Welcome back to Climate Connections from ClimateWiser. I'll be sharing my favorite written resources, links, videos on a bi-weekly basis to feed your curiosity about the environment, sustainability and climate advocacy. 

Each of these topics could fill a newsletter with multiple links, and I'm thinking about doing a further deep dive on one link a week to give you more detail.
Feel free to share this with others and encourage them to subscribe.

Overview: David Roberts at Volts delivers a fantastic newsletter and podcast series on clean energy. This interview with Tim Latimer, CEO of Fervo Energy, outlines the progress and opportunities ahead for the geothermal technology.
Takeaway: While admitting there are hurdles to cross, this enhanced geothermal delivers “firm” (not variable like solar or wind) energy is within reach taking advantage of technology developed for fracking and often using one or more dry  wells. There are many opinions on the near term viability of geothermal and nuclear, but this is a great place to be grounded.

Overview:  TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) is building one of the first SMR reactors in the US, on the Clinch River, in Roane County TN.
Takeaway: Many people believe nuclear power, particularly nuclear fusion (sources vary - commercially ready by 2050), will solve all of our needs for increased demand in electricity, but they are still not commercially scalable. SMRs are smaller in footprint, parts can be built in factories and transported to the site, and deliver up to 300 megawatts of power. Regulatory challenges still exist in the US, combined with “Not In My Backyard” mindset (NIMBY) have held back progress, but these smaller solutions can go up faster and in modular fashion. The Clinch River project in TN aims to be live and producing electricity to power the equivalent of 200K homes (depends on assumptions) by 2033. The issue is, while this is coming to life, what do we do in the meantime. 

Overview: Returning to “What if we Get it Right?” and Ayana's interview with Bren Smith, founder of non-profit Greenwave to discuss regenerative agriculture in the ocean. Bren called himself a “fish chaser”, but now he's teaching others to farm.
Takeaway: These farms leveraging poly-culture approaches (more than one crop at a time - i.e. all kelp) are helping restore coastlines, provide jobs for new ocean farmers, expand food sources (clams, mussels, scallops and oysters, which by the way, clean the water). Listen to his discussion with Ayana. It's the last one in the book.

Overview: There is a big devaluation coming in the near future as communities see an unsustainable increase in insurance premiums, due to recurring extreme weather disasters. Higher premiums lower home values. It's already happening in Australia, Florida and California to name a few.
Takeaway: Insurers are making it almost impossible to sustain current loan payments that require and include an insurance premium. And see this: “First Street predicts that some 55 million Americans could be forced to migrate in the next 30 years due to worsening climate risks.” That means more people moving away from extreme weather disaster areas, and looking for a new place to live. Katherine Hayhoe offers a set of recommendations to protect yourself.

Overview:  Interactive mapping tool by Grist shows where the $700B in IRA (Inflation Reduction Act 2022) clean energy and BIL (bipartisan infrastructure law) funding landed. Quick fact: 80% of IRA went to red districts.
Takeaway: A picture is worth 1000 words. I used my zip code in Nashville, TN and learned that within 100 miles (includes the southern third of KY and the top 20% of AL), $2.6B+ ($1B if just 50 miles) landed in that circle - lots for transportation and some for energy transition.

Overview:  This is old news, but they clean up used subway cars and submerge them to rebuild reef systems. Clever example of circularity!
Takeaway: Food for the ocean in that area has increased 400x since this started in 2001