Utopia, you are standing in it!

Voltaire was born François-Marie Arouet in Paris in 1694. He was raised with a Jesuit education (Latin, theology, rhetoric, and so on) but he quickly became a thorn in the side of the French establishment. He was a brilliant student who wrote extensively about the lavish corruption of 18th century French society. His blistering satires and critiques were largely directed at the decaying Catholic French monarchy and its rigid censorship laws as well as its self-aggrandizing ecclesiasticism. Voltaire is known to us today as the essential Enlightenment man. Victor Hugo said likened Voltaire to the whole of the 18th century -Voltaire contained within himself both a Renaissance and a Reformation. He carried on the skepticism of Montaigne and the humor Rabelais. He was a more potent enemy of superstition and religious fanaticism than either Erasmus

He had a rocky relationship with his father. As a young…

If wind and solar power are so cheap, then why is it that Germany now suffers Europe’s highest power prices? And equally wind power obsessed, Denmark is right behind it?

On the one hand, the wind and solar cult point to Germany as the shining example of our inevitable transition to an all wind and sun powered future and wax lyrical about what’s been achieved. However, the same characters tend to quietly crab walk away from the hard facts about the effect of subsidised and unreliable wind and solar on power prices, a connection that is pretty obvious in Germany and Denmark. Inconvenient truths, and all that.

The same crowd of zealots also assert that nuclear power is so expensive as to be unaffordable.

The French obtain around 75% of their electricity from nuclear power plants.

So, why is it that the French enjoy power prices half those suffered in…

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance hit the weekend current affairs shows to make the case for the government’s housing/tax package.

I watched both the Newshub Nation interview – the one in which the Minister of Finance refused to rule out bringing in rent controls (a move which would, among other things, simply accelerate a trend towards the government itself being the main provider of rental housing) – and the one on Q&A. Perhaps because the latter is fresh in my mind – I only watched it this morning – but also because it was a better interview, I want to focus here only on the Q&A interview. For those who haven’t seen it, the whole thing seems to be available here. Incidentally, it was interesting that the government chose not to send out its Minister of Housing for these interviews.

What I found most striking was…

Sweden’s role in World War II has evoked little interest outside of that country. Although we now know this nation would never enter the war, Hitler and Dönitz could not count on this. For Hitler Sweden represented a valuable source of raw materials and manufactured goods, as well as a possible threat to Germany’s position in Norway. To Dönitz this politically unreliable nation’s location potentially endangered the navy’s U-boat training areas in the Baltic. Particularly in the final stage of the war, both Hitler and Dönitz endeavored to ensure at all costs that Sweden remained neutral.

On several occasions Hitler claimed a political motive for retaining a foothold in the Baltic States. He feared that withdrawing from Estonia, and later from Courland, would adversely affect Sweden’s attitude. Hitler believed that the presence of German troops in the Baltic States deterred Sweden from cutting off ore imports. On 5 September 1944…

During the recent Big Freeze, thousands of Texan wind turbines were frozen solid, incapacitated by burst of frigid winter conditions. Dead calm weather meant that those that weren’t frozen stiff, added practically nothing to the grid.

While the internal workings of wind turbines (gearboxes, generators, yaw and blade pitch controls) can be kept operable with on-board heating systems (chewing up electricity from the grid all the while), the 50-60m long blades are a different story.

This recent study from the Iowa State University shows that the phenomenon will knock – an already ephemeral energy source – completely out of action. As it did in Texas, last month.

Field study shows icing can cost wind turbines up to 80% of power production
Iowa State University
Hui Ha and Mike Krapil
4 March 2021

AMES, Iowa – Wind turbine blades spinning through cold, wet conditions can collect ice nearly a foot…