I have warned people that they are going to have to give up eating so much meat; it’s critical to cutting GHGs. 😥
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/07/17/investing-in-plant-based-alternatives-cuts-climate-emissions-more-than-other-green-investments/
2022-07-15 Vultures Rewilding Ecosystem In Bulgaria
Along with , forests, croplands and grasslands, grasslands in the EU absorbed 263 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. That’s around 4 and 1/2 times the total annual emissions of Bulgaria in 2019. The EU is looking to restore more land to raise that number to over 310 million tons by 2030. Globally, u n e p has called for restoring land the size of Canada over that period.
2022-07-11 Open Letter To White Evangelicals
[Taken from an email from Eva.]
An open letter to white evangelicals: We’re done with you.
By North Carolina Pastor John Pavlovitz
Dear White Evangelicals,
I need to tell you something: People have had it with you. They’re done. They want nothing to do with you any longer, and here’s why: They see your hypocrisy, your inconsistency, your incredibly selective mercy, and your thinly veiled supremacy.
For eight years they watched you relentlessly demonize a Black President; a man faithfully married for 26 years; a doting father and husband without a hint of moral scandal or the slightest whiff of infidelity. They watched you deny his personal faith convictions, argue his birthplace, and assail his character—all without cause or evidence.
They saw you brandish Scriptures to malign him and use the laziest of racial stereotypes in criticizing him. And through it all, White Evangelicals—you never once suggested that God placed him where he was, you never publicly offered prayers for him and his family, you never welcomed him to your Christian Universities, you never gave him the benefit of the doubt in any instance, you never spoke of offering him forgiveness or mercy, your evangelists never publicly thanked God for his leadership, your pastors never took to the pulpit to offer solidarity with him, you never made any effort to affirm his humanity or show the love of Jesus to him in any quantifiable measure.
You violently opposed him at every single turn—without offering a single ounce of the grace you claim as the heart of your faith tradition. You jettisoned Jesus as you dispensed damnation on him.
And yet you give carte blanche to a white Republican man so riddled with depravity, so littered with extramarital affairs, so unapologetically vile, with such a vast resume of moral filth—that the mind boggles.
And the change in you is unmistakable. It has been an astonishing conversion to behold: a being born again.
With him, you suddenly find religion. With him, you’re now willing to offer full absolution. With him, all is forgiven without repentance or admission. With him, you’re suddenly able to see some invisible, deeply buried heart. With him, sin has become unimportant, and compassion no longer a requirement. With him, you see only Providence.
And White Evangelicals, all those people who have had it with you—they see it all clearly. They recognize the toxic source of your inconsistency.
They see that pigmentation and party are your sole deities. They see that you aren’t interested in perpetuating the love of God or emulating the heart of Jesus. They see that you aren’t burdened to love the least, or to be agents of compassion, or to care for your Muslim, gay, African, female, or poor neighbors as yourself.
They see that all you’re really interested in doing is making a God in your own ivory image and demanding that the world bow down to it. They recognize this all about white, Republican Jesus—not dark-skinned Jesus of Nazareth.
And I know you don’t realize it, but you’re digging your own grave these days; the grave of your very faith tradition.
Your willingness to align yourself with cruelty is a costly marriage. Yes, you’ve gained a Supreme Court seat, a few months with the Presidency as a mouthpiece, and the cheap high of temporary power—but you’ve lost a whole lot more.
You’ve lost an audience with millions of wise, decent, good-hearted, faithful people with eyes to see this ugliness. You’ve lost any moral high ground or spiritual authority with a generation. You’ve lost any semblance of Christlikeness. You’ve lost the plot. And most of all you’ve lost your soul.
I know it’s likely you’ll dismiss these words. The fact that you’ve even made your bed with such malevolence, shows how far gone you are and how insulated you are from the reality in front of you. But I had to at least try to reach you. It’s what Jesus would do.
2022-07-02 Enough EV Batteries For All EVs By 2035?
The EU is going to prohibit new gas cars by 2035. But they question whether there will be enough batteries for EVs in 2035. They mentioned Lithium iron phosphate and sodium ion batteries. But they failed to state the obvious! The law doesn’t say everyone must buy a battery EV. They failed to even mention that there are already the HF EVs – hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles available! By 2035 there will be plenty of time to build the hydrogen fueling infrastructure needed to support green hydrogen vehicles. And it has been stated that hydrogen will be necessary for heavy transportation such as 18-wheelers. So what’s the problem? Just build HFCEVs!
2022-06-30 We Have To Switch To Electric Cars
We have to switch to electric cars. Can the grid handle it?
From a video on Engineering Explained channel.
EVs – electric vehicles – get about 100 miles per gallon equivalent. One gallon of gasoline is equivalent to 33.7 kWh.
We do some math and come up with about 1 trillion kWh used by the drivers (he’s talking about just drivers in America) if everyone was driving electric vehicles.
The total energy (electricity) used in the US is a bit over 4 trillion kWh, according to the EIA (Energy Information Administration). If we converted all vehicles to electric, that would add about 1 trillion kWh, plus add about 25% for charging and other losses. So changing to all EVs would need about 25 to 30% increase to the existing energy (electricity) production in the US.
For decades, the US grew electricity production by 4% per year. At that rate it would take 6.5 years to add 30% to the electricity production.
We are not going to change to EVs in any amount close to 100% in 6.5 years. We are changing to EVs at about a 2% rate so it will take much longer than 6.5 years.
This 30% increase does not take into consideration population growth or other reason for an increase in demand.
According to the EIA, the electricity consumption of the average house in the US is about 900 kWh per month. Going by the average of driving 13,500 miles per year, the average EV will use about 15.6 kWh per day or about 475 kWh per month.
The 475 kWh per month is equivalent to using a single wall outlet constantly. The houses can handle this easily. Most charging will be done at home during off-peak hours after 12 AM to get the lowest kWh rate and save money. So peak demand will not change, most increase will be during off-peak times. So the peak demand on the infrastructure doesn’t change. Local infrastructure won’t have to change anymore than it would for no EVs.
However…
There was no discussion about level 5 autonomy.
2022-06-27 Red States Have Higher Murder Rates
Red States Have Higher Murder Rates
BTC Shows Gavin Newsom clip on Truth Social.
https://youtu.be/CfRFkaY9cTg
2022-06-20 Nuscale SMR – Engineering With Rosie
Nuscale SMR video from engineering with Rosie
Rosie said, “The amount of land needed for nuclear is small compared to wind and solar…”
This is a false and unfair assertion. In the US the nuclear power plants are surrounded by an exclusion zone where there cannot be any population, and this is a large area. Further, due to cooling requirements the thermal power plants must be located near large bodies of water such as rivers or oceans. And due to the NIMBYs, there cannot be any nuclear power plants located near population centers.
Another issue with nuclear power plants being concentrated in a small area is this makes them a prime target for terrorist destruction. And highly concentrated infrastructure is high on the enemy’s list of targets during a war.
But what really dismays me is that she claimed that solar and wind take up square kilometers of area. Offshore wind takes up *zero* land area. Onshore wind is located where it’s windy which is generally not near where any other human activity is located. This is especially true in Australia – Rosie, are you listening? Also, wind turbines are located in the fields of farms where they take up very little space.
Then the solar farms are being integrated with farming in what’s called agrivoltaics. There are benefits for the crops and solar arrays. Solar arrays are being floated on bodies of water in which both benefit. And there are hundreds of millions of roofs where solar panels can be placed, without taking up any room that is useful. I can go on, but the land comparison is an issue that is an unfair and false assertion.
And one other important thing: thermal power plants use up huge amounts of water for cooling. Wind and solar have zero ongoing costs for fuel and don’t use any water (obviously not the case with agrivoltaics). So please stop bringing up land size comparisons.
Another issue is “Death rates from energy production per TWh.”
It’s a fact that Chernobyl and Fukushima both had very few deaths from the accident itself. But the issue isn’t deadliness; the issue is the extremely huge costs of these two accidents – the Soviets we’re secretive about costs but the ongoing costs for Fukushima are hundreds of billions of dollars. These extreme costs cause the country burdened by them to attempt to avoid the costs by letting some of the cleanup ‘fall through the cracks’ and never be completed. The result is a higher rate of cancer for decades after the accident, and those deaths are not counted in the “deaths per TWh.” So I don’t believe that chart tells the whole story.
2022-06-19 FERC Proposes Interconnect Reforms
The FERC – federal Energy Regulatory Commission has thousands of solar and wind projects that want to interconnect to the grid. But many of them are in development phase.
2022-06-18 MIT: Storage Can Deliver Carbon-free US Grid
An MIT Technology Energy Initiative study finds that storage can deliver carbon-free US grid.
https://www.theenergymix.com/2022/06/14/storage-can-deliver-carbon-free-u-s-grid-mit-study-finds
