Home › Blog › Page 93

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

Almost all respondents on social media were enthusiastic about banning the garb at left.

Two points:

1) I’m thrilled to live in a country that protects its people’s freedom of expression.  As an older American, I’m not crazy about massive tattoos, face-piercings, and young guys walking around with their pants worn down around their knees, but I’m a real fan of the United States Constitution.

The author of the meme might want to take a peek.  It’s a good read.

2) What actually works on a societal basis, and what no one can regulate, is public acceptance or rejection.  You’re free to wear extreme forms of the hijab, or claim that the Holocaust was a hoax, or believe that the Earth is flat, or tell your neighbors that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, that you, with no training in science, think climate change is a hoax, or that vaccines are often lethal.

However, you’ll pay a stiff price in terms of acceptance into refined society.  Want to get a high-level job or join a country club dressed like that?  Do you think that spouting off the gibberish of uneducated MAGA slobs in the workplace will advance your career?

Good luck.

 

 

Tagged with: , , , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Easy.  It’s 36% in the United States, and somewhere around 15% in the rest of the developed world. It’s slim, and it’s disintegrating fast.

The world isn’t in great shape right now, but most human beings are good people, and they abhor the crimes and the constant barrage of crimes.  It’s really no more complicated than that.

Tagged with:

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

What Kurt Vonnegut said here is interesting, but I doubt it’s correct.

Yes, people talk about religious people’s “imaginary friend in the sky,” which would be, of course, a remedy for loneliness. But I believe that the primary driver for religion is fear–of all things unknown, and especially of death and the afterlife.

 

Tagged with: , , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

The world population growth is 0.85%.  In the developed world (OECD countries), it’s about 0.5%.

It’s not credible to me that our civilization is threatened by this. But if I were concerned, I’d ask a scientist whose life’s work is studying this phenomenon.  Why anyone could possibly care what Elon Musk thinks about Earth’s population and climate change is beyond me.

 

Tagged with: , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Could any C- high school kid believe that there are more top wealth management firms in Montana than there are in Florida, Texas, and California combined?

Tagged with:

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Wind Energy

At left we have something that illustrates why small wind is a concept in renewable energy that was abandoned about 15 years ago.

Germans are respected around the world for the quality of their engineering.  That’s good if you’re buying a Porsche, BWM, or Mercedes for $200K, but it’s terrible if you need something that’s really inexpensive.

And small wind needs to be dirt cheap, because your cost per KWh of electricity can’t be 50 times more than what you would pay to the local power utility.

If you want it cheap, it’s going to fall apart, and that’s particularly true if you’re talking about something that’s installed outdoors and spins every second of every day for decades.

Tagged with:

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Horrible idea, Mike. There are lots of intelligent and refined people in Minnesota who will recall that you helped Trump in his effort to overthrow the U.S. federal government following his 2020 election loss.  They won’t think highly of that.

If you want to run for governor, consider picking a state that ranks at or near the bottom in terms of education, and has some of the other qualities of Trump supporters, e.g., racism.

I won’t name names, but they’re not too hard to identify.

 

Tagged with: , ,

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

There are more than 6200 miles of the U.S. border.  If a terrorist crosses at any point and kills an American citizen, who is to blame?

If you’re a garden-variety idiot, you blame the U.S. president. Can’t the occupant of the White House be held accountable for every crime committed here by someone from any country who comes here illegally?

If you’re a lying idiot, you blame Biden, even if the terrorist entered during Trump’s presidency.

 

Tagged with:

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

When the poorest, least-educated Trump supporters are starving and dying of treatable diseases, this whole, pathetic refrain will morph into the following, and tens of millions of Americans will wear hats saying:

The need for food is a Democratic hoax.

and

The Republicans will abolish Obamacare and replace it with something much better.

Tagged with:

by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Wind Energy

Here’s a concept in small wind for readers to check out. A few points:

It’s not new.  A few years ago, there was a nearly identical idea that came and went, when investors figured out that this concept, as all the others before it, was dead in the water.

They have an “axial flux generator.”  Really?  Haven’t we all seen “Back to the Future?” Making up technobabble like the “flux capacitor” gets laughs, but that’s about it.

The fact that climate change poses a huge threat doesn’t mean that every yo-yo idea in renewable energy makes sense.

There is a reason, based on physics, that vertical axis wind turbines are intrinsically less efficient than their horizontal axis counterparts and do not exist in the enormous industry of wind energy.

The wind conditions on our roofs are impeded by trees and neighboring buildings, and even that notwithstanding, they don’t take advantage of wind conditions 50-100 feet higher.  That’s the reason that wind farms are located in remote areas with incredible wind resources.  No one would like to live in a place like Tehachapi, California with gale-force winds.

The spokesperson’s idea that he’s raising investor capital to engineer the product because “you have the recipe before you bake the cookies” is catchy, but this is a recipe that clearly cannot exist.

 

 

 

Tagged with: , , , , , , ,