Category Archives: Current Events

Russian Media is Simmering About the War

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If you want to see something unnerving, have a look at what Russian state television is broadcasting about their “special military operation” and NATO’s part in it. The have a “60 Minutes” program where a group of individuals offer their opinions on the war. In particular, the USA has been the target of considerable waspish criticism and open speculation on the best US targets for nuclear attack on the talk show. It is common for them to conclude that World War 3 has already begun and that they may as well get on with crushing NATO. According to presenter Olga Skabeeva, Poland could or should be next. Have a look and see what state-run media and control of the internet can do.

Some Pragmatics of Green Chemistry

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After following a chat room discussion on process safety, I find myself mixed on the matter of what is called green chemistry. In the present example, a fellow wanted to methylate a phenol but didn’t want to use dimethylsulfate or some similar methylating agent. He wanted something that was “green”.

Suggestions were varied, including a recommendation on the use of dimethyl carbonate as methylating agent and a few other approaches through aromatic substitution. One contributor wisely reminded contributors about going into the weeds with low atom efficiency.

“Green chemistry is the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances. Green chemistry applies across the life cycle of a chemical product, including its design, manufacture, use, and ultimate disposal. Green chemistry is also known as sustainable chemistry.”  -EPA

When green organic chemistry is the goal in synthesis, it pays to be sure that there is an accepted definition of green chemistry on site.  The merits and definitions are explained elsewhere. Difficult questions come up when a non-green substance is replaced with something that may be “more green” but needs 2 steps instead of 1. Or when green but more expensive reagents and solvents are needed. What is best? In this case, greater safety, lower cost, higher space yields, reduced waste generation, and fastest reaction times will be the real drivers. The business to business market will not pay more for a green product while a cheaper non-green alternative is present. If you want to get an existing customer to requalify an existing product from a new green process, be prepared to discount the price in exchange for the customer having to go through a requalification process. Customers do not like change at all.

Under what conditions would management allow a process choice that is greenish but obviously more costly? Possibly never. A greener process needs to give a cost savings somewhere. Barring draconian regulation, a successful green process will have a cost benefit. The benefit may be in lower direct cost of manufacture, satisfaction of a process requirement by a customer, or a hedge against future regulatory restrictions.

Solvents may be one of the easier opportunities for green chemistry. For a given process, there may be a bit of latitude with the solvent. Sometimes the issue of solvent residues in the product may arise. Some solvents are easier to strip away than others. No one will choose a green solvent that is hard to remove from the product. Again, the drivers will be those mentioned above.

Another green opportunity is when we automatically choose a stoichiometric reducing agent when we could have looked at a catalytic system with hydrogen. Catalyst costs per kilogram of product can range from negligible to high. One advantage of using expensive platinum group metal catalysts is that the metal is usually recyclable, which is greenish. However, any organic ligand present does get incinerated producing non-green emissions in the process of energy intensive metal refining. If catalytic hydrogenation requires the installation of new capital equipment, then the installation costs in time and money may prevent a switch.

For green oxidation, oxygen in the air is cheap and abundant but carries a big problem. Using an oxidizing gas in the presence of a flammable liquid reaction mass can give rise to an explosive atmosphere in the headspace of the reactor. This is a non-starter in industry. Catalytic oxidation using a greenish primary oxidant in solution is a good place to start. I’ve heard of hydrogen peroxide or peroxyacetic acid referred to as greenish.

The big problem with green synthetic organic chemistry is that in order to synthesize a molecule, the structural precursors must be sufficiently green, reactive and selective to run on a reasonable timescale and at acceptable cost. And they must not produce non-green side products or wastes that spoil the advantage of the target green step. A weighing of the pros and cons of any attempt to do green chemistry will always be needed and subjective decisions will be made on what constitutes green.

While we are all struggling to be greener, let’s not forget to remind ourselves and others that reduced consumption of almost everything is a green step we can all take right now.

A Disgusting Spectacle

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It’s striking how the police in Uvalde were intimidated into inaction by a teen-aged shooter armed with a controversial weapon used in the manner for which it was designed- the projection of overwhelming power and violence. While children in the classroom pleaded for help on 911, armed and trained police and terrified parents stood outside and waited while children and teachers inside each died a bloody, violent death. Their last moments of consciousness were saturated with blood, gore and terror.

In the follow up, the Texas Republican political apparatus has struggled to respond to the slaughter while being careful not to alienate their macho gun totin’ Texas cowboy conservative voters. Meanwhile, in Houston at the NRA convention, and while musical acts were fleeing from the event, the show must go on. The convention was an opportunity gladly taken by #45 to pontificate at length to core voters and amplify all of the worries he himself planted.

School shooters tend to be young males so perhaps there is a tendency to blame “toxic masculinity”. We cannot blame men for displaying at least some amount of masculinity. However, when we show it by strutting around like a peacock in an ostentatious display of weaponry and decked out in militia costumes, we are beaming a stark message to those around us to beware. Its intent is always to intimidate. It is an asymmetry in power- a necessary condition for many.

Nothing new is to be said here about gun rights vs gun control. Weapons culture and politics will have to evolve for a few generations before that can be reasonably addressed. Many more mass murder scenes will come and go before shoot ’em up cowboy masculinity fades away, if ever. In the near term, however, we can do something about our exposure to violent entertainment.

We Americans entertain ourselves with movies, television and videogames that feature gunplay as a plot device and an easy form of conflict resolution. We love to see the good guys hand out 9mm justice with righteous gunplay. American movie makers know full well the attraction of audiences to gunplay in a storyline. What better way is there for screenwriters to keep the energy going in a screenplay than to throw in scenes with shootouts. And how do characters gain absolute power over someone? They point a gun. Is it any wonder that now and then a few kids obtain easily available firearms and try shooting as a way to vent their rage and frustration? How do we learn to be adults? We mimic.

The entertainment industry needs to account for their part in the poisoning of our civilization with highly detailed dramatic portrayals of violence. The excuse that viewers have free will and should be able to discriminate between reality and fantasy is only partly valid. There can be no denying studio influence over impressionable young people. It is human nature to learn from and mimic what we see, even from film. The entertainment industry has normalized gun violence in the minds of our population. Behind the glitzy facade of show business is a deadly serious capitalistic enterprise that banks on whatever it takes to sell ads and tickets. And, if violence sells, they’ll crank out more of it. We need to quit buying so much violent content.

Replacement Theory on Ice

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I’ve been marveling at the current social phenomenon of “Replacement Theory” and all of the fear and loathing these words can generate. Anything that could plausibly rile up white folks is being scooped up and slung at the wall to see what sticks. The Republican fear machine needs and thrives on this kind of stuff. Fox News “Speaker to Animals” Tucker Carlson has been slopping it around the swill bucket lately as is customary for him to do. It’s become a meme with news coverage like a new Disney on Ice show.

Peering out from under my rock along the riverbank, it appears to me that there are a great many citizens in the U.S. of A. who enjoy nothing more than to get lathered up and vent their rage at the bogyman of the month. Some folks seem happiest and most alive when they are really hacked off.

I wonder how these folks will react when someone reminds them that social replacement is not new. After all, what happened in the forced removal of the Native Americans over the last 400 years? How many countries have we attempted to reconfigure to something more politically subservient by force or subterfuge? History is one long, highly blemished series of one people replacing another. Notice the irony? Historically, most change has been quite violent. Many nations have been complicit in the forced swapping of ethnic groups in the social and economic order in someone else’s land. It seems to be a natural turn of events.

If it is happening to the US right now, it seems to be relatively peaceful and quiet, except for the angry white nationalists out shooting people. More than a little change going on is merit-based selection in job placement and by the hard work of immigrants. If you are angry about being replaced by non-whites, first try not to murder people. Murder is the answer to a whole slew of poorly formed questions.

Oxy CEO on Oil Production

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The CEO of Occidental Petroleum, Vicki Hollub, said an interesting thing last week as reported by Reuters. The article begins with a quote by Hollub.

“HOUSTON, May 11 (Reuters) – Oil companies worldwide have been trying to increase production, but are struggling to balance increases without undercutting shareholder returns, Occidental Petroleum (OXY.N) Chief Executive Officer Vicki Hollub said on Wednesday.” [Italics mine]

The effect on executive decision makers of “undercutting shareholder returns” is not to be underestimated. When margins are high, why voluntarily reduce them with increasing production?

She goes on to say-

“”It is almost value destruction if you try to accelerate anything now,” Hollub said during a conference call to discuss the company’s first quarter results.”

Everyone knows there is widespread public anger and distrust simmering on the matter of high gasoline prices in the US. Fuel prices are at a reported 14 year high and are helping to drive inflation. Everyone is feeling the pain either directly as a tank full of 85 octane or in the inflated price of widgets elsewhere.

Oil producers are feeling the heat but are reluctant to increase production. Hollub said “There are a lot of headwinds to increasing production worldwide,”

Unfortunately, the only market lever consumers have is to reduce fuel consumption.

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Oxybenzone and Coral Reefs in the Light of Day

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In a recent issue of ChemistryWorld, an online publication of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a revealing article on work first published in Science describing how the combination of the UV sunscreen active ingredient oxybenzone and UV light together produce something that is toxic to corals reefs.

Researchers (paywall) at Stanford University found in their sea anemone model studies that in the presence of UV light, oxybenzone is modified by the attachment of glucose, forming a water soluble glycoside conjugate. This is a not an uncommon event in metabolism. The oxybenzone-glycoside conjugate was found to be a potent photo-oxidant and quite toxic to the algal symbionts of coral. A methoxy analog proved to be much more potent.

Benzophenones, of which oxybenzone is a variety, are well known photosensitizers and photoinitiators.

Locations like Hawaii and Palau have banned the sale of oxybenzone-containing sunscreens due to the harm they cause to coral reefs.

Black Hole Imagery

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An image of Sagittarius A*, the black hole in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, has just been published. This is only the second such feat. The first image was of the central black hole of the galaxy M87. The images were captured through the collaboration of 8 synchronized radio telescopes around the world called The Event Horizon Telescope. It is an impressive technical problem to solve. Seeing something the apparent size of the M87 black hole as viewed from earth is said to be like trying to see a bagel on the surface of the moon. And they did it with sub-millimeter radio waves.

The color of the objects is interesting. I wonder how many folks out there think that radio telescopes can record the visual color of an object?

From PC to Woke-ness

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Linked here is an earlier essay on the evolution of political correctness (PC) as I have witnessed it. Before the epithet of “woke-ness” came along there was PC. In the early 2000’s rancid and cynical criticism of PC was trotted out and displayed as some kind of analysis by ultraconservative broadcasters and Christian evangelicals. PC as an epithet was useful for casting fuzzy accusations and to infer a kind of pathetic naivety to the mindset of progressive people. The accusation was difficult to counter and it gained wide spread use.

To counter the accusation of PC as a negative, one had to convince the accuser that fair treatment for all was a good thing and that the use of racial and ethnic slurs was a bad thing, not an unconstitutional imposition on free speech or an implied slur on white people. Defending PC in practice meant holding the accuser’s attention long enough to step through the morals and logic of PC- a tough exercise in listening for some people. It is another example of how it is easier to destroy than to build.

Civilization and CRT

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With the birth of every child, civilization must start anew. Parents and other adults are the major actors in rebuilding civilization and their first duties are to teach the child how care and fend for themselves in an often hostile world. Wariness is critical to surviving potential threats out in the open or those that lurk in the shadows. Adults must encourage wariness but not to the point of freezing solid in fear. Nuance is required in order to balance the threat/benefit relationship with the main goal of living as long as possible. In more precise terms, children must be educated and given examples of how to use that gained knowledge to not only live longer, but better as well. Seems obvious.

Today we see a movement in US civilization towards the disassembly of K-12 public education in favor of throwing those resources to conservative private and parochial education. Here in Colorado there is a silent group with out-of-state funding methodically getting far right, like-minded school board members elected. And it’s working. These groups wrap themselves in the flag playing Yankee Doodle, while often carrying a cross, and blow popular rightwing dog whistles as loud and often as they can. Currently, Critical Race Theory (CRT) is the most popular generator of dread fear among a great many in the population.

The fear that the CRT “threat” seems to be aimed at is the American liberal arts education taught in the public schools and in universities. First, some clarity. A liberal arts education is not about indoctrinating kids to be a democrat. The word “liberal” has come to be an epithet in common usage by many. A liberal education is actually meant to learn about a variety of topics and ways of thinking- to be less dogmatic and narrow. It encourages open minds. It tries to be neutral on the religiosity scale as well. And it has been quite successful for generations. Look around and you’ll see an endless assortment of objects and systems whose invention was by people educated under the liberal arts education.

Definition from Wikipedia: “Usually global and pluralistic in scope, it can include a general education curriculum which provides broad exposure to multiple disciplines and learning strategies in addition to in-depth study in at least one academic area.”

It seems that encouraging open mindedness or broad knowledge is exactly what they don’t want. What they want is actually indoctrination into “their” knowledge and thinking using their narrow definitions. It is about a narrow form of mind control, not objective facts and analysis. There is a fear that an accurate study of actual US and world history or science leads kids astray, away from God and country, to a world of anti-Americanism and to eventual eternal damnation. But, an accurate accounting of US history must eventually come to grips with the moral issues of slavery and the origins of the Civil War or the long, unfinished story of racism. To paint it over with heroic tales of settlers on the Oregon Trail while ignoring details of the slaughter and confinement of Native American to the reservation is an affront to reality and in all likelihood will eventually be made known to students anyway. Hiding the truth is a fools errand.

In my estimation, the American liberal arts education in the public schools, while flawed, has been a success. It has helped to provide a vast store of knowledge and skill that has lead to inventions and systems that have extended and improved our lives. Yes, the story is not perfect, but it is not over yet. To place the education of our young in the hands of politically partisan actors peddling extreme conservative views and possibly into corporate control is to steer our civilization into a less democratic, darker future.

See the comments section for more elaboration on this topic.