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Shell retreats from the Arctic, sending its battered vessels to Asia for repair

by 1LymSlagter473 Posted on February 12, 2013

Shell retreats from the Arctic, sending its battered vessels to Asia for repair

By Philip Bump

You know how in movies there’s sometimes a moment after some cataclysm in which the protagonist sits up in bed or steps out of a doorway, rubs his eyes, and the sun is shining? All around him are crumbled buildings and cars missing doors, but he looks up and the air is still and the sun is out and you, the audience, understand that something has changed. The terror is behind us.

Well, sit up in bed and rub your eyes. From the Times:

In another blow to its Alaskan Arctic drilling program, Royal Dutch Shell said on Monday that it had decided to tow its two drill vessels there to Asian ports for major repairs, jeopardizing its plans to begin drilling for oil in the icy northern seas next summer.

The new potential delay in drilling does not necessarily doom Shell’s seven-year, $4.5 billion quest to open a new oil frontier in the far north, but it may strengthen the position of environmentalists who have repeatedly sued to stop or postpone exploration that they claim carries the risks of a spill nearly impossible to clean up. …

For drilling to proceed, two vessels are needed, one to stand by to drill relief wells in case of a blowout. It would be difficult to find other suitable ships for drilling in the Arctic.

kullukresponse

The

Kulluk

during happier times.

The two vessels Shell is sending out for repair are the Kulluk — which ran aground in December, damaging its hull — and the Noble Discoverer — which escaped its moorings and almost ran aground, but needs fixes to its propulsion systems.

It is amusing (and largely warranted) to blame Shell for all of these mistakes. It is also worth questioning the role that the Arctic itself played. The vessels are old (the Times notes that the Kulluk was built in 1983; Discoverer in 1966), but the Arctic is also a notoriously harsh environment. One of the long-standing objections to drilling there is how hard it is to mobilize resources in a remote and forbidding environment, concerns reiterated loudly after the Kulluk grounding.

Shell is retreating, tail between its legs — at least for 2013. The company’s move into the region was something of an exploration anyway, the Vasco de Gama of Arctic oil drilling. The Arctic will someday be teeming with activity as the ice recedes; The Economist magazine is hosting a conference in Oslo next month titled, “Arctic Summit: A new vista for trade, energy, and the environment.” Shell wanted to be first; no one expected it to be the only one there.

Which brings us back to the movie analogy. Sometimes, when our hero is taking his first calm breath in days, closing his eyes to feel the sun on his face, free from the threats he’s defeated, another, bigger enemy is lurking just out of sight. In a moment, the hero’s eyes snap open, and the fight resumes.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Can we blame climate change for the Northeast’s massive blizzard?

by mirorita02 Posted on February 11, 2013

Can we blame climate change for the Northeast’s massive blizzard?

By Philip Bump

The great blizzard of 2013 (which shall remain nameless) has come and gone. At least 15 people were killed, and 700,000 lost power. A nuclear power plant in Massachusetts was knocked offline. Storm surge in the state flooded several communities. In many parts of the Northeast, new one-day snowfall records were set. It was a massive storm — one whose damage could have been much worse.

Christopher Burt at the Weather Underground puts the storm in perspective:

The storm was certainly among the top five to affect Southern New England and Maine and for some localities, the worst winter storm on record (going back 300 years since European inhabitants began keeping track of such things). …

It can probably be said that winter storm Nemo was the 2nd most intense winter storm event for Long Island, Connecticut, eastern Massachusetts, and perhaps Rhode Island. For Long Island and Connecticut the Blizzard of 1888 remains unparalleled whereas for Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts the Blizzard of 1978 remains the top event. For southeastern Maine it would appear that Nemo has been the most extreme snowstorm on record. …

I might add that it is a bit unsettling that two of the most significant storms in the past 300 years to strike the northeastern quadrant of the U.S. have occurred within just four months from one another.

Emphasis added, because it’s worth emphasizing.

NASA

In our preview of the storm last Thursday, we noted the circumstantial evidence that climate change might make the blizzard worse. Over at ThinkProgress, Joe Romm dove a lot deeper:

Like a baseball player on steroids, our climate system is breaking records at an unnatural pace. And like a baseball player on steroids, it’s the wrong question to ask whether a given home run is “caused” by steroids.

But:

The blizzard is also pulling in an extraordinary amount of moisture, which is consistent with recent trends in the Northeast toward more frequent one-day precipitation extremes during the cold season, including snowstorms. The satellite-derived image of total precipitable water shows that the storm has been drawing tropical moisture from the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic Ocean.

[Former head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research Dr. Kevin] Trenberth’s second point is an important one — warmer than normal winters favor snow storms (See “We get more snow storms in warm years“).

The ThinkProgress post includes this graph, showing the growth in one-day precipitation extremes as the climate has warmed.

Did climate change create this storm? No. Did climate change make the storm bigger and more powerful? Evidence suggests it. Is it disconcerting and alarming that two major storms have struck the Northeast since the end of October? Well, I live in the Northeast. So: very much so.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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We answer your questions about the coming East Coast blizzard

by u60uurf Posted on February 7, 2013

We answer your questions about the coming East Coast blizzard

By Philip Bump

pbumpA New York City bus, stuck during a 2010 blizzard

It’s going to snow on the East Coast tomorrow, lasting overnight until Saturday. That much is known and agreed upon.

The following points are up for debate.

How much snow will there be?

Boston’s mayor, Thomas Menino, held a press conference this morning, canceling school and suggesting that people not be on the roads after noon. At that time, the city will be in a state of snow emergency. Why? Because of this:

weather.gov

That blizzard could dump two feet of snow on the city — perhaps as much as 30 inches. Or, according to one report: over four feet.

New York, meanwhile, could see an equal amount. Or it could see three inches. Gawker explains the discrepancy:

Right now, American (GFS) computer models are predicting a few inches of snow for much of the tri-state: a little over two inches for New York City; under an inch for much of New Jersey. Some of it might be rain. The sky-water is expected to start falling Thursday night through Friday morning, but the the brunt of the storm probably won’t hit until late Friday night. …

The European model, like a European model, is much more intimidating (and mean). According to the ECMWF (European Center for Medium range Weather Forecasting — boring name; brainstorm improvements while trapped in your home this weekend), the amount of snow in New York could reach over a foot by Saturday evening (about 15 inches). The European model is generally considered by meteorologists to be the most accurate (it was the first to accurately predict the track of Hurricane Sandy).

So the answer to the question above is: We’ll see.

Does the storm have a name?

If you work in the marketing department at the Weather Channel, your answer to this will be an emphatic “yes.” The network has declared the storm to be “Nemo,” after the terrifying submarine captain in that old book, or maybe the terrifying clownfish in that newer movie.

Others, like Time TV critic James Poniewozik, don’t embrace the idea.

What’s the scariest part of the National Weather Service’s blizzard alert?

Well, of all of the words in the alert, it’s probably this section:

VERY STRONG WINDS UP TO HURRICANE FORCE ARE POSSIBLE FRIDAY NIGHT INTO SATURDAY. THIS MAY RESULT IN SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE ALONG WITH BLIZZARD CONDITIONS FOR A TIME. SCATTERED POWER OUTAGES ARE A POSSIBILITY.

Why is this storm happening?

(This issue isn’t actually up for debate.)

The Capital Weather Gang explains:

The cause of the storm is the explosive combination of two weather disturbances.

“A strong northern stream system will translate its energy to a southern stream low coming up the coast,” says [Wes Junker, the Gang’s winter weather expert]. “The latter will pull lots of moisture northward setting the stage for a major blizzard for the northeast as the low bombs out and slows off the New England coast.”

Is this a climate-change-related thing?

We can’t attribute specific weather events to climate change. It is the case that a warmer atmosphere results in more energy and stronger systems, and that incidents of heavy precipitation have increased over the past 60 years.

Will everyone who is still affected by Hurricane Sandy be OK?

God, I hope so.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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USDA report predicts all manner of end-times for crops and forests

by olikellopas Posted on February 7, 2013

USDA report predicts all manner of end-times for crops and forests

By Susie Cagle

Darla Hueske

Climate change will absolutely devastate American agriculture and forests. Don’t believe me? Ask the feds.

The Department of Agriculture released a new analysis of cropland and climate, showing that bets are off after the next 25ish years. From USA Today:

“We’re going to end up in a situation where we have a multitude of things happening that are going to negatively impact crop production,” said Jerry Hatfield, a laboratory director and plant physiologist with USDA’s Agricultural Research Service and lead author of the study. “In fact, we saw this in 2012 with the drought.” …

Farmers will be able to minimize the impact of global warming on their crops by changing the timing of farming practices and utilizing specialized crop varieties more resilient to drought, disease and heat, among other practices, the report found. …

By the middle of the century and beyond, adaptation becomes more difficult and costly as plants and animals that have adapted to warming climate conditions will have to do so even more — making the productivity of crops and livestock increasingly more unpredictable. Temperature increases and more extreme swings in precipitation could lead to a drop in yield for major U.S. crops and reduce the profitability of many agriculture operations.

Warmer weather, the USDA predicts, will also help weeds grow, potentially stunting grains and soybeans.

So OK, we’ll all be starving, but at least we can still appreciate our nation’s other beautiful planted scenery, right? That won’t be destroyed by massive wildfires and swarms of insects, right? Ha-ha, wrong. From the Associated Press:

Dave Cleaves, climate adviser to the chief of the U.S. Forest Service, said climate change has become the primary driver for managing national forests, because it poses a major threat to their ability to store carbon and provide clean water and wildlife habitat.

“One of the big findings of this report is we are in the process of managing multiple risks to the forest,” Cleaves said on a conference call on the report. “Climate revs up those stressors and couples them. We have to do a much better job of applying climate smartness … to how we do forestry.”

The bright side: We’ll have the last laugh in the faces of climate change deniers everywhere when we’re all starving, burning, covered in bugs, and broke from spending billions on trying to manage it all.

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Explosion at headquarters of Mexico’s state-owned oil company kills 32 [UPDATED]

by sreg2 Posted on February 1, 2013

Explosion at headquarters of Mexico’s state-owned oil company kills 32 [UPDATED]

By Philip Bump

It’s not clear why the lower floors at the headquarters of Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil company, exploded. Things that have been blamed so far: a gas leak, a malfunctioning boiler, the electricity supply. Mexico’s Interior Minister, Miguel Angel Osorio, outlined the known facts for the press last night (translated via Google):

[Yesterday], around 15:40 pm in the North Annex B-2 Pemex Administrative Center, there was an explosion which seriously affected the ground floor, basement and mezzanine of the building and caused severe damage to three floors. …

The death of 25 people, 17 women, eight men, same SEMEFO have been transferred to the Attorney General of the Republic, 101 wounded, of whom 46 remain in care and the rest were discharged.

What is clear is that Pemex has a track record of mistakes and accidents — and that the explosion comes at a tricky political moment for the company.

From The New York Times:

The blast — in a highly protected but decaying office complex — comes in the middle of a heated debate over the future of Pemex, a national institution and a corporate behemoth that has been plagued by declining production, theft and an abysmal safety record that includes a major pipeline explosion almost every year, like the one in September that killed 30 workers.

Experts, while cautioning that it was too early to tell what had gone wrong, said the company would inevitably face more severe scrutiny as Mexico’s Congress returned to work in the coming weeks. The country’s new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, has pledged to submit a plan for overhauling Pemex, opening it to more private investment and perhaps greater consolidation. But with the blast, deliberations about the company could become more elemental.

“You pull all of this together and you say, well, if they can’t even guarantee safety in their own building, their own headquarters, what does that tell us about the company?” said Duncan Wood, director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

It doesn’t tell us much new about the company. Last September, an explosion at a gas plant killed 26. In 2005, workers cut into a pipeline, killing six. In 2008, poor training resulted in an accident that killed 22 workers on an offshore platform. And those are only the first three results on a quick Google search. In a normal circumstance, blaming gross incompetence for an explosion like yesterday’s would seem naive or suspicious. Here, it does not.

George Baker of Houston’s Energia energy research institute suggested that the government would use the explosion as a pretext for change, according to the Times.

In 1992, he said, a major explosion in a residential Guadalajara neighborhood — caused by gas leaking into the sewers — was followed by calls for change, and a plan to break Pemex into smaller pieces.

“The provocation, the pretext was that we had this terrible thing happen and now we are going to have a response from Pemex,” Mr. Baker said, adding that the explosion on Thursday would also now become part of the political calculations over what to do about the company.

“This may be used, may be manipulated, used as a pretext to do something,” he said. “Who knows what that something is, but they may exploit it to do something they were going to do anyway.”

If this is the massive, deadly explosion that finally fixes a dysfunctional and dangerous company, so be it. Exploit away.

clinker

The Pemex headquarters towers over Mexico City on a smoggy day in 2004.

Update: Reports now suggest that 32 have died.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Water use for electricity production set to double globally by 2035

by MayeskiLatouf679 Posted on January 31, 2013

Water use for electricity production set to double globally by 2035

By Philip Bump

You can’t make electricity without water. I mean, you can, but you have to use things like “solar panels” or “wind turbines,” and who’s going to do that? (Lots of people, I guess, but that doesn’t help my point.) A 2009 study suggested that half of the freshwater we use goes to energy production, boiled to create steam to turn turbines, or used to cool off reactors. When we run low on water — or when the water gets too warm — the ability to generate electricity declines or halts. (Except from wind turbines and solar panels; I’ll just keep pointing that out.)

According to the International Energy Agency, the amount of water we use for energy is about to go up. A lot. From National Geographic:

The amount of fresh water consumed for world energy production is on track to double within the next 25 years, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects. …

If today’s policies remain in place, the IEA calculates that water consumed for energy production would increase from 66 billion cubic meters (bcm) today to 135 bcm annually by 2035.

That’s an amount equal to the residential water use of every person in the United States over three years, or 90 days’ discharge of the Mississippi River. It would be four times the volume of the largest U.S. reservoir, Hoover Dam’s Lake Mead.

National Geographic

That 90 days of Mississippi discharge presumably means when the river is at its normal level, not when it has been depleted by drought.

Which is the flip side of this heavy coin. Even as power sector water use doubles globally, the amount of water at hand is expected to drop, as climate change increases the length, frequency, and severity of droughts. A draft government report released earlier this month suggests that the Southwest will see more drought and the Southeast more strain on water supplies as the century continues. During Texas’ drought in 2011, several electricity production facilities came close to shutting down for lack of water.

Interestingly, shifts in power production away from coal and to other sources (excluding solar and wind!) won’t help the trend. The IEA suggests that the increased use of biofuels — renewable, organic material — will be a major source of “water stress,” increasing 242 percent over the next 20 years. Fracking for natural gas, on the other hand, isn’t likely to consume a large share of water. (We’ll see about water contamination.)

Enjoy it while you can, cow.

I could be apocalyptic and suggest that we’ll see some weird, Matrix-y war in 100 years as electricity-dependent robots seize control of dwindling water supplies that humans need to drink. That’s not going to happen. What could happen is that we’ll increasingly need to choose between uses for our water as we need more and have less.

If only there were a way to make electricity while using hardly any water at all.

Source

Water Demand for Energy to Double by 2035, National Geographic

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Soot is the second-most dangerous global warming pollutant

by greenenergy4 Posted on January 16, 2013

Soot is the second-most dangerous global warming pollutant

By Philip Bump

When the EPA announced stricter limits on soot emissions last year, the health benefits were immediately apparent. Less soot — that is, tiny particles that result from burning fossil fuels — means fewer heart attacks, less asthma, longer lifespans. On this basis alone, the new standard is a beneficial move.

Soot and smoke in Pittsburgh during the early 1900s

As it turns out, the move could also play a significant role in countering global warming. Researchers have determined that black carbon (soot) contributes twice as much to global warming as previously understood. From the University of Washington:

Black carbon’s role in climate is complex. Dark particles in the air work to shade the Earth’s surface while warming the atmosphere. Black carbon that settles on the surface of snow and ice darkens the surface to absorb more sunlight and increase melting. Finally, soot particles influence cloud formation in ways that can have either a cooling or warming impact.

Last year, another team of researchers proposed a novel way to curb Arctic ice melt: halting airplane trips over the region. The black carbon emitted by trans-Arctic flights lingers in the atmosphere in the area longer than it does elsewhere.

Bloomberg.com outlines other effects:

The four-year study by more than two dozen researchers also showed that black carbon causes “significantly higher warming” over the Arctic and can affect rainfall patterns in high- emitting regions such as Asia. The pollutant also has contributed to rising temperatures in mid- to high-latitude areas including the U.S. and Canada.

The article (by the aptly named “Justin Doom”) notes that soot “trails only carbon dioxide as the most dangerous climate pollutant.”

Soot pollution won’t be a trivial problem to fix. A recent report suggested that some 1,200 new coal plants are planned around the world, and coal consumption for power production is a big generator of soot. Earlier this week, we noted that soot pollution in Beijing was spiking as electricity production increased, though levels have since receded. Diesel engines, another major contributor to black carbon pollution, pose another set of challenges.

Nonetheless, you can’t cure a disease until you diagnose it. Here’s our diagnosis: Soot is dangerous — in more ways than we knew.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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2012, the hottest year in U.S. history, was one of the coldest years this century globally

by HarralGeidl697 Posted on January 15, 2013

2012, the hottest year in U.S. history, was one of the coldest years this century globally

By Philip Bump

This is the state of the climate as we know it now. 2012 was only the 10th-warmest year in recorded history around the world (though, of course, it was the warmest in U.S. history). Nonetheless, 2012 global land and sea temperatures were higher than every year in the 20th century, save one, 1998. Yet in terms of the 21st century, 2012 was one of the coldest.

Again, just to make the point: The hottest year in American history was one of the coldest worldwide this century.

Here’s the overview from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

The globally-averaged temperature for 2012 marked the 10th warmest year since record keeping began in 1880. It also marked the 36th consecutive year with a global temperature above the 20th century average. The last below-average annual temperature was 1976. Including 2012, all 12 years to date in the 21st century (2001–2012) rank among the 14 warmest in the 133-year period of record.

Here’s how various regions of the world stacked up compared to 1981-2012 temperatures. Alaska was much colder; the rest of the country, much warmer.

More data points from the report:

The global annual temperature has increased at an average rate of 0.06 degrees C (0.11 degrees F) per decade sine 1880 and at an average rate of 0.16 degrees C (0.28 degrees F) per decade since 1970.
The 2012 worldwide land surface temperature was 0.90 degrees C (1.62 degrees F) above the 20th century average, making it the seventh warmest such period on record. The margin of error is ± 0.18 degrees C (0.32 degrees F).
Major drought gripped important agricultural regions across the world during summer 2012. These regions included eastern Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and central North America.
The United Kingdom had its second wettest year since records began in 1910, falling just 7.3 mm (0.29 inches) shy of the record wetness of 2000. Particularly notable, record dryness during March turned to record wetness in April.
For all of 2012, Arctic sea ice extent was below average.
The annual Arctic sea ice melting ended on September 16th, when the Arctic sea ice extent dropped to 1.32 million square miles (3.41 million square km), the lowest value ever recorded. The annual minimum extent was 49 percent below average and 0.29 million square miles (0.76 million square km) below the previous smallest extent which occurred in September 2007.

Again: all of this in one of the coldest years this century. By the time we get to 2100, the odds are good that 2012 will be considered to have been unusually cold. Be sure to tell your great-great-grandkids all about what life was like in the old, frigid days of what we once called the United States’ hottest year ever.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Chicken Little

by Posted on January 10, 2013

Chicken Little

Posted 10 January 2013 in

National

The poultry industry is once again trotting out untruths when it comes to food prices, so it’s time to take a closer look at the author behind their latest collection of “facts.”

In a recent study, Dr. Thomas Elam is repeating the same tired arguments about food prices we’ve all heard before. This is unsurprising, given that his methodologies have been questioned in the past. EPA took him to task back in 2008 saying that his modeling around impact of the renewable fuel standard did “not appear to accurately reflect market forces” and that EPA did not find the analysis “plausible.”

Even more telling is the company Elam keeps: his colleagues at the Center for Global Food Issues claim to conduct research on environmental issues and food production. But that’s hard to swallow when they avidly deny climate change (for instance, claiming that tropical rainbelts shift every few hundred years). Climate change is arguably the biggest threat to food production, affecting global temperatures, drought and water supplies.

Oil is one of the biggest global warming culprits. With 2012 topping the charts as the warmest year ever for the U.S., it’s time to get real about the connection between oil, climate change, and food costs.

Let’s take a look at the facts:

Fact: Oil prices drive food prices – and global food prices are dropping

Energy costs – along with labor, marketing and packaging – are the main driver of food prices, plain-and-simple.

The vast majority — 84% — of food costs are derived from non-farm costs, according to the USDA and the Economic Research Service. (And it’s not just ERS: the United Nations has raised the alarm about the impact oil prices are having on our food prices.) That means just 16% of the dollar that someone spends at the grocery store goes to pay for all of the different crops that made the food they’re buying. And out of that 16%, just 3% is for corn (Elam himself notes in the study that “corn is just one of many basic farm inputs used to produce the U.S. food supply.”)

Because of the major oil-based inputs to food prices, oil prices ultimately drive food prices, not ethanol. What’s more, when you look at food prices on a global scale, they’re actually dropping, according to the latest UN figures and information from the US EIA and BLS:

(Sources: EIA and Bureau of Labor Statistics)

When you know the facts, this line from Elam is particularly suspect: “other than major increases in corn production . . . the only other possibility for food affordability relief is to revisit the RFS, and lower ethanol production incentives.”

Reducing the cost of oil – both as a food cost input and as a driver of household costs for Americans – would be a great place to start to make food more affordable.

Between 2009 and 2011, average household spending on gasoline jumped nearly 44% according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics data, while spending on food at home was nearly flat, up just 1.0%.

Which brings us to our next fact . . .

Fact: Ethanol saves families money

Renewable fuel helps to lower the price of fuel, the key driver in food prices. An Iowa State University study found that in recent years, ethanol has cut gasoline prices by $0.89 per gallon from where they otherwise would have been. Overall, Americans saved $50 billion on imported fuel costs in 2011 thanks to renewable fuel. Renewable fuel has also driven a $500 billion increase in America’s farm assets since 2007, supporting our nation’s farmers and struggling rural economies.

Fact: Ethanol does not use nearly as much of the corn crop as people think

The “40% myth” is just that – it’s a myth, and it’s wrong.

Ethanol is produced from a different type of corn than the crop that people eat. This field corn, fed to livestock, delivers two beneficial products – the ethanol itself from the starch portion of the kernel – and the remaining part of the plant, with nutritious fiber, protein and more, is turned into valuable livestock feed.

When you look at both products, only 16% of the net corn crop goes to ethanol.

Worldwide, the vast majority – more than 90% – of the corn crop is available for non-ethanol use.

Elam not only ignores the reality of how global food prices have changed over time, but the central role that oil plays in those prices. Prices at the pump are what’s really eating into American’s paychecks, not ethanol.

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A ‘fusion’ of good news: Solar stocks are ‘hot’ thanks to Warren Buffett’s ‘flare’

by gerdi Posted on January 4, 2013

A ‘fusion’ of good news: Solar stocks are ‘hot’ thanks to Warren Buffett’s ‘flare’

By Philip Bump

It’s generally a good sign when Warren Buffett starts investing in your company/industry/country. Known as the “Wizard of Omaha” due to his ability to send little girls back to Kansas, Buffett is the second most famous representative of investment powerhouse Berkshire Hathaway. (His heavily taxed secretary is the most famous.) And when Berkshire Hathaway makes an investment, markets move.

The investment, via SmartPlanet:

[Berkshire Hathaway subisidary] MidAmerican Renewables kicked off 2013 with another major purchase. The company announced this week it has acquired SunPower’s Antelope Valley Solar Projects, two co-located projects in Kern and Los Angeles counties in California.

MidAmerican didn’t disclose the purchase price. However, analysts have pinned the purchase price somewhere between $2 billion and $2.5 billion.

Together, the combined projects will form the largest permitted solar photovoltaic power development in the world, according to SunPower and MidAmerican.

The market action, via the Los Angeles Times:

The SunPower deal, worth as much as $2.5 billion, sent solar stocks on a tear.

SunPower soared as much as 41% to $8.68 a share. Lazard Capital Markets upgraded the company to buy from neutral.

Suntech was up more than 18% to $1.90 a share, while First Solar gained as much as 11% to $35.60 a share.

Shutterstock

GET IT?

Those stock increases are still holding strong today, via MSN.com.

SunPower:

Suntech:

First Solar:

Tip to business owners: Rename your companies “Sun”-something. Or, alternately: “Solar”-something. See also: SolarCity, as covered at GigaOm:

Following an IPO that saw solar installer and financier SolarCity’s shares rise almost 50 percent on its first day of trading, the Elon Musk-backed company now says it has a robust growth plan in place for its solar roofs in 2013. This year, SolarCity says it plans to install 250 MW of solar roof capacity, up from 156 MW of solar roofs capacity installed in 2012.

To put that in perspective, the entire solar panel industry in the U.S. is estimated to have installed 3,200 MW (3.2 GW) of solar roof capacity in 2012, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. There were a record number of solar roof installations in the U.S. last year.

SolarCity’s stock was up 13.44 percent in morning trading to $14.77.

And SolarCity’s stock now?

A lesser person would make the following joke: Who knew the sun was so hot? What a jerk that guy would be, making that dumb joke.

It bears noting that occasionally stock prices go down, I guess. I don’t know. Who am I, Warren Buffett?

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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A ‘fusion’ of good news: Solar stocks are ‘hot’ thanks to Warren Buffett’s ‘flare’

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