Of course, there’s a giant government thumb on the scale in favor of wind power. From Chris Morrison at dailyskeptic.org:
It could be argued that the basic arithmetic showing wind power is an economic and societal disaster in the making should be clear to a bright primary school child. Now the Oxford University mathematician and physicist, researcher at CERN and Fellow of Keble College, Emeritus Professor Wade Allison has done the sums. The U.K. is facing the likelihood of a failure in the electricity supply, he concludes. “Wind power fails on every count,” he says, adding that governments are ignoring “overwhelming evidence” of the inadequacies of wind power, “and resorting to bluster rather than reasoned analysis”.
Professor Allison’s dire warnings are contained in a short paper recently published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation. He notes that the energy provided by the Sun is “extremely weak”, which is why it was unable to provide the energy to sustain even a small global population before the Industrial Revolution with an acceptable standard of living. A similar point was made recently in more dramatic fashion by the nuclear physicist Dr. Wallace Manheimer. He argued that the infrastructure around wind and solar will not only fail, “but will cost trillions, trash large portions of the environment and be entirely unnecessary”.
In his paper, Allison concentrates on working out the numbers that lie behind the natural fluctuations in the wind. The full workings out are not complicated and can be assessed from the link above. He shows that at a wind speed of 20mph, the power produced by a wind turbine is 600 watts per square metre at full efficiency. To deliver the same power as the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant – 3,200 million watts – it would require 5.5 million square metres of turbine swept area.
Ferraris are among the most beautiful and powerful automobiles ever created. The batterymobiles aren’t going to replace them. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:
What makes a Ferrari worth Ferrari money?
It isn’t a battery.
Chief Technology Officer Michael Hugo Leiters says it’s a V12. The engine that makes a Ferrari sound like one. Not “virtually,” as via the emission of a recording, in the manner of remembering what something used to sound like. The real thing, right now. Leiters says people buy Ferraris for performance and emotion – his word – the latter being something as absent from electric cars as beef is from the Impossible Burger.
The engine defines what a Ferrari is; without it, what you have is what everyone else already has.
Put another way, Ferrari aims to do what Tesla did, except in reverse.
When Tesla began selling cars, it was the only car company selling electric cars. It thus presented something different – as opposed to something the same. A silent Tesla was the opposite of a V12-powered Ferrari such as the 812 GTS recently unveiled in Maranello – Ferrari’s headquarters in Italy. Both are extremely quick cars, but how they are quick is what makes each car not a replication of the other car. The Tesla’s driver stands on the accelerator pedal – EVs have no gas pedal – and the car surges forward silently.
Current policy will put us back to a past when only the rich had cars. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:
If you were to go back in time 120 years, to the dawn of the Age of the Automobile, what you would see is that the automobiles of that age were few and expensive. Most were hand-built, to order (you may recall GM’s “Body by Fisher” badges; these were remnants of the coach-built era).
Anyhow, we’re almost there again.
While not coach-built, new vehicles are becoming so expensive again that – inevitably – only a few will be able to afford them, soon.
You may have heard that last year, the average price paid (the so-called “transaction price”) for a new vehicle was about $45,000 – an all-time high. It does not mean that one could not buy a new car for much less; it means that lots of people didn’t – chiefly because they could finance more car – which they could because of low interest rates. But interest rates are no longer low and headed higher; this will result in fewer people being able to finance – ending the fiction of affordability.
At the same time, there are fewer and fewer vehicles left that do not cost $45,000 – or a lot more.
Almost all of this is due to “electrification,” which is inherently expensive. The typical EV costs about $10,000-$15,000 more than an otherwise similar non-electric vehicle. Ford’s F-150 Lightning, for instance, stickers for $55,794 vs. $41,530 for the non-electric F-150 SuperCrew. It costs thousands more this year than it did last year.
Some EVs – like the Tesla Model 3 – sticker for twice what an otherwise similar compact-sized hatchback sedan such as the Honda Civic stickers for.
This will get worse, not better, as more high-cost EVs are force-fed into the mix – and fewer low-cost non-EVs are left, as alternatives to them.
Most of all, they want to know where you are. It makes it easier to accuse you of something. From John and Nisha Whitehead at rutherford.org:
“I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”—Senator Frank Church on Meet The Press, 1975
If you give the government an inch, it will always take a mile.
This is how the slippery slope to all-out persecution starts.
Martin Niemöller’s warning about the widening net that ensnares us all, a warning issued in response to the threat posed by Nazi Germany’s fascist regime, still applies.
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
This particular slippery slope has to do with the government’s use of geofence technology, which uses cell phone location data to identify people who are in a particular area at any given time.
First, police began using geofence warrants to carry out dragnet sweeps of individuals near a crime scene.
If we’ve already reached the point where people praying and gathering on church grounds merits this level of government scrutiny and sanctions, we’re not too far from free-falling into a total surveillance state.
Six pounds of gas or 1000 pounds of battery will take a small car 40 miles down the road. We’re being told the latter is more efficient and therefore better for the environment. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautso.com:
The saying goes that size matters – but weight matters more. If you want to go far. This is why EVs don’t. Even the really little ones – like Chevy’s Bolt, which is even smaller than a subcompact car like the Hyundai Accent – only go about half as far as their size-equivalents. Viz, 259 miles for the 3,589 lb. Bolt vs. 487 (on the highway) for the 2,679 lb. Accent.
That’s because a gallon of gas weighs about six pounds, which means a full tank of gas (12 gallons) in the Accent weighs 72 pounds. A great deal of energy is stored in those 72 gallons of gasoline – or even just six pounds. One gallon will power a car like the Accent some 40 miles down the highway and part of the reason for that is that as you burn it, there is less of it – and so, less weight to keep moving. After a car like the Accent has used up half a tank – about six gallons – it is carrying around half the fuel weight it began the trip with.
It takes a great deal more weight – that is never shed – to power an EV the same distance. A small EV like the Bolt is weighed down by the gas tank equivalent of about 1,000 pounds of battery pack – and in fact, it’s not equivalent, because the Bolt would probably need another several hundred pounds of battery pack to be capable of powering its electric motor for nearly 500 highway miles.
But for the sake of this discussion, let’s assume an equivalence.
One auto company has started telling the truth about its EV’s emissions. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:
Maybe you have seen the latest Nissan commercials touting the company’s “electrified” offerings, including the $43,190-to-start Ariya – whatever that means – which is the company’s newest loss-leader now that the Leaf is on its way out.
What’s most interesting about the commercial isn’t the car – nor the pitiful attempt to impart excitement into something as fundamentally boring as a vacuum cleaner. The latter having the merit of working better than a broom and a dustpan.
But back to the interesting part.
If you look closely, you’ll see the confession – in faded font, appearing just barely: Tailpipe emissions-free, it says.
And so it is.
And that is very different from zero emissions, is it not?
Take note of the shifting – of the shifty – verbiage. Of a piece with the way a “vaccine” was redefined to mean something that reduces symptoms – like aspirin. As opposed to something that prevents you getting sick.
The question arises: Why is Nissan telling the truth about EVs? Could it be on account of lawyers telling Nissan that advertising vehicles that are not “zero emissions” is provably fraudulent? Perhaps Nissan is trying to asterisk – and fast-voice-at-the-end-of-the-commercial itself into a position of safety from being sued by a customer – by a class of them – on account of having sold them a lie?
Yes, an idea this dumb really is under consideration. From Igor Chudov at igorchudov.substack.com:
Will Bill Gates succeed with his new plan?
A new report from the UN was just published. It proposes and discusses ways to cool our planet by restricting sunlight and darkening our skies.
Source: UNEP Document
What is this about? Why block sunlight, of all things? Let me explain.
The UN is worried about climate change. As the efforts to reduce CO2 emissions are faltering, the UN is looking for more ways to cool the Earth. The UNEP’s report details ideas called “Solar Radiation Modification,” the gist of which is to reflect sunlight and prevent it from heating the surface of our planet.
Here are the main ideas that the UN will consider:
Injecting reflective nanoparticles/sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere (stratospheric aerosol injection)
Brightening of low clouds over the ocean by seeding ocean clouds with submicron salt particles
Using space mirrors, that is, many giant mirrors launched into outer space to reflect sunlight.
The UN explains that should the “global stakeholders” decide to proceed, the skies could be darkened within only a few years:
SRM is the only option that could cool the planet within years. To be effective at limiting global warming, SRM would need to be maintained for several decades to centuries, depending on the pace of emissions reductions and carbon removal.
Doug Casey has always been a technology optimist, and he sees great things coming from Artificial Intelligence. From Doug Casey at internationalman.com:
International Man: Amazing new technologies—once the realm of science fiction—are now an imminent reality.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the most critical areas where this is happening.
What is your take on AI advancements, and how do you see it evolving in the future?
Doug Casey: AI is going to be huge. No, strike that gross understatement—it’s already huge. It will change everything. There’s no question the abilities of technology are increasing exponentially, at the rate of Moore’s Law. In other words, computing power is still doubling roughly every 18 to 24 months while the cost halves. This is also true in the areas of biotech, nanotech, robotics, 3D printing, and genetic engineering. These technologies are going to fundamentally transform the very nature of life itself. AI will accelerate their progress by an order of magnitude.
In a decade or two, it’s arguable that robots will be more intelligent, more innovative, and perhaps even more thoughtful than humans. They’ll no longer just be today’s odd-looking mechanical beasts that can perform a few parlor tricks. Soon, there will be not just mechanical robots, but biological robots, especially after quantum computing is commercialized. Who knows what will come after that.
The advances in all these technologies are very positive not just from an economic point of view, but from a humanist and even spiritual point of view as well. Despite the dangers from the State having first access to them, they’ll turn out to be very liberating on all levels.
AI and robotics, like all technologies over the long run, will be friends of the average man. They’ll catapult the average standard of living much higher. With a little luck, in a generation, we’ll think of today’s world as being oppressive and backward—assuming we don’t regress to a new Dark Age. Much of the work we do today is “dog work.” Good riddance to it.
The social networks did become a subsidiary of intelligence, and in the process threw away all their First Amendment protections. From Jonathan Cook at antiwar.com:
The Twitter Files have lifted the lid on a secret alliance between Silicon Valley, intelligence agencies and the political establishment
The US Congress last tried to grapple with what the country’s ballooning security services were up to nearly half a century ago.
In 1975, the Church Committee managed to take a fleeting, if far from complete, snapshot of the netherworld in which agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and National Security Agency (NSA) operate.
In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, the congressional committee and other related investigations found that the country’s intelligence services had sweeping surveillance powers and were involved in a raft of illegal or unconstitutional acts.
They were covertly subverting and assassinating foreign leaders. They had co-opted hundreds of journalists and many media outlets around the world to promote false narratives. They spied on and infiltrated political and civil rights groups. And they manipulated the public discourse to protect and expand their powers.
Senator Frank Church himself warned that the might of the intelligence community could at any moment “be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything… There would be no place to hide.”
A society’s well being is directly calibrated to its adherence to the brain standard.
The world is moving towards multipolarity. One axis, the West, is led by the U.S., the other—Eurasia and the global south—by Russia and China. Ukraine currently serves as a cauldron of the military conflict between the two axes. Taiwan may become a second such cauldron.
Through sanctions, the West has made economic and financial warfare a part of the conflict. The longest arrow in the U.S.’s quiver is the dollar’s reserve currency status. Western economies are based on credit. Central banks serve as the focal point of fiat debt issuance and monetization, interest rate manipulation, and currency debasement. Russia, China, and their cohorts are exploring alternatives to the dollar’s role and the West’s fiat currency, debt, and financialization, discussing arrangements based on gold and commodities, and economic activity centered on agriculture, mining, petroleum, manufacturing, and trade.
It’s a common sense conclusion that these are a more durable economic foundation than fiat debt, whose value is wholly dependent on the ever-shifting whims of politicians and monetary functionaries. Several commentators have hailed the shift away from the West’s fiat currencies and credit to that which is tangible and real. Currently, however, Russia and China’s currencies and credit are just as fiat as the West’s.
Oil was as tangible and real in 1600 as it is now. Why was it regarded as a useless nuisance back then and now it trades at around $76 (or about 1/24th of an ounce of real money, or gold) per barrel? What made oil valuable, the linchpin of the global economy, for which countries have been invaded and wars fought? Somebody figured out how to unlock and control oil’s energy and use it to generate light and power, and to distill it to derive chemicals now used in everything from fertilizers and plastics to pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.
Direct barter is the means of exchange in primitive economies. Money is the intermediary agent that allows a producer to indirectly trade his or her production for someone else’s, to the benefit of both parties. Gold’s suitability as money has been recognized for millennia. Credit allows those who consume less than they produce to invest their surplus in economic activity that generates returns higher than the interest charged.
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There is no mystery what the best and brightest seek: freedom to think, express, and produce; protection of property and contract rights; security from crime and war. The conundrum is how few times those conditions have even come close to being fulfilled. They stand out like isolated lighthouses, beacons shining through history’s all-too-frequent darkness and tempest tossed seas. There are no such beacons today; the world shuns the brain standard.
It is the human mind and productive activity that imparts value to oil, gold, and credit. The mind is the fountainhead of human progress and wealth. The world has always run on the brain standard. A society’s well being is directly calibrated to its adherence to that standard. Its requirements are not conceptually complicated, but throughout history its sporadic implementation has proven problematic.
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STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 