The Anonymous Widower

Trump’s Eyeing Greenland – But Other Arctic Investment Is Frozen

The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.

The BBC Article is a good introduction to Trump’s ideas for Greenland.

This is my one thought.

Do we side with Trump and the United States or our Danish friends?

January 6, 2025 Posted by | World | , , , , | 4 Comments

The Americans Who Think RFK Can Make Them Healthy Again

The title of this post, is the same as that as this article in The Times.

This is the sub-heading.

They are poor, sick, jobless and trust no one. But people in one of the most deprived parts of the US are putting their faith in a man who doesn’t believe in vaccines

These three paragraphs introduce the article.

The phone signal vanishes as you drive over the ridge into the purple valley and down to the town of Paw Paw, West Virginia, population 410.

Being born here deals a person a certain hand. A life six years shorter on average than those from California. A likelihood that you’ll be poor and suffer from disease (one in three adults here have a disability).

A high chance of addiction from the opioid epidemic that was brought here by rapacious pharmaceutical companies that has left the valley peppered with children brought up by grandparents.

It is a powerful piece from Louise Callaghan.

These are my thoughts.

As a coeliac myself, I do wonder if there is an epidemic of coeliac disease in Paw Paw.

Coeliac disease is genetic, so once it gets in a close community, it can spread through marriage and childbirth.

My coeliac disease came from my father, who was never diagnosed, but he got it through the generations from his great-great-grandfather, who was a tailor from Konigsberg in East Prussia.

If a coeliac is going to a country, where gluten-free foods are unavailable, they are advised by doctors to take steroids like Dexamethasone. American doctors regularly prescribe this steroid to coeliac patients, as it does work to a certain extent.

Everybody in Paw Paw should be tested for coeliac disease and those with the disease should go on a gluten-free diet.

But I suspect a plan like this wouldn’t go down well in Paw Paw.

November 23, 2024 Posted by | Food, Health | , , , | Leave a comment

DOE Funds Research Into Long-Duration Energy Storage Using Lead-Acid Batteries

The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Best Magazine.

This is the sub-heading

US federal cash is on its way to fund research into long-duration energy storage using lead-acid batteries.

These two paragraphs give more details.

A consortium backed by industry bodies Battery Council International and the Consortium for Battery Innovation, will conduct pre-competitive research aimed at improving lead battery performance. Companies participating in the consortium include Advanced Battery Concepts, C&D/Trojan, Clarios, Crown Battery, East Penn Manufacturing, EnerSys, Gridtential and Stryten Energy. The collaborating national laboratories are Argonne, Oak Ridge and Pacific Northwest (PNNL).

The $5 million award from the US Department of Energy, announced on 27 September, will support work to develop lead batteries capable of 10+ hours of storage with a pathway to $0.05/kWh levelised cost of storage by 2030.

Note.

  1. The companies involved have names that indicate they could be battery makers.
  2. The collaborating national laboratories are world-class Premier League players.
  3. Over the nearly fifty years, that I drove cars, lead-acid batteries improved a lot and there might be more to come.
  4. The last paragraph is ambitious, unless they know more than I do about lead-acid batteries. Which is likely!

This is also said in one of Highview Power’s news items.

Highview Power, the global leader in long-duration energy storage solutions, is pleased to announce that it has developed a modular cryogenic energy storage system, the CRYOBattery, that is scalable up to multiple gigawatts of energy storage and can be located anywhere. This technology reaches a new benchmark for a levelized cost of storage (LCOS) of $140/MWh for a 10-hour, 200 MW/2 GWh system. Highview Power’s cryogenic energy storage system is equivalent in performance to, and could potentially replace, a fossil fuel power station. Highview Power’s systems can enable renewable energy baseload power at large scale, while also supporting electricity and distribution systems and providing energy security.

The battery researchers are saying $0.05/kWh levelised cost of storage by 2030 and Highview Power are saying $0.14/kWh for the same parameter.

Could Elon Musk’s Relationship With Donald Trump Be The Fly In The Ointment?

Would Musk want research to go on, that might weaken the use of his lithium-ion batteries for stationary applications?

November 21, 2024 Posted by | Energy, Energy Storage | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ill Wind For Renewable Energy In US To Boost UK Projects

The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Times.

This is the sub-heading.

SSE boss Alistair Phillips-Davies says Trump is expected to put oil and gas ahead of renewables, easing supply chain shortages for UK wind power shortages

These are the first two paragraphs.

A likely push towards more oil and gas drilling under President Trump could help ease supply chain shortages that have hampered a faster rollout of renewables on the UK system, but weaken the availability of parts for gas-fired plants, the boss of electricity supplier SSE has said.

Donald Trump’s election win is expected to boost the American oil and gas industries and diminish the buildout of renewables, which had been accelerated by President Biden’s $369 billion stimulus package for clean power and transport.

SSE’s offshore wind farms under construction or planning in the UK, that are likely to be delivered before the end of Trump’s second term are.

  • Dogger Bank A – 1235 MW – GE-Haliade X – 2025
  • Dogger Bank B – 1235 MW – GE-Haliade X – 2025
  • Dogger Bank C – 1218 MW – GE-Haliade X – 2025
  • Dogger Bank D – 1320 MW
  • Berwick Bank  4100 MW – 2028
  • Seagreen Phase 1A – 500 MW

Note.

  1. The date is the expected commissioning date.
  2. GE is an American company, that are heavily into renewables and electrical gubbins to connect them to the grid.
  3. Trump is unlikely to have much effect on the delivery of Dogger Bank A-C.
  4. If Trump is stopping US wind farm projects, then if SSE has the finance, they will surely be able to take advantage of a lack of turbine orders.
  5. If you could handle a 4100 MW order, it would keep your company going for at least three years.

Given that SSE are investing billions in renewable energy and because of  their past record, I would expect that the SSE boss has called this one right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 18, 2024 Posted by | Energy | , , | 2 Comments

Trump Could Be A Disaster For The Environment

This article on ITVx is entitled ‘Drill, baby, drill’: What Trump’s Re-election Could Mean For Our Climate

The article is a must-read.

It starts with a picture that has a placard that says “Trump Digs Coal”

I certainly don’t and have felt that way since probably the Aberfan disaster of 1966.

 

This is the first paragraph from the Wikimedia entry.

The Aberfan disaster was the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on 21 October 1966. The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, and overlaid a natural spring. Heavy rain led to a build-up of water within the tip which caused it to suddenly slide downhill as a slurry, killing 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed Pantglas Junior School and a row of houses.

In coal mining areas, disasters still happen.

We should all show our disgust at Trump ad the people who voted for him, by not buying any American products, unless it is absolutely necessary.

November 7, 2024 Posted by | Energy | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Trump Will Fix It

I can’t believe that I’ve just seen the title of this post, emblazoned across Trump’s stage.

The phrase doesn’t have  the same connotations and odious ring, that it does in the UK, but because of its associations with Jimmy Saville, it is probably better not used.

All the world can now do, is wait for the result.

  • It does appear that in the US, female voters have a high turnout.
  • According to the Guardian, nearly a third of voters are black.

Certainly, if I were black or female, I wouldn’t feel, I could vote for Trump.

November 5, 2024 Posted by | World | , , , , | 8 Comments

Indian Minister’s Health aAdvice: Lie In A Cowshed To Cure Cancer

The title of this post, is the same. as that of this article in The Times.

This is the sub-heading.

Senior politician in Narendra Modi’s party says he drinks cow urine every morning to kill bacteria and eliminate negativity

These are the first three paragraphs.

The humble cow has long been venerated in India. Revered by Hindus, pictured with the prime minister, Narendra Modi, and long used by his Bharatiya Janata Party to promote the leader’s own politically charged brand of nationalism, the animal plays a central part in Indian life.

That adoration could grow further after a senior politician claimed that cows could cure cancer.

Sanjay Singh Gangwar, 48, a BJP minister for sugarcane in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, said patients could eradicate their symptoms simply by cleaning and lying down in a cowshed. They would be cured by the “positive aura and energy” of cows, the minister said.

When I found a peer-reviewed paper entitled Coeliac Disease: Can We Avert The Impending Epidemic In India?, I discussed it with my GP at the time, who was of part-Indian extraction, and I got a rant about Narendra Modi.

I now take anything Narendra Modi says with a very large dose of salt.

Gangwar’s advice doesn’t stop there.

These two paragraphs give more pearls of wisdom.

The health benefits of a cow do not end there, added Gangwar. He advocated drinking “filtered” cow urine — which he said he did every morning — and use cow dung as flooring in village homes. And anyone suffering from high blood pressure should simply stroke a cow — once in the morning and again in the evening.

“If a cancer patient starts cleaning a cowshed and lying there, even cancer can be cured,” he insisted as he inaugurated a cow shelter in the city of Pilibhit. “If you burn cow dung cakes, you get relief from mosquitoes. Everything that a cow produces is useful in some way.”

So to Gangwar, the global-warming methane, that cows emit is useful, but in what way?

Is Gangwar, Donald Trump’s long-lost Indian son from a dalliance in the country?

 

October 14, 2024 Posted by | Health | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Donald Trump To Open Second Aberdeenshire Golf Course In 2025

The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.

These opening two paragraphs introduce the course.

The 18-hole links MacLeod Course – named after the former US president’s Lewis-born mother, Mary – will welcome players at the Trump International resort in Menie from the Summer of 2025.

The resort claimed the course would feature the “largest sand dunes in Scotland” and form “the greatest 36 holes in golf” alongside the original course, completed in 2012.

It sounds to me that the environmental aspects could be rather detrimental. But then Trump has form for a poor record in this area, as I wrote in Trump Forgot The Ace Of Clubs!

October 7, 2024 Posted by | Sport | , , , , | Leave a comment

Former US President Donald Trump Launches $99 NFT Trading Cards

The title of this post is the same as that of this article on the BBC.

Under images of two of the cards, one showing him as a roughneck with a shotgun and the other as a superhero, this is the first paragraph.

Former US President Donald Trump has launched a collection of digital trading cards depicting him in various guises including a superhero, astronaut and Nascar driver.

In the superhero picture he has a T on his chest.

I would think a W with an anchor would have been more appropriate.

December 16, 2022 Posted by | World | , , , , | 2 Comments

Should I Get Depressed About A World Ruled By Putin, Trump And Xi?

When I read the reports of the mid-term elections in the United States, Putin’s War in Ukraine and Chairman Xi’s coronation as Emperor for Life, I despair.

As I suspect do many others!

 

November 7, 2022 Posted by | World | , , , , | 2 Comments