The End-of-Christmas-Vacation traffic started mid-Saturday, a not unexpected event. The traffic outbound from this area was pretty heavy yesterday and quite heavy today. I really hadn’t thought it would be like this at all. Yes, we usually have a lot of people returning home for Christmas as well as the folks who want to have the whole ‘Christmas in New England’ experience. We did have a white Christmas this year which added to the ‘Christmas in New England’ mystique and the feeling that it really was Christmas.
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Though mentioned over at Instapundit, I also wanted to mention SloJo’s Ten Worst Things He Did In 2021.
Here are just a few:
9. He weaponized the FBI to intimidate parents who show up at school board meetings.Read The Whole Thing.
7. His war on fossil fuels helped drive domestic production down and gasoline prices through the roof.
4. He unleashed the worst border crisis in US history.
3. His $1.9 trillion in social spending disguised as “Covid-19 relief” helped unleash inflation and extreme labor shortages.
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Just (yet) another reminder: We’ve left 2020 Won behind are now in 2020 Too.
You may now continue screaming in terror.
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This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention.
New State Business Tax Climate Index: Blue States Are Worst, Red States Are Best.
Some of the blue states like California, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut have punishing business taxes (and regulations), yet they can’t seem to understand why an increasing number of businesses are relocating out of those states. They can’t make the connection between punishing businesses and those businesses desire to go elsewhere.
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The push for renewables like wind is something we should rethink. One has to remember that renewables are unreliable due to the vagaries of weather.
It is quite shocking to see that wind generation has fallen by 38% for onshore and 24% for offshore year on year. This is despite new capacity being added.Solar has problems of its own due to the nature of the technology, bring wholly dependent on the sun. It too is unreliable due to weather, particularly in northern climes like here in New Hampshire and in Minnesota.
We are familiar with short term drops in output, maybe for a few days or even weeks. But to lose effectively a third of generation for a whole quarter shows just how dangerous over reliance on wind power is.
You sometimes see newspaper headlines to the effect that, say, a “50 megawatt solar power plant” is being constructed. But you shouldn’t count on getting anything remotely approaching 50 megawatts of power from such an installation.Compared to generation sources like nuclear which can have a capacity factor of 100% day after day, month after month regardless of the time of day or season of the year, renewables like wind and solar are pathetic. Why anyone thinks this is a step forward is baffling to me.
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Isaac’s analysis applies specifically to Minnesota, but bear in mind that while northern states get fewer hours of sunlight than southern states in the winter, they get more hours of sunlight in the summer. And note that in the best of times, solar panels don’t produce electricity anywhere near half the time.
Minnesota solar panels are most productive in June and July, when they produce almost 30 percent of their potential output. Unsurprisingly, solar panels produce far less energy in November, December, and January, where production capacity factors are seldom above 10 percent.That is pathetic. We spend billions of dollars on solar panels and transmission lines, and in winter, when we need energy the most, they work only around ten percent of the time.
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Is Germany on the verge of becoming an energy wasteland?
It is shutting down 3 of its last 6 nuclear power plants, replacing them with wind turbines, use of dirty coal plants, natural gas plants (assuming the Russians will sell them natural gas when they need it most), and nuclear generated power from France (assuming they have any available).
It seems the Germans haven’t learned the lessons from their power shortage last year, having to ask industrial users to shut down operations in order to ensure enough power for non-industrial users. I expect they will experience even more such shortages going forward, and every bit of it self-inflicted. I expect the negative effects on their economy will be huge, between the energy shortages and skyrocketing energy prices.
It’s not just Germany having to deal with this issue. Europe in general is also dealing with an power crunch. It is already affecting the economy as on more than one occasion industrial users were directed to decrease energy use, if not shut down entirely.
Like Germany, much of this problem is self-inflicted as the push to green energy sources like renewables has driven abandonment of more traditional electrical sources, seeing them being shut down.
This is a big example that renewables can’t meet the electrical needs of a 21st Century civilization.
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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee where we’re winding down from the holiday season, winter weather is skirting the area, and where an actual Monday will be here all too soon.