monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

@Builder,

thanks a lot.

I have diesel truck battery banks and I use em in places of need.
One thing I forgot where we are still grid bound is my workshop where Ive got 240 and one 440 3 phase tools. (I have 1 220 table saw, an a 440 planer) Why diidnt I go for a single generator for the tools?? Stupidity , Im more a carpenter than an electrician.

If I ever get a CNC Ill think about a change over to reduce my grid tie even more.

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https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/01/02/bokhari-the-terrifying-rise-of-financial-blacklisting/?fbclid=IwAR3gmCTZoZE44mg8ifWGzuaPsFqLjy9fk8KzRwicPL6j7ImQZOkTdn4GF-Y

1 Reply

Quote:

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump seemed to misstate the former Soviet Union's involvement in Afghanistan on Wednesday with a convoluted account that sparked ridicule on Twitter.

"Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan," Trump said during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. "The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there."

The former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to prop up Afghanistan's then- communist government, which was battling anticommunist guerrillas. The U.S. condemned the Soviet move and eventually helped the mujahideen rebel forces. Under then-President Ronald Reagan, the U.S. provided the mujahideen with anti-aircraft missiles, among other assistance.

In part because of U.S. involvement, the Afghan conflict became a quagmire for the Soviet Union, costing Moscow billions of dollars and dealing a blow to the reputation of its Red Army. It was one factor among many that helped lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

USA Today

If Trump gets impeached, he should just make a clean break of it and move to Russia.

1 Reply

@revelette1,

It’s remarkable and unprecedented for a president of the United States to argue that the Soviet Union was right to be in Afghanistan, regardless of the purported reasons (and those Trump gave, aren't true).

[In the early years of A2K, we had a Jewish Russian member, who fought as an officer with the Russian army in Afghanistan. He became an Israeli citizen later.]

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Im pretty much a wet fracker.

It's a good option. I personally prefer clean, safe nuclear power.

Under Trump the government is starting it's first sodium-cooled fast-neutron reactor since Bill Clinton closed them all down:
http://www.inl.gov/article/subcontract-awarded-for-versatile-test-reactor/

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@gungasnake,

That's an interesting idea towards the end of the article. Using Chinese credit cards instead of credit cards dominated by western leftists might be the best answer.

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@oralloy,

theyve never been able to show "at--point nuke reactors, Only these gigawatt units that represent environmental risks. Weve still got an undocumented major ground water problem at TMI and two other nuke plants. We have no high level waste repository , and lastly weve got major environmental problems at ALL national labs.
Other than that, what possibly could go wrong?

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

It’s remarkable and unprecedented for a president of the United States to argue that the Soviet Union was right to be in Afghanistan, regardless of the purported reasons (and those Trump gave, aren't true).

[In the early years of A2K, we had a Jewish Russian member, who fought as an officer with the Russian army in Afghanistan. He became an Israeli citizen later.]

I read an interesting article the other day sometime during the Christmas/New Year holidays. I confess, all the European history most you guys seem to know off the tip of your fingers, I don't have a clue. (not really familiar with our foreign history) But, the article was interesting because it talked about Jewish Russians and their tradition of Novy God at the end of the year. Traditional customs and holidays around the world are interesting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/30/world/middleeast/israel-novy-god-ashdod.html

Anyway, apparently there was a wave of Jewish Russians who migrated to Israel in the 90's. Did something other than the collapse of the Soviet Union cause them to leave?

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@Builder,

Builder wrote:

Quote:
So 112 watts? Does it run on DC power? Does it have a frost-free function disable setting so you can leave the frost in it at night to save energy?

Freezer section is manual defrost. It will stay frozen for days if you switch it off. It will also freeze 4 litre blocks overnight. Runs on 12 or 24 volt DC.

Quote:
How many watts is your panel array?

Two arrays (four panels per) of one kilowatt each.

Quote:
Do you have battery storage?

LiFePO4 storage. Two separate "banks" of two 100 amp hour 12 volt.

Quote:
What do you do when it's cloudy all day?

Still get amps from the sky on cloudy days. We can go three days of rain, without charging. I have a diesel generator, which I've not had to use yet.

Quote:
Can you run TV/computer/electronics when it's dark out?

We run all the usual appliances, but use propane to cook, and heat water.

My partner has an iMac 27 (5K) screen, and we watch hi-def movies on that. It uses just 130 watts at 240 volts max, and has a better sound than many televisions.

We have a limit of 2000 watts on the large inverter, so you just use things one at a time. My partner likes vegan kebabs, and the kebab cooker uses 2000 watts. Have a second inverter that is dedicated to the computer and juicer, so a total of 2600 watts available at one time.

It sounds like a great system. You're not totally fossil-fuel free with the propane and diesel backup, but I'm sure you use far less than the average per capita, especially if you don't drive.

People have become spoiled by the grid so they argue in favor of large power-plant solutions like nuclear instead of realizing they can live well without it.

I think it just feels like social/economic isolation to them, and they're afraid of isolation. As long as they're plugged into a larger network, they figure they're normal and thus safe. Sheeple.

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@Builder,

Builder wrote:

Elon Musk organised the installation of the world's largest storage battery in South Australia. Tesla will be building the world’s largest lithium-ion battery, which is 60 per cent bigger than

any other large-scale battery energy storage system on Earth.

The 100MW battery will provide the region with 129 megawatt-hours of energy to be paired with Neoen’s 99-turbine wind farm at Hornsdale, near Jamestown, South Australia.

Tesla PowerPack’s will charge using renewable energy then deliver electricity during peak hours to help maintain the reliable operation of South Australia’s electrical infrastructure.

In addition to load balancing the state’s renewable energy generation, the batteries will provide emergency back-up power in the case of a blackout.

In a blog post, Tesla said the project in South Australia “will provide enough power for more than 30,000 homes”, or reportedly a total of about 1 hour and 18 minutes of power going at full capacity.

source

Central generation plus grid distribution has the benefit of people not cutting trees around their properties to get more light to their solar panels. The downside of the grid is they cut the trees around the lines. That is solved by underground power lines, though.

In terms of market forces, grids tend to promote higher per capita power usage because they make their money on sales to repay large initial investment. With off-grid systems, conservation is rewarded by not running out of power, not having to maintain as many panels and batteries, etc.

Ultimately conservation is better for the planet because waste heat causes more environmental entropy. The biosphere has evolved to function by absorbing latent waste heat and converting it into living organisms that circulate and dissipate it gently. When you add all this industrial power to the biosphere it stirs everything up and stresses the living ecology, where such ecology is allowed to survive.

People ignore the mechanical functions of the living systems of the biosphere because they seem weak in comparison with the strong industrial technologies humans have developed, but our technologies rely on sources of power that are not naturally present at sea level. Fossil fuels and radioactive nuclear fuels naturally operate deep underground, and we are disrupting long-term geological cycles by digging them up and using them as readily as we do.

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@Builder,

Builder wrote:

We're in a THOWs (tiny house on wheels)

How well is your THOW insulated? My impression is that they all have walls made of 2x4s so they can't have more than 4" of insulation in the walls.

It bothers me that local ordinances drag their feet about allowing smaller dwellings without them being on wheels. If you could build something slightly bigger than a tiny house and insulate the walls and ceiling much better, they would be so energy efficient.

I think most people consider tiny houses are too small for their liking, but they should at least take a lesson from them and zone off a small section of their house for heating and cooling that would be super-insulated. If everyone limited their heating and cooling in this way, we would be a lot closer to solving climate change.

1 Reply

@revelette1,

Quote:

Did something other than the collapse of the Soviet Union cause them to leave?

There was a really large migration of Jews from the USSR in the '70s and '8os, due to anti-semitism and persecution.

Quote:

Aliyah was the mass emigration of Soviet Jews during the 1970s to Israel after the Soviet Union lifted its ban on Jewish Refusenik emigration.

wiki

There were marches in NYC regularly. I remember looking down from the window of the office building where I worked at the time and seeing this big march moving up Madison Avenue. Looking at the signs and banners I saw that it was organized around the desire to distribute Vietnamese souvenirs to Americans, now that the peace treaty had been signed. It wasn't until a few minutes later that I realized I'd been reading the banners incorrectly. The signs said "Free Soviet Jewry!" — I thought they said "Free So.Viet. Jewelry!" True story.

1 Reply

@revelette1,

Being Jewish was never easy in Russia. There were pogroms staring in 1821 and going on intermittently until 1906. The Czar's secret police forged The Protocols of Zion a document that purported to detail Global Jewish conspiracies and how they secretly controlled governments throughout the World.

Despite being a forgery The Protocols of Zion is still cited today by anti Semites and was used by the Nazis to justify the Holocaust.

Things eased off a bit once the communists took over with prominent Jews like Leon Trotsky taking leading roles. Once Trotsky's rival Stalin took over Jews were once again suspect, not just because of their association with Trotsky, but because they were a convenient target.

When the Soviet Union collapsed so did various travel bans and restrictions on movement, so it's not surprising many Jews decided to leave.

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@hightor,

Quote:

It wasn't until a few minutes later that I realized I'd been reading the banners incorrectly. The signs said "Free Soviet Jewry!" — I thought they said "Free So.Viet. Jewelry!" True story.

haha That's pretty funny. I bet you thought they sure was making a big deal of Vietnam souvenirs.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

theyve never been able to show "at--point nuke reactors, Only these gigawatt units that represent environmental risks.

The GT-MHR design was completely risk free. If the graphite was ever exposed to the air it would have to burn for 100 hours before it released radioactive materials -- plenty of time to put out the fire.

The only reason why we don't have them today is because Bill Clinton de-funded them.

A similar design, the SC-HTGR, was selected by the Next Generation Nuclear Plant program. We'd be starting to build them today except Barack Obama de-funded the program.

I'm not completely sold on gas-cooled carbon-moderated designs because TRISO pellets are designed to be unreprocessable for proliferation resistance. I just hate the idea of dumping valuable fuel as waste and then having to store the waste for millions of years. They claim to be able to get a high burnup rate with a single pass, but we'd still need to store the expended pellets in Yucca Mountain. But regardless, the only reason why we don't have 100% safe reactors today is because Democrats always cater to environmentalist wackos.

And actually China is about to come out with a line of pebble bed reactors. Personally I think the prismatic designs are better. A very strong earthquake can disrupt a pebble bed design whereas prismatic designs are earthquake proof. Plus pebble bed designs are limited to tiny reactors. With prismatic designs you can go a little bit larger. But China is about to start deploying them, so the world is about to see working examples of helium-cooled graphite-moderated reactors.

farmerman wrote:

We have no high level waste repository,

Sure we do. Yucca Mountain.

But if we transition over to sodium-cooled reactors, we will not even need a high-level waste repository.

And if Bill Clinton had not closed down all of the government's sodium-cooled reactors, we might actually be building them as power plants today.

Environmentalists are the problem here, not nuclear reactors.

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@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

Environmentalists are the problem here, not nuclear reactors.

Do you understand that you are digging up and accelerating the burn rate for radioactive materials that will not be replenished except maybe by a large meteor strike from a distant supernova?

Nuclear fuel is thus practically non-renewable in any predictable sense of renewability. Nuclear fuels are decaying on their own underground, but there the heat/energy is insulated by the upper crust and thus helps blanket the planet's core and mantle heat, which need to stay hot to maintain the magnetic field, which protects life from cosmic rays.

Humans think in terms of centuries and maybe millennia. Industrialism will persist for hundreds or even thousands of millennia if we don't destroy the planet with unsustainable processes. Humans have no natural predators besides ourselves, so if we can stop threatening our own survival/sustainability, we can live on Earth until the sun explodes, which won't be for an extremely long time.

So leave the nuclear fuels and fossil fuels in the ground already, will you?

1 Reply

Quote:

Brazil markets soar as new government vows to shrink state

Sound familiar? People want less government, not more.
https://www.oann.com/brazil-markets-soar-as-new-government-vows-to-shrink-state/

1 Reply

@livinglava,

livinglava wrote:

Do you understand that you are digging up and accelerating the burn rate for radioactive materials that will not be replenished except maybe by a large meteor strike from a distant supernova?

Yes, but we have a very large supply to draw on.

livinglava wrote:

Nuclear fuel is thus practically non-renewable in any predictable sense of renewability. Nuclear fuels are decaying on their own underground, but there the heat/energy is insulated by the upper crust and thus helps blanket the planet's core and mantle heat, which need to stay hot to maintain the magnetic field, which protects life from cosmic rays.

No one is ever going to mine enough uranium and thorium to freeze the core of the planet.

livinglava wrote:

Humans think in terms of centuries and maybe millennia. Industrialism will persist for hundreds or even thousands of millennia if we don't destroy the planet with unsustainable processes. Humans have no natural predators besides ourselves, so if we can stop threatening our own survival/sustainability, we can live on Earth until the sun explodes, which won't be for an extremely long time.

One day the universe will run out of fuel to produce new stars. One day the last of the final generation of stars will burn out. At that point renewable energy will be at an end. Our descendants will have to start living on something other than sunlight if they don't want to go extinct.

livinglava wrote:

So leave the nuclear fuels and fossil fuels in the ground already, will you?

If people want to put large mirrors in space to redirect large amounts of solar energy to earth-based collectors, I'm game. We'll probably be able to go 100% renewable if we do that.

But until those orbiting mirrors are up in the sky, nuclear power is the best way to fill in the shortfalls when renewables can't produce enough to meet demand.

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@coldjoint,

Quote:

People want less government, not more.

I wonder if they want less Amazon rain forest?

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@hightor,

Quote:

I wonder if they want less Amazon rain forest?

I think that is not their priority or anything like that. Is it now time for you move to Brazil and start this crusade? Maybe they will enjoy your whining.

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