How does the United States generate electricity currently?
Over the course of 2020, the U.S. generated 4,009 TWh of electricity, with the majority coming from fossil fuels. Natural gas (40.3%) was the biggest source of electricity for the country, accounting for more than nuclear (19.7%) and coal (17.3%) combined.
Including nuclear energy, non-fossil fuels made up 41.9% of U.S. electricity generation in 2020. The biggest sources of renewable electricity in the U.S. were wind (8.4%) and hydro (7.3%).
But on a state-by-state breakdown, we can see just how different the electricity mix is across the country (rounded to the nearest percentage). //
But for the U.S. to reach its ambitious carbon-free goal by 2035, the biggest impact will need to come from the biggest electricity producers.
That title currently goes to Texas, which generated 12% of total U.S. electricity in 2020. Despite being the most populous state, California generated less than half Texas’ output, and less than both Florida and Pennsylvania.
In 2020, the U.S. produced 4,009 terawatt-hours of power (also written as 4,009 billion kWh, since one billion kWh is one TWh).
■ About 60 percent of that total came from fossil fuels like natural gas (40.3 percent), coal (19.3 percent), and petroleum (0.4 percent), all of which have CO2 emissions as an undesirable side effect.
■ Nuclear energy accounted for just under 20 percent. It is debated whether nuclear power falls under the category of “sustainable,” but at least it doesn’t emit any greenhouse gases.
■ So-called renewables make up the remaining 20 percent, the main ones being wind (8.4 percent), hydro (7.3 percent) and solar (2.3 percent). Smaller renewable energy sources are biomass (1.4 percent) and geothermal (0.4 percent).
Kodak Kodachrome holds a special place in the history of photography. We look back 11 years after the film's demise //
It is eleven years to the day since Kodak announced that it was to stop producing the last of its iconic Kodachrome transparency films. It was on 22 June 2009 that the Eastman Kodak Company broke the news from its headquarters in Rochester, New York, that the much-loved slide film would stop production after a run of 74 years.
But a decade on, Kodachrome still holds a legendary status in the history of photography. To mark the 11th anniversary of Kodachrome's demise here are 11 things about the yellow-boxed film that you may or may not know… //
Kodachrome was launched in 1935 - initially just as a 16mm movie film format. The first stills version of the film was released the following year. Kodachrome movie film ceased manufacture in 2006. //
The secret to Kodachrome's success is that it used a different process to other color film. The film did not contain the color dyes, unlike its rivals. Instead Kodachrome had three different monochrome layers - to which the three primary colors were added with dye coupleer during a complex chemical development.
The exact chemical process had several iterations, but the K-14 process was used from 1974 through the film's ulitmate demise. The K-14 process had 17 distinct stages. //
“The film market peaked in 2003 with 960 million rolls of film, today it represents roughly 2% of that,” said Manny Almeida, president of Fujifilm’s imaging division in North America in a Time interview in 2017.
Even so, last year Fujifilm announced they were bringing back black and white film just 12 months after killing it off - so the comeback is still alive.
Could Kodachrome also rise from the ashes? The complex chemistry needed for its development undoubtedly mean that this is one film that we won't see being re-introduced. But we may still dream of a miracle revival…
Be aware if you've got bats in your home. That's the message from the Illinois Department of Health as it announced that an 80-year-old man died of rabies after waking up to find a bat on his neck. It is the first human case of rabies in the state since 1954.
The man refused rabies treatment at the time of the incident in mid-August, health officials said in a press release. A month later, he started experiencing rabies symptoms such as neck pain, headache, difficulty controlling his arms, finger numbness and difficulty speaking. //
"Rabies infections in people are rare in the United States; however, once symptoms begin, rabies is almost always fatal, making it vital that an exposed person receive appropriate treatment to prevent the onset of rabies as soon as possible," Pfister said.
The right to request a religious exemption stems from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which protects workers from discrimination on the basis of religion, among other things. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says employers must provide reasonable accommodations for workers who have sincerely held religious beliefs — unless doing so poses an undue hardship. //
First, employers may probe whether an employee's religious belief is in fact sincere. They may ask questions about that employee's vaccination history or church attendance. If the employer determines the belief is not sincere, it may deny the exemption request.
But even if an employee's religious belief is determined to be sincere, it's the employer who decides what the reasonable accommodation will be. It does not have to be the accommodation requested by the employee. //
In religious exemption cases, undue hardship is defined as "more than a de minimis," or minimal, cost or burden on the operation of the employer's business. Hernández points out that an accommodation that involves shift changes could constitute more than a minimal burden to an employer, allowing the employer to deny such an accommodation.
Dem Senator's Assessment of Biden Admin's Senate Testimony Is Searing: 'No One in Charge' – RedState
We covered how Gen. McKenzie’s testimony nailed Joe Biden for a lie. McKenzie testified under oath that he had previously recommended to Biden that we keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan prior to his decision not to do so. McKenzie also said he predicted that withdrawing them would cause the Afghan Army to collapse and the Taliban to take over. Biden said he hadn’t been told either thing by any of his advisors.
Gen. Milley revealed the astounding news that after Kabul fell on August 15, Biden didn’t even talk with Milley and Austin about the question of possibly extending the August 31 deadline until August 25. So what did he do for 10 days besides being on vacation?
Milley also blew up Biden’s claim that he had to stick to the Trump deal. He said that Biden wasn’t obligated to carry through on any deal with the Taliban and do a hasty withdrawal because the Trump deal was a conditioned deal and the Taliban didn’t hold to the conditions. Trump wasn’t doing just a naked withdrawal like Biden, he was holding the Taliban to certain requirements. But Biden went through with it anyway despite the fact that the Taliban didn’t hold to the deal. That’s all on Biden, so he can’t blame Trump for that choice. Finally, Milley blew up the Biden claim that somehow we had achieved the purpose of not being threatened from Afghanistan again. Milley made it very clear that we were likely to be hearing from ISIS and/or al Qaeda within 12-36 months because of the way the situation was left in Afghanistan. //
But maybe no Democrat lit up the Biden team for their failures more than Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). //
He seems to have been personally touched and outraged by how Americans and our Afghan allies were stranded by Biden. He was involved in trying to help get stranded citizens out of Afghanistan and faced all kinds of roadblocks from the Biden team in the effort. He also focused on what should be for everyone the most important thing at this point — helping extract the people still stranded.
Blumenthal’s assessment today of the Biden administration was searing. There was “no one in charge” he said.
The Post Millennial
@TPostMillennial
Sen. Blumenthal on Americans stranded in Afghanistan: "We don't have an estimate on the number, because nobody is in charge right now."
11:39 AM · Sep 28, 2021
The findings, the study's authors said, were largely consistent across the categories of age, sex, obesity and cardiovascular risk.
An increase of 17 minutes of moderate-vigorous physical activity per day or 2,312 steps per day or reductions of 249 minutes of sedentary time per day between two testing cycles corresponded with a 5% higher peak oxygen uptake, and individuals with high above-average steps or moderate-vigorous physical activity demonstrated above-average peak oxygen uptake values regardless of their sedentary time per day.
Moderate-vigorous physical activity is defined as a rate of 100 to 129 steps per minute; greater than 130 steps per minute is considered vigorous. A cadence of 60 to 99 steps per minute is considered low-level exertion.
"Auroral Chorus IV" is my largest online natural VLF radio-phenomena compendium album on Internet Archive (begun in 2010 and ongoing uploads to 2017).
More than half of the MP3 audio files on this page are field-recordings of Earth's "Natural VLF Radio" signals and are quite beautiful. //
search: 259 gorvgeious_whistlers_Fish_Rock_Rd_nCA_02Apr94_pt1 -- VLF including Omega audio
In 1971, the United States Navy launched the Omega navigational system for submarines and surface ships. The system used radio frequencies and phase difference calculations to determine global position. A network of eight (VLF) transmitter sites spread around the globe made up the system, which required the cooperation of six other nations.
Omega’s fix accuracy was somewhere between one and two nautical miles. Her eight transmitter stations were positioned around the Earth such that any single point on the planet could receive a usable signal from at least five stations. All of the transmitters were synchronized to a Cesium clock and emitted signals on a time-shared schedule.
LOP-thumbA ship’s receiving equipment performed navigation by comparing the phase difference between detected signals. This calculation was based around “lanes” that served to divvy up the distance between stations into equal divisions. A grid of these lanes formed by eight stations’ worth of overlapping signals provides intersecting lines of position (LOP) that give the sailor his fix.
In order for the lane numbers to have meaning, the sailor has to dial in his starting lane number in port based on the maps. He would then select the pair of stations nearest him, which were designated with the letters A to H. He would consult the skywave correction tables and make small adjustments for atmospheric conditions and other variances. Finally, he would set his lane number manually and set sail.
You timed your question well - in exactly a week we will have the 20th anniversary of the Omega system permanent shutdown.
Kritchlow said: ↑
What exactly is "Omega"? ...Is the signal transmitted from the ground?
Not is but was. We are taking past tense here. Yes, a number of countries participated to have this almost global aviation/oceanic global navigation system through system of ground antennas/transmitters. The best positional accuracy you could achieve was about 3-4 miles. VLF don't 'bounce', they hug the terrain, can go around mountain ranges, all that by the principle of diffraction. My atomic watch today is also getting 'synced' up using (similar) LF signal (antenna in Fort Collins, Co). Omega receiver was a small suitcase -like box and I bet you needed a trained operator. I think (I could be wrong) Omega was ultimately much more popular on water than in the air.
The “PPE First” Fallacy
This is the belief that some electrical workers have related to the idea that their employer gave them the arc flash PPE, so let’s just put it on and get the work done. PPE should be viewed as the last line of defense and used only after all other options have been exhausted. Article 130 of the NFPA 70E requires an arc flash risk assessment to include evaluating electrical tasks using the hierarchy of risk control method. Electrical professionals should always evaluate methods for eliminating the hazard, shielding themselves from the hazard, and any other step to keep workers out of the line of fire. If our risk assessment results in no other option than being exposed to the potential arc flash hazard, then the employee determines the appropriate PPE needed to execute the task safely.
An example of managing this mindset to drive a positive culture can be seen in an approach I have used for voltage-rated tools. When managing a group of electrical workers, I provided them with electrical safety training, which included the requirement for voltage-rated tools when working inside the restricted approach boundary (RAB) of exposed energized conductors. After the training, I was told that they all needed to be provided with individual sets of voltage-rated tools because on any given day they could receive a maintenance task that would require performing work inside the RAB. Knowing that I was the author and provider of the electrical safety training that taught them the requirement, you can imagine their surprise when I declined their request.
I explained that if I provided each employee with their own set of voltage-rated tools, I am implying that I expect them all to perform repair-type work within the RAB when, in fact, my expectation is the exact opposite. Instead of individually issued tools, I provided two toolboxes with voltage-rated tools that were kept locked, and I retained the keys. Working inside the RAB for non-diagnostic tasks requires an energized electrical work permit (EEWP). A task that would require voltage-rated tools also required an EEWP approved by me. If the EEWP and hazard risk assessment process resulted in verifying that the task was infeasible to complete in an electrically safe work condition, then I would approve the plan and provide a key to the voltage-rated tools. The result was that those tools rarely were used because the process worked as intended. Instead of jumping right in and executing the task with PPE, we took some time to think about what needed to be done and determine if there was a way to do the work while minimizing the need for PPE. In most cases, we found ways to execute the task with significantly reduced exposure to electrical hazards.
That scenario demonstrates the goal of the requirements for an electrical safety program. The goal is to drive a culture of continuous evaluation of how we execute our tasks with the mindset of minimizing our exposure to hazards. The days of ‘taking risks because we are electrical workers and we knew the risk when we signed up for the job’ is over. There is no task in the electrical industry that is important enough to risk our life to execute. Given what we understand about electrical hazards and the procedures and technology available, there is no reason for anyone to ever be injured or killed by an electrical hazard. There is always a method for protecting workers from the hazard. The solution is in driving a culture that prioritizes safety at work and home so that taking risks is replaced with taking time to plan the work to be executed safely.
After decades of tearing down manners and norms, self-proclaimed social progressives are now frantically trying to reconstitute some sense of public decency. //
Goldberg and those like her are rediscovering the truth that “anything goes” is unworkable, and that society will therefore always have manners, norms, and taboos. These are, of course, imperfect, as are their supporters. But in considering manners and mores, social conservatives have the benefit of drawing on the experience and wisdom of ages, whereas today’s taboo-builders are working from scratch.
No wonder they are often in a moral panic. Having destroyed traditional restraints on the darkness within human nature, they are scrambling to build new norms out of corporate media think pieces and the Twitter mob.
Faced with the failure of the sexual culture she has championed, Goldberg therefore has nothing better to offer than suggesting that cruelty should be taboo, as if moral philosophers and teachers had previously overlooked the point. But though moral reminders and instruction are perpetual necessities, there are few new moral discoveries to be made, except by those who presume there was nothing worthwhile before themselves.
This highlights the real problem with Goldberg’s reluctance to acknowledge the perspicacity of social conservatives. Spiteful refusal to give credit where it is due is trivial in itself, but significant insofar as it cuts her off from those who might offer solutions to the problems she has belatedly noticed. This ideological self-bubbling may be comforting — and keep her from being challenged on other issues as well — but it is why we often see progressives rediscovering truths that social conservatives never stopped declaring.
For instance, it took decades of bitter experience and a multitude of studies for many self-proclaimed social progressives to admit that divorce is bad for kids, and fatherlessness is really bad for kids. Likewise, after decades of tearing down manners and norms, they are now frantically trying to reconstitute some sense of public decency — left-wing activists are now troubled by many of the same vulgar lyrics that once perturbed the Moral Majority.
Societies require norms and manners regulating everything from sex to speech. Conservatives understand this, which enables social conservatism to be more than a mere defense of the status quo. We know that the permanent things of human nature are foundational to human society and flourishing. Among the most important of these permanencies is that men and women are different but complementary, and that their coming together provides for the continuation of humanity. //
We recognize that culture is largely organic and that humans are fallible and finite. This is why conservatives prefer reform to revolution. We know the fragility of even a tolerably good order, and that tearing a culture down is much easier than rebuilding one.
This is evident in the mess of Goldberg and her comrades attempting to develop new taboos. They are incoherent about what should be prohibited, and the punishments they dole out are disproportionate and capricious. Also, with their previous vision of human flourishing having ended in disaster, they have no idea what they even trying to build.
Instead of taking advice for those frantically trying to undo the damage their ideas have inflicted, we should listen to the social conservatives who saw it coming, and who have preserved ways of family and community life that promote genuine well-being.
The solution isn't so much hyper-focusing on better self-image as it is not obsessing over self-image at all. //
Self-confidence isn’t a bad thing, but our carefully tended online shrines to our own attractiveness often morph into something else. Even as young people are feeling insufficient while scrolling through others’ curated feeds, they’re usually pouring effort into presenting an appealing and enviable image of themselves. If they aren’t self-critical of that image, they’re likely proud of it.
Aristotle suggested virtue is the point of moderation between two extremes, and that principle holds true in the self-image department. If self-hatred is the vice at one end of the spectrum, self-worship is not the virtue in the middle but the vice at the other end.
Social media doesn’t just make us self-conscious, it often makes us narcissists. While the concerns about its link to depression and suicide should be treated with urgency and compassion, the fact that our society can’t handle seeing put-together snapshots of other peoples’ lives without feeling down about our own is generally further proof of our self-obsession. //
Social media undoubtedly has damaging effects on young users’ self-esteem, but the solution isn’t so much hyper-focusing on self-image as it is not obsessing over self-image at all.
Our culture’s inability to respond to the pitfalls of social media reflects our deeper misunderstanding of what a healthy handle on self-worth looks like. We see it in the madcap frenzy to affirm young people’s self-declared gender identities, body image, and the vaguely-defined category of “lived experiences” as integral factors in the value of a human soul.
Once we start using external metrics to boost our worth, they can just as easily decimate it. If a young woman is self-conscious about her weight, telling her that her extra curves are what makes her valuable is still buying into the idea that a woman’s worth is determined by her dress size.
Too often, we make the same haphazard overcorrection about the effects of social media on kids. If Instagram makes young people self-conscious and self-critical, the reasoning goes, we simply need to shelter their self-esteem. As a result, we see Band-Aid fixes like Instagram removing users’ ability to see likes on other people’s posts (although the app has since backtracked this change). ///
Who you are in Christ is the antidote and fix to self-obsession and other-envy.
NIST Randomness Beacon (Version 2.0 Beta) -- work in progress
WARNING: DO NOT USE BEACON GENERATED VALUES AS SECRET CRYPTOGRAPHIC KEYS.
An overview of this project can be found at: https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/interoperable-randomness-beacons
This prototype implementation generates full-entropy bit-strings and posts them in blocks of 512 bits every 60 seconds. Each such value is sequence-numbered, time-stamped and signed, and includes the hash of the previous value to chain the sequence of values together and prevent even the source to retroactively change an output package without being detected.
A selection of currently implemented calls are listed below. Users submitting a request need to provide the pulse generation time in POSIX format (number of milliseconds since midnight UTC, January 1, 1970 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time for more information and http://www.epochconverter.com for an online time converter.)
derkrieger
13 minutes ago
This view of the State über alles is the mainstream view within the Democrat party.
I wish this would get more analysis and reporting but expanding the power and control of the State is now the prime goal of the Democrat party. Obamacare was the most recent step in that direction but the $3.5 T “infrastructure” is a huge leap in that direction.
The Democrats don’t want to govern, they want to rule. The path to the power to rule runs through the welfare state.
When you are dependent on the federal government for food, shelter, health care, education, retirement, child care, and a basic income you are no longer a citizen, you are a subject. Subjects do as they are told and have little to no power over their government.
This is their goal.
Terry McAuliffe: "I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach." //.
On what planet should parents not be directly involved in what’s being taught to their children? It is parents who elect schoolboards or elect the officials who appoint them. Kids are not wards of the state, not yet anyway, and it’s jarring to see someone who wants to be governor of a fairly large state pronounce that parents should have no say in whether educators feed their children garbage or not. //
Obviously, this debate is spurned by things like Critical Race Theory and transgender ideology. But even if someone is far-left enough to believe those things are good to teach in schools, it’s a step further to denounce the autonomy that parents have over their own kids.
But this is a symptom of a much larger problem permeating the Democrat Party, both locally and nationally. It is this idea that the state knows all, can provide all, and has a duty to “protect” others from people deemed unclean. //
That’s why McAuliffe said what he said, as politically stupid as it may have been. He truly believes it, and his party truly believes it. They think they can raise your kids better than you can, and they think they have the right to, up to and including crushing parental rights.
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