Fossil fuel-supporting Chicken Littles have done their best to spread fear of renewable energy, warning that relying on wind, solar and storage would lead to blackouts and economic devastation.

For years, I have denounced the propaganda promulgated by lobbyists financed by the oil and gas industry. Now, the latest data proves that the New Year will mark the end of the beginning for clean energy, and the beginning of the end of our reliance on coal and natural gas for electricity. //

The tipping point was revealed in the latest capacity report from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, the grid operator that delivers power to most of the state. After several years of thinning reserve generation capacity due to coal-fired plant retirements, solar facilities are adding cushion. //

ERCOT expects to add 3,039 megawatts of utility-scale solar resources, 1,765 megawatts of wind and 816 megawatts of natural gas-fired generation next year. The grid will have 86,842 megawatts of capacity to serve an expected peak demand of 77,244 megawatts in 2021, the council said.

In addition, ERCOT is working on adding large batteries that will provide even more capacity during the hour or so every August when demand peaks. The reserve capacity in 2021 will be 15.5 percent, well above the target of 13 percent, and will rise to 27 percent in 2022, ERCOT said. //
No new coal-powered plants are planned for the United States. New nuclear power technologies are a decade away from deployment. New natural gas plants struggle to compete on price with solar and wind, even after renewables lose the federal tax subsidies that are phasing out over the next few years.

What is the measure of a man’s courage? Is it measured by jumping on an enemy grenade to save his friends? Is it boldly braving enemy fire to pull one of his comrades from the brutal bloodbath of an enemy ambush? Both of those are great examples, but they miss a critical element…Fear. Fear can take many forms, both rational and irrational. //

Regardless of duration, there can be no courage without fear. The two go hand in hand. I picked up the following off a website devoted to sufferers of chronic pain regarding courage and fear:

Two brothers born of the same cloth. Different in many ways, yet the bond between them growing up was forged forever. Fear has no direction and cannot see very well. He moves too fast and often lives in the future and in the past. Courage cannot be seen unless his brother Fear is with him. Courage is slower moving and needs great power to emit light.

Here are a couple, other quotes about fear and physical courage:

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” – Nelson Mandela

“Being terrified but going ahead and doing what must be done—that’s courage. The one who feels no fear is a fool, and the one who lets fear rule him is a coward.” – Piers Anthony

“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is another aspect beyond physical courage and fear of death or dismemberment. There is the fear of being on the wrong side in politics…the fear of being called a racist for espousing unpopular, political views. In this case, courage is defined as standing your ground, even if unpopular…when it’s controversial to do so. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said:

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Mark Twain remarked:

“In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.”

Which brings me to the subject of today’s offering: Rush Limbaugh, talk radio host and conservative icon. Limbaugh was an unafraid conservative when it really wasn’t cool to be one.

The most significant part of the bill for the rapidly overheating planet is a requirement for U.S. companies to cut production and use of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, by 85 percent over the next 15 years. HFCs — which are commonly used in refrigerators and air-conditioning systems — were supposed to be a safe alternative to chlorofluorocarbons, the chemicals that deplete the ozone layer. But scientists discovered that when released into the atmosphere, HFCs are 1000 to 3000 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat. They are now the fastest-growing greenhouse gas in the world.

HFCs are regulated internationally by the Kigali Amendment, a 2016 update of the ozone-protecting Montreal Protocol, which was enacted in the late-1980s. Although over 100 nations have ratified the amendment — thus promising to cut global HFC emissions 80 percent or more by 2050 — the big emitters like the U.S., China, and India haven’t yet signed onto the effort.

One of the other methods cyber criminals use to gain entry to networks is taking advantage of weak passwords, either buy buying them on dark web forums or simply guessing common or default passwords.

To prevent this, organisations should encourage employees to use more complex passwords and accounts should have the additional security of multi-factor authentication, so if an intruder does manage to crack login credentials to gain access to a network, it's harder for them to move around it.

Businesses should also make sure they're prepared for what could happen should they end up falling victim to a ransomware attack. Regularly creating backups of the network and storing them offline means that if the worst happens and ransomware encrypts the network, it's possible to restore it from a relatively recent point – and without giving into the demands of cyber criminals.

“I have a little bit of understanding of something that had perplexed me for a lot of my life, and that was Lou Gehrig.

“On the day that Lou Gehrig announced that he had his disease that was forcing him to retire from Major League Baseball, he said to the sold-out Yankee Stadium, ‘Today I feel like the luckiest man on the face of the earth.’

“I didn’t understand that. I mean, here’s a guy who’d just been diagnosed with the most terminal of terminal diseases, and I said, ‘This can’t be real. He can’t really think he’s the luckiest guy in the world. This is just something that he’s saying because it will play well.’

“I don’t mean to be insulting Lou Gehrig; don’t misunderstand. I’m just saying, how in the world if you’re being honest can you feel like you’re the luckiest man on the face of the earth?”

“Well, when I got my diagnosis and when I began to receive all of the outpourings of love and affection from everywhere in my life from so many of you in so many ways and from my family — who, man, they have supported me my entire career. Even during times, it would have been understandable and easy for them to say, ‘Rush who? We don’t know this guy.’

“But that never happened. I mean, I’ve been totally supported by virtually everybody in my family. I’ve been propped up. I have been defended. I’ve been made to look better than I am. My lovely wife, Kathryn, has done so much in that regard. She has done so much with RushLimbaugh.com and with the charitable efforts that we have engaged in.

“And all of it has been to my benefit — and yours. It’s for the benefit of people who are the recipients of our efforts. So many people have put me first in all of this, and I understand now what Lou Gehrig meant, ’cause I certainly feel like that. I feel extremely fortunate and lucky.

“And because I have outlived the diagnosis, I’ve been able to receive and hear and process some of the most wonderful, nice things about me that I might not have ever heard had I not gotten sick. Again think, how many people who pass away never hear the eulogies, never hear the thank-yous? I’ve been very lucky, folks, in I can’t tell you how many ways.” //

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skep41
11 hours ago edited
Rush made President Bigmouth Bill so angry that that mendacious montebank demanded 'equal time' to refute him. He ended the Congressional majorities Democrats had held since FDRs time. He skewered Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and every other pompous leftist bigmouth who was afflicting our country, including Republiclowns who were supposedly on our side. He stopped Clinton Care. He opposed that wretched Empty Suit (Obama) when almost everyone else was too scared about being called a racist to criticize his awful policies. He savaged Bigmouth Bill's hopelessly foolish and corrupt ex-wife for 30 years. He had insight. He had humor. His voice was ringing and powerful and what a treat it was when El Rushbo went on a verbal tear... the spoken word at its finest. He destroyed the liberal media monopoly and called out their lies at every turn with his mastery of a forgotten medium which he turned into a weapon of clarity and purpose. Rush never betrayed us little bugs who love him. He is a great man. My heart is filled with sadness that he is so ill. He has stood up for freedom in a way few others have.

For decades, investment tax credits have helped speed up solar and wind development by lowering costs. Now, they could do the same for another form of carbon-free energy that became eligible for a 30 percent tax credit for the first time ever. It’s called waste heat to power, or WHP.

In the U.S., about 67 percent of our energy is squandered. Various inefficiencies in power plants, vehicles, factories, homes, and countless other places mean the majority of the energy we have access to is lost, often as hot air, or “waste heat.” But you know what they say — one man’s waste heat is another man’s untapped source of clean energy. WHP systems take some of that squandered heat and turn it into electricity, which can either be used on site or sent back to the grid.

“It’s a really terrific source of energy because there are no new emissions that are produced as a result of using it,” said David Gardiner, executive director of the Combined Heat and Power Alliance, which lobbied for the new tax credit. “You’re simply capturing the waste and putting it to good use”

With today’s technology, the best sources of waste heat that can be turned into electricity are industrial processes that release heat that’s at least 450 degrees F. A 2015 market assessment prepared for Oak Ridge National Laboratory found 96 existing WHP systems that generate a total of 766 megawatts of power, similar to the capacity of a single gas-fired power plant. Most of these systems are installed at chemical plants, refineries, and steel mills. There are also several WHP systems at compressor stations along natural gas pipelines. Many states have encouraged the technology by allowing it to qualify as clean energy under policies that set minimum renewable energy mandates such as renewable portfolio standards.

There’s potential for much more: The report identified almost 3,000 additional facilities in the U.S. that could install WHP equipment and generate another 8,840 megawatts of electricity, or roughly half the average hourly demand in New York state.

The new proposal will first be increasing the state’s already record high income tax rate on top earners, from the galling 13.3% levels to now become the offensive 16.8%.

But as well there will be a new wealth tax on those holding assets with a value of $30 million and above. This is regardless of where those assets are located; the tax would include any and all holdings outside the state. Properties owned in other states, as one example, would be calculated towards your net worth and taxed — in California.

Then it becomes truly offensive. More than including part-time citizens and those with a dual residency in another state, this new surcharge on the wealthy would take effect on anyone who spends only 60 days within the state’s borders. Those who visit family a couple of times a year could become at risk. //

The new proposal will first be increasing the state’s already record high income tax rate on top earners, from the galling 13.3% levels to now become the offensive 16.8%.

But as well there will be a new wealth tax on those holding assets with a value of $30 million and above. This is regardless of where those assets are located; the tax would include any and all holdings outside the state. Properties owned in other states, as one example, would be calculated towards your net worth and taxed — in California.

President Trump made the right call here. Just like he did for Lieutenant Clint Lorance. Just like he did for Major Mathew Golsteyn. Just like he did for Chief Eddie Gallagher. And Joe Biden showed, yet again, that he is part of the problem and not part of the solution.