Renewable Energy: The Wrong Side Of History -- Off The Net -- Going Biking -- October 6, 2022

Wow, wow, wow. After posting this earlier this morning, this just popped up in social media, link here:

From earlier this morning, linked above:

Renewable energy:

• for investors, not a lot of good news for those choosing wind / solar over oil / natural gas
• how many stories have you read lately about countries rushing to sign renewable energy deals with GE, Siemens?
• this is what those on the wrong side of history are seeing: link here to the best contributor over at oilprice.com.

General Electric is laying off staff at its onshore wind power unit as part of a restructuring that came in response to the underperformance of the business. 

The company will reportedly cut its U.S. onshore wind workforce by 20 percent. 

GE’s onshore wind power business has been troubled by rising raw materials costs, weakening demand, and supply chain snags. The weaker demand came in response to the expiry of renewable power tax credits that made wind and solar cheaper than most alternatives.

From The LA Times today: $8-gasoline? Here, hold my gas container.

A move by OPEC+ could make California gas prices (even) worse. 

As gas prices hit record highs in Los Angeles County, a pledge by OPEC+ to reduce its oil production by 2 million barrels a day brought concerns about more economic pain to come. 

California is seeing surging pump prices in the wake of shutdowns at several oil refineries that produce a specific formula of gasoline for the state. This most recent spike is mostly confined to California and the West Coast. 

There was debate among experts about the effect of the OPEC+ move, which was designed to boost sagging oil prices. It remains unclear how the reduction will affect pump prices. Experts say it poses another threat to the shaky global economy; others say the spike could be brief in California as refineries come back online.

The lede did not mention California's taxes and fees of $1.51 per gallon of gasoline. 

Instead of rushing out to negotiate more wind power, more solar panels to meet pending EV demand, the California governor wants oil companies to open the taps for more gasoline. That speaks volumes, doesn't it? 

Link here:

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The Book Page

Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus, David Quammen, 2022, p. 4.

The first alert:

• posted on social media by Yize (Henry ) Li, a China-born virologist and immunologist;
• he is now an assistant professor at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
• doctorate at: Institut Pasteur, Shanghai, under mentorship of a French professor
• came to US in 2013; postdoctoral fellowship with Susan R. Weiss, veeteran viroologist at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine;
• Weiss: an authority on coronavirus; long history of research
• SARS (2003); MERS (2012); 
• Henry Li was in Philadelphia in late December, 2019
  
• noticed an item on a Chinese news website, DiYiCaiJing, Shanghai
• item: 
• advisory, and probably meant to be confidential
• sent to the staff at a Wuhan hospital (was probably sent to more than one hospital)
• supposedly origiinated from the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission
• warned of an outbreak of an "unknown pathogen" causing pneumonia in several hospitals in Wuhan
• and, that information was placed on social media in late 2019
  

A lot packed into those few lines.

To conclude this section:

• That initial item (above).
• then virologists immediately started posting the genome -- consistent with a coronavirus.
• Weiss: on sabbatical in La Jolla, CA
• now speaking with Li in weekly Zoom meetings
• Henry Li told her a "new" coronavirus was circulating in China
• on January 2, 2020, Weiss returned to Philadelphia
• her crew immediately began ordering more N95 masks, along with more PPE
• later, they would order powered air purifying respirators (PAPRs) -- think space helmets without the suits
• Weiss knew she needed to "work" on this "new" coronavrus.