82 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, December 25, 2020”

  1. Very nice Christmas present from the Koreans this morning,

    KOREAN ARTIFICIAL SUN SETS THE NEW WORLD RECORD OF 20-SEC-LONG OPERATION AT 100 MILLION DEGREES

    “The Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR), a superconducting fusion device also known as the Korean artificial sun, set the new world record as it succeeded in maintaining the high temperature plasma for 20 seconds with an ion temperature over 100 million degrees. The final goal of the KSTAR is to succeed in a continuous operation of 300 seconds with an ion temperature higher than 100 million degrees by 2025.”

    https://phys.org/news/2020-12-korean-artificial-sun-world-sec-long.html

    1. Wow , now we are saved . 🙂 . ” Stupid is what stupid does ” Forrest Gump . Merry Christmas .

      1. Don’t scoff HIH, fusion as improbable as it seems is mankind’s only long term hope.

        Although fast breeder reactors (if they could build something to contain the neutron flux and sodium coolant) is the immediate future.

        1. Hume,

          I agree that fusion seems like a reasonably hopeful thing, in the relatively long term.

          But I’d disagree about nuclear in general. I think it can work, certainly, but it’s unlikely to be able to compete with solar, wind, hydro, etc (IOW, renewables). Nuclear is too slow, not perfectly reliable or clean, and most of all too expensive.

          Why do you think renewables can’t work?

          1. Nick G,

            It took 2 million years for the human population to reach 1 billion. It took 200 years for it to reach 7 billion. Your very existence was brought about by the use of hydrocarbons.

            The arguments against renewables have been done to death. The political will to adopt renewable energy is there, but the fantastical returns of renewables aren’t borne out in reality.

            1. Hume,

              Fossil fuels didn’t start the industrial revolution – it started with human, draft animal, biomass, wind and water power. Fossil fuels accelerated the industrial revolution, but it would have happened either way.

              So…about renewables. There’s an old rule rule: you understand a concept if if you can teach it to someone else. Even if you understand it, you understand it better if you teach it to someone.

              So, tell me, in your own words: why won’t renewables work?

        2. Hume , why not scoff ? Fusion is like the horizon, always seen but never reached. Oh , I am not ” hopeless ” ,just ” hopefree ” . Further I am not a pessimist, just a ” disappointed optimist ” .

        3. Fusion is DEFINITELY NOT mankind’s only hope. A global population of less then 2B plus renewable natural energy sources plus simpler lifestyles are our only hope. And we’re going there whether we like it or not. Fusion energy (if it ever works at scale) will continue the status quo of endless growth of human impact on the dying environment.

          1. Kevin Squire,

            A timely reminder of what we as a species need to accept or have forced on us.

          2. Kevin,

            The most damaging impact of humans at the moment is climate change. Climate change is primarily driven by green house gases. GHGs are primarily caused by fossil fuels. Both renewables and fusion (or fission) could eliminate fossil fuels.

            So…renewables and other non-fossil fuel energy sources are the best hope of helping “the dying environment”.

            1. You may be right about climate change. but I’m more concerned about indecision in the US on Nuclear waste. All it takes is a power failure to wreck DNA as we know it. This is a political issue, not a technical one. It’s not that big of a deal to isolate it from the biosphere and get it underground.

          3. I whole-heatedly agree Kevin.
            How to accelerate a voluntary downsizing?
            It will be very hard to achieve a quickened pace of downsizing without relying on the ignorant and cruel nature of humanity as a guiding force.
            And that is incredibly tragic, given the level of self-awareness and occasional moments of brilliance that this species has achieved.
            Maybe the Universe will have a moment of silence for us.
            Or for the millions of species we have ‘extincted’.

            Hey Nick,
            I applaud the efforts of Dennis and you (and a few others) to help nudge these threads towards thoughtful discussion, rather than rude, ignorant and bullying shouting matches.
            Great intention, and despite the behavior of many of us, the consistent tone of decency has had a positive effect on these threads. But they have a hell of a long way to go at improvement, of course. A lot of personality disorders and bitterness try to find a place to vent. Most would be too embarrassed to behave openly as such in public.

            I do have a difference of viewpoint on a statement of yours above- “The most damaging impact of humans at the moment is climate change.”
            I’d put climate change down the list.
            Far out in front as number one is the big obvious one-destruction of the environment under the broad category of ‘land use’. By that I mean all of the combined habitat destruction by agriculture, deforestation, mining, dredging, paving.
            Second on the list I’d put the alteration of the chemistry of the ecosphere. I’m referring to other than the greenhouse gas issue here. The petrochemicals in all their forms and the hypoxic dead zones at all the major rivers and their deltas.
            Enough on that for now, hundreds of volumes could be written with the details.

            1. Hickory,

              Right at this moment, I agree: habitat destruction is far more important than climate change. I’m thinking of the future, and the risk of really dramatic climate change: AFAIK the worst scenarios would be far more destructive than anything humanity has done so far.

        4. Fusion seems like a throwback to the 1950s, when huge centralized generating stations were seen as the future. The trend in more recent years has been towards decentralization and efficiency improvements.

          Another problem with fusion is that it produces heat and hard radiation, the two least useful forms of energy. Getting from that to energy that can be used mechanically involves boiling water in turbines etc. The idea of converting expanding gas into mechanical energy is on the wane as well. Nuclear and coal depend on this, and both are fading. Thermal gas plants are being replaced by more efficient combined cycle plants. As far as I know, efficient power plants to capture fusion energy aren’t even on the drawing board yet.

          My last complaint abut this is that the amount of matter that has been heated is not mentioned. They have attained a very high temperature for a few seconds, but the amount of energy is likely to be tiny, and there is almost no plasma involved. Their huge apparatus really doesn’t do much.

          1. I think fission is likely to become a major player before fusion does. There’s more and more work being funded into modular fission reactors, in Europe, Asia and North America.

            Four provinces in Canada are in a consortium funding this work. The US DoD is also pushing money at it. I believe in the past couple of years, there have been design approvals in the US and Canada.

            If these modular reactors do play out, it can be significant. In the 1970’s, France was able to develop a nuclear industry that provided 80% of their electricity in 15 years. The proponents of modular, build-in-bulk, reactors think it can happen again.

            1. Basically it gets down to cost. I think the whole process of handling hot water on a large scale is simply too expensive. Nuclear energy was first imagined in an era where energy was scarce and relatively hard to come by, so steam turbines and the costs they incur didn’t seem like a big deal. As fossil fuel extraction got cheaper, and alternatives like solar and wind became viable, pushing down prices, the cost of dealing with all that hot water kept rising as a percent of total cost. Finding a better way to heat water is no longer the way forward.

              In the fifties futurists like Isaac Asimov imagined there would be a way to get directly from unstable isotopes to electricity without generating a lot of heat and hard radiation. But nobody has found a way yet.

              Something similar happened to solar. Fifteen years ago everyone thought rooftop solar was the way forward. But the price of panels collapsed, so most of the system costs are in installation, marketing and support electronics, not in the panels themselves. These costs are all lower in large projects, so there has been a shift to utility projects. This has made utilities less interested in blocking solar, so it is spreading even to more centralized authoritarian American states like Texas and Florida from freer areas of the country.

        5. What’s so improbable about fusion? It is and has always been “mankind’s only long term hope”. I speak of the extremely reliable, consistent, giant fusion reactor that is sitting at a safe 150 million km from earth. The vast majority of the energy that has powered human civilization over millennia has come from this particular fusion reactor and our ability to harness it in real timeis growing at very decent clip.

          From https://www.iea.org/fuels-and-technologies/renewables , Solar PV generated 91 GWh in 1990 growing to 554,382 GWh in 2018 (CAGR 36.51%), Wind generated 3,880 GWh in 1990 growing to 1,273,409 in 2018 (CAGR 22.99%) and Hydro generated 2,191,674 GWh in 1990 growing to 4,325,111 GWh in 2018 (CAGR 2.46). Looking at the data for combustible renewables ( Electricity generation from biofuels and waste by source), electricity production from Primary Solid Biofuels grew from 101,783 GWh in 1990 to 421,131 GWh in 2018.

          Biofuels are probably the worst in terms of the real time rate at which they harness energy from our neighborhood fusion reactor. Fortunately Solar PV is many times better, yielding roughly 21% of the energy that reaches the surface of the best modules currently available as useful electricity. Fortunately again, Solar PV is on track to continue impressive growth rates as told by the following:

          Global solar capacity may reach 1,448 GW in 2024

          This implies better than 17% average annual growth rates when projecting forward from the 2018 data and there is nothing to suggest that there will be any difficulty in reaching those figures. Solar PV is now the lowest cost source electricity during the day time in the tropics. As storage (battery) costs continue to fall, it is inevitable that the combination of solar and batteries will eventually become the lowest cost source of electricity overall.

          At the following link the IEA has a chart including projections for the share of electricity from fossil fuels vs. renewables going forward:

          https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/shares-of-global-electricity-generation-by-source-2000-204

          While it appears that the IEA has improved their abysmally wrong projections for renewables, solar PV in particular, my sense is that they are still a little low with their projections. Only time will tell. Tony Seba published a report on the energy disruption from his RethinkX organisation, he executive summary available here:

          https://www.rethinkx.com/energy-executive-summary

          EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

          We are on the cusp of the fastest, deepest, most profound disruption of the energy sector in over a century. Like most disruptions, this one is being driven by the convergence of several key technologies whose costs and capabilities have been improving on consistent and predictable trajectories – namely, solar photovoltaic power, wind power, and lithium-ion battery energy storage. Our analysis shows that 100% clean electricity from the combination of solar, wind, and batteries (SWB) is both physically possible and economically affordable across the entire continental United States as well as the overwhelming majority of other populated regions of the world by 2030. Adoption of SWB is growing exponentially worldwide and disruption is now inevitable because by 2030 they will offer the cheapest electricity option for most regions. Coal, gas, and nuclear power assets will become stranded during the 2020s, and no new investment in these technologies is rational from this point forward. But the replacement of conventional energy technology with SWB is just the beginning. As has been the case for many other disruptions, SWB will transform our energy system in fundamental ways. The new system that emerges will be much larger than the existing one we know today and will have a completely different architecture that operates in unfamiliar ways

          I suspect most projections for the uptake of EVs are wrong as well and I am solidly in the Tony Seba camp in asking why anybody (outside of gear heads) would want a vehicle with an ICE in it, if a comparable vehicle with decent range is available for the same price or less? An Internet search for “ev price parity” brought up studies that are predicting price parity before 2025. I am predicting that within a couple years after price parity is achieved, the sales of internal combustion engines will plummet. IMO any projections of significant market share (>1%) of ICE powered vehicles in 2030 are rubbish.

          1. Below is an image that I hope will make the case for solar P vs biofuels. The complete image shows the area that supplies one of the only remaining sugar factories operating in Jamaica, the Frome Sugar Factory. The sugar cane fields are the light green areas as opposed to the darker green of the natural vegetation. The rectangle with the red border encloses the island’s most recently completed solar farm, the Paradise Park Solar Farm. This is a 50 MWp DC, 37 MW AC facility that is featured in the following PV Magazine article :Solar delivers cheapest power in Jamaica. It would be interesting to see a comparison of the annual amount of electricity that the solar farm will produce and the electricity that could be generated using all of the biofuels that can be produced on the land currently being used to grow sugar cane. I suspect that PV would be the runaway winner.

            Twenty solar farms the size of the Paradise Park Solar Farm could supply the peak mid day electricity demand of Jamaica and if private PV installations on customer owned buildings are factored in that number could go down somewhat. A rough estimate of the amount of small scale solar installed in the island is more than 50 MW. No official figures are available.

            Using the latest available figures for electricity consumption in Jamaica (2019) some forty nine 37 MW solar farms would be required to supply the entire demand for electricity if no other sources were to be considered and the “losses” of a little more the 25% were to be ignored. The amount of electricity generated by hydro and wind in 2019 would reduce the number by 6 and small scale solar by one or two. To achieve a build out of four 37 MW per year would do the trick.

            This is certainly a challenging proposition but, by no means impossible, especially if the costs of the technology continue to fall.

      2. HIH,

        Ridicule isn’t an argument. Ridicule is painful for the recipient, and is likely to make the perpetrator look foolish.

        If you said something sensible you’d likely discover that Doug is relatively skeptical of things that look too good to be true. But if you take this approach I think you’re likely to miss out on that kind of productive discussion.

        1. Nick , if someone comes to you and says the square is a circle . What will you say ? Ridiculous. Well I am of the same POV on the artificial sun post and have called it so . Why are you offended, I do not understand, since my comment was aimed at no one in person .I have already said that I read all your posts though I don’t agree with a majority of those and usually don’t comment. However this was so outlandish that I had to chip in .

          1. Well, I don’t think this is nearly as obvious as your “square/circle” example. Fusion is a mighty technical subject. I feel relatively well educated in related matters, and I wouldn’t pretend to be able to evaluate it’s long term feasibility. I do have the impression that fusion researchers have not promised short term results, ever. On the contrary, they’ve always said it was a very long term project (I visited the Princeton tokamak decades ago, and they certainly weren’t making any promises of short term results.). If my memory on that subject is correct, then there’s no grounds for ridiculing the lack of progress so far.

            Regarding “scoffing” or ridicule, IMO in this case it would be reasonable for the author of the comment (in this case Doug) to feel that your reply was aimed at him.

            I enjoy reading POB, and I enjoy thoughtful conversations and debates, through which I and other people can learn new things. I’d like to encourage everyone to “keep it civil”, and try to make our communal writing productive. In this case, I’d simply suggest being careful to avoid stuff that could be taken the wrong way, and trying to say something specific to clarify what your opinion is, and why you feel that way.

            Careful language can help. For instance, instead of describing something as ridiculous or goofy, you can say that it appears “unrealistic”. If you feel really strongly, you could say “completely unrealistic”. Again, though, if you discuss the idea in question, give your ideas and reasons, then it’s clearer that you’re discussing the idea, not the person.

            1. Serious investment into nuclear fusion power started in 1954, and the British public where promised ‘energy too cheap to metre’ within 20 years. It was still 20 years away when I went for a job interview into fusion research in 1984.

              There will not be a fusion reactor feeding power into the grid in my lifetime, at any price.

        2. Nick directing others to be more sensible lol dudes on another planet.

          “fusion seems like a reasonably hopeful thing, in the relatively long term.” ~ Nick

          Thanks for the heads up Tips; you’re a treat. I’ll sell off the preps and get a condo in the Bay Area.

          2. Cold Wars

            Nick’s ‘group dynamics grandstanding platitudes’ notwithstanding, he has told me on The Oil Drum some years ago something to the effect that I was seriously out of touch with reality because of evidence of increased human life-span (To digress, my idea at the time and still now WRT that has some to do with drawdown and fat tails.). In that sense, he took the first swing WRT what he might call ‘passive aggression’, and, to boot, has been ignoring my posts hereon since about 2016 for apparently the same sort of ‘passive aggressive’ reason.

            If one wants to play the ignore card/passive-aggressive thing for that long, that’s their prerogative, but it suggests a particular approach; ‘the ignoring of reality one doesn’t like, appreciate or is somehow inconvenient’ (to say nothing of the potential toxicity of longstanding grudges), Nick’s ostensible hypocrisy notwithstanding.

            I doubt that those who are inclined to ignore facets of reality, such as of people (an obvious biggie), are in the best position to find the best responses and solutions to ultimately-social problems. Likewise, too, if they’re proposing responses/solutions that largely involve the current form(s) of ‘BAU/coercive centralized government’ that have a history of ignoring/trampling over basic human rights, despite their words to the contrary.

            Many online and in person know that I believe in anarchism and this fact clashes with these sorts of business setups/government, and therefore possibly Nick’s own ‘platform/narrative/throne’.

            If we want to have an ethical/equitable/participatory framework, likely because it’s the only thing that will work, that nature will uphold in our case, then we have to involve everyone, not just an elite set that, from their thrones, would attempt to determine for everyone else (often except them) what they deem acceptable, or as they devise, ‘legal’.

            I have been around long enough to find that many who can’t seem to adequately argue their cases, yet still seem to think they represent some higher cause or truth, often fall back on arbitrary, self-serving values and notions of decorum, rather like kings, priests, bishops and various governments, etc..

            2. So writes the one who got kicked off of this and Gail’s site?
              I heard that Ron Patterson was impersonated again recently. Was that you?

            5. “Hi Nick,

              It’s always a pleasure to read your comments because your someone who gets it. I was over at Gail Tverberg’s the last couple of days under a hand full of different screen names pointing out the ignorance. Someone made a comment that they thought I was Nick. I’m guessing they thought I was you.” ~ ChiefEngineer / DentalFloss

              “Data mining expert Bing Liu (University of Illinois) estimated that one-third of all consumer reviews on the Internet are fake. According to the New York Times, this has made it hard to tell the difference between ‘popular sentiment’ and ‘manufactured public opinion.’ ” ~ Wikipedia

              “I would rather be Nick…” ~ HuntingtonBeach

  2. Please keep it @ least one AU “Astronomical Unit” away. Carbon based units need some sleep some at night.

    1. The big difference between this thing and the real sun is that the real sun is a very low power device which produces less energy than a manure pile per unit volume. The reason the sun produces so much energy is that it is so big.

      1. Doug , my quote from Forrest Gump was not aimed at you but at the Koreans . You are a rational poster and I like your posts especially about Arctic ice which you post more than anyone else on this blog . Good Work .

        1. No problem, I appreciate your skepticism but, everything said, the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) project was started in 1995, their first major step of National Fusion Energy Development Plan and, as a following step, Korea joined the ITER program. A Korean Fusion Energy Development Promotion “Law” was enacted in 2007 to promote a long-term cooperative fusion research and development among participating industries, universities and research institutes.

          A design study for a steady-state Korean fusion demonstration reactor was initiated in 2012 and their report on K-DEMO R and D plan was submitted to the Govt. of Korea in 2013. One special concept of K-DEMO is a two-staged development plan. At first, K-DEMO was designed to demonstrate a net electricity generation and a self-sustained tritium cycle (Tritium breeding ratio > 1.05). It was also designed to be used as a component test facility.

          At its second stage, a major upgrade is planned to replace in-vessel components and have a net electric generation on the order of 500 MW-e.

          Pressurized water is the choice for the coolant of K-DEMO, after a balance of development details. Considering the plasma performance and the peak heat flux in the diverter system, a conventional W-type double-null diverter system became the reference choice of K-DEMO.

          As stated in my original post, the final goal of the KSTAR is to succeed in a continuous operation of 300 seconds with an ion temperature higher than 100 million degrees by 2025. Not too shabby!

          NB: One of my buddies, and former business partner, is a Korean (now a Canadian) nuclear engineer who keeps me up to speed of fusion work being done in Korea. Also, during my undergraduate studies we touched on reactor design (including magnetically confined fusion) so I’m at least familiar with the nomenclature involved.

    2. “There will not be a fusion reactor feeding power into the grid in my lifetime, at any price.”
      Replace “fusion reactor” with “terrestrial fusion reactor” . You can’t understand the magic of the current gen of 20%+ PV panels unless you have some on you roof powering something direct. Grid tie PV system can never normally make power by design. PV Direct will explode once the price of NG normalizes. Who likes their food cooked and hot showers? The grid is a liability.

    1. Many churches in town here have these near-curbside signs that use those plastic-card letters that fit in the tracks to form words and sentences. Reading some of the vapid platitudes that they post made me ponder a prank that had a couple of, say, adventurous Millennials (maybe the ones predisposed to toppling/defacing dubious historical characters’ statues) pick the lock of the glass-frame to get in and rearrange the letters to say something like, ‘God gave us covid19 because we have sinned.’.

      Posting this from the bathtub.

  5. My personal opinion is that while fusion remains an extreme long shot, the money spent on researching it is entirely trivial in terms of the BIG PICTURE.

    I don’t expect any fusion sourced juice on the grid within the next thirty or forty years.

    Modular reactors are probably going to be pretty common within twenty years or so, assuming people are willing to accept them, and desperate people who are afraid their tv time might be rationed or that their air conditioning might fail will be easily convinced.

    Can enough of them be built to “save” civilization as we know it? I don’t really have a clue but I’m guessing not.

    Speaking as a practical minded old farmer, I’m dead sure what we really need to be doing is keeping the pedal to the metal on any and every technology that will DEFINITELY help us to “stay on the farm” in a manner of speaking.

    We’re literally betting the farm, collectively speaking, on whatever we do over the next couple of decades.

    We have ample supplies of fossil fuels, if we use them wisely, to finish a transition to an energy efficient economy running on renewable energy……. once the population declines substantially.

    And barring miracles, the population WILL be declining, unless everything I ever learned in biology classes and out on the farm is entirely wrong.

    Politics will have more to do with success than technology, because politics will determine which technologies are implemented on the grand scale to as great an extent, or a greater extent, than viability.

    Let’ s just hope we don’t fall for a Ma Kip the way we fell for the orangutan in the White House.

  6. There are only three reasons to be against ‘renewables”, specifically wind and solar energy as replacement for coal and oil.
    1. You have a money motive- you earn your wage in the fossil fuel industry, or you don’t know how to sell your fossil fuel assets/investments (you can get help with that).
    2. You have come to recognize any human technology, industry, mechanization, as destructive and no longer partake in these things [the unibomber path] If so, I recognize that you will have no mechanism to read this message.
    3.You are into ‘destro-porn”. You crave the opportunity to watch humanity experience a massive stepdown from the energy feast called fossil fuels without any attempt at smoothing out the transition. You actually want to watch the crash- hard and fast. You want to see the poverty, the wars, the freezing, the famines, the migrations, all on mass scale. Somehow believing that you will be spared, and that you will enjoy the spectacle.

    Note- just believing that solar and wind have no chance to 100% replace oil and coal is no reason to not work hard to get at least get part way there. We could certainly get half way there, and if we are smart about it then we could get that done before half of the oil is depleted. Even 70-80% replacement is feasible if we were to try.
    Beyond that level of repplacement, we can have more discussions in the 2030’s once we get up off our ass and get to work on the first 50%.

    1. “Loaded language (also known as loaded terms, emotive language, high-inference language and language-persuasive techniques) is rhetoric used to influence an audience by using words and phrases with strong connotations associated with them in order to invoke an emotional response and/or exploit stereotypes. Loaded words and phrases have significant emotional implications and involve strongly positive or negative reactions beyond their literal meaning.” ~ Wikipedia

    2. I would add another:
      4. You are a dogmatic ideologue for the “free market” and think anything like environmental concerns/regulations/talk of climate change is just a ploy to implement commanism (sic) an’ destroy ‘Merica and the free market.

      It’s somewhat related to #1, but the currency is emotional righteousness.

      n.b. to #1 – might add “nuclear fission industry”

      2. yes, I think you are right Sunnnv.

        One of the things about solar that is incredibly positive, is that each person, family, or community (at least in zones that aren’t always cloudy) can have some ownership in energy production, rather than just being a consumer dependent on a huge corporation.
        This ability for decentralized energy production is a form of economic revolution

    3. Hi Hickory,
      You’re one of the half dozen people that keep me coming back here, and while I may disagree with you about the size or scope of something once in a while, I’ve pretty much always been in the same book, same chapter, mostly the same page, and quite often the same paragraph.

      And that’s saying a LOT, because like most people, I have a high opinion of my own opinions, lol.

      I agree with everything you say this time, with one exception.

      So….. I’m surprised to say the least, lol, when you miss the single biggest reason so many people in this country are opposed to renewable energy.

      For the most part, it’s all about US versus THEM.

      The “US ” or opposition camp in these terms consists mostly of people who are scared of change, who want things to stay the same, who are AFRAID they will lose something, from their job to their existing but endangered ( as they see things ) community life and values.

      A lot of them are religious so they don’t want to accept new social norms such as gay marriage, or give up various taboos such as ones against extramarital sex. ( The them or “libtard dimrat” camp opposes these taboos of course. )

      The bottom line is that they ( correctly to a substantial extent) see renewable energy as a position favored by the ENEMY, the THEM group, the liberal ( Democratic) establishment.

      This is perfectly straight forward, because the most outspoken “libtard dimrats” are in favor of renewable energy, and their foremost priest, the orangutan in the WH, is opposed to it.

      It’s a very sad but inescapable conclusion that most of us aren’t paying attention to jack shit……. which is why virtually all political ads consist of soundbites pro or con repeated over and over. One side or the other wins the sound bite battle, and the election.

      It’s just basic human nature to oppose what the enemy is in favor of, unless you know the subject well enough to understand that maybe a given topic ( renewable energy for instance ) is actually a GOOD deal for you.

      Now as it happens, I’m well enough educated to appreciate renewable energy, understand forced climate change, over population, etc……

      But it doesn’t surprise me AT ALL that seventy million people or so voted for trump…….. because I try to remember what Twain said about ignorance and stupidity in Huck Finn, what Mencken says about our political system.

      I grew up among such people, and still live among them, and understand them very well indeed.

      The biggest single intellectual failing of well educated liberals is that they don’t UNDERSTAND poor people, or ignorant people, or the way such people think.

      They don’t understand their values and resentments.

      They don’t appreciate their taboos, or understand the reasons for them.

      From Huck Finn:

      ” Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain’t that a big enough majority in any town?”

      And a couple of more to complement it, in the mathematical and logical sense. Mencken, of course.

      “Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”

      ★
      • “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

      It’s REALLY simple.

      Most people in this country are pathetically ignorant of anything outside their own personal lives and work. This applies even to large numbers of people who hold university degrees because they didn’t actually LEARN anything over the four to ten years their parents paid for their extended vacation SUPPOSEDLY learning something, lol.

      So a typical man on the street who’s into NASCAR values the opinion of a race car driver, and the typical nit wit who is into professional football thinks football players are great thinkers.

      People who agree with the orangutan in the White House accept his values and opinions regardless of the subject matter, ESPECIALLY if they don’t know anything about the subject.

      Expecting them to do otherwise is a mistake, but if you approach the subject matter from an unexpected direction, you can educate them……. the key trick is to avoid directly contradicting their prejudices and values.

      So I have a friend who is an electrical linesman…… he works on transmission lines. I don’t talk politics with him, because he’s a trump type redneck when it comes to politics.

      I just talk about all the potential lucrative work for linesmen when solar farms, wind farms, and the transmission lines associated with them are being built, lol.

      He fishes, so I don’t talk about water pollution in terms of the jobs associated with upstream companies that pollute.

      I talk about the sons of bitches that poison the nearby rivers he wants to fish in.

      Given time, I will eventually educate him to the point he comes to understand that maybe he’s on the WRONG SIDE, lol, but he’ll have to come to that conclusion on his own.

      Telling him he’s wrong will only reinforce his current belief and value system.

      Life itself is probably more about US VERSUS THEM in terms of cultures and societies than any other single factor or variable.

      In order to GET ALONG with our chosen in group, we GO ALONG.

      Ninety percent of my neighbors don’t have a clue that I’m a libtard dimrat.

      The last ten percent of us get together in secret, the way dissidents get together in totalitarian countries.

      1. Excellent point OFM, and very well said.
        For those who have seen solar/wind/electric cars as a democrat or environmental thing to be opposed on political or cultural grounds, they will have to develop a new rationale when these things become commonplace.
        How will they feel when their relative parks a Tesla cybertruck (made in Texas) or an electric Ford in their driveway?
        People seem to get over their opposition when they see an economic advantage- republican voting landowners have eagerly signed up to have wind turbines on their land in places like Iowa and Wyoming.

        If it was all about carbon and global warming, I don’t think republicans would ever give a shit about the issues. But, you can’t easily separate those issues from the problem of fuel depletion, and thus there will have to be a process of accepting energy innovation- eventually even as a patriotic thing.

        1. We’re in the same book, same chapter, even yet, but maybe on a new page as far as our own conversation is concerned.

          You are as usual in the ten ring again. Nothing gets people’s attention like money, lol, and Republicans with a little money and initiative in Oklahoma,Iowa, Nebraska , Texas , etc, are willing to stray off the reservation, QUIETLY, in order to get their paws on some money, lol.

          But unfortunately, only a very small percentage of the Republican/ social conservative/ religious voter base is more than marginally aware that the wind and solar industries exist, and most of them apparently still believe these industries depend on subsidies to exist.

          Sometimes the farmer who owns the land either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about the environment, so long as he gets his money, and may still be a hypocrite in that he continues to support trump, etc, because that’s the way he interprets the BIG PICTURE, all issues considered, as HE sees things.

          Take my case, and education. I’m a firm supporter of public education, but I also believe in the concept of privately operated schools……. NOT the ones run by churches, or hard core conservatives due to reluctance to have their kids in integrated schools, etc.

          But I do believe in the ones we OUGHT to have…… private schools publicly funded that, IF they were to exist, would allow people to get their kids out of the AWFUL schools so many are trapped in. We didn’t start having cops in every school because they were NEEDED in every school……….. but they WERE desperately needed in a LOT of inner city and in some rural schools, where the prevailing situation was and remains with the kids running the asylum.

          If anybody wants to know why SO MANY people flee the cities, I can provide one of the MOST IMPORTANT answers.

          Back in my youth, I had a special grad student ID and hung around socially with the grad students and older undergrads at VCU, and lived months and years at a time within biking distance of campus, in the Fan District, which is a southern flavored Greenwich Village sort of place….. or was, at that time.

          The academic community was pretty much free of racism, ditto the social scene among the students, and especially among the students in education and the social sciences. That was the subset I ran with.

          The young couples paired off, and if they could find jobs, or could afford to go to grad school, after graduation, they stuck around, for the great little community and social life it provided.

          But black or white, it mattered not a whit, when the kids hit for or five, they started looking for a home and a job outside the city limits…… because they KNEW the city schools were a disaster, pure and simple.

          The problem was not ALL about segregation and racism,at least not in any DIRECT sense, and everybody knew it. It mostly had to do with there being so many kids from homes so bad that the kids were simply UNABLE to conform to the usual behaviors necessary for a classroom to function, for a teacher to REALLY do her job………

          And of course these schools were old and decrepit, over crowded, short of money for textbooks, teaching materials, etc.

          Such schools are still the rule rather than the exception in countless poor cities and lots of rural areas as well.

          If you live in such a community, you pack up and leave, assuming you understand the situation and really care about the future of your kids, or any kids you may have later.

          Charter schools run under the thumb of people like DeVos won’t work, charter schools or private schools run by evangelicals won’t work.

          But publicly funded private schools run by CONCERNED and “woke” parents could work, and they could save millions of kids future by ensuring they get a good education.

          Most of the parents who live in such situations aren’t ABLE to flee. So the solution has to be LOCAL.

          But the educational establishment, as it exists today, is pretty much totally controlled by the teachers.

          They aren’t interested.Their primary consideration is control of the educational agenda, not the actual education of kids.

          So if you’re stuck in a rotten community, with rotten schools, they want your kid to continue to go to those same rotten schools….. in exchange for a promise they are working to FIX THINGS ….. someday, lol.

          That day is going to be long after your kids drop out or get a worthless diploma, having learned little or nothing except how to survive and thrive in a lawless tough culture and environment.

          I’ve met more than a few such kids…… some of them somehow come out still basically decent and civilized and have even learned some basic reading and math skills.

          But more of them learned that the world is about eating or being eaten, using or being used, getting over and not getting caught.

          I don’t FAULT them at all. In the same situation, I would very likely have turned out very poorly myself.

          It’s just a matter of luck on my part that my parents taught me to behave, to work, and to respect authority, and that my little rural school had some REALLY good teachers.

          Actually there were two schools in the same building, meeting in different class rooms with different teachers. I was lucky, from a good home and lucky that school was very easy for me……. so I was in the small elite section, with the teacher’s kids, the business owners kids, etc. The classes were always orderly, the teachers were always prepared, and we the students competed to stand out, rather than to disrupt the educational process.

          In most larger county and city schools these days, depending on the size, budget and enrollment, there are at least three and sometimes four or five schools operating in the same building.

          There’s an A group, with these students headed to real colleges.

          The B group is ok, generally the class rooms are well run, but the course work is less sophisticated, there’s less of it, and the students aren’t typically SERIOUSLY motivated. But a lot of them learn a hell of a lot in one or two classes, and get into a community college or a four year program that’s not all that competitive, and do just fine.

          There’s a C or vocational track, and you can pretty much forget about homework, etc, but there are still some kids that learn a hell of a lot……. although most of them learn damned little, in a field of study that doesn’t pay shit. So cosmetology students wind up running cash registers rather than styling hair more often than not.

          Then there’s a Special Ed tract, with some of the kids in it being mainlined part of the day in the b or c tracts. This can be good or bad, depending on the individual kid, teacher, and class.

          Sometimes the special ed kids get only an hour or two of special ed instruction. Sometimes this is enough for them to hold jobs and function as adults, sometimes not.

          Just don’t forget that if your kid is in an inner city school, he or she is at very high risk of getting a piss poor education, and promises aren’t going to save your kid, because nobody is going to fix the inner city schools……. at least not anytime SOON.

          So ……. the more people flee, the worse the situation gets for the people……. and the kids…… who remain behind.

          Fucking up YOUR kid’s life by keeping him or her in such a school isn’t going to save the other kids who will remain stuck there.

          But TAKEN ALL AROUND, I support the public school systems, and the people who work in them.

          I am NOT however going to BLINDLY support them, nor am I going to blindly support the religious camp, or the right wing camp, or any camp, out of a desire to BELONG.

  7. In the previous non-petroleum thread, Hickory wrote

    In the USA,
    about 500,000 people will have died
    from Covid in 2 months (by the end of Feb).

    From Do the Math: “MATH+” Saves Lives

    Early intervention and avoiding mechanical ventilation were also key aspects of their approach. The results through July 2020 at two hospitals implementing the MATH+ protocol have completed peer review and are now published online [2] What they found seems miraculous. Dr. Joseph Varon’s team at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, TX treated 140 hospitalized Covid-19 patients through July with a survival rate of 95.6%, and Dr. Paul Marik’s team at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital in Norfolk, VA treated 191 hospitalized Covid-19 patients with a survival rate of 93.9%. A difference between the sites is that UMMC begins the protocol in the Emergency Department whereas Norfolk General begins the protocol in the ICU. In comparison, 461 other hospitals in the USA, UK, and China not using the MATH+ protocol had published survival rates ranging from 68% to 84.4%. With the CDC reporting over 5,000 hospitalized Covid-19 patients in the United States during the last week of November, wide use of the MATH+ could represent many thousands of additional survivors over the coming months. As of 12/18/2020, the number of physicians reporting using some or all of the MATH+ protocol has grown to above 120.

    So, if it were up to Dr. Varon or Dr. Marik a reduction of the number of deaths of more than 120,000 would be a distinct possibility. That’s very important, especially if you or a loved one might be counted in the number of lives saved!

    1. Yes, this treatment protocol is gaining increasing traction/attention as the experience with it grows and is published.
      A large hospital based physician group I am familiar with had it circulated a week or two back.

    2. I understand that Orthomolecular Medicine is an ‘alternative’ medicine.

      The linked article reads like advertising copy, not a technical paper.

      I followed the link and found the paper that was referenced in the ad, then looked to see the professional responses to this paper. In only a couple of clicks i was in the ‘deep fringe’ of medicine, with proponents of this therapy tying it in with Hydroxychloroquine, Donald Trump, big medicine, etc.

      The response in Mesdscape was “experts are unconvinced”.

      Wait and see?

      1. It’s Not a Conspiracy. It’s a Culture.

        I wouldn’t necessarily ignore all the ‘fringes’ outright, just keep an open mind. Sometimes, things do happen on the fringes while some non-fringe elements can become fringe and, at the very least, fringes can help inspire.
        And to quote AxisOfEasy Salon #24: ‘It’s Not a Conspiracy. It’s a Culture.’.
        Brilliant.

      2. I concluded a recent comment of mine in the comments section of a Youtube video with the question, “Why are we not being told how to improve system function?”. A surprisingly rational response was as follows, “Basically because that is not how western medicine has developed. Western medicine has developed from germ theory i.e external thing causes a problem, identify the thing that causes the problem, treat the thing that causes the problem. It is an external way of thinking about something. The focus is on curing disease, not preventing it. Western medicine wasn’t designed to be holistic in nature. That’s one side of the coin. The other side is that most folk don’t like being told what they should or shouldn’t eat, and pies taste really good.”

        This got me looking up germ theory. Germ theory certainly explains contagious diseases very well in that anything you can catch from somebody else is just about certain to be the result of some “germ” (bacteria, virus, parasite or fungus).

        Germ theory does not explain the different outcomes from infections. From an article titled “Who created the polio vaccine”, “In a 1947 study published in the American Journal of Hygiene, researchers reported that the prevalence of polio virus in New York City sewage water meant that there were an estimated 100 asymptomatic cases of polio for every symptomatic, or paralytic, case of the disease at the time.” I was somewhat surprised to learn this and it raises the question as to why some people suffered the worst effects of polio while some were asymptomatic. The same can be asked of COVID-19 and I suppose Ebola as well as other diseases.

        Germ theory completely fails to address chronic non-communicable medical conditions like diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, cancer and auto-immune disorders. Modern medicine still tries to apply germ theory to some of these conditions by saying that heart disease is caused by too much cholesterol or diabetes is caused by too much sugar. This is where orthomolecular medicine comes in. It is in fact the basis for the resolution of the vitamin deficiency diseases scurvy, rickets and beriberi. Orthomolecular medicine suggests that there are a plethora of medical conditions that are actually caused by not enough of a particular vitamin or mineral. Taken to it’s extreme, the suggestion is that the reason some people succumb to germs worse than others has to do with levels of vitamin C and vitamin D available to support proper immune system function.

        It appears to me that taking an orthomolecular approach leads to better outcomes in some instances.

        1. Island Boy is a LOT sharper than the average knife in the drawer.

          The problem with doctors, in terms of US versus THEM, is that they are EXTREMELY reluctant to admit that they might be wrong, or ARE wrong, because they’re just human beings after all, and that well trained neocortex is NOT the boss of what goes on between their ears.

          Furthermore, admitting that they’ve been wrong sets them up for confrontations with patients, insurance companies, patients’ attorneys, the press, and everybody else.

          They used to say science progresses one funeral at a time, as the old people who have the reputations and hold the university chairs in their respective fields die, making room for another generation that gets a few more things right.

          There’s a lot of truth in such observations.

          There’s also plenty of truth in the observation on the part of the physician establishment that new and relatively untested procedures and practices are prone to exploding like grenades, in terms of the reputation and professional standing of the individuals who first adopt them.

          So it takes some time for new protocols to be tried and tested and then eventually be adopted by the establishment. Fortunately in these days of electronic record keeping and instant communication, the word that something works better gets around bullet fast, compared to by gone days.

          Now as far as TESTING a supportive nutritional plan on people, and discovering how much, if any, it reduces the incidence of disease, and how much faster or more often victims recover……… that’s damned near impossible, because such studies would take too long, and cost too much, and the behavior of the participants can’t be controlled well enough to rely on the results.

          But META studies prove the case anyway, because we know that everything else held equal, properly nourished people don’t get sick as often or die as young, etc, as malnourished people.

          And we farmers ( via the land grant universities , agricultural colleges, feed manufacturers, etc ) have run the studies on our livestock under well controlled conditions thousands and thousands of times, given that nutrition and health are primary concerns among agricultural researchers whose ultimate goal is to better understand nutrition and disease in order to enable farmers to produce more meat and meat byproducts cheaper than ever.

          The results are perfectly obvious, and successful livestock farmers feed mineral supplements , etc, because we KNOW that not only do our animals grow bigger, faster, on less feed….. we don’t need to call the vet nearly as often.

          ( A lot of people who don’t get past the first or second layer of the onion of understanding don’t realize that such research does NOT result in more income for farmers, but rather LESS, because it’s driving a long term trend towards bigger farms…… meaning more people such as yours truly, the smaller family sized operators, are driven OUT of the biz every year. )

          The early adopters usually make a little more money for a few years but before long the new strategies are adopted by the majority of farmers, and the early adopter advantage disappears in thin air.

          1. OFM , man do I love this post . Reporting from ground zero in New Delhi . The govt in September passed laws allowing contract farming , corporatisation of farming . As I write there are 1.2 million farmers who have laid siege to New Delhi a metropolis of 12 million . They are allowing the passage of food trucks and essential services for the moment . There demand is an absolute repeal of the laws or else they will shut of all supplies to the city . The farmers have been on the borders of New Delhi now for 33 days in temperatures of 3 degrees . 35 farmers have died on the various borders of New Delhi . On 15 th December a nationwide general strike was called . 250 million active participants . The country came to a stop . The largest general strike in the history of mankind . The world is asleep as this revolt takes place in the second largest population and the largest democracy in the world .
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Indian_farmers%27_protest
            If you want more info ,post here and I will send you Youtube video links . The good ones are in Hindi but I will try to locate some in English . A lawyers forum is making a draft to take Mr Modi(Prime Minister of India ) to court for ” crimes against humanity ” since two farmers committed suicide at the protests and in their suicide note charged Mr Modi for the cause . In legal terms it is “Abetment to suicide ” . Under Indian law , the last testimony of the dead person is considered as the ultimate evidence .

            1. Yes, PLEASE post any links in English. It seems really unlikely that more than one or two people who read this site can speak Hindi.

    1. LongTimber , we are in deep shit with the nuclear plants . I agree with you .
      https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/30/inviting-nuclear-disaster/
      Here in Belgium is a nuclear plant which is on the triangle of Belgium , Germany and Holland . Minor accidents keep on happening , but they are not shutting it down . Why ? No money for the shutdown and no replacement for the loss of capacity . The govt issues iodine tablets to the population that lives in the vicinity . Are they waiting for a major accident to happen ?

  11. Thinking big, really Big!

    WORLD’S BIGGEST ULTRA-HIGH VOLTAGE LINE POWERS UP ACROSS CHINA

    “China has increasingly relied on UHV technology to send electricity from remote regions with excess supply to areas of higher demand. Xinjiang, where the new line starts, is home to large-scale wind and solar projects, but also the nation’s worst curtailment rates, or capacity that’s idle because of grid congestion, according to the National Energy Administration. The NEA has also banned the construction of new coal-fired plants in Xinjiang, as well as 20 other provinces, because of an expected overcapacity.”

    https://www.tdworld.com/overhead-transmission/article/20972092/worlds-biggest-ultrahigh-voltage-line-powers-up-across-china

    1. Meanwhile,

      CHINA IS OPENING THE WORLD’S LARGEST RADIO TELESCOPE UP TO INTERNATIONAL SCIENTISTS

      “China will accept requests this upcoming year (2021) from foreign scientists looking to use the instrument for their research, according to the report. With its massive 1,600-foot (500 meters) diameter dish, FAST is not only larger than the now-destroyed Arecibo telescope, but it is also three times more sensitive. FAST, which began full operations in January of this year, is also surrounded by a 3-mile (5 kilometers) “radio silence” zone in which cellphones and computers are not allowed.”

      https://www.space.com/china-fast-radio-telescope-open-international-scientists

      1. Speaking of China, this is good news (I think).

        CHINA GRABS CONTROL OF LNG INFRASTRUCTURE IN MOVE TO BOLSTER ENERGY SECURITY

        “In recent months China has earned itself a prime spot in lots of energy headlines thanks to President Xi Jinping’s ambitious carbon curbing and clean energy goals. China is currently the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter by a huge margin — its emissions are almost double that of the next runner up, the United States. It is therefore huge news and a ray of hope for all of us Earthlings that Beijing has announced that it will be reaching peak emissions in just ten years and then bringing its currently considerable carbon footprint all the way down to zero by just 2060. This is no small feat.”

        https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/China-Grabs-Control-Of-LNG-Infrastructure-In-Move-To-Bolster-Energy-Security.html

        1. I’ve always read that the modern day Chinese government is head and shoulders above the rest of the world in at least one respect, that being that the people in charge of making long term decisions are technically well educated, or that they at least LISTEN to professionals such as engineers and medical doctors.

          So it stands to reason, assuming this is true, that the Chinese government will be pushing renewables and conservation pedal to the metal on a continuous basis, knowing that it won’t be possible to run the country’s economy on fossil fuels that will be in short to critically short supply down the road.
          They’re in a position to substitute human capital for fossil fuels. Plenty of engineers, plenty of dedicated workers.

          In the long term they will succeed in turning the corner on fossil fuels, but in the short term they aren’t in a position to give up coal. Doing that in the short to medium term would result in crashing their economy and the ruling elite being kicked out.

  12. A Tesla Model S erupted ‘like a flamethrower.’ It renewed old safety concerns about the trailblazing sedans.
    One firefighter told the driver he was lucky he got out when he did, after the car’s motorized door handles retracted

    “The combustion of Ahmad’s car is one of a growing number of fire incidents involving older Tesla Model S and X vehicles that experts say are related to the battery, raising questions about the safety and durability of electric vehicles as they age…

    Experts say electric cars catch fire at a similar rate to gas cars, if not less often. But the duration and intensity of the fires, fueled by chemicals and the extreme heat buildup in lithium-ion battery systems, can make the fires in electric cars harder to put out.

    ‘Battery fires can take up to 24 hours to extinguish’, Tesla says in an emergency response guide for the Model S on its website. ‘Consider allowing the battery to burn while protecting exposures’…

    One of the most gruesome incidents involving the Model S was the case of driver Omar Awan, who was trapped in a burning car in South Florida in 2019 after the car’s electronic door handles failed to extend following a fiery crash…

    The battery reignited at least three times in the impound lot, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel…

    The firefighter ‘looked at me and he said, ‘You’re lucky you got out when you did because you could have gotten stuck in there’ ‘… “

  13. Vaccine safety – is the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine any different?

    “…as these trials are ongoing, news of successful development of a viral-vector vaccine (Sputnik V) emerged from the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Russia. No results were published for the vaccine’s phase I and II trials, and Russian authorities stated that phase III trials will be ongoing during vaccine production and dissemination.

    These two different approaches to vaccine development in the face of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic reflect different priorities regarding the preferred balance between rapid vaccine approval with incomplete safety data versus slower approval following the assessment of mature data from large RCTs. The choice between these approaches raises issues extending far beyond the scope of pure medical research.

    Large-scale phase III RCTs will provide the best safety and efficacy data for vaccine candidates and will likely result in a vaccine with few, if any, unexpected post-marketing safety issues, as shown by the FDA’s impressive track record. These studies are also likely to serve as an important tool in improving public trust in the upcoming vaccines, a trust level which is currently wanting. Vaccine-skepticism might be further amplified if the Sputnik V vaccine proves to have a less-than- optimal safety record, and may in turn result in a significant number of people choosing not to get vaccinated by any COVID-19 vaccine, thereby perpetuating the current pandemic. This potential increase in vaccine hesitancy might also affect rates of non-COVID vaccination. From this perspective, The FDA should approve a new vaccine only following the successful completion of large phase III RCTs, with ample safety follow-up periods. The main limitation of this approach is the relatively long timeframes required for the recruitment, follow-up, and data analysis of these trials, and the potential price in human lives, social distancing, and economic havoc increasing with every day without an approved vaccine. The FDA is faced with a hard choice, weighing safety and public trust against rapid approval and dissemination of a potentially lifesaving vaccine. Previous experience with similar regulatory dilemmas is limited to few examples, including the case of the rapid H1N1 vaccine development in 2009, resulting in unexpected side effects.

    During the current pandemic, the FDA approved various treatments for COVID-19 through the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) framework, in order to rapidly authorize several novel treatments with insufficient evidence for regular approval. On a recent interview, FDA commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn revealed that the FDA is considering giving an EUA status to upcoming vaccine candidates. Granting a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine EUA status will represent a huge gamble for the FDA. Should the vaccine prove to be safe and effective, the benefits to vulnerable populations and to society will be considerable and the FDA will be lauded as a flexible, nimble, focused and effective organization, able to rapidly adjust to new conditions and make informed choices in the face of uncertainty. However, if the new vaccine will prove to be less effective than anticipated, or if it will be associated with a less favorable safety profile than reflected by the limited pre-approval data, the damage to the FDA’s reputation and to the perceived safety profile of vaccines might be unprecedented…

    Vaccines are remarkably safe, with few clinically significant post-approval adverse events and a robust post marketing sur-veillance program. Using the same strict approval standards for the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine will lead to a delayed approval of a safer vaccine compared to an approval based on incomplete, preliminary data. Weighing these alternatives and choosing a path forward is matter of an already overdue public discussion.”

    Staff at hospitals in DC, Texas turn down COVID-19 vaccine

    “Many employees at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., have reservations about taking the COVID-19 vaccine… according to CNN…

    As of Dec. 18, only about 600 of the hospital’s 1,900 employees had signed up for the shots, according to Kaiser Health News.

    ‘There is a high level of mistrust and I get it’, Ms. Jenkins told Kaiser Health News. ‘People are genuinely afraid of the vaccine.’…

    An internal hospital survey of about 350 employees in early November showed that 70 percent were not willing to take the COVID-19 vaccine or would not take it immediately after it became available.”

    1. Alimbiquated , from where I come is a quote (roughly translated ) ” If my father, grandfather and forefathers were alive , my family would be an army . ” 🙂

      1. However that is a false statement about the past, and I made statement about the past.

  15. In 2019, US annual energy consumption from green energy sources exceeded coal consumption for the first time in 134 years, according to the US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Monthly Energy Review.

    How was this major milestone achieved? Simply put, coal is declining and wind and solar are growing. Coal consumption in the US decreased by nearly 15% in 2019, and total renewable energy consumption grew by 1%, compared with the previous year.

    The EIA explains:

    In 2019, US coal consumption decreased for the sixth consecutive year to 11.3 quadrillion Btu, the lowest level since 1964. Electricity generation from coal has declined significantly over the past decade and, in 2019, fell to its lowest level in 42 years. Natural gas consumption in the electric power sector has significantly increased in recent years and has displaced much of the electricity generation from retired coal plants.

    Total renewable energy consumption in the United States grew for the fourth year in a row to a record-high 11.5 quadrillion Btu in 2019… In 2019, electricity generation from wind surpassed hydro for the first time and is now the most-used source of renewable energy for electricity generation in the United States on an annual basis.

    Wood was the main source of US energy until the mid-1800s. Then the first hydropower plants began to produce electricity in the 1880s. The US used coal in the early 19th century to fuel steam-powered boats and trains and manufacture steel. It was later used to generate electricity in the 1880s, and 90% of its consumption is now used primarily to generate electricity.

    Renewable energy is more broadly consumed by every sector in the United States. About 56% of commercially delivered US renewable energy is used in the electric power sector, mostly from wind and hydroelectric power, but different types are also consumed in the industrial (22%), transportation (12%), residential (7%), and commercial (2%) sectors.

    https://electrek.co/2020/12/31/us-consumes-green-energy-coal-first-time-since-1885/

    Happier New Year, folks.

  16. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/12/30/water-battery-a-winner-for-australian-university/

    I wonder how long it will be before you can buy a scaled down system built this way to run residential air conditioning in the late afternoons and right on thru the night in places where it’s needed such as the hotter parts of the USA and most of the MidEast aka sand country, where the rich economies are based on oil.

    This really does look like a perfectly good way to store solar generated juice at a very attractive price.

    The cooling unit portion of the system would be more or less identical to existing air conditioning systems, chilling a tank of water rather than the air in the house. Tanks and heat exchangers aren’t all that expensive.

    1. A lot depends on architecture. American cities are designed for maximum exposure to the elements, flat and spread out in cheap single story buildings surrounded by treeless often paved areas that heat up in the summer sun and provide no protection from winter winds. The amount of energy you need to invest in cooling is mostly a function of the size of your roof, so multistory buildings are inherently cooler, especially if you are close enough to your neighbors that their building casts a shadow.

      People living in “sand” countries have known this for millenia.

      https://www.dreamstime.com/sanaa-yemen-march-typical-street-old-city-sanaa-inhabited-more-than-years-altitude-m-old-city-sanaa-image127297491

      This is a good example of how cheap energy is an addictive drug, not the lifeblood of the economy. Americans responded to cheap energy and air conditioning by rushing to the sun belt and building houses based on their cultural template of England, which has mild summers and winters. A lot of the panic about the end of cheap energy boils down to the fear that we won’t be able to live like English country gentlemen in a hot arid desert environment. The idea of adopting a life style more suited to the climate simply doesn’t occur to people. And of course it would be expensive to rebuild the poorly designed cities. It’s an addiction.

      Something similar happened to the Greenland Vikings. They survived for five hundred years herding cattle and getting most of their protein from cheese. They built stone churches in the European style, and traded with Europe, importing iron to make tools. They refused to adopt more suitable technology from the Eskimo neighbors, such as kayaks or bone tools, and ate very little fish, despite being near some of the world’s best fishing grounds. This may have been out of prejudice against their technically backwards but better adapted neighbors, who were also recent arrivals from the far North. A cold century killed the Vikings off, but the Eskimos are still there.

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