Return for VWESX, Vanguard's Long-Term Investment Grade Bond Fund, inception July 1973-December 2022:
7.48%.
Return for S&P 500, average nominal, dividends fully reinvested, July 1973-December 2022:
10.61%.
Tuesday, January 3, 2023
Sunday, January 1, 2023
Germany boosts electricity from coal to 10 gigawatts, a drop in the bucket
Bloomberg, here:
Germany now generates more than a third of its electricity from coal-fired power plants, according to Destatis, the federal statistical office. In the third quarter, its electricity from the fuel was 13.3% higher than the same period a year earlier, the agency said.
Germany as recently as 2019 still had 40 gigawatts of electricity capacity from coal, and planned to reduce that to 27 by 2022, so obviously Germany has much more capacity available than 10 gigawatts during its present natural gas supply crisis caused by the Ukraine war.
But Germany's more serious mistake than reducing its coal capacity was its voluntary and hysterical reduction of nuclear generation capacity by 40% in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011. Now it's got just 3 reactors left out of the 17 it had back in the day.
Meanwhile US electric capacity from coal in 2021 dwarfed the German, at about 210 gigawatts, but that is way down from almost 318 in 2011, a similarly ideologically driven, self-imposed, and illogical reduction of 108 gigawatts, or 33% in ten years.
The foolish growing reliance on unreliable "green energy" in the US and the turn away from coal which began in earnest under Obama has meant increasing unreliability of electric resources during extreme events, and a huge increase in the duration of power outages experienced by customers.
The average customer outage was just north of 8 hours in 2020 vs. about 3.5 hours in 2013, an increase of over 130%.
This will only get worse if America tries to rely on wind and solar at the expense of fossil fuels and nuclear.
Climate Update for KGRR 2022
Mean average temperature in Grand Rapids, Michigan since 1892: 48.2 degrees F.
Mean average temperature in 2022: 48.7.
That is all.
Friday, December 30, 2022
US COVID-19 vaccination fell off a cliff in 2022, down 90% from 2021, while confirmed deaths fell by 44% overall
Just 24.3 million received at least one dose in 2022 through Dec 27.
244.06 million had received at least one dose through 12/31/21.
Per Our World In Data, here.
About 19 million in 2022 received what amounts to the two-dose protocol.
Confirmed deaths in 2022 fell to about 264k from 475k in 2021 at the same time that vaccination fell off the cliff (724 deaths per day vs. 1301 deaths per day).
And in the second half of 2022 about only 70k have died (roughly 385 per day vs. 1066 per day in the first half of 2022). That's still 3.85 times worse than for an average influenza year, but that's a win in my book at this stage of the game.
Thursday, December 29, 2022
There was nothing wrong with the coal or natural gas plants of the Tennessee Valley Authority: It was one-off wind damage and too many far-flung customers dependent on its electricity for heat
Cold weather pushed up electricity use in TVA's seven-state region where more than 60% of homes are heated by electricity. ...
TVA Chief Operating Officer Don Moul is heading an investigation of the problems that led to the power outages last week. Moul said in a telephone interview that high winds damaged several of TVA's protective structures at the Cumberland plant and several gas-fired combustion turbines used for such peak power periods. TVA's directive to local power companies to cut some of their energy use was the most efficient means to respond to the inadequate energy supply, Moul said.
More.
The left, of course, is blaming the fossil fuels themselves instead of wind damage to existing energy infrastructure, whose maintenance has been neglected in the rage for so-called green energy and against coal:
"[T]he mandatory blackouts were due to coal and gas failures," [Amy] Kelly [the Tennessee representative for the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign] said.
The hysteria of this prejudiced response is matched, however, by the feckless customers of the federally-run utility, whose only care is that their power was cut when it was 5 degrees F outside, and on Christmas Eve:
"Why would anyone in their right mind decide it is a GOOD idea to have rolling blackouts today? First of all, it is a whopping 5 degrees outside and second, it is Christmas Eve ... This is ridiculous."
Tuesday, December 27, 2022
Cumulative season to date 100 inches of snow in Buffalo, NY is record-setting, ahead of Nov-Dec 2000 at 95.9 inches
36.9 total inches in November 2022 (3.1 feet). November record is 45.6 inches (3.8 feet).
63.1 inches in December 2022 through the 26th (5.25 feet). December record is 82.7 inches (6.9 feet).
January record is 68.3 inches.
February record is 54.2 inches.
March record is 38.5 inches.
April record is 15 inches.
May record is 7.9 inches.
The mean average season is 85.4 inches, 55 of which come after Dec. 31st.
Sunday, December 25, 2022
Tennessee has had plenty of much colder temperatures than this Christmas and never had to turn off the power before, but that was before they went insane
What we know: TVA ordered rolling blackouts for the first time in 90 years amid freezing temps
Tennessee Valley Authority retired 3,370 MW of coal electric power capacity in 2012, 2017, and 2018.
The reason for that isn't because the plants were old, built in the 1950s. TVA still operates a bunch of much older hydroelectric plants dating back as far as 1911.
It's pure anti-fossil fuel ideology driving that, and foolishly allocating new capacity to solar and wind, which can't cut it.
And that's why they had to shut off the power in Tennessee for the first time.
The damn fools got 0.7 inches of snow and said it was one inch deep, too.
Saturday, December 24, 2022
CNN thinks November core inflation at 4.7% yoy is good news
There's never any discussion about how core inflation vaulted to the current levels well before the war in Ukraine even began.
The reason for the inflation surge is Biden's war for green energy, the one input which makes everything cost more because green energy costs much more than conventional energy from coal, oil, and natural gas.
Add trillion$ in COVID stimulus chasing too few goods and it's a recipe for the disaster which is ongoing, not moderating.
Some people get it. Most don't.
Friday, December 23, 2022
Joe Biden's America two days before Christmas is a third world patchwork of power outages all over the place
About 1.04 million without power this morning.
It's going to be a rough Christmas Eve without power with forecast real lows in the single digits.
Wednesday, December 21, 2022
The good news is COVID-19 deaths per million were 4-5x worse a year ago than they are now in the US
Deaths per million stabilized 8 months ago at the current level and haven't really budged since then.
Those who predicted an endemic situation developing appear to have been right.
1.2 deaths per million presently represents about 398 deaths per day at current population, or about 11.9k dying per month since mid-April.
Actual cumulative deaths over the period have averaged about 12.25k per month, or 98k.
If that rate persists like this for a full year we'll get something like 147k deaths, which would then still be 4x worse than the average influenza deaths year.
92% of COVID-19 deaths in California continue to be among those 50 and older, and 72% are among those 65 and older.
That's the bad news.
Seems like an unacceptable new normal to me.
Concentrating efforts on vaccinating people younger than 50 seems pointless and highly inappropriate for the situation.
Half of the top 10 snowiest Decembers in Grand Rapids have occurred since 2007
The result, no doubt, of the generally wetter conditions in the Great Lakes over the long haul as predicted by slightly cooler Pacific Ocean waters indicated by the Oceanic Nino Index.
We've had 14+ inches so far in Dec 2022 with 2 feet expected in the latest storm, so this December might break into the top 5.
Winter. It's what's for Christmas.
Tuesday, December 20, 2022
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