Welcome to my musings on whatever topic catches my eye, plus stories, recipes, handyman tips, welding, photography, and what have you. Oh, and analog/digital hardware design, and software. Please comment on the blog post so everyone who visits can see your comments.
Most everyone who uses natural gas in the U.S.A. is probably noticing or about to notice a shocking increase in cost. The story is that reserves are low and gas producers haven’t been able to drill because of Wall Street profit-taking, so supplies are short.
Well, I don’t believe it and here’s a why. For the past 20 years, winter temperatures in the Northeastern U.S. have been steadily rising due to climate change. I’ve seen the data and recorded some of my own. I’m an engineer and it’s been my habit for decades to keep daily records on gas and electricity consumption.
Where we used to have 12 to 18 inches of snow on the ground at times during winters here in West Virginia, now there’s just a light dusting or none at all. The trend became very obvious about six years ago with almost no snow on the ground for the past six years. The near constant grinding of snowplows is replaced with silence. In 2018 I bought a nice new snowthrower. It’s never been used even once. It’s been sitting in the basement for the past four years.
For the past several years, natural gas consumption in my home has been half what it’s been in the past. From the middle of January to the middle of February, our daily gas consumption for heating was usually 1,000 to 1,400 cubic feet per day. Today it’s 600 or less.
There shouldn’t be a shortage when consumption is half what it used to be. I think the natural gas providers are not happy with their reduced sales due to climate change and have raised prices to maintain profits.
When drought in the U.S. is mentioned, the first thing that comes to most people’s minds is the West, Southwest, and California in particular. There’s good reason for this. It’s been in the news every year. The rampant wildfires are terrible and spectacular. But the main threat of drought is to agriculture. California is the key to having nice things on our dinner tables. California produces 71 percent of the lettuce in the U.S, 90 percent of the strawberries, 99 percent of the garlic, 99 percent of the almonds, 99 percent of the grapes and world-class wines, and cantaloupes, watermelon, citrus, onions, celery, on and on. If we count the West Coast states, add apples, pears, cherries, and more.
Important as all that is to having nice things on the table, the meat and potatoes (literally), grains, and animal feed do not come from California. They come primarily from the middle of the country. The farmlands from Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, Iowa, Nebraska, to Texas produce vast amounts of the staple foods we eat. In addition to feeding ourselves, the U.S. literally feeds the world.
How does all this stuff get where it’s going? Well, the United States was lucky. It came with a built-in railroad: the Mississippi River System.
Mississippi River System showing the Mississippi River and tributaries that are used for shipping purposes.
175 million (!) tons of freight a year is shipped on the Upper Mississippi system alone. For perspective, that’s 20,000 to 30,000 loaded freight trains. Not freight cars, freight trains.
Then we come to the Lower Mississippi and exports. The Port of South Louisiana handles 500 million tons of freight each year. Ninety-two percent of U.S. agricultural exports pass through the Port of South Louisiana. This is 78 percent of the world’s exports of feed, soybeans, livestock, and hogs. Sixty percent of the world’s exported grain passes down the Mississippi to the Port of South Louisiana. For perspective, that’s sitting by a railroad track and watching 25,000 loaded freight cars go by every single day. That’s not even possible on a single track.
So what does drought have to do with this? The Mississippi River System drains the central portion of the U.S.A. from Minnesota and Wisconsin to Texas, Montana, Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and so on. Drought is affecting these places too and the first sign of this is the water levels up and down the Mississippi. The water levels got so low this year that the barges that carry freight up and down the river were getting stuck on the bottom and causing traffic jams.
The problem should now be obvious. If low water becomes more frequent, and because of climate change it almost certainly will, it’s a huge problem. One could easily prove the point that the lifeblood of the country flows up and down the Mississippi River System. It’s the main artery. Disruptions here will upset not just agricultural products but every industry that involves heavy river freight starting with fuel oil, crude oil, coal, coke, fertilizer, limestone, iron, cement, and a long list more. The economic effects of this are staggering, not just for the U.S.A. but the world.
Solutions? There aren’t any good ones. One could build rail lines that parallel the river and tributaries, but this is a big project and cannot be done quickly. The land easement problems alone would take decades to sort out in the courts. More dams and locks on the river? This is possible in some few places but is an enormous project that would take decades to implement.
The good news is that scientists have been thinking about this for a long time. In recent decades we have greatly reduced the amount of water we take out of the river and use for irrigation and other purposes that evaporates or otherwise isn’t returned to the river. Since the drainage area of the Mississippi is so large, climate scientists can’t be certain about what’s going to happen at every point along the river. There’s evidence that the change is slow and that this year was an extra dry glitch. We must hope that this is true.
In any case, the Mississippi River problem is one to watch out for in the coming years. It’s a big one.
Ever more frequently one sees “forever chemicals” mentioned in the news. They’ve become so pervasive they’re found in most water supplies, in the rainfall over Antarctica, and in the bloodstream of every person.
The forever chemicals being talked about are members of a large family of manmade chemicals called PFAS, PFOS, and PFOAS. The archtype of this family is perfluorooctanoic acid. These have been manufactured since the 1940s and do not occur in nature. More members of this family are developed each year.
Perfluoro- and polyfluoro- chemicals have become so widespread because they are so useful. Most of them repel both water and oils. They’re used to make Teflon and other non-stick coatings, stain resistant carpet, water-repellent clothes, fire-fighting foam, ski wax, waterproof cosmetics, and many other products.
These molecules are very stable so they don’t break down in the environment. As a result, they’ve found their way into almost everything — air, water, and soil all over the planet, and inside our bodies.
They are not harmless. In recent years, studies have shown possible causal connections with testicular and kidney cancer, fetal problems like low birth weight, early puberty, immune system problems, liver damage, thyroid disease, blood pressure problems during pregnancy, and colitis.
Study results thus far have been inconclusive but it’s a major concern because these chemicals are everywhere and we can’t effectively get rid of them. They become more abundant each year.
Waterproof Lipstick
Published in The Journal of Environmental Science & Technology on June 15, 2021 is a peer-reviewed study conducted by researchers at Notre Dame University. The study shows that roughly half of the 231 cosmetics tested contained PFAS. Most of these products did not show PFAS on their list of ingredients. About 60 percent of eyeliners, foundations, and liquid lipsticks, and 80 percent of waterproof mascaras contained PFAS. How much are you ingesting? There’s no solid data on this question but the answer is clearly not zero.
Another problem with waterproof lipstick is that it works really well. Too well. Lipstick prints on water and wine glasses are durable. Unlike conventional lipstick, waterproof lipstick is unaffected by the high pressure, heat, and chemicals used in commercial dishwashers. Nobody wants to receive a glass with somebody else’s lipstick print on it. This means that each glass must be inspected and lipstick scrubbed off by hand. A mini-industry has sprung up around this problem that offers special tools, rim scrubbers, and harsh chemicals to help restaurants and bars deal with the problem. This results in more labor and higher costs which will be passed on to the customer.
Please keep the above in mind when making a purchasing decision. You must decide for yourself if it’s worth it.
ADDENDUM:
On March 2, 2023 AP News reported that the EPA is going to start addressing the problem of PFAS in drinking water. However, the article makes no mention of PFAS in cosmetics.
I assume that PFAS in cosmetics has to be addressed by the FDA. Until this is dealt with, buildup of PFAS in the environment will continue.
Sounds sensational, doesn’t it? Click bait. Well, after reading this, you tell me.
It’s not widely known but over the past 100 years, investors have demanded agreements and treaties from the governments of countries they invest in. There are thousands of these treaties, including with the United States. Investors understandably don’t like risk and do everything possible to eliminate risk. Countries, especially poor countries, will jump through hoops, bend over backwards, go to any length to attract foreign investment. They’ll give everything up and sign such agreements in order to attract foreign money.
Petroleum Jack Pump
In the case of fossil fuel companies, such treaties enable them to demand hefty compensation if the government interferes with the business in any way, revokes permits to drill, delays or refuses permits to lay pipelines, restricts extraction, and so forth. We’re talking payouts that can amount to hundreds of billions of dollars if/when these treaties are invoked, far beyond the means of many countries.
And, it’s starting already. The U.S.A. is being sued to the tune of a billion dollars for cancelling the Keystone Pipeline. The governments of Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and others are being sued for four billion dollars over their phasing out of coal power plants, requiring environmental impact assessments, and blocking of extraction projects. Anything that interferes with the business is grounds to sue for damages.
These treaties enable fossil fuel companies to hold us hostage and prevent the implementation of measures to mitigate climate change. Oil companies can make it too expensive to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels, hamstringing the ability of countries to deal with climate change.
It’s an insane situation where the urgent need to act on climate change will be derailed by old treaties from the middle of the last century. But here we are. They have us over a barrel (of oil).
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