Audi Introduces The EV To Compete With The Tesla Model S -- February 11, 2021

Link to Charles Kennedy.

• Audi e-tron GT
• starting price: $100,000
• in the US, the e-tron GT quattro Premium Plus: $99,900
• e-tron GT quattro Prestige: $107,000
• RS e-tron Gt: $139,000
• mileage: are you kidding? Does it matter? Do folks that can afford $139K auto really care about mileage; LOL; it's all about performance; bragging rights
• but for the record:
• full charge: 238 miles for the e-tron GT
• 232 miles for the RS e-tron GT
• Audi's goal: full net CO2 neutrality across the lifecycle of its vehicles by 2050
• GM: carbon-neutral business by 2040

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California Utilities Approved To Buy More Power

From SeekingAlpha:

• The California Public Utilities Commission votes to authorize Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and Sempra Energy's San Diego Gas & Electric to purchase extra power in the next three months and to pass on the costs to customers in order to avoid a repeat of last summer's rolling blackouts.
• Last August, more than 800K people were left without power during a heat wave after the California Independent System Operator ordered the state's first widespread rolling blackouts in nearly 20 years.
• The CPUC also votes to require utilities to provide 72 hours of backup power to landline phone and internet service during power outages.
• One in every five 911 calls is made using a landline telephone, and landlines are often concentrated in hard-to-reach rural areas.
• Utilities also must ensure that hospitals, fire and police departments and facilities that provide service to wireless networks in wildfire-prone areas have access to backup power by October.
• California's largest utilities said last week that they planned to spend ~ $13 billion to reduce the risk of wildfires.  

First question: from where will the utilities find this "extra power" to purchase? 

Second question: how expensive will this "extra power" be? Coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, solar?

Here's the answer, from the article, but one might have to connect a few dots:

Others who spoke during public comment session said they worried the rush to get more power capacity by the summer could lead the state to pay utilities to buy more fossil fuel energy when California is trying to move toward more clean energy sources.

"We really don’t envision long-term gas contracts resulting from this authorization, except perhaps in very narrow, unexpected circumstances," said Commissioner Clifford Rechtschaffen, addressing those concerns.

This whole story is so incredibly interesting on so many levels. 

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The Art Page

This is for the archives, for the grandchildren.

Sophia is in first grade. In addition to her RRR's, she has specials in physical education, art, and music. 

In art, Sophia has learned about four artists so far, and has submitted art assignments based on art by those artists. 

The four artists:

• Piet Mondrian
• Wayne Thiebaud
• Heather Galler
• Ted Harrison

Today, I sent a note and a photograph of Sophia's initial sketch for her current assignment to her grandmother: colorful landscapes by Ted Harrison. 

My wife, of Japanese-Mexican heritage, a very good artist herself, replied:

Ted Harrison's art is reminiscent of Notan, a Japanese concept that breaks a drawing into dominant shapes with only three colors of white, gray and black to denote the dark, light, and mid-values of a painting. 

I do these as a preliminary after a thumbnail sketch so I can be sure I have my values taken into consideration, as in the photo [below] of a cloudy sky that I painted awhile back. Harrison's is a beautiful style of a Notan on steroids of color. 

From Mitchell Albala, contemporary landscape painter, instructor, and author: "The wisdom of Notan -- a brief introduction."

Here's another Notan example, and Ted-Harrison-like painting:

Most interesting, currently there is a television commercial that uses Ted Harrison's technique.