Research on demand programs suggests that a better, and more long-lasting, approach is price incentives. Critical peak pricing (CPP) programs give customers lower prices throughout most of the year, but impose a much higher price when supply is tight. Numerous careful studies, covering both residential and commercial customers, have demonstrated that CPP yields substantial demand reductions in response to the high price. And one study by Catherine, Meredith and co-authors demonstrates that making CPP the default gets very high participation and also high satisfaction among customers.

Consistently ranked as one of the leading causes of death around the world, malaria doesn’t have an effective vaccine yet. But researchers have invented a promising new blueprint for one — with properties akin to the novel RNA-based vaccine for COVID-19.

Making a vaccine for malaria is challenging because its associated parasite, Plasmodium, contains a protein that inhibits production of memory T-cells, which protect against previously encountered pathogens. If the body can’t generate these cells, a vaccine is ineffective. But scientists recently tried a new approach using an RNA-based platform. 

Their design circumvented the sneaky protein, allowed the body to produce the needed T-cells and completely immunized against malaria. The patent application for their novel vaccine, which hasn't yet been tested on humans, was published by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office on Feb. 4.

“It's probably the highest level of protection that has been seen in a mouse model,” said Richard Bucala, co-inventor of the new vaccine and a physician and professor at Yale School of Medicine.

An “energy-only” model keeps wholesale prices low during fair weather. Low prices encourage customers to add devices and equipment. On a larger, longer term scale, it encourages businesses and even residents to migrate to take advantage of having low cost electricity available.

But it doesn’t provide sufficient predictable revenue to encourage investment in durable generating sources or long term, guaranteed delivery fuel supply contracts. //

If challenged about the value of continued strong support and mandates for increasing wind and solar penetration, one of their arguments is that using the wind and the sun to supply energy when it is available allows fossil fuel generating sources to burn less fuel. //

That would be a reasonable response if the only competitor to wind and solar was fossil fuel. It’s even a reasonable response in systems where large hydroelectric dams are part of the generating mix because it allows the water to remain behind the dam, ready to be used when wind and solar generation falls off.

But opportunistically displacing other sources of power can lead to unproductive consequences like eliminating enough revenue from nuclear plants to make them struggle financially. Right now, there are firm plans in place to close five operating nuclear plants in the US during 2021.

Though some industry leaders have vociferously denied that wind and solar power can be blamed for those closure decisions, the financial evidence is clear. Low grid prices and grid congestion fees in regions where there is abundant wind or solar power available create a “missing money” situation that stresses large steady-running generators that serve base load very well. //

The “energy-only” market structure has helped gas to push most coal and lignite off of the Texas grid, producing significant air pollution reduction and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Using more natural gas in power production has been beneficial to the Texas economy as well, since most of the gas burned in the state is extracted in the state. //

Without any source of revenues for power generations other than selling electricity, there are no reasons why any generator would spend money to store fuel on site to use in the rare case where there are interruptions in the fuel supply. //

If society determines that it is unacceptable to have a power grid that cuts off customers for many hours at a time during a period when being without power can be deadly, it must accept the fact that markets cannot be the decision makers.

Cheapness on a short duration scale – like 5-minute settlement markets – cannot be the sole criteria for selecting power sources.

From 1973 onwards, Pan Am significantly struggled. Starting with the oil crisis in 1973 and growing competition, the airline worked to right-size its operations. However, the real blow to Pan Am came in 1978.

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act into law, which phased out the CAB and deregulated the American airline industry. It was essentially with this stroke that the US officially ended having even a de facto flag carrier.

During the regulated years, Pan Am could not fly domestic routes. The CAB was concerned about Pan Am growing so big it would monopolize the growing air market, so it left Pan Am with operating international routes with few exceptions. The carrier seriously wanted domestic routes, but it never got the breadth that it needed.

So, in 1978, all of a sudden, Pan Am had a limited domestic network and a large international network with nearly no connecting feed. On international routes, Pan Am faced a host of new competitors that seriously threatened its business.

From then on, Pan Am was on the slide. After a rough merger with National Airlines, the carrier went through a difficult 1980s and tried various strategies, including divestment of some assets and fleet advancements, which helped but was not enough for the airline. One thing it could not prepare for was the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and subsequent financial struggles.

In 1991, Pan Am ceased operations, leading to the end of the premier international airline.

Dr. Bernard Nathanson died in 2011. Formerly an atheist, because of his embrace of Life, he befriended the Catholics he once demonized, and ultimately was baptized into the faith. Robert P. George eulogized Nathanson in The Public Discourse, and talked about a discussion he had with Dr. Nathanson about how he came to believe in Life. Dr. Nathanson said that it was his embrace of The Truth that brought him to his embrace of Life. George came to this conclusion:

“Our task is less to defeat our opponents than to win them to the cause of life. To be sure, we must oppose the culture and politics of death resolutely and with a determination to win. But there is no one—no one—whose heart is so hard that he or she cannot be won over. Let us not lose faith in the power of our weapons to transform even the most resolute abortion advocates.”

One common misperception about nuclear energy is that it is inflexible, and thus inherently incompatible in a system comprised of variable renewables. But in reality, nuclear is already operating flexibly, and the next generation of advanced reactors will only expand this capability. There are 58 reactors in France that have been operating flexibly for more than 30 years, and that can vary their output between 20% and 100% in as little as 30 minutes. This level of flexibility balances generation and demand, allowing renewables to contribute to the grid intermittently without any additional support from emissions-producing sources like coal or natural gas.

There are also companies working to make the existing fleet and, more importantly, the next generation of reactors more flexible by allowing for even more rapid and efficient ramping. For example, the NuScale small modular reactor (SMR) design has 12 separate modules that can be individually dialed back throughout the day — or even taken offline for an afternoon — to maximize use of renewables during their peak hours and ensure energy demand is met. That means nuclear offers a great support system, giving renewables the space to shine when the sun is out and the wind is blowing, but it’s always there when it’s needed.

This hill is ubiquitous but surprisingly difficult to locate in reality.

The iconic Windows XP default desktop wallpaper of a sloped green hill beneath a bright blue sky is one of the most viewed photos in the world, but its generic pleasantness has long stumped internet denizens in regards to its real-world location — with some believing it’s not a real photograph.

The editor-in-chief of SFGate recently set out to find the earthly subject of the computer background and discovered it covered in wine grapes, across the street from an alpaca farm and Highway 12 in Sonoma, California.

The photo even has an incredible backstory: Charles O’Rear snapped the now-legendary shot of what is known as “Bliss” hill while driving to see his now-wife on a Friday afternoon in January 1996.

Americans of all political backgrounds have rejected ranked-choice voting as a confusing scheme that makes it more difficult to exercise your right to a vote that counts,” Rebekah Paxton, director of research and coalitions at the Employment Policies Institute, which launched Protect My Ballot, told The Daily Signal.

“Studies show that [ranked-choice voting] disenfranchises voters and reduces turnout, while its proponents’ promises remain largely unfulfilled in practice,” Paxton said. //

“It’s a good program for political and ideological activists. The average voters have a hard time remembering the names of the down-ballot candidates,” Paul Craney, spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, which led the fight against ranked-choice voting in the Bay State, told The Daily Signal. “Simplicity and clarity to voting is better than ranking and algorithms.” //

But runoff elections are a better alternative to having candidates win by a plurality, according to a 2019 report by Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Hans von Spakovsky and Public Interest Legal Foundation President J. Christian Adams.

A majority is more than 50% of the vote, while a plurality is the largest percentage of votes that go to any one candidate in a race. A candidate is less likely to achieve a majority when a race features more than two viable candidates. //

Voters have a greater opportunity to make an informed choice than with instant runoffs (i.e., ranked-choice voting). Runoff elections guarantee that the winner of the runoff election has a genuine mandate from a majority of the voters—a crucial factor in a democratic system. Runoff elections carry additional costs—but so do primary and general elections. Yet few people suggest abolishing them because of their cost. Consent of the governed matters.

Insulation R values of various materials:

This article provides a Table of Insulation Values and Properties for Various Insulation Materials useful in procedures to measure or calculate heat loss in a building, defines thermal terms like BTU and calorie, provides measures of heat transmission in materials, building insulation design data, and heat loss in a building.

Rate of Outgassing of Foam Insulation; relationship between thermal performance of foam insulation and time degradation

A material’s thermal resistance or resistance to heat flow is measured by its R-value. In a solid log wall, the logs provide both structure and insulation. The R-value for wood ranges between 1.41 per inch (2.54 cm) for most softwoods and 0.71 for most hardwoods. Ignoring the benefits of the thermal mass, a 6-inch (15.24 cm) softwood log wall has a clear-wall (a wall without windows or doors) R-value of just over 8.

Compared to a conventional wood stud wall (3½ inches (8.89 cm) of insulation, sheathing, and wallboard, for a total of about R-14) the log wall is apparently a far inferior insulation system. Based only on this, log walls do not satisfy most building code energy standards. However, to what extent a log building interacts with its surroundings depends greatly on the climate. Because of the log's heat storage capability, its large mass may result in better overall energy efficiency in some climates than in others.

Logs act like "thermal batteries" and can, under the right circumstances, store heat during the day and gradually release it at night. This generally increases the apparent R-value of a log by 0.1 per inch of thickness in mild, sunny climates that have a substantial temperature swing from day to night. Such climates generally exist in the Earth's temperate zones between the 15th and 40th parallels.

The red planet's red looks different to a robot with hyperspectral cameras for eyes. //

Those colors are a geological infographic. They represent time, laid down in layers, stratum after stratum, epoch after epoch. And they represent chemistry. NASA scientists pointing cameras at them—the right kind of cameras—will be able to tell what minerals they’re looking at and maybe whether wee Martian beasties once called those sediments home. “If there are sedimentary rocks on Mars that preserve evidence of any ancient biosphere, this is where we’re going to find them,” says Jim Bell, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University and the principal investigator on one of the rover’s sets of eyes. “This is where they should be.” //

That’s what they’re looking for. But that’s not what they’ll see. Because some of the most interesting colors in that real-life, 50-meter infographic are invisible. At least they would be to you and me, on Earth. Colors are what happens when light bounces off or around or through something and then hits an eye. But the light on Mars is a little different than the light on Earth. And Perseverance’s eyes can see light we humans can’t—light made of reflected X-rays or infrared or ultraviolet. The physics are the same; the perception isn’t.

The Promise to America’s Children coalition includes right-wing groups, such as the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Family Policy Alliance. //

"It’s no surprise that the ugly wave of state attacks on trans kids traces back to a few, very familiar national anti-LGBTQ groups,” Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, said. “They have opposed LGBTQ equality for decades, fighting marriage equality and now targeting trans youth. Bills claiming to protect children or women’s rights do neither and put trans kids in further danger.”

Yet, more and more, it looks like Harris is being pushed into the background while Jill Biden is really pulling the strings. Not only does she routinely act as the President’s crutch during interviews, she’s now interrupting him to articulate policy in language that makes it seem a lot like she’s in charge.

This is some awkward, awkward stuff. //

There’s being a supportive First Lady, and then there’s the assertiveness with which Jill Biden shuts her husband down in order to explain what “we” are doing as an administration on immigration policy. Further, why is she even there? Have you ever seen a president do so many joint interviews? Barack Obama certainly didn’t drag Michelle to almost ever media interview he did.

Amazon has openly signaled to the entire world that it cares not for dialogue, nor for freedom. //

But how much longer will so-called conservatives cling to these idealistic sentiments about the private and public square when the outcomes are nearly indistinguishable? What are we to do then, in the eyes of French? Lay down and say “screw it” because of aphorisms about free markets applied to markets that are not at all free?

Above all else, the conservative believes that his rights derive from God. Andrew Klavan made this point in response to French’s horror at the Anderson book ban. French, who cheered on censorship when it wasn’t of his friends, was called out by Federalist Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway prior for his hypocritical stance on Big Tech.

“If in reality (where we live) private entities now exist that can render our rights meaningless, that reality has to be addressed. God-given rights trump legalistic theories,” Klavan wrote.

USS Michael Murphy strutted into San Diego Bay in style flying the biggest American Flag we have ever seen on a U.S. Navy surface combatant.

A security researcher is recommending against LastPass password manager after detailing seven trackers found in the Android app, The Register reports. Although there is no suggestion that the trackers, which were analyzed by researcher Mike Kuketz, are transferring a user’s actual passwords or usernames, Kuketz says their presence is bad practice for a security-critical app handling such sensitive information.

Tom Cotton Creates Inspiring Message Explaining Why the Flag Is Backward on Military Uniforms
By Brandon Morse | Feb 26, 2021 3:30 PM ET

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool
If you’ve ever wondered why the American flag patch is backward on military uniforms, then Sen. Tom Cotton has the explanation, and once you hear it, its symbolism will inspire you.

As Cotton explained during his CPAC speech, the reason the patch is backward has everything to do with what the flag looks like to our military while it’s charging forward.

“It goes back to the days of cavalry charges,” said Cotton. “When our soldiers would charge into battle the flag would fly in the wind and if you’re on the right side of the formation (and the flag is worn on the right shoulder) it would appear backwards.”

“So our soldiers wear that flag backwards on their uniform still today to remind everyone that our army always advances, it never retreats,” said Cotton.

”And I think that’s a pretty good lesson for us today,” said Cotton. “When America is under assault and conservatives are under attack we will never retreat. We will never surrender, and we will always defend and protect the United States of America.”

Just so there is no confusion about the historic severity of the weather — century-old records were being broken every day across the state for the “lowest” high and low temperatures for the date. No one in Texas ever lived through a cold snap like that before. This raises the rhetorical question of whether the state should have planned ahead for something that had never happened before. //

To avoid issues of federal regulation, the Texas power grid is entirely localized within the state of Texas and is controlled by the Energy Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). All transmission and production facilities are found within the physical borders of Texas so there is no interstate transmission of power. Municipalities and energy cooperatives are the retailers who buy power from the generators and sell it to the consumers in their areas. //

There is always water vapor present in natural gas flowing through a pipeline. When that temperature inside the pipe drops below freezing, the water vapor will begin to form ice on the inside of the pipeline, and this ice will continue to build up until the pipeline becomes choked or blocked completely, cutting off the flow of gas to boil the water that spins the steam turbines. //

the last “weather” related phenomenon which impacted the Texas energy system was the sustained drought in 2011, which left many generation facilities with inadequate water supplies to run the generation plants. That summer there were 100 days of weather across the state when daytime temperatures went over 100 degrees, and the lack of water created limitations on generating capacity.

Investment by network participants to prevent power shortages during the last decade focused on that problem — hence the increased investment in wind and solar generating capacity which do not rely on available supplies of water.

Last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk mentioned that he believes the energy density of iron phosphate (LFP) batteries have improved enough that it now makes sense to use the cheaper and cobalt-free batteries in its lower-end vehicles.

Furthermore, the CEO indicated that the use of LFP batteries also frees up more battery supply of lithium-ion chemistry cells using nickel cathode for Tesla’s other vehicle programs. //

Nickel is our biggest concern for scaling lithium-ion cell production. That’s why we are shifting standard range cars to an iron cathode. Plenty of iron (and lithium)! //

Battery cells with nickel cathodes have more energy and power density than cells using iron phosphate, hence that’s why Tesla is only using the latter in shorter-range electric vehicles.