Now in our 11th year on KPFT!

Going forward, new shows will post for Thursday at 6PM (CT) broadcast and re-run on Sundays at 1PM and Wednesdays at 11AM.

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POSSIBLE TOPICS: ELECTION INFO; Mike Miles to Texas Democrats: ‘Lead, follow, or get out of the way’; New poll shows less support for $4.4 billion Houston ISD bond than prior survey; Election experts cautious as Abbott touts voter roll purge; The U.S. Is Quietly Building Several Renewable Energy Megaprojects; Can the West Afford to Build Its Own Copper Industry?; Wayne County [MI] to hold public meeting on plan to store hazardous, radioactive waste in landfill; Breakthrough nuclear reactor one mile below ground to transform energy generation; Philippines says China was alarmed over US missile system deployed to its north; Australia offers U.S. a vast new military launchpad in China conflict;

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. 

Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Wednesdays at 11AM (CT) or Thursdays at 6PM on KPFT 90.1 FM-HD2, Houston’s Community Media. You can also hear the show:

1. Live online at KPFT.org (from anywhere in the world!)
2. Podcast on your phone’s Podcast App
3. Visiting Archive.KPFT.ORG

Except for timely election info, the extensive list of voting resources will now be at the end.

1. ELECTION INFO: Be correctly registered for the fall General elections, and double check at the link I’m providing to Texas Secretary of State to make sure you remain
   5. The general election is Nov. 5. The deadline for voter registration is Oct. 7.
   6. The deadline to apply for a mail ballot is October 25. Click on the link I’m providing to HarrisVotes for the application. Please fill it out, print it, and mail it (not email or fax) before the deadline.
   7. if you are a new Texas resident, OR if you have changed your address since you last voted, OR if you have had any kind of name change for reasons such as marriage or divorce, then you MUST verify that you are still registered to vote AND you must update your voter information.
   8. The criteria required are your Voter ID number plus your date of birth, OR your Texas driver’s license number or Texas photo ID number plus date of birth, OR your name/county/date of birth.
   9. If you need to update any information, click on the voter registration link at VoteTexas(dot)gov. That will take you to an application page where you are given the option to register for the first time, OR to change your voter information, OR to replace your voter registration.
   10. Once you complete this form, you are NOT automatically registered. Instead, you MUST print it, sign it, and mail it to the address that is provided.
   11. Early Vote Centers will be open from Monday, October 21– Friday, November 1 (Mon-Sat: 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. Sun:12 p.m. – 7 p.m. )
   12. Vote Centers will accept voters from 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, November 5.
   13. Visit our “What’s on my Ballot?” page and enter your name or address to see all the contests and candidates you are eligible to vote on! (You can bring handwritten notes or printed sample ballots to the voting booth; just be sure to take it with you when you leave.)
2. Mike Miles to Texas Democrats: ‘Lead, follow, or get out of the way’; The HISD superintendent penned a letter to politicians calling for an investigation into his charter school network. By Brooke Kushwaha, News Reporter | CHRON.COM | Aug 23, 2024. TAGS: Houston ISD superintendent Mike Miles, Spectrum News, Third Future Schools, Texas Education Agency,
   1. After a group of Texas Democrats called for an investigation into his business dealings, much-maligned Houston ISD superintendent Mike Miles had choice words for his political detractors: “Get out of the way.”
   2. After reports in both Spectrum News and the Texas Observer found inconsistencies with Miles’ financial relationship to his former charter school network, nine Texas legislators called on Attorney General Ken Paxton to investigate. On Friday Aug. 23, the Quorum Report posted that Miles had penned a letter to those lawmakers urging them, in summary, to focus on the successes of the state takeover instead of the controversies.
   3. “It’s time for all of us to lead, follow, or get out of the way,” Miles wrote in the letter. [He continued by saying,] “Let’s end the distracting public fighting and work together. HISD will not stop fighting for our students. We will not stop working to change the parts of a broken system that hold too many students back. We will not stop putting our students first. And, we will not let misinformation stand when it hurts kids and families.”
   4. The scrutiny into Miles’ relationship with his former charter school network, Third Future Schools, began after Spectrum News first alleged that Miles, although no longer president of the organization, continued to be paid as a consultant. The report also found inconsistencies with Third Future’s financial dealings, suggesting that the organization had funneled Texas public education funds to its cash-strapped Colorado schools. The report had been allowed to sit uncontested for nearly 24 hours before Miles and HISD issued a formal response denying any wrongdoing or impropriety. 
   5. In the recent letter, Miles said he will respond more promptly to questions and allegations in the future. …
   6. Miles’ leadership has been continually questioned by local leaders, parents, and students since the Texas Education Agency announced its takeover of the district and installed the West Point alumnus as superintendent in the spring of 2023. Over 9,000 students and hundreds of faculty members have left the district in the past year, including nearly 80 principals. 
   7. Preliminary school ratings from the state, however, have indicated considerable improvement, particularly among the district’s lowest-performing schools. The state has yet to release official ratings for the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years due to ongoing litigation. In his letter, Miles encouraged legislators to focus on the positives of his administration and “put aside the politics of grievance and divisiveness.”
   8. “This work is not easy, and we welcome your help,” Miles said. “As a first step, we invite you to come visit our schools, to see the real story of the remarkable transformation taking place. Second, we’ve focused a lot of time and energy on staff who have left the district. It’s important you hear from the educators that are here, working for our students.”
   9. MIKE: There are a lot of people taking Mike Miles’ suggestion to heart. They are They’re leading opposition to Mike Miles’ style, policies, leadership, and general lack of trustworthiness.
   10. MIKE: That may not be the kind of leadership Mike Miles had in mind when he made that statement, but maybe he should be more careful what he wishes for.
   11. MIKE: I’ll talk more about this aspect of the HISD bond proposal in the next story.
3. New poll shows less support for $4.4 billion Houston ISD bond than prior survey; by Asher Lehrer-Small | HOUSTONLANDING.ORG | August 27, 2024 | 8:27 pm. TAGS: Houston ISD, HISD Bond Proposal,
   1. Just days apart, two polls related to Houston ISD’s proposed $4.4 billion school bond forecast clashing results, with a new survey released Tuesday suggesting voters might reject the record-breaking package.
   2. The latest survey, released Tuesday by the Texas American Federation of Teachers, shows just over half of 736 likely voters surveyed said they would vote against the proposal for billions in campus, technology and security upgrades. About 30 percent of likely voters surveyed said they would support the bond, while nearly 20 percent said they were undecided or would not vote on the proposal.
   3. Leaders of the Houston Federation of Teachers, a local affiliate of the Texas AFT union, have vocally opposed the bond, though the poll was conducted by Z to A Research, a public opinion research company [catering] to Democratic campaigns and causes.
   4. The results arrive five days after Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research released a poll showing nearly three-quarters of about 1,900 HISD residents would back a school bond package that does not raise property tax rates. That survey did not ask respondents whether they would support HISD’s exact proposal, which had not been finalized at the time of the poll. The district’s $4.4 billion plan does not include a property tax rate increase.
   5. If passed, HISD’s proposal would be the largest school bond package in Texas history. It would fund rebuilding campuses, fixing faulty air systems, upgrading school security and other improvements. …
   6. HISD spokesperson Jose Irizarry responded to the results of the Tuesday poll by emphasizing that the district’s proposal would not raise tax rates, despite legally required language that says “this is a tax increase.” People participating in the Texas AFT poll read the exact wording of the bond proposal on the ballot, which includes the “tax increase” phrase.
   7. The wide gap between the two polls’ findings may stem from some key differences in the structure of the surveys, including question wording, sample size and methodology.
   8. The Texas AFT poll asked directly about HISD’s current bond proposal, while the Rice survey asked more broadly about support for a school bond that does not raise property taxes.
   9. “Question wording is everything,” Z to A Research Founder Nancy Zdunkewicz said. “People behave differently when they have the actual ballot language in front of them.”
   10. Additionally, the Rice poll questioned more than double the number of residents compared to the Texas AFT poll. Rice targeted all adult residents of HISD, while the Texas AFT surveyed likely voters, a group that skews slightly older and whiter than the full district population.
   11. HISD’s bond election has become a key point of contention in the state’s largest district, pitting a widely acknowledged need to upgrade aging school facilities against the community’s frayed trust in its state-appointed board and superintendent, Mike Miles, who were appointed June 2023 amid academic sanctions against HISD.
   12. Bond supporters say HISD is long overdue for billions of dollars in upgrades, because the district has gone 12 years since its last successful bond vote, primarily due to voter frustration with the district’s leadership. Large districts typically pass a bond roughly every five years.
   13. However, critics like the HFT argue the city can’t trust Miles to responsibly invest billions of dollars in taxpayer money. …
   14. Despite the union’s stance, Zdunkewicz said the Tuesday poll was carefully crafted to eliminate potential bias, with an “equal number of strongly worded arguments for and against” the bond. The polling company found participants through text messages and targeted online ads that did not mention HISD or the bond, Zdunkewicz said.
   15. MIKE: I don’t think I’ve ever voted against a school bond proposal in my life, but I’ll probably vote against this one for the same reasons I mentioned in the previous story: Mike Miles’ style, policies, leadership, and general lack of trustworthiness.
   16. MIKE: And to be honest, Metro’s backtracking earlier this year on the expansion of bus routes in poorly served parts of Houston, that Metro originally promised in order to get its last bond issue approved by voters, sets a very poor precedent for bond issues that don’t have their promises in black and white text in the bond proposal.
   17. MIKE: For governing bodies to operate on trust, they must continually prove themselves trustworthy. Breaking promises due to alleged changes in circumstances may sound reasonable, but it’s not necessarily acceptable.
   18. MIKE: If a promise is to be broken, more is required than, “Oops! Stuff changed.”
   19. MIKE: I have a suggestion. If money is not allocated to the project promised, that money should be stricken from the bond spending budget. Let the new proposal stand on its own as a separate part of a new bond proposal to be voted up or down.
   20. MIKE: I would also like to propose that bonds cannot be passed without a vote of at least 25% of registered voters. This virtually guarantees that bond issues would be voted on in general elections, guaranteeing a larger turnout than some random bond election.
   21. MIKE: Frankly, I’d like to make that proposal 50% of registered voters, but then it’s possible that nothing would ever pass. Which is a damn shame.
4. Election experts cautious as Abbott touts voter roll purge; By Juan Salinas II, The Texas Tribune, and Natalia Contreras, Votebeat and The Texas Tribune | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Aug. 27, 20243 PM Central. TAGS: Politics, State government, Greg Abbott, Voter Purges,
   1. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced on Monday that the state has removed roughly a million people from its voter rolls since he signed a legislative overhaul of election laws in 2021.
   2. “Illegal voting in Texas will never be tolerated. We will continue to actively safeguard Texans’ sacred right to vote while also aggressively protecting our elections from illegal voting,” [Abbott] said.
   3. However, election experts point out that both federal and state law already required voter roll maintenance, and the governor’s framing of this routine process as a protection against illegal voting could be used to undermine trust in elections. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 already governs how states should keep their registration rolls accurate and up-to-date, and also includes protections to avoid the inadvertent removal of properly registered voters.
   4. “Year after year, people are taken off the voting rolls for all manner of innocuous reasons,” said Sarah Xiyi Chen, an attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project.
   5. Neither the governor nor the Secretary of State’s Office responded to requests for comment.
   6. Removal of ‘noncitizens’ raises questions — The majority of voters removed from the rolls were taken off because they died, failed to respond to notices from election officials, or moved out of Texas. Abbott’s press release also said more than 6,000 voters were removed after being convicted of a felony.
   7. The total Abbott cited includes more than 463,000 who were taken off after being placed on what is known as the suspense list. Such voters are removed after the voter registrar receives information that they have moved. If the voter does not update their information and does not vote for two election cycles, they’re then removed from the rolls.
   8. In addition, the governor stressed that more than 6,500 “noncitizens” who shouldn’t have been registered were removed, and approximately 1,930 of those had a voting history.
   9. Voter watchdogs such as Alice Clapman, senior counsel at the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights Program, said they want to know more about those voters, because Texas has wrongly flagged people as noncitizens before.
   10. Erroneously flagging legal voters as noncitizens can occur when outdated information is obtained from naturalized citizens or if someone mistakenly checks the wrong box at the DMV, Clapman said.
   11. In 2019, Texas officials flagged 95,000 voters whom they identified as “noncitizens” and accused broadly of voter fraud. After review, it turned out that many of the people identified on the rolls were naturalized citizens. The scandal resulted in the secretary of state resigning. The state abandoned the effort after numerous lawsuits, which resulted in the state setting new guidelines for future voter roll clean-ups.
   12. ACLU of Texas attorney Ashley Harris points to the 2019 incident as an example of the state’s lack of transparency about how it collects this data. …
   13. There has been no evidence of widespread noncitizen voting in federal elections, even as Republicans across the county — including former President Donald Trump — have ramped up unproven claims. …
   14. Officials say Texas has ‘strong, clean voter rolls’ — County voter registrars conduct extensive voter roll [maintenance] on a daily basis. As they receive and process applications, eligibility status is verified by the Texas secretary of state. But locally, one other way election officials check whether a voter is a U.S. citizen is through the local district attorney’s offices.
   15. Across the state, those offices use their county voter rolls to send out jury summons questionnaires. Voters who respond to those surveys by indicating they’re not U.S. citizens are not eligible to participate in a jury. That information is also used by the voter registrar’s office to remove noncitizens from the rolls.
   16. At a state House of Representatives committee hearing on elections Monday, officials with the Texas Secretary of State’s Office addressed how the state confirms that voters who register are U.S. citizens, and eligible to cast a ballot.
   17. Christina Adkins, the agency’s elections division director, said that since 2021, the Texas Department of Public Safety on a weekly basis has provided data to the secretary of state from people who have obtained a state ID or driver’s license and identified as a noncitizen while doing so. Through that process they’re required to show DPS documentation of lawful presence in the United States, such as a permanent resident card — known as a green card — or an immigrant visa.
   18. That data is compared with the voter rolls and sent to county voter registrars. In addition, election officials use information provided by volunteer deputy registrars — appointed by the county to help people register to vote — to check whether a voter registered at their U.S. naturalization ceremony.
   19. If a voter provides the last four digits of their Social Security number on their voter registration application, the state also checks that the person on the application is who they say they are by matching first name, last name, and date of birth against data from the Social Security Administration.
   20. Adkins emphasized the state has “strong, clean voter rolls” and that the state has been looking for ways to improve voter roll maintenance and eligibility verification practices. “For many, many, many years now, Texas has been on the forefront of making sure that we have the right data sets, that they are properly and securely validated,” she said.
   21. The state is also looking into working with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to obtain data on Texans with felony convictions, who may be on probation or parole. …
   22. Last week, Attorney General Ken Paxton opened an investigation into “reports that organizations operating in Texas maybe unlawfully registering noncitizens to vote,” after a Fox News host made an unsubstantiated claim on social media that migrants were registering to vote outside a driver’s license facility outside of Fort Worth.
   23. Both the county election administrator and Republican Party chair said they had investigated the claims and found no evidence.
   24. The law Abbott signed in 2021 set new rules and penalties for voter assistance, made it a felony for local officials to proactively distribute applications for mail-in ballots, banned local initiatives to expand voting hours and drive through voters, and gave partisan poll watchers increased autonomy inside polling places, among other things.
   25. MIKE: In the earlier story on the proposed HISD bond issue, I talked about how trust in government has to be earned every day. Once that trust is lost, it becomes very hard to win back, just like in interpersonal relationships.
   26. MIKE: For me and many other Texans, I have lost trust in the actions of the Texas state government, and by association, the Texas Secretary of State, particularly when it comes to what have to be good faith efforts at honestly maintaining Texas voter rolls.
   27. MIKE: Having spent the better part of their last 30 years in power with an obvious agenda of suppressing voters — particularly Democratic voters — I have no reason to take Governor Abbott’s word that his claim of a million voters taken off the voter rolls is a good and honest accomplishment.
   28. MIKE: It is for this reason that I strongly urge everyone listening to check their voter enrollment status.
   29. MIKE: You can go to the Texas Secretary of State web site at VoteTexas(dot)gov. At the top of that page is a link to, “Am I Registered?” Click on that link and follow the guidance on the screen.
   30. MIKE: I’m going to say again what I said earlier in the show for those who may have missed it.
   31. MIKE: Checking your voter registration status “just because” is a good practice. I do it periodically.
   32. MIKE: BUT ESPECIALLY if you are a new Texas resident, OR if you have changed your address since you last voted, OR if you have had any kind of name change for reasons such as marriage or divorce, then you MUST verify that you are still registered to vote AND you must update your voter information.
   33. MIKE: The criteria required are your Voter ID number plus your date of birth, OR your Texas driver’s license number or Texas photo ID number plus date of birth, OR your name/county/date of birth.
   34. MIKE: If you need to update any information, click on the voter registration link at VoteTexas(dot)gov. That will take you to an application page where you are given the option to register for the first time, OR to change your voter information, OR to replace your voter registration.
   35. MIKE: Once you complete this form, you are NOT automatically registered. Instead, you MUST print it, sign it, and mail it to the address that is provided.
5. The U.S. Is Quietly Building Several Renewable Energy Megaprojects; By Alex Kimani | OILPRICE.COM | Aug 18, 2024, 4:00 PM CDT. TAGS: Sunzia Wind Project, Clean Energy, Champlain Hudson Power Express, Hydroelectric Megaproject, Global Energy Crisis,
   1. After soaring during the global energy crisis triggered by the Covid [pandemic] and Russia’s war in Ukraine, the renewable energy sector has fallen back to earth, with high interest rates and a weaker global economy acting as headwinds for clean energy equities. The sector’s favorite benchmark, iShares Global Clean Energy ETF [ETF=Exchange-Traded Fund] … is deeply in the red, with a -18.2% return in the year-to-date, compared to a 6.6% gain by its fossil-fuel equivalent, the Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund …, and 12.1% return by the S&P 500. Thankfully [though], the clean energy revolution does not appear to be running out of steam.
   2. To wit, with just a few months left of its term, the Biden administration has managed to scoop $93 million from offshore wind developers [for leases], a big improvement from a year ago. According to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s preliminary results, wind lease off the coast of Delaware netted $75 million from Equinor … while a second lease area, off the coast of Virginia Beach, was scooped up for almost $18 million by Dominion Energy … The Dominion lease lies adjacent to the 176-turbine Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind farm that the company is currently building. Whereas that might not seem like much, consider that last year, the first ever Gulf of Mexico offshore wind lease sale brought in a high bid of just $5.6 million from RWE Offshore US Gulf, the sole bidder.
   3. Both federal and private renewable energy developers appear equally unfazed by the industrywide challenges, with the development of dozens of massive clean energy projects currently underway in various parts of the United States. Here are 3 of the biggest and most impressive.
   4. After more than 17 years awaiting permits and approvals, Pattern Energy Group has finally kicked off the full construction of what is billed as the largest renewable energy project in the United States: SunZia Transmission and [the SunZia Wind Project], at a grand cost of $11 billion.
   5. SunZia Transmission is a 550-mile ± 525 kV high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line that will run between central New Mexico and south-central Arizona, with a capacity to transport 3,000 MW across Western states. The giant transmission line will deliver power generated by Pattern Energy’s 3,515 MW SunZia Wind facility, the largest wind project not only in the U.S. but the entire Western Hemisphere. SunZia Wind and Transmission will employ more than 2,000 workers on-site during construction. …
   6. … Construction began on the project in late 2023, after the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Department of the Interior issued its Notice to Proceed and is expected to start commercial operation in 2025.
   7. New York’s Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) is an innovative hydroelectric megaproject that will deliver power from Canada to New York City. This 1,250 MW project involves the construction of a 333-mile, fully buried transmission line, which the project’s website says is already complete. New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) requires that New York be powered by 70 percent renewable energy by 2030. The CHPE is expected to be fully operational in spring of 2026, delivering low-cost renewable power directly into the New York Metro area. New York City has committed to sourcing 100% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2040. 
   8. Nevada’s Gemini Solar Project is currently one of the largest solar farms under construction in the U.S. Located 30 miles northeast of Las Vegas, this ground-mounted 690 MW photovoltaic power plant will supply clean energy to over 400,000 homes. The giant project also includes a significant energy storage component with a 1,400 MWh battery storage system, allowing power transmission to continue uninterrupted when the sun is not shining.
   9. … The power generated from the project will be sold to NV Energy under a power purchase agreement (PPA)  at a rate of $0.038kWh for a period of 25 years.
   10. MIKE: This is all good news. Major projects take years to actually go on-line, but these projects are a step in the right direction, and more are being built or being developed.
   11. MIKE: In addition to renewable energy projects, battery backup solutions are also being built up, and that technology is being improved with new ways to effectively and economically store surplus energy for later use.
   12. MIKE: Accomplishing this is not only good for the climate. It also means real energy independence for his nation, as well as for the North American continent with its integrated energy grid.
   13. MIKE: Stay tuned.
6. Can the West Afford to Build Its Own Copper Industry?; By Irina Slav | OILPRICE.COM | Aug 17, 2024, 6:00 PM CDT. TAGS: Copper, Green Energy Transition, Western Copper Processing, China, Aluminum,
   1. Copper, the key transition metal, hit a price of $11,000 per ton a couple of months ago. Goldman Sachs forecast it could surge all the way to $12,000 as electrification really gets going—because there are not enough copper mines.
   2. Yet, the lack of mining capacity is just one problem for the transition. The other, at least in what is commonly referred to as the collective West, is copper processing capacity. Most of it is in China. Without it, the transition will stumble and possibly collapse.
   3. “No China, no transition,” Wood Mackenzie said in a blunt new report about the global state of copper. The consultancy predicts a 75% increase in the worldwide demand for the metal by 2050, which would naturally necessitate a boost in mining investment. It would also require a boost in refining investment—outside China. And that will cost an estimated $85 billion, according to “Wood Mac”.
   4. … China dominates virtually every aspect of the transition industrial complex … . The country is the biggest solar power and wind turbine producer. It is the biggest market—and manufacturer—of electric cars. It has the world’s biggest rare earth refining capacity. China is the transition, in a way. And the rest of the world has been happy to outsource its heavy industries to China until recently. Now, the West has realized it might be a good idea to be more self-sufficient and less reliant on others when it comes to industries dubbed critical, especially if you have certain geopolitical differences with those others.
   5. The problem is that the West is about two decades late to the transition party. Building a copper refining industry from scratch would take time, money, and resources that governments in Europe, the U.S., Canada, and Australia simply do not have—especially money.
   6. “Governments and manufacturers that seek to diversify away from China need to consider the full supply chain, not just mining,” Wood Mac analysts wrote. “Hundreds of billions of dollars in new copper processing and fabrication capacity would be required to replace China.” This might sound like a sacrifice worth making but, the analysts continued, “This would create inefficiencies that would result in significantly higher-priced finished goods and increase the cost and timeliness of the energy transition.”
   7. The Western governments in service to the energy transition, then, have a dual problem, and neither part of it is easily solvable, if at all. First, they need more copper mines, wherever they can be built—preferably in jurisdictions not already in the Chinese sphere of influence, [yet] China’s share of the global copper mining output is a fifth of the total, thanks to its mining assets abroad.
   8. Simultaneously, the Western transition governments need more copper refining capacity—but it must be cheap to make sense. Otherwise, the transition will die a natural death because of exorbitant costs that no population can absorb, at least not willingly or easily. However, this capacity buildout cannot be cheap because Germany, for instance, is not China, and neither is Canada: costs are higher, and it would be really hard to bring them down on par with Chinese costs over the past 20 years or so. It was, after all, due to higher costs that new copper refining capacity outside China has essentially remained flat, per Wood Mac.
   9. This is beginning to change, the consultancy said—but the changes are not taking place in the West. Wood Mac reported that three new copper smelters are due to be commissioned this year, one in India and two in Indonesia. There is another copper smelter being built in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—with Chinese money. No new copper smelting capacity is being built in Europe or North America.
   10. The situation is as clear as can be, although rather unpleasant for those who assumed governments could simply regulate their countries into an energy transition. Without copper, there is no transition. Everything in the transition needs copper because everything in the transition depends on electricity, and most electricity flows along copper wire.
   11. Solar panels need copper cables to connect to their inverters and from there to the grid. Wind turbines need copper cables for the same reason. EVs need copper for their electrical motors. The list goes on, and it is a long one. The world would need enormous amounts of copper, which, while theoretically available, are not actually
   12. So, it seems Western transition governments are at a crossroads. They can either suck it up and work with China, which might necessitate some geopolitical adjustments, or they can go it alone, shouldering the massive investment in new processing capacity, the equally massive investment in new mines, provided there are miners willing to share the load, and taking on the risk of producing a dud that is too expensive for everyone.
   13. MIKE: As always, I must preface my comments with, “As a lay person”.
   14. MIKE: I don’t fundamentally disagree with anything in this analysis. In the interests of “efficiency”, the West has spent decades outsourcing it’s national and regional resource security to China and, to a lesser extent, Russia. It has been widely recognized that these two nations have been real and potential geopolitical adversaries since at least 1949. And yet, here we are.
   15. MIKE: There are three assertions in this piece that I might quibble with.
   16. MIKE: First that, “Building a copper refining industry from scratch would take time, money, and resources that governments in Europe, the U.S., Canada, and Australia simply do not have—especially money.”
   17. MIKE: I think that’s all true, with the exception of the money part. If governments deem anything a strategic necessity, the money will be found. As an example, during WW2, when Japan captured southeast Asia, access to raw rubber became severely restricted. As a result, the US went all-in on further development and manufacture of synthetic rubber. This changed the rubber industry forever.
   18. MIKE: The time part of the equation is less flexible, but the expansion of mining and refining of copper in parts of the world that are less strategically risky is absolutely doable if the will exists.
   19. MIKE: Then there’s the comment that, “Everything in the transition needs copper because everything in the transition depends on electricity, and most electricity flows along copper wire.”
   20. MIKE: “Most” is the trick word there. It raises the question of, how indispensable is copper to the green energy future, really, and is there an available substitute for it? As it happens, after silver, copper, and gold, aluminum is the 4^th best conductive metal.
   21. MIKE: Aluminum is not without its drawbacks as a replacement for copper. It requires thicker wire by volume to carry the same current as copper, and as the story also mentions, it’s less pliable and more susceptible to metal fatigue.
   22. MIKE: But aluminum is lighter, which matters in EVs that are so much heavier than conventional ICE vehicles that EVs present risks to roads, parking garages, and other infrastructure. Being 30% lighter than copper, aluminum might be useful in dramatically reducing battery and vehicle weight.
   23. MIKE: Aluminum is a more common ore, making it safer as a strategic material. There’s also a robust aluminum recycling system already in existence.
   24. MIKE: According to one article, “aluminium is 1200 times more abundant than copper. It’s even more abundant than iron in the earth’s crust.” I’ve linked to that article in references, and strongly suggest reading it if you have an interest in this subject.
   25. MIKE: For strategic reasons, I think that as a national priority, we should be looking for as many ways as possible to use aluminum and aluminum alloys to replace copper as much as possible throughout the electrification economy.
   26. REFERENCE: World War II and How It Changed Rubber Forever — AIRBOSSRUBBERSOLUTIONS.COM | October 11, 2023
   27. REFERENCE: Inventor of Neoprene: Rev. Julius Arthur Nieuwland, C.S.C. — INVENT.ORG
   28. REFERENCE: Does a Lack of Copper Threaten Our Green Future? — BBVAOPENMIND.COM
   29. REFERENCE: How we can substitute aluminium for copper in the green transition — Auke Hoekstra, Editorial contributor | SHAPESBYHYDRO.COM | Jul 19, 2023
7. Staying with this energy thread — Wayne County to hold public meeting on plan to store hazardous, radioactive waste in landfill; By Dana Afana | FREEP.COM (Detroit Free Press) | Aug. 24, 2024. TAGS: Radioactive Waste Disposal, Wayne County (MI),
   1. Wayne County commissioners plan a public discussion Tuesday [Aug. 27] on a controversial plan to bring hazardous and radioactive waste into a Van Buren Township landfill.
   2. … Several officials were concerned about the plan after the Detroit Free Press reported that Wayne Disposal will take 6,000 cubic yards of soil and concrete, and 4,000 gallons of groundwater contaminated with radiation from a site in New York where the Manhattan Project developed the atomic bomb during and after World War II.
   3. [Wayne County Commission Chair Alisha Bell said in a statement,] “Transferring nuclear waste poses a serious threat to residents in the area and throughout our county, and we want to make sure their voices are heard. We are the nation’s 19th most-populated county and we sit alongside the world’s largest freshwater supply. Surely, there are other, less-populated and less-risky places where this waste can be stored.”
   4. Environmental officials are expected to participate in the discussion … . Commissioners aim to provide sufficient information to divert the hazardous waste elsewhere, according to the Wayne County Commission.
   5. Wayne County Executive Warren Evans previously questioned why wastes find their way to Wayne County. Arizona-based waste giant Republic Services’ Wayne Disposal and Michigan Disposal operate as among the largest hazardous waste landfills and processing facilities in the nation.
   6. “While I understand that these materials have to go somewhere, and few if any public officials are willing to welcome toxic waste with open arms, there needs to be a solution, through new policy or legislation, that doesn’t equal Wayne County as dumping ground for what no one else wants. Because that is an assignment we simply will not accept,” Evans said in a statement.
   7. State and local officials are hamstrung in regulating hazardous waste. A 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on imported garbagedeclared out-of-state trash “articles of commerce” — essentially a commodity or good — that could not be restricted under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. That case arose from St. Clair County officials attempting to restrict a local landfill from accepting out-of-state waste.
   8. State Sen. Darrin Camilleri, D-Trenton, in a statement Monday said the plan to accept the waste is “alarming” and called for a larger discussion about hazardous waste management in the country.
   9. [State Sen. Camilleri said,] “Wayne County is the most populous county in Michigan, and our state is surrounded by 20% of the world’s fresh water. We cannot continue to be America’s dumping ground for toxic waste. Our district and our community deserve so much better.”
   10. The meeting will also be livestreamed on the Wayne County Commission YouTube page and available through Zoom at https://zoom.us/j/2234975895.
   11. MIKE: Radioactive waste is one of the two most worrisome negatives of renewed interest in nuclear power. The other concern is nuclear accidents, which seem to occur about 2-3 times per century and remain dangerous for decades, or even centuries, after they occur.
   12. MIKE: In the case of this story from Michigan, the waste we’re dealing with is almost a century old, and still causing disposal concerns.
   13. MIKE: While companies are spending billions of dollars on plans for new and new kinds of atomic reactors, we need much more money spent on how to remediate nuclear waste so that it’s no longer dangerous, and not just buried somewhere.
   14. MIKE: I’ve often read that spent nuclear fuel still has 90% of it’s energy potential remaining. It seems to me that figuring out to get more of that energy into our grid instead of into our waste depositories is an investment that must be made.
8. And on the subject of new types of nuclear power plants — Breakthrough nuclear reactor one mile below ground to transform energy generation; To generate power, the reactor follows a process similar to pressurized water reactors. By Prabhat Ranjan Mishra | INTERESTINGENGINEERING.COM | Updated: Aug 24, 2024 11:48 AM EST. TAGS: Energy Generation, Eco-Friendly, Modular Nuclear Microreactor, Deep Fission,
   1. Rapid energy generation with eco-friendly methods is the need of the hour as the world rushes to find better alternatives to fossil fuels.
   2. In this context, a company has come up with an innovative idea of setting up a nuclear reactor almost a mile deep below Earth’s surface.
   3. The conditions below the ground would remove the need for large pressure vessels, according to Deep Fission, a Berkeley-based producer of nuclear power. …
   4. … Expected to redefine the future of nuclear power with an unprecedented approach, the company combined existing nuclear technology with recent innovations in drilling.
   5. Deep Fission has developed a design for a modular nuclear microreactor (15 Megawatts-electric) that can be placed at a depth of 1 mile in a 30-inch borehole.
   6. This is a new concept that has not been done before and could prove the right solution to our clean, reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy needs, according to Deep Fission.
   7. … Based on the technology of the pressurized water reactor (PWR), the design uses the same fuel as standard PWRs, even the same fuel assemblies, and the same methods to control the power (control rods and boron in the coolant fluid).
   8. The innovative design can operate at the same pressure (160 atmospheres) and core temperatures (approximately 315°C, equivalent to 600°F) as a conventional reactor.
   9. The company maintains that safety and security for a borehole reactor are unmatched, as it will be far out of the reach of tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, airplane crashes, and
   10. … To generate power, the reactor follows a process similar to pressurized water reactors.
   11. The heat is transferred to a steam generator at depth to boil water, and the non-radioactive steam rises rapidly to the surface, where a standard steam turbine converts the energy to electricity, according to the company.
   12. The reactor’s similarity with PWR aims to achieve a faster path to regulator approval.
   13. … The inspection of the reactor is easy, as cables attached to it can raise it to the surface in only an hour or two.
   14. Based on the size and configuration of standard PWR, the reactor has no moving parts other than the control rods and the fluid flow of the water coolant.
   15. The major cost of standard nuclear power is not the fuel. Fully developed pellets containing low-enriched uranium cost far less than legacy coal, according to the company.
   16. … The major expense in a standard PWR is the enormous reactor pressure vessel made of 8- to 12-inch-thick steel, the large pressurizer, and the huge containment building with concrete walls 3 to 6 feet thick.
   17. [Deep Fission] claimed that its design replaces all of this with geology.
   18. A borehole reactor is considerably more economical than large surface structures. The pressure is provided by the depth: the pressure of water at a mile deep is 160 atmospheres, the same as that found in the thick pressure vessel of the standard PWR, as per Deep Fission.
   19. The company has publicly announced its emergence and a $4 million pre-seed round led by 8VC.
   20. [Elizabeth Muller, co-founder and CEO of Deep Fission, said in part,] “I am thrilled to introduce Deep Fission and present our groundbreaking approach to affordable nuclear power.” …
   21. MIKE: Out of curiosity, I went to the Deep Fission web site that is linked to in the story. It turns out that this article lifts heavily from language on the web site itself. That makes this story almost a PR press release, which is disappointing.
   22. MIKE: Nonetheless, I found much of the concept interesting. Using geological pressure to replace the high-pressure vessel usually required of a reactor above ground is indeed a novel idea, at least to me, and saving the cost of building and maintaining one might actually help to bring the costs of nuclear energy down to a more reasonable level, assuming no unexpectedly costly problems arise when this concept is tested.
   23. MIKE: One question not addressed is whether there are certain geologies that make the installation of these underground reactors more — or less — feasible.
   24. MIKE: As far as claims of cheaper electricity than is usually generated by nuclear reactors, it also pays to remember, after all, that when nuclear power was first being touted in the 1950s, it was claimed that electricity from nuclear reactors might be so cheap that it wouldn’t pay to meter it.
   25. MIKE: Deep Fission isn’t making that claim, but it’s worth remembering in the context of their other claims.
   26. MIKE: The web site claims that being underground would make the reactor safe from terrorist attack. I’m not sure that’s entirely true unless there is substantial above ground security, nonetheless.
   27. MIKE: Also, the story as written leaves out an important claim about reactor cooling and safety, and the reason I was curious to visit the actual business site. The website includes this quote: “Deep Fission has begun analysis of credible accidents and will review the safety of the reactor with the NRC [National Regulatory Commission] during pre-application and application review. The reactor has a mile of fresh water above it, so emergency core cooling is simple. It also has a negative temperature coefficient so with any overheating the reactor turns itself off.”
   28. MIKE: This all sounds both interesting and promising, and I’ll be curious to see how this technology progresses as it is evaluated and tested.
   29. MIKE: A remaining concern remains atomic waste. This new concept in nuclear reactors, which might lead to even more interesting ideas, still doesn’t seem to do anything to mitigate the problem of atomic waste, such as Wayne County, Michigan is having to deal with in the previous story I read.
   30. MIKE: I think that’s going to remain a major concern going forward, even if the risk of nuclear accidents can be resolved … which, by the way, I’m not yet sure that Deep Fission adequately addresses. We’ll have to see.
9. Philippines says China was alarmed over US missile system deployed to its north; By The Associated Press | ABCNEWS.GO.COM | August 16, 2024, 7:49 AM. TAGS: Philippines, US missile system, China,
   1. China expressed its “very dramatic” alarm over a mid-range missile system that the U.S. military recently deployed to the Philippines, and warned it could destabilize the region. But Manila’s top diplomat said Friday he reassured his Chinese counterpart that the weaponry was only in the country temporarily.
   2. Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo said his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, expressed China’s concern over the U.S. mid-range missile deployment to the Philippines during their talks last month in Laos on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings with Asian and Western countries.
   3. “We discussed it and, well, they made it very dramatic,” Manalo said in response to questions during a news conference with foreign correspondents in Manila. “I said you shouldn’t be worried.”
   4. Pressed to specify what China’s specific concerns were, Manalo said Wang warned the presence of the U.S. missile system could be “destabilizing,” but the Philippine foreign affairs chief said he disagreed. “They’re not destabilizing” and the missile system was only in the Philippines temporarily, Manalo said he told Wang.
   5. The U.S. Army said in April it transported the mid-range missile system, a land-based weapon that can fire the Standard Missile-6 and the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, from the U.S. to the northern Philippines as part of combat exercises with Philippine troops.
   6. The missile system, however, was not fired during the joint combat exercises of the longtime treaty allies and the Philippine military has said the missile system may be transported out of the country next month.
   7. China has strongly opposed increased U.S. military deployments to the region, including to the Philippines, and warned these could endanger regional stability and peace.
   8. The U.S. and the Philippines have repeatedly condemned China’s increasingly assertive actions to fortify its territorial claims in the South China Sea, where hostilities have particularly flared since last year between Chinese and Philippine coast guard forces and accompanying vessels.
   9. In addition to China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have overlapping claims in the busy waterways, a key global and security route.
   10. MIKE: I mentioned this in my show about the time the missiles were deployed for a joint military exercise with the Philippines. The news stories made clear that the U.S. mid-range missile deployment was temporary and that the main objectives were to test and demonstrate rapid deployment capability of these weapons in case that ever became necessary.
   11. MIKE: At the time these missiles were deployed, the fact that the deployment was intended to be temporary was well publicized.
   12. MIKE: China’s concern over these weapons was understandable. In my mind, from the Chinese perspective, it was akin to Soviet deployment of similar weapons to Cuba in 1962. At that time the US had several concerns. Among them were: 1) The Soviet missiles were nuclear-capable; 2) The missiles were being deployed just 90 miles from Key West and could threaten a large portion of the US southeast; and 3) If any of these missiles were launched at the US from Cuba, their proximity would allow just minutes of warning.
   13. MIKE: I imagine that the Chinese calculation would be similar now to the US concerns in 1962.
   14. MIKE: A key difference, though, is that the Soviet deployment in Cuba was intended to be secret, and the installations were to all appearances intended to be permanent.
   15. MIKE: Perhaps down the road as a first step in regional arms control, China can be persuaded to agree to limit Medium-Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM) deployment similar to what the US and the USSR ultimately agreed to: The Soviets withdrew their missiles from Cuba while the US removed similar weapons from Turkey.
   16. REFERENCE: The US Army will hold combat training in the Philippines to hone skills as maritime tensions rise — Philippines military joins multi-national naval training in South China Sea; By  JIM GOMEZ | APNEWS.COM | Updated 7:41 PM CDT, April 8, 2024
10. Australia offers U.S. a vast new military launchpad in China conflict; By Michael E. Miller | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | August 24, 2024 at 5:00 a.m. EDT. TAGS: Royal Australian Air Force, Australia, China, United States, Military Installations, AUKUS,
    1. Deep in the outback, a flurry of construction by Australia and the United States is transforming this once quiet military installation into a potential launchpad in case of conflict with China.
    2. Runways are being expanded and strengthened to accommodate the allies’ biggest airplanes, including American B-52 bombers. A pair of massive fuel depots is rising side by side to supply U.S. and Australian fighter jets. And two earth-covered bunkers have been built for U.S. munitions.
    3. But the activity at RAAF Tindal, less than 2,000 miles from the emerging flash points of the South China Sea, isn’t unique. Across Australia, decades-old facilities — many built by the United States during World War II — are now being dusted off or upgraded amid growing fears of another global conflict.
    4. “This is about deterrence,” Australia’s defense minister, Richard Marles, said in an interview. “We’re working together to deter future conflict and to provide for the collective security of the region in which we live.”
    5. The United States has ramped up defense ties with allies across the region, including with the Philippines and Japan, as it tries to fend off an increasingly assertive and aggressive China. Australia offers the United States a stable and friendly government, a small but capable military and a vast expanse from which to stage or resupply military efforts.
    6. S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, hailing the “the extraordinary strength of our unbreakable alliance with Australia,” said after a meeting with Marles earlier this month that deeper cooperation — including base upgrades and more frequent rotational bomber deployments — would help build “greater peace, stability, and deterrence across the region.”
    7. Australia has also joined the AUKUS agreement, under which the United States and Britain will provide it with nuclear-propelled submarines, some of the world’s most closely guarded technology.
    8. These moves underscore a bigger shift, as Canberra has grown increasingly tight with Washington as they both grow wary of Beijing. Military cooperation has become so extensive that critics quip Australia is becoming the United States’ “51st state.”
    9. Mihai Sora, a former Australian diplomat who is an analyst at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney think tank, has a different metaphor. Australia is “an unsinkable aircraft carrier right at the bottom of the critical maritime sea lanes.”
    10. “As the stakes increase in the South China Sea, as the risk over conflict in Taiwan increases, northern Australia in particular becomes of increasing strategic value for the United States,” Sora said.
    11. American representatives on a recent congressional delegation to Darwin, on Australia’s northern coast, agreed.
    12. “This provides a central base of operations from which to project power,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said during the trip.
    13. Some Australian experts, however, argue that the growing U.S. military footprint doesn’t deter conflict with China so much as ensure Australia will be involved.
    14. “I have deep misgivings about the whole enterprise” of increased U.S. military activity in Australia, said Sam Roggeveen, a former Australian intelligence analyst who is also at the Lowy Institute. “It conflates America’s strategic objectives in Asia with ours, and it makes those bases a target.”
    15. Australia’s center-left government inherited AUKUS from a previous conservative administration, but it has embraced the agreement and the broader idea of enhanced U.S.-Australia military cooperation. Still, some critics have accused it of moving too cautiously. …
    16. Australia has been rattled by a decade of growing Chinese military assertiveness in the region. But Beijing’s recent trade war on Canberra and a Chinese security agreement with Australia’s neighbor, the Solomon Islands, have accelerated Australia’s tilt away from its biggest trading partner and toward the United States.
    17. Australia has spent roughly $1 billion on upgrading the Tindal air force base. Built by U.S. Army engineers in 1942 to stage bombing raids on Japanese targets in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, Tindal is now the site of dozens of construction projects. A key one is the new parking apron capable of accommodating four of Australia’s biggest planes: [they are] KC-30 tankers that can refuel fighter jets and allow for far more distant attacks.
    18. But there are also plans for the United States to build its own parking apron here, big enough for six B-52 bombers capable of reaching mainland China.
    19. “That is absolutely something China would pay attention to,” said Roggeveen.
    20. Marles declined to comment on the increasing rotations mentioned by Austin, but said the trajectory is “an increasing American force posture in Australia.” “We see that as very much in Australia’s national interest,” he said. “People understand that we are living through challenging times, when the global rules-based order is under pressure.”
    21. Darwin, 200 miles north of Tindal, was heavily bombed by Japan during World War II. It has hosted six-month rotations of U.S. Marines since 2012, but what began as a training mission has evolved into a much larger enterprise.
    22. The United States recently built a new fuel depot for the Marines’ MV-22 Ospreys, tilt-rotor aircraft that can take off and land vertically like a helicopter but can transition midair to fly like an airplane. The United States is planning to expand the parking apron here, too, to enable more Osprey operations.
    23. A map provided to the visiting U.S. congressional delegation showed how midair refueling could extend the Ospreys’ range into the South China Sea, the Philippine Sea and to the Solomon Islands.
    24. “As Chairman Xi [Jinping] is looking out at all of this, he’s feeling more deterrence,” McCaul said, pointing to the map. “Our capabilities to respond are getting stronger.”
    25. Australia is also surveying three “bare bases” — skeleton facilities in remote parts of Western Australia and Queensland — with an eye to upgrading them so heavier Australian and American airplanes can use them, said Brigadier Michael Say, who leads Australia’s Force Posture Initiative. …
    26. These “bare bases,” which stretch for 3,000 miles from east to west, fit a new U.S. strategy of dispersing its forces to prevent China from delivering a knockout blow. …
    27. Roggeveen questioned, however, whether the United States is actually increasing its capabilities in the region or merely moving assets out of places like Guam, which are more immediately threatened by China’s improving missile capability. Under AUKUS, the United States will begin rotating up to four nuclear-powered submarines through Western Australia in 2027.
    28. “It’s not at all clear to me if the [U.S.] Pacific Fleet is getting more submarines or if they are just being moved from existing commitments in Guam or Pearl Harbor,” Roggeveen said. …
    29. Some concerns linger in Washington over Australia’s commitment, however. During the visit to Darwin, McCaul and other representatives asked about the 99-year lease a Chinese company holds over the port surrounding the Australian naval base. Australian officials said two reviews had found there wasn’t a security concern, and that in the case of a conflict the port could be nationalized.
    30. “Australia relies on China for prosperity and on America for security,” Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.) told The Post. “That’s the balance they are playing.”
    31. MIKE: These are major expansions of military infrastructure in the Pacific. The story mentions that Guam is potentially vulnerable to China, but omits that North Korea can also potentially strike Guam for reasons of its own.
    32. MIKE: Diversification and dispersal of military assets is always a good idea. Not every base can be hardened everywhere, so dispersal is strategically essential.
    33. MIKE: This has always been the premise of the so-called Nuclear Triad strategy of the US. Having nuclear response capabilities from land-based missiles, airborne bombers, and nuclear missile submarines makes it almost impossible for a potential adversary to take out all these capabilities before they can be organized to retaliate.
    34. MIKE: Aside from my frequent feelings that we are in a pre-war era of around 1939, I’m also feeling echoes of the Cold War. In fact, I’ve read many stories referring to this time as being Cold War 2.0.
    35. MIKE: During that time, there was a constant worry that war could break out at any time between the US and NATO, and the USSR. Sometimes, those concerns were on a knife’s edge, like in 1962. Other times seemed less risky. But there were also times when we came close to nuclear war by accident. That is a possibility that can keep some if us awake at night.
    36. MIKE: Arms races in the name of deterrence are strategically sound. Maintain peace by preparing for war, as they say. But there’s always the human factor, whether by misguided deliberation, miscalculation, or by human error.
    37. MIKE: The general thinking I’ve read seems to be a consensus that if we can make it to 2030 or 2035 without a major power conflict, we may be at peace for the rest of the 21^st
    38. MIKE: I hope I’m around to see which way it works out.

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