human actions, global climate change, global human solutions
POSTED BY: 1kiki
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 19:38
VIEWED: 60750
PAGE 82 of 111
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack
Thanks sigs.
Yeah. It's as if he's saying that I've spent every waking hour working on that opening for months to the exclusion of everything else I've done in that time.
I haven't lived here for decades. I've lived here 12.5 years. 5 of those years I wasted to drinking, which is a problem I brought with me to the house, with only the first two of them actually getting anything done. I'm not going to apologize to Second for that waste of time. I've already made apologies to anybody that I was going to apologize to for that behavior a long time ago.
I've also never once used the word carpentry. It's not carpentry. I'm not a carpenter.
The overlook isn't done yet either, but as I finish that, I'll also be working on repairing and refinishing those stairs. Just like I repaired and refinished that entire room after I began working on the overlook.
And I'm sure I'll be doing other things in the meantime, like helping my friend clear out his dad's garage and house, and helping my brother learn more about his computer while setting up his MacOS/Windows dual platform stuff over the phone, and helping my aunt get all of her stuff setup online... And seriously... do you know how much it takes to cook up this sweet blue meth in my bathtub? The shit literally sells itself but cooking just takes up so much of the day.
I laughed so loud dear daughter asked me what I was laughing about!
So, of course, I gave her some background ... showed her a few of your before and after pictures... read her the insult and then your reply. She missed the reference to Breaking Bad (LOL!) but thought it was funny too.
This has got to be one of the funniest answers I've ever read on this website.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack
Thanks sigs.
Yeah. It's as if he's saying that I've spent every waking hour working on that opening for months to the exclusion of everything else I've done in that time.
I haven't lived here for decades. I've lived here 12.5 years. 5 of those years I wasted to drinking, which is a problem I brought with me to the house, with only the first two of them actually getting anything done. I'm not going to apologize to Second for that waste of time. I've already made apologies to anybody that I was going to apologize to for that behavior a long time ago.
I've also never once used the word carpentry. It's not carpentry. I'm not a carpenter.
The overlook isn't done yet either, but as I finish that, I'll also be working on repairing and refinishing those stairs. Just like I repaired and refinished that entire room after I began working on the overlook.
And I'm sure I'll be doing other things in the meantime, like helping my friend clear out his dad's garage and house, and helping my brother learn more about his computer while setting up his MacOS/Windows dual platform stuff over the phone, and helping my aunt get all of her stuff setup online... And seriously... do you know how much it takes to cook up this sweet blue meth in my bathtub? The shit literally sells itself but cooking just takes up so much of the day.
I laughed so loud dear daughter asked me what I was laughing about!
So, of course, I gave her some background ... showed her a few of your before and after pictures... read her the insult and then your reply. She missed the reference to Breaking Bad (LOL!) but thought it was funny too.
This has got to be one of the funniest answers I've ever read on this website.
Well the secret is out now thanks to Second.
The REAL reason I don't smoke cigarettes in the house isn't because I don't want all my walls and trim to turn yellow and watch my family who doesn't smoke frown and wrinkle their noses up when they come over and have to smell the stale nicotine in the air.
I just really love the smell of that bathtub meth and I'd rather smoke outside in the snow than taint it with my cheap cigarette smoke.
That's also why I quit eating broccoli and I fart in jars now.
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Exxon warns Baytown, other hydrogen projects unlikely
By James Osborne | Feb 22, 2024
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/exxon-baytown
-hydrogen-tax-credit-biden-18677668.php
WASHINGTON – A year after Exxon Mobil announced it would be part of a team planning to build the largest clean hydrogen facility in the world, executives are warning the project at its Baytown refining and petrochemical complex along the Houston Ship Channel might no longer happen.
At issue are draft rules issued by the Treasury Department late last year, which include no incentive to produce clean hydrogen fuel using natural gas with reduced methane emissions. That would limit Baytown and other proposed blue hydrogen projects, which use electricity from natural gas plants and store carbon emissions underground, to the lowest tier of hydrogen tax credit, making them less economic, said Mark Klewpatinond, global business manager for hydrogen at Exxon Mobil.
"If were not able to differentiate natural gas production, it's highly unlikely Baytown would proceed," he said. "It needs to compete for capital against other projects we have."
Exxon is part of the HyVelocity Hub, a coalition of energy companies and nonprofits seeking to develop a clean hydrogen hub in Houston through $1.2 billion in funding from the Department of Energy. Representatives of HyVelocity declined to comment.
The warning from Exxon and other hydrogen developers comes as cities such as Houston and Los Angeles move to develop large-scale clean hydrogen projects despite questions about whether the tax credit included in 2022's Inflation Reduction Act will be enough to get the nascent industry off the ground.
Following failed efforts by former President George W. Bush and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Biden administration is moving to shift the industrial sector, along with heavy duty transportation like trucks and cargo ships, to clean hydrogen fuel in line with their goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
But producing hydrogen fuel is hugely energy intensive, and the Biden administration is seeking to ensure it doesn't mistakenly incentivize the construction of a raft of hydrogen facilities with high greenhouse gas footprints.
As the tax credits are currently written, critics say, green hydrogen projects, which rely on electricity to convert water to hydrogen, will likely need to get all their power directly from wind and solar farms to be eligible for the highest $3 per kilogram tax credit. Projects using electricity from the power grid would need to be able to document their electricity came from renewable sources to claim any of the credit. So-called blue hydrogen projects would likely have to settle for tax credits worth up to 60 cents per kilogram – even if their overall emissions are lower than some green hydrogen projects.
"If you can't count upstream and midstream emissions, that is going to push a significant amount of production out of the most lucrative bands," said Brian Murphy, an analyst with S&P Global Commodity Insights. "That’s going to mean fewer projects in the near term."
A spokesperson for the Department of Treasury said the agency is looking for more information on certain, "key issues" and would "consider all comments in developing final regulations.”
New tax rules
Not all clean hydrogen developers are worried about the tax rules.
British industrial firm Linde announced early last year, months before the draft tax credit rules were released, that it was going to start construction on a $1.8 billion blue hydrogen facility in Beaumont. And Pennsylvania-based Air Products said in November it would go ahead on building a $4.5 billion blue hydrogen plant in Louisiana.
But the majority of clean hydrogen projects, of which there are dozens in the works around the country, are on hold waiting to see if the Treasury Department loosens up the rul
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Texas lawmakers target large 'climate-friendly' banks — and avoiding boycotts won't stop them
By Chris Tomlinson | Feb 23, 2024
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article
/texas-blackrock-climate-change-esg-taxpayers-18672606.php
Texas lawmakers have never hesitated to use the power of the state to punish those with whom they disagree.
Do you or your company refuse to do business with Israel? Then you cannot do business with the state of Texas. Do you boycott gunmakers? Don’t even think about applying for a state contract.
The newest boycott legislation, though, goes much further. If a financial services firm refuses to do business with coal, oil or natural gas businesses or offers products that allow investors to avoid the fossil fuel industry, then no government authority in Texas can contract its services. If a company invests in those corporations — but demands they tackle climate change — the punishment is the same.
Texas’ law could cost taxpayers $22.5 billion in higher interest rates and fees over the next 30 years, a study by an economist at the Wharton School calculated. This column is part two of a three-part series on the conservative war against considering environmental, social and governance factors, known as ESG, when investing.
For years, Big Oil executives have complained about a growing movement to boycott and divest from fossil fuel companies. Proponents of ESG investing have produced research showing how public companies contributing to climate change, income inequality and corruption pay less in total shareholder returns than socially responsible companies.
Doing good and doing well are connected, they argue.
Oil and gas corporations call ESG investing discrimination, and they’ve asked state lawmakers across the country to pass anti-boycott laws like Senate Bill 13, which became Texas law on Sept. 1, 2021.
Texas is arguably the first state to pass anti-ESG legislation, which first emerged from conservative think tanks after large companies began advertising themselves as “climate-friendly” in the early 2000s. Conservative groups, such as the Texas Public Policy Foundation, lobbied Republican lawmakers to pass the bill, which Democrats mostly opposed.
SB13 requires the comptroller, Texas’ elected chief financial officer, “to prepare and maintain a list of all financial companies that refuse to deal with, terminate business activities with, or otherwise take any action that is, solely or primarily, intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations” with the fossil fuel industry.
The law created a new entity within the comptroller’s office, the Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Co., to implement the law. Comptroller Glenn Hegar reviewed banks’ public statements on climate change and, on March 16, 2022, sent letters to 19 firms that appeared to violate the statute.
“The Comptroller has determined you may be a financial company that boycotts energy companies,” the form letter said. “You must complete and return answers to the questions enclosed with this letter.”
Comptroller attorneys disclose little about how they determined that UBS, BlackRock and other global financial institutions landed on their list. But membership in two associations — the Climate Action 100+ and the Net Zero Banking Alliance/Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative — appeared to have triggered a review.
Climate Action 100+ members pledge to pressure 170 of the world’s largest companies, many of them significant emitters of greenhouse gases, to change their business plans to comply with the Paris climate accord. If the world wants to limit global warming without permanently damaging life on Earth, these companies must change their ways.
The Net Zero Banking Alliance is a United Nations-backed group of global banks “committed to financing ambitious climate action to transition the real economy to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.”
BlackRock, UBS, JPMorgan Chase and
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Livestock feed isn’t the only reason the US grows so much corn. There was a big spike in corn acreage starting in the early 2000s, when Congress mandated that billions of gallons of gasoline for cars be mixed with biofuels, which is mostly ethanol made with corn.
It was a terrible policy because corn is an inefficient use of land to produce energy: “It takes about 100 acres worth of biofuels to generate as much energy as a single acre of solar panels,” wrote agriculture and environmental writer Michael Grunwald in the New York Times. But it’s been hard to roll back, given the political power of the farm lobby: Ethanol policy is “mainly a way to suck up to farmers and enrich agribusinesses,” Grunwald wrote.
Almost 40 percent of US corn goes into gas tanks and 40 percent is fed to livestock.
More at https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24079424/factory-farming-facts-meat
-usda-agriculture-census
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Drastic and Irreversible Climate Geoengineering Worries Scientists
https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/drastic-and-irreversible-climate
-geoengineering-worries-experts-5592858
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Inside Big Oil’s Plot to Keep Their Emissions Confidential
The Securities and Exchange Commission voted Wednesday to require some companies to disclose emissions. The rule is far weaker than originally proposed—and the industry will probably sue anyway.
By Kate Aronoff | March 6, 2024
https://newrepublic.com/article/179578/sec-emissions-disclosure-rule-f
ossil-fuels
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday voted 3–2 to finalize a rule on what companies disclose about their greenhouse gas emissions and how climate change stands to impact their business. On its face, that wouldn’t seem to be much cause for alarm. Companies are already required to disclose information on their management structures, overall financial health, and the kinds of risks facing their business. Large segments of the oil and gas industry, though, as well as their beneficiaries in the Republican Party, are treating the possibility of having to disclose climate-related information as if it were an existential threat. And as a result, the SEC’s rule is much weaker than it could have been.
At an industry conference last month, Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, a trade association for oil and gas producers, laid out her group’s strategy for stopping new regulations and administrative actions in their tracks; the main goal, she emphasized, was to kill any version of the SEC’s climate disclosure requirements. At the North American Prospect Expo, or NAPE, Summit for the energy industry in Houston early last month, she described the potential SEC rule as one of several attempts to “decapitalize, defund, or de-bank our industry.” An audio recording of the speech, which was open to all attendees, was provided to The New Republic by an audience member who asked to remain anonymous so as not to jeopardize future attendance.
On some level, industry pressure has already worked: The SEC rule that came to a vote on Wednesday was considerably weaker than the version that was first proposed in March 2022. It lacked the strongest part of the original proposal: that companies be required to disclose what are known as Scope 3 emissions. Those are the emissions linked to products it purchases from third parties, activities like business travel, and the use of its products by consumers. Scope 3 emissions account for as much as 90 percent of a given company’s emissions. Fossil fuel executives and lobbyists’ heated opposition to being required to disclose these emissions is a big part of why that component was dropped. SEC Chair Gary Gensler has said that the rule received 24,000 comments during the required public comment period that ended this morning—the largest ever number of comments filed on a single proposal. By the time the rule was released, even disclosing Scope 1 and 2 emissions—roughly speaking, those generated by corporate operations—was in question. It will now only be required of larger, SEC-registered companies—about 40 percent of America’s 7,000 public companies registered with the SEC—that determine these disclosures are “material” to investors.
David Arkush, director of the watchdog group Public Citizen’s Climate Program, and an expert on climate-related financial regulation, described Scope 3 requirements as “the most concrete, quantitative, decision-useful information that was in the proposal. It’s a really big disappointment that it’s been dropped. It’s ultimately better to finish this rule than not,” he added, “but losing Scope 3 is a big step backward, even though it’s still a step forward from the existing state of affairs.” Many advocates also see the SEC’s watering down of disclosure rules as a response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia v. EPA last summer, which raised the prospect of a wide-reaching challenge to agency rulemaking.
Even before the results of the rule were announced, Sgamma said industry groups were eager to sue over the rule. “People are standing in line to litigate that,” she said, adding that the Al
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What’s slowing down America’s clean energy transition? It’s not the cost
New report finds renewable energy faces organised opposition and grid connectivity issues.
By Hilary Beaumont | 7 Mar 2024
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/3/7/whats-slowing-down-americas
-clean-energy-transition-its-not-the-cost
For the first time, clean energy in the United States is at the same price as energy from burning fossil fuels thanks to policy measures, including President Joe Biden’s signature climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). But a new report says non-cost barriers are now slowing the country’s transition to renewables.
The report, released in February by the Clean Investment Monitor, analysed different modelling scenarios and found that the IRA is expected to meet its goal of reducing GHG emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030.
https://assets-global.website-files.com/64e31ae6c5fd44b10ff405a7/65d56
8670df0b04daed42371_Clean%20Investment%20in%202023%20-%20Assessing%20Progress%20in%20Electricity%20and%20Transport.pdf
Passed in 2022, the IRA is the largest investment to address the climate crisis ever passed in the US. The investment is significant in a country that is one of the world’s largest contributors to GHG emissions. (China, the US and India are the world’s top three emitters.)
The report found that electric vehicle sales were at the top of the projected range in 2023, and investment in utility-scale clean electricity reached record levels last year. However, factors like local opposition to renewables and long delays in grid connection are slowing the pace of the clean energy transition.
Trevor Houser, one of the lead authors of the report, said two decades of policy work, including the passing of the IRA, have reduced the cost of clean energy to the point that it is competitive with coal and fossil gas (called “natural gas” by the fossil fuel industry), and can be deployed without increasing prices for households and businesses.
“It’s exciting to see those two decades of work paying off and these new, cleaner technologies having achieved a level of cost reduction and a point of scale where they can be widely deployed,” Houser said.
Now, the only issue is the speed of the transition. In the last two years, high inflation and supply chain issues led to temporary price increases. “That appears to be correcting now,” Houser said.
The bigger obstacles, he said, are ramping up manufacturing, connecting transmission lines, and addressing growing opposition to renewables.
“The thing that’s more concerning to me is the ability to get local acceptance and to get projects permitted and built fast enough,” he added.
Opposition to renewables
The area of land needed to deliver solar and wind power is much larger than coal or fossil gas plants, leading to tension when homeowners and other groups hear of renewable projects proposed nearby.
“People are supportive of wind and solar, generally, but just don’t want it right next to them,” Houser explained. “The way that a lot of homeowners are very supportive of homeless shelters just as long as it’s not on their block.”
But this NIMBYism, an acronym for “not in my backyard” that reflects the opposition of residents to developments in the vicinity of their homes, is not isolated to a few corners of the country. A 2023 report by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School found organised opposition in 35 states, resulting in at least 228 significant local restrictions against wind, solar and other renewable energy facilities.
The report found that nearly 300 projects had encountered serious opposition, ranging from letter-writing campaigns to lawsuits.
“Delays from litigation alone can kill a project,” noted Matthew Eisenson, the report’s author and senior fellow at the Renewable Energy Legal Defense Initiative at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
While some concerns are rooted in impacts to tribal lands, resources and sacred sites, known as “green colonialism”, Eisenson said opposition f
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US uranium miners resurrected by nuclear revival and Ukraine war
By Jamie Smyth, Harry Dempsey | Sunday, March 10, 2024
https://www.ft.com/content/d4af145b-5ab3-477b-bfed-5bf42dc1cfdb
Over a 40-year career, Scott Melbye watched the US uranium industry fall from its position as the world’s leading producer of the radioactive ore that powers nuclear reactors to an also-ran with negligible production.
Now, the president of the Uranium Producers of America is leading an industry charge to revive mothballed mines and invest in new production to capitalise on soaring prices and policies aimed at reducing the US’s dependence on Russian imports.
At least five US-listed producers are reopening uranium mines in Texas, Wyoming, Arizona and Utah that were idled following a market crash caused by the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan in 2011. A handful of exploration companies are searching for new deposits of uranium, which has tripled in price since the start of 2021 because of a resurgence in interest in nuclear energy.
“We’ve been on sleep mode for too long and now our membership is energised again,” said Melbye, who is also a senior executive at Uranium Energy Corp, a Texas-based company reopening mines in Wyoming and Texas.
“There is the broad bipartisan support for nuclear energy, the role it plays in the green transition and of course Ukraine-Russia has highlighted the need to secure our energy independence,” he said.
The restart of US production comes amid a global revival in the uranium industry with producers in Australia, Canada and other nations seeking to increase production.
They are responding to a blistering rally in uranium prices, which reached a 16-year high above $100 a pound in January and remains elevated at $92 a pound. This is being driven by governments’ renewed interest in nuclear energy, an emissions-free power source that advocates say will play a key role in the energy transition.
About 60 nuclear plants are under construction and a further 110 are planned, according to the World Nuclear Association, which forecasts demand for uranium will double to 130,000 tonnes by 2040. A more immediate boost to demand has come from extensions to the lifetime of reactors currently producing. Last year uranium demand was 65,650 tonnes. It is forecast to rise to 83,840 tonnes by 2030.
Prices have also been raised by tight supply, after a drought of investment in new projects in the 2010s.
Global uranium production dropped by a quarter to 47,731 tonnes from 2016 to 2020 following the market crash after Fukushima. Expansion plans by the world’s largest producer Kazatomprom — which accounts for 23 per cent of global output — have stalled because of shortages of sulphuric acid, which is used in their leach mining operations in Kazakhstan.
“They’ve run into some ramp up issues,” said Ur-Energy Inc chief executive John Cash, which is restarting production at two mines in Wyoming.
He said geopolitics is driving prices higher over concerns that the main export route for Kazakh and Uzbek uranium bound for the US runs across Russia and out of St Petersburg port. In 2022 Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Russia supplied just under half of all uranium purchased by US nuclear plants, according to US government data.
“No one really knows how Vladimir Putin will attempt to put his thumb on those countries going forward. So, diversification now is the name of the game,” said Cash, adding that US and European utilities are signing more contracts with Ur-Energy following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The US Congress is considering banning Russian uranium imports in a move that would further shake up the sector.
Most analysts forecast Kazakhstan’s output will flow increasingly to Russia and China in the future because of high logistics costs to ship uranium via alternative routes that avoid Russia, such as the Caspian Sea, and an increase in long-term deals to supply China.
Melbye said the growth in the nuclear sector and western nations’ increased focus on
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Solar Power Milestone
It accounted for 53% of new capacity
By Tik Root | March 11, 2024 5:01 AM
https://laist.com/brief/news/climate-environment/solar-renewable-energ
y-milestone
Solar accounted for most of the capacity the nation added to its electric grids last year. That feat marks the first time since World War II, when hydropower was booming, that a renewable power source has comprised more than half of the nation’s energy additions.
The 32.4 gigawatts that came online in the United States last year shattered the previous high of 23.6 gigawatts recorded in 2021 and accounted for 53 percent of new capacity. Natural gas was next in line at a distant 18 percent.
SEIA called 2023 the best year for renewables since the Second World War. Texas and California led a solar surge driven mostly by utility-scale installations, which jumped 77 percent year-over-year to 22.5 gigawatts.
Experts generally expect renewable energy to keep on its torrent trajectory.
“It’s very likely to continue because solar and wind are now very well established,” said Rob Stoner, director of the MIT Energy Initiative. “Solar costs continue to fall far below where we ever thought they would.”
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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