says author Jennifer Skerker, a PhD student in civil and environmental engineering. “In cities already struggling with affordability due to aging infrastructure, the additional costs passed on to ratepayers to pay for...infrastructure + reliability measures can push a substantial share of households into crisis.” The small coastal city of Santa Cruz, California relies almost entirely on local surface water and a single reservoir. "Using a modeling framework developed with data from Santa Cruz's water department, the researchers linked plausible future climate scenarios with utility adaptation decisions, such as building a wastewater reuse facility, methods for pricing water, and household-level water demand." Paying for major new infrastructure could push the share of households exceeding the EPA’s recommended affordability threshold from 19% to 35%. "More than 5% of households would have to devote as much as a third of their income to water, likely forcing painful trade-offs with food, healthcare, and other necessities." This modeling framework can be adapted to assess water affordability risks in cities—such as Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Cape Town, and Melbourne, Australia—facing vulnerabilities similar to those of Santa Cruz. I have a love affair with Santa Cruz. I will never forget the long weekend when I took our 3 young children there when my wife had other work responsibilities. A grand old time.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 2w ago

Lazard: "Levelized Cost of Energy Comparison—Version 19.0" Weeks ago I discussed LCOE Version 18.0 from 2025, but mentioned that when the 2026 annual comparison arrived I would repost. The bars represent the range of cost for a given energy source, with all the subsidies stripped out.

Chart of energy sector costs. Utilities think in megawatt-hours, but take away 3 zeroes + you get the kWhs that you see on your monthly electric bill. Note first the lower end of utility-scale solar went up from $38 per megawatt-hour to $40 per MWh [red circle] from a yr ago. Onshore wind, secondly, is unchanged from $37 per MWh [red circle]. [Wind with storage up from $44 to $49 per MWh]. These 2 sustainable generation assets continue to be the cost champions. Coal is up from $71 to $72 per MWh [red arrow appropriately aiming down]. Nuclear is up from $173 to $175 per MWh [red arrow pushing ahead with over $100 billion of federal subsidies]. Setting aside for a moment the problems of radwaste, diversion of special nuclear material, radiation releases in the long front end + back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, major accidents—let's just focus on the economics of nuclear energy. Nukes are slowest to build, + their electricity is the most expensive on the planet. So one can love nukes or not, but instead trust the market + let the chips fall where they may. Yes, we could have a long discussion about SMRs + other novel technologies, but none is proven yet in the US,+ we probably won't see operating plants until the mid-2030s at the earliest. Russia + China have the only examples of operating SMRs, but both are authoritarian countries that can just plow ahead + spend whatever they want. Is that who we are now? And should the federal government be picking winners + losers anyway or should the market determine that? And can any of you explain why globally the number of reactors has declined over the last 2 decades? And why the world-wide share of nuclear electricity is down to 9%? I look forward to some rational discussion of these points. And please take a stab at answering my questions. Thanks.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 2w ago

FOSSIL DRAGON is the opening act in my Trilogy of Dragons, where Jake Harper is in his last year of a graduate degree in electrical engineering at George Washington University in our nation’s capital. He is staunchly promoting the “electrification of everything.”

Jake wants to address the weirding climate, and organizes a group of graduate students to address the civilizational risks of continued exploitation of coal, fossil methane gas and petroleum. His partner, Abbey London, is completing her last year of an infectious disease fellowship at the affiliated med center. Her climate concern is dealing with the burgeoning threat of tropical and exotic diseases. Together they operate her parents’ Dragonfly Inn in nearby Virginia. Personally, each of them must decide if they truly want to commit to their relationship, or succumb to the temptation of past partners. Meanwhile, another game is afoot, as three women plot an audacious attack on a key federal building. In a clown car. You heard that right. My publisher tells me only the paperback is out now, the ebook will not arrive until November. I should also mention that on my website - swlawrence.com - you can read the first chapter of all 3 books. Also available is a short video interview. My books may be ordered from the website, online from almost anywhere, or perhaps best of all—independent bookstores.   Finally, I am wondering how many of you actually noticed the clown face on the back cover? Cute, right?
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 2w ago

PopMech: "20th-Century Shipwrecks Are Poisoning Our Oceans—But Underwater Microbes Are Fighting Back." Shipwrecks, especially those from World War I + World War II, are leaking dangerous contents into the world’s oceans.

"Unfortunately for the aquatic environments in which they rest, most of these come from the modern era (1800s, 1900s + 2000s], when the presence of hazardous materials or dangerous ordnance onboard was not only possible, but likely." "The world’s oceans are littered with shipwrecks, with some estimates placing the number at around 3 million." Of the 3 M, roughly 15,000 date to the years during which WWI + WWII were fought, and a vast majority of those ships are slowly poisoning their surrounding environments. "One wreck of particular concern is a German UC-30 submarine located 66 nautical miles west of Nymindegab, Denmark [not the one in the photo]." Lying 23 meters below the surface on a shallow, sandy reef of glacial deposits in the North Sea, this UC-30 submarine specialized in minelaying intended to wreak havoc on enemy harbors and shipping lanes. "A necessary part of that job was carrying lots of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, more commonly known as TNT, which was housed in 18 onboard sea mines." In a new study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, a team of researchers from Germany, Belgium, and Denmark analyzed sediments from the submarine’s minewells—six vertical shafts built into the pressure hull that carried three mines each—to understand the make-up of the microbiome at work. "In samples taken from the wreck, scientists found distinct taxonomic shifts within the minewells of the wreck—specifically, a drastic increase of Proteobacteria like Haliaceae and Rhodobacteraceae, both of which are microbes that can break down hydrocarbons and survive extreme chemical stress." They do this by leveraging survival enzymes like glutathione transferases + oxidoreductases. Ain't nature grand? Evolutionary selective pressure favors bacteria that can accomplish bioremediation.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 2w ago

ClimateBrink: "Canada's boreal wildfires aren't just bad forest management." Over the past week smoke from Canadian wildfires has once again poured into cities across Canada + the northern US. "Toronto briefly had the worst air quality of any major city on Earth."

Megafires right lower segment. Unhealthy air alerts stretched from Minneapolis to New York City. "The smoke-pocalypse has renewed a long-standing debate online that these fires aren’t really about climate change at all, but about forest mismanagement." The argument is that decades of aggressive fire suppression have let fuel pile up—not enough logging, thinning or prescribed burning. To be fair, "the fire-deficit story is a genuine phenomenon in the dry conifer forests of the western United States." But most of what’s burning in Canada is boreal forest, which is a fundamentally different predicament. "Canada’s area burned has surged, and it has surged in step with warming: hot, dry fire seasons burn far more forest, with area burned rises roughly 80% for each 1ºC increase in fire-season temperature." Historically, boreal burns occurred as rare, high-intensity crown fires on a natural cycle measured in a century or more, across enormous remote areas that have never been logged, thinned, or effectively suppressed. "Canadian fire seasons (May through September) have warmed about 2.2ºC on average since 1959." Canada warms at roughly twice the global rate, and its north at roughly three times. In the plot of fire season weather, you can see the lower right 'hot + dry' sector has the most area burned + most of the 10 largest fires [outlined in black]. "About 71% of Canada’s area burned over 1990–2023 came from lightning-ignited fires, and in the record 2023 season it was ~93%."   These are remote boreal megafires, ignited by lightning far from any road, timber lease, or fuel-treatment crew. "And because warming is expected to increase high-latitude lightning, climate change can contribute to both the fuel dryness and the ignition side of the equation." So, the blame cannot be laid on Canadian intransigence. Any more than tariffs can address the problem.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 2w ago

Grist: "The Aral Sea isn’t just an ecological nightmare—it’s a carbon bomb." Most of this inland sea sitting between Kazakhstan + Uzbekistan is a dry lakebed the size of Ireland. It dried out largely because for the past 60 years humans have bled it nearly dry irrigating cotton.

Aral seabed. "Its loss has long been seen as an ecological and humanitarian problem, but new research shows that it has also been a significant driver of climate change." The explanation is that when nearly any body of water is full and works as it should, organic matter collects on the bottom, where it remains trapped, often for centuries or even millennia. Rafael Marcé, a research scientist in Spain, is the lead author of the paper which was published [this wk] in the journal Science. "The Aral Sea has left behind a timeline of sorts." The edges dried out decades back, while some areas were wet until just a few years ago. Cores were drilled along that gradation, allowing them to reconstruct that 748 M tonnes [Mt] of carbon had already released, equal to 3 times the annual emissions by Spain. 'At the beginning it goes pretty fast, then it decays slowly,' said Marcé, noting that about half of the carbon dioxide is released in the first 15 years after a section of the lake is exposed. And nearly a fifth of emissions came from wind blowing sediment away, an aspect of drying that experts say hadn’t been adequately studied before. Other areas around the world experiencing the "dry flux" phenomenon include "Lake Chad in western Africa, Bolivia’s Lake Poopó, and the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest inland body of water, expected to shrink by more than the entire area of the Aral Sea by century's end. Also the Salton Sea in California + Utah’s Great Salt Lake, which another recent study found is releasing over 4 Mt of CO2 annually.  This combined global carbon flux until now had not been incorporated into climate models. Clearly, this problem is figureoutable.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 2w ago

CleanTechnica: "US Hydropower Faces Supply Chain Challenges With Large Power Transformers." The National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) just released a report examining the U.S. supply chain for "large power transformers," or LPTs.

Extralarge electrical transformer. The National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) just released a report examining the U.S. supply chain for "large power transformers," or LPTs. "Large Power Transformer Supply Chain Gap Analysis and Domestic Content Strategies for Hydropower Rehabilitation focuses specifically on the unique challenges that hydropower facilities face when upgrading or replacing LPTs." These are 'massive, custom-built devices [that] drastically increase the voltage of electricity generated by hydropower turbines for long-distance transmission. There are 9 major issues, but sadly I have space for only a subset. [1] U.S. LPT manufacturers rely 80% on imported raw materials like grain-oriented electrical steel + refined copper. [2] Domestic manufacturing capabilities have grown in recent years but not enough to meet rising demand. [3] The procurement timeline for a typical LPT (rated to handle 100 megavolt-amperes of electrical power) is approximately 2.5 to 3 years + up to 5 years for extra-high-voltage LPTs. [4] Transformer costs have increased significantly since 2021, with prices rising approximately 80% in 2025. The cost of a single unit can be as high as $10 million. [5] As these industries have been offshored over the last several decades, skilled workers have retired or moved to other industries. Thus, manufacturers and vendors of hydropower components struggle to find workers with more than 10 years of industry experience. [6] Transport logistics are particularly complex for hydropower LPTs because many hydroelectric dams are difficult to reach due to rugged terrain or remote locations. There is a limited domestic fleet of specialized vehicles that can transport LPTs to these places, and routes require special permits for oversized loads. I'll stop here, as the photo demonstrates this complexity all too well.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 2w ago

OilPricedotcom: "As Ukraine Cripples Russian Refining, Global Diesel Markets Pay the Price." "Ukrainian drone {+ missile] strikes have crippled Russia's refining sector, cutting crude processing to its lowest level since 2005."

Omsk refinery almost 1500 miles from Ukraine. Moscow has responding by withdrawing 1 fuel after another from export. "First, Russia banned gasoline exports in April because domestic production had little surplus." Next, Moscow banned jet fuel exports on June 1, amid tightening demand, followed by a ban on diesel exports on July 8." The diesel ban now covers oil companies that refine their own crude, removing an earlier exemption that allowed large producers to continue selling abroad. But export bans have been insufficient, so now Russia pays to import finished products. At least 60,000 tonnes of gasoline reportedly arrived from India. "Additionally, gasoline shipments from Belarus reached 141,000 tonnes during the first 25 days of June, 2.4 times the volume imported during all of May." Being globally interconnected, Russian diesel withdrawal has tightened a market already losing product shipments from the Middle East conflict. "Omsk lies more than 2,000 kilometers from the front and processed about 22 million tonnes of crude in 2024, making it Russia’s largest refinery." By looking at the map, you can appreciate how far the Omsk refinery is from Ukraine. Yet these strikes continue to get through. The attacks in Iran + the attacks in Russia dramatically illustrate the risks of American fossil fuel dependence. I will continue to enjoy driving my EV—charging at home with sunshine—this patriotically supports both personal + national resilience.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 3w ago

SightlineInstitute: "Drill, Baby, Drill!—for Thermal Energy." Claiming electricity shortfalls are coming, utilities here in the Pacific Northwest are increasingly clamoring to roll back clean energy laws + build expensive, new gas-fired power plants, even though cheaper solutions are possible.

Table of heat sources. To the rescue come "ground-source heat pumps... the most efficient heating and cooling technology available—even more so when they’re linked together in a neighborhood-scale thermal energy network (TEN)." In fact, if Northwest utilities took $2.2 billion that they recommend spending on new gas plants by 2045 to serve new heating loads and invest it in TENs, they could slash the region’s projected 2045 energy shortfall by as much as 10 gigawatts [GW]. "In 2025, consulting firm Energy + Environmental Economics (E3) released a high-profile study commissioned by Pacific Northwest utilities." The study forecast that the greater Northwest region faces a 9 GW resource adequacy shortfall by 2030 and a 26–46 GW shortfall by 2045. Sightline has written about the study’s flaws, including its reliance on a single high-growth demand scenario; failure to evaluate data center flexibility and other lower-cost alternatives to building new gas plants; and overstatement of the region’s projected resource gap. Another flaw to the list: The study assumes that all buildings converting from fossil fuel to electric heating will install air-source heat pumps with inefficient electric resistance backup heaters that kick on during the coldest winter days. These 'toasters' account for as much as 30% of the power gap (8–12 GW) that the study’s authors estimate the region faces by 2045, depending on the pace of building electrification. Frigid or sweltering weather doesn’t make ground-source heat pumps work harder. Instead, these systems harness the stable temperature of the earth, which, at just 10 ft below ground, remains at around 50°F year-round. I often hear people boast that their methane or propane furnaces are 98% efficient. But a TEN is just that: 10 ft below ground + 10 times more efficient. And they don't convert a fossil fuel into greenhouse gases + other pollutants.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 3w ago

AAAS: “Study dampens hope that meningitis vaccine can also prevent gonorrhea.” Couple of points about the causative agent of gonorrhea in the microphotograph, with many names including the formal designation as Neisseria gonorrheae but also the common name of ‘the clap.’

Gonorrhea under the microscope. This is magnified 1,000-fold + not a great gram stain sadly. The upper blue arrow points at some Neisseria that have probably been taken inside a pus cell or ‘poly’ for short. The lower blue arrow points out a group of the organisms outside of pus cells. “Nine years ago, a serendipitous finding at sexual health clinics raised hopes for the prevention of gonorrhea, one of the world’s most widespread sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Researchers in New Zealand discovered that patients had a 31% reduced risk of infection if they had previously been vaccinated against meningococcal group B—which causes meningitis, not STIs—especially in people entering college.” And this “cross-protection” made sense, because N. meningitidis, the meningococcal bacterium, is closely related to N. gonorrhoeae, meaning some antibodies might work against both. But a randomized controlled trial (RCT) published this wk in The New England Journal of Medicine has dampened those hopes. “The study showed that a meningococcal vaccine named 4CMenB did not prevent gonorrhea in men who have sex with men (MSM) at high risk of STIs.” “Gonorrhea increases the risk of contracting HIV and can lead to infertility if not treated properly…with some 82 million cases worldwide every year, and the microbe has a knack for developing resistance against antibiotics.” Additionally, developing a vaccine has proved difficult, in part because N. gonorrhoeae rapidly alters its surface proteins to evade detection by the human immune system. Further study is needed in other populations in different parts of the world, in the constant battle against pernicious microorganisms.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 3w ago

ClimateTrunk: "Learning by Doing." This should shiver the timbers of fossil fuel proponents as the cost of solar modules has plummeted by 99.9% over half a century—called a virtuous curve or cycle, whichever your preference.

Plummeting solar cell costs. Pioneered by Theodore Wright in 1936, Wright's Law describes how costs fall as cumulative production rises. "Every time the world doubled its installed solar capacity, panel prices fell by about 20%." Economists call this relationship a "learning curve." The same pattern has driven down the cost of other manufactured goods like computer chips and flat-screen TVs. "Lithium-ion batteries have followed similar learning curves, helping make solar-plus-storage competitive with fossil fuels in most parts of the world." Our World in Data hosts the classic version, plotting solar prices against cumulative capacity on logarithmic axes. "This graph tells the same story differently: as solar deployment accelerated—slowly at first, then exponentially—costs kept dropping." It was driven by relentless innovation, economies of scale, manufacturing expertise and policy support. "As costs fell, deployment rose. It took eight years for global solar generation to grow from 100 terawatt hours (TWh) to 1,000, then just three more to pass 2,000 TWh." (Global electricity demand is about 32,000 TWh.) "Analysts expect solar costs to fall by another 40% by 2035 as manufacturing scales further." This is how solar generation grew. 30% in 2025, now matching nuclear's share of global electricity. "In 2025, clean electricity growth exceeded the increase in global electricity demand, keeping fossil generation flat." That propelled renewables to generate 34% of global electricity, overtaking coal's 33% share. "At the same time, plummeting battery costs are turning daytime sunshine into round-the-clock electricity." No more warning shots across the bow. Solar is aiming at the main masts of fossil fuel dominance.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 4w ago

AAAS: "British ‘First Fleet’ brought smallpox to Australia—and may have killed millions." "On a hot summer day in January 1788, 11 ships filled with British convicts and sailors landed in Australia’s Sydney Harbor.

British ship. Captain Arthur Phillip raised Union Jack + claimed continent for British crown." Arrival of this so-called First Fleet preceded a catastrophe that befell continent’s Indigenous people. "More than a yr after first landing, “there [were] a significant number of Aboriginal people perishing in ghastly circumstances from what sounds like smallpox,” says Lynette Russell, historian at Monash University." Study in press, released last year as preprint, tracks how spread to argue First Fleet was only possible source. "Related preprint suggests the toll of smallpox + other impacts of colonization far greater than believed." 'Smallpox story was a way that British could say that there were no more of us in those early times, that everybody was wiped out,” says molecular biologist Shane Ingrey, whose Indigenous ancestors, the Dharawal, lived around Sydney Harbor + might have been watching as First Fleet landed.' Smallpox is highly contagious + fast moving; victims either die in a matter of weeks after exposure, or else recover + are no longer contagious. 'British ships were at sea for months en route to Australia—“most effective quarantine situation imaginable,”—suggesting the disease, if present, would have burned itself out long before ships arrived.' But, the authors speculate the source may have been the bottles of smallpox scabs that physicians in the 18th century British navy carried to vaccinate against the disease. "British colonists are known to have deliberately infected Indigenous groups in North America, where smallpox also took a catastrophic toll...though no [Australian] record exists of such a plan." Combining different methods, the authors of the second preprint propose that precolonial Australia hosted between 950,000 and 4.1 million people, likely about 2.3 M. The findings also suggest contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations, which hover around 1 M people, haven’t yet returned to even half their preinvasion numbers.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 4w ago

Only appropriate after the recent celebration of the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence is a review of the evolution of energy. I almost have to apologize for the archaic language of the energy metric "quadrillion British thermal units."

US total energy use. The Btu unit is about the same as measuring the heat released by a wooden kitchen match. The nickname for the combination is simply "quads." Total American energy—not just electricity. Over the 250-year history of our nation, energy consumption has evolved from wood use in the 18th and 19th centuries to today’s use of modern renewables, hydropower, geothermal, hydrocarbons, and nuclear technology. "In 2025, total energy used in the United States was 96 quadrillion British thermal units (quads), up 2% from 2024, but below 2007’s record 99 quads." Petroleum was the most-used energy source last year, followed closely by fossil methane + propane gases. Use of renewables + coal + nuclear energy each made up about 9% of total energy use. "As a share of total energy consumption in the United States, wood was the most-consumed source of energy early in our history." It is a tiny part of the 'other' category now. [But I still know people who heat or even cook with wood or biofuels]. Next, "fossil fuels emerged as the largest share of energy, starting with the use of coal, which expanded rapidly." With the more recent emergence of nuclear power + forms of renewable energy such as wind + solar, the total share of energy generation from fossil fuels decreased. "However, as of 2025, fossil fuels still accounted for the vast majority of energy consumed in the United States, accounting for 82% of energy consumed." Staring at that stark number—82%—we must all realize that to repair the climate we have our work cut out for us. Coal is declining in spite of the misguided efforts by the White House. Methane + propane must be staunchly ratcheted down as well. Petroleum is the other large target. So, let's hop to it.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 4w ago

AAAS: "Proposed new satellite fleets could overwhelm the night sky." Orbiting data centers + sunlight reflectors would severely degrade astronomy by leaving streaks on telescope images + brightening our pitch-black sky.

Satellite streaks. Olivier Hainaut, astronomer at the European Southern Observatory [ESO], examined 2 recent commercial proposals. "In 2025, Reflect Orbital sought permission from Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch test satellite carrying an 18-m-wide reflector that would beam sunlight onto nighttime Earth." Company’s plans to launch 50,000 reflectors to extend operating hours of solar arrays, mines, emergency responders with artificial daylight. "Prime astronomy sites such as ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile aim to keep light pollution below 1% of natural night-sky brightness." Fleet of 5,000 reflectors would raise sky brightness worldwide by up to 30%; 50,000 craft would boost it as much as 300%. 'Reflect Orbital says it will steer its 5-km-wide beams, 4-fold brighter than full Moon, away from observatories.' But even outside the beam each of the reflectors would shine as bright as Venus, the brightest object after the Moon. Ever since SpaceX launched the Starlink internet satellites in 2019, astronomers have worked with companies to reduce impact of these so-called satellite megaconstellations. "SpaceX has made efforts to dim the reflectivity of its Starlink satellites, even as the constellation has grown." (More than 10,000 Starlinks are already in orbit and the company is planning 32,000 more.) "Constellation of 1 million SpaceX data centers would make satellite trails in telescope images almost unavoidable for most of the night...especially for wide-viewing instruments such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile.' ESO + other bodies working with International Astronomical Union to persuade satellite operators to lessen impact of their constellations, + through UN to draw up international norms countries can translate into national laws. Wouldn't adding sunlight that should miss Earth incrementally speed up global warming? Contact the FCC at ecfs@fcc.gov with header phrase "get form," + email address in the body, as I just did.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 4w ago

AAAS: "British Trawlers Working Nearly 20 Times as Hard to Catch Fish." Most commercial fisherfolk today don't appreciate how much harder it is to catch fish than it was for their forebears. In the 1880s, steam-powered trawlers began to compete with sail-powered fishing boats in European waters.

Graph of declining ocean fish. "The practice was controversial in the United Kingdom, where some critics claimed that the new trawlers were reducing fish stocks and damaging habitats." Marine conservation biologist Callum Roberts of the University of York in the United Kingdom decided to analyze the historical data. "To adjust the catch data for the increasingly powerful and sophisticated fishing boats, Roberts and colleagues used boat registration records to calculate the overall power of the British fleet." The researchers expressed ship 'power' in units equivalent to the catching power of one sail-powered trawler in the 1880s, calculating the Landings Per Unit of fishing Power (LPUP). "From 1889 until 1914, LPUP dropped sharply, from more than 60 tons to less than 20 tons." The decrease in fishing during World War I allowed a recovery of fish stocks, and LPUP rebounded briefly to 30 tons in 1918. "Between WWI and the 1950s, British vessels began fishing farther from home, off the coast of West Africa and in the Arctic...[allowing] the rate of fish caught by British vessels to increase again, to about 50 tons in 1956." But with continued exploitation, LPUP nose-dived, to about 5 tons in 1980, the team reports online this week in Nature Communications. "After 1983, the Common Fisheries Policy of the European Union set strict new limits on where and how much British vessels could fish, but stocks have not recovered." Today it takes 17 times as much fishing power to land a fish as it did in 1889, an LPUP of 3.4.  The implications are clear, overfishing, yes, but also marine warming, loss of coral reefs as incubators, plastic + other pollution, acidification, now looming deoxygenation. Climate change + impoverishment of marine ecosystems. Pity the poor fish + the fisherfolk.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · 4w ago

AAAS: "Being a taller tree doesn’t doom you to drought after all." "Despite their stature...tall trees move water through their lengthy wooden bodies with surprising efficiency—so much so that a new study argues they may not be as susceptible to drought as once thought."

Scientists in tree. Dipterocarps are a tropical tree group that dominates the rainforests of Southeast Asia. "Height doesn’t seem to stymie these trees’ ability to transport water, the researchers found: Taller dipterocarps appear to show the same reaction to drought stresses as their smaller counterparts." Forest ecologist Amy Bennett was lead author of a 2015 paper that found that larger trees suffer most in droughts worldwide. Bennett says the new paper shows there are important exceptions. “I don’t think it overturns the idea that large trees are more vulnerable in many forests,” she added. Cardiff University forest ecologist Paulo Bittencourt, new study’s lead author, journeyed into Malaysia’s Kabili Sepilok Forest Reserve on the island of Borneo to study the role of height. " Over the course of 3 months in 2022, the team collected branches and trunk core samples from 38 different dipterocarp trees representing five different species, with heights ranging from 7.1 to 71 meters." The trunk core samples revealed tall dipterocarps had wider vessels at their bases to compensate for the extra resistance involved in moving water up a greater distance. At the base of a 70-meter tree, vessels are more than twice as wide as those at the base of a 10-meter tree. "In another adaptation, the leaves at the top of the tall trees were more resilient to a lack of water supply—they could maintain their ability to photosynthesize in drier conditions than those on the trees’ lower branches." The researchers tested the dehydration thresholds of the tissues by inducing embolisms—blockages formed by air bubbles—within the tissues’ water vessels, which can occur in trees as a symptom of drought. "They found that the tissues of smaller and taller trees responded to dehydration similarly, suggesting a tree’s height isn’t directly related to its vulnerability to these types of embolisms." This botanic complexity in tree tissue fairly boggles the mind, does it not? Or it should.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · last mo.

PIOMAS: "PIOMAS Arctic Sea Ice Volume." I met Andy Lee Robinson more than a few years ago, online that is. Last I heard he was in England. I do remember I paid him in British pounds sterling [£] for the lifetime privilege of using this image. This graph begins in 1979.

Arctic Sea ice Spiral. Pertinent in comprehending this is realizing several points. First, sea ice forms on the ocean surface, with contributions both from the salty ocean surface + fresh snowfall. Separate from the ice floes calving off tide-water glaciers. Second, April—the light green line—is the maximum extent of sea ice, the end of Arctic winter of course. Third, September—the black line—is the minimum extent of sea ice, in this case coincident with the end of Arctic summer. The pictures you have often seen of the fluctuating surface area of Arctic sea ice represent just that, while this graph is a measure of total volume, more pertinent in understanding climate effects. When + where sea ice disappears, more dark blue ocean water absorbs far more solar energy, which is a main reason that the Arctic is warming up faster than the world as a whole. It should be apparent to the naked eye where all of this is headed, with huge implications for geoscience, fishing, extinctions, navigation, territorial claims, seafloor mining, extraction of fossil fuels—and the survival of whales. Yes, whales, since with dwindling sea ice, pods of orcas have migrated north to predate on Arctic whales such as belugas + narwhales. I post this every couple of years, + suggest somber contemplation.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · last mo.

Wikipedia: "Electricity sector in Brazil." Brazil has the largest electricity sector in Latin America, + in 2024, Brazil added a substantial 10.9 GW of new power generation capacity, with a total installed capacity of 209 GW, of which nearly 85% was renewable.

Brazilian electricity sectors. [Recall that a gigawatt or GW is equivalent to the instantaneous or power rating of a typical nuclear power plant.]. "The installed capacity grew from 11,000 MW in 1970 with an average yearly growth of 5.8% per year." Impressively, Brazil has the largest capacity for water storage in the world, based largely on hydroelectricity generation capacity, which meets over 60% of its electricity demand. "The national grid runs at 60 Hz, just like in the US, and is powered 83% from renewable sources." This dependence on hydropower makes Brazil vulnerable to power supply shortages in drought years, as was demonstrated by the 2001–2002 energy crisis. "In 2023, the output of Brazil's electricity system, serving over 88 million consumers, exceeded that of all other South American nations combined." Anticipated investments surpassing $100 billion by 2029 aim to expand utility-scale + distributed generation, alongside transmission + distribution projects. "The National Interconnected System (SIN) comprises the electricity companies in the South, South-East, Center-West, North-East and part of the North region." Only 3.4% of the country's electricity production is located outside the SIN, in small isolated systems located mainly in the Amazonian region. Fascinating country in so many ways. From my background in infectious disease, problems with zika, dengue fever, malaria. But the specter of drought hangs over the Amazon + Brazil's power sector, as in many areas of the world. Since Brazil is about 92% tropical, it seems to me they should diversify further into solar + storage.
S. W. Lawrence, MD@swlawrence.bsky.social · last mo.

AAAS: "Scientists have only discovered a tiny fraction of living insect species." From half-meter-long moths to fairy wasps smaller than sand grains, insects come in a stunning variety of shapes and sizes and constitute the most diverse animal group on Earth.

Wasp. “But the insect species discovered so far may represent just a fraction of the total crawling, flying, and burrowing around the planet, according to a new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.” Using statistical methods borrowed from epidemiologists, a team of entomologists estimates there may be as many as 20 million insect species on our planet—more than three times the previous estimate. “Over the past 3 centuries, biologists have described about 1 million insect species, but finding and describing them all would be a daunting—if not impossible—task.” However, a subfamily of parasitoid wasps known as Microgastrinae, which infamously lay their eggs inside living caterpillars, are extremely well-studied. “Over the past several years, scientists conducting surveys of flying insects in the park have identified 388 species of Microgastrinae.” Independently, when scientists surveyed caterpillars that had been parasitized within the park, they identified only 889 wasp species. With almost no overlap, the mismatch between the 2 studies allowed a statistical estimate of a whopping 2394 Microgastrinae species. Applying this as a multiple to all 53,945 known insect species within Guanacaste suggests the park is actually home to 332,846 insect species, most of which have gone unobserved. “The researchers then scaled this number globally using another diverse group of organisms: trees…[with] 1200 [to] 1500 tree species within Guanacaste and about 73,000 on Earth, meaning the park contains between 1.6% and 2.1% of global tree diversity.” If the same percentage holds true for insects, then there’s anywhere between 13.3 million and 24.7 million insect species on Earth, with a safe middle-of-the-road estimate of 20.3 M species. While you may think this epidemiological calculation represents biodiversity run riot, recall that many insect species are in decline from pesticides + habitat loss + climate change. Do not be sanguine.