Last Week’s Question:
Back in 1816 Mainers endured the famous “year without a summer”, which reportedly included a frost on the 4th of July! What caused “the year without a summer”?
- No one knows, it was just “weather”
- The eruption of a volcano in the south Pacific called Mt. Tambora
- The early 1800s were a period of global cooling known as the “little ice age”
- Huge forest fires in Canada blocked out the sun for most of the summer
- Al Gore’s great grandfather had one too many and forgot to turn-up the Earth’s thermostat.
- The Sun was in a period of very low sunspot activity which cut the amount of solar energy that reached the Earth.
The answer is “2” – volcanic eruptions can significantly influence the weather. In 1991, the eruption of Mt Pinatubo contributed to a very cool summer here in Maine. The 1815 eruption of Tambora was 10 times more powerful than Pinatubo and happened at the tail end of the “Little Ice Age”. The Little Ice Age lasted about 400 years, starting around 1400 AD and ending in the early 1800’s. The coldest weather was during the 1600s.
This week’s Question:
North Dakota has the lowest electricity price: 10 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) for supply and delivery combined. Hawaii has the highest price for electricity: 44 cents per kWh. Because they live on islands, 100% of the electricity Hawaiians use must be generated within their state (i.e. none is imported from other states or Canada). Over 60% of Hawaii’s electricity is generated by burning oil, all imported by ship. Wind and solar make-up about 30% and the rest is generated by burning trash and biomass. Within the continental United States, what state has the highest electricity price?
- Connecticut
- Massachusetts
- New Hampshire
- Maine
- Rhode Island
- Vermont
- California
Randall Poulton
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