Following a suggestion from reader Neilrieck.
Month: April 2020
The Matrix: Virus Scene
Classic “virus” scene in “The Matrix”.
Agent Smith confronts Morpheus.
The scene is getting a lot of traction, obviously, in the current situation.
We do well to remember that, in this narrative, Agent Smith is the villain, folks.
Hurricane Season Coming: Corona Virus will be a Threat Multiplier
As the world battles the coronavirus crisis, researchers are warning of a potentially active Atlantic Ocean hurricane season, which kicks off June 1 through the end of November.
For the 37th year in a row, Colorado State University (CSU) issued its hurricane season forecast Thursday — and the numbers appear significantly above normal.
Specifically, the team forecasts 16 named tropical systems; 12 is the average. Eight of those named systems are forecast to reach hurricane status, with winds greater than 74 mph; Six is the usual amount per year. CSU is also forecasting more major hurricanes than is typical per year: four as opposed to the average of 2.7.
Continue reading “Hurricane Season Coming: Corona Virus will be a Threat Multiplier”Still, there are the mechanics of hurricane preparedness to deal with. Would the infected or potentially sick be sent to separate facilities?
“It does throw a unique spin on it,” said Steven Still, emergency management director for coastal New Hanover County, N.C., which has suffered near direct blows from multiple hurricanes in recent years. “It’s a major challenge, no doubt.”
Still said social distancing requirements would limit how many people could seek refuge in shelters. That means local governments would need to open more of them.
“Nobody Could have Predicted..”
The Weekend Wonk: What Exxon Knew in Cartoons
Music Break: Bill Withers – Lean on Me
Bill Withers has died. Not clear at this time if from Covid19 or other cause.
Roots: Antarctica Edition
Scientists drilling off the coast of West Antarctica have found the fossil remains of forests that grew in the region 90 million years ago – in the time of the dinosaurs.
Their analysis of the material indicates the continent back then would have been as warm as parts of Europe are today but that global sea levels would have been over 100m higher than at present.
The research, led from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Germany, is published in the journal Nature.
It’s emerged from an expedition in 2017 to recover marine sediments in Pine Island Bay.
AWI and its partners, including the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), used a novel cassette drill-mechanism called MeBo to extract core material some 30m under the seafloor.
When the team examined the sediments in the lab, it found traces of ancient soils and pollen and even tree roots.
The interpretation is that this sector of West Antarctica, in the geological period known as the Cretaceous, featured temperate rainforest and swamp conditions – the kind of vegetation you will find on New Zealand’s South Island today.
“We have a really nice X-ray movie through the sediment core,” said AWI’s Prof Karsten Gohl, who spearheaded the expedition on Germany’s Research Vessel Polarstern.
“It’s like we’ve drilled into a modern swamp environment and you’re seeing the living root system, small plant particles and pollen – but this is all preserved from 90 million years ago. It’s amazing.”
Continue reading “Roots: Antarctica Edition”
Corona and Clean Energy: The Common Thread
Scott Cooney in CleanTechnica:
Conservative politicians across the country are still not taking Coronavirus seriously, as CleanTechnica analyst Mike Barnard pointed out. Potentially, because their leader still seems confused about it. Down-rank Republicans are following in the POTUS’ line of thinking. In Mississippi, for instance, the Republican governor has actively resisted a statewide shelter-in-place order, saying that he wanted to make decisions “based on experts.” Perhaps he considers right wing media personalities Alex Jones or Geraldo Rivera experts (if you haven’t seen Alex Jones’ toothpaste that kills coronavirus, or Geraldo’s DIY coronavirus test on Fox News, it’s worth a watch).
He’s not alone. Republican governors across the country are gambling with our lives.
I plotted the states that have issued Shelter-in-place orders as of March 31st…
Renewables a Safe Haven in Sick Economy
Oil and gas are crashing, could soon be below zero. Smart money is looking for a safe harbor in the Corona virus storm.
That would be renewable energy.
Wind and solar farms are attracting interest from investors hungry for low-risk, stable-yield opportunities at a time of extraordinary market volatility.
That interest is a boon for renewable projects, and could give them a financial boost in coming months and years. However, developers could face challenges in getting additional new projects financed and built amid the turmoil created by the new coronavirus.
It might seem an odd time for a renewable-energy uptick, given the economic slowdown and a historic crash in oil prices that is making fossil fuels cheap. But wind and solar farms experienced a similar surge after the 2008 financial crisis, when investors seized on the projects as safe-harbor investments with yields in the mid-single-digit percentages.
Wind and solar farms have contracts to sell their electrical output to utilities and companies with good credit ratings for a decade or longer, making their returns stable and relatively low risk.
Continue reading “Renewables a Safe Haven in Sick Economy”“There is certainly some increased interest and discussion around uncorrelated yields, and renewables falls into that category,” said David Giordano, global head of renewable power atBlackRock Inc. BLK -3.38%“As I’m trying to stock my cupboard with canned goods, we have an awful lot of calls happening.”
The increased interest is fortuitous for renewable-energy builders such as Kevin Smith, chief executive of the Americas at Lightsource BP, a solar developer half-owned by British oil giant BP PLC. On March 12, he signed a deal with banks to finance a $250 million solar project in North Texas, even as the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day down 2,352 points.
“It was a strange day,” Mr. Smith said. He said he expects to close a further $750 million in solar financing this year, including a large solar farm in Colorado. “I’d like to think that there will be more investors from infrastructure funds looking at renewable markets as a safe haven from the volatility,” he added.