"Toontime: High on Their Supply

credit: S. Sack; BC Idonwanna sez: He feels much better, now!

Democrats ought to be wiping the floor with the radical party of sedition, but they are crippled by Judas legislators in their midst. Biden is loosing ground because the dithering Demos cannot govern. This situation requires drastic action--US Person asks pardon for a mutt giving advice to a sitting President--Biden should have private conversations with Senators Machin and Sinema to lay down an ultimatum: Either they support changing the filibuster rule or use reconciliation to pass his agenda for America. If they cannot bring themselves to support the rest of their party, they should leave it and let the next election decide who controls the Senate. In the current circumstances the body serves no one except office holders. House progressives are correct to insist that both pieces of legislation, the infrastructure bill and the social benefits bill, pass together. Without a guarantee from the treacherous holdouts, the progressives, whose caucus hold the balance of power in the House and represent the will of the people, will end up with less than half an already diminished pie.

The Willard Hotel Putsch

Update: The Select committee plans to subpoena John Eastman to testify about his participation in the J6 insurrection, according to the Washington Post. His scheme to overturn the election was presented to VP Mike Pence in the Oval Office on January 10 with Trump present. 

{26.10.21}The only useful questions that remain in the investigation of the J6 attempted coup are: why isn't there any criminal accountability for the bad actors uncovered so far?  Why is not the former guy being subpoenaed to testify about his participation in the planning and funding of a coup that nearly overthrew the duly elected government of the United States? Why isn't the timid Merrick Garland moving immediately to indict and try the co-conspirator Steven Bannon for contempt of Congress?  Why are the Democrats so feckless in the face of obvious insurrection? US Person is not the only one who wants to know! [photo credit: WaPo]

The investigation so far has found that coup planners met at DC's Willard Hotel [photo] in what was known among them as the "command center" where the rallies prior to counting the electoral votes on January 6th were planned. The hotel suite became the base of operations for Rudi Gulliani, Steve Bannon and John Eastman, among other die hards. Former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik billed the Trump campaign $55,295 for the hotel rooms. Kerik acted as an alleged fraud investigator for the conspirators.  (Roger Stone was a visitor to the "command center" but did not participate in the coup plotting). Two witnesses cooperating with the House Select Committee told the Rolling Stone protest organizers met with Repugnant Congress members on numerous occasions.  

According to press reporting, organizers in the first days of January were calling members of Congress from their Willard suite to encourage swing state legislators to convene special sessions to reassign electoral votes from Biden to Trump on the basis of  unsubstantiated claims of fraud. On January 2nd alone, Gulliani and Eastman spoke to 300 state legislators to convince them of alleged fraudulent voting. On January 5 dozens of lawmakers from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin wrote to VP Pence asking that he delay certification of Biden’s victory for 10 days to permit ‘our respective bodies to fulfill, examine, and vote on certification or decertification of the election.’ Conspirators efforts were reinforced by Facebook posts from their rabid supporters. That company, in the interest of pursuing more profit, took down previous content limits established during the election period, resulting in a flood of hateful, violent posts and election misinformation. The plotters then pressured Vice President Pence to not count electoral votes from targeted swing states on January 6th in conformity with the scenario outlined by Eastman in his now infamous memo. Pence refused to participate in the conspiracy.

Eastman, the legal architect of the conspiracy, is a law professor, and former clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas. He has yet to be subpoenaed by the House Select Committee. When asked about his involvement in the coup attempt he told reporters, “To the extent I was there, those were attorney discussions. You don’t get any comment from me on those.”  His alleged legal advice was meretricious--a blatant misinterpretation of the Vice President's ministerial electoral function under the Constitution's Twelve Amendment.

So, who were the congressional co-conspirators? The list is familiar to those who follow Congress: Reps. Paul Gosar [p], Marjorie Taylor Greene, Andy Biggs [p], Lauren Boebert [p], Madison Cawthorn, Mo Brooks, and Louie Gohmert. The informants say there were "dozens" of planning meetings with these members or their staffs prior to January 6th. At one point Gosar promised the organizers blanket pardons from Herr Trumpillini to encourage them to go ahead with the Elipse protest. Greene, Boebert and Gosar spoke at he event that turned into a riot after the former guy appeared and told his armed supporters to march to the Capitol. When the insurrectionists broke into the Senate chamber, they headed directly to the Senate Parliamentarian's office and ransacked it looking for the hard copy of the Electoral College vote count. It strains credulity to think the average horned shaman would know where to find that office tucked away in the warrens of the Capitol. 

Line Up of Losers

Lookout Mountain Pack Destroyed

The state of Oregon has all but eliminated the Lookout Mountain wolf pack after it killed three more wolves from the air on October 20th.  That makes a total of eight members of the pack killed under lethal removal permits issued since July. All that remains of this pack is the alpha female and two of her juvenile offspring, which are unlikely to breed with her. The female is collared with a GPS device.  Once again state authorities have proven incapable of managing a recovering wolf population, so the resumption of federal protection under the Endangered Species Act is required. [OR-7; photo credit: OPB]

Earlier this month the Department of Fish and Wildlife issued another lethal control permit in Umatilla County to remove two wolves.  This permit expires on October 31st. The agency claims that its investigations of the area revealed no conditions on the private land which would attract wolves such as carcasses or sick animals.  It also says in its public reports that livestock owner in question took non-lethal steps to protect livestock before requesting a culling permit. Eight calves were victims of attacks, which  the agency labeled "chronic".  That determination allows lethal removal under its wolf management plan.  Unless the cattle are removed from the area, or depredations cease for an extended period of time, the Fivemile pack could end up like the former Lookout Mountain group.  This culturally induced persecution of an apex carnivore attempting to survive in a radically altered landscape by man has to end soon.  Federal action is needed nows; write Joe Biden and ask him to reinstate federal protection for the grey wolf before its too late.

'Toontime: Nobody Does It Better

This week PNG does its 'Toontime feature a little differently:

 

 US Person can think of one thing Trumpillini does not do better: coup d'états.

Gallium to the Rescue?

US Person does not really care if Joe Munchkin becomes an independent, other than the fact he would be less deceptive.*  The Democratic Caucus does not have his vote now when it needs it the most, so nothing would really change. Rewarding disloyalty seems to be peculiarity of the hide-bound Senate. 

Since it appears we will be stuck with combustion as a means of producing energy, means to burn fossil fuels while emitting less carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere is of paramount importance. Australia is a huge coal producer that is number one on the list of coal exporting countries. In 2020 the country exported $32.7 billion worth of coal. This industry is a major sector of the economy. Its conservative government has expressed continued support for coal extraction and burning. But Australian scientists think they have a solution to the dilemma.

Researchers have struggled to find an economically viable way to eliminate or reduce carbon dioxide gas from the combustion process. US Person wrote in a previous post {20.10.21}, sequestration and storage of carbon waste is expensive and the technology problematic. The kernel of the problem is the stability of the CO₂ molecule under normal conditions. Its decomposition temperature is 2000C and it is used in industry as an inert gas to blanket volatile reactions or products.

One way to activate the carbon dioxide molecule for reactive purposes is to expend energy to cause it to ionize. This is what researchers have done using sound waves to agitate carbon dioxide molecules that come in contact with the rare metal Gallium. Gallium is #31 in the Periodic Table, close to aluminum and zinc. Gallium has unusual properties. At STP it is a soft, silvery metal but it has a very low melting point. It will melt in your hand due to body heat being above its melting point of about 86F. It alloys easily with many metals.  Since it was first isolated in 1875 by French chemist Boisbaudran using spectroscopy, its use has been primarily as an alternative for mercury in themometrics and as a metal alloy. Today, its primary use is in the semiconductor industry. 

The researchers in Australia who published their results in the leading journal, Advanced Materials, have found a new and important use for the strange metal. Using a relatively small amount of electricity (230kWh per ton of CO₂ which costs about $28 in the US) and liquid gallium as a catalyst, they were able to obtain a 92% efficiency rate for converting CO₂ into oxygen and a carbon compound, graphene oxide, that has commercial value of about $800 a gram! Here is a basic schematic of what is going on in the reaction at the molecular level:

credit: Daily Kos

Droplets of Ga are suspended in a liquid solution capable of dissolving a lot of carbon dioxide. Silver fluoride salts are added and the mix agitated by sound waves.  Gallium forms tiny rod shaped crystals of silver-gallium spontaneously. When these rods came into contact with gallium nanoparticles, a charge differential is created across a thin layer of gallium oxide on the surface at the contact point (area A). Voilá, a tiny circuit is formed in which electrons flow to the end of the rod crystal where they come into contact with carbon dioxide to form negative CO₂ ions. These react with other carbon dioxide molecules to form oxygen and graphene oxide.  This process is sustainable and the catalysts--silver-gallium crystals and liquid gallium--remain intact.  

The researchers tested waste flue gas, which is not entirely carbon dioxide, and observed similar conversion results (it also contains sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides and particulates). Of course this process has yet to be proven at commercial scale, but development is continuing. But wait, you say, what about that gallium?  You said its rare, so is this just another environmental disaster waiting to happen?  Gallium does not appear as a free element in the Earth's crust.  It is a trace element of metallic ores of zinc and aluminum.  Gallium is produced as a by-product of bauxite mining primarily.  USGS estimates that about 1 million tons of the metal exists in known reserves of aluminum and zinc ores, In 2017 the world produced about 320 tons of refined gallium.  Not a lot, but perhaps a enough for use as a catalyst to reduce planet-wrecking carbon dioxide pollution.

* Mother Jones reports about Munchkin: "In the current electoral cycle, Manchin has received more in political donations from the oil and gas industry than any other senator, more than double the second largest recipient. He is also the No 1 beneficiary of donations from the coal mining sector, leads the way in money accepted from gas pipeline operators, and is sixth in the ranking of senatorial donations from electricity utilities."  If you ask US Person, he is an embarrassment. 

Carbon Capture--Not Yet!

Since Senator Munchkin Big Bucks is blocking the President's good faith effort to reduce carbon emissions, US Person takes a look at the so-called "clean coal" solution.  In short, NOT!  Coal is not clean because it emits tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when burned to generate electricity.  About 72% of US carbon emissions come from coal burning power plants.  Burning one pound of carbon completely produces three and a half pounds of carbon dioxide according to EIA statistics. Coal advocates, like the heavily invested senator from West Virginia, are frantic to extend the life of coal burning regardless of the effects on global climate.  They often point to technologies they claim will allow the burning of coal with 90% capture of carbon emissions.

That claim is not yet a reality. In fact, the DOE cancelled funding for the nation's CO₂ sequester demonstration project near Maltoon, Illinois in 2015.  As the name implies the general idea is to chemically capture the gas by burning coal only in pure oxygen resulting in flue gas that is mostly carbon dioxide and water,  The waste gas is then pumped into a subsurface saline formation thirty miles away. Construction began in 2014.  Plant funding was subsequently cancelled because the DOE did not think the technology would be workable by funding deadlines contained in  the Recovery Act of 2009, and because the owners were short of necessary equity. The FutureGen 2.0 project, owned by a consortium of electric power and coal companies, was estimated to cost $1.65 billion with $1 billion coming from the federal government. It would have been the nation's first working power plant equipped with carbon sequestration and storage (CSS) technology.  Critics of carbon sequestration say the technology is not yet commercially viable.

Of the nearly $1 billion awarded to the project nearly $116.5 million was spent upgrading the fifty-year old power plant owned by Ameren Corp.  Another $86 million was invested in the underground storage site according to DOE records. The agency attempted to spin a positive outcome for its spending, saying the work demonstrated the deep saline formation was,  "a world-class location for geologic carbon sequestration."   Environmentalists say the clean coal concept is a myth perpetrated by coal interests to prolong the life of a dying industry. Friends of the Earth said in a statement. “After 10 years and millions of wasted dollars, the Department of Energy announced what we knew all along: Coal has no place in our energy future.” This battle is still going on in the context of Biden's reconciliation bill, which mandates clean power generation standards (CEPP) the coal industry and its handmaiden opposes.

A second, larger CCS plant was begun in Kemper County, Mississippi in 2010.  That plant was supposed to be in service by 2014, but became mired in cost overruns, project management problems and environmental controversies.  The plant was slated to cost $2.4 billion, but by June 2017 the cost had ballooned to $7.5 billion. After the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that the power company had to refund 186,000 ratepayers for rate increases related to the project, state law was changed to permit recovery of cost overruns at ratepayer expense. The Mississippi Public Service Commission recommended that the plant switch to natural gas to avoid more overruns. The owners converted the plant to burn natural gas in 2017.

Mississippi's then governor, Haley Barbour, pushed hard for reallocation of federal funds to the Kemper project after Florida decided it did not want anymore coal fired power plants. The Southern Company was a major client of the governor's lobbying firm according to federal records.

If sequestration sounds technically complex and politically fraught, it is. Most environmentalists say the correct solution is to move away from coal burning to cleaner power alternatives, not funding alleged fixes that produce marginal results.. Nevertheless in the category of 'if they won't go away, join them', a recent research development in Australia, a major coal producing country, has caught US Person's attention and in his opinion, deserves mention. Still an unproven laboratory concept, it may offer a simpler technological "fix" to burning dirty coal in a responsible way. Watch this space for details.

COTW: Too Late for the Klamath Salmon?

Four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River in southern Oregon and Northern California [chart above] are slated to be demolished by 2024. That might be good news for the Kalmath salmon, but it could also be too late to save them from extinction. The past several years of severe drought and over-appropriation by agriculturalists have wreaked havoc on fish populations. The huge Bootleg wildfire and recprd grasshopper infestation have also contributed to the sharp declines in fish numbers. Four local tribes depend on the salmon migrations and their culture is built around subsistence fishing. These catastrophes of biblical magnitude have caused tribal leaders and their scientific advisors to wonder whether the salmon will live to expierience removal of man-made obstacles blocking access to their historic spawning areas.

This year an entire class of juvenile fish, migrating to the Pacific, was wiped out by a warm-water parasite called Ceratonova shasta One testing sample found 97 of juveniles infected with the parasite. Of those infected only 63% are expected to survive. Until white settlers began degrading the ecosystem, the Kalmath was the Pacific Coast's third largest fishery. The species is a keystone to the region's fauna and flora. Salmon not only feed humans, but orcas, brown bears, river otters and bald eagles depend on their yearly heroics. Their cacasses provide nutrents to river bank trees that shade the waters and prevent erosion, which contributes to water quality. Loss of the salmon will cause a general decline and eventual collapse of the ecosystem. 

The drought this year has been truly epic. Lake Mead, the country's largest resevoir is now 65% empty. The US Bureau of Reclaimation has declared an emergency, and slashed permissible withdrawals from the Colorado River. The Cascade snow pack was quickly absorbed by the arid landscape, so very little cold run-off reached the river, causing low flows and elevated water temepratures that are favorable to C. shasta. A shortage of river water prevented the Bureau from releasing a pulse of cleansing water downriver to flush out the worms that carry the parasite. This over=appropriation exacerbated by drought caused stakeholders to engage in a counterproductive flurry of circular lawsuits. This situation confirmed what had been known but perhaps not openly admitted, that the Kalamath Basin is not capable of meeting all the demands upon it for water. Cattle herds were culled resulting in depressed prices, and the Yurok tribe closed its fishing season for the fith straight year leaving families without traditional salmon meals. 

More importantly from a conservation standpoint, are the impacts on the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge. What was once a vibrant reserve of important migratory bird habitat is now according to one observer, "a big mud puddle".  Botulism, triggered by increased heat. killed at least 60,000 ducks last year. A half century ago, seven million waterfowl passed through the Kalmath Basin on their way south to California's Sacramento River valley. Today, a million birds is considered a good year. 

Stakeholders now look fondly upon unprecedented  agreements reached between 2010 and 2014 to reallocate and rehabilitate the river system and its salmon populations. Remarkably the agreements were reached without the support of local "Tea Party" politicians who oppposed the initiatives becuase of the dam removals. Plans for removal of the dams has gone ahead despite the lack of political support in Washington.  Now, the removals seem to be on track without the other provisions of the historic treaty of the Kalmath that would have increased the likelyhood of saving Klamath salmon and two species of suckers prized by the indeginous. The dam removals are pending before the FERC, which does not plan to issue a final decision until 2022, meaning demolition would not actually start before 2024. The delay increases the chances that the Klamath salmon will not make it to the day their river is returned to them. 

Perhaps Joe Munchkin should travel to southern Oregon to see for himself what climate change does to people and the fish they eat.  He can afford it.