208 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, July 27, 2020”

      1. The subtitles are wrong: He says some so-called citizen scientists ask “spurious” questions to confuse the issue, not “serious” questions.

            2. Funny Paul.
              So, no predictions are able to derived from the math-it is all just backward looking?

            3. They seem to be able to predict an El Nino as precursors form, but it seems to be only six or eight months in advance.

              Last year, New Scientist reported that an AI forecaster was able to predict El Nino 18 months in advance.

              https://www.newscientist.com/article/2216643-artificial-intelligence-can-now-predict-el-nino-18-months-in-advance/

              … although they do say the AI predicted 24 out of 34 events, while traditional models predicted 20. So an improvement but not in the bag yet.

              Here’s a good NOAA article on the challenge of predicting El Nino.

              https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/predicting-el-ni%C3%B1o-then-and-now

        2. The third graph or row from the bottom reminds me of an interesting wave that looked like a wave within a wave that I noticed when editing some music the other day. It sounded pretty cool too… I might be able to import some of those waves into a resynthesis or sampling program.

  2. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/27/opinion/republicans-demographic-trap/

    I’m pretty well convinced that the R party as we know it today is a dead man walking…. a dead man who might stagger along for another two or three election cycles, but not much longer than that.

    The people who wrote this piece basically agree with me….. check out the statistics and graphics showing how the D’s are going to be mopping the floor with R’s in another decade or so.

    I’ve been saying for a long time that demographics are destiny, in terms of American politics, and that the foot soldier hart core of the R party is headed for cemeteries and nursing homes at a very fast pace…. in historical terms.

    With a little luck I might even live to see it happen myself, lol.

      1. Full article text:

        Republicans were in office and were widely blamed when the Great Depression struck in 1929. The Grand Old Party lost the next three presidential elections by wide margins. But it was a related development during the period that ruined the GOP‘s long-term prospects. First-time voters backed the Democratic Party by nearly 2 to 1 and stayed loyal to it. Election after election until the late 1960s, their votes carried the Democrats to victory.

        In only one period since then have young voters sided heavily with one party in a series of elections. Voters under 30 have backed the Democratic presidential nominee by a 3-to-2 margin over the past four contests. And as they’ve aged, these voters have leaned more heavily Democratic while also turning out to vote in higher numbers. They now include everyone between the ages of 21 and 45 — more than 40 percent of the nation’s adults.

        Republicans are sitting on a demographic time bomb of their own making, and it could send them into a tailspin. Although the politics of division that Republicans have pursued since Richard Nixon launched his “Southern strategy” in the late 1960s — a blueprint to shore up the vote of white Southerners by appealing to racial bias — has brought new groups into their ranks, including conservative Southerners, evangelical Christians, and working-class whites, it has antagonized other groups.

        Republicans are paying a stiff price for defaming immigrants. If they hadn’t, they could have made inroads with the Latinx population. Although most Latinx have conservative views on issues like abortion and national security, they vote more than 2 to 1 Democratic. A 2019 poll found that 51 percent of Latinx believe that the GOP is “hostile” toward them, with an additional 29 percent believing that the GOP “doesn’t care” about them.

        Asian-Americans have also turned away from the GOP. They are America’s fastest-growing ethnic group and have the profile of a Republican bloc. They have the nation’s highest average family income and are twice as likely as other Americans to own a small business. As late as the 1992 presidential campaign, they voted 2 to 1 Republican. Today, they vote more than 2 to 1 Democratic.

        Without the vote of white evangelical Protestants, the GOP would already be a second-rate party. Eliminate the evangelical vote in the 2016 election and the GOP would have received barely more than 40 percent of the popular vote. Even the GOP’s reputation as a “white” party owes to evangelicals. Non-evangelical whites voted Democratic by a 53-47 percent margin in 2016. Moreover, white evangelicals’ ability to prop up the GOP is declining. America’s fifth wave of religious revival began to wane two decades ago. White evangelicals now constitute a sixth of the population, down from a fourth in the 1990s.

        There was no gender gap until the GOP adopted evangelicals’ version of family values, including opposition to abortion. Women are now the Democrats’ largest voting bloc, and their loyalty has increased, reaching record highs in the 2016 and 2018 elections. And Republicans’ embrace of evangelicals’ position on gay rights has alienated the LGBTQ community. They are now second only to Black Americans in their Democratic loyalty. The GOP’s rigid stance on social issues has also eroded its standing with college-educated voters. Once heavily Republican, most of them now side with the Democratic Party.

        To assess the threat of demographic change to the GOP, I projected the outcome of future elections based on the US Census Bureau’s population change estimates. The Republican Party faces a dim future, as the groups supporting it shrink in size while those opposing it grow in number. By 2032, Democrats would have a 59-to-41 percent edge based solely on population change.

        A maxim of two-party politics is that a party needs to be inclusive — a big tent — to be competitive. Whatever the short-term advantage of the GOP’s politics of division, it is now facing the fallout. Millions of younger adults, women, Blacks, Latinx, Asian Americans, LGBTQ, and the college-educated will be pulling the Democratic lever for years to come.

        1. The Evangelical vote will decline even faster than projected by demographic experts, who aren’t so far as I can tell paying much attention to what today’s Evangelical kid is going to do when he or she leaves home.

          What most of them are going to do is celebrate being able to sleep in on Sunday mornings while maybe enjoying a little sex while deliberately NOT making a baby, lol.

          Evangelical grandparents are in the same boat as other grandparents……. grand children are in VERY SHORT SUPPLY these days, and the competition for their attention is fierce.

          It’s damned hard for Jesus to compete with rock stars.

          Parents and preachers no longer control the intellectual narrative. Between tv and the internet, plus a little instruction in the abc’s of the sciences in high school, such kids are learning to laugh at Christian dogma.

          Considerably less than half of them will grow up to be really serious about their church, and not all of those will vote.

          And of the ones that DO vote, maybe as many as half of them will take Jesus SERIOUSLY, actually following His teachings ……. which are more about charity, good will, tolerance, brotherhood, modest living, etc, as opposed to n bigotry, racism, getting rich, etc.

        2. It could very well be that Trump is the last Republican president for half a century. And both houses of Congress will likely have the same fate.

          1. Then be prepared to not recognizing the USA again after short time.

            Looks like Democrats caving in to BLM stone age commusnism movement and political correctness, gender politics, social justice, open border and so on.

            You’ll have a very justice, but very poor country soon.

            1. Black Lives Matter is a stone-age communism movement? Just how the hell did you arrive at that logic? Social Justice? Just what the hell is wrong with social justice? Good God man, where the fuck do you get off? And we will have a just but poor country? Why will it be so poor?

              Eulenspiegel, your logic is just so muddled I have no idea how to reply. But I assume you support Donald Trump and his attempt to turn the US into a Fascist country ruled by Trump and other Trumpites. I do not. Nuff said.

            2. No, I don’t support Trump, not at all. I’m in the middle – a position most radical at the moment. For the lefties I am an racist (I don’t like open borders), and for the right communist (I’m for some regulations, and don’t like religion and military and arms).

              And the movement is communistic.
              All this anti-capitalism, “Defund the police”, “Only whites can be rassists”, “Everyone gets the same”.

              Social justice is pure commusnism – everyone gets the same, thinks the same, there is no government and no power structures.

              In their own voice:
              http://www.social-justice.eu/socialjustice.html

              And this self critical analyzis, power and privilege self analyzis especially for whites, is the method of Mao-self-critics. It only has to result in mindless following the movement.

              If you like it – ok. There is the freedom of opinion. It’s ok to be a communist, but it’s not mine. These equal societies tend to some people getting “more equal than others”.

              We had the great luck here to end the DDR experiment without a blood bath, due to Gorbatschow reforming the Sowjet Union, ending it. I don’t need a second try of universial justice.

              Edit: Some of my friends have lived until their 20s in the DDR. They know this propaganda from school, army and study, very good. Something that walks like a duck, squawks like a duck and looks like a duck ist most times…

            3. Eulenspiegel, your definition of social justice, which you found on the net, is warped, ignorant, and just plain wrong. Social justice just means all people get equal justice under the law. That is they are treated equally. And that is all it means.

              The DDR experiment. For those not familiar with the DDR, Eulenspiegel here is talking about the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, or East Germany. And you call it an experiment? It was no fucking experiment, it was simply part of the Former Soviet Union along with Ukraine and a lot of other Baltic States. That was not an experiment, that was an attempt to take over and/or control the world.

              Eulenspiegel, I now understand where you are coming from. But it appears that you being a part of the German system at that time, and I assume you were, has drastically affected your judgment as to systems of government from the Fascist system to Communism.

              Under those circumstances, I do not think we can have an honest and meaningful dialogue.

              Have a good day.

            4. hint:
              I really don’t see any analysis of user value and exchange value.

            5. Ron,

              I really really appreciate your straight talk and replies.

              A Canadian perspective is that 85%+ would like to see our shared border closed until late 2021, and ‘Nucks are pissed about tariffs and Trump. Pissed.

              regards

            6. Paulo,
              Believe it or not, there are actually people– I’m one of them but certainly not alone– who live and were born in/on what others like to call ‘Canada’ who don’t consider themselves Canadian as such, despite the continual doses of kool aid often force-fed to them over their lifetimes, such as at so-called government-prescribed ideological-indoctrination institutionalizations known as ‘schools’.

              I take it you taught at one or more of them, yes?

              There are of course First Nations people who are also advocating ‘no borders’.

            7. Eulen…
              Like so many people you see only the extreme.
              Mainstream democratic voters and their leaders aren’t about fulfilling your fears or the right wing accusations about their character or goals.

            8. I see the USA becoming more and more like Western European countries over the next few decades, in terms of government and the economy, because the people of this country are evolving politically in that direction, excepting the trump type faction, which fortunately may have already peaked, and will be growing smaller.

              Given that this country is more fortunate than most or maybe every European country, in terms of natural resources, there’s no reason I can see that we shouldn’t do ok, except for problems resulting from population overshoot and the climate going bad on us.

              The Democrats are NOT in favor of “open borders” any more than any major party in Europe is in favor of open borders, which is to say THAT argument agains them is nothing more nor less than Trump/ Republican propaganda.

              The states in the USA and the countries in the world that are typically the most prosperous, in terms of the living standards of the typical citizen, tend to be the ones that are dominated by the Democrats in this country, and various parties that are not that far left of American Democrats in states such as NY and California.

              I don’t know how much R/ trump kool aid Eulenspeigel has been drinking the last few days, but he generally makes better arguments and more sense than at this time.

            9. OFM,

              I would agree with that sentiment, at least in a normal World. But I don’t with the US. The Country is too entrenched and divided, and too well armed. I see violence and domestic terrorism by right wingers.

              I hope I am wrong. To avoid the rise of Timothy McVeighs, what kind of surveillance will need to be done? Plus, when health directives like wearing a mask is political, and orchestrated by powerful leaders, can there be a way forward?

              I look for massive infection rates as many many will refuse to sacrifice what they perceive as their rights.

              My American nephew just returned from a must visit to Nebraska. The small town and extended family do not even believe the virus exists? They thing it’s a hoax.

            10. Breaking News: COVID-19 News Making Caelan Sick

              AFAIK humans are the only animals that walk around with masks and they look bloody stupid while doing so.
              I should get a poster done of a flock of sheep with masks on.
              COVID-19 appears as a mountain out of a mole hill, a nothing burger, a virus that cried wolf.
              Wait for a real pandemic, then we’ll talk.

            12. I hear the US has a relatively overweight, unhealthy and aging baby boomer population along with a shitty health care system.
              Is that true?
              Out of a population of ~330 million?

            13. Caelan says

              “COVID-19 appears as a mountain out of a mole hill, a nothing burger, a virus that cried wolf.”

              Can you think of any other on-the-job disease in your lifetime which has killed over 1000 health care workers? I was a respiratory therapist for 35 years, and I’ve never encountered one.

              https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/85867

              Don’t be so fucking selfish. If you don’t care enuf to protect yourself, wear a mask to help them out.

            14. Caelan MacIntyre does have a history on this site of making posts simply to get a reaction from people.

              He doesn’t ever contribute anything, just makes provocative statements.

              I don’t think he believes anything he writes. He’s just bored and looking for entertainment.

            15. I think you are right GerryF, nobody on earth could be that fucking stupid. He must be doing it for its “entertainment value”.

              However, if I wanted to post something just for the fun of it, I would not post something that made me look like an idiot.

              Soooo… either way he looks like an idiot.

            16. Wharf Rat,
              As far as is understood most people don’t work in American hospitals on the front lines (much less in the US health care system) but, ya, the legacy mainstream media, via their flapping mouthpieces of various sorts, also seem to just love throwing around decontextualized statistics like that to support some propaganda piece (while we find some Experts who ostensibly don’t actually do as they say).

              In any case, I’m uninterested in seeing my planet and people being ‘sterilized’ ‘for the sake of their own safety’, as the indoctrinational-red-flag lingo can go.

              COVID-19 also appears as a convenient rationalization/slippy slope toward (further) authoritarianism and (further) attempts at dividing and conquering in the prodding about of their sheeple.

              See also here and here

              Life is full of risk (sociogeopolitically-manufactured by those who lie, cheat and steal, notwithstanding) and that’s part of what it’s about. By some people’s logic, we might as well not get in our cars either (lest we be ‘selfish’ and kill some innocent bystanders and pollute/cook the ecosystem, etc.) and ‘stay at home’ in our retrofitted padded cells and diapers.

              Ron Patterson, at ~82, you’re near the cliff.
              If not COVID-19, then something else is going to shove you off of it, mask or no. And we’ll all be joining you soon enough. How about that, ay?

              Oh and thanks for the attempt at little else but provocation, GerryF. Bored? Hate when someone has a different take than you or your groupthink?

              “It’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees!” ~Emiliano Zapata

            18. Survivalist, that is nothing but pureTrumpite Republican bullshit propaganda.

              But it is typical of a Trumpite to post nothing but pure bullshit because that is the absolute best you can do.

          2. The republican party will get re-invented.
            It will take 4-12 years, but it will reemerge with a new look.
            Probably extreme nationalism/law and order, but not the white nationalist kind – that will have been recognized as a failure, by and large.
            I am not sure, but I’m not looking forward to it.
            I’d prefer them to stay stuck in the failing mentality that they currently have, and undergo a long, long fade.

            One thing for sure- the media war of the right is going to heat up massively if the democrats win.

            1. Probably extreme nationalism/law and order, but not the white nationalist kind…

              Not the white nationalist kind? Hell, that’s over half their base. They would be nothing without those yahoos. But yes, the Republican party will eventually get rebuilt. But it will take a lot longer than 4 to 12 years.

              One thing for sure- the media war of the right is going to heat up massively if the democrats win.

              Right now they have one TV platform, Fox News, and lots of hate radio loudmouths. Why would their voices be amplified just because they lost the Presidency and possibly the Senate majority?

            2. “Why would their voices be amplified just because they lost the Presidency and possibly the Senate majority?”
              I expect them to do anything to obstruct the democrats, and to raise hell. They aren’t about to just fade away.

              Regarding the first point, they will re-brand themselves with full knowledge that the white-nationalism core of their party’s character is a failing brand. That energy will be channeled into other forms- such as anti-Chinese/ant-Islam/ anti-Russian economic nationalism which will attempt to appeal to more than just the current white nazi sympathizers that now permeate the republican party.
              It will be ugly, I can guarantee you that.

            3. I’m with Ron on this one.The R party as we know it today is a dead man walking.

              They used to say, sarcastically, that change in the sciences comes slowly, one funeral at a time, as the old guys who were wrong die off. There was some truth in that argument, at times.

              The two single words you can best use to define the typical trump voter are OLD and IGNORANT. I would include white but better educated white voters mostly vote for Democrats.

              Trump’s voters are dying off pretty fast even today, where as Democratic voters are increasing in numbers from one year to the next, and will continue to increase in number for at least a couple of decades, and probably three or four decades.

              Today’s young man or woman who is entering into a career as a teacher is a Democrat, four times out of five.

              The fifties stereotype woman who used to be a teacher is history now. Class rooms now are pretty much supervised by relatively young women who are subtly and not so subtly teaching the kids a little something about the true meaning of equality, equal rights, the importance of good environmental law, etc.

              Education works slowly, but it works, like water on stone, eventually getting the job done. When I was young, half the people I knew were adamant that tobacco is a harmless gift of the gods. Now I can’t think of a soul who would tell a kid to start smoking, it’s ok, it’s fun and it won’t hurt you.

              The men in the field of education, at least the younger ones, are of the same mold, by and large, politically, as the women.

              I shop in the mythical small city of Mayberry, Mt Airy NC, home of the Andy Griffith tv show, which is pretty much typical of small southern towns in terms of race relations, and only an hour’s drive from Greensboro.

              Greensboro was one of the hottest hot spots in the early days of the Civil Rights Movement.

              I can remember seeing KKK signs in restaurants as a kid, etc. There was a KKK rally not far from my home about forty years ago.

              It was held on a remote farm in such secrecy that ninety nine percent of the people who would have liked to go didn’t know about it, lol. The vast majority of the local people never even heard about it. I only learned about it myself by accident, years later, but I was living elsewhere at the time.

              NOW nobody even bats an eye at the sight of a mixed race couple on the street in Mayberry.

              I can’t remember the last time anybody even made an unhappy face when a black man or woman took a seat at the next table in a restaurant in Mayberry.

              There will be a Republican Party but it’s going to go thru some wrenching changes starting this November, and these changes will continue for quite some time thereafter. I see the Democrats dominating, nationally, for at least a generation, maybe longer.

              The people who own Fox News are evil, greedy, racist, call them what you please…… other than stupid.

              Nothing happens in such an organization that isn’t APPROVED by top management aka the owners.

              The reason we see some pretty harsh criticism of trump and his homies NOW by Fox talking heads is as obvious as the noonday sun.

              He’s on his way OUT, and the owners are doing what they can to reposition themselves so as to keep as much of the future audience as possible. As some showman once said, if you’re being run out of town, get out front and pretend it’s a parade.

              A year or two down the road I’m going to be hearing a shit load of trump voters denying that they ever supported him, once we see the evidence on his taxes, Russian connections, all around corruption, etc.

            4. “The R party as we know it today is a dead man walking. ”
              I agree with you guys on this. “As we know it”
              But it will be re-crafted, and should this should not be underestimated.
              Ignorance, fear, greed and brainwashing has not been repealed.

            5. What Hickory said. The bag men and political operatives will still be there, and they’ve gotta eat, you know. They will still have their mailing lists and K-street offices, and will move just enough to the left to support the least democratic Democrats.

            6. A center right party will re-emerge because of human nature. There are basically two types of humans. Hell two types of higher animals. Those that are risk averse and those who are novelty seekers. The risk averse gravitate towards a conservative world view and novelty seekers gravitate towards a liberal world view. The risk averse look at the past and see a glorious history and want to keep things the same. Don’t rock the boat. Change is scary. Security is the most important thing. The novelty seekers look at the promise of the country and how we fall short of that promise what needs to be done to change things. Believe that change is good and that risk associated with change is worth it. There will always be two parties that cater to those two basic human impulses. Over the past thirty years perhaps longer the conservative party was highjacked by what Eisenhower termed the “Crackpots and crazies”. The lunatics have been driving the bus. And they’ve run it off a cliff. But sound public policy is arrived at by taking into consideration both aspects of human nature. A desire to do better and a healthy respect for what has worked in the past. Someday perhaps we will attain that balance. But I think you are basically right. Because of the total hash these grifters have made of it, it is going to be quite some time. Perhaps a generation.

            7. There are basically two types of humans.

              Yes, there are. There are those who divide humans into two types and those who do not. 😉

  3. Some car makers are having trouble lining up enough battery supply. I’ve seen articles about Audi, VW, and Hyundai/Kia with this issue.
    Unless they are able to get capacity for battery production ramped up over the next 3-5 years,
    they are going to end up putting smaller battery packs in each vehicle,
    or keep an ICE on board as a battery extender (plug-in hybrid).
    So far, big advantage tesla for the intermediate future.

    1. They have the same ramp up problem. For their chinese production, they are buying at the same companies as the german, french or chinese E-car makers. In their new german factory they will buy many batteries, too.

      The slow ramp up isn’t that bad, anyways. Electric charging infrastructure is way behind, and slow to build.

      And slapping a few superchargers at some petrol station is only a stopgap. When you need 50 or 100 at some time in the future to be able to handle holiday travel or monday morning madness – then you have to build new powerlines first. And this is expensive and need permissions.

      Imagine even when the Tesla Semitruck, and similar models from Volvo, Mercedes … will be a success. Then you need big power capacities at interstate fueling stations – sometimes in the middle of nowhere. Big investing there.

      The main Autobahn truck routes here is one line of Trucks on one lane – imagine the charging power needed if all of them are E-Trucks.
      And no, building a new railway system here isn’t possible. This takes 30-50 years. What reservations are for US-Pipelines, all kind of nature reservates or not yet detected nature reservates are in Germany. Not possible to build anything new in unser 20 years. And the current rail roads are already full.

      And in Germany most people don’t have a private garage. So town infrastructure for loading is needed, too.

        1. I was in Germany when the wall went down and worked with many DDR folk as well as help develop many Cubans that won Fidel’s lottery in the workplace. It was tragic just how mentally challenged and damaged many were, however, they were all willing to do whatever it takes to be a success after a multiyear adjustment period. They just did not get that someone else was NOT responsible for their welfare.

          1. I was in Europe in 1989 also.
            One of the last times I had a glimpse of humans actually surviving for a while.
            That soon passed, but Paris was a trip.

        2. Tesla’s Cobalt oxide cells will not scale to what is needed. Likely max out with the Cyber Truck. Can Tesla get to 250 Gwh/annually by 2022? Perhaps the reason why the Cyber Truck is staying big, to make room for LFP Batteries. Elon is asking for partners for Nickel mining ramp up.

      2. Eulenspiegel,

        No need for private garage. An outlet can be placed on a post in the driveway or front yard if there is only street parking, a lock box can be part of the installation for less safe neighborhoods. For apartments, landlords will need to install them to attract wealthier clients. This really isn’t rocket science, 240 V and 40 Amperes will do the trick for home charging. For interstates the charging infrastructure can be installed. Just requires some political will.

        1. Canada and Scandinavian countries have had public outlets for many years to keep ICE engine blocks warm.

          Definitely not rocket science.

            1. 240 V and 10 A would be 2.4 kW, enough for 10 miles per hour of charge, overnight you would get 100 miles of range, probably enough for most commutes. 240 V and 20 A would be better and for me 240 V and 30 A works just fine.

            3. Nick G,

              It could work for many, but it is not a big deal to do 240 V, 40 amp circuits. Sometimes people want to travel farther than 120 miles and level 3 chargers are less battery friendly so it makes sense to do a full charge to 300 miles at home and that’s hard to accomplish with a 2.4 KW charger. It is simply a matter of convenience.

            4. We’re entirely in agreement.

              I just thought it’s worth pointing out that relatively few people really need more than 2.4KW. The average US driver goes less than 30 miles per day, so a 2.4KW charger could add 90 miles of range each night. That would allow a 300 mile trip every fourth day, and probably the average driver travels 300 miles less than one tenth that much.

              Now, if level 3 chargers weren’t easily available you’d be less tolerant of taking the risk of not having a maximum charge for a trip, so public infrastructure (e.g., Tesla’s network) does help.

            5. Just do like I do with my welder. Before I upgraded my service to 200 amps, I was maxed out. I just did a toggle disconnect with my dryer when I want to do some welding. When someone wants to use the dryer they curse and go outside to the generator panel circuit I use and switch back over. 🙂

              I now have an almost empty 200 amp panel and haven’t bothered to rewire it. It works great so why bother?

        2. And really, for the average person, 120V 16A charging will fill the bill. I drive my Fiat 500e 10-12,000 miles a year, and I’ve never charged at a higher rate than that at home. I assumed I’d need to, but it turned out to not be necessary.

          Counter-intuitively, having a car with a larger battery would make it even less necessary to have 240V charging, for the average user, as if one had a big day and was depleted further than normal, the shortfall could be recouped over several additional nights.

          YMMV however. A friend recently bought a used Fiat 500e (2017 for $7k), and he subsequently moved into one of my basement apartments. He insisted that he had to have 240V charging, so I bought the RV breaker box and he paid for the electrician to install it.

          After 6 weeks, it turns out his charging needs don’t require it after all, only his psychology does.

          1. Thank you for confirming my thoughts that a level 1 charger would be adaquit Bob. In addition, I was thinking about a 300 mile range would also do the trick. That kind of range would allow a round trip to anywhere in the LA basin or one way trip to a place like Las Vegas. On a cross country trip, 300 miles would mean 4 hours before needed refueling. Which is a good rest interval and personal refueling.

        3. “An outlet can be placed on a post in the driveway or front yard if there is only street parking”
          I see lots of EV charging cords draped across the side walks around here, especially on the hilly streets where there is not much parking off street.

        4. If you don’t have a private garage, then you’re most likely living in a city.

          Based on trends from the last few years, most larger cities will have at least 50% less cars by 2030, more likely 75% less (my prediction).
          For the simple reason that cars in cities was a stupid idea from the beginning and more an more city councils begin to realize that.

          Question is: Will there be enough electric cars in cities to pay for charging infrastructure?

          1. Over here in Halifax, NS, Canada, last spring, they placed ‘Local Traffic Only’ signs and pylons on many residential streets around town, and quite close to the downtown core. I wouldn’t be surprised if more and more streets were ultimately designated car-free, or practically so, given a somewhat manufactured increased difficulty to get around by car.

            I also heard that bike sales have shot up, and I’ve seen many more bikers this year, despite the many other retail business closures. Speaking of which, in one spot, 3 ‘big boxes’ in a row; Addition Elle, Pier 1 Imports and Penningtons.

            On the other hand, second hand stores like Value Village and the Salvation Army Thrift shops seem to be doing a booming business; a form of market cannibalism? I’ve seen shoppers from Value Village for example, get into their BMW and Range Rover cars. Those sorts of things might put upward price pressure on second hand store prices.

        5. Twenty amps at 240 volts will pretty much giterdone overnight for the vast majority of drivers. Forty amps will do overnight for almost anybody except a tradesman with a larger heavy duty pickup truck, etc, and most likely……. it will do for him too.

          And the electric utilities are actually DROOLING at the prospect of selling so much more juice, especially at night, because they typically have ample generating and delivery capacity to get the job done. Their fixed costs are already covered, and they stand to generate some handsome profits by cranking out the extra juice.

          Eventually they will have to upgrade transmission lines, but that can be done as necessary one neighborhood at a time as electric cars come to dominate the auto market.

          1. The instantaneous effect of a household charging an EV via a normal 10 Amp plug is the same as little Jimmy turning on an electric heater to keep warm at night. The impact on the grid has to be considered in terms of the annual average mileage per vehicle in the area. For 30 miles per day average about 8 kWh per household per day is needed. That’s trivial in the big picture.

            1. That’s absolutely true. On the other hand, this is basic planning of the kind that utilities and Independent System Operators are expected to do. When reading the quote below about pricing, let’s not forget that the Energy Act of 2005 required all US utilities to provide Time Of Use pricing plans.

              “EV resource adequacy can be doubled with managed charging strategies.

              The EV resource adequacy for the entire WECC interconnection was estimated for a likely unmanaged charging scenario under which most LDVs were charging at home starting in the evening (Home High power No Delay: HHND). Unmanaged charging is predicated on arrival time at home in the evening, when we assumed that the charging process begins. The maximum number of LDVs when projected to the national fleet was about 30 million (national value) or 9 million for the WECC footprint. Alternatively, if managed charging was applied by hypothesizing a price-minimization scheme, the EV resource adequacy could be expanded to 65 million (national fleet number) or 19.6 million for the WECC. This suggests a significant opportunity to substitute additional generation and transmission requirements with smart charging strategies and much better utilization of the existing grid.”

        6. I charge my Model 3 with L1 120V 95% of the time. I average less than 50 miles/day. The Batteries should last even longer at L1 charge. ~ 5 miles/hr. – L2 (240V) is 10 times faster.

          1. Long timber,

            From what I have read L1 vs L2 charging for the Model 3 will make little difference for battery longevity, the key thing is to limit charging to the sweet spot where the battery remains between 20% and 80% of full charge, probably if you only drive 50 miles most days you would want to charge to 60% and run it down to about 40%. Charging at Level 3 will affect battery longevity, that is needed only occasionally when making 250 to 500 mile trips, which I don’t do very often.

            You must be thinking of wall connector at 48 A and 240 V or 11.5 kW vs standard 120 V, 15 A circuit where we gat 12 A at 120 V or 1.44 KW, which would be a factor of 8 faster, my setup using mobile connector is 32 A at 240 V so only 7.68 KW or roughly 5 times faster than standard outlet, so overnight would get you 50 miles (in 10 hours).

            1. I set a charge at 120V @ 9A, So I can use a light gauge long cord at 40 meters with less than 1% loss. Yes SOC ‘State of Charge” range is the big life cycle factor. but the slower you charge the better. but you are basically right, any rate over C5 ( 5 hr to capacity) is basically a slow charge. Lately it’s made up it’s decided a net top @ 80% unless you override for a trip. Used to be 90%. Oxide packs we used to build we limited top to 4.0 volts/cell with is close to 80% SOC. Now we build 100% Heavy metal-free LFP for stationary applications resulting in 1/2 the cost per kWh.

      3. “The main Autobahn truck routes here is one line of Trucks on one lane – imagine the charging power needed if all of them are E-Trucks.”

        Why don’t you provide any data for your claims? The useful energy in fuels (in Germany) are 120 TWh for all vehicles, around 50% are caused by trucks (->60 TWh).

        If trucks operate 12 hours per day 350 days per year we get

        60 TWh/ (350 * 12h) = 14 GW.

        14 GW for 100% RE trucks operating only 12 h per day is not much. What is your issue?

      1. The case and fatality data is available from the states directly. The hospitalization data must be available from the states as well, but i couldn’t find it for some states at first look. Worldometer shows the sources they use.

        I haven’t looked at it, but i imagine a comparison with HHS data would show whether there’s some jiggery-pokery going on.

    1. The last paragraphs of this link:

      NextEra will be “positioned really well regardless of who wins in November,” Robo said.

      “You can remember back close to four years ago … there was some turmoil around our stock when President Trump was elected. We’ve managed to completely be fine under this administration in terms of being able to continue to grow our renewable business, because you know: it’s all about economics.”

      “The time for renewables is now and that kind of transcends politics, frankly,” Robo said. “Obviously, we watch [political outcomes] closely. We think good clean energy policy is important and the right policy for America in the future.”

      In three or four years people who applauded when the orangutan pushed coal and laughed when he said wind farms cause cancer will be pretending they were green energy advocates all along.

      1. “The time for DISTRIBUTED renewable energy is now and that kind of transcends politics, frankly,” Sorry NEE. The DG energy revolution will soon free the energy strangle hold on State Politics. These Mega utilities are all about reinforcing energy Slavery. As time goes by, Centralized PV will not make sense compared to local/rooftop generation.

        1. The grid is already THERE, extending to virtually every place in the civilized world.

          And centralized generation will always have a substantial cost advantage over distributed. Putting solar panels on existing roofs is always going to be an expensive proposition. Rewiring old houses to accommodate pv is expensive.

          And so far as home scale or local scale wind power is concerned, you can pretty much just forget it, because it doesn’t work worth a crap most places, and it’s expensive as hell anywhere. If you want wind energy, you want a wind farm…….

          I don’t see home scale installations dominating the industry, personally, but the cards might fall that way in some areas, depending on the shape of the local political landscape.

          An ideal solution would be to have the ownership of the industry organized cooperatively, so that every customer would own a share of it, and get a discount on his bill rather than a dividend check.

          Then there would be a powerful incentive to do things right, from the pov of the people of the country.

          1. “And centralized generation will always have a substantial cost advantage over distributed.” That may have been be true in the PAST with Solar 1.0 because it was crippled by the Utility and the Mob (UL). No Utility without THE Utility meter. Unidirectional EV Charging, permitting, etc,etc Rooftop Mounting PV ” slapping glass” is childs play once crews get good at it. Utility kWh’s are > 10 cents due to failures, losses, corruption and Energy Deregulation, etc. Self-financed professionally installed PV is under a nickel. DYI half of that. The trick until storage get mainstream is to shift obvious loads to daytime. As Utilities deploy more PV, Customer TOU – Time of Use rates will become mandatory or common to save $$$$. It’s law that utilities have to offer TOU now. Can you say CodeAphone? Would you buy internet that can not send an email? The money is on Solar 2.0.

        2. Next Era Energy, the nations biggest utility, along with the grid are not about to disappear as a result of distributed energy any decade soon.
          It would be great if everyone had so much energy that they didn’t need the grid, but it would require a huge drop in battery and solar costs, and the abolishing of winter, to make the grid irrelevant.
          I do produce excess solar electricity currently, and the grid is the perfect mechanism to exchange energy with. Well, not so perfect when the lines cause fire, but lets not get distracted by that detail.
          In any case, for those who intend ‘short’ NEE stock- good luck with that. I’ll take the long side of that trade any day.
          Better bet is to be a long term investor in Enphase and Solaredge (photovoltaic invertors/energy management).
          I suspect Longtimber and I are in agreement on that last point.

          1. No question. I would not bet against NEE especially with EV’s future demand. Moving PV Energy in front of or behind the sun will be worth billions. TPTB may not allow Tesla’s trading platform in many markets. But the Grid as just another input (Bidirectional if contracted) on hybrid inverters. A 340 watt PV Panel installed on a roof is ~500 or so. You pay a Utility close to $3000 or so for the same power. It’s the Return Capital invested model that will be the warzone. The synchronous grid as is is fragile. With Solar 1.0 you can NOT combine independent AC sources. you only interact or wave ride the grid waveform foward in time. It can NEVER make voltage or power on it’s own. It has ZERO independent Utility by design. At SPI2019 I make a list of upcoming products that can make power without Batteries or the Grid.
            https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/puerto-ricos-power-grid-fails-hours-ahead-of-potential-arrival-of-tropical-storm/ar-BB17l0tN

    2. In the future we will need a ‘green hydrogen’ thread-

      Chilean “Energy Minister Juan Carlos Jobet said that by harnessing renewable energy the South American country could be producing 25 million mt/year of green hydrogen by 2050, generating exports worth more than $30 billion”
      “Chile offers helpful conditions for renewable energy, especially along its windswept coasts and in the sun-drenched Atacama Desert, which offers the world’s highest levels of solar radiation.
      With almost $23 billion worth of wind, hydroelectric and solar projects in development, the country is expected to source 70% of its electricity from renewables by 2030, up 44% from last year. But the country could potentially produce a great deal more, up to 70 times more power from renewables than its entire energy grid, according to some estimates.”

      https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/metals/072820-chilean-minister-says-future-hydrogen-industry-to-rival-copper

  8. Trump’s New Favorite COVID Doctor Believes in Alien DNA, Demon Sperm, and Hydroxychloroquine

    The president is pushing the coronavirus theories of a Houston doctor who also says sexual visitations by demons and alien DNA are at the root of Americans’ common health concerns.

    She alleges alien DNA is currently used in medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious. And, despite appearing in Washington, D.C. to lobby Congress on Monday, she has said that the government is run in part not by humans but by “reptilians” and other aliens.

    Trump, at his Coronavirus briefing yesterday, defended this doctor. He said there were a lot of other doctors there with her.

    But we must remember, trump did pass a test proving that he did not have dementia. But all that proves is you do not have to have dementia to believe really stupid stuff.

    1. Six months. 150,000 deaths in the USA.
      4% of the worlds population (USA) has over 22% of the worlds virus deaths.

      What could cause such a feeble result?
      How about a feeble-minded president with failed policies, failed role-modeling, and failed thinking.
      In fact, this will go down as one of the biggest presidential failures in the USA history,
      right up there with the Iraq invasion and the VietNam war.

      -USA war deaths in Korea, VietNam, Iraq, Afghanistan combined less than 100,000
      -China deaths from Covid-19 84,000, and they didn’t have warning it was coming

      Did you take your hydroxychloroquine today?

      1. I was tempted to buy Kodak the other day as it dropped to the 2 dollar mark.. had I done so I would’ve maybe cashed out above 40 dollars today after Trump’s silly pharma scheme agreement with the company. I wonder if insider trading is involved in this deal

    2. I’m not too sure about how you get a medical license when you’re from a country such as Nigeria, or how you go about getting one if you are from such a country and move to the USA.

      I took five or ten minutes looking but didn’t find out much about this doctor.
      But she is apparently at least marginally competent AS a physician since she’s got hospital privileges and an ongoing practice of her own.

      So it’s altogether possible that she doesn’t believe her own sermons. I’ve met more than a couple of preachers that were of the Borgia persuasion. One or another of them famously said that since God saw fit to make them the office of the Pope, they should feel free to enjoy it.
      They will be famous forever as among the most corrupt people in history.

      But having said this much, trump’s still an idiot for even mentioning her name, in terms of politics.

      1. I took five or ten minutes looking but didn’t find out much about this doctor….

        So it’s altogether possible that she doesn’t believe her own sermons.

        Okay, if you will just take a few more minutes to learn about Dr. Stella Immanuel. The things she actually says is hilariously absurd.

        Trump promotes a doctor who has claimed alien DNA was used in medical treatments

        On her website and in sermons posted on YouTube, Immanuel — who practices medicine at Rehoboth Medical Center, a clinic in Houston, and is the founder of the Fire Power Ministries church — has, among other things, claimed that sex with “tormenting spirits” is responsible for gynecological problems, miscarriages and impotence.

        “Many women suffer from astral sex regularly. Astral sex is the ability to project one’s spirit man into the victim’s body and have intercourse with it,” she once claimed in a sermon.

        I fail to understand your logic that she is just lying about believing all this bullshit. Why would she lie about believing such stupid stuff? That makes no sense whatsoever. If she doesn’t believe it, then she has to know that saying such things just makes her look stupid.

  9. Morning trivia:

    U.S. National Debt is currently running at around $26.6 trillion and increasing roughly $100,000 every three seconds (as far as I can tell). And your unfunded liabilities are running at over $150 trillion and increasing at about $100,000 every second; this includes medical liability, social security, etc. Maybe all meaningless, but it seems like a problem to me. If it is meaningless, why bother even recording it? I’m wondering, can you order a money printing press from Amazon? I’d like to get one.

    BTW “During the 2016 presidential campaign, Republican candidate Donald Trump promised he would eliminate the nation’s debt in eight years. Instead, his budgets would add $8.3 trillion during that time. It would increase the U.S. debt to $28.5 trillion at the end of eight years, according to Trump’s budget estimates.”

    https://www.thebalance.com/trump-plans-to-reduce-national-debt-4114401

    https://www.usdebtclock.org/

  10. https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/storing-energy-in-the-freezer-long-duration-thermal-storage-comes-of-age

    This is not the sort of thing that will make a big difference in and of itself, but there are probably dozens of such new applications of existing technologies that collectively can help a hell of a lot making the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

    It works by phase shifting from solid to liquid absorbing heat leaking into cold storage warehouses. Apparently the trick is that you refreeze the solution during off peak hours when juice is cheap.
    The article skirts the question of how much space these cold packs take inside the cold rooms, when installed in existing facilities.

    It ought to be practical and economical to put plenty of ordinary thermal mass and lots of insulation in any new cold storage facility, maybe using some of these solutions in permanently installed containers inside the outer walls, inside the insulation of course.

    Sometime back I read about a new building built over a large pit filled with water that is allowed to freeze during an upper midwestern winter, and then used for a couple of months cooling in summer. I can’t find the link any more, but I suspect the costs turned out to be prohibitive in relation to the energy savings.

  11. WILDFIRES, RECORD WARMTH AND RAPIDLY MELTING ICE: ARCTIC CLIMATE GOES FURTHER OFF THE RAILS

    “The Arctic summer of 2020 is one that has been marked by raging fires in the Far North, with smoke extending more than 1,000 miles downwind, along with alarming new temperature records and ice melt. While rapid Arctic climate change is not exactly news — the region is warming at about three times the rate of the rest of the world…

    In Svalbard, a Norwegian Arctic archipelago that has seen staggering warming rates in recent years, all-time temperature records were set, turning already receding glaciers into mush, covered by so much turquoise meltwater that it was visible from space.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/07/29/arctic-climate-change-hastens/

    1. “the start of a long battle over the U.S. presidency”
      The battle ends at high noon on Jan. 20th. If the election takes place, it will probably be President Pelosi. If, for some reason, there is no election, the Senate picks the president.

      =

      In the absence of an election by January, Trump’s time as president will end on January 20, 2021. Article II of the Constitution provides that a president is elected to serve a four-year term, and Trump’s four years will be up on that date. Without a new electoral mandate, he’s out.

      Who, then, steps into the Oval Office if no election has been held? Not Vice President Mike Pence; his term also expires on January 20. So the presidency and vice-presidency would both be vacant.

      Now things get weird. By statute, the person next in line for the presidency is the speaker of the House. But in a world with no election, the speakership would be just as vacant as the vice presidency. Just as Trump’s term will end on January 20, the current term of every member of the House of Representatives will end on January 3. The House of Representatives would have no members and couldn’t elect a speaker.

      Who’s next? The answer, by statute, is the president pro tempore of the Senate. That office would not be vacant. Only 35 Senate seats are up for election in November; the other 65 Senators are now serving terms that extend beyond 2021. So even without an election, there would still be a Senate, though it would have only 65 members.

      The next critical question, of course, is who that president pro tempore would be. By Senate practice stretching back to the 19th century, the most senior member of the majority party is selected as president pro tem. Today, it’s Iowa’s Chuck Grassley. If there is no election this fall, however, Grassley would no longer be in the majority party. Of the 65 Senators whose terms continue past 2021, and who would therefore compose the Senate after January 3 in the absence of a new election, 35 are Democrats.

      So, by default, the Democrats would control the Senate. To be clear, exactly 18 Democrats could control the Senate, since they’d make up a voting majority of the caucus…

      …Neither the Constitution nor any statute restricts the choice of president pro tem to a current member of the Senate. (Similarly, the House of Representatives can decide to elect a speaker who is not a member of the House.)So the Senate Democrats could choose anyone at all with the constitutional qualifications to be president—that is, any natural-born U.S. citizen over the age of 35 other than Barack Obama, George W. Bush or Bill Clinton. If they were in a mood to right historic wrongs, they could choose Hillary Clinton. Or for that matter, Al Gore.

      The most logical choice, though, would be Joe Biden…

      https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/31/postpone-the-election-that-could-mean-president-biden-389728

  14. https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/flow-graphs/electricity.php

    interesting chart, about 35% of all energy used to produce electricity becomes net electricity used by consumers in the US. This includes transmission and distribution losses and all electricity generation use of energy in plants (lights and heat used in facilities and any other energy use).

    Clicking on chart gives slightly better image, best image at link

    1. I don’t understand this chart.
      It shows end use electricity consumption at 13.3 quad BTU’s, with 15.1 quad BTU’s from Nuc and Renew alone. Transmission and Distribution loss 0.9 quad.
      If this is true, why even burn all that nat gas and coal.
      What is the take home message, other than the poor efficiency of burning gas and coal?

    2. Central power is for parasites. That’s why PV on a roof is key as is LOCAL Energy as well as Local Food. Below 40 degrees Latitude and 1000m in Altitude a PV Array blocks much of the IR gain on a structure. This alone can determine whether the structure is inhabitable or not. Burning coal to so you don’t fry is not sustainable. Forget all this greenwashing nonsense. Florida imports 99 % of its energy requirements. What % does Texas import?

      1. In the last decade, the speed at which Florida’s sea level is rising has increased; it is now building by roughly one inch every three years. With its population crowded along the coast, with its porous bedrock, and the common occurrence of tropical storms, perhaps storm surges will be more on people’s mind than PV on roofs (or rooves, depending where you went to school). Then again, maybe installing a few solar panels on your roof, like bread and circuses, makes a nice distraction?

        1. DougL,

          Where do they say “rooves”? That one I’ve never encountered; now I’m excited.

          1. Synapsid —

            When I was in school, eons ago, we ALWAYS used “Oxford English”. I expect this was standard in English speaking Canada, plus Australia and South Africa (back then). Accordingly, we were told ‘rooves’ was correct but ‘roofs’ acceptable (though perhaps frowned upon).

            BTW The Oxford English Dictionary (the “OED”) was mandatory (for us); “Websters” verging on heretical. These days I’m more-or-less indifferent and mostly just go along with Microsoft Word spellcheck even though it exasperates me sometimes.

            1. Ever wonder why the UK says colour and the US says color?

              Webster liked it that way.

              “In the late 1700s, Webster took issue with some of the inconsistencies of British spelling and the troubles they posed for American students learning the language. “Jail,” for example, was a much easier word for an English learner to pronounce than “gaol,” which was the more popular spelling of the word for almost a century. ”

              https://www.businessinsider.com/spelling-american-vs-british-noah-webster-2018-3

            2. “Ever wonder why the UK says colour and the US says color?”

              While color, is the preferred spelling in the U.S. the rest of the English-speaking world uses the longer form, colour.

              Have you ever wondered why pretty much every country, other than the U.S, uses the metric system of measurement?

            5. I love metric….. on paper.
              I fucking hate it, on a ruler or tape.
              But of course I don’t have problem, personally, with fractions, lol.

              Doing eyeball work, a millimeter is too big a final subdivision. And having four of them at the same height on the tape makes it hard to be sure you’re counting them correctly, compared to the old system.

              One sixteenth of an inch is just about dead on what we can easily and best deal with, using the naked eye, in most cases. Splitting that in half, for a thirty secondth works if you have good eyes and plenty of light.

              But the REAL reason trades people HATE metrics is that virtually every damned thing that EXISTS already was built measured in inches. So you are more or less compelled to buy materials measured the same way, to get things to work together,except on entirely new work.

              And a four by eight piece of plywood is plenty damned heavy ENOUGH, if you have to carry it, and put it in place. The metric standard size equivalent is a fucking KILLER.

              I’ve yet to meet anybody who works hands on in the trades who isn’t satisfied with the decimal inch, which DOES add, lol.

              And having to keep two sets of tools to work on my machinery REALLY pisses me off.

              We should go ahead and FINISH the fucking transition. Get it over with.

  16. This piece can be read as cheerleading, but that doesn’t mean the cheerleaders aren’t right about who wins the game at least half the time, lol.

    https://cleantechnica.com/2020/08/01/new-perovskite-solar-cell-puts-another-nail-in-the-natural-gas-coffin/

    It’s hard to say where the limits are, but today’s kids, if they survive, and industrial civilization survives, will probably be using eighty or ninety percent renewable electricity fifty years down the road.

    1. I know a lot of folks working on Perovskites. There are promising properties in that material system. But in the press releases the real problem with them is always downplayed. That is that they degrade substantially in a matter of weeks or months rather than years. For a technology like PV that is far from a minor inconvenience. All of the cost analysis that makes PV attractive relies on a long lifetime with a relatively low degradation rate. If you ignore that last bit and replace it with wishful thinking, well. Now, I definitely think they are worth researching. Progress is being made. When we first started working on them you had to run up to the measurements lab and get them characterized immediately rather than put them in the que with all the other samples. That is how fast they deteriorated. NowI imagine that you can just submit a sample and get it measured over a week or two and it will be relatively unchanged. But just like in this paper, they are making a big deal out of the fact that they can do lithography! Yippie! They found a way to protect it from moisture during the processing. But put it out in the field for twenty years! Minute amounts of water and other environmental contaminants are death to this stuff right now. The solution is going to have to be making it more fundamentally stable rather than just shielding it temporarily from water ingress. So, bottom line, you will continue to see impressive laboratory results that have really little to do with real world applications until the stability issues, the fundamental stability issues are resolved.

  17. Yeah OFM I hear on the metric thing.

    Its not so bad though . . . once you git’er’done

    The main thing is folks need to think in millimeters or meters and learn a standard form of how to express sizes.

    For example, an eight by four sheet of plywood is twelve hundred by twenty four hundred millimeters . . . not one point two meters by two point four meters.

    That is how it started out here . . . kept things nice and simple.

    I notice though this past few years that “centimeter”, traditionaly a dress making term is moving into the trades.

    I am still pissed off though that tape-measures are (I think) all made for left handed people.

    We did score some right handed steel rules years ago but most of them got stolen . . . the last one I had got cut off at around 63mm on the guilo.

    Cheers and you take care now.

    1. As a CNC programmer ( now retired ) who has worked with British and Metric systems ,I find working with metrics much easier . Nice round figures most of the time .

      1. The majority of products designed in imperial units are just not right.

    2. The mistake that the US made when they tried to convert, was to mess with conversion tables and calculations. This is pointless, and makes things difficult and confusing. Just flip the switch. People will get used to the new ‘metrics’.

      Americans had no trouble learning how much two litres or a gram of coke was when it was sold to them.

  18. Replacing the Grid. Jack makes many good points. He’s likely wrong about bi-direction charging. Such Utility is Life and Death.
    “Elon Musk (solar energy) he’s one guy, against all of them and he has them Outgunned, out-numbered and surrounded, right now – if they want a good seat at the surrender negotiations, they need to get out a big white flag right now – because he can be unkind to his detractors”.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHcNvqhIsAc&t=915s

  19. O.F.M. —

    Yes, we’ve all heard the sheet-of-plywood excuse for retaining the British Imperial System, a tangled mess of sub-standardized medieval weights and measurements. But, what is your rationale for retaining Fahrenheit (which is almost unknown outside the U.S.)?

    When I told my ten year old Grandson, a mile is an old English unit of length equal to 5,280 feet, or 1,760 yards, with a foot being based on the average length of a man’s foot he said, and rightly so: “That’s crazy Grandad.” And, what is your reason for sticking to the gallon (= 4 quarts or 128 (fluid) ounces)? Did you know that a US liquid gallon is legally defined as 231 cubic inches?

    Finally, living in a good Christian country, why in God’s name, other then in the Bible, do you NOT use the perfectly good cubit? (based on the length of the forearm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger and equal to about 18 inches).

    And there are those among us who would imply the English-speaking world, outside of the U.S., is somehow remiss by spelling your color, colour.

    1. ” living in a good Christian country”
      What planet do you live on?
      Look who the president is ( all of the major christian denominations voted majority for him)
      Remember slavery, napalm on civilians, extermination of the indigenous peoples who used to live here…

      You keep bringing up this story. I know its ingrained in your thinking, but I’m just sick of the false characterization.

      ps- nothing personal OFM. you know I’ve got plenty of respect for you. just not the story.
      I’m sure you would have walked with goodness if raised a Muslim, and Hindu or a Jew.
      Or with no religion- rather simple ethics and humanism.

      1. Well, according to Wiki, the United States has the largest Christian population in the world, with nearly 240 million Christians, although other countries have higher percentages of Christians among their populations. And, the modern official motto of the United States of America, as established in a 1956 law signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, is “In God We Trust”. Saying America is a “predominantly Christian nation” is not the same as implying extra privileges or power should come with being part of that majority. Perhaps the U.S. is a Christian country but not a “good” Christian country. Would deleting the good have me living on planet Earth. 😉

      2. Funny how people still believe that Christianity is about love and peace when it’s history is filled with anything but those two.

        The power of propaganda…

  20. It is fascinating to watch the nations utilities and automakers struggle to navigate the gradual shift from fossil fuels towards electrification with solar and wind and batteries.
    Its not an easy transition for these big companies.
    -Dominion has been forced to confront a rapid shift away from carbon-emitting energy assets in its home state of Virginia.
    https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/dominion-energy-ceo-to-step-down-as-utility-marks-massive-loss-from-pipeline-cancellation

    1. If his lips are moving, he’s lying. He can’t remember most of what he said 10 minutes after he says it. Neither can anyone else. Who could ? That’s his game.

  22. Remember Guys, I’m just the messenger here.

    ‘WORST-CASE’ CO2 EMISSIONS SCENARIO IS BEST FOR ASSESSING CLIMATE RISK AND IMPACTS TO 2050

    The RCP 8.5 CO2 emissions pathway, long considered a “worst case scenario” by the international science community, is the most appropriate for conducting assessments of climate change impacts by 2050, according to a new article published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The work was authored by Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) Risk Program Director Dr. Christopher Schwalm, Dr. Spencer Glendon, a Senior Fellow at WHRC and founder of Probable Futures, and by WHRC President Dr. Philip Duffy. Long dismissed as alarmist or misleading, the paper argues that is actually the closest approximation of both historical emissions and anticipated outcomes of current global climate policies, tracking within 1% of actual emissions.

    “Not only are the emissions consistent with RCP 8.5 in close agreement with historical total cumulative CO2 emissions (within 1%), but RCP8.5 is also the best match out to mid-century under current and stated policies with still highly plausible levels of CO2 emissions in 2100,” the authors wrote. “… Not using RCP8.5 to describe the previous 15 years assumes a level of mitigation that did not occur, thereby skewing subsequent assessments by lessening the severity of warming and associated physical climate risk.”

    https://phys.org/news/2020-08-worst-case-co2-emissions-scenario-climate.html

    1. And behind every good messenger is a good puppet master. Who’s yours?

      2. Jon- my puppet master on human ecologic destruction is myself.
        More specifically, the big part of myself that gives a shit about the world into which I born…. and live.
        By ‘world’, I mean the earth and all its living beings.
        Ok, maybe not mosquitos, pit vipers and poison oak/ivy [Toxicodendron diversilobum].
        And earthquakes.
        But most of the rest of it.

        I don’t give a shit about spectator sports, btw.

    1. I don’t think there’s anyone in the oil & gas industry who believes that production will be reduced by anything close to 40% in the next 10 years. I’d guess the most pessimistic think that there might be a very rough plateau that will last at least 10 years. I’d be curious to hear what others have heard about industry expectations in the next 10 years.

      On the other hand, I think a lot of people in the industry are feeling pressure to reduce emissions, especially in the UK and Europe. It seems like a lot of companies are putting out plans that aren’t really serious: they project large reductions of emissions but don’t include emissions from burning their products! On the 3rd hand(!), I have a friend who works for BP who says they’re actually pretty serious about it.

      1. NickG,

        The 40% reduction is for BP output only, they have control over how much they produce as a company. It is not an industrywide projection.

        1. Yeah, I guess Hickory was wondering if BP felt they had lost control over how much they produce, to the extent that they could only produce 60% as much oil in 10 years despite normal efforts (capex, etc) to maintain or expand production.

          That would surprise me greatly, but I haven’t looked closely at BP. Anyone have thoughts?

          1. Kind of Nick.
            My rhetorical question was commentary on whether they are starting to run out of economical fossil fuel to produce from their reserves (peak oil for that particular company),
            or are they intentionally downshifting fossil fuel production as an attempt to recreate themselves, anticipating that by 2030 pressure will on from mechanisms such as carbon pricing and people recognizing that climate change is starting to be hard to tolerate.
            I don’t expect an answer, or one that is accurate anyway.

            1. Yeah, that’s what I thought you were asking.

              The thing is: you’re not asking for a projection, you’re asking about the perceptions of BP executives. And, so, I think there is a straightforward answer: no, they don’t think their production would go into free fall in the next 10 years.

              Just look at this BP article:

              “ The advent of electric vehicles and the growing pressures to decarbonise the transportation sector means that oil is facing significant competition for the first time within its core source of demand. This has led to considerable focus within the industry and amongst commentators on the prospects for peak oil demand – the recognition that the combined forces of improving efficiency and building pressure to reduce carbon emissions and improve urban air quality is likely to cause oil demand to stop increasing after over 150 years of almost uninterrupted growth.

              At the same time, the supply side of the oil market is experiencing its own revolution. The advent of US tight oil has fundamentally altered the behaviour of oil markets, introducing a new and flexible source of competitive oil. More generally, the application of new technologies, especially digitalization in all its various guises, has the potential to unlock huge new reserves of oil over the next 20 to 30 years.”

              https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/spencer-dale-group-chief-economist/peak-oil-demand-and-long-run-oil-prices.html

            3. Hickory et al.,

              There’s an article at Bloomberg assessing BP’s goals. It should answer your question.

    1. That sort of thing might help get him elected again. Make Trump Great Again.

  26. When It Comes to Masks, There Is No “Settled Science”

    “Cloth masks, which have become the norm for public use, have been shown to have penetration rates as high as 97% according to a BMJ study (which used to stand for the British Medical Journal, but is now titled by its acronym). A study of the use of cloth masks during the far more serious 1918 influenza pandemic showed no beneficial results, and another study demonstrates that cloth masks are particularly ineffective compared with medical masks. Surgical and cotton medical masks fared better, but still with discouraging results overall (see here, here, here, here, and here).

    As masks-for-all advocates are quick to point out, N95 respirators do show beneficial results in containing viral infections, but these are virtually unworn by the public (and they have only recently become available to those outside of the healthcare profession). However, their effectiveness appears to be dependent upon whether they are properly fitted, which suggests that even the widespread public use of N95 masks would have a marginal to nonexistent effect, as evident from another study that looked at the layperson’s ability to properly secure N95 respirators…

    Most objections are not to the masks themselves, but to the mandate, and well-documented consequences such as oxygen deprivation should give anybody pause when considering a legal requirement of wearing masks in public. We already see that most people (not just Democrats) wear masks in public regardless of mandates (some, undoubtedly, only so mask warriors leave them alone), but it is entirely irresponsible and unethical to impose such a practice on anybody.”

    1. You have a personal opinion and then cite articles which confirm your opinion, that is a kindergarten strategy. Your source is by an economic historian and is not supported by virologists.

      1) A mask does not protect you but other people as it stops larger droplets which contain virus.

      2) A mask has a psychological effect, people think about distance to others etc.

      3) As in all countries with much better results masks are used and we saw actually an increase of new cases after mask were not longer mandatory (Austria) we are on the save side to use them and to make them madatory for most people in public transport and shops.

      Obviously, people like you only learn when the pain level is very high. That is ok for me as you live far far away and I will not pay for your stupidity.

      1. There seems to be evidence lately that while the mask’s primary role is to reduce droplets emitted by the infected, it also appears to reduce some of the droplets that might be picked up by the wearer.

        But it seems there is no question that there’s ample evidence, in multiple pandemics, that wearing masks slows the epidemic.

      2. The article does not recommend not wearing masks outright and takes a much more nuanced approach to the issue including providing links to various studies in their support.
        (Perhaps you would do well to read it again and its referenced links.)
        Presumably, those kinds of things are not lost on you, despite how it appears and, ironically, given the questionable content and quality of your ‘opinion piece’ (devoid of any references to boot).

        Speaking of kindergarten…

        “Kinder wirken eher als BremsklĂśtze der Infektion“ [Google Translate: “Children act more as a brake on infection”]

        [Google-translated] “The requirement to keep a distance and the obligation to protect mouth and nose are also suspended after the summer holidays in Saxony’s schools and in Thuringia. Although the recommendation remains to cover mouth and nose and to keep a distance, neither one nor the other will work in regular schools, said Piwarz…

        Study director Reinhard Berner asked to compromise. Children and adolescents needed lessons and social contacts. At the same time, keeping a distance and protective masks, especially in kindergartens and primary schools, are not feasible. ‘Then you should also do without it’, said Berner. ‘We have to get away from the idea that there can be 100% certainty.’

        Minister of Education Piwarz also criticized statements by politicians such as SPD chairman Saskia Esken, who once again warned against opening schools. ‘It is extremely annoying that, despite better knowledge, it is still being spread that children are virus throwers and schools and kindergartens are spreading hotspots,’ said the politician.”

        aktualisierte Pressemitteilung der Fachanwaltskanzlei BAHNER vom 3. April 2020 [Google Translated: Updated press release from the BAHNER law firm dated April 3, 2020]

        [Google Translated] “Beate Bahner, specialist lawyer for medical law from Heidelberg, announces standards control class against the Corona Regulation Baden-WĂźrttemberg: The measures of the federal and state government are blatantly unconstitutional and violate in previously unknown a large number of basic rights of citizens in German country. This applies to all Corona regulations of the 16 federal states. In particular are these measures are not justified by the Infection Protection Act, which is only before was quickly revised in a few days…”

        Lawsuit targets Quebec over COVID-19 measures

        “The suit argues that even in times of crisis, the government cannot by simple decree or renewable ministerial orders interrupt or shut down the activities of the National Assembly or the courts. It adds the government cannot unreasonably or unjustifiably infringe on the fundamental rights of citizens.

        The government’s extreme measures to deal with the COVID-19 crisis risk creating a social crisis worse than the actual outbreak, the lawsuit argues.”

          1. Thanks. Run along now and go flatter some Millennials. ^u^

    2. Its about the fact that we now understand the virus is aerosolized. So it becomes a physics problem best understood by physicists who study the patterns created by aerosols and their sources. Given those parameters there is absolutely no question that a mask is useful. It is about disrupting the flow of the aerosol. When you breath when you speak and especially when you shout you spray an areosol directly towards the people that you are talking, shouting laughing etc at. If you disrupt that flow pattern the aerosol is much less likely to be inhaled by the person you are talking to and therefore be dispersed and diluted by the surrounding atmosphere. These things have been studied for many years for lots of other reasons. We know these things with a high degree of precision. We are just bringing this knowledge to bear on this problem once the understanding regarding the aerosol nature of the virus spread was brought to light. Continuing to deny these facts is plain stupid.

      1. Epidemiologists say they have seen cases where the infection may have been spread by aerosol transfer, and they may have some evidence of transfer through fomites, but the epidemiological data shows that the largest mode of transfer is by droplets.

        There was an example they gave of measles. It’s well known that measles can be transferred by aerosolisation, and there are cases where a person infected with measles infects a person down the hall that they don’t talk to or even get close to.

        That apparently is not common at all with Covid-19. They have many examples where people are in the same room, and only the people in one cluster in one section of the room are infected.

        The epidemiologists point out that the aerosol spread tests were done in a lab, and they think it’s a tougher environment in the home and office.

        I think this will develop further, and expect that all three modes of transfer will be nailed down better. A big stumbling block apparently is determining the threshold dose to get infected.

        1. There is no hard and fast empirical cut-off between what is an aerosol and what is a droplet. We are falling into terms that epidemiologists use that aren’t particularly well grounded in physics. Size weight and atmospheric conditions and other variables will determine the length of time micro droplets remain in suspension. When we breathe cough sneeze shout sing etc we emit an ensemble of micro droplets of varying sizes. There is no need to re-invent the wheel here. This is not quantum gravity.

          1. Yes, that sounds right.

            There was a discussion with CDC/WHO (?) where they said it was clear that Covid-19 can be aerosolised, but there were still questions about how effectively it transferred a threshold dose. They thought it was possible/likely it could be transferred in a low ventilation environment, but there were large questions about other spaces.

            There was also a comment that public washrooms are often not well ventilated and they may be a concern.

            2. I don’t know if there’s any data behind it, but during the aerosol/droplet discussion, i heard one speculation that asymptomatic cases might be due to a small viral dose, and further, that the asymptomatic cases could be from aerosol spread.

              Early in the pandemic, there was some initial surprise about the NYC spread of the virus not being correlated with the NYC subway system.

              I find this component of the pandemic, how it spreads, to be pretty interesting, and i really look forward to every update on it.

              Edit: Just saw the news story this morning that asymptomatic patients carry similar levels of the pathogen in their nose, throat and lungs whether they have symptoms or not, a new study from South Korea showed Thursday.

              Another interesting wrinkle.

      2. Animate aerosols and meat-machines don’t operate within such reductions as you seem to naively imply, SW.

        If only they did, ay?

        But then humans still fuck up with the inanimate aerosol and machine kinds.

  27. What Did U.S. Intel Really Know About the ‘Chinese’ Virus?

    “This chain of events reopens, once again, a mighty Pandora’s box. We have the quite timely Event 201; the cozy relationship between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the WHO, as well as the Word Economic Forum and the Johns Hopkins galaxy in Baltimore, including the Bloomberg School of Public Health; the ID2020 digital ID/vaccine combo; Dark Winter – which simulated a smallpox bio-attack on the U.S., before the 2001 anthrax attack being blamed on Iraq; U.S. Senators dumping stocks after a CDC briefing; more than 1,300 CEOs abandoning their cushy perches in 2019, ‘forecasting’ total market collapse; the Fed pouring helicopter money already in September 2019 – as part of QE4.

    And then, validating the ABC News report, Israel steps in. Israeli intel confirms U.S. intel did in fact warn them in November about a potentially catastrophic pandemic in Wuhan (once again: how could they possibly know that on the second week of November, so early in the game?) And NATO allies were warned – in November – as well.

    The bottom line is explosive: the Trump administration as well as the CDC had an advance warning of no less than four months – from November to March – to be properly prepared for Covid-19 hitting the U.S. And they did nothing…

    Moreover, the Israeli disclosure supports what’s nothing less than extraordinary: U.S. intel already knew about Sars-Cov-2 roughly one month before the first confirmed cases detected by doctors in a Wuhan hospital. Talk about divine intervention.

    That could only have happened if U.S. intel knew, for sure, about a previous chain of events that would necessarily lead to the ‘mysterious outbreak’ in Wuhan. And not only that: they knew exactly where to look…

    It’s never enough to repeat the question in full: how could U.S. intel have known about a contagion one month before Chinese doctors detected an unknown virus?

    Mike ‘We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal’ Pompeo may have given away the game when he said, on the record, that Covid-19 was a ‘live exercise’. Adding to the ABC News and Israeli reports, the only possible, logical conclusion is that the Pentagon – and the CIA – knew ahead of time a pandemic would be inevitable.”

  28. W A R N I N G – What part about the insanity of centralized power and food do you not understand?
    “On Tuesday evening, Lebanon’s Prime Minister said the blast was caused by an estimated 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, stored in a warehouse at the port unsecured for years.”
    Megatons of Grain and the ability to grow it – poof. How many (millions?) starve?
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/beirut-explosion-aftermath-death-toll-rises-100-4000-injured
    % Concentration of stored ammo nite? High concentration mix a controlled substance since April 19th 1995. “Alchemy of Air” is a must-read. Earth’s population bomb.
    Q- did someone make this pile “Ripe”
    PS. Smoking kills.
    https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fertilizer-explosion-kills-581-in-texas

    1. Thanks for the info Donald, I have just ordered the book in paperback. I usually just order them for my kindle but I decided I wanted a hard copy of this one.

      The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler

      “Many discoveries and inventions are touted as history-changing. But as Thomas Hager admirably proves in his new book, The Alchemy of Air, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch not only changed history, they made much of recent human history possible. As Hager solemnly notes in his introduction, ‘the discovery described in this book is keeping alive nearly half the people on earth.’

      Thanks again,

      Ron

  29. Just how high can goats jump?

    They are saying that sheep are much easier to graze on solar PV installations since, unlike goats, they don’t jump up onto the panels.
    Neither does alfalfa, or potatoes.

    1. Bad install practice Always leave 3 feet from edge for system maintenance and room for goats to lounge.

        1. Bullets more of a concern than goats. Best out of sight on a barn roof. PV powered Electric fence for Livestock barrier.

  30. For those of us who might be worried about civil war in case trump wants one,

    https://news.yahoo.com/gun-sales-spike-among-african-americans-our-ancestors-died-for-us-to-vote-they-also-died-for-us-to-be-able-to-carry-guns-215942257.html

    Short version, black people used to be afraid of white people who coming into their neighborhoods creating trouble.

    This is no longer true today.

    The sort of whites, meaning trump supporters, who would LIKE to do that sort of thing, these days, are AFRAID to do so…… with good reason.

    Black people are well armed these days, and the average redneck white trouble maker who flies the stars and bars on his truck is fucking AFRAID, for good reasons, to go into a black neighborhood unless maybe it’s an upper class neighborhood in broad daylight, lol. And if he does go, for some reason, he’ll take his wife’s car….. the one without the stars and bars.

    The flip side is that tough minority citizens who have nothing to lose but their lives aren’t going to leave home and go into white neighborhoods and start riots there…… because that’s very likely to get them shot, rather than merely arrested. The sort of ill educated hard up white people who vote for trump will shoot their own relatives if they start burning houses and businesses on THEIR home turf. I know, because I’ve known lots of them since I was a little kid.

    No civil war.

    But if trump wins, expect riots in minority neighborhoods and majority black cities.

    1. If the results come out muddy, or delayed, and Trump/Congress/Supreme Court take any role in obstructing the outcome, there will hell in just about all neighborhoods.
      Previous riots were nothing compared to what will be seen if Trump tries to steal the election.
      Hopefully, it will all be a non-issue due to a Biden landslide.
      I think (hope) that is the most likely scenario.

      1. Back atcha, Hickory

        In the scenario you describe, there will be hell of a sort all over, I must agree. But I still think fires, broken windows, and people getting hurt will be confined mostly to poor minority neighborhoods, and beyond that mostly to poor URBAN neighborhoods.

        Like you, I’m hopeful that Biden and the Democrats will win by a landslide, and barring unexpected surprises, I ‘m now confident that will happen.

        1. Generally agree.
          However, don’t underestimate how widespread the unrest will be.
          Suburbia won’t be spared if the election is perceived as stolen.
          Neither will the financial districts of the countries cities.

          I ask you- at this point Trump has done enough to cast doubt on the election process, how could any trump victory not be perceived by the majority as being a contrived/manipulated result?

          1. You’re probably right. It could be that antigun anti violence well educated younger Democrats might be pissed enough to grow some balls, in terms of playing rough, and get rough.

            But I can’t imagine more than maybe one out of every ten Democrats I have ever met personally going that route. That one in ten or fewer, well, they were young people back in the sixties, when I was a kid myself. So far as I know now, they’re still all Democrats, but they’re also old, fat, and mostly quite comfortable, and not likely to do more than wave a sign at a demonstration.

            More of them than you would ever guess have a gun in their house, but I don’t see them taking it into the streets.

            1. The vast majority of democratic voters would not be going violent if trump steals the election.
              But the nausea, bewilderment, disgust, and embarrassment for the country, that has been in place since Nov 2016
              will be channeled into some new form if the election is manipulated and trump wins.
              A majority of people will be looking hard for some strong and disruptive way to express their discontent.
              Personally, I’m surprised how complacent most people have been these last 4 years.
              Complacency leads to a dead democracy.

  31. …. more examples of Centralization acting in the peoples interest …. Like storing 6 decades of Nuclear waste at US Power Plants.
    “That the ammonium nitrate was stored for seven years was not the responsibility of the port management but was caused by some judicial quarrel:” It should have been auctioned off one bag “Metric Ton” at a time. Oh wait, that sh#t is Dy No Mite. pictures:
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/08/beirut-blast-wrap-up.html#more
    ……
    The explosion hit Beirut at a moment where the country is under U.S. sanctions and while its currency is cratering with inflation reaching 90% per month after a Ponzi scheme run by its CENTRAL Bank blew up.

    1. “Like storing 6 decades of Nuclear waste at US Power Plants.”

      Great analogy. The nation pretends each day, that this huge pile of high level radioactive material is in a different universe.
      Its classic reality denial.
      Is the country really so incompetent that it can’t drill a deep enough hole to put the stuff,
      Or perhaps more just a failure of partisan democracy?

      1. Hickory,

        A good part of the problem is that states with thick, stable crust where long-term storage of high-level nuclear waste would be least impractical have large Congressional representation; Minnesota is an example. Nevada is where the focus has been because a lot of the state is Federal land and Nevada has only four representatives. Nevertheless, the state has been objecting strongly and pretty effectively for decades now against being chosen to host a high-level repository.

        Nevada is right. It has the thinnest continental crust on the planet, a history of recent volcanism, and is sliced up by faults. Drive across the state W-E and you’ll cross eleven mountain ranges running N-S every one of them a fault-block range, that is the upturned side of a tilted block of crust bordered by faults. Those faults are all active. Nevada is a good example of the worst kind of setting for a repository for nuclear waste.

        1. I have read that water intrusion into any underground site, and earthquake faults, are also a big concern.

          1. Hickory,

            Injection wells to get rid of produced water from oil wells in Oklahoma caused a large increase in small quakes over the last few years. The state of Oklahoma put some restrictions on the injecting but I haven’t kept up on the result.

            The faults I mentioned in Nevada form from the expansion of the crust in that whole part of North America–it’s called the Basin and Range–and thus on a much larger scale than the Oklahoma ones being activated. Over geologic time, of course, they play a part in movement of ground water and are affected by it even though it’s a fairly arid region. A more immediate concern is what ground water is available in the vicinity of the repository itself if one were to be built, and what effect it could have on the repository. Studies that were done in the 1970s were not at all convincing in their conclusion that there’d be no problem because there was no evidence of water having reached the proposed site in the past. To me those studies looked to be on far too small a scale and with a much too limited time span being considered.

            Nevada is not the place to consider such a project. I’m glad that lots of Nevadans think the same way.

            1. I have tried to search for good info on where the best sites would be geologically, without much luck.
              You have any source to recommend.

            2. Hi Hickory,

              The best regions are Minnesota north of Duluth and northern Wisconsin plus Upper Peninsula (any Yoopers reading this?) Michigan.

              These are the parts of the Lower 48 with the thickest and oldest crust that are seismically as stable as you’re likely to find. And they’re easily accessible, as other parts of the States with rocks of comparable age and stability aren’t, not to the same extent anyway.

              Politically, though, I doubt they’d be welcoming to the idea of a repository. The best parts of the continent for such a purpose are in Canada…

              Coming up on time for Port.

      2. With no real containment except the water in the Pool. You could swim at the top.
        Drive down a meter or so and you are not long for this world. Spend the money to at least cask the rods > 10 years in the pools. No casks were damaged at Fukushima.
        It’s over 1st power failure. Could one invent a better doomsday device for all life on the planet?

  32. On the effectiveness of masks

    “Regardless of the comparatively low lethality of Covid19 in the general population (see above), there is still no scientific evidence for the effectiveness of masks in healthy and asymptomatic people in everyday life.

    A cross-country study by the University of East Anglia came to the conclusion that a mask requirement was of no benefit and could even increase the risk of infection.

    Two US professors and experts in respiratory and infection protection from the University of Illinois explain in an essay that face masks have no effect in everyday life, neither as self-protection nor to protect third parties (so-called source control). The widespread use of masks didn’t prevent the outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan, either.

    A study from April 2020 in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine came to the conclusion that neither fabric masks nor surgical masks can prevent the spread of the Covid19 virus by coughing.

    An article in the New England Journal of Medicine from May 2020 also comes to the conclusion that face masks offer little or no protection in everyday life. The call for a mask requirement is described as an ‘irrational fear reflex’.

    A May 2020 meta-study on pandemic influenza published by the U.S. CDC also found that face masks had no effect, neither as personal protective equipment nor as a source control.

    A 2015 study in the British Medical Journal BMJ Open found that cloth masks were penetrated by 97% of particles and may increase infection risk by retaining moisture or reuse of the masks.

    The WHO moreover declared in June that truly ‘asymptomatic transmission’ is in fact ‘very rare’, as data from numerous countries showed. Some of the few confirmed cases were due to direct body contact, i.e. shaking hands or kissing.

    In Austria, the face mask requirement in retail and catering will be lifted again from mid-June. A mask requirement was never introduced in Sweden because it ‘does not offer additional protection for the population’, as the Swedish health authority explained.

    Numerous politicians, media people and police officers have already been caught putting on their face masks in a crowd especially for the television cameras or taking them off immediately when they believed that they were no longer being filmed.

    In some cases there were brutal police attacks because a person allegedly ‘did not wear her mask properly’. In other cases, people with a disability who cannot and do not have to wear a mask, are not allowed to enter department stores.

    Despite this evidence, a group called ‘masks4all’, which was founded by a ‘young leader’ of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Davos, is advocating worldwide mask requirements. Several governments and the WHO appear to be responding to this campaign.

    Many critics suspect that the masks are more likely to have a psychological or political function (‘muzzle’ or ‘visible sign of obedience’) and that wearing them frequently might even lead to additional health problems.

    A study from Germany empirically showed that the introduction of face masks had no effect on infection rates (see graph). Only the city of Jena appeared to experience a strong decrease in infections, but Jena simultaneously introduced very strict quarantine regulations.”

    1. Caelan,

      That’s an article with only opinions or evidence on one side.
      Meta-analysis of studies show a positive effect.

      The WHO declared that presymptomatic transmission is not rare. Starting from 3-4 days before showing symptoms. Viral shedding those days could be even more than during the symptomatic period.

      Various experiments with laser light showed that only a small amount of aerosols during speaking pass through simple masks and the velocity of aerosols is reduced very much. While coughing masks reduce the distance the aerosols travel very much.
      Everyone wearing masks means a double barrier.

      Important is to combine mask wearing with physical distancing as much as possible and regular hand washing. Moreover, many people remove the mask during talking with others and place it back later. Because of that several studies show no effect or a negative effect, depending on the country where the study is done.

      1. Yes, Han, many people do all sorts of things with their masks in the real world, well beyond the research labs and some of their researchers’ comprehensions (perhaps like COVID-19 as a hypothetical lab escapee).

        At any rate, if we agree that masks are ‘better than nothing’ and provide some degree of protection to nudge some of them just barely into the realm of feasibility, interestingly, it does seem to have a relation with the virus insofar as where it appears nudged just barely too and into the realm of pandemic status (hence my last sentence here BTW).

        So while the babies stick many things from the floor into their mouths, the virus-in-question aims apparently more toward the lower hanging fruit of what those old nature shows especially used to call the big cats’ meal targets; ‘the sick, weak and infirm’.

        I’ve been out of the news loop for a bit but recently, aside from the explosion, heard about Germany’s large anti-mask and anti-lockdown protests…
        Looks like not just I want to wait for a more threatening pandemic to make it worth my while.
        Maybe we’ll get it in the form of a(nother ‘accidental’?) lab escapee that’s been gene-driven (a la CRISPR-Cas9 or whatever) to target (yet?) another segment of the population.

        Or something quite different and that relies less or not on ‘proxies’ to push some things through.

        I guess if some can’t frack their way back to ‘energy independence’, they can find ways to creatively trim the fringe or unnecessary fat off of some of the current energy usage, such as behind the manufactured masks of contagion and authority.

        Apteekin Edessä (In Front of The Pharmacy)

    1. Interesting. We all only see what is in our general locale.
      The suburbs I’ve I frequented in the past decades are increasingly diverse,
      but that is west coast growing economy territory.

    2. Thanks Hickory, brilliant article, highly recommended.

      >> American households could have great things: solar on every roof, powering heat pumps in every building, and EVs in every garage, all communicating and coordinating, bringing stability to the grid. Homes could be more comfortable, cities could be quieter, the air could be cleaner, power could be more reliable, energy costs could be lower, and front-line communities could be free of the burden of living next to and suffering disproportionately from fossil fuel infrastructure. <<

      What's not to like?

      1. Poppies’ Fanstasies For Your Consumption

        “What’s not to like?” ~ John Norris

        When things don’t turn out as they’re advertised/propagandized (nuclear power, industrial agro/green rev’, end of world poverty, a life of leisure and living on Mars by 2000, etc.) and are uncritically swallowed like razzberry™ kool aid by the duped masses– many who still have one foot left in the dollhouses and sandboxes of their childhoods as they look up to their corporate-government mommies and poppies (and ‘in-betweens’ of course) for direction and guidance along with their ceaseless babytalk about them… Trump this, Johnson that, Putin this, Elon Musk that, mail-in votes, bla bla bla…

        Ideas As Opiates
        The Lebanon

    3. Yes, what’s not to like?

      “…the US doesn’t need any new technologies and it doesn’t require any grand national sacrifice. All it needs, in this view, is a serious commitment to building the necessary machines and creating a regulatory and policy environment that supports their rapid deployment.”

      1. A serious commitment to building the necessary machines and create a regulatory and policy environment that supports their rapid deployment will come about slowly in a half-assed manner once it’s too late. It’s easy to see.

        1. Meanwhile,

          LOCKDOWN EMISSIONS FALL WILL HAVE ‘NO EFFECT’ ON CLIMATE

          “Global emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas could fall up to eight percent in 2020 after governments moved to confine billions of people to their homes in a bid to slow the spread of COVID-19. But absent a systemic change in how the world powers and feeds itself, experts warned in the study on Friday that the emissions saved during lockdown would be essentially meaningless.”

          https://phys.org/news/2020-08-lockdown-emissions-fall-effect-climate.html

        2. Surv…-“will come about slowly in a half-assed manner once it’s too late.”

          If the past is any guide, you are certainly correct.

  38. Hickory-

    “Currently the USA death count is doubling at 29 days.
    We are on track to hit 100,000 deaths before June 1st.
    If the same rate of growth continues- then we could be at 250K by mid summer.
    I’ll go on record with 250K by Labor day, barring any breakthrough treatment.
    Submit your bets to- #payhickorylotsofmoney.com”

    http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-may-16-2020/#comment-702903

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Nearly 300,000 Americans could be dead from COVID-19 by Dec. 1, University of Washington health experts forecast on Thursday, although they said 70,000 lives could be saved if people were scrupulous about wearing masks.

    The latest predictions from the university’s widely cited Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) comes as top White House infectious disease advisers warned that major U.S. cities could erupt as new coronavirus hot spots if officials there were not vigilant with counter-measures.

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/covid-death-prediction-us-december-2020_n_5f2ccd9fc5b64d7a55f1126c

    ***********

    HB – “I’m predicting 250k by election day”

    http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-may-16-2020/#comment-702892

    ********

    Does anybody want to predict the 2020 electoral college ?

    Texas, Georgia, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Arizona go Blue

    Also, Dem’s take the Senate

    1. The odds are better in NC than any other swing state imo, but the one state we really MUST HAVE is Florida. Without Florida, trump is definitely history.
      My money is now out there, giving three to two odds, that the D’s own DC after the election.

      1. Florida, North Carolina and Arizona I would put at 95 percent blue. Texas, Georgia and Ohio closer to 50 percent.

      2. Hi OFM,

        Are you in NC and if so, did you feel today’s earthquake near Sparta?

    1. I’ve read comments from several people that zerohedge is extremely unreliable. This article certainly supports this view: it celebrates the effects on the Arctic of climate change, and hates the idea of protection of wildlife in national parks. It exaggerates the problems of water management in the US, and suggests deployment of the military as a solution!

      1. Agreed that the Signal to Noise is low in this ZH Article. But can we please stop pissing in our own water. Water Quality like air quality is key to life.

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