AUDIO:

POSSIBLE TOPICS: VOTETEXAS.GOV—Voter Information; Boil water notice in effect for northwest Harris County residents following E. coli concerns; West University Place considers progressive rate charges for city water bills as drought conditions persist; Texas officials accuse Harris County of slashing constables’ budgets — but they’re actually going up; Health experts say there has been a decline in vaccinations among kids in Texas; Wind generators turned off sometimes to prevent Texas power grid from overloading; Wind and Solar Are Saving Texans $20 Million a Day; Nuclear Fusion Is Already Facing a Fuel Crisis; CNN’s Acosta clashes with Trump’s former DHS chief over election ‘lies’; Liz Cheney says Hawley, Cruz ‘made themselves unfit for future office’; China discovers potentially fatal new virus passed to humans from shrews; China’s unrivaled 70-day heat wave; Western sanctions are wounding but not yet crushing Russia’s economy; The New World Energy Order: A Battle Of Attrition; Forever Chemicals No More? PFAS Are Destroyed With New Technique; More

Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Wednesdays at 11AM (CT) on KPFT-HD2, Houston’s Community Station. You can also hear the show:

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Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. My co-host and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.

• An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.
• You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/EwrSlzZC31w

1. Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter InformationTEXAS SoS VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION (ALL TEXAS COUNTIES) HarrisVotes.com­ – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
   1. Harris County “Vote-By-Mail’ Application for 2022
      1. Fort bend County Elections/Voter Registration Machine takes you to the proper link
      2. GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
      3. Liberty County Elections (Liberty County, TX)
      4. Montgomery County (TX) Elections
      5. Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
      6. Waller County (TX) Elections
      7. Chambers County (TX) Elections
      8. For personalized, nonpartisan voter guides and information, Consider visiting Vote.ORG.   Ballotpedia.com and Texas League of Women Voters are also good places to get election info.
      9. If you are denied your right to vote any place at any time at any polling place for any reason, ask for (or demand) a provisional ballot rather than lose your vote.
      10. HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting Centers, HARRIS COUNTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
          1. Fill out a declaration at the polls describing a reasonable impediment to obtaining it, and show a copy or original of one of the following supporting forms of ID:
          2. A government document that shows your name and an address, including your voter registration certificate
          3. Current utility bill
          4. Bank statement
          5. Government check
          6. Paycheck
          7. A certified domestic (from a U.S. state or territory) birth certificate or (b) a document confirming birth admissible in a court of law which establishes your identity (which may include a foreign birth document)
          8. You may vote early by-mail if:You are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
             1. Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
             2. Sick or disabled;
             3. 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
             4. Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
             5. Make sure you are registered:
             6. Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
             7. CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
             8. CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
             9. Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
2. BE REGISTERED TO VOTE, and if eligible, REMEMBER TO FILL OUT AND MAIL YOUR MAIL-IN BALLOT APPLICATIONS FOR 2022
   1. You can track your Mail Ballot Activity from our website with direct link provided here https://www.harrisvotes.com/Tracking
   2. NEXT ELECTION: 2022 November General Election – November 8, 2022
   3. GENERAL ELECTIONS SCHEDULE
      Oct 11: Last day to register to vote
      24-Nov 4: Early Vote
      Oct 28: Last day to apply for a ballot by mail
      Nov. 8: ELECTION DAY!!!
3. ANNOUNCEMENT: The Community Climate Summit will be a day-long gathering of climate activists, community leaders, and frontline community members. Sep 10 at the Rice University Glasscock School of Continuing Studies
   1. The hope for this event is to support a coming together of frontline community members, community leaders, organizers, activists, and environmental advocacy professionals to share resources, learn about neighborhood-specific issues, identify sustainability strategies, collaborate to support each other’s existing initiatives, and create a shared vision and action plans toward both short- and long-term goals to protect the health of Houston communities. More details to come at the linked event site.
4. Boil water notice in effect for northwest Harris County residents following E. coli concerns; COM | Tuesday, August 23, 2022 1:09PM
   1. … The bacteria was found on Saturday, Aug. 20 in Harris County M.U.D. No. 24, [roughly in the vicinity of Spring-Cypress Rd and Steubner-Airline] according to a press release. The system was resampled and those results showed total coliform positive sample results.
   2. You can view a map of Harris County Municipal Utility District No. 24. here.
   3. coli can make individuals sick, especially those who have a weakened immune system.
   4. MIKE: As of 2am today, the website was still issuing a “boil water advisory”.
5. West University Place considers progressive rate charges for city water bills as drought conditions persist; By George Wiebe | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 3:22 PM Aug 23, 2022 CDT, Updated 3:22 PM Aug 23, 2022 CDT
   1. During an Aug. 22 meeting, the West University Place City Council was presented a report on monthly residential water consumption alongside possible rate changes for water use.
   2. Of the two alternative rates presented, one would involve a flat increase of 4.6%-4.9% to residential nonirrigation water use and a 6% increase to irrigation water use.
   3. The second alternative is a progressive increase to water consumption. Nonirrigation rates would increase once a water user passes 30,000 gallons. Irrigation rates would increase once after 20,000 gallons.
   4. According to the city’s preliminary report, 84% of residents consume less than 15,000 gallons of water per month. Approximately 3% of residents consume more than 25,000 gallons of water per month.
   5. City staff will present a final rate study at a Sept. 12 meeting. The council will then decide whether to incorporate any changes in the fiscal year 2022-23 budget, which is expected to be adopted Sept. 26. …
6. Texas officials accuse Harris County of slashing constables’ budgets — but they’re actually going up; Comptroller Glenn Hegar said the state could block the approval of Harris County’s budget because it’s not allowing constables to roll $3 million in unspent funds into next year’s budget — even though the constables’ total funding will go up next year. by Joshua Fechter | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Aug. 23, 2022, 8 hours ago
   1. … Hidalgo fired back — accusing Comptroller Hegar and Gov. Abbott of spreading “outright lies,” stating that the county has only boosted law enforcement funding since she took office in 2018 and vowing to “fight this issue in court.”
   2. “The truth is, before I took office, Harris County was not much more than a rubber-stamp for Abbott and his far-right agenda, and they resent the change,” Hidalgo said in a statement. “We’re about two months away from my re-election and they’re throwing everything — including outright lies — at the wall to see what sticks.”
   3. In this year’s proposed budget, Harris County commissioners plan to spend almost $232 million to fund the county’s eight constable offices — a nearly 10% increase from the previous fiscal year. The two constables who complained to Abbott’s office that they were losing funds … would receive 12% and 7.7% budget increases under the plan compared to last fiscal year, respectively. They also received budget increases the previous year — along with the other constables. …
7. Health experts say there has been a decline in vaccinations among kids in Texas; Reasons for the decline in vaccinations include lack of access to healthcare, parents not wanting to take their children to the pediatrician in fear of their kids becoming sick, and misinformation.By Ashley Brown | HOUSTONPUBLICMEDIA.ORG | Posted on August 23, 2022, 5:23 PM
   1. … The experts also worry that some diseases like measles and polio will make a comeback. Recently, the first case of polio arrived in New York City after 10 years. …
   2. [Terri Burke, Executive Director for the Immunization Foundation] said she’s also concerned about the passing of bills regarding vaccines at next year’s state legislative session that could affect children and public school enrollment.
   3. “There are groups planning to introduce between 50-60 anti-vaccine bills in our next legislative session,” she said. “They’re organizing to block any vaccine in Texas that is less than five years after the FDA’s approval.” …
   4. [Glenn Fennelly is the Chair of Pediatrics at Texas Tech Physicians of El Paso] said … diseases like polio, whooping cough, influenza, meningitis, and measles, which is the one of the major killers of children, have severe effects on children which is why keeping children vaccinated is a top priority among doctors.
   5. MIKE: Most “misinformation” is based on disinformation.
8. Wind generators turned off sometimes to prevent Texas power grid from overloading; ERCOT said it has to limit the power transmitted to the grid when it reaches full capacity. Author: Cheryl Mercedes (KHOU) | Published: 6:28 PM CDT August 17, 2022, Updated: 6:29 PM CDT August 17, 2022
   1. Is Texas producing more power than the grid can handle? Someone noticed some turbines at a standstill on a windy day and asked the VERIFY team to find out if the generators are turned off on purpose.
   2. … Texas is the top wind-power producer in the country. But the turbines are not always turning. …
   3. [KHOU energy expert Ed Hirs said,] “If the turbines are off, it’s normal. That could be one of three reasons. One: maintenance. Two: We already have enough power on the grid. Or three: There’s not enough transmission capacity to take that power to the consuming regions of the state,” Hirs said.
   4. [Senior Asset Manager with EDF Renewables North America Jenny Fink], who manages a wind farm, calls it wasted energy.
   5. “It’s really frustrating to see that we have the capability to produce more power than we’re actually able to get to the people who need it,” Fink said.
   6. But [ERCOT Interim CEO Brad Jones] explained last summer, that ERCOT has to limit the power transmitted to the grid to keep it from overloading.
   7. “Simply similar to if you have too many Christmas lights together, you’re going to have a problem, you’ll blow a fuse eventually,” Jones said. …
   8. ERCOT said the state’s transmission network would need significant infrastructure upgrades and more high-voltage lines to move the extra energy produced. And that would come at a cost of $1.2 billion.
   9. MIKE: So ERCOT, the so-called “Energy Reliability Council of Texas”, hasn’t been doing their job? Or is it that the Texas Republican leadership hasn’t funded necessary infrastructure upgrades that would enable ERCOT to live up to its name? Or is it that power generating companies and fuel suppliers don’t want the competition from renewables? Or is it a government-business conspiracy that jealously guards the Texas power grid from interconnecting with the North American grid. Or is it “E”: All of the above?
   10. MIKE: Credit to KHOU for exploring this story, but it’s superficial coverage at best. This issue needs a deep dive into the “who, what, where, when, and why’s” of how this came to be and why it’s not being addressed with the urgency and state policy it deserves.
   11. ANDREW: Too much generation for grid is possible. Orkney Islands near Scotland have too much wind power, not enough usage, not enough transmission infrastructure to sell it all to mainland. (Link to Tom Scott video.) But they and we could build more infrastructure so the excess renewable energy could be exported. Coal and gas-powered electric corporations may not want that. Public needs to make it less of a headache for politicians to export renewable energy than guard corporate interests.
9. Wind and Solar Are Saving Texans $20 Million a Day; By  Mark Dyson | RMI.ORG | August 3, 2022. NOTE: The Rocky Mountain Institute was founded as a 501(c)3 nonprofit aiming to radically improve America’s energy practices.
   1. In a year of record-high prices for fossil fuels, as lawmakers consider new policies that can help fight inflation, renewable energy is already helping to shield Americans from steep jumps in their electricity bills.
   2. For example, in Texas, even as some observers have incorrectly blamed renewables for the state’s strained power grid, more than a third of electricity in the first half of 2022 came from wind and solar projects. Wind and solar have both set records already this year.
   3. High production from renewables and high fossil fuel prices together mean wind and solar are having an outsized impact on lowering energy costs. Based on benchmark natural gas prices, RMI estimates that, on average, wind and solar projects in Texas have avoided $20 million per day in fuel that otherwise would have been needed for fossil fuel-based power plants to meet electricity demand.
   4. Average fuel cost savings delivered by wind and solar power in Texas started the year at about $10 million per day in January. As gas prices began rising steeply in the spring, wind and solar production also rose, providing about 40 percent of Texas electricity in March, April, and May even as gas prices peaked. In May, renewables saved Texans $30 million each day in avoided fossil fuel costs. …
   5. the average savings from avoiding natural gas-based generation in 2022 — more than $50 per MWh of renewable generation — exceed the typical costs of wind and solar projects. For example, the vast majority of wind projects in Texas have been contracted below $40/MWh, and more recently below $20/MWh, while the average contracted price of solar in Texas similarly falls below $40/MWh, and more recently even lower.
   6. In the first half of the year, renewable energy in Texas is estimated to have avoided more than $3 billion in fuel costs. As policymakers across the country consider opportunities to further limit the impacts of high fuel prices and inflation on American households, the evidence on display in Texas suggests that investing in more renewable energy is a no-regrets choice.
   7. MIKE: After much shopping and researching, I put solar panels on my house in June of this year. I ended up buying my system rather than leasing it, but your preferred solution might be different. My reasoning was partly the energy I might save with solar, but that wasn’t enough to match my monthly payments. However, after our Feb 2021 winter storm and being without power for heat and lights (even with gas heat!), I was also after energy security, and that also has a value.
   8. MIKE How much is energy security worth?
   9. MIKE: How much would a backup generator cost? A quick search suggests about $10.000 to $20,000, installed. Assuming your building codes permit it. Mine don’t. They also need natural or propane gas as a permanently connected fuel supply.
   10. MIKE: An emergency (e.g., “portable”) generator big enough to power your house might be about 12 KW. They can run $1000-2000, or more. But they have drawbacks: safety concerns, fuel availability, power limitations, regular maintenance (even if not being used), and the necessary connections (i.e., extension cords or a special electrical pane; the panels can run another one or two thousand dollars, installed.)
   11. MIKE: To make a long story short, based on my roof size and shape, solar orientation and other factors, I ended up with a solar system that includes 2 backup batteries that can generate about 50% of my energy so far since June. In a power failure, it can run my house during the day and most or all of the night, if necessary. That includes operating my heat and AC. It would at least partially recharge my batteries during the day, so there would be no 24-hour period without power.
   12. MIKE: PS— I strongly recommend getting 1-2 solar backup batteries with your system. It will cost much more, but the value of the system will be much higher, and tax credits help to substantially being that net cost down.
   13. This summer, I’ve saved about $60/month on electric, but I have a really cheap contract plan at about 8¢/ My next contract in Feb 2024 is likely to be at least twice that.
   14. MIKE: I estimate that what I consider my “energy security premium” is currently about $70/month. Electric contract prices now are almost double or more what I’m paying. I suspect that with my next contract, my “energy security premium” may drop to $10/month or less.
   15. MIKE: I can’t say that solar panels are right for everyone.
   16. ANDREW: More evidence that anyone blaming renewables for the state of the Texas grid is either ignorant or lying. For more exploration of power outage prep options, this video from The 8-Bit Guy shows his thinking for his situation and can be fascinating if you like infrastructure, technology, and/or disaster preparedness.
10. Nuclear Fusion Is Already Facing a Fuel Crisis; It doesn’t even work yet, but nuclear fusion has encountered a shortage of tritium, the key fuel source for the most prominent experimental reactors. By Amit Katwala, senior writer at WIRED | WIRED.COM | May 20, 2022, 7:00 AM
    1. …[the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, ITER, pronounced: “EAT-er”] relies on a steady supply of both deuterium and tritium for its experiments. Deuterium can be extracted from seawater, but tritium—a radioactive isotope of hydrogen—is incredibly rare. …
    2. And as ITER drags on, years behind schedule and billions over budget, our best sources of tritium to fuel it and other experimental fusion reactors are slowly disappearing.
    3. Right now, the tritium used in fusion experiments like ITER… comes from a very specific type of nuclear fission reactor called a heavy-water moderated reactor. But many of these reactors are reaching the end of their working life, and there are fewer than 30 left in operation worldwide … each producing about 100 grams of tritium a year. …
    4. [Building new fission reactors to make tritium] is not a viable long-term solution [since] the whole point of nuclear fusion is to provide a cleaner and safer alternative to traditional nuclear fission power. …
    5. The second problem with tritium is that it decays quickly. It has a half-life of 12.3 years, which means that when ITER is ready to start deuterium-tritium operations (in, as it happens, about 12.3 years), half of the tritium available today will have decayed into helium-3. The problem will only get worse after ITER is switched on, when several more deuterium-tritium (D-T) successors are planned.
    6. These twin forces have helped turn tritium from an unwanted byproduct of nuclear fission that had to be carefully disposed of into, by some estimates, the most expensive substance on Earth. It costs $30,000 per gram, and it’s estimated that working fusion reactors will need up to 200 kg of it a year. …
    7. Scientists have known about this potential stumbling block for decades, and they developed a neat way around it: a plan to use nuclear fusion reactors to “breed” tritium, so that they end up replenishing their own fuel at the same time as they burn it. …
    8. There are other ways of creating tritium … but these techniques are too expensive to be used for the quantities required, and they will likely remain the reserve of nuclear weapons programs. …
    9. [Now, some companies are exploring alternatives to using tritium]. … But the mainstream fusion community is still pinning its hopes on ITER, despite the potential supply problems for its key fuel. “Fusion is really, really difficult, and anything other than deuterium-tritium is going to be 100 times more difficult,” says [Scott Willms, fuel cycle division leader at ITER]. “A century from now maybe we can talk about something else.”
    10. REFERENCE: ITER (initially the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, iter meaning “the way” or “the path” in Latin^[1][2][3]) — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    11. ANDREW: Tritium breeding initially sounded like perpetual motion, creating energy or matter, but I looked at the ITER website and they explain it’s making use of waste energy in the form of neutrons by allowing them to interact with lithium. I doubt it would be enough to keep a fusion plant going on its own, but over time breeding could become more efficient. That could significantly reduce the amount of outside tritium needed for plant operation, which would make those expensive ways of creating tritium much more economical.
11. CNN’s Acosta clashes with Trump’s former DHS chief over election ‘lies’; by Sarah Polus | THEHILL.COM | 08/21/22 8:28 PM ET
    1. CNN anchor Jim Acosta clashed with former acting Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Chad Wolf on Sunday over his claims of election fraud.
    2. The exchange quickly became heated as Acosta pushed Wolf, who served under former President Trump, to say whether President Biden justly won the last election.
    3. “Who won the 2020 election?” Acosta asked, after Wolf expressed concern over voter fraud and irregularities.
    4. “Obviously Joe Biden is president,” the former HHS secretary responded.
    5. “No, no, no,” Acosta retorted. “Do you believe that he won that election fair and square?”
    6. Wolf again answered the question indirectly.
    7. “Joe Biden is president,” Wolf said, adding that he didn’t have all of the evidence needed to conclude that Biden’s victory was legitimate.
    8. Wolf cited Wisconsin’s use of drop boxes to back up his claims of fraud, noting that polling consistently shows a lack of confidence in election security among Americans.
    9. “There are a number of irregularities, illegalities and fraud,” Wolf said before Acosta interrupted.
    10. “Not enough to alter the outcome of the election,” the CNN anchor shot back.
    11. [Acosta] slammed Wolf, accusing him of undermining democracy and leading Americans down a “path of lies.”
    12. “It sounds like you’ve watched one too many conspiracy theories on the 2020 election,” Acosta said as the segment came to a close.
    13. Trump and his political allies have repeatedly pushed baseless claims that the previous presidential election was stolen.
    14. Many Republicans have embraced the narrative as part of their campaigns during the ongoing midterm elections, including GOP nominees for secretary of state in states including Wyoming and Arizona.
    15. ANDREW: Rare instance of TV news challenging their talking heads. Wish they’d do it to those in their corner, too. Fraud claims obviously bunk. Election security issues real, but not to do with voter fraud, instead to do with machine voting– inherently unsecure, even if gaping holes were patched.
    16. MIKE: I agree with Andrew on this. Election fraud has become a much greater danger than voter fraud. Paper trails are essential, and double checking your paper ballot before depositing it — whether hand-filled or machine-generated — is important.
12. Liz Cheney says Hawley, Cruz ‘made themselves unfit for future office’; by Zach Schonfeld | THEHILL.COM | thehill.com 08/21/22 10:10 PM ET
    1. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Sunday said it would be “very difficult” for her to support Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) or Ted Cruz (R-Texas) after they objected to Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021.
    2. Cheney told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl that both Ivy League-educated senators “know better.”
    3. “Both of whom know exactly what the role of Congress is in terms of our constitutional obligations with respect to presidential elections, and yet, both of whom took steps that fundamentally threatened the constitutional order and structure in the aftermath of the last election,” she said. “So in my view, they both have made themselves unfit for future office.” …
    4. ANDREW: I watched a bit of that broadcast. I like what Jane Coaston of the NYT said in roundtable. Cheney is Trump opposition, but still a conservative Republican. Her policies still harmful to overwhelming majority of people. Can’t forget that. Praise her for standing up to Trump, sure, but she’s no hero.
13. GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!: China discovers potentially fatal new virus passed to humans from shrews; The Langya Henipavirus, known as “Langya”, has already infected 35 people [in 2 Mainland provinces], according to Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control. By Graeme Massie, Los Angeles | INDEPENDENT.CO.UK | Aug 10, 2022 (5 hours ago)
    1. MIKE: They’re not sure yet if this can be spread by human-to-human contact. TBD.
14. China’s unrivaled 70-day heat wave; By Andrew Freedman, author of Axios Generate | AXIOS.COM | Aug 22, 2022
    1. The extreme heat and drought that has been roasting a vast swath of southern China for at least 70 straight days has no parallel in modern record-keeping in China, or elsewhere around the world for that matter.
    2. MIKE: Climate change is the result of global warming: Republican pollster Frank Luntz developed “Climate change” as a focus-grouped term that sounds less alarming than “global warming”. Through constant Republican badgering and unified messaging, “climate change” became the media’s “go-to” terminology. This was politically useful to Republicans trying to head off restrictions on “hot house” emissions that warm the atmosphere.
    3. ANDREW: No country is spared the effects of global warming. International cooperation is a must if we want to save humanity from becoming an underwater civilization.
    4. REFERENCE: Frank Luntz: the man who came up with ‘climate change’ — and regrets it; By Jane Mulkerrins | THETIMES.CO.UK, The Times | Tuesday May 25 2021, 12.01am BST — You might call him a pollster or a political strategist. Frank Luntz simply calls himself a “word guy”. Over three decades in US politics 59-year-old Luntz has crafted messaging to make conservative ideas more palatable to the public. He coined the emotive term “death tax” to replace “inheritance tax”, used the words “energy exploration” to replace “offshore drilling” and advised the Bush administration to adopt his phrase “climate change” in place of “global warming”. …
15. Western sanctions are wounding but not yet crushing Russia’s economy; Economists agree the damage is mounting and will degrade Russia in the long term, but the short-term impact is decidedly mixed. By Jeanne Whalen, Robyn Dixon, Ellen Nakashima and Mary Ilyushina | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | Updated August 23, 2022 at 5:26 p.m. EDT | Published August 23, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
    1. … While most economists agree that Russia is suffering real damage that will mount over time, the economy — at least on the surface — does not yet appear to be collapsing. … Unemployment hasn’t noticeably surged, and Russia continues to earn the equivalent of billions of dollars every month from oil and gas exports. …
    2. … Manufacturing of autos and other goods has plummeted because companies can’t import components, creating pockets of disgruntled, furloughed workers in some towns. Airlines have slashed international flights to near zero and are laying off pilots and cannibalizing some planes for parts that they can no longer buy overseas. Thousands of highly educated people have fled the country; hundreds of foreign companies … are shutting down, and Russia’s federal budget in July showed signs of distress.
    3. Sanctions “are working, definitely, but unfortunately much slower than everybody was expecting six months ago,” said Maxim Mironov, a Russian economist at IE Business School in Madrid.
    4. To inflict more damage, economists say, the European Union must cut Russia’s main lifeline: oil and gas export revenue. The United States and the United Kingdom have banned Russian oil and gas imports, but Europe, which relies heavily on Russian energy, has only agreed to restrict purchases over time. …
    5. To keep the unemployment rate stable at about 4 percent, the Kremlin has pressured distressed companies to put workers on partially paid leave or to shorten their hours instead of laying them off … That will help prevent unrest in the short term but is not sustainable in the long term …
    6. Economists at Yale University argued in a recent paper that sanctions are inflicting immense pain. “Defeatist headlines arguing that Russia’s economy has bounced back are simply not factual — the facts are that, by any metric and on any level, the Russian economy is reeling, and now is not the time to step on the brakes,” they wrote.
    7. … Europe’s failure to quickly halt Russian oil purchases, due to its dependence, was a big missed opportunity … The E.U. is set to ban most Russian crude purchases in December and refined oil products in February. …
    8. While many Western and Asian countries have sharply curbed exports to Russia … exports from some nations, including Turkey and China, have rebounded somewhat in recent weeks, Ribakova said. …
    9. Although cars and car parts are especially hard for Russians to find, secondhand sellers on social media are filling some of the gap, offering parts or hardware brought in from Kazakhstan and Belarus. … [W]hile sanctions may not be acting swiftly enough to provoke a public uprising or to constrain Russia’s ability to wage war in coming months, the long-term impact will be immensely damaging to the country, experts say. …
    10. MIKE: I believe that the world is in a critically important war-by-proxy. I hate to sound hyperbolic, but this is what the Allies should have been doing to Nazi Germany in 1938 instead of signing the Munich Agreement. That appeasement laid much of the groundwork for the start of WW2. Russia has returned to being aggressively expansionist. Much of its post-War European was never disgorged after its WW2 occupation. Now, it wants the former-Soviet republics back.
16. The New World Energy Order: A Battle Of Attrition; Tilak Doshi, Contributor | FORBES.COM | Aug 18, 2022, 09:45am EDT
    1. Battles of attrition are defined as those in which opposing forces do not confront each other in direct combat with the full strength of their teams but instead aim to wear each other down over a period of time. Classical free trade is largely voluntary and mutually beneficial to consenting parties. But unilaterally-imposed economic policy sanctions that coerce certain desired patterns of international trade and economic exchange may be cast as attempts to win a battle of attrition.
    2. The latest headlines on the attrition front from Germany — the epicentre of the continent’s unsettled energy geopolitics after the launch of Western sanctions on Russia — seem incredible at first sight. …
    3. Last week, Bloomberg’s Javier Blas tweeted with his “chart of the day” showing Google GOOG -0.3% searches for firewood (“Brennholz”) surging in the past two months as Germans increasingly realize that firewood … might stand between them and a freezing winter with electricity rationing “as the country braces for natural gas shortages”. Germany’s citizens — living in the world’s pre-eminent engineering nation … , … face the prospects of surviving winter as their forebears did over 2 centuries ago, huddling around a firewood hearth. Never mind that many of them including their leaders [believe] that continued use of fossil fuels will lead to planetary damnation …
    4. A few days after the launch of Russia’s “special military operations” in eastern Ukraine on 24^th February, the U.S., U.K. and the European Union along with their closest allies (Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and a few other countries) imposed the most wide-ranging economic blitzkrieg on a sovereign nation since the Second World War. ….
    5. Russia responded with a “roubles for gas” scheme for “non-friendly” countries (i.e. those participating in the sanctions) as a prototype for all of Russia’s major commodity exports to a hostile Western alliance.
    6. According to a Reuters report …, higher oil export volumes, coupled with rising gas prices, will boost Russia’s earnings from energy exports to … a 38% rise on 2021 …
    7. The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook issued in late July slashed growth forecasts for almost every country but upgraded Russia’s economic forecast. Russia is still expected to contract 6% this year [but not] the IMF’s April negative 8.5% forecast.
    8. While there was some fall-off in energy exports to the Western countries, China and India rapidly increased their energy imports from Russia at discounted prices. While China is in talks with Russia to buy oil to replenish its strategic reserves according to Bloomberg, India has been refining cheaper Russian crude to then export as petroleum products to Europe and the US. …
    9. Financial and trade sanctions on Russia by Western protagonists has led to an economic battle of attrition, the results of which remain uncertain and far-reaching. It looks increasingly likely that Russia will achieve at least its immediate goals in the military battlefield in the eastern and southern parts of Ukraine, albeit at great cost of men and materiel. Yet the costs of the Western economic sanctions on Russia which have boomeranged are far more consequential to people’s lives and livelihoods around the world.
    10. The Western alliance, led by the US under the Biden administration, offers no prospects for a negotiated solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict as called for by Henry Kissinger at the Davos conference in May. Indeed, the mainstream media and Western political leaders have continued escalating the narrative of a Russian military defeat with a seeming endless supply of funds and arms by the Biden administration to Ukraine.
    11. Pensioners and poorer sections of society across Western Europe and the UK, unable to afford skyrocketing heating and electricity bills, will be the most affected … But even worse injuries to people’s lives and livelihoods will be among the vast populations of the developing countries that live in poverty or on the edges of it. The surge in the price of food, fertilizer and fuel as a result of the sanctions will punish the far-flung innocent poor the most.
    12. MIKE: This is a longer article and is much more detailed and nuanced.
    13. ANDREW: So some are predicting sanctions will tank Russia, some are predicting they won’t. The future is uncertain. But what is certain is that while sanctions continue, while the war in Ukraine continues, every nation’s civilians — the people with the least say in this war– are suffering, not world leaders. Ukraine should defend itself, but fighting to the bitter end is unnecessary and will prolong suffering. If the US indicates it wants to start negotiating, that pressures Russia to do the same. If the US is willing to not call it a win, Russia doesn’t have to call it a loss, and people can stop dying sooner.
17. Forever Chemicals No More? PFAS Are Destroyed With New Technique; The harmful molecules are everywhere, but chemists have made progress in developing a method to break them down. By Carl Zimmer | NYTIMES.COM | Aug. 18, 2022
    1. A team of scientists has found a cheap, effective way to destroy so-called forever chemicals …
    2. The chemicals — known as PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are found in a spectrum of products and contaminate water and soil around the world. [They remain] dangerous for generations.
    3. … In a study, published Thursday [8/19] in the journal Science, a team of researchers rendered PFAS molecules harmless by mixing them with two inexpensive compounds at a low boil [MIKE: from elsewhere in the article, “between about 175 degrees to 250 degrees Fahrenheit”]. In a matter of hours, the PFAS molecules fell apart. …
    4. The new technique might provide a way to destroy PFAS chemicals once they’ve been pulled out of contaminated water or soil. But William Dichtel, a chemist at Northwestern University and a co-author of the study, said that a lot of effort lay ahead to make it work outside the confines of a lab. …
    5. A common method to get rid of this concentrated PFAS is to burn it. But some studies indicate that incineration fails to destroy all of the chemicals and lofts the surviving pollution into the air. …
    6. MIKE: This is an advance, for sure, but in the absence of a way to pull PFAS from the environment, it would rely on boiling water and soil in a chemical mix in order to “disassemble” PFAS into less noxious compounds. (The article doesn’t specify what these compounds are.)
    7. MIKE: So this is certainly an important step forward, but a way needs to be found to break down PFAS outside the lab. Perhaps this will be a small step in that direction.
    8. ANDREW: Reflects an important part of actions against environmental damage like pollution and climate change: fixing the damage that’s already happened. Stopping things getting worse definitely important, but not alone enough to dig us out. Any progress on environmental restoration is good news.

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