A Guest Post by Islandboy
The EIA released the latest edition of their Electric Power Monthly on March 24th, with data for January 2020. The table above shows the percentage contribution of the main fuel sources to two decimal places for the last two months and the year 2020 to date.
The Table immediately above shows the absolute amounts of electricity generated in gigawatt-hours by the main sources for the last two months and the year to date. In January, the absolute amount of electricity generated increased slightly as is often the case between December and January. Coal and Natural Gas between them, fueled 58.4% of US electricity generation in January. The contribution of zero carbon and carbon neutral sources increased from 39.22% in December to 40.57% in January. The percentage contribution from Natural Gas in January remained below 40% at 39.19%, edging up from 38.35% in December.
The graph below shows the absolute monthly production from the various sources since January 2013, as well as the total amount generated (right axis).
The chart below shows the total monthly generation at utility scale facilities by year versus the contribution from solar. The left hand scale is for the total generation, while the right hand scale is for solar output and has been deliberately set to exaggerate the solar output as a means of assessing it’s potential to make a meaningful contribution to the midsummer peak. In January 2020 the estimated total output from solar at 6,848 GWh, was 2.78 times what it was four years before in January 2016.
The chart below shows the total monthly generation at utility scale facilities by year versus the combined contribution from wind and solar. The left hand scale is for the total generation, while the right hand scale is for combined wind and solar output and has been deliberately set to exaggerate the combined output of solar and wind as a means of assessing the potential of the combination to make a meaningful contribution to the year round total.
The chart below shows the percentage contributions of the various sources to the capacity additions in January 2020.
In January Solar contributed 51.59% of new capacity, and 32.69% of new capacity came from Wind for a combined contribution of 84.28%, with Natural Gas making up another 14.87%. Batteries contributed 0.45%, and Wood Waste Biomass contributed 0.38% with Landfill Gas contributing the remaining 0.027%. Natural gas and renewables continue to make up more than 95% of capacity added each month, as they have since at least January 2017.
In January 2020 the total added capacity reported was 2222.3 MW, compared to the 1681.3 MW added in January 2019.
The chart below shows the monthly capacity retirements in January 2020.
In January the following coal fired plants were reported as retired, Duke Energy Progress reported the retirement of two units at their Ashville plant in North Carolina amounting to 378 MW, two units totaling 614 MW were retired by Talen Montana LLC at their Colstrip plant in Montana and the Tennessee Valley Authority retired 971 MW at their Paradise plant in Kentucky. In California, two natural gas combined cycle units amounting to 345 MW each were retired at the Inland Empire Energy Center and 64.7 MW of wind turbines were retired by Terra-Gen Operating Co-Wind.
The total amount of retirements reported was 2717.7 MW compared to the 759 MW reported in January 2019.
Below is a chart for monthly net additions/retirements in 2020 showing the data for January, followed by a chart showing the net additions/retirements year to date.
Below is a table of the top ten states in order of coal consumption for electricity production for January 2020 and the year before for comparison followed by a similar table for Natural Gas. and one for renewable energy.
Renewables catch coal in January! Amazing. Nuclear slays coal. Fantastic. Maybe we can finally finish this crap off.
Yes. If we put renewables under a single bucket, coal will become the 4th most important source of electricity this year (after natural gas, renewables and nuclear). Except for some red states, coal will become irrelevant pretty soon in the USA. IEEFA is expecting it to go below 10% as early as 2024.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-coal-survive-the-coronavirus/
Renewables beat coal in February too. Now it’s two months in a row. March, April, May would also have renewables beating out coal. So expect 2020 to be the changeover year when renewables surpass coal for the whole calendar year. Who would have thought about this in 2008 when coal was almost 50% of the grid?
https://ieefa.org/ieefa-u-s-renewables-generated-more-electricity-than-coal-in-february/
Posted the following in the previous EPM post when the EIA came up with the Jan numbers:
Jan EIA report is out. Coal again had a disastrous month. Down 35% year on year.
The absolute amount – 65TWH is the second lowest generation only above April 2019 (60TWH).
It’s had the lowest share of total generation (19%) ever, well below the 20% share it had last april.
Coal started 2019 at 28% and ended the year at 23%. That was a non pandemic year. In 2020, it has started at 19% and will be lucky to generate 15% of the total.
Meanwhile, natural gas generation is up 10% rising much slower than the rate of fall in coal (-35%). Nuclear and hydro are essentially flat while solar is up 23% and wind is up 13%.
I will let Island Boy to come up with the rest of the stats.
This year is going to be wildly exciting and interesting!! I am particularly interested in what is going to happen in April and May as that’s when coal demand falls to its lowest. Couple it with the effect of COVID, it’s going to be super exciting.
Thanks Islandboy.
I believe a few of your charts (last 4 in post), may have been incorrectly identified as 2019 and you may have meant 2020?
Thanks Dennis. Fixed it.
IslandBoy noted the retirement of the Paradise Coal Plant in Muhlenburg Co Kentucky-
The Paradise Plant power plant operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Located just east of Drakesboro, Kentucky, it was the largest megawatt capacity power plant in Kentucky. … in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky.
It operated for 50 years, by Peabody Coal, the largest private coal company in the world.
Ironic, because this comes at the same time as the death of John Prine (of Covid-19), who wrote this famous song- Paradise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEy6EuZp9IY
When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there’s a backwards old town that’s often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn
And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away
Well, sometimes we’d travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Airdrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we’d shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill
And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away
Then the coal company came with the world’s largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man
And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away
When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I’ll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin’
Just five miles away from wherever I am
And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away
Muehlenburg, I believe.
Anyway RIP John Prine. Glad he lived long enough to see it shut down.
I met him once, briefly, didn’t know who he was at the time. Was at a concert site, outdoors, many years ago, early arrival, back in my partying days, when I had access back stage, because I knew some guys doing that work, and worked with them sometimes, if a job was within easy driving distance.
The really big names evidently show up with a big crew of their own, but lesser lights depend on local organizers to get the show ready. Prine wasn’t that big a star back then.
(Not having a conventional career has its perks. I also worked on a movie crew once, more for the experience seeing a movie made than the money, which was trivial, considering the hours, like four am till midnight if you were hired in as truck driver. I hardly ever actually drove that truck more than an hour any given day, and most days not at all. So long as you kept quiet, you could watch the actors from as close as twenty feet. The catered food was the BEST catered food I ever had in my entire life!)
One of them saw us talking and came over and said I see you have met John already, lol.
Of course I said,surprised, JOHN as in Prine? He just chuckled, and offered me his hand. I had sense enough to not mention an autograph. You get along with celebrities by not acting like a fan, that’s the first rule, the second is just do your job. You don’t necessarily have to kiss their asses, but there are plenty of exceptions in show biz.
So far as I’m concerned, he was a really nice guy. I was acquainted with his music of course. Now I can’t even remember just when or where it was held, lol.
Many years ago I used to do a lot of stagecrew work. The rule I found was small bands are good sociable. The large & very large bands are good to work with, good crews and good conversation with the stars. Middling bands were £$”$&£%$&*£ [redacted].
NAOM
He was the mailman in my Grandparent’s neighborhood.
It seems that the increase in solar and wind is, currently, soaking up increase in demand.
Would it be possible to add %age to the lables in the monthly share charts, some of the bars are too small to make out which fuel they are.
NAOM
If you’re referring to the capacity addition/retirements, I’m not sure how I could easily add the percentages to the labels (legend). I could easily generate a table, like I do at the top.
I also list the percentages for capacity additions in the narrative.
“Judy’s mama sent her to market (everybody bawl out Judy drownded)”
Islandboy, I’m holding you personally responsible for me not being able to get “Judy drownded” out of my mind. It’s transmissible by contact and the background you provide has done the job.
“Cordelia Brown” is next.
Time for Port you bet
Sorry, that one went right over my head! I have no idea what you’re talking about apart from the words of a Harry Belafonte song. Went over to YouTube to have a look. Belafonte’s big hits were recorded before I was born and can’t say I’m a big fan of his watered down Caribbean folk music. He did good out of it though. Still don’t know what it is you’re talking about!
islandboy,
Yep, Belafonte.
You keep talking (rightly) about Jamaica and that keeps triggering his stuff. You have no idea the breath of fresh air that music was in the 1950s, watered down or not.
I was pulling your leg.
“You have no idea the breath of fresh air that music was in the 1950s”
Absolutely right since I was not even born yet!
As for talking about Jamaica, it’s where I live of course so I sometimes like to give a small island perspective on some of stuff discussed around here. Jamaica triggers all sorts of things in different people. In some people it’s Bob Marley and/or reggae music, for others who have visited it’s sun, sea and sand, while for others it could be superb performances on the athletics tracks of the world. For you obviously it’s Belafonte.
Speaking of Jamaica, the last time I reported on the COVID-19 response I noted that the call centers here had not yet been shut down. That didn’t work out too well, with the number of confirmed cases tripling over the past week, going from 73 to 223 in one week. Of the new cases for the week, 120 were from one call center. In Jamaica call centers employed a total of 26,000 people in 2018 and there was a target of 50,000 “in short order”. Call centers have now been ordered to shut down for 14 days and the disease is now considered to be firmly in the community spread phase. With no commercial flights in and out of the island, imported cases are now largely irrelevant.
There are lots of other measures in place, including an island-wide curfew from 9 pm. to 6 am., no gatherings of more than 10 people allowed, restricted business hours and mandatory wearing of masks in public places (as of tomorrow). As someone who believes that moderate doses of vitamin C (1000-2000 mg/day) can reduce the chances of showing symptoms, while increased doses (3000-6000 mg/day) should prevent persons from getting critically ill and even larger doses given intravenously should help the critically ill recover, I find this incredibly frustrating.
One source that supports/guides my beliefs is Chinese/American Dr. Richard Cheng, currently stuck in China after going to spend the Chinese new year holiday with his parents. He has a web site for his Columbia, SC practice at the following URL, with links to his work so far on COVID-19. If anyone here is interested in what he has to say, I invite you to go to his web site and look at what he has written in his “Latest News” posts. If anyone thinks he is a quack, go ahead and expose him! He is making the bold claim that vitamin C, in conjunction with several other inputs can successfully treat COVID-19. Here’s the link to his web site, followed by a graph of COVID-19 cases in Jamaica since March 21:
http://www.drwlc.com/
Ok, thanks.
Shopping yesterday, notable changes. In general, less people about, more alien facehuggers – er – I mean masks, face shields are now being seen. Local square has been taped off. Sorianna and Wallymart have changed their entrances. Both have 2 entrances, one at each end, and 2 double doors at each.
Sorianna is using just one entrance with one door in and one out. To get in you have to queue at the marked spacing, a lady gives you a squirt of hand sanitiser while sanitising trolley handles. You then go through the door and are temperature zapped by a face shielded security goon before being allowed further, security guards armed with lasers! The second door is exit only.
Wallymart has one entrance in, one out, nearly no trolleys and little sanitiser. The health department ladies have taken to temperature zapping people instead of sitting around. Some people with PPE in the store but not uniform.
La Comer has sanitiser at the entrance but not enforcing it before going upstairs (shop is over the carpark). As far as I could see, all customer facing staff had shields.
Things seem to be gradually tightening down but they still need to get distancing going in the colonias.
NAOM
Perhaps one way of getting an idea of virus spread in the communities would be to place a thermal camera in locations that many people are still passing. Maybe the cameras are not considered accurate enough to measure a diagnostic temperature but would give a good idea of how many people are hotter than the average and by how much.
NAOM
thermal cameras at busy locations with web cam live posting would be a good tool for public engagement. Colonias = neighborhoods?
Colonias = neighborhoods?
Yeah, sorry, sometimes only the Spanish comes to mind or fits best.
NAOM
Regarding electricity-
7 Transmission Projects That Could Unlock a Renewable Energy Bounty
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/9-transmission-projects-laying-the-paths-for-cross-country-clean-energy
Some companies aren’t sitting still during this downturn.
Tesla for example (stock back close to an all-time high)
“Tesla vehicles are going to drop you off and park themselves later this year, says Musk”
“Tesla releases new feature to charge your car with Powerwall during power outages”- note HBeach who asked about this recently.
https://electrek.co/2020/04/16/tesla-feature-charge-your-car-with-powerwall-during-power-outages/
https://electrek.co/2020/04/16/tesla-vehicles-drop-off-park-themselves/
Self-parking cars. Humanity is saved!
And to think, us schmucks have been parking our own cars all these years. Finally somebody has gotten the priorities in life straight.
Elon Musk’s Backtrack of the Tesla Robotaxi Claim is Blatant Securities Fraud
https://www.ccn.com/elon-musks-backtrack-tesla-robotaxi-claim-securities-fraud/
Not to worry though; the fanbois seem to know about as much on the topic of securities fraud as they do about P/E ratios and BiPap machines er I mean closed circuit ventilators.
‘Not to worry though”
Agree. I worry about other stuff.
You and Pavlov’s dog have a lot in common.
You mean Pavlov’s Dog loves Pizza too? Good boy.
Not you…but I am glad to hear about the pizza :). One of the true food joys in life.
I knew, but couldn’t resist 🙂
Here’s one reason why Tesla is so far ahead of the game right now. Volume. Tesla is selling more than ten times as many pure battery electric vehicles as any of their competitors. Last year Tesla delivered over 192,000 vehicles in the US alone while their closest competitor GM sold 16,418 units of the only “volume” BEV they make, the Chevrolet Bolt. Just browsing through the Quarterly Plug-In EV Sales Scorecard at insideevs.com, it looks the Volkswagen group sold less than 10,400 BEVs from all the brands under their umbrella (Audi, Volkswagen and Porsche) and Nissan sold a pitiful 12,365 examples of their BEV, the Leaf.
This means that Tesla can spend ten times as much on R&D and still end up with a lower R&D cost per vehicle than any of their competitors. Add to that the fact that a sizeable portion of Tesla’s R&D budget is going into battery research while many of their competitors have outsourced battery research and production and the picture looks even worse. Tesla had planned to reveal their latest advances in batteries and battery manufacturing to their investors later this month but, that event has been delayed due to COVID-19 concerns. That does not mean the new battery technology is going to be delayed, in fact I strongly suspect that it is already deployed (just a hunch).
This means that Tesla is going to widen the already wide gap between them and their closest competitors. I suspect that by the end of this year, Tesla is going to be offering the best value in terms of dollars per kWh of battery capacity of just about any car or battery company out there. Can anyone say disruption?
Disclaimer: I do not own any Tesla stock, although I wish I did.
“This means that Tesla is going to widen the already wide gap between them and their closest competitors… Can anyone say disruption? ”
I agree.
Without gas stations, we will have to find other places to air-fill our tires.
But I would not shed a tear if Tesla got out-competed by some other company or two. Bring it on.
Tesla would love to have some competition, so far nobody has shown up.
Yep, in fact they have widened the gap big time in past several years. My wife recently informed me that that she reserved a model Y for herself. It gives me a great bargaining chip for upgrading my woodshop, so I’m good with it.
Hickory,
The Model Y should be great, my wife’s Model 3 has been great.
We had a long-ago scheduled tour of the Tesla factory/headquarters in Fremont scheduled for this month. But a virus got in the way.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/the-oil-shock-model-and-compartmental-models/#comment-700580
Hi Hickory,
My take away from your earlier comment and energy flow diagram. It really shows what is needed to be done to transform. First, coal electrical generation needs to be eliminated. Second, petroleum transportation needs to be converted to electrical. Third, solar needs to be ramped up 100 fold. Fourth, residential, commercial and industrial needs to continue efficiency goals and transfer to electrical energy needs as possible.
Humanity saving question, can renewables scale up 100 fold(by 2050) ? Is it even feasible ?
And fifth, did Gonefishing foul out and get ejected from the game ? or just take a much need vacation.
https://electrek.co/2020/04/09/us-energy-chart-2019/
I agree with your comments.
“Humanity saving question, can renewables scale up 100 fold(by 2050) ? Is it even feasible ? ”
I am in doubt, especially at this pace and lack of sense of urgency. But it (younger people) deserves a hard push towards that goal.
self-healing hopefully?
can renewables scale up 100 fold(by 2050) ? Is it even feasible ?
Wind and solar are about 10% of US electrical generation. Coal and gas are 60%, so you need to scale wind & solar up by 6 fold to pretty much eliminate GHG emissions from the current level of electrical generation. A modest growth rate of 19% per year (a four-year doubling rate) would get us there in 10.5 years.
Wind and solar would only have to double one more time to provide more than enough electricity to power all transportation. That’s another 4 years.
That’s only about 15 years. That’s relatively easy – we just have to decide to do it, as a country…
Sounds about right. With offshore wind farms reaching GW scale in Europe, it’s just a matter of time before it does in US east coast too. Having capacity factors at 60+%, they are going to replace more than the equivalent nameplate capacity of NG and coal.
By 2030, non hydro renewables are going to be atleast 55% if not 60% of the grid. Hydro and nuclear would be another 20% leaving only maybe 20 or 25% for fossil fuels that too only because of persistent republican political support. Even that would vanish over the next 5 years as the writing is on the wall.
Globally, pv has seen at least 25% year on year growth in produced energy in the 5 years up to 2018. Mean growth was about 30%.
Mean growth for wind was at 15% for the same years.
2019 numbers are not out yet.
Even if growth was just 10%/yr, by 2045 we would reach 100% of current electrical generating capacity.
Well hey, lets make sure we elect leaders who will at least get the hell out of the way, or maybe even be constructive.
Hi Nick,
I think your 6 fold is going to be to low. Transportation and other energy needs have to be moved over to the electrical demand side to get were we need to go.
My 100 fold came from my focus on solar and not wind. I didn’t have that much faith wind could be expanded enough to get the job done from my Southern California view. We have a shit load of sun, roof tops and are a lot weaker on the wind source. I see little reason why solar energy in Southern California residential homes can’t be energy net positive including their transportation and heating needs. Cooling needs match well with solar. Water and space heating can be transformed to solar with increased insulation and efficient management.
I think your 6 fold is going to be to low. Transportation and other energy needs have to be moved over to the electrical demand side
Yeah, it would be about 11 fold to provide for transportation. Powering electrified transportation would require increasing overall electrical generation by roughly 40% (about 25% for light passenger vehicles, 15% for freight). That’s because electrical transportation is so much more efficient than liquid fuel.
So, 10% wind & solar grows to 110%, and you still have 30% from hydro, geothermal and nuclear, for a total of 140%.
Ideally space heating would be eliminated by a passive house approach, but that’s a very, very long term solution. You might need another 40% there to cover both residential and industrial/commercial.
And then there’s a bunch of miscellaneous stuff: industrial process heat, etc. That might be another 20%.
So, you’re at a 17 fold increase ((110% 40% 20%)/10%). That’s about 4 doublings. At a 4 year doubling rate, that’s 16 years.
———————-
I imagine the mix of wind and solar (and other sources) will vary by location, but wind and solar have an enormously cost-effective synergy: wind is 24×7 and year round, and is even a bit stronger at night and during the winter (compare charts 3 and 4 in the Original Post). And the US overall has very high quality wind resources.
Millions of rural people, maybe even tens of millions, have their own generators, which are needed to keep a few lights and a refrigerator, etc, on during power outages, and to run power tools anyplace out of reach of an extension cord. I don’t know a solvent farmer who doesn’t have one.
A few gallons of gasoline or diesel fuel will be enough to charge an electric car up to the point you can get to town and back, if the roads are open. Small generators are notoriously inefficient, but considering how efficient an electric car is, five gallons burnt in a generator will probably take you at least half as far, or farther, than the same five gallons burned directly in a car.
If you were going to make a habit of it, PV would much cheaper for the task.
Virginia was the latest state today to get hit with protests against the coronavirus shutdowns. That’s how many states now where citizens are saying “enough is enough”? If we get into May and governors are still ruining their state’s economies with shutdowns, I’m starting to fear there will be a number of recall attempts especially for the Governors who are radical liberals.
https://www.wavy.com/video/groups-protesting-virginias-coronavirus-restrictions-asked-to-spread-out/
https://www.wtvr.com/news/coronavirus/reopen-virginia-draws-crowd-families-to-virginia-capitol
One article said about 50 people, and the other said “dozens”.
That’s hardly a massive movement.
I wish that when the media covers these losers they would do so with an arial shot. You could get a larger crowd to celebrate Alistair Crowley’s birthday.
Oh, just let them gather together, party together, work together. When they ask for socialist payouts for their businesses tel them ‘No, that’s commie’. There won’t be many of them left, after a while.
NAOM
50 people is about 0.0006% of Virginia’s population! That’s what I call a mass uprising!
keep dreaming stud. the majority of voters in the country consider your dream to be a nightmare.
When is the last time one of your pres candidates won the popular vote?
Let me help you-
since 1990 (thats 30 years) there has been 7 presidential elections.
The republican candidate won the popular vote once.. Thats 1 out of seven 7
The electoral college won’t save your ‘dream’ for much longer.
#Trump Failure
“governors are still ruining their state’s economies with shutdowns”
I love this line. Shutdowns are, in the long term, SAVING the economy. How could allowing millions of deaths in any way save the economy? This is so stupid. Sometimes medicine tastes bad. It’s still medicine.
So your not buying it McManus? Hummm. Than try this one. This is the Trump Republican plan to extend the life of the Social Security trust fund without rising taxes.
Niko- ‘This is so stupid. ”
Indeed. Par for the course with this administration. I am so damned embarrassed by the Federal government of the USA.
For those of you who have idle business computers standing around getting bored, put them to good use in the fight against Covid-19
https://foldingathome.org/
NAOM
A breath of fresh air – How air quality has improved during the coronavirus crisis.
Might the solution be Breathable Air?
https://graphics.reuters.com/CLIMATE-CHANGE/CORONAVIRUS-POLLUTION/jznvngjyplm/index.html
The Energy of 8 of 10 units of liquid fuel of most ICE Cars is rejected (out the Radiator). One gets looks of disbelief when that fact is mentioned. Why not burn up $80 of $100 of your paycheck. Makes complete sense.
More than a month ago Ron posted a comment on the March 8 Open Petroleum Thread about pneumonia being useless in the face of Covid-19. Since then, I have been rather quiet, following up on some of the stuff I had posted about. I stumbled upon something that might be the best argument for using large doses of vitamin C to treat several ailments. The video I stumbled on led me to the following, dated Mar 23, 2017:
Full interview with Dr. Paul Marik
Marik subsequently published the following article:
Doctor—your septic patients have scurvy!
This idea of scurvy in critically ill patients is not new. The following is the abstract of a hypothesis published by the late Dt. Robert F Cafhcart back in 1981.
Vitamin C, titrating to bowel tolerance, anascorbemia, and acute induced scurvy.
Even older and very poignant to me since my mother died of sepsis following surgery, from the late Dr. Frederick Klenner:
Clinical Guide to the Use of Vitamin C
So the theory is that, there are certain conditions that lead to rapid depletion of vitamin C levels in the blood, resulting in what Dr. Cathcart referred to as Acute Induced Scurvy. The way to prevent that is by replacing the vitamin C at a rate comparable to the rate of depletion. This could well amount to several grams a day. I put it to you that sepsis and Covid-19 are just two such cases where large doses of vitamin C have the potential to save lives. I rest my case.
more specifically vitamin C for pneumonia:
A Cochrane review:
Vitamin C for preventing and treating pneumonia (Review)
https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD005532.pub3
(one can get the full text at the above DOI)
From 1994, scanned in:
The Clinical Effects of Vitamin C Supplementation in Elderly Hospitalised Patients with Acute Respiratory Infections
https://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/hemila/CP/Hunt_1994_ch.pdf
Meanwhile people are setting the prairies on fire: https://www.1011now.com/content/news/Kansas-ranchers-burn-land-despite-plea-from-health-officials-569695971.html
Reminds of times I have gone up to the national forests in the mountains. People go to ‘get away’ from the urban/suburban life they have.
And they all have to have a fire. The air in the campgrounds becomes a nightmare of pollution, unless its windy.
Throw another log on.
https://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/130863/ua-professor-receives-36m-grant-to-protect-solar-tech-from-cyberattacks
This is not going to help at All and IMO it’s Criminal waste of $$. Focus needs to be on resilience and deployment of microgrids. Mandatory Standards (UL1547) have made Grid Tie Solar more Fragile that the wires and sticks for any benefit at all. Edge generation does not need any protection than standard security protocols can’t provide. No matter what these brainless fools do it ‘s a waste of time and resources.
The grant was for three point six million, not thirty six million.
From the link:
Mantooth will lead a team of researchers from the University of Georgia, University of Illinois at Chicago, Texas A&M University-Kingsville, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory and General Electric. Two Arkansas companies, Ozarks Electric Cooperative and Today’s Power, will also contribute to the project.
The research will focus on developing cybersecurity systems for photovoltaic energy technology and devices, especially solar PV inverters, the power electronic devices that link solar power arrays to the grid. Researchers will address issues such as supply-chain security, real-time intrusion detection methods, identifying and mitigating vulnerable spots, control system security and safety protocols.
This kind of research is thoroughly justified. It may well pay for itself helping fend of just one cyber attack that could cripple a bunch of wind and solar farms, maybe damaging them permanently, costing millions to make repairs.
OR a lot of wind and solar power going offline quickly due to a cyber attack could result in a utility not being able to respond fast enough ramping up conventional generation to prevent a black out.
One of the biggest advantages of wind and solar power is that they are distributed, rather than centralized, but when they’re grid tied, as is virtually always the case, centralization means they can all be attacked at once in any given area.
Such research is also going to be helpful in maintaining reliability and reducing costs in privately owned home and farm sized pv systems and systems owned by various commercial enterprises that may or may not be grid tied.
Unless I’ve counted zeros wrong, three million bucks in a country with three hundred million people means this research is costing us around a penny apiece.
This is something most of us don’t appreciate when it comes to government sponsored research. In a lot of cases, maybe ninety or even ninety nine percent of it never results in a useful return. But that last one percent generates a big enough return to justify all of it, with plenty left over.
An advance in any one field sooner or later results in new insights and discoveries in other fields, like ripples spreading from a stone dropped into still water.
We’ve had to justify every penny spent on renewables for decades by snipers from the fossil fuel industries and their whores while literally trillions have been spent on that crap with nary a peep, sleek TV ads every 20 minutes about what wonderful public servants the industry is flooding the airwaves and yet…
We need to learn to do the Right things Right. Most threats to the Grid are by poor design. A $90 Mikrotik Router with Hardware encryption will provide 256 bit IPsec encryption at almost gigabit speeds. Problem Solved. The biggest threat is kids out of school with no experience. 3 Million bucks will deploy almost 3 Megawatts. How much will this cost to interconnect? Better to go the Distributed microGrids Route. We need things to speed up the Deployment of DG. Examples – Self Forming MicroGrids, Standardize Racking, Lower-cost LFP Batteries, etc. We buy incompatible PV racking from several suppliers. PV Mounting hardware in Germany is a fraction of the Cost. There a DIN Standard and many installers buy their own Extrusion dies since each item does not have to a UL stamp. Much of the Grid as we know it needs to die. Demand is falling. Unsustainable Nat gas % Increasing.
https://www.eia.gov/realtime_grid/#/status?end=20200420T07
“Much of the Grid as we know it needs to die. Demand is falling.”
That is debatable at least. With more PV and wind you actually need MORE long range transmission capacity.
Once price normalizes, then rejected energy will decrease. EV’s will increase kWh demand long term at least for fast charging.
Trading real-time pricing kWh/Expanding demand-solar production longitudinal justifies transmission lines. A tracker with no moving parts! The key is to minimize storage step-by-step. 80 % PV direct consumption is not that hard to do on a per meter bases for Households. Simple demand management like a hot water timer and setback thermostat take you halfway there. Solar 2.0 grid forming will change everything. Me thinks that Terra-watt Global PV Production will short circuit the IOU Model. The next benchmark is 200 GigaWatt/Annual.
80 % PV direct consumption is not that hard to do on a per meter bases for Households.
How about for industrial/commercial?
Most of Industrial is a real challenge. High Storage cost is somewhat offset by Cheap Daytime PV Power.
Yep, I think Minnesota and Finland are going to very happy for a strong grid in the winter. And so is Texas, who will be selling wind and solar to Chicago and Pittsburgh. etc.
No AC can cross the Texas Border, But I’m sure kWh trading/exported is increasing via HVDC.
North American Energy Flows. https://www.eia.gov/realtime_grid/#/status?end=20200420T07
Those ERCOT regulatory barriers will change quickly, once Texans realize they can make money exporting surplus wind and solar energy.
Question Longtimber- Lets say a region, like great lakes area of USA, can eventually supply itself with
100% peak electrical demand with renewables in the summer. Obviously they still would have a huge deficit to fill on a yearly basis. Do you think 10 billion dollars be better spent on batteries in the region, or on building/purchasing electricity from 1000 miles away (like offshore wind at Maine or solar/wind in Texas) and importing via the grid- HVDC?
Must be some pretty strong currents running in those lakes, water has to get out somewhere. Water turbines anyone?
NAOM
A mix of Transmission and Battery is the way foward, but EChem not competitive yet longer than a few minutes. Energy = Power * Time. Batteries shine/are “GRID” competitive in “short” time periods. 16 milliseconds to 1 hour. IMO In front of the Meter PV/Battery makes limited sense. Do you really trust these Bastards with your Welfare if you have a south facing roof and can produce kWh for 30% of cost. How many decades will it be before global battery equals 1% of Grid Production? EChem stored energy is Precious. How scalable? We shall see.
We are the largest/only Tesla Powerwall certified installer in NW Florida. Would I have one in my Home? I’m a resilience freak so not for Primary Power. AC-DC-AC-DC losses are costly for my 24×7 Critical loads. Chemical free affordable storage? H2O phase change (Ice)- hot water heater, clothes line, etc. Always cheaper to save a watt than generate one.
kWh costs from NMC EV type Batteries are about double the cost of LFP. LFP cells are scale-able for stationary applications and the kWh costs likely to fall faster since they are eco friendly – no heavy metals – and you can shoot holes in them and still have an house. NMC type cells are needed for EV Range. Texas based Sol-Ark is possibly the most efficient inverter which saves $$$ on Batteries.
Hickory,
Don’t forget the wide range of solutions, which need to be used in an integrated, optimized way. Many analyses look at simple solutions, used for everything: 100% solar, or 100% chemical batteries, or 100% enormous HVDC transmission bands, etc. These will be very, very expensive.
A big one is supply diversity: the great lakes region has a good offshore wind resource. Wind is a bit stronger at night and during the winter, so a balanced mix of solar and wind will do much better in winter than you might expect. If the region needed more, well…Iowa has an extraordinary wind resource, and is right next to Illinois and Wisconsin. I think the Great Lakes states would be willing to give Iowa honorary membership, as long as Iowa doesn’t want too much Lake Michigan water…
Another big one is overbuilding: the current US grid has a capacity of 1,050GW, while average demand is 450GW. A renewable grid would do something roughly similar.
Finally, seasonal backup (that is, winter) storage is unsuited to chemical batteries, which have a relatively high cost per kWh. You want something similar to current natural gas storage: “wind-gas”, probably hydrogen in salt domes.
Thanks for feedback. I’m still extremely appreciative of the grid, for the generally reliable electricity and defacto ‘storage’ of my excess solar PV it provides.
And I sure as hell would want a big strong grid functioning if I lived in a cold winter(dark) area.
One leg of the electrical resiliency worktable.
Yes, A Powerwall capacity is close to a 40gal Hot water heater for 4% of the Cost. An 80 gal is typical for a US Solar Thermal system. PV overbuild for Dec/Jan for Resilience. Then you have to divert the Surplus in the Summer. A 330 watt PV Panel will power a 14 watt Router 24x7x365 with 9999 availability at 36 degrees Latitude.
What is the largest number of powerwalls you have seen installed at one residential location?
I’ve been upgrading my political skills for the last few years, and it’s become obvious to me that in terms of the big picture, you can freely criticize anybody you wish in a given forum with limited readership without doing any serious harm to any policy proposal you happen to favor.
So….. given that the readership here is almost one hundred percent scientifically literate, and that political right wingers don’t read this forum, it’s ok to call them like I see them, concerning religion, climate, the economy, etc.
BUT it’s extremely important to remember that in forums that attract the less educated members of our society, and even plenty of people with doctorates from real universities, that it’s the unfortunate truth that most Americans are scientifically illiterate.
Calling such people out in such forums as being ignorant, racist, superstitious or whatever doesn’t do us any good, even though such descriptions are perfectly accurate.
You’ve got to accept them as they are, and try to gently educate them , as best you can, on line or in person. Otherwise you had best just keep your mouth shut, because you will drive more into the enemy camp than you will win over into our camp.
It’s not the fault, not really, of such people that they ARE scientifically illiterate. We’re all mostly the product of the environments we come from, statistically speaking.
I’m an exception to this general rule. I grew up in a backwoods redneck religious community where a sixth grade education was more a reality than a Beverly Hillbillies tv joke. I got lucky, went off to college and the city, lived in the literate middle class for years.
It’s just not THEIR fault most of the old people around here are orangutan fans. They just don’t know enough to know any better. They are actually doing pretty much the same thing people with sound scientific educations do, when they form their opinions, when they make up their mind on whether to support a given policy or politician or law.
I listen to my lawyer when it comes to law, my physician when it comes to my health, a full time fully qualified mechanic when I get stuck fixing my truck or tractor, etc. So does everybody else in this forum.
The critical difference is that they look up to the leaders of THEIR community, namely preachers, priests, business men, local politicians they have learned to trust over the years, their own parents and friends, when they make THEIR decisions.
Depending on how old they are, it’s a sad truth that most of them will die without changing their mind about their basic beliefs.
But if we take our time, we can convert one or two of them that come into close contact with us, accepting them as they are, avoiding being judgemental.
I know, I’ve succeeded with half a dozen younger ones. So far it’s been pretty much hopeless with the older ones. But if you are in contact with even one such person, and not too busy, and handle it right, and he or she is say around forty or less, you have a decent shot at explaining reality to them.IF you take your time, and make friends with them FIRST.
Thanks OFM. Its an important message, and the effort is certainly a worthy one. Takes considerable wisdom and patience. It is interesting how just a brief encounter and comment in passing can change the course of someones life trajectory or outlook.
While not a life changing experience, I remember an elderly aunt telling me as a teenager- ‘its easy to be philosophical about somebody else’s problems’. That brief comment sunk in deep. It was one of the very few times we ever spoke to each other.
The Trump’s poll numbers basicly haven’t changed for over 3 years. Less than 1 percent are going to change their view. The election is going to be about turnout and the elimination of the HRC baggage distraction. The little bit of democracy we have left is on the ballot in November. Can you give me one example were Hitler was more corrosive to democracy than Trump prior to 1939? Until 2016 I could never understand how the Nazis gained control of Germany, no longer.
United we stand, divided we fall. If we get through this. The education system needs revamping. Science first.
Joseph Goebbels has nothing on Trump
” Can you give me one example were Hitler was more corrosive to democracy than Trump prior to 1939″
I can give you 523,00 examples in just one short line- 523,000 Jews living in Germany in January 1933. Lost voting, and just about all civil liberties very quickly. Then life.
And hundreds of other examples.
But I agree with the gist of your point.
Thank goodness Trump is woefully incompetent, but he sure has the tendencies of a cruel authoritarian.
“Thank goodness Trump is woefully incompetent”
“An anti-establishment view or belief is one which stands in opposition to the conventional social, political, and economic principles of a society. The term was first used in the modern sense in 1958, by the British magazine New Statesman to refer to its political and social agenda.[1] Antiestablishmentarianism (or anti-establishmentarianism) is an expression for such a political philosophy.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-establishment
“A crime family is a unit of an organized crime syndicate, particularly in the Mafia (both in Sicily and in the United States), often operating within a specific geographic territory. In its strictest sense, a family (or clan) is a criminal gang, operating either on a unitary basis or as an organized collection of smaller gangs (e.g., cells, factions, crews, etc.). In turn, a family can be a sole “enterprise”, or part of a larger syndicate or cartel.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_family
I don’t think so and that’s wishful thinking. He knows exactly what is he is doing. Example, Trump has young kids permanently separated from parents and locked up on the border because of their parents misfortune and color of their skin.
Yep HB. He should be prosecuted for everything they can get to stick. It pisses me off that so many people in media, in congress, and in the general public treat him with kid gloves. As if- ‘oh thats just trump’
Yeah, I agree with the gist of your point as well.
And, I agree with Hickory that we are fortunate that the Trump era isn’t really comparable to the Hitler era. US democracy is far stronger, Trump is less competent, and the Republicans, as weaselly as they are, can’t be compared to the Nazis. One example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht (German pronunciation: [kʁɪsˈtalnaχt]) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November Pogrom(s),[1][2] was a pogrom against Jews carried out by SA paramilitary forces and civilians throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938. The German authorities looked on without intervening.[3] The name Kristallnacht (“Crystal Night”) comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings and synagogues were smashed.
Jewish homes, hospitals and schools were ransacked as the attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers.[4] The rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland.[5] Over 7,000 Jewish businesses were damaged or destroyed,[6][7] and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps.[8] British historian Martin Gilbert wrote that no event in the history of German Jews between 1933 and 1945 was so widely reported as it was happening, and the accounts from foreign journalists working in Germany sent shockwaves around the world.[4] The Times of London observed on 11 November 1938: “No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults on defenceless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday.”[9]
The orangutan is now taking a chance on starting WWIII. Shit happens, and shit has a way of snowballing out of control sometimes.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-says-china-may-have-started-coronavirus-deliberately-2020-4
And he wonders why China has not been fully co-operating.
NAOM
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/presidential-emergency-powers/576418/
Hmm….
Unfortunately there was a provision in the constitution of the Weimarer Republic that allowed the prime minister to declare martial law during a national emergency. Hitler did it almost immediately on getting into office.
The Republicans have found lots of loopholes to undermine democracy, but none as big a that one yet.
Interesting statistic I recently read: In the past 30 years there have been seven presidential elections. The Republicans won the popular vote in one of them.
“In the past 30 years there have been seven presidential elections. The Republicans won the popular vote in one of them.”
Yep, and after Nov it will be 1 in the last 8.
Someday even the electoral college won’t be able to keep the republicans in power. Glory be.
80, 84 and 88 all had Pepugs win the popular vote. As did 2004.
2000 had Gore win by about 1/2 million votes, but Repugs took it anyway. 2016 was similar, with HRC winning the popular vote by approx 3 million votes, but losing the election anyway.
Yep, just once in the last seven election for the republicans,
and soon to be 7/8 for democrats since 1990 (popular vote winners).
Everybody here should read this article, and the book if you have time. I haven’t read this particular book, but I’ve read some others about cults. It rings true.
https://www.salon.com/2020/04/07/cult-expert-steven-hassan-trumps-mind-control-cult-now-faces-an-existential-crisis/
Very interesting to view it in this light. Rings true.
I do know a few people who voted for trump, who are now embarrassed by it.
But I suspect something like 90% are forever trumper cult members.
Must read, Ty
‘Very unusual’: Coronavirus can last longer in air than first thought
The virus behind the world’s COVID-19 pandemic can stay infectious in the air for more than 12 hours, early research out of four major US laboratories has found, as more scientists warn it may have been underestimated by authorities such as the World Health Organisation.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/warning-light-coronavirus-can-last-longer-in-air-than-first-thought-20200420-p54li8.html
Novel. It is the first word in the damn thing’s name yet from the beginning we have been bombarded by statements about this thing that have the ring of authority but are basically being pulled out of people’s asses. I guess it is like a game of telephone. The scientists almost surely begin any discussion by saying that this is a new virus and we don’t know much about it but based on similar viruses we might suspect these characteristics. But by the time the media disseminates the information it becomes bullet points that sound like facts. And they are not facts. They are guesses. And under these circumstances the guesses can be deadly. They should always be prefaced by the FACT that we don’t really know how this thing behaves, very few rigorous experiments have been performed on it and this is some of the current thinking. Even the most basic stuff. Right now there is just this broad assumption that antibodies bestow immunity. There is no evidence of that. Yet almost all of our planning is based on that assumption. We are four months into this thing. We would have to waive some serious ethical guidelines. But we need to start doing some accelerated experiments on volunteers right now. Too much depends on this one basic question. There are many others. But it is just glaringly obvious that we really need to label assumptions for what they are whenever we talk about this thing and base our actions accordingly.
Because of its implications a lot of study is going into this virus and finding out these things. As previous viruses faded so did interest. I can’t help wondering if those other viruses have surprises too.
NAOM
Renewables overtake coal-fired power generation for first time
https://www.mining.com/renewables-overtake-coal-fired-power-generation-for-first-time/
For the whole OECD, (Around 10500 TWH) renewables overtook coal for electricity generation last year.
Coal is not going to look good in OECD when it comes out of this pandemic.
Coal accounted for just 16.4% of the U.S. electric power from mid-March to mid-April, compared with 22.5% for a similar period last year.
Blumenfeld has been in the coal industry for three decades and says he has never seen such a sudden and severe downturn.
“We’re seeing coal production numbers and power generation numbers from coal going back to roughly late 1960s, mid-1970s levels,” he says.
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/23/842807177/pandemic-shutdown-is-speeding-up-the-collapse-of-coal
Sweden becomes the third European country to close its last coal power plant
https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/sweden-third-european-country-to-closes-its-last-coal-power-plant/
Solar records in Europe
https://electrek.co/2020/04/23/egeb-us-power-demand-falls-2003-low-coronavirus-8minute-solar/
I am now very confident that peak coal (2014) has passed. Consumption was creeping up between 2017 and 2019 threatening to overtake the 2014 peak but now there is no way for coal to regain that level. Even Chinese dependence on coal has come down from 70 % to 60%.
I’ve been wondering about the output of solar PV facilities since I noticed that the sky around here seems clearer these days. I saw a single aircraft heading south yesterday, the first one I’ve seen in a couple of weeks. The EPM data for February should come out today and March in another month or so. February’s data might be interesting but, March should be really interesting.
Thanks for bringing up this stuff. I’ve been too preoccupied with the situation with vitamin C and COVID-19 to follow up on a lot of the stuff I’m seeing. eg.
UK solar smashes generation records during Covid-19 pollution slump
Yep. Last year UK had coal free days. This year its gonna be coal free months. Market has almost retired their coal fleet much before the 2025 political deadline. They might keep their coal plants but it’s not gonna run.
The EPM data for February was released today and for the US, All Renwables generated more electricity than coal over the course of the month. First time ever? If not, probably the first time in more than a hundred years!
April, May last year. This is the 3rd time. The feat will be repeated this March, April, May at the very least. Probably for the whole year (overall, not all individual months) if Coronavirus drags through and the disruption to solar and wind installation is minimal.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/eias-electric-power-monthly-november-2019-edition-with-data-for-september/#comment-693406
“There are developments that might make batteries significantly less CO2 intensive to make and somewhat less costly as a result. Look for an announcement probably within the next three months.” ~ islandboy (4 months ago)
Is it this?
https://insideevs.com/news/409651/rumor-byd-10-gwh-blade-batteries-2020/
No this:
What To Expect At Tesla’s Battery And Powertrain Investor Day
Somehow I think you were already aware of that and are just pulling my leg.
Ah gotcha thanks. I’s pulling your leg a bit with the BYD thing, but I honestly didn’t know about the Tesla thing yet. Thanks for the link! How’d you know about it ahead of time like that?
Same place you got the BYD thing, insideevs.com. They have been reporting on the acquisition of Maxwell Technologies by Tesla since at least February 4th last year. I did a search on Google using the term “maxwell technologies site:https://insideevs.com/” which restricts the results of the search for “Maxwell Technologies” to the insideevs.com web site only. I also did a search for “battery investor day site:https://insideevs.com/” and the earliest mention I could find for the “”Battery and Powertrain Investor Day” was from July 26, 2019. The whole Maxwell Technologies thing has been a fairly hot topic at insideevs.com for over a year. Maybe it’s because I read something into this from the very first story back in February 2019 (link below) why I picked up on every subsequent mention of the deal but, I missed very few, if any. John Norris first posted a link to the story on February 4th, 2019 about an hour after it was published. I posted a comment on the subject on this site on February 17, 2019 suggesting that this was a very big deal!
Tesla Buying Maxwell, Could Signal Move To Solid State Battery
BYD has started Production on Rackable LFP Modules. Hopefully see a standard in the Future. Look at the mess in Power tools.
https://trofire.com/2020/04/16/florida-governor-declares-pro-wrestling-essential-service-for-dumbest-reason-ever/
This link tells us all we need to know without even clicking it.
The one important thing that’s missing is how much money the guy who owns the rasslin’ bizness has contributed, and will be contributing to the guv and the rest of our R politicians.
Politicians telling Power companies which Battery Chem to use.
“There are other utility scale battery technologies that are available that are far more sustainable and do not have these risks. There are also other lithium ion batteries that utilize chemistries that do not carry the same risks as those involved in the Eldon Substation and McMicken incidents,” Kennedy said in her letter.”
The obvious future of stationary battery chemistry is bulletproof LFP cells. Tesla has switched to low Voltage (50V) for the new Power Pak. Likely in 2-4 years they will not be using oxide EV cells for stationary storage.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/arizona-commissioner-cites-unacceptable-risks-from-lithium-ion-batteries/560300/
So, I just found an article that makes me feel like I’m in some really good company as far as my stance on vitamin C is concerned. No less than Amory Lovins!
Don’t Just Avoid the Virus — Defeat It by Strengthening Your Immunity
“Meanwhile, doctors in New York dealing with one of the world’s worst outbreaks of COVID-19 have already been using vitamin C as a treatment, outside of any study, he said.
But not surprisingly, with previous research offering conflicting results, it’s a controversial topic.
A February editorial in the influential Journal of the American Medical Association suggested most of the evidence to date has been negative, and argued against any further trials, or routine use on patients.
“There appears to be no immediate justification for adoption of high-dose vitamin C, alone or in combination, as a component of treatment for sepsis,” wrote Dr. Andre Kalil of the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
Offering the infusions “just in case” or as a “measure of last resort” could divert needed funding from more promising research, delay proven treatments like antibiotics, and perpetuate “false hopes for patients, families and clinicians,” he said in the commentary.
Vitamin C has a long and contentious history as potential miracle cure, though its promise has gone largely unfulfilled. The discovery that ascorbic acid was medically important is traced to James Lind, a Royal Navy doctor who conducted one of the world’s first controlled trials in 1747, and found that vitamin C-rich citrus fruits cured sailors afflicted by scurvy. The vitamin itself was not isolated until the early 1900s.
Propelled by advocacy from Linus Pauling, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, the nutrient was examined in the 1960s and 1970s as a possible treatment for the common cold. A 2013 review of previous research concluded it did nothing to prevent or treat colds, but that long-term use might help reduce the duration of them.”
https://nationalpost.com/news/could-vitamin-c-help-cure-covid-19-a-canadian-trial-hopes-to-find-out
I do not trust doctors to prove the efficacy of anything that does not require a prescription from a doctor. That would make the doctor largely redundant. Take the example of vitamin C. If one were to use it to ameliorate a condition on the advice of your doctor, the next time the condition arises, there’s no need to go to the doctor.
I suspect that some doctors and the pharmaceutical industry know exactly how versatile and effective vitamin C is . As a result there is a definite effort from some quarters to cast as much doubt as possible and this has been going on for a long time (over 70 years). See:
The Origin of the 42-Year Stonewall of Vitamin C
There is a reason I like to quote sections of articles I link to. It seems many people, myself included, often do not go to the link so I like to include a section that gives a feel for what the linked article is about. Earlier, I linked to a paper by Dr. Paul Marik without quoting anything from it> Here it is again, this time with a quote:
Doctor—your septic patients have scurvy!
Thus the rational behind the use of high dose vitamin C is that in the animal kingdom, it is a part of the endocrine system and the requirement for it varies widely. While most animals can satisfy their requirements by “making their own”, organisms with the defective gene cannot and must get it from other sources, food being the most obvious one. High dose vitamin C therapy is simply an attempt to compensate for the lost ability by humans to synthesize their own vitamin C.
This COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to blow the lid off this marginalization of nutrition in general and vitamin C in particular. The status quo is set up for a small subset of humanity to make good from illness and poor health while the majority pay the price through either poor health or high cost medical interventions, often including prescription drugs. I for one, would like to see the current system brought to it’s knees and respect the small cohort of doctors who are challenging the system. To me, they are true heroes!
The news that somebody in California died from the coronavirus on February 6th isn’t being taken seriously enough here for the game changer that it is. Because a death 3 weeks before the first “official” one is proof that the virus had spread all over before the “experts” even knew. That basically confirms that containment was impossible from the very beginning, which further means the economic destruction could have been prevented.
Further, Washington state and British Columbia need to start doing autopsies now. Vancouver has not been a major hotspot and that just doesn’t add up, but does if the first wave of this virus was actually months ago and what we are experiencing now is the second wave. Granted, it might not be the second wave everywhere, but it’s now a lot more obvious the virus was spreading earlier in some places. And in the areas it was spreading in, it would have been pretty easy to spread without much detection because it was spreading around young people in tech companies and going to tech conferences. It could have been written off as a bad flu season.
” That basically confirms that containment was impossible from the very beginning”
Simple basic principle- try to limit the damage.
If you know your house is getting flooded, you don’t call defeat because you have a 1/4″ of water on the floor, rather you get in gear and save as much of the valuable stuff as you can.
Just because you could not have achieved 100% containment of this virus before March (we all agree on this), doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have given a full effort to limit the viral influx and spread as soon as you are aware of the threat- certainly by the first week of Feb when China was seen to be building a huge hospital on an emergency basis within one week.
But of course this common sense action takes leadership of someone with good intelligence and judgement. Rather, we have someone at the top who is a failure in judgement (throughout his life), poor performance in standard measures of intelligence (can he read?), and has shit-poor instincts in most areas.
#trumpgrossfailureofleadership
He’s just astroturfing.
Within 3 to 4 days, everybody’s view of this virus will change. It will be out of necessity when the results of the California autopsies are released. If there exists proof that the virus showed up as early as December, then you can say goodbye to any talk of containment. The floodgates will be open. Social distancing will become a punchline as much as Y2K hysteria. The response will be seen as the biggest failure in the history of the US government.
Keep trying, but your spin isn’t gaining any traction with reality.
from CNBC-
‘Experts rip Trump’s idea of injecting disinfectant to treat coronavirus’
Are your buddies considering this treatment? After all, your king proclaimed it.
“If there exists proof that the virus showed up as early as December”
There isn’t any suggestion of this. The first intelligence briefings on the pandemic predate the January transmissions, so if it wasn’t for
the Fuhrer’sTrump’s unfounded and irrational distrust of the intelligence services, we might be better off than we are now.American energy revolution reaching fruition-
https://www.bloombergquint.com/technology/the-energy-revolution-that-started-in-1954-is-reaching-its-crescendo
Latest from yesterdays shopping. Masks are now obligatory in all public places, police and national guard have authority to enforce this and, also, to stop people congregating in parks and squares. Facehuggers are now the norm, with a few who want to burn, though many people are not covering their nose. There are many seamstresses in the town so there are a lot of places selling nicely made masks of varying descriptions. Few people out and about and traffic very quiet. Many closed shops have notices with phone numbers for service. The local council office is a food distribution centre and, for the whole city, 2,500 food parcels are being delivered/collected daily
I got a thermometer pointed at my ear before being allowed into Wallymart but, overall, they are still pretty slack. They have got stocks under better control but beans are still a bit low. Actually managed to get a pot of wipes! In other places the use of masks and gel is being enforced though a few are dishing out squirts of gel that are far too small, plus there are limits on persons inside in smaller shops. Distance markers everywhere but many are only at 1m or 1.5m spacing, too small. Many places banning children or have 1 person per family limits, would be a good idea in normal times rather than have big family outings with feral children.
NAOM
Here is an article for you NAOM. Good interactive chart by country for Lat America
https://www.vox.com/2020/4/22/21229404/coronavirus-south-america-cases-deaths-brazil
Thanks, interesting. Looks like Brazil is going for the moon. It is worth noting that the worst of Mexico is in 2 areas, though it will likely spread. The valley of Mexico, not sure if that is the whole state or just the city, is one and our local states are checking those coming from there. The other is in the borderlands to the USA and is being stoked by the maquilarias. American owned companies are not closing as they claim to be essential businesses – car seats and aircon bits essential? Around here, we have only had a very few deaths but so far so good, we shall see.
NAOM
You know Americans, they tend to just do whatever is best for them, especially if there is money to be made or land to grab.
@islandboy
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/macomb/2020/04/23/fbi-raids-allure-medical-shelby-township/3010977001/
Yeah, I saw that! Got to stop those vitamin C nuts! They might kill somebody! /sarc Heaven forbid they make anybody better! 😉 One would have thought the FBI would have more important things to do!
Islandboy —
Please stop promoting ‘quack’ Vitamin C therapies. In addition to the serious ethical problem of promising benefits that can not reasonably be expected, your, or indeed any, “snake oil solutions” include the risk infected patients may choose to forego treatments likely to actually help them. The World Health Organization prescribes several methods for trained healthcare professionals to use in managing severe cases of COVID-19. These include: oxygen therapy and monitoring, the treatment of co-infections with empiric antimicrobials, endotracheal intubation in cases of acute respiratory distress syndrome, and resuscitation from septic shock using crystalloid fluid. AS OF MID-APRIL, THE GUIDE DOES NOT MENTION USE OF VITAMIN C.
The scientific consensus view is that for normal individuals, a balanced diet contains all necessary vitamins and that routine supplementation is not necessary outside of specific diagnosed deficiencies. Quackery not only harms people, it undermines scientific enterprise and should be actively opposed by every educated person.
THE VITAMIN MYTH: WHY WE THINK WE NEED SUPPLEMENTS
“… Whatever the reason, the data are clear: high doses of vitamins and supplements increase the risk of heart disease and cancer; for this reason, not a single national or international organization responsible for the public’s health recommends them.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitamin-myth-why-we-think-we-need-supplements/277947/
Please read (again?) the article I linked to and quoted from further up (Doctor – Your patients have scurvy!). It was co-authored by Dr. Paul E. Marik who is a professor of medicine and serves as Chief, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School. Is Paul Marik all of a sudden a quack because he has observed positive outcomes from the use of IV vitamin C to treat sepsis? What changed to turn Paul Marik into a pariah?
Let me repeat, the essential idea behind high dose vitamin C therapy, can be found in these two sentences from Marik’s paper, “The most likely explanation for the acute vitamin C deficiency (acute scurvy) in patients with sepsis (and other critical illnesses) is a consequence of metabolic consumption [1]. The fall in serum and cellular levels occurs too rapidly to be explained by decreased gastrointestinal absorption or increased urinary losses.”
This idea is not new but was put forward b y Dr Frederick Klenner as early as 1949 and Dr. Robert F Cathcart in the 80s and 90s. Both of these Doctors would qualify as quacks by your definition but, as far as I am aware, they both had successful clinical practices and neither of them was ever sued for malpractice.
The scientific consensus view was once that leeches were the best treatment for many illnesses. While James Lind did his experiment 1n 1747 to prove that something in citrus fruit cured scurvy, it was not until 1794, 47 years later that it was used by the4 British navy to prevent it’s sailors from being afflicted by scurvy. The opposition to the idea that vitamin C is more than a micro-nutrient is not entirely rational and is born of decades of faulty studies that typically failed to use adequate doses and/or prematurely discontinued administration.
I am often amazed at the almost complete lack of intellectual curiosity displayed by otherwise apparently intelligent people when it comes to this subject. How about taking a stab at what it is that Paul Marik has been observing? After that, how about trying to explain what Klenner and Cathcart observed?
Many of the vitamin C pioneers are now dead. They are succeeded by a cohort of doctors that have banded together to from the International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine. Follow the link to their website for a barrage of what you call “quackery”! (A whole web page of links on treating COVID-19 with vitamin C). Rather than listen to you (Doug Leighton) I prefer to be guided by what I read over at the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service.
In conclusion, if you have a problem with the stuff I am citing, why not take it up with my sources. I can give you Richard Cheng’s email and could in all likelihood find an active email address for Paul Marik too. You might also try to get the two books written by Dr. Thomas E. Levy, MD, “Curing the Incurable: Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, and Toxins ” an “Primal Panacea” taken down from Amazon but, before you do that you should know that Dr. Thomas E. Levy, MD is also a practicing attorney at law. Finally you might want to get the following article retracted since it is also promoting what you refer to as “quackery”.
How to protect yourself from the coronavirus pandemic
I can only speak from personal experience. I generally believe that taking vitamin supplements is not a good thing, as long as one has a healthy diet. Having said that, I find that my one gram per day of vit C prevents formation of cold sores or ‘cankers’ on my tongue. I have challenged this numerous times and with 100% reliability, the sores begin to appear a few days after quitting the vitamin C and disappear upon resumption of the C. So I will continue taking the vit C but generally remain skeptical of mega doses of anything.
Trump just made the whole field of immunology obsolete. Because you can inject yourself with disinfectant, or get bathed in a “tremendous light…. going through the skin…. or some other way….”. I guess the “logic” being a dead person can never get infected lol. I shouldn’t laugh but wow. Where is natural selection to weed out idiots…or are we in the thick of idiocracy?
Trump Suggests Injecting Disinfectant Into The Body To Treat Coronavirus | MSNBC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtgVxGkrX1Y
Time to open her up and mainline the sunshine.
“I shouldn’t laugh but wow. Where is natural selection to weed out idiots…or are we in the thick of idiocracy?”
Well, trump idiot is best the united states could come up with for a leader- so says the republicans who voted for him, and still support him.
Idiots abound.
Idiocracy is a good name for it.
Crates of lysol [stamped ‘medical grade’] are now being shipped to fundamentalist churchs all over the american heartland, for local distribution.
Good one Bob!
It’s interesting to look at reporting on this. Here’s some headlines:
NY Times: “Trump Muses About Light as Remedy, but Also Disinfectant, Which Is Dangerous.
Washington Post: “Trump’s comments prompt doctors to warn against ingesting disinfectants, bleach”
LA Times: “Don’t inject disinfectants, Lysol warns as Trump raises idea”
LeMonde: “Rayons UV et désinfectant injecté dans les poumons : les élucubrations du « docteur » Trump concernant le coronavirus”
El Pais: “Trump sugiere tratar el virus con “desinfectante” o con “luz solar”
Al Jazeera: “Experts react with horror to Trump coronavirus disinfectant idea”
Initially this morning when I browsed the conservative papers, there was no mention of Trump’s disinfection remarks, but now, it’s starting to be reported by them:
Fox News: “TWISTED WORDS? Media erupt over Trump comments on disinfectant as coronavirus cure: Here’s what he said”
Washington Times: “White House blasts media for ‘irresponsibly’ taking Trump out of context on disinfectants”
NY Post: “Top DHS scientists says heat, humidity slow coronavirus”
(Trumps remarks are quoted within the article.)
Daily Caller: (this morning their headline was about media twisting Trumps words, that article is now gone, and these two have replaced it:) “Lysol Says ‘Under No Circumstance’ Should Disinfectants Be Used ‘Internally’ After Trump Talks About ‘Injection'” & “White House Rebukes Media For Allegedly Taking ‘Trump Out Of Context’ After President Talked About A Disinfectant ‘Injection’ ”
Drudge is actually hitting Trump pretty hard:
“DON’T DRINK THE BLEACH!” which links to Rueters article: “Trump’s disinfectant idea shocking and dangerous, doctors say”
“Experts rip idea of injecting disinfectant to treat coronavirus…”
“LYSOL Producer: Do Not Ingest…”
Edit: If you really want a brain cramp, go to the conservative sites and read the comments on these articles.
I can see it now
Doctor-‘The good news is that the ultra high intensity UV has cleared you coronavirus, the bad news is that your skin is black as coal and you just died of skin cancer’.
I can see law suits against disinfectant companies because they did not have warnings saying ‘do not inject’ on their packaging when people try and die. Perhaps we will start to see warning stickers added to bottles of bleach. The way things are going, with this and the returners/hoax people, seems to justify my terming coronavirus ‘MAGA Bleach- cleansing the gene pool, one republican at a time’.
NAOM
I’m still optimistic that ENOUGH orangutan voters will see the light when one or more of their family and friends depart early via CV to flip a few close races to the D’s in November. They won’t actually vote D, but they WILL stay home , in some cases at least.
Lots of races are going to be damned close, nation wide. One more R or D on a city council or county board of supervisors, etc, can be the impetus for a county or town going red or blue down the road.
So I’ve started doing some devious shit in a few cases. I’m talking to some people as if I am a big R Republican and a big C Conservative….
And what I’m telling them, quietly, making sure we both know no one else is listening, in case they happen to be intelligent enough to GET IT, is that I wish like hell trump would shut his fucking mouth because he’s actually as ignorant and stupid as the D’s say he is…… and if they happen to have an iq above about ninety or so, and know anything at all about the real world, they often sort of wince and say I know, but what’re we gonna do ?
And I say I don’t know, but I’m afraid the D’s are gonna win because he’s got such a big mouth and keeps saying totally stupid shit.
This is NOT doing such a listener any good AT ALL in terms of reassuring him and firing him up to vote in November. It depresses them, lol.
And maybe a couple of them will stay home as a result.
And I’m HIGHLY optimistic that old farts like me, and Ron, are going to be gone to nursing homes or crematoriums or six feet under within within four more years , or eight at the most, to flip at least a state or two from Red to Blue.
And in ten to twelve years enough of us are going to be gone that the youngsters who will be taking our place in the voting booths of the country will pretty much rid us of orangutan type government.
A new Non-Petroleum thread has been posted.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-april-24-2020/
A new Non-OPEC Oil Production thread has been posted.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/non-opec-oil-production-punches-new-high/
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