Intermittent Data Center Energy

The nabobs behind AI and the immense data centers  required to implement the program are trying to figure out a way to produce the electrical power to operate them. Since intermittent energy is now all the rage the search is on for sources of power that don't flood the skies with CO2.

The power that circulates through the chips that are being subsidized for the purposes of AI not only generates phony papers for college grad courses, its energy is converted to heat. This is why your aging desk top computer needs two or more functioning cooling fans to allow you to order things from Amazon. All the energy that goes into a data center will eventually become heat and need to be removed but no mention is made on if it will be recovered and recirculated.

Exowatt, one of the latest attempts at non-hydrocarbon power production, is the hope of famous Sam Altman and others. They realize that relying on existing utilities to supply the energy needed for banal AI products may have serious scheduling issues. It might be better if the data center generated its own power. Since these knowledge factories would use as much electricity as a medium-size city it seems to only make sense that they be in the power production business.

An even more basic question concerns the actual utility of the data centers and AI itself. For whom and what need does AI actually fulfill? How will it's production be monetized? What will be the fact checking process of AI production? If more than one AI system is in operation how will disputes between their statements be resolved? In a democratic society the citizens should have something to say about the entire AI concept and if it should even have a place in day-to-day life. Should any particular technology be adopted simply because it exists? 

East Is East and West Is West

And never the twain shall meet. That was Rudyard Kipling's comment on the differences between the culture of the West and that of the Orient. 

 reuters 

Public institutions have spent over $1 billion assuaging the emotions of hundreds of female athletes who were subjected to phony medical exams and treatments by the above Larry Nassar, then a physician at Michigan State University, now a federal prison inmate.

No employee of these institutions that heard the accusations against the perv but did nothing about them has been disciplined in any way. This includes the FBI, Michigan State Univ., USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. In the West money heals all wounds.

 gettyimages 

Park Geun-Hye, president of South Korea from 2013 to 2017 was originally sentenced to 30 years in jail and fined $16.8 million for guilt in 16 corruption charges, but has recently been pardoned by current president Moon Jae-in, to the consternation of the general populace.

There's a Chinese government agency called the    Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the investigative agency that monitors the behavior and lifestyles of party leaders. Transgressions involve more than money.  In the Orient even the big wheels suffer for crime or ineptitude.

An Asian counterpart of US FBI traitor Charles McGonigal would never be heard of again. McGonigal pleaded guilt to two unrelated charges and will spend 6 1/2 years in protective custody at some minimum security facility with cable tv.

 

Media and Climate Change

The Post and Courier, of Charleston, S.C, a dead-tree publication with an on-line presence, has reprinted an analysis of the coming Green Revolution by Ken Silverstein in Inside Sources.com. In almost every way it is a perfect example of the thinking, or lack thereof, in touting the adoption of intermittent energy.

Some quotes:

" The United States’ spirit is youthful — full of innovation and entrepreneurship...."

The US is led by a geriatric cadre of sexagenerian and older elected officials and business leaders. The administrator of NASA and a staunch advocate of intermittent energy is Democrat Bill Nelson of Florida, 81 years of age.

___________________

"... coal mines may be closing in West Virginia, but battery storage facilities are opening there. This is progress, requiring workers to enhance their job skills and the government to invest in 21st-century infrastructure."

 

mineralcorp.net

As if modern coal miners don't have the job skills needed to safely extract the hydrocarbon energy that has powered America and continues to do so.  Do you  suppose Mr. Silverstein has ever worked in a coal mine or could even succeed in passing through the hiring process? This is part and parcel of the coastal elites' disdain for the "unskilled" worker who has been driving the US economy for many decades.

___________________

 "Enter the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed in 2022. The private sector has announced at least 210 significant new green energy and clean vehicle projects nationwide. If they come to fruition, they will create 74,181 jobs and attract $86.3 billion, according to findings by Environmental Entrepreneurs, a nonpartisan business group advocating for policies that are good for the economy and the environment."

The private sector wouldn't be involved except for the subsidies offered by Biden's inflation creation legislation. Of course the jobs created is figured down to a single digit and a million dollars. These lucrative jobs entail wages that are poison to American business, which does everything in its power to eliminate the expense of labor and direct those funds to management and stock holders.

__________________

"  Climate change is less a partisan issue than it is a generational divide. While some older Americans yearn to return to yesteryear, younger ones are moving forward. They want long-lasting, sustainable jobs that improve their quality of life."

A return to yesteryear isn't what anyone yearns for, instead responsible people of any age are reluctant to discard proven effective technology in favor of unproven intermittent power. The educated elites that seem to favor the new renewables have no intention of laboring in the muddy fields under solar arrays or repairing offshore turbines.

Both the older and younger generations attended college so they could get employment that didn't require physical labor and unpleasant conditions. Sitting in front of a computer monitor is considered by them to be "skilled" work while operating and repairing sophisticated mining equipment is unskilled. Really?

Silverstein's laundry list of the environmental catastrophes caused by an imperceptible increase in temperatures somewhere is media fiction. He completely omits the fact that seamlessly integrating hydrocarbon power and renewables, a requirement needed to maintain reliability, will cost trillions of dollars that have yet to be printed.  

A Lady That Might Change The Direction of Germany

In the last few years Germany has had some of the biggest problems in the "developed" world. The Russian-Ukraine argument, a fixation with climate change, immigrant invasions, increasing energy problems, deteriorating industry and Covid epidemics have plagued the Krauts, like they have everyone else. Unfortunately, their responses to these issues haven't improved the situation. The citizenry has a low opinion of their elected officials who have been abject failures.

The US media empire can't sell advertising if they produce stories about non-English speaking minor league officials. So they don't. This means that they miss some interesting and important developments. One is the opportunity for influence of 54 year old Sarha Wagenknecht.

 

theuropeanconservative

At one point Wagenknecht was an important figure in the German Communist Party. Eventually she moved to the leftist Die Linke party. But the policies of the Die Linke didn't seem to be a path to German success. She decided to form her own political party, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance-Reason and Fairness or BSW. Her views strangely coincide with many of those of rightist parties like the AdF.

Her appeal is Reason and Fairness. Higher wages and better working conditions for the middle class. The on-line European Conservative says this about her:

"Once, Sahra Wagenknecht was the darling of the Left party. In her early years as a politician, she joined the communist platform and rose to become party vice-president for die Linke (the Left Party), in 2010, and parliamentary leader in 2019. Her economic policy is quite critical of capitalism, but her foreign policy, stand against COVID mandates, and rejection of Chancellor Scholtz’s support of economic sanctions put her in traditional conservative territory. She had already begun to show her colours six years ago when she called for the dissolution of Germany’s alliance with NATO and for more secure ties to Russia. She took a clear stance toward peace negotiations after the Russia-Ukraine war broke out, accusing the U.S. and NATO members of inciting Russian aggression. She referred to the German sanctions that followed Russia’s invasion as a “stupid policy,” and her criticism has especially escalated since September. In an interview conducted by media site MDR Investigative on October 22nd, Wagenknecht insisted that Germany drop sanctions, and several episodes on her website feature ways German sanctions have hurt the German people.

Wagenknecht is an avowed atheist. She has no stake in human rights for any transcendental reason. Even so, the book she published in 2021, The Self-Righteous (Die Selbstgerechten), exposed the “left liberals” as derailed and offensive to working-class values and human dignity. To Wagenknecht, the “left liberals advocate a multi-cultural, multi-gender, globalist form of identity politics. Their electoral and activist base lies in those with university degrees in relatively well-paid and secure jobs, who have benefited from immigration and free trade.” Wagenknecht sees clearly the Left for what it is: dead...."

Her view seems to be that there are more than one kind of leftists. The idea that there might be space in the public sphere between bandit corporate capitalists and genuine communists is a pleasant thought. Her views also align with some unexpected European leaders. All in all, she's now a pragmatist rather than an ideologue. Her website https://www.sahra-wagenknecht.de/

 Of course in an electorate divided into opposing and unaligned minorities it's difficult to tell what effect she might have on the German future. It will be interesting to see what happens in the upcoming elections.  

 

 

 

$6.3 Billion To Samsung For Texas Chip Plant

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is signing a $6.3 billion check to South Korean chaebol Samsung to finance their computer chip fabs in Texas. It's not a loan. It's a grant.

   koreatimes.co.kr 

According to Big News Network: " "To meet the expected surge in demand from U.S. customers for future products like AI chips, our fabs will be equipped for cutting-edge process technologies and help bring security to the U.S. semiconductor supply chain," said Samsung Electronics Co-CEO Kyung Kye Hyun.

OK, Samsung has demand from US customers for consumer products such as smart phones. The number of US customers for 4 nano and 2 nano chips intended for use in AI applications is very much less. It would probably be unreasonable to expect those customers and Samsung itself to finance the development of fabs for a new product line. The real question is: "How do we know, in this supposed democracy, that such a thing as commercial artificial intelligence is desirable"?

Is it the business of a small number of elected officials and unelected bureaucrats to decide that the wealth of the population should be showered on the development and production of products that practically no one can describe or define the use of?

An advantage of paying the South Korean company and others to make their products in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio, etc. is to create supply lines that can't be interrupted by the Chinese. The Chinese, aren't they the same people that Janet Yellen is castigating for using unfair subsidies to produce the exports that are destroying other economies? OK, no chips from the new plants being financed by the US taxpayer will ever be used in products that will be exported, right?       

A Deadly African Heat Wave

 The always-reliable BBC once again stokes the fires of global warming with an article about the terminal effects of temperatures in West Africa. The key phrase in their essay is the generic "scientists say". Who might these scientists actually be and what are their credentials? What are their names and how did they arrive at their version of facts? 

climatechangenews.com

And how hot is hot, exactly? An increase in average temperature of how much for a given location over what period of time is indicative of climate change, which can only be determined over many years? When the thermometer hits 100F in Burkina Faso is it just a hot summer day or climate apocalypse?

The on-line Daily Skeptic contends that the entire climate anxiety phenomenon is the product of the efforts of three beyond-wealthy individuals and that those efforts are based upon RCP 8.5, a prediction scenario of the most devastating changes in global climate but that is now felt to be unlikely.   

The most common first agenda in a conversation between neighbors or strangers is the current weather condition. This is because both have an indisputable knowledge of it, being in its midst. The gist of that conversation is how hot, cold, windy or wet it might be. The fact that it's a pleasant day might come up but who cares? It's supposed to be nice. One of the comment makers might advance the opinion that "it's a hot one" and although the other doesn't feel so affected agrees, rather than starting an argument. That's what meaningless casual conversation is all about. Being agreeable.

The Heat In India

The National Disaster Management Authority of the government of India has produced a plan to mitigate the effects of the increasing level of heat in the country. Temperatures are expected to reach the heat survivability limit, whatever that is, by the year 2050.

time.com 

Urban planning will be the focus of the effort, although it would seem much of urban India has already been planned and has been in operation for some time. 

European Renewable Subsidies Inadequate

Chinese over-production of solar panels in the international push for renewable energy has had its most damaging effect on European manufacturers, according to this Reuters article. Far down the list on government subsidies, they are closing plants in Europe and working on moving them to the US, where taxpayer money levels the playing field between the Chinese and the Yankees for now. There's a lamentation over the loss of jobs, jobs being an inevitable selling point in the energy transition story, but nowhere else. All businesses concentrate on employing the smallest number of people they can.

This curious circumstance, where fighting an existential threat is subordinated to financial considerations, creates another perspective on the renewable energy business. 

 

 

 greencitysolar.net

The reality is that the fossil fuel, or actually hydrocarbon, energy business is a developed one. Oil, coal and gas producers, refiners and distributors have been around for long enough to be able to work out the kinks in an industry that is at the center of the world economy. Through its history many of them have also failed and left the scene but the survivors are now entrenched and there will be few or none new competitors. It's unlikely that an entirely new competitor to Exxon will appear in the hydrocarbon marketplace.

"Renewable" energy, on the other hand, is open to different approaches to solving the problem of CO2 release into the atmosphere and arresting climate change, which has been occurring for the many millions of years of the earth's existence. While solar panels and wind turbines are capable of supplying energy on an intermittent basis and batteries may be developed to store some of that energy, it doesn't seem possible that their exclusive use is possible for a society that depends on reliable electricity. 

The biggest problem is an economic one. Integrating solar and wind energy into the existing power grids of the developed countries will be far more expensive than just solar panels and wind turbines. Although it's no longer a big number, the cost will be in the trillions of dollars, dollars provided by taxpayers and consumers, since that is the only source.

This amount of money isn't going to be used as fuel for boilers. It is going to be the income for corporations and their investors jumping into the unfamiliar territory of changing the world's energy structure. Just as with the development of the automobile over the last 120 years, many of these inexperienced newcomers will fail and disappear. Hudsons, Edsels, Studebakers and Packards, and hundreds of other marques, no longer roam the highways. However, these products were made and marketed by private, unsubsidized  companies. Their failure was felt by the owners and employees but not in any major way by the public at large.

The unholy alliance between academic research, government and crony capitalism is the impetus for government's intrusion into the energy field and the subsidies that fuel an expensive remedy for a problem that may not exist, the solving of which may well be more of an existential threat than that supposed problem.    

Cuban Dissident Armando Valladares in the Wall Street Journal

 

It can't hurt to repeat an important statement that means more than ever today. Here it is:

 

From remarks by Cuban poet and human-rights activist Armando Valladares upon receiving the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty’s Canterbury Medal in New York, May 12:
When I was 23 years old I did a very small thing. I refused to say a few words, “I’m with Fidel.” First I refused the sign on my desk that said as much, and after years of torture and watching so many fellow fighters die, either in body or in spirit, I persisted in my refusal to say the few words the regime demanded of me.
My story is proof that a seemingly small act of defiance can mean everything to the enemies of freedom. They did not keep me in jail for 22 years because my refusal to say three words meant nothing. They kept me there that long because it meant everything.
For me to say those words would have been spiritual suicide. And though my body was in prison and abused, my soul was free and flourished. My jailers took everything from me, but they could not hijack my conscience.
Even when we have nothing, each person and only that person possesses the keys to his or her own conscience, his or her own sacred castle. In that respect, each of us, though we may not have an earthly castle or even a house, each of us is richer than a king or queen.
For many of you, particularly the young people, it may seem I come from another time and from a remote place. Young friends, you may not be taken away at gunpoint, as I was for staying true to my conscience, but there are many other ways to take you away and to imprison your body and your mind. There are many ways you can be silenced.
I warn you: Just as there is a short distance between the U.S. and Cuba, there is a very short distance between a democracy and a dictatorship where the government gets to decide what we believe and what we do. And sometimes this is not done at gunpoint but instead it is done one piece of paper at a time, one seemingly meaningless rule at a time, one silencing at a time. Beware young friends. Never compromise. Never allow the government—or anyone else—to tell you what you can or cannot believe or what you can and cannot say or what your conscience tells you to have to do.

No Chinese Windmills

 Margrethe Vestager, the Executive Vice President of the European Commission for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age, gave a speech at Princeton University in New Jersey on April 8 concerning the opening of an investigation into Chinese subsidies to the production of equipment for European "wind parks". Describing thousands of acres devoted only to gigantic twirling windmills as a "park" is more Orwell speak but that's PR. 

 

 politico.com

The substance of the Danish bureaucrat's talk was that the Chinese over-production of subsidized turbine equipment would lead to their domination of that  market, just as they became the world's major producer of solar panels and EVs. At the same time as her presentation US Treasury matron Janet Yellen was on her way back from a week-long visit to the Celestial Empire involving conversations on that subject with upper level Chinese economic figures.

Any kind of an analysis of this situation leads to the same conclusion. Saving the world from existential climate change is secondary to making money. Since global north nations are commanding the elimination of CO2 from the energy complex, solar panels and wind turbines are an immediate requirement needed to replace deadly hydrocarbon generators. If those components are purchased at low prices from Chinese suppliers the profit potential for the transition is dramatically reduced, even though the electricity produced by foreign equipment is identical to Danish power. Ironically, most, if not all, wind farms and solar arrays are heavily subsidized.

The European Union should be happy that they will be  able to quickly and cheaply arrest climate armageddon with the help of the Chinese. But that's not the case. In the beginning, some observers felt that climate change anxiety was being spurred by Marxist or radical elements. That may have been true to some extent, especially in academia. But the farther along the fight to save the planet progresses, it turns out that government policies and corporate aims are closely aligned. Academics, media figures, un-elected bureaucrats, financial titans and eco-oriented businesses all have a big stake in CO2 elimination.

The Chinese response, from Asia Times: “The EU’s approach obviously violated the free trade principle and seriously interfered with the normal cooperation between Chinese and European industries,” He Yadong, a spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Commerce, said Thursday. “It is a typical form of protectionism. The EU should not hold high the banner of fighting climate change with one hand while wielding the stick of protectionism with another hand,” He added.

There's also no time to fool around in addressing the as yet undetectable problem. Global events and domestic politics have a way of intruding on even the best plans and who can guarantee that existential anthropogenic global warming will stay high on the list of human concerns into the future. The time for financial rewards is now.    

 

 

Where The Tax Dollar Goes

 

Biden Student Loan Vote Purchase

In an obvious attempt to buy votes with other people's money, the Biden administration is "forgiving" $7.4 billion in student loan debt for 277,000 borrowers. While there are more details to the process, the details not being mentioned are how these loans are cancelled. It seems likely that the parties who are owed the money will receive it or we would hear real screaming. In fact, they may well have been the impetus for this in the first place. Skyrocketing inflation is destroying the value of the repayments. The educational institutions aren't going to be out anything, they can keep raising tuition and fees for the foreseeable future. The payoff is being made by the taxpayers.

The Democrats never fail to mention the threat to democracy that their opponents represent. Biden's defiance of the decision of the Supreme Court is a genuine disregard for the separation of powers and the constitution. 

Each vote purchased by Biden will cost those taxpayers $26,715.  

Science Changes Nutrition

Ten years ago the USDA issued the recommended foods and their proportions for recipients of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.  Since that time there's been new information on what moms and kids should eat.

"These participant-centered changes will strengthen WIC by ensuring the foods participants receive reflect the latest nutrition science to support healthy eating and the brightest futures," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement.

The changes involve more vegetables, fruits and seafood and fewer dairy products. The science that has changed in determining the most healthful diet for the women and their children is the result of a congressional requirement. Every ten years a study of the subject must be made. It is done by the National Academy of Medicine, established in 1970 as a part of the National Academy of Sciences.  

It's difficult to imagine what kind of scientific discoveries could change the value of milk, oranges, brussel sprouts or cheddar cheese in anyone's diet. Perhaps there might be data indicating the quantity and make-up of any particular food optimal for a four-year old. In any event, even a bureaucracy of the well-intentioned can't say, after ten years, that nothing in the nutrition world has changed. They must earn their keep by making recommendations and one that says everything is just fine won't cut the mustard. So some food juggling must take place. 

Additionally, the approved foods are not the same in all states, the difference ordinarily being the brands being sold there. New brands have shown up and older ones have disappeared. Thankfully, the $6.2 billion program that helps provide nutrition to 53% of the children born in the US will continue to keep grinding away.  

The Inflation Reduction Act and Renewable Energy

 

This BBC website is exploring the effects that the US IRA legislation is having on the development of the technology in the renewable energy sector. Corporations are in a mad dash to acquire federal funds and tax credits by joining the fight against CO2.

 "[The IRA and BIL] are massive investments… larger than the infrastructure related provisions in the New Deal," says Adie Tromer from the Brookings. "There is a clear sense that America has become more serious about transitioning to a cleaner economy."

A ridiculous statement. "America" isn't an entity that has the capability of becoming serious. People may individually become serious about something but it's not reflected by government activity. If the government approached each citizen with a request for their share of the funds for clean energy the response would probably be very disappointing.

 Ascend Elements, has received almost a billion dollars from federal and private sources to construct and equip a massive lithium battery recycling plant in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

 

This process requires existing lithium batteries as its raw material. That would make it comparable to grinding up junkyard automobiles to manufacture new models. That's done to a certain extent now but probably couldn't be the source of all the materials needed for current or future production.

The crux of this situation is lithium itself, which, according to what we hear and read, is a substance controlled by the CCP and thus a situation that can't be allowed to continue.

It's become obvious that the existential climate change problem has been transformed from a CO2 elimination issue to a likely business windfall to an economic competition with the godless Commies. Since the Chinese are still opening coal generating stations on a daily basis while peddling the majority of renewable energy equipment to the West, a truly unpleasant international situation is developing that may not be peacefully resolved.