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June 02, 2022

Open (Not Ukraine) Thread 2022-78

News & views (not related to Ukraine) ...

Posted by b on June 2, 2022 at 14:28 UTC | Permalink

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The US is considering sanctions against the UK.

The US Presidential administration has reportedly clashed with the UK over the imposition of "unnecessary obstacles" for US defence firms aiming to operate in the UK. It's been reported that the Biden administration has threatened, if restrictions are not removed, to limit its sharing of intelligence.

The row has reportedly kicked off over the takeover of British firm Ultra Electronics, a supplier of secret tech to nuclear submarines. Cobham, the private equity-backed buyer, is another UK defence business.

https://tinyurl.com/2n6w2nva

Posted by: Leuk | Jun 2 2022 15:16 utc | 1


All the heavily censored news fit to print. BS

Posted by: Berndt Braincell | Jun 2 2022 15:22 utc | 2

As part of my due diligence for my latest (and probably last) project: I am looking very closely at the state of electricity and the grid.

From the latest Texas ERCOT "State of the Grid" report:

Over the last five years: 15 GW of wind, 10 GW of solar, 1.5 GW of energy storage and 1.6 GW of gas-fired capacity was installed, while 5.6 GW of coal and 0.9 GW of gas steam capacity was retired.

As I noted before during the 2021 Texas Winter storm - it was likely that the huge investments in alternative energy plus retirements of existing fossil fuels was a major contributor to the problem.

As you can see, the retirements of coal and gas steam were very large. If we assume 60% cap factor for gas/coal vs. 30% for wind and 20% for solar PV, the net generating capacity change was +15*.3, +10*.2, +1.5*.6, -5.6*.6, -.9*.6 = +7.4 -3.9 = +3.4 effective average GWh of actual electricity capacity, but the variability certainly increased massively because the maximum output of the solar+wind would be 25 GWh.

And this can be seen in the report:

Transmission congestion in the real-time market was up 46% in 2021, totaling $2.1 billion. More than $560 million of this was generated during Winter Storm Uri.

...

ERCOT is increasingly limiting the flows across certain network paths to maintain the stability of the system, which increases transmission congestion costs. These stability issues have partly been caused by the increase in inverter-based resources. The congestion rent associated with these stability constraints increased from $190 million in 2020 to $400 million in 2021, roughly 20 percent of all real-time congestion costs

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 2 2022 15:23 utc | 3

Interesting link talking about how economic sanctions are the latest iteration of winning via aerial bombing Of Sanctions and Strategic Bombers

The air theorists’ faulty psychology reflected the general biases of their class: as a rule modernist intellectuals represented the masses as an easily manipulated and mercurial mob.6 But this was not the theorists’ only problem. Freedman and Michaels identify several conceptual flaws in their theory of victory that would pose problems for the belligerents even if enemy masses had acted as mob-like as the strategic bombers had hoped: 6

John Carey, The Intellectuals And The Masses: Pride and Prejudice Among the Literary Intelligentsia, 1880-1939 (New York: Faber and Faber 2005).

There was nothing stopping manipulative elites from using attacks on civilians to redirect anger away from themselves and towards a hated enemy.
There was no reason to believe that “a change in attitude [among the civilian population] would automatically result in a change in behavior—and that this would take the form of activism rather than apathy.”
There was no reason to believe that “the means would be available for mass activism to transform the government conduct of the war”—especially if said government was as coercive as its enemies portrayed it.7

Note this is not saying aerial bombing had no impact on World War 2.

What it is saying is that the original stated goal of winning through causing civilian populations to overthrow their rulers in anger and pain over aerial bombing proved to be false.

Now substitute "economic sanctions" for "aerial bombing" above.

Huh.

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 2 2022 15:26 utc | 4

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 2 2022 15:26 utc | 4

One can also makes the case for aerial bombing of cities as a part of economic war. Harbors and industrial city were specifically targeted in France and Germany during WW2.

Posted by: Parisian Guy | Jun 2 2022 15:46 utc | 5

Posted by: Leuk | Jun 2 2022 15:16 utc | 1

tabloid Express version: Biden takes aim at Britain – US threatens to STOP sharing intelligence over UK 'obstacles'

Washington's warning was prompted by a row over the takeover of British firm Ultra Electronics, a supplier of secret tech to nuclear submarines. Cobham, the private equity-backed buyer fund, is another UK defence business. However, if the deal goes ahead, it will in effect put Ultra under the control of the American Advent International, which has owned Cobham for the past 18 months and has already sold off most of its assets.

long story short: another antitrust farce from the makers of "free trade"

Posted by: sln2002 | Jun 2 2022 16:28 utc | 6

Should Katey Walter Anthony have any other barfly fans besides me, here's an intriguing review of KWA's new memoir. The review is posted by the Geophysical Institute, associated with University of Alaska Fairbanks -- which is where KWA works, when she's not in Minnesota...

In her recently published memoir, Katey Walter Anthony writes that a certain type of northern lake is a lot like herself.

“A thermokarst lake is born to promote itself at all costs. A full force of nature, it gnaws away at the icy, carbon-rich permafrost soils stored in the land around it. It takes more than it gives, and what it does give is not always good for the world.”

That self-critical description is a recurring theme of Walter Anthony’s book, “Chasing Lakes: Love, Science, and the Secrets of the Arctic.” It is a unique mix of science and Christianity. The book is also a reflection on the challenges and rewards of choosing to marry and become a parent.

https://www.gi.alaska.edu/alaska-science-forum/scientists-memoir-revealing-and-brave

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 2 2022 17:14 utc | 7

I find this hard to believe, we could be looking at increasing hostilities.


"U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink said that the states will not regulate the firing range of THE HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems that will be delivered to Ukraine, this will be done by Kiev.
"We are talking about yesterday's $700 million aid package, including HIMARS systems ... The Ukrainian side will regulate the distance at which they will shoot,""


https://ria.ru/20220602/rszo-1792735619.html

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Jun 2 2022 17:49 utc | 8

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 2 2022 15:26 utc | 4:

What it is saying is that the original stated goal of winning through causing civilian populations to overthrow their rulers in anger and pain over aerial bombing proved to be false.

Now substitute "economic sanctions" for "aerial bombing" above.

You made good points. There is, however, another angle to consider regarding arial bombing tactics, which is to assume the victim's leadership are patriotic and thus abhors to see the valuable infrastructure of their beloved country going up in smoke. Hitler bombed London 'til kingdom come but found that London citizens hardened their resolve and backed Churchill even firmer. Clinton did the same to Belgrade, and found Milosovic cratering to sign Rambouillet. So, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Economic sanction, on the other hand, is finding yet another surprising outcome. Victims of sanctioned nation are rallying around their leadership while citizens of the nations that dealt the sanctions are bitching about their own leadership. Philosophers are fond of saying human nature being the most unpredictable. These are cases in point.

Posted by: Oriental Voice | Jun 2 2022 18:39 utc | 9

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 2 2022 15:23 utc | 3:

As part of my due diligence for my latest (and probably last) project: I am looking very closely at the state of electricity and the grid.

Give yourself plenty of time to look closely at the 'electricity and the grid' thingy in the era of alternative energy. We are at the very beginning of the evolution, and have tons of 'power physics' to learn before finding the true essence of how to make interruptible generation resources work seamlessly on our grid. The large scale interconnection nature of our present grid grew out of city-based isolated systems way back in the early 20th century. It took until the 30's for the Northeast network to form, as the poster child for other interconnected networks in the lower 48 states to copy afterwards, in the name of contingency diversity and enhanced reliability. It took decades of bumps and hit-ups to mature, under an era during which Power Engineering was a prestigious profession and attracted some of our best engineering minds. Today, 'green energy' is politically driven, dominated by demagogues and salesmen, not clear minded engineers (China is an exception, though). Many engineering aspects of the science have yet to be studied in serious manners, such as location diversity of resources to adhere to weather patterns in order to minimize interruptability of the output, storage efficiency and economics, complementarity of resources and control, etc. etc. There are very scanty IEEE papers on these subject matters, because we are not attracting enough bright engineers into the profession. There is a long way to go before "alternate energy' can become a mundane stapple for us to enjoy.

Posted by: Oriental Voice | Jun 2 2022 19:01 utc | 10

German prosecutors halt probe into KKK group
underdeveloped entrapment skillz

Posted by: sln2002 | Jun 2 2022 19:34 utc | 11

I woke up this morning worrying about Julian Assange. The USA doesn't seem to be in any hurry to take possession of him. That has me thinking it may never take possession of him. Why bother bringing him to the USA or Guantanamo to stand trial? Just leave him in Bellmarsh prison in the UK to spend the rest of his life. The UK will be glad to keep him imprisoned indefinitely just in case the USA were to ask for him.

Posted by: Chas | Jun 2 2022 20:08 utc | 12

Re 9:

Milosevic never signed Rambouillet, which was the proposal before the war. And when he finally did a negotiated surrender, it reportedly was because Russia under Yeltsin threatened to cut off natural gas to Serbia if they didn't capitulate. If anyone has more info, feel free to speak up.

Posted by: Antiwar7 | Jun 2 2022 20:31 utc | 13

A question for USAns reading this. "did you notice that NZ PM Jacinda Ardern visited President Biden at the Whitehouse?"
I ask because I'm curious how much she is being put in your consciousness.

Posted by: tucenz | Jun 2 2022 20:37 utc | 14

Julian Assange has been imprisoned for years for reporting the truth about U.S. crimes. See Videos: Free and Compensate Julian Assange! US & UK Must Pay Restitution for Malicious Prosecution!

Posted by: Tom | Jun 2 2022 21:18 utc | 15

Can anyone here confirm which Baltic ports bar RU ships? Regardless of container commodity?

Posted by: sln2002 | Jun 2 2022 21:54 utc | 16

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 2 2022 15:23 utc | 3

A most interesting comment of sorts.

So are you implying that alternate green energy sources contributed to the self destruction of the main Texas AC supply power grid.

Thus , it matters not the actual type of power plant installed at the supply end. When the intermediate main supply cables. E power substations and pole transformers. Are literally blown away by strong winds from mother nature's extreme weather events. This also include too much wind passed by paid shills and gasbag talking heads. Talking up a storm of much ado about absolute zero.

Lest we forget. All USSA electric power companies. To obey the standard USSA business mantra of steal from the poor and maximize profits. Employ the absolute minimum number of linesmen. Who can barely keep up with daily existing workload of AC grid repair. And are incapable of instant repair. When large sections of the existing AC grid are literally blown away.

Then again , I note on the sales data of the latest "F(ound)O(nthe)R(oadsice)D(ead) 'e' truck. Due on sale in California from October , 1st, 2023. Rapidly followed by sales in other USSA states. This new 'e' vehicle has a reverse main battery connector. When the houses local AC power fails. A isolating breaker inside the house trips . Thus allowing this truck to act as an emergency AC power supply battery . for the house in question.

Truth can be stranger than fiction and the paid for mostly corrupt living in denial gasbag talking heads. Are always paid to ignore 98% of the inconvenient truth. Who benefits? Should one question more?

Now ain't that a gasser! Or not!

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Jun 3 2022 0:09 utc | 17

Below is a link to a piece from The Register that is part of the asymmetrical neutron bomb going off in our civilization war

China’s top court calls for blockchain to record vast number of transactions

The take away quote


Published last week, the opinion* reveals that the Court has already recorded 2.2 billion items on a judicial blockchain. The Court now suggests 32 more initiatives, most of which concern using blockchain to enhance efficiency of, and trust in, the nation’s judiciary.

But the recommendations also go far wider, calling for the creation of “an interoperation collaborative mechanism with blockchain platforms”. That effort will allow “market regulation, property registration … and enable inquiry about and verification of information related to the ownership registration and status of transactions, such as basic business profile, variation of corporate equities, correlation between businesses, ownership of immovables and movables, financial leasing, precious metal trading, to facilitate the identification of ownership and transactions of property rights, so as to intensify the development of the classified and categorized supervision system based on data and credit, and to further improve the national business environment.”

The opinion also calls for blockchains to become part of China’s infrastructure to manage registration and protection of intellectual property, market regulation, property registration, data ownership, online data trading, transactions between financial institutions, and the insurance market.

Think for just a minute what sort of public transparency this provides to social intercourse of all kinds....
Where does lawyer's discovery go if all evidence on blockchain?
How do you cut the corners off a digital coin to steal some of the intrinsic value?
The West will never go for this sort of technology application because it hinders their manipulation capabilities behind the curtain.

BOOM chakalaka

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jun 3 2022 1:24 utc | 18

Pure Walter Patrick Lang, irony alert:
https://turcopolier.com/a-primer-on-the-m270-mlrs-and-m142-himars-ttg/#comment-205160


Pat Lang says:
June 2, 2022 at 9:00 am
Datil D
Winning comes before all. TTG and I know a lot about international politics. Do you? If you lose in actual war, you lost. Ask “b” about that. He is still smarting abt WW2.

Meaning: Bernhard hasn't accepted yet that Germany lost the war. How does he know? Well, if he had, he wouldn't dare to constantly condemn US wars, proxy wars, politics and power.

Posted by: LeaNder | Jun 3 2022 3:17 utc | 19

Former Australian NSW Premier and Federal Labour Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, on the Israeli lobby after the recent change of Government:

For its part the Jewish News was to boldly state its preference for the Coalition only days before the election, quoting the Executive Council of Australian Jewry that “…we are still concerned at the prospect than an ALP government would unilaterally recognise a Palestinian state, withdraw Australia’s recognition of west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and revert to a voting pattern at the UN that is less sympathetic to Israel under the current government.”

https://johnmenadue.com/the-lobby-and-labor/

Posted by: Menz | Jun 3 2022 3:38 utc | 20

C1UE 3 --

There were basically 2 issues in the 2011 Texas Winter Storm.

1. Cheapness

Texas wind providers did not install the "cold weather" package used elsewhere. Not needed, they thought.

Gas suppliers--the widely recognized bigger issue--had not installed sufficient insulation
and heater capacity. Not only was electricity production from gas greatly cut back (and it has become THE peaking capacity which makes the system work) gas prices went astronomical for a few days.

Stupid utilities like mine had not bothered to make windows in certain equipment buildings closeable. Heat was always the greater problem, they thought. Coal plants and nuclear reactors had to go offline because of such errors. Distribution centers failed to roll blackouts as they are supposed to because they were frozen up, so large metro areas saw loss of power from 24-72 hours at a time.

(The reward for the cheap gas suppliers was record profits. And for everyone else exorbitant costs--like the $1B excess payments my utility had to borrow for (meaning we'll eventually pay).

2. The fact that Texas stupidly insists on maintaining a grid separate from the US. El Paso had no shortage of power because they're on the Western US Grid.

This of course was done to keep Texas power cheap (not as high reliability standards) and profitable, of course

Posted by: Charles Peterson | Jun 3 2022 5:36 utc | 21

I meant the 2021 Texas Deep Freeze.

Posted by: Charles Peterson | Jun 3 2022 5:47 utc | 22

A most interesting conversation.

Sadly "RT" reported a tragic yet preventable fire in the "Grand Setun Plaza office building" in 'Moskva'. Friday morning "Moskva Time".

The video of the blaze is identical to the "Grenfell Tower Tragedy" . On the 14th , June 2017, London UK.

Going further back in time. There was the " 23-storey Lacrosse Building" 'Docklands Tower fire' 25th, November, 2014 . The flames went from 14th floor to the roof in a mere six minutes.

The actual cause of both fires in the UK and Oz. Was due to the use of cheap high fire risk installed external cladding........ In fact later reports from Melbourne , Oz show that a large number of private built from plan high rise apartment buildings erected after 2005. Use this dangerously high fire risk cladding imported from "China" .

In order to save a few pennies in construction costs. All the Oz commercial high rise building companies chose to use this cheap defective product. One that completely failed all Oz, standard enforceable fire standards.

Since many of the new body corporate which run these for profit commercial buildings failed to have any type of "Disaster Insurance". They have three options.

One: Sue the builder to remove and replace these dangerous materials. Then the actual building companies file for bankruptcy. Thus the owners, fortunes intact walk away laughing at the fools. Create a new company and operate business as usual.

Two: Sue the local government planning office. For failing in duty and care. This is possible under the unique "Last Man Standing Judgement"......... Most Local governments since the forced "Jeff Kennett Local Government reorganization (1990's)". The majority of the local governments are still carrying extensive debts from this event. All local government activities were externalized to inflation proof contractors. The planning and building permit departments were placed under direct control of the State premier/minister "Under do as you are told rubber stamp everything orders". Ain't that a mess.

Three : Demand that the State Government supply a tax payer funded cash grant. To remove and replace this fire prone cheap cladding. A "free get out of jail card"..............

It would appear that suppliers of this well known dangerous self inflammable external material. Was also sold to the Russian builders.

Cheap is never the best option.

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Jun 3 2022 10:41 utc | 23

Posted by: Charles Peterson | Jun 3 2022 5:36 utc | 21

Actually since Texas is in "Tornado Alley". The buildings erected are all cheaply made. On the basis, "No private cheaply /fast erected wood frame Building". can withstand an F5 Tornado blowing through the town. The building standards in Texas , must so lax..........

In Oz, homes erected in the tropical cyclone areas. Are all built to a far stricter code standard. (Cyclones=Hurricanes)

Makes one wonder. Why the residents in Texas. Do not erect semi underground dwellings Covered by a large amount of insulating dirt. With no attached roof to be blown away.

Such dwellings by nature have stable all year round temperatures. External tall guyed stove pipes and venting. Light wells can be easily installed . Yet simple enough to use low cost heating and cooling. Yet one can even mow the roof top lawn too. As a bonus resistant to 'drive by' gun crazed Texan shooters .

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Jun 3 2022 11:15 utc | 24

Gas prices resuming daily record new highs:

regular gasoline

Current Avg. $4.761

Yesterday Avg. $4.715

Week Ago Avg. $4.599

Month Ago Avg. $4.204

Year Ago Avg. $3.042



diesel
Current Avg. $5.581

Yesterday Avg. $5.556

Week Ago Avg. $5.530

Month Ago Avg. $5.370

Year Ago Avg. $3.186

Given the world gasoline price index jump of $0.50 - it seems like we will see $5 national average regular gas this evolution. Regular gas has been going up 4 and 5 cents a day for the past 4 days.

Again, keep in mind the US consumes about 100 billion gallons of gasoline and 40 billion gallons of diesel a year - so take the present - year ago numbers and multiply accordingly. That is the direct impact of rising oil prices on American disposable income.

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 3 2022 14:57 utc | 25

@Oriental Voice #10
I am presenting hard data - which is what informs my views on alternative energy, not ideology.

Texas has installed enormous amounts of alternative energy even as it has visibly retired fossil fuels. Overall, wind and solar PV now generate over 25% of all electricity in Texas - up from 11% in 2014.

Consider how much capital and human resources were deployed in order to make this happen; capital and human resources which were not deployed for other purposes like maintenance. 25GW of the total 34 overall alternative energy generation capacity was installed in the past 5 years alone.

Here are the relevant graphs for overall electricity generation in Texas in the past few years up to 2021:
Generation pic

Here is the breakout for wind:
Wind production and curtailment

Here is the breakout for solar:
Solar production and curtailment

The red is the amount of generated electricity thrown away. In 2021, Texas curtailed (threw away) approximately 7.4 terawatt hours of electricity.

Note this "throwing away" isn't free. While wind and solar PV are not the only source of curtailment - overall curtailment was ~11.7 terawatt hours - it is absolutely driving up overall curtailment.
Basically 2/3rds of Texas curtailment is wind and solar PV.

The price paid for this curtailment ranges from $400 million to $2.1 billion depending on the specific definition used. And this matters: if we apply the proportional cost of curtailment for wind (6/11.7 * $400M = $205M) and divide this cost by the overall wind production ($205M / 92 billion kWh) - we get a wind curtailment cost of $2.23 to $11.70 per MWh.

EIA LCOE for wind is supposedly $34.37 source

I guarantee the LCOE doesn't include curtailment costs, so curtailment alone adds 6.5% to 34% to LCOE.

Does LCOE also include the cost of backup and/or storage? I doubt it.

But even these costs issues at present aren't the issue. Look at the historical curtailment vs. useable wind production graph again.

Note how the absolute amount of curtailment is rising every year. The amount of curtailment is a relatively small percentage (~6%) but it is scaling up and it is very costly. And yes, the absolute costs are scaling up too.

Is it likely that this curtailment percentage will fall if wind electricity penetration increases past 25%? Seems unlikely.

The report states also that wind is not good for peak load: most wind generation occurs overnight or off-season - a duck (or in Texas, dead armadillo) curve problem.

As I noted above, the overall curtailment is only 2/3rds due to wind/solar PV. The remainder is due to congestion issues: the US grid isn't a "grid" per se, it is more like a very sparse branching tree or shrub. Congestion is when a given branch intersection is unable to handle the electricity throughput that the rest of the network asks of it.

At least some of this is due to the wind/solar PV - but more importantly: the grid is simply unable to handle even existing flows much less what is needed for say, full electrification of cars.

Overall, Texas has installed 34 GW of solar PV and wind vs. the all time peak demand day of 74.82 MW on 8/12/2019. (Note present solar PV+wind generation contribution is ~26%).

Can you see how the approach to net zero using solar PV and wind is going to require enormous grid changes? Plus magical battery storage or some other storage mechanism?

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 3 2022 15:31 utc | 26

@Charles Peterson #24
The winterization was absolutely a major factor, but so was the fact that a lot of coal capacity was retired.
Or in other words, there would have been a problem for sure anyway, but it would not have been nearly so bad.

Look at the data I post above: Texas installed 25 GW of wind or solar PV capacity in the 5 years leading up to 2021. That is a ginormous capital investment, as well as human resource deployment focus.

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 3 2022 15:33 utc | 27

@Bad Deal Motors On #17
There were going to be problems no matter what, but the complete and total failure of the Texas grid was significantly due to retirement of coal plants and replacement by wind/solar PV - both in direct resilience of the Texas power grid to negative effects and due to defocus on existing maintenance and resilience activities in favor of installing 25 GW of wind and solar PV in the 5 years leading up to 2021.
In other words, while the 2021 storm would have caused problems - it certainly would have been less bad if those coal plants were still online.
It is likely it may have been less bad if capital focus was not entirely on installing enormous amounts of wind and solar PV, but this isn't 100%.

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 3 2022 15:51 utc | 28

France not immune to EU electricity/natural gas/fossil fuel problems

Bloomberg via WuWT.com

The halt of yet another nuclear unit in France means half of its reactors are now offline for maintenance, keeping power supplies tight in a country that is traditionally one of Europe’s biggest electricity exporters.

Twenty-eight reactors are offline as Electricite de France SA struggles with extended outages after corrosion issues were found at some sites, requiring lengthy checks and repairs. The extra works come on top of already scheduled halts for refueling and regular maintenance, and has brought French nuclear output to the lowest in more than decade for the time of year.

The nuclear fleet is crucial, and can supply more than two thirds of the country’s power, so the halts could potentially worsen Europe’s supply crisis. They’re also having a bigger impact on France’s electricity market than in Germany, which relies more on gas and coal to run plants. France’s daily power prices have averaged about 30% more than in its neighbor this year, and four times higher than in the same period in 2021.

From the WuWT poster:

This is a reminder of just how old France’s nuclear reactors are. Out of the total nuclear capacity of 61 GW, only 9 GW is less than 30 years old. Just how much longer they can be patched together must be open to question.

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 3 2022 15:53 utc | 29

I do believe that COVID was real (the impacts of "long COVID" is going to be a drag on society for years), and am not anti-vaccine, but have always been extremely uncomfortable with the MRNA technology usage. The FDA trie to keep the testing records secret or 75 years, but was forced to release them under FOIA. The details are extremely concerning, the impacts of the misuse of this technology will be with us for decades.

Dear Friends, Sorry to Announce a Genocide from Naomi Wolf

Posted by: Roger | Jun 3 2022 15:53 utc | 30

Mass shooters identifiable according to 2 professors. And not by their gun ownership.

Stopping Mass Shooting, a Q & A - politico.com

POLITICO: Since you both spend much of your time studying mass shootings, I wonder if you had the same stunned and horrified reaction as the rest of us to the Uvalde elementary school shooting. Or were you somehow expecting this?

Jillian Peterson: On some level, we were waiting because mass shootings are socially contagious and when one really big one happens and gets a lot of media attention, we tend to see others follow. But this one was particularly gutting. I have three elementary school kids, one of which is in 4th grade.

i.e. social media and mass media attention on one shooter triggers others.

Densley: Mass shooters study other mass shooters. They often find a way of relating to them, like, “There are other people out there who feel like me.”

...

POLITICO: Can you take us through the profile of mass shooters that emerged from your research?

Peterson: There’s this really consistent pathway. Early childhood trauma seems to be the foundation, whether violence in the home, sexual assault, parental suicides, extreme bullying. Then you see the build toward hopelessness, despair, isolation, self-loathing, oftentimes rejection from peers. That turns into a really identifiable crisis point where they’re acting differently. Sometimes they have previous suicide attempts.

What’s different from traditional suicide is that the self-hate turns against a group. They start asking themselves, “Whose fault is this?” Is it a racial group or women or a religious group, or is it my classmates? The hate turns outward. There’s also this quest for fame and notoriety.

POLITICO: You’ve written about how mass shootings are always acts of violent suicide. Do people realize this is what’s happening in mass shootings?

Peterson: I don’t think most people realize that these are suicides, in addition to homicides. Mass shooters design these to be their final acts. When you realize this, it completely flips the idea that someone with a gun on the scene is going to deter this. If anything, that’s an incentive for these individuals. They are going in to be killed.

Suicide has been described as an ultimate and final act of violence on the friends and family of the suicide.

Mass shooting is this act of violence perpetrated on an entire society - enabled and aided by social media and mainstream media.

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 3 2022 16:28 utc | 31

the war on violence in US schools, as the violence in Ukraine, can only be won by more violence, more soldiers, cops, guns, mercs, more armed "experts" with badges of authority herding surveilled gmo beef-fed sheep thru more and more gates and locks with taller fences.

what is a fence? a lock? a door? a security camera?

another cop. sitting around. doing nothing.

who knows that already if you can't respond correctly to the "Papieren bitte" of the dogs in authority, you won't get jack shit for help from officialdom in this country?

the principal achievement of capitalism, after the buffalo, etc., is the unbelievable waste of time. in American political parlance, people (not women of course or blacks or natives, but people nonetheless) form governments to "promote the general welfare".

general welfare does not include baby food, but it sure includes a fuckton of guns. the US is so full of trash that it won't even make a suitable compost heap at its imminent, eminent, much deserved and needed, death.

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Jun 3 2022 16:31 utc | 32

I did use to listen to every Prof. Stephen Cohen-Bachelder podcasts back in the day. These days I had been coming to like Military Support Analysis daily updates on Rumble most. And now I see that "The Saker Staff" like it also.

I had been seeing a parallel to his changing parts of his maps to red and one character in "In the First Circle" that I laugh minutely about myself, but I still like it

Posted by: paxmark1 | Jun 3 2022 16:49 utc | 33

Well, I posted here thinking it was the Ukraine one, oh well. MilitarySummary on rumble just posted a Syria update. Succinct, he will have more updates on Syria in the future.

Posted by: paxmark1 | Jun 3 2022 17:09 utc | 34

Is a visit to NORAD a photo op for a Canadian PM? Why else would a PM go?

PM Trudeau announces visit to NORAD and to attend the Summit of the Americas
https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2022/06/03/prime-minister-visit-norad-and-attend-summit-americas

“While in Los Angeles, Prime Minister Trudeau will hold additional meetings to strengthen joint action on climate change and nature protection. He will be joined by Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault.” [Both are elected from Montréal. Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly is coming too - also elected in Montréal.]

Maybe related— Caribbean Special Tactics Center is a joint affair between Jamaica and Canada.

https://caribbeanmilitaryacademy.edu.jm/cstc.php

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Jun 3 2022 17:23 utc | 35

Let's all agree that we agree to disagree whether "mommy has two daddies" is suitable reading material. for anyone. let's all fight and agree to fight about that, especially over the bodies of kids. should girls be boxing? what's a girl?

BUT let's also all agree that our children, who are our future, need more security. we cannot have a safe society in which just anyone can walk onto a school campus. anywhere.

we also need to do the same to the internet. filters, people. filters. you filter your water and air don't you?

now where the hell is Shame Month? pride month. barf. what is there to be proud of? there's some gay rats in the national Abbott Laboratory? but look! all addicted to Coke. all tased by the same cops. educated and surveilled by the same police state, now w/more ICE.

there's a great review of "Brokered Bodies" up at wsws, about the gigantic and burgeoning "rehab industry" in the US. the big piece missed in the review, and almost entirely overlooked by that lot, is that this is the flip side of the Drug War. (they don't voice opinions about things like drug legalization because of how distant they are from the actual working class. separate topic. stay on target.)

there's not anything in this country that doesn't run this way. money from disease and crime. you can see the ingredients if you take a moment to look at the words, not the glossy fiberglass coating, the words, on every box at the local grocery store. it's all bread and circuses, now w/more gmo twinkies and ding dongs shoved in everyone's mouths.

the populace, above all its "opinions," are another resource to be exploited, like the trees and fish and snow.

America's Cheetohs are crunchier than ever!

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Jun 3 2022 17:35 utc | 36

trick question:
if you are a Tesla employee, well, first of all God help you, especially if you are believer. but,

is it more efficient
1) to drive to work?
2) to not drive to work?

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Jun 3 2022 17:45 utc | 37

since our elders and betters and creditors are busy informing us how awesome it is to win their approval at another one of their honeycomb hideouts, the spelling contest. buzz buzz over their garbage, little kids, soon more fly than bee.

enough 足夠的 足够的 Zúgòu de
tough 艱難的 艰难的 Jiānnán de
through 通過 通过 Tōngguò
dough 麵團 面团 Miàntuán
slough 泥沼 泥沼 Nízhǎo

(cf. rough, cough, stuff, slough off, etc.)

now Google can give me the traditional and simplified Chinese of these words, or so it claims. why haven't these efficiency-mongers simplified the spelling of their own extraordinarily difficult language?

they aren't even trying. non-native speakers learning English would immediately have a competitive advantage over the native herd. can't let that happen. every other country in the world should take what they need of English, simplify the spelling, then teach their kids to read. watch how fast this indispensable American outhouse forgets how to wipe its own bum (oh wait, too late.)

like every social problem, the problem is multi-generational. too much effort is required to distinguish "son" from "sun", even with computers to help us old lazy people out. despite how busy we are, this country is collapsing under how unfathomably uncreative it actually is. because the priesthood exists to recreate the priesthood, they keep the oogah boogah and social programming in place.

doesn't mean that China or Iran or VZ or Pakistan has to do the same.

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Jun 3 2022 18:16 utc | 38

Wapo says big oil and finance have almost totally lost interest in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:

“If you look at project proposals in other parts of the Arctic, they’re using things like chillers to freeze the permafrost so they can drill more,” said Jenny Rowland-Shea, deputy director for public lands at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. “It’s not getting any colder in the Arctic. It’s only getting harder to do things like drill, and it’s a vicious cycle.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/06/02/arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-drilling/

Katey Walter Anthony (the scientist whose memoir I referenced above) distinctly recounts her impression that the pace of change in permafrost thaw is accelerating. Still, I'm not sure what to make of the implication WaPo's article invites (without much substantiation) that physical impracticalities are obstructing drillers, in addition to political considerations.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 3 2022 18:44 utc | 39

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 2 2022 15:23 utc | 3

Absolutely not. The outages (and they were long term) were due to the lack of regulations or enforcement and the failure of NUMEROUS gas-fired energy generation facilities to winterize. Period. Far West Texas and far East Texas were fine. They rely equally on some alternative forms of electricity generation and the only difference is they are federally regulated grids, the Eastern (regional) Interconnect and the Western (regional) Interconnect.

You're clearly on a mission to push as much fossil fuel propaganda as you can and frankly it's tiresome as hell. Take it from me - we were in our home for 2 days during the freeze without power or heat while the Republican fossil fuel hacks were busy pushing the narrative you're still carrying on about. We finally found a place to stay for the remaining 3 days after the indoor temperature reached 34F. It was an absolute horrible failure to do due diligence because the offending generation facilities were incentivized NOT to do so. It was purely about the bottom line. Capitalism, baby.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 3 2022 19:02 utc | 40

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 3 2022 15:33 utc | 27

The amount of coal power retired didn't seem to affect El Paso or Beaumont. Would you please tell us why that is? Hint: I told you in my previous post.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 3 2022 19:03 utc | 41

Look at the data I post above: Texas installed 25 GW of wind or solar PV capacity in the 5 years leading up to 2021. That is a ginormous capital investment, as well as human resource deployment focus.

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 3 2022 15:33 utc | 27

Which has absolutely nothing to do with what happened, as has been explained to you. In fact the wind generation 'plants' off the Gulf Coast helped make up for some of the gas-fired plants that were down due to the lack of winterization, which was directly due to the profit motive. Unless ERCOT and the various energy sellers have vested interests in wind/solar, they will continue to subtly lay the blame at the feet of those programs.

The areas in green and red had very few problems at all

Do you not think that coal was retired in equal numbers for the Eastern Interconnection? The western region (El Paso) has different sources.

El Paso Electric now gets 66 percent of its power from natural-gas fired power plants located in El Paso County; 30 percent from the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona; and 4 percent from several solar power plants, most of those in New Mexico, according to company officials.

How many gas fired plants in El Paso County failed?

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 3 2022 19:15 utc | 42

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 3 2022 19:15 utc | 42

yeah, he's full of crap on this, too. shocking, no? fucking Abbott and his deregulation agenda is to blame.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Jun 3 2022 19:24 utc | 43

More information on the root causes of the Texas energy grid's failure.

https://cz.boell.org/en/2021/03/19/texas-power-grid-failure-causes-lessons-learned-and-implications-eu-energy-market

In short, the root causes of the grid failure in Texas are threefold: the false promise of energy independence from federal regulation, the short-sighted deregulation of the energy market and the unwillingness to learn from similar incidents in the past.

Wind power played a tiny role.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/04/28/texas-power-outage-wind/

While Texas Republicans were quick to blame renewable energy during the storm — and have continued to target renewable energy for reform during this year’s legislative session — a recently updated report on the causes of generator outages during the week of Feb. 14 show that the most significant cause of the low power supply to the grid came from natural gas plants shutting down or reducing electricity production due to cold weather, equipment failures and natural gas shortages.

In ERCOT’s first preliminary report on the causes of the power crisis, released in early April, the grid operator included a chart that appeared to show power generation losses from wind as just slightly smaller than natural gas generation losses that week. But that analysis used the capacity of the state’s wind turbines to generate electricity, not what wind turbines would have actually generated if not for the outages.

and

The analysis also provided a more detailed picture of the reasons for natural gas outages, and showed disruptions in fuel supply to power plants were a bigger share of the outages than initially estimated. Fuel disruptions, mostly to natural gas plants, accounted for 18% of total outages at 8 a.m. Feb. 16, according to data provided by ERCOT — that's 6% more than what ERCOT initially reported.

Paperwork and insufficient communications worsened the response

The desperate scramble to power up natural gas facilities again exposed a major structural flaw in Texas’ electric grid: Oncor and other utilities didn't have good lists of what they should consider critical infrastructure, including natural gas facilities — simply because natural gas companies failed to fill out a form or didn’t know the form existed, company executives, regulators and experts said.

It’s the electricity customer’s responsibility to fill out the form, which is provided by electric utilities, usually online (ERCOT provides a second avenue with its own form). Retail electricity providers inform residents and businesses of their right to apply, according to a PUC rule.

At one point during February’s winter storm, more than half of the state’s natural gas supply was shut down due to power outages, frozen equipment and weather conditions, analysts estimate. More than 9,000 megawatts of power outages were caused by power plants not getting enough gas, enough to power 1.8 million Texas homes and accounting for at least 20% of the total outages during the week of the storm, according to ERCOT’s estimate.

As natural gas stopped flowing from the oil patch to power plants, big natural gas pipelines and production companies including Kinder Morgan, Targa Resources Corp. and Diamondback Energy Inc., kept Nye’s phone ringing off the hook during the storm, requesting that power be restored to their facilities, he would later tell state legislators at hearings the week after the storm.

“I don’t know where [power plants] are buying their gas, and I don’t know how that gas is getting to them,” Nye said during his testimony. “They’ve gotta tell me, or, whoever’s delivering that gas [does]. Take your pick.”

Again, how funny that this didn't happen to the federally regulated interconnections/grids.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 3 2022 19:27 utc | 44


enough 足夠的 足够的 Zúgòu de
tough 艱難的 艰难的 Jiānnán de
through 通過 通过 Tōngguò
dough 麵團 面团 Miàntuán
slough 泥沼 泥沼 Nízhǎo
Posted by: rjb1.5 | Jun 3 2022 18:16 utc | 38

Yeah, then there's the old saw that if phonics is so great why isn't it spelled like it sounds.

I'm reminded of an anonymous doggerel from a column by Herb Caen
in the San Francisco Chronicle back in the day:

“As if my life weren’t trying enough,
I have to live on a street called Gough.
I just can’t see the reason, though;
why not simply pronounce it Gough?
And if slough is slough to rhyme with through,
why the deuce can’t I say Gough?
Or if you’re saying plough or bough,
what’s wrong with just plain Gough?
You can lead a horse to the watering trough,
but you can’t make him drink –
and I won’t say Gough!”


I wonder what William Gruff thinks about all this.
Or is he really William Grough?

'nuff awready, bye...

Posted by: waynorinorway | Jun 3 2022 19:30 utc | 45

Posted by: pretzelattack | Jun 3 2022 19:24 utc | 43

I don't know why I even bother. I won't be responding to similar in the future. Blah blah blah (some equations) blah blah blah (insert another not-so-subtle attempt to blame alternative energy for something) blah blah blah.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 3 2022 19:32 utc | 46

The outages (and they were long term) were due to the lack of regulations or enforcement and the failure of NUMEROUS gas-fired energy generation facilities to winterize. Period.
@ Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 3 2022 19:02 utc | 40

Not quite period, imho. "Failure to winterize" on the part of Texas power authorities is merely one more in a continuing series of infrastructural failures the whole world will continue to suffer due to unremitting weather extremes of unprecedented ferocity or duration (usually both).

Another example, closer to home for me: Sea-level-rise and all the toxic, radioactive garbage still buried under Treasure Island and Bayview Hunter's Point. San Francisco's Department of Public Health has colluded criminally (imho) for decades with the US Navy and with developers to create profoundly poisonous neighborhoods. Incredible corruption like this might be a tolerable annoyance until SLR comes along to rinse the sidewalks in radioactivity.

Such infrastructural costs are quickly ascending into the trillions as a consequence of BAU emissions, according to Katherine Hayhoe.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 3 2022 19:37 utc | 47

Posted by: pretzelattack | Jun 3 2022 19:24 utc | 43

P.S. the deregulation was really kicked off by the idiot Rick Perry.

In 2002, the autonomy of Texas’ power grid allowed then-Governor Rick Perry to implement sweeping deregulation of the state’s electricity market. Perry and his Republican colleagues embraced a free-market approach whereby electricity is auctioned off in a wholesale marketplace coordinated by ERCOT. This neoliberal approach to energy distribution assumes that “markets are better at coordinating than centralized planning is” in the words of Leah Stokes, Professor at UC Santa Barbara.

In Texas, this system of de-centralized auctions means that the price of electricity, rather than the reliability and stability of its supply, has become the chief concern of energy providers. A race to the bottom ensued among Texas power generators as they fiercely competed with one another to offer the cheapest electricity possible and neglected crucial long-term investments into their power generating systems, such as protecting their transmission networks against severe weather conditions.

Additionally, the barely-regulated auctioning system meant that electricity prices can and do fluctuate wildly, especially in instances of a sharp increase in demand and insufficient supply. On 15 February 2021, in the middle of the snowstorms crippling the state, the wholesale price of one megawatt hour of electricity in Texas was $9,000 a whopping 10,000 % increase from the pre-storm prices of $50 per megawatt hour.

Bold face is mine, but isn't it interesting? The whole thing is literally a case study on the failure of deregulation and "free markets" for mission critical services. Do state regulated services sometimes fail due to negligence or stupidity? Of course they do, but they are then held accountable and those providers must implement lessons learned. ERCOT, the PUC and energy producers had plenty of previous lessons and ample time to learn from them and implement fixes. Oh, sure some fools resigned from ERCOT's board too, but they were mostly, if not all, people who didn't even reside in Texas and had zero skin in the game except for profits.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 3 2022 19:40 utc | 48

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 3 2022 19:37 utc | 47

Fair points; I just didn't feel like getting into another conversation about climate change. All's I was trying to say is that deregulation, lack of planning and the profit motive were the on-the-ground reasons for the failures. All of those things are typical of "free market" approaches to critical infrastructure and utilities.

But yeah, it's sure strange how we're having 50- and 100-year weather events every 5 to 10 years, isn't it?

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 3 2022 19:42 utc | 49

let's all fight and agree to fight about that, especially over the bodies of kids. should girls be boxing? what's a girl?
@ rjb1.5 | Jun 3 2022 17:35 utc | 36

Wow, there sure is a lot of flagrant whatchacallphobia going around these days, as if nothing is of more intense personal interest to us than other people's anatomies. There's no reason my opinion should matter to anybody -- that's my opinion: People should make up their own minds and, incidentally, try to mind their own gosh-darn business. My opinion on gender-fluidity is it's okay, nothing to be ashamed of, for goodness' sake. Much of what I see promoted as "treatment" for gender issues looks like shaming and profiteering to me -- employing state-of-the-art medical technology to force an ambiguous gender one way or the other. Rather than addressing the issue of society's intolerance of ambiguity, we've got shysters selling treatments to accomodate either-or bigotry, it appears to me. I'd like to see a study of post-procedure patients, years later: Whether they regret it, whether the treatment made their lives happier.

This is a subject which makes almost everyone uncomfortable: There are objective metrics of gender ambiguity. Happy people can span the spectrum, but we also know our world is increasingly contaminated (speaking of Bayview Hunter's Point) with endocrine disruptors, resulting in higher proportions of sexually ambiguous individuals. More people these days have had their gender somewhat chemically bent, at the very time such terror of neithers explodes all around us.

And here's one more opinion, from the incomparable Susan Werner:
Herbicides (done made me gay)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxNpK06gcwg

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 3 2022 20:17 utc | 50

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 3 2022 15:53 utc | 29

a most interesting comment of sorts.

Alas, you fail to mention France have two major problems with the countries Nuclear reactors .

Problem number one . All of existing 'e' power reactors are sited on major rivers which are used for cooling. The rivers are flowing below normal levels(drought conditions) . Thus the reactors are all throttled back to half power conditions.

Problem number two Old age

For 'e' power stations it is both prudent and normal to consider total refurbishment both for thermal and nuclear power after 30 years of continuous operation. To reduce risk of extremely costly major equipment self destruction fails..........

Down under in Oz. way back in the year 1991. A power monitor board died. The end result was the complete destruction of all the stations steam driven driven turbines. Caused by an emergency venting of Steam. As the turbines wound down to low speed . The main turbine bearings oil pressure line dropped to zero. The end result was very predictable.

Curtailment costs what an interesting completely useless throwaway fail denial argument. One that ignores the reality of consumer user driven peak and off peak power demands. Also how 'e' power is produced. by both conventional, nuclear and green energy. Purely designed to fool the least curious audience, too lazy to think for themselves.

You can fool most of the people most of the time. You cannot fool all the people all of the time...................

Question more as the Russians would say............

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Jun 3 2022 20:19 utc | 51

But yeah, it's sure strange how we're having 50- and 100-year weather events every 5 to 10 years, isn't it?
@ Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 3 2022 19:42 utc | 49

A few threads back, I was making the point that anyone claiming to have seen a worse drought in the Western US must be at least 1,200 years old, but people will continue to obsessively comfort themselves with absurdities, no matter how threadbare. The passage from a Matěj Jungwirth article you cite invokes "unwillingness to learn from similar incidents in the past".

Can you detect a whisp of pollyannaism in that, to wit: What similar incidents? How can any structural engineer prepare for the unprecedented? You can't just look into the past for tokens of concern -- much worse stuff is just around the corner. I'm not faulting you or your sources for this tendency; it's really hard to find geophysical honesty brutal enough to meet contemporary circumstance. Outspoken, honest prognosticators like KWA are rare, but compelling enough to leave me little time for anyone apparently dedicated to disinformation.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 3 2022 21:03 utc | 52

There is nothing quite like crystal clear, photorealism art in journalism to mug you with reality. 


https://johnmenadue.com/a-small-arrogant-violent-wicked-nation-and-a-jewish-mutation-haaretz-prints-denunciations-of-zionism-no-u-s-paper-would-run/

Posted by: Paul | Jun 3 2022 21:09 utc | 53

waynorinorway | Jun 3 2022 19:30 utc | 45
i don't expect anyone w/facility in english to care. mission already accomplished.

moreover, adults are drowning in resentment. heaven forbid tomorrow's kids not sit thru the same torture i went thru in school, b/c it makes my experience what it was all along: completely unnecessary.

there's a history to spelling reform in the US. but today it's just a click away. still doesn't matter. no one will be allowed out of the rut the adults are in. about anything.

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Jun 3 2022 21:15 utc | 54

@Tom_Q_Collins #40
You can whine all you want - the reality is that the states north and east of Texas have nowhere near enough excess electricity to back up the Texas grid.
Furthermore, while El Paso and Beaumont can benefit from New Mexico imports - the New Mexico imports are a teeny, tiny part of Texas' electricity equation. The bulk of Texas' population is in the East - there are literally 10x more people in East Texas than West Texas.

Which you can (attempt) to see in the above graph which shows source of all Texas electricity: the miscellaneous category which is less than 0.5% of electricity generated includes imports.

So no, can't say that your "powerful points" are anything but bullshit green crap attempting to explain away reality.

Nor did you address the factual, well documented problems visible in the data: curtailment, congestion, mismatches between production and demand etc.

But that's to be expected: anything diverging from your unicorn fairy dust alternative energy nonsense can't possibly be true...

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 3 2022 21:52 utc | 55

@pretzelattack #43
Yes, deregulation is to blame when Texas has a higher percentage of wind and solar PV than pretty much any other state.
No way that the billions spent on wind and solar PV could possibly have negative effects because those are the Holy Grail technologies!
The data shows clearly, otherwise.

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 3 2022 21:54 utc | 56

More Disney fun: apparently Florida reining in corporate dominance of local government is bad, but California/Anaheim being Disney's bitch is ok?

Anaheim - a Corrupt Company Town?

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 3 2022 21:56 utc | 57

The ACLU had to decide between being true to its charter or becoming a political pawn for the liberals.

Any guesses which way they chose?

How A Celebrity Trial Exposed The Collapse Of A Celebrated Civil Liberties Group

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 3 2022 21:58 utc | 58

@c1ue

Recent lurker at the bar, but I've found your commentary for the most part most insightful and informative. But with regards to alternative (green) energy, while acknowledging the shortcomings, viz. storage capacity, distribution bottlenecks, cost efficiency, etc. what other alternatives are there to ameliorate ongoing and impending climate change? Or are you one who discounts or denies anthropogenic climate change and its destabilizing effects? Moreover how else should a nation's capital and human resources be allocated, keeping in mind say the huge sums expended on the military here in the US? Also I think @Oriental Voice was correct in their assertion regarding the nascent stage of large scale application of wind and solar pv technology, and I think you would agree on that point, but don't seem to agree currrent or future investment is warranted?

No obligations of course to answer my queries, but I ask as I'm generally curious in your insights and thinking. Thanks.

Posted by: Akash | Jun 3 2022 23:11 utc | 59

A question for USAns reading this. "did you notice that NZ PM Jacinda Ardern visited President Biden at the Whitehouse?"
I ask because I'm curious how much she is being put in your consciousness.

Posted by: tucenz | Jun 2 2022 20:37 utc | 14

You are the first to tell me of this, tucenz. And it may be so for other kiwis here. That's because I shun mainstream media and am healthier for doing so. Also,only safe issues like gardening, births, deaths, marriages come up with family down there, otherwise they shun me. It's just how it is.

I await the Awakening.

Posted by: juliania | Jun 3 2022 23:29 utc | 60

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Jun 3 2022 17:35 utc | 36

If one demands security. Go live in a gulag. One does not deserve liberty or freedom........

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Jun 4 2022 0:38 utc | 61

Bad Deal Motors On | Jun 4 2022 0:38 utc | 61
i hope no children are anywhere near you. what a dumbass comment.

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Jun 4 2022 2:09 utc | 62

Aleph_Null | Jun 3 2022 20:17 utc | 50
let me be clear:
they've got everyone arguing about testosterone levels in girls' sports and who uses what school bathroom while they further and further ramp up the security state. fences, gates, cops, cameras, computers and internet filters. tracing everyone, surveilling everyone. Gov Abbott of TX and Pres Biden walk all the way down the aisle together, hand in hand, when it comes to sticking more official guns in people's faces and locking up "illegal" children.

no children, no adults are to be entrusted to such people.

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Jun 4 2022 2:18 utc | 63

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 3 2022 21:54 utc | 56

of course it is to blame, the power plants failed because the state did not and does not require them to spend money on updating their equipment, and ERCOT is a case of foxes guarding foxes.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Jun 4 2022 2:21 utc | 64

waynorinorway | Jun 3 2022 19:30 utc | 45
other nations have done the same as China re simplifying aspects of traditional language in order to grease the wheels of participation in modern life. of course the biggest beneficiary as a group from this effort has been women, but that doesn't mean shit does it?

all this is now moot in the US anyway, since people don't read and instead get ALL their knowledge from visual narrative. literacy doesn't matter.

but one might think that in the interest of producing more and more easily malleable little S.T.E.M. cells in the capitalist education factory, simplifying learning might help.

now why am i not surprised at how much scoffing and mockery even teachers dump on such an idea? never do, say, or even think something that makes people need your expertise less. indeed, wherever possible, do the opposite.

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Jun 4 2022 2:35 utc | 65

waynorinorway | Jun 3 2022 19:30 utc | 45
i also really, really love the thought of fat ass americans on the couch munching on their KFC drooling over some kid from India whose parents forced him to learn to spell words like

appoggiatura.

don't be surprised when the US Messiah turns out to be a pinball wizard named Tommy.

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Jun 4 2022 2:41 utc | 66

no children, no adults are to be entrusted to such people
@ rjb1.5 | Jun 4 2022 2:18 utc | 63

Your post commences "Let me be clear" -- but leaves the most important question thoroughly, perhaps intentionally, unspecified: Please define "they".

Is "they" supposed to be Biden & Abbott, walking arm-in-arm (presumably not "arm-in-arm" in the sense Russians do so in Gogol's works)? Not seriously, for sure you mean this colorful image as a pastiche, an icon representing some larger, more formidable "they" -- but you don't say. How are we to read glaring ambiguities such as the lack of clear antecedents to pronouns? I don't know, but I don't generally trust it. Such "they" stuff can be slippery, slimy business, verging into fascist-style rhetoric. Wink and a nod, you know who I mean by "they" kind of thing. What in the heck are we talking about? I'll allow you to clarify, please do.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 4 2022 4:21 utc | 67

Putting out my general, periodic call for news of Ayatollah Mike:

Anyone seen Michael D'Andrea recently? Any news as to his whereabouts (in this world or the next)

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Jun 4 2022 4:57 utc | 68

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 3 2022 21:52 utc | 55

You still never bothered to back up your initial thesis. And I won't bother restating it for you since you know what it was and cannot undergird it with anything useful. Goodbye.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 4 2022 5:04 utc | 69

Posted by: Akash | Jun 3 2022 23:11 utc | 59

Don't waste the time or pixels. c1ue has an agenda and he sticks to it without breaking character.

Never any straight answers either.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 4 2022 5:06 utc | 70

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 3 2022 21:54 utc | 56

IOW UUUUZ CHOOZE TUH WRONG WORDS!!! ACIDIFICATIONZ vs. BASIFICATIUNS!!!

Tiresome and officially on ignore.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 4 2022 5:08 utc | 71

@30 Roger | Jun 3 2022 15:53 utc

Thanks for that link. It's impossible to stay current with all the good sources we have bookmarked on the matter of the vaccines, we count on friends to tell us, as you did, when one of them makes an important post.

Naomi Wolf has been a strong voice cutting through the fog of the virus and the dementia of the propaganda related to vaccines. What she writes in this latest report from the trenches is horrifying. They are killing the babies, and they knew it from the beginning. How else to parse this, other than on scales of good and evil?

And it seems that you can't tell anyone.

I posted the other day about FLCCC's new protocol to treat the vaccine-injured (who are in the many tens of thousands), and I sent the link to a friend. She replies that she now has two close friends with injuries from the vaccine (one with epileptic episodes) - but that neither of them wants to hear one bad word about the vaccine. They refuse to put 2 + 2 together.

~~

Over on the Ukraine thread at the moment, many people report the same dissonance among friends and family with geopolitics. The media has done too good a job of saturating the culture with lies.

~~

That Naomi Wolf link again, for later readers:

Dear Friends, Sorry to Announce a Genocide - It's Really True: They Know they are Killing the Babies [May 29, 2022]

She is speaking out of her appalled shock, trying to find a way to comprehend the criminality revealed. The findings she relates along the way from those who are studying the Pfizer documents are horrifying. The scale of these crimes is almost impossible to grasp.

I understand her shock. I am actually at a loss for words, as the meaning of what has happened, and what insists on continuing to happen, cannot yet even find a way to settle in my mind.

If you have any interest in this matter, I recommend the article.

Posted by: Grieved | Jun 4 2022 5:12 utc | 72

@ Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 4 2022 5:04 utc | 69

No offense, TQC: Some people expect their own unsubstantiated generalizations to be the final word -- no further "undergird" required. It's really quite a stench in my nose, from some correspondents, to the point I only get three sentences in before I'm shouting at my screen: "oh yeah? says who?" Considerate adults who want to be taken seriously don't compose torrents of facts freshly plucked from their nether regions.

Incidentally, I just finished Gogol's Dead Souls, which could be described as torrent of unsubstantiated generalizations. But I doubt Chichikov (the dealer in dead peasants) nor Gogol are entirely to be taken seriously. They do make for quite a troika-ride, though!

My work experience as a software engineer left me more impatient with hand-waving and vaporware than the average sucker, perhaps. "Spin" can fall terribly flat, amongst engineers.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 4 2022 5:31 utc | 73

@ Grieved | Jun 4 2022 5:12 utc | 72 with the Naomi Wolf link again

I am one of the later readers, thanks....I passed it on

It is my understanding from somewhere that the pharma folks get total indemnity from prosecution across all age groups by getting their drugs into kids but not sure about pregnant women...sigh

How can this sort of genocide be going on? We really are a sick species given the perpetrators of this genocide are doing so consciously.....the depths of depravity when the God of Mammon is your religion.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jun 4 2022 5:34 utc | 74

How can this sort of genocide be going on?
@ psychohistorian | Jun 4 2022 5:34 utc | 74

That's Naomi Wolf's word, genocide, from which she instantly backpedals thusly:

or what I’ve called, clumsily but urgently, a “baby die-off”

I have to say I'm shocked to see Wolf abusing the language in this manner. Is she serious about this grave word or not? If so, in what sense has Big Pharma or Pfizer "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group" (definitive words of the 1948 convention)?

Throughout Turtle Island, genuine genocide proceeds to this day against the original inhabitants. To casually abuse the term in this way is shamefully repellent, like Holocaust denial.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 4 2022 5:54 utc | 75

@ Aleph_Null | Jun 4 2022 5:54 utc | 75 with the call of casually abusing the term genocide but does not provide an accurate alternative.

Your writing makes it sound that just because Big Pharma's actions are not specifically "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group" (definitive words of the 1948 convention) that they can kill humans in significant number and not be called out about it.

Please provide the MoA barflies with an accurate term to describe the deaths caused by Big Pharma's application/test of drugs on the populace around Covid.....so we are not so shamefully repellent as you write so passionately. I would posit that like many types of genocide, we may never know good numbers about what is happening or has happened with Covid related deaths.

I am curious to know if you think Covid occurred naturally or is the result of human efforts?

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jun 4 2022 6:17 utc | 76

I am curious to know if you think Covid occurred naturally or is the result of human efforts?
@ psychohistorian | Jun 4 2022 6:17 utc | 76

Look: I hope you can appreciate that this question has absolutely nothing to do with flagrant abuse of a clearly-defined term, i.e. genocide. It's called "delexification" -- picking off meaningful words and phrases, one by one, until nobody can say anything anymore, and the language is a heap of rubble.

It is not appropriate to use the word genocide to connote "killing lots of people" -- such usage tears down meaningful expression.

You ask me if Covid "occurred naturally"? I don't know. I also don't know why anyone should care what I think. I'm just getting started with serious reading to learn about evolution at the level of viruses. I'm no epidemiologist or virologist. I'd recommend you find someone like that to ask.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 4 2022 6:59 utc | 77


Considerate adults who want to be taken seriously don't compose torrents of facts freshly plucked from their nether regions.
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 4 2022 5:31 utc | 73

Don't waste the time or pixels. c1ue has an agenda and he sticks to it without breaking character.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 4 2022 5:06 utc | 70

Tiresome and officially on ignore.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 4 2022 5:08 utc | 71

I've found that ignoring both Scorpion and c1ue has reduced my reading time here by about half with no loss of info.
The only negative is a scrolling blister.

Posted by: waynorinorway | Jun 4 2022 7:02 utc | 78

@ waynorinorway | Jun 4 2022 7:02 utc | 78

I've said Clueless One taught me the trick of scrolling through MoA threads backwards, so that I can skip over the garbage much more efficiently.

I was going to say something about Scorpion, but you know? Isn't it superb that there aren't any "like" buttons in this bar? Give me something with a head on it.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 4 2022 7:20 utc | 79

Possibly some barflies are mystified by this methane business. While we were absorbed in the Warrior's "face-slapping" fourth quarter of their first game in the playoffs, celebrity spats, and the very old Queen's "mobility", astonishingly massive permafrost-slumps keep etching themselves into the surface of our globe. The spooky leviathan pictured in this article is shaped just like a stingray.

“Permafrost is a sleeping giant,” explains Hugelius; as well as being vast and full of carbon, it responds very slowly to changes in the environment. “So we still haven’t really seen the permafrost wake up even to the warming that we’ve done so far.”

If, theoretically, we stopped global warming in its tracks today - at +1.2C above pre-industrial levels - the permafrost would still keep thawing for up to 200 years and emitting greenhouse gases for a long time.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/06/04/will-more-mouths-to-hell-open-up-because-of-climate-change-we-asked-a-permafrost-expert

Nothing like this has ever happened before, not in human history. The trajectory of atmospheric methane, now at 1,900 ppt, is notably steeper than other GHG's. This is what exponential growth looks like:

https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends_ch4/

I see a global acceleration like that, I'm looking to find out why. On-the-ground accounts match in-the-air metrics. How bad can it get:

(1) Can permafrost methane release become self-sustaining?

(2) Is it, perchance, already self-sustaining?

Very seldom do I encounter people approaching such questions, which nobody wants to weigh soberly. My difficulty with Michael Hudson's commentary: Hudson foresees a thirty-year continuation of human existence -- something I find unlikely, given the presence of exponential, self-sustaining Arctic methane release.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 4 2022 8:14 utc | 80

Typo: CH4 is at 1,900 ppb (parts per billion), that is.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 4 2022 8:17 utc | 81

Give me something with a head on it.
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 4 2022 7:20 utc | 79

You live in Richmond I think. I was going to suggest running over to
Lucky Lanes in San Pablo for a Dos Equis but it's been replaced by a
casino. You could still get a beer there I'm sure. Just leave some cash
in a sock for when you get back home.:)

Posted by: waynorinorway | Jun 4 2022 9:44 utc | 82

Ontario election update — enormous majority election win for Doug Ford (like dictator level of seats in Queen’s Park… not knowing much at all about Ontario politics, I wonder if he’ll be kind of like an Erdogan /Muslim Brotherhood figure??) The entire post-election coverage appears to focus on low voter turnout. How he really only has the support of about 18% of Ontario (which would mean a huge defeat, where is the democracy, the freedom)

La Presse was kinder to the new Premier (this province is not known for rejecting authoritarian leadership).
https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/politique/2022-06-02/elections-en-ontario/un-deuxieme-mandat-encore-plus-fort-pour-doug-ford.php

« En 2018, la victoire de Doug Ford avait été perçue comme une épine dans le pied de M. Trudeau, mais depuis, les relations se sont adoucies. » … « L’Assemblée de la francophonie de l’Ontario, qui représente 744 000 personnes, a félicité M. Ford pour sa victoire. Elle a indiqué qu’elle comptait poursuivre le travail pour contrer la pénurie de main-d’œuvre francophone et bilingue et obtenir une troisième université à Sudbury. »

Bill 96 passed recently here in Quebec, a controversial law protecting French language use. The provincial government placed full-page ads to dispel misinformation.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/legal-experts-fact-check-quebec-ad-campaign-that-aims-to-correct-falsehoods-on-controversial-language-law-1.6474927

“The ad campaign is in response to critical stories that were published in national and international media, including The Washington Post and The New York Times, after the new language law was passed last week.”

- More than 70 confirmed cases of monkeypox in Quebec.

- “Ronald Weinberg, who helped orchestrate one of the largest frauds ever committed in Canada, has been granted permission to travel outside the country while he remains on full parole.”

https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/cinar-fraudster-ronald-weinberg-allowed-to-travel-outside-canada-while-on-parole

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Jun 4 2022 10:56 utc | 83

The U.S. is having to face some mean karma for ALL those years of brutality and outright murder of so many millions. It will not go easy on a nation as hostile as the U.S. has been over the past 70 or so years. Internal and largely unresolved contradictions with regard to race and the accumulation (hoarding) of wealth have made the current social climate one of tremendous insecurity and avoidance.

What kind of solutions will be found to sooth this outright hatred too many folks in the U.S. have toward each other and the rest of the world still remains hidden from view. But fear not, solutions will be found.

Posted by: thecelticwithinme | Jun 4 2022 11:36 utc | 84

@Akash #59

You said

But with regards to alternative (green) energy, while acknowledging the shortcomings, viz. storage capacity, distribution bottlenecks, cost efficiency, etc. what other alternatives are there to ameliorate ongoing and impending climate change? Or are you one who discounts or denies anthropogenic climate change and its destabilizing effects? Moreover how else should a nation's capital and human resources be allocated, keeping in mind say the huge sums expended on the military here in the US?

Here is my view on climate change:

1) The Earth is warming - yes

2) The warming is absolutely at least partly natural. I posted a video in the previous OT which shows the historical temperature record - the present warming is by no means unusual, nor is the absolute temperature above "typical" even in the short (geological scale) record.

3) The warming is likely partly human caused, but the cause is not clearly CO2 nor is it clear that the warming is primarily or even mostly human caused. Consensus climate change theory also assumes a positive reinforcing climate/temperature feedback cycle which is also completely absent in the historical record.

Past CO2 increases lagged temperatures - thus any assumptions that CO2 is increasing temperatures now must explain why this lag exists.

Past absolute CO2 levels as well as past CO2 spikes show zero evidence of tipping points, for example. Furthermore, the actual temperature increases recorded to date show zero actual evidence of positive reinforcing feedback - i.e. temperature increases are not CO2 + positive feedback but are roughly CO2 only.

We know that humans are causing all sorts of other global scale impacts such as converting forests/grasslands into farms/cities/roads etc; ecosystem changes such as forests/grasslands into corn/soy/wheat etc; massive irrigation and dam projects; urban heat islands due to changes in average environmental heat retention, etc.

The ongoing multi-decade failure of climate models - which operate based on the premise of anthropogenic CO2 = 76%+ cause and positive greenhouse reinforcement is an ongoing condemnation of this premise.

4) Even if - and this is an extremely qualified if - human emitted CO2 is causing significant temperature increases, the supposed "positive" effects of alternative energy today will have negligible effects on future temperature increases. Specifically, using the consensus science's own calculations - the trillions spent on climate change mitigation thus far, primarily on alternative energy, will have literally tenths of a degree change in outcome = insignificant.

5) But the alternative energy schemes today just don't work well at all. The above data shows clearly that sporadic generation alternative energy causes increasing problems and expenses as penetration increases ranging from curtailment costs to grid instability to the glaring need for mass, cheap electricity storage.

So whatever the supposed destabilizing effects of climate change are - the present alt-e products won't materially affect climate outcomes whatever the reality is, but will certainly cause energy costs to skyrocket - which hurts poor people. So why do it then?

Re: your comment that "how else should a nation's capital and human resources be allocated": there are so many immediate problems in the world today that can be solved - you really can't see other possible uses for capital and human resources? How many billions of people in Africa, India, South and Central America etc could benefit from a refocus of capital and human resources? What about the poor in the 1st world countries - the homeless in America, the refugees in Europe?

Also I think @Oriental Voice was correct in their assertion regarding the nascent stage of large scale application of wind and solar pv technology, and I think you would agree on that point, but don't seem to agree currrent or future investment is warranted?

Wind and solar PV are not nascent technology.

Wind turbines are nothing more than electrical motors with a propeller - electrical motors have existed for 190 year. The first electrical motor was created in 1832.

Solar cells are also not nascent technology. The first solar cell was created in 1883, so solar cells have existed for "only" 139 years.

Furthermore, both wind and solar PV are power technologies, not information technology. Information has zero mass, thus Moore's law was possible, but there is no possible equivalent scaling of improvement in power technologies.

I furthermore trained as a power electrical engineer, have a background in semiconductors and had a very good friend leave Applied Materials to work in a (now failed) solar startup. Improvements in solar technology are, at best, incremental going forward. To give you an idea: my friend's failed company was working to create a 2-band solar cell to increase efficiency; at the time, most solar cells were single band and thus were not able to harvest energy from a large part of the ground level light spectrum.

Thus I have direct personal as well as professional background in this area.

No obligations of course to answer my queries, but I ask as I'm generally curious in your insights and thinking. Thanks.

No worries - happy to answer reasonable questions.

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 4 2022 13:09 utc | 85

@Tom_Q_Collins #69
You have yet to provide any actual detailed response to my data nor even bother to read what I posted, as such, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

All you unicorn fairy dust acolytes can do nothing but regurgitate what you read on Twitter or find on Google Search.

No personal brain activity required.

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 4 2022 13:11 utc | 86

@Aleph_Null #79
Just another typical keyboard warrior who does nothing in the real world related, even just in intellectual exploration, to anything they are so rabid for.

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 4 2022 13:14 utc | 87

@Aleph_Null #81
Typical idiotic nonsense.

It is quite clear you have no idea what you are regurgitating about.

Have you ever run MODTRAN? Perhaps then you might understand the difference between what methane does as a greenhouse gas (hint, it is not very significant) vs. what the consensus then does with its actual effects to extrapolate into DOOM!

That's the problem with intellectual discourse these days: the consensus side is exclusively populated by those repeating what they are told.

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 4 2022 13:17 utc | 88

This is important:

Jaishankar video on youtube

If it is you, its yours; if it is me, it is ours.[problems of Europe vs. India]

...

China and India happen long before anything happened in Ukraine

...

I see this as a not very clever argument. A very self-serving one.

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 4 2022 13:20 utc | 89

And back in the real world - as opposed to the future (any day now) fantasy unicorn fairy dust world:

More gas info - dailymail.co.uk

Yes, Daily Mail, I know but ignore the headlines and read the data

Supplies at the US' refineries, however, remain tight. On Thursday, a US weekly inventory report showed crude stock had fallen by a more-than-expected 5.1 million barrels. Gasoline inventories have also dropped to dangerous levels.

...

Currently, the national average stands as nearly double the $2.41 average seen during former president Donald Trump's last month in office. [Note: gas prices from 3/2020 to 1/2022 were COVID reduced, but they were still in the $2.50 to $3 range before COVID]

The rising rates have seen fuel supplies at US and Canadian refineries that normally supply Eastern US gas stations dwindle to crisis levels, which experts say could fall below levels seen in 2008, when the country experienced its worst recession since the Great Depression.

'If exports persist at this elevated pace and refinery runs - already near the top range for reasonable utilization rates - fall within our expectations, gasoline inventories could continue to draw to levels below 2008 lows and retail gasoline prices could climb to $6/gallon or even higher,' the analysts wrote.

At that rate, the analysts write, total US gasoline inventories could soon fall to levels not seen since the 1950s - an occurrence that would see gas prices swell even further.

Analysts at JPMorgan warned late last month that the national average could surpass the $6 mark by the end of the summer as the situation continues to worsen on an almost daily basis.

'There is a real risk the price could reach $6+ a gallon by August,' Natasha Kaneva, head of global oil and commodities research at the prominent investment bank, told CNN last week.

The uptick also saw the price of gas since top $4-a-gallon in each of the 50 states last week - a dubious achievement never before reached. [<--- reference Biden "I did that" sticker...]

...

JPMorgan also warned that East Coast gasoline inventories are at their lowest level in more than a decade, due to higher-than-normal exports of gasoline triggered by rising gas costs overseas in Europe - an uptick worse than the one seen in the US.

...

'If exports persist at this elevated pace and refinery runs - already near the top range for reasonable utilization rates - fall within our expectations, gasoline inventories could continue to draw to levels below 2008 lows and retail gasoline prices could climb to $6/gallon or even higher,' the analysts wrote.

...

Morgan warns that unless refineries 'immediately' nix most of its exports and shift toward producing its own gasoline, 'US consumers should not expect much in the way of relief in prices at the pump until the end of the year.'

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 4 2022 13:29 utc | 90

Gasoline and diesel beat goes on: another day, another record high price for gasoline and diesel.

Global gas price index from oilprice.com now at $4.252.

Note that this index was between $2 to $2.50 from June 2021 to Januaryy 2022, but has been going up steadily ever since...

gasoline

Current Avg. $4.819

Yesterday Avg. $4.761

Week Ago Avg. $4.601

Month Ago Avg. $4.226

Year Ago Avg. $3.047

diesel

Current Avg. $5.617

Yesterday Avg. $5.581

Week Ago Avg. $5.528

Month Ago Avg. $5.428

Year Ago Avg. $3.190

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 4 2022 13:39 utc | 91

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 3 2022 21:52 utc | 55

Coal fired power stations produce a very large tonnage of solid waste. Well in excess of one million tonnes per year. This includes a very dangerous fine particulate ash collected by the chimney stack filters and washers.

Another well known fact that the coal fired plant boiler waste contains concentrated radioactive waste. Which means it is and remains well above existing background radiation levels for a very long time indeed. Due the half -life radioactive isotope rule. The so called clinker waste should not for safety reasons be recycled into concrete.

Question in whose backyard can I bury well in excess of one million plus tonnes annually of very dangerous radioactive coal fired boiler waste safely ? Complete with a sign do not disturb for several thousand years in the future. Could I dump this million tonne plus pile of radioactive waste in your back yard? Could I dump the next years pile of waste in the State/Federal Republican rep's who proposed this "enrich my mate" scheme backyards? The answer will be ...............

For any short/long term mothballed coal fired power plants. Given age of the equipment installed and the actual condition of the plant. Order up million plus of tonnes of coal. To completely fill the site bunker. Given the variables time for safe full power output can be as low as six months to several years.

What very grand generous to a "T" concept of "fatten my re-election donor mates back pocket". Let's bring back all coal fired mothballed power stations. Don't mention where to bury the million tonnes plus annual radioactive coal waste from each plant. The total plant overhaul and refurbishment costs. The total cost of rail freight shipping. Costs for the tens of millions of tonnes coal to burn! Don't mention the time required to bring this dimwit grandiose "Dumb and Dumber" scheme to fruition. As for the consumer they have extremely very deep pockets(not) to finance this plan too.

In the interim . Poor USSA a former world's super power in rapid decline. Is facing an economic massive stagflation depression. Plus large scale unemployment. In reality this era was last seen after the election of a Republican President "Richard Milhous Nixon" in 1968..

Duck and cover incoming..............

Truth is truly stranger than fiction....................

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Jun 4 2022 13:57 utc | 92

@ c1ue | Jun 4 2022 13:17 utc | 88

We've already noticed that it would be absolutely gauche for Clueless One to ever reference any scientific substance. References are "regurgitation". Their riposte is nearly solid insults as usual, as always, for any "moron" with the cheek to challenge Clueless assumptions. There's not even the appearance of an attempt at scientific demeanor -- addressing the issue raised, rather than engaging in pointless insult contests.

My only point in bothering to respond to such a lightweight is to give them further opportunity to expose how utterly Clueless they are. Flame-wars are not how scientific discourse proceeds. Homey don't play that.

I apologize to the bar for resorting to the Clueless identifier. I promise to treat handles respectfully so long as nobody claims to be "truth" or "justice" or suchlike offensive arrogance. In the case of this meteorically presumptuous handle, it would make me feel deceptive to repeat it, outside of the response top-line.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 4 2022 14:29 utc | 93

@Bad Deal Motors On #92
Coal produces waste, but so does manufacturing tens of thousands of wind turbines and millions of solar panels.
43 million tons of waste produced in 2050 by wind turbines

Coal does have one major benefit: you can store coal by literally just piling it up outside the power plant.

I have no objection to replacing coal with a better technology. The problem is that it is very, very unclear that wind and/or solar PV is better beyond a fraction of base load.
And I can detail it further: that fraction is also season-dependent on top of being not reliable for any given hour of any given day/month/year.

And this matters because electricity is basically not storable. Generation has to match demand, and demand varies enormously even over the course of a single day:

Texas Daily Net Load 2021 - IMGUR

The report further notes that minimum net load (i.e. lowest point of electricity consumption during a day) has fallen in recent years - likely a direct function of offshoring of manufacturing.

Nor am I the least bit optimistic that cheap, high volume electricity storage is EVER going to happen.

The highest end rare earth batteries store about 1/3 the energy density of gunpowder today.

Increasing energy densities significantly more will result in literal bomb-level energy density - that doesn't bode well for safety or stability, even ignoring cost and material availability issues (which are also enormous and unsolved).

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 4 2022 14:43 utc | 94

@c1ue #85

Appreciate you taking time to respond. Anthropogenic climate change aside, would you agree that the pollution effects caused by burning fossil fuel and the manufacture of plastic byproducts is a concern for the habitability of the biosphere?, i.e. do you believe there are environmental limits to economic expansion under a fossil fuel energy generation regime? And if so, have we reached or are nearing those limits?

Regarding capital and human resource allocation, isn't standard of living advancement in say the developing world for example primarily (but not entirely) contingent on an increasing supply of energy? Seems to me that infrastructure investment, food security, potable water, effective recycling of resources are all ultimately contingent on energy, at least if pursued at scale. Though I certainly concede that increasing supply is not a silver bullet, especially if distortions in distribution of resources are not also addressed.

I suppose I've focused on energy supply, but demand will also need to be addressed, especially in the developed world. But overall I feel investment in wind and solar energy generation, storage, and distribution is vital to address the energy needs of the world, even if requiring heavy subsidies in the near term, due to the limits of growth under the fossil fuel regime. If we in the US can come up with trillions of dollars to fund never-ending wars that don't result in any strategic victories, I feel we can subsidize green energy, and maybe we see a breakthrough in battery/storage tech, which would greatly lift the prospects of wind and solar.

I should clarify that my comment on wind and solar pv being a nascent technology is really with respect to application at scale, not the tech itself per say. I also have an engineering background -- computer engineering, and am employed in micro-processor development -- though my interests really revolve around the humanities. Anyway, thanks for the discussion.

Posted by: Akash | Jun 4 2022 14:52 utc | 95

I should also note that a pragmatic attitude is vital when investing in alternative/green energy, and that utopian visions regarding its current viability risk cratering entire economies at a national scale. But continuing investment is essential in my mind, even if those investments have a less than attractive ROI in the near or even medium term.

Posted by: Akash | Jun 4 2022 15:08 utc | 96

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Jun 4 2022 2:09 utc | 62

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Just another variation of the famous quote from "Benjamin Franklin"

“If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom. ”― Dwight D. Eisenhower

Just two more well known dumb asses then.

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Jun 4 2022 15:13 utc | 97

@ Akash | Jun 4 2022 14:52 utc | 95

People who attempt honest, thorough, full life-cycle analyses of the energy and material resource inputs of solar PV -- people like Ozzie Zehner, known for the book Green Illusions and the documentary film Planet of the Humans -- are only occasionally heard, inevitably dismissed, ignored, forgotten -- even accused of being pawns of fossil fuel!

To honestly analyze whether so-called "renewables" have any conceivable prospect of reducing GHG emissions is effectively verboten. To so much as notice the continual exponential growth in GHG, despite all "renewable" efforts? Why, that's just rude! Gets in the way of timely profits for our great green manufacturers.

I have to put "renewables" in quotes, because it's such an insultingly obvious lie. So very obvious because the basic concept violates the second law of thermodynamics -- called entropy. Where in the world can we find a worse lie than the label "zero emissions vehicle" on something powered by a recharged battery? People are so childish, they want to think energy comes from green ledgers, or something -- from make-believe. Time to get real.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 4 2022 15:19 utc | 98

Lots to scroll through here lately, but

"...It is my understanding from somewhere that the pharma folks get total indemnity from prosecution across all age groups by getting their drugs into kids but not sure about pregnant women...sigh..."

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jun 4 2022 5:34 utc | 74

It's my understanding that verification of criminal activity voids such indemnity. I think proof of such is on the horizon. Whether said criminals will have taken the money and run by then or not, at some point they will be blacklisted, historically speaking. I would bet on it. This has been just plain aweful to live through for every caring family. Don't blame one another, folk; the buck stops there.

Go back to hugging. Lots of hugging.

Posted by: juliania | Jun 4 2022 15:31 utc | 99

@Aleph_Null #98

I should have put 'green' in quotes in my earlier posts, since there is no energy generation tech that through manufacture, application, and obsolescence won't result in an adverse environmental foot-print. But I do think that wind and solar pv effects on the environment are comparatively less malignant than fossil fuel based energy generation, though I would be curious if my latter assumption is currently contradicted by known facts.

Posted by: Akash | Jun 4 2022 15:34 utc | 100

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