QUICK NEWS, January 7:The Costs Of Climate Change Come Home; The New Energy Refrigerator

The Costs Of Climate Change Come Home How Much Climate Change Will Steal From Your Pocket This Year

Joel Anderson, December 4, 2019 (Yahoo Finance)

“…[The Fourth National Climate Assessment] presented a pretty grim outlook on the economic impacts of climate change…[It] suggested that climate change could ultimately cost different sectors of the economy hundreds of billions of dollars a year by the end of this century…[But] global warming is already costing you money and will only cost you more over time…A September 2017 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed that the Office of Management and Budget had placed the estimated cost to American taxpayers over the last decade at $350 billion, or $35 billion a year…[which is] about the entire budget for the state of New Jersey…

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…[Y]ou’re already paying more at the grocery store and those bills will continue to rise…[C]rop yields worldwide could fall by as much as 25 percent from 2030 to 2049…[driving food prices increases] as high as 84 percent…[T]he average person should expect to lose about a quarter of their income to the costs of climate change by 2100…[Millennials are] expected to lose nearly $8.8 trillion in lifetime income…[The frequency and cost of weather-related events will grow along with] your insurance bill…[Your 401k may be compromised by fossil fuel reserves] that are most likely never going to end up on the open market…” click here for more

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The New Energy Refrigerator Bill Gates-led fund is investing in a startup to build a cheap battery using a “refrigerator on steroids”

Akshat Rathi, December 21, 2019 (Quartz)

“…[To fully replace carbon-based fuels with already cost-competitive New Energy, large amounts of cost-effective energy storage is needed] for when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow…[Google-founded startup Malta’s answer is] heat pumps, chilled chambers, and molten salt…[It has] raised $26 million toward building its first full-scale pilot plant. The funding round was led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which was set up by Bill Gates with support from the likes of Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Jack Ma, and Mukesh Ambani…[The Malta technology uses] excess electricity from solar panels and wind turbines to run a large heat pump…[which is] essentially a refrigerator on steroids…

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…[Malta] extracts heat from a chamber full of antifreeze-like chemicals, lowering the temperature to –70°C (–94 °F). That heat is dumped in another chamber where salt—not exactly table salt, but similar—is heated to as high as 565°C (1,050°F). These insulated chambers hold the energy until…a heat engine—essentially like a steam turbine inside a power plant—is used to convert the heat and the cold back to usable electricity…[Only about half the energy is recovered, but] the overall cost of the system could be potentially lower than one using lithium-ion battery packs…[Malta] already has interest from data centers, large industries, and the defense sector…” click here for more

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