BBC: Bud Light boycott over trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney hits beer giant’s sales
Even with the BBC slanting this article, it looks bad for AB Inbev.
Category: Economics (Page 4 of 6)
ATLANTA (AP) — The first American nuclear reactor to be built from scratch in decades is sending electricity reliably to the grid, but the cost of the Georgia power plant could discourage utilities from pursuing nuclear power as a path to a carbon-free future.
The federal government is nudging us toward an all-electric future. Gas stoves and wood stoves are being regulated to extinction and gas hot water heaters will be next. Wealthy people are given a $7500 incentive to buy electric cars with conventional cars to eventually banned. This is happening while the electric grid is getting less reliable. Wind and solar power are being subsidized while they are known to be intermittent, fair weather electrical generators.
If the federal government wasn’t actively trying to make our lives less secure and comfortable, we’d be building a new nuclear power plant every two years, like China is.
The third and fourth reactors were originally supposed to cost $14 billion, but are now on track to cost their owners $31 billion. That doesn’t include $3.7 billion that original contractor Westinghouse paid to the owners to walk away from the project. That brings total spending to almost $35 billion.
That sounds expensive, but two years ago, the federal government spent $2 trillion on a Covid stimulus package, and we’ve got nothing to show for it. Biden’s college loan forgiveness plan was going to cost $30 billion per year, and again, we’d have nothing to show for it. Instead, build a new nuclear power plant every year so Americans could have cheap and abundant electricity. Nuclear power plants are one of the safest ways to generate electricity and produce no carbon dioxide (if you care about that sort of thing).
BBC: Summer temperature strain the grid.
Nearly 200 million Americans are under “dangerously hot conditions” alerts with temperatures expected to soar past 100F (38C) in several major cities.
Those major cities are places where it often gets above 100 F in the summer, so no real surprise.
PJM Interconnection, the company in charge of power supply in 13 states and Washington DC, warned that “extreme heat and/or humidity may cause capacity problems on the grid”.
“Temperatures are expected to go above 90F (32°C) across the footprint, which drives up the demand for electricity,” the company said in a statement.
Rather than give a $7500 rebate to rich people buying Teslas, banning gas stoves and portable generators and offering incentives to install wind and solar power, perhaps the federal government could try working for the benefit of the American people. The federal government loves burning money. How about spend enough to harden the electrical grid and build 30 new nuclear power plants.
If global warming and climate change are inevitable, wouldn’t it be great to have abundant and reliable electricity to provide air conditioning?
USNews: DOT Changes Accessibility Rules
Pete Buttigieg and his Department of Transportation just made up new rules to make air travel more expensive and unpleasant for everyone. How can federal bureaucrats do this with no oversight or accountability?
The new rule, authorized under the Air Carrier Access Act, requires airlines to make lavatories on any new single-aisle aircraft large enough to allow a passenger with a disability and an attendant to maneuver within the aircraft’s lavatory.
The rule specifies that the airplane bathroom has to be large enough for two 6′ 2″ men to maneuver a wheelchair. On a Boeing 737, that means either in the back of the aircraft, reducing the total number of bathrooms available or a dozen passenger seats must be removed. Fewer passengers means that each flight is more expensive and less efficient.
There doesn’t seem to be any limit on the size of the commercial aircraft. Where does this bathroom fit in a CRJ-200 that holds 50 passengers?
People already have sex in airplane bathrooms. In this large room, more people can join in.
Lay the groundwork for a future rule that would allow passengers to stay in their own wheelchairs when they fly.
Airlines currently have narrow wheelchairs to use when necessary. This rule will require eliminating an entire column of seats. A Boeing 737, with six seats across, will only have 5 seats, with no extra room for the people in the seats. This wide aisle will be chaotic when people are departing the aircraft.
When I’ve asked colleagues what they intend to do after they retire, the stock answer is, “Whatever I want!”
That’s a bullshit answer, so I ask follow-up questions. “After eating Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for breakfast, how are you going to spend the rest of the day?”
Retirement is such a foreign concept, people think about it in weird ways, and it’s different than people expect.
BBC: Instant Pot to file for bankruptcy
The maker of Pyrex glassware and Instant Pot multicookers has filed for bankruptcy protection, with as much as $1bn (£790m) in liabilities.
As well as the more than a century-old cookware brand Pyrex and Instant Pot, which was launched in 2010, Instant Brands’ portfolio also includes kitchenware brands Corelle, CorningWare and Snapware.
How do you screw up that company? Five years ago, everybody wanted an Instant Pot, and people are always talking about new Instant Pot recipes. When we cleaned out Mom’s house, Corelle was the only thing anyone wanted.
A good friend occasionally says that, “No one has ever logically explained to me why they voted for Trump.” He thinks it’s persuasive, but it’s a trick. He would never vote for Trump, so any explanation would, by definition, be illogical or unpersuasive. Knowing any explanation would be futile and would stress our friendship, I never attempt it. This article provides some reasons I have voted for Trump, and will again.
Barron’s” Trump vs Biden in 11 Charts
Barron’s” Trump vs Biden in 11 Charts
A few charts are particularly interesting. Keep in mind that the Covid Lockdown started in March 2020, and Biden took office in January, 2021.
Electric motoring is, in theory, a subject about which I should know something. My first university degree was in electrical and electronic engineering, with a subsequent master’s in control systems.
I never knew that Mr. Bean is an engineer.
WSJ: Automakers get into mining.
WSJ: Automakers get into mining.
When General Motors began outlining plans in 2020 to fully switch to electric vehicles, it didn’t account for one critical factor: Many of the battery minerals needed to fulfill its plans were still in the ground.
“I remember seeing a report from our raw-materials team at the time saying, ‘There is plenty of lithium out there. There is plenty of nickel’,” said Sham Kunjur, an industrial engineer now in charge of securing the raw materials for GM’s batteries. “We will buy them from the open market.”
GM executives soon came to discover how off the mark those projections were, and now Mr. Kunjur’s 40-person team is scouring the globe for these minerals.
“Why Magical Thinking isn’t Whimsical” or “No Shit, Sherlock” would also have been serviceable titles for this article.
If 3 million cars are sold in the US each year, and each car needed a 100 pounds of lithium for the battery, that’s 300 million pounds of lithium needed each year. That’s a shitload. Before we switch to electric cars, someone should be thinking this through.
Those cars also need a shitload of electricity. The US doesn’t have a lot of surplus generating capacity and we build a new nuclear power plant about every 10 years.
Not paying attention to the basic requirements prior to a big policy shift isn’t a clever way to induce technical advance. It’s a way to insure that the general population will live a life that is needlessly frustrating and expensive.
WSJ: Tipping for Self Checkout
WSJ: Tipping for Self Checkout
People seem to be baffled and rankled by the simplest things.
Prompts to leave 20% at self-checkout machines at airports, stadiums, cookie shops and cafes across the country are rankling consumers already inundated by the proliferation of tip screens. Business owners say the automated cues can significantly increase gratuities and boost staff pay. But the unmanned prompts are leading more customers to question what, exactly, the tips are for.