About a decade ago, a client hired me to evaluate a start-up in the energy storage field called Advance Rail Energy Storage (ARES). The concept is a variation on the theme of pumped hydro, which currently represents more than 95% of the grid-scale energy storage on Earth. (more…)
These people may be evil, but they’re anything but incompetent.
For those keeping score of how effectively the Environmental Protection Agency is destroying our planet by rolling back regulations that formerly protected it, here’s a handy chart that provides the count of legislation it has overturned, broken out by category. Enlarged version below.
American culture has always had its extreme fads, like flagpole-sitting or goldfish-eating; the pic here featuring “extreme tree trimming” from the 1880s is an example. That’s hilarious, IMO.
But these are curiosities. On a far broader scale, we’re starting to see the U.S. split into groups of polar opposites: a small number of winners, offset by a huge crowd of losers.
It’s not news that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. But the opening of that gaping chasm is only one example of what we see in virtually every dimension of life in today’s world, which could be called The Great Cultural Divide. (more…)
Exactly what are “basic human rights?” Where do they begin, and where do they end? It’s a matter open to debate, to be sure.
What’s more a matter of fact than opinion, however, is that this society shoots itself in the foot where these fundamental necessities are concerned; we’re the epitome of penny wisdom and pound foolishness. (more…)
From this video in which Arnold Swarzenegger speaks on our children’s participation on climate change mitigation: “It is the dreamers, the doers, not the doubters, who have shaped history. All progress starts with a dream.”
So beautiful. Good on you. We’re all reminded of Teddy Roosevelt’s “The man in the arena.” (more…)
I hope readers get the same broad smile from this as I did.
Both of my kids, Jake and Valerie, could retire early if I had to pay them each a dollar every time I talked about the autumnal equinox, or the dew point, or whatever, on the way to school in the morning.
I ran into some people visiting from Sweden, wine tasting the other day. Chatting it up, as I am wont to do, I asked about the Swedes’ perception of Trump. One replied, “He may have 5 or 10 percent support. The vast majority of us simply feel sorry for you. We’re in disbelief that this happened in the United States. If it had happened, for instance, in Paraguay, I think we all would have said, ‘OK, whatever.’ But we never, ever thought it could happen in America.”
Now that my kids have entered the workforce, I get to reflect on what they’re doing with their lives and the impact they will ultimately have on human civilization. I’m very glad that neither of them works for Nestle (or Coke, or McDonalds, etc.). I know everyone has to make a living, but I feel sorry for those who need to do so by making the world a dirtier and more disease-prone place to live.
Occasionally one hears that the two major parties in U.S. politics are essentially indistinguishable from one another, and in some areas that actually is true. For example, regardless of who’s elected president in 2020, the country will still have a huge military that is deployed with wanton aggression around the globe. (more…)
The EPA confirmed that the range of the new Tesla Model S is indeed 370 miles. Sounds like the end of range anxiety; I don’t know anyone who wants to drive farther than that in a single day.
