An organization called the Well Done Foundation is working to cap abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells spread across the country. The organization will adopt a well and get it plugged. This informative video gives an idea of what the foundation does. Forbes magazine has written an informative article on the subject. It would just be redundant to rattle off what is already on the interwebs so have a look at the Forbes article.
Reuters has reported that 4 of the 5 largest oil companies have reported a combined total of almost $50 billion in net income for the third quarter of 2022. Chevron reported a quarterly profit of $11.2 billion, its second highest ever, even against declining production over a year ago.
Exxon reported nearly $20 billion in net income while Shell earned $9 billion in 3Q2022. France’s TotalEnergies reported a record $10 billion in profits for the quarter.
This stark picture is one of record gas & oil company profits versus citizens struggling against the headwinds of rampant global inflation. One could counter that there is no such thing as too much profit. After all, companies always strive to maximize their profit margins to the greatest extent possible and that this is ‘normal’ behavior with a favorable outcome. Companies take risks and get rewarded with extraordinary cash flows now and then.
The reality is that sellers will always charge as much as the market will bear. This is ECON 101. But buyers control the release of cash from their pockets, most of the time. Petroleum distillates are an essential ingredient of life for most of us. If you cannot walk or bicycle to work, then some motorized vehicle must take you there. Zoning practices in the US make walking to work in a commercial or industrial zone problematic in most locations.
Politicians can hurl accusations of price gouging and maybe they will have some effect. A better approach is the reduction in consumption by consumers. It’s not always comfortable but it does work. We do have a handle to pull in this situation, but who wants to go first?
Russia sent a letter to the United Nations accusing Ukraine of preparing to use a ‘dirty bomb’ in their battle with Russia. Western countries have claimed that this is nothing but a transparent attempt by Russia to provide a pretext for their own use of a dirty bomb or some other offensive action.
This issue resembles the matter of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that the Bush administration in the US contrived as a pretext for taking down Saddam Hussein. A great many innocent people died and we damaged our moral authority in the world by that and other wars. It was an obvious lie to a great many Americans and allies yet the Bush administration went forward with the invasion. No WMDs were found.
According to Wikipedia, a dirty bomb is a conventional explosive packed with radioactive material that, on detonation, disperses the dangerous material in the target area. Such a thing could be made portable or assembled on site. It is not to be confused with a nuclear bomb. A dirty bomb blast would be a radiological calamity wherever it is set off as well as downwind of the explosion. Being non-nuclear, dispersion by a conventional explosive would be extremely limited in range in terms of blast effects, but intensely radioactive. As with any sudden generation of dust and smoke, there would be a plume of radioactive material (RAM) extending downwind from the release. Water soluble radioactive materials would pollute the watershed and possibly groundwater. Contaminated soil would exclude the area from farming for many decades if not longer. Great harm would befall the biosphere.
Construction of a dirty bomb could be quite problematic for its builders. Assuming the builders of the bomb are not suicidal, collecting RAM, assembling and delivering the bomb could be tricky. On one end of the scale, spent nuclear fuel could be used as the source of RAM. Assembly could be as simple as packing explosives around a container of RAM. To prevent serious exposure to the workers, there would have to be some kind of shielding present during the handling of the RAM. On the lower end, a small RAM source from a medical device could be used. Whatever the case, the containment must be fragile enough to rupture in the explosion but dense enough to provide some level of shielding for the handlers.
The harmful effects of a dirty bomb would be both radiological and psychological. On the psychological end, it is sure to cause dread fear in the general population and sway public sentiment toward one side or the other. Importantly, its use would be releasing the nuclear weapons genie from its bottle. It would lower the threshold and allow war planners everywhere to reconsider their own use of nuclear strategy and tactics because a precedent has been set. Once the genie is out, there is no putting it back, or so the saying goes.
In all of the war gaming and planning NATO has done over the decades, I wonder how much attention has been given to responding to nuclear conflict between non-NATO states? What should the NATO countries do if other actors engage in nuclear conflict? As always, it depends on the circumstances.
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I have chosen to avoid using the term “explosive device” because I feel it has a certain sanitizing effect. A thing that is meant to cause death and destruction by the explosive release of energy is just a f*cking bomb with all of the meaning and negative connotation associated with the word. Even grudging admiration for someone’s cleverness should not be awarded for putting together a “device.”
“The AEC is my shepherd: I shall not live. (AEC- the Atomic Energy Commission)
It maketh me to lie down in radiant pastures; it leadeth
me beside deathly waters.
It destroyeth my bones; it leadeth me in the path of
frightfulness for its name’s sake.
Yet, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will hear no evil; for thou art with me; thy
bomb and thy SAC, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a fable before me in the presence of mine
enemies; thou anointest thy words with oil; my cup
runneth over.
Surely, strontium and fallout shall follow me all the days
of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the
AEC–but hardly forever.”
Can be found in “A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown: Essays for a Scientific Age“, edited by Robert A. Baker
The President of South Korea, Yoon Suk-Yeol, was heard to utter into a hot mike that the US Congress were a bunch of idiots. To quote, he said “What an embarrassment for Biden, if these idiots refuse to grant it in Congress”. This occurred after a New York visit with President Biden after a discussion on US electric-vehicle subsidies. It is making headlines all over the internet. My schadenfreude detectors couldn’t resist this.
How defensive of the red, white and blue should you be if the guy is right? In theory the election process should select the best and brightest in the land. Instead, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Witness #45’s embrace of QAnon. If this was a story arc in a movie script, it would be rejected as too silly. Political parties and elections are supposed to exclude exemplars of bad judgement. I guess that nut jobs elect nut jobs.
And speaking of nut jobs, #45 was heard to say that presidents can declassify things “by thinking about it.” Even if this is true, it shouldn’t be as the present example illustrates. If this idiot learned to simply shut his damned mouth he’d have avoided half of his legal troubles automatically. He has his t*t in a wringer where it should be.
Mikhail Gorbachev, 91, last leader of the Soviet Union, has died after a protracted illness. He will be buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow next to his wife Raisa who died in 1999. He has been described by many as “one of the greatest figures of the 20th century” and universally credited with ending the cold war. He is fondly remembered by liberal democracies in the west as a lead figure in the decommissioning of the USSR following a period of glasnost and perestroika. He was reviled by many Russians as having thrust the country into a prolonged reduction in the standard of living.
Gorbachev lamented the deconstruction of his legacy of detente and arms control with the west owing to the leadership of Vladimir Putin. He called for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Ukraine and urged peace negotiations.
There was a period in the 1990s after Gorbachev’s resignation where some think Russia could conceivably have taken on a more liberal democratic model of government, but Russia had no tradition of democratic culture or structures so there was nothing from which to build upon. Instead, privatization and wealth were scooped up by a small group of people including those later to be known as the oligarchs under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin completed the dissolution of the Soviet Union that Gorbachev began.
Full disclosure. I’ll define wokism as a state having a kind of asymptote- no final end-state has been identified. One can always increase their wokism in this description. With this in mind, I’ll confess to being partially woke according to the Merriam-Webster definition–
“aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)“
Wokism has become a very popular straw man in conservative circles. In contemporary rhetorical usage, to be woke is to have an allegiance to left-leaning ideals. As usual, words relating to the left are pejorative and meant to suggest a character or moral flaw. This is to aid in rendering a philosophical or policy stance null and void, often with a twist of humiliation. It is meant to delegitimize and cancel a left-leaning group or individual. Wikipedia defines cancel culture as-
“Cancel culture or call-out culture is a phrase contemporary to the late 2010s and early 2020s used to refer to a form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person. Those subject to this ostracism are said to have been “cancelled”. The expression “cancel culture” has mostly negative connotations and is used in debates on free speech and censorship”.
It is interesting how those who make accusations of wokism are themselves guilty of the kind of cancel culture that they whine about so strenuously. Is the irony lost on them? I do believe it is.
Most of the public accusations of wokeness I’ve seen are in the context of a speaker desperately trying to be captured on video as having made the accusation in the most emphatic way possible as a sign of loyalty to doctrine.
A common big boogie man of wokeness are those aligning with the loosely organized groups like Antifa. Naturally, Antifa activists and everyone else left of center are smeared into one large group. Remember this if you ever decide to become a fascist dictator, you must have a maligned group at home to pile on blame for the woes of society. Hitler had the Jews and Lenin had the capitalists. In the USA, the boogie man today are those who may be liberal on immigration, enthused with the good that can be done with government, feel sympathy for the plight racial minorities and of LGBTQ+, concerned about the erosion of women’s rights and those who generally want to help the disadvantaged. All of these things can be heaped into a pile called “kindness”.
I watched the latest Predator action movie “Prey” on Hulu recently. The Predator franchise is at it’s core a SciFi-alien-slasher series. While slasher films are not my first choice of entertainment, I do enjoy a good SciFi story. The story takes place in 1719 North American Comanche country. The exact geography is not revealed. The cast is predominantly Native American and there is considerable spoken Comanche. French trappers make an appearance in the story and speak in French.
In the beginning the Predator is dropped off a space ship, by friends I assume, and left to have a grand ole time slaughtering the local wildlife. No camping gear or supplies, just weapons that are strapped on and nasty looking jaws.
A common flaw with stories set in the past or the future is anachronistic language. Vocabulary or contemporary cultural references slipping in from a different time can interfere with the disbelief that you’re trying hard to set aside. For example, the current SciFi series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, while entertaining, serves as a terrible example of lazy and shameless anachronisms. In Prey I didn’t notice much in the way of this. But, my knowledge of Comanche history and culture is vanishingly small.
If you want more background and details on the movie, I’d recommend the review in Vulture or IMDB. Or, just watch it. Earlier I said that Prey is a slasher film. Yes, there is plenty of slashing in a way that only the Predator can manage. There are white hats and black hats in the story and well as an appealing protagonist. Plenty of conflict to go around. One nasty bear has a particularly bad day. And the trappers? Well you’ll just have to watch it.
Warning: Political comment below.
President #45 has a life-long background in management and as a CEO of privately-held corporations. This private ownership world is not a democracy. It is by nature an authoritarian command and control situation where the Board of Directors and CEO operate the corporation. Often the Chairman of the Board is also the CEO. This system is hierarchical with a strict chain of command. Just existing as an upper level manager in this private world has a large component of loyalty to the CEO.
In this private corporate world, it is just assumed by the finance people to go all out to minimize taxes and maximize margins. The legal department doesn’t need to be told to get and keep the corporation and it’s executives out of trouble with civil and criminal law. “Out of trouble” can also mean plausible deniability. Managers don’t need to be told that their jobs depend on getting their numbers for the quarter. If the HR department has any due process at all, it will strongly favor the company.
An old trick in the business world when legal trouble looms is to round up a team of lawyers and bog everything down in court delays and appeals. Bankrupt your opponent with legal bills and wind down the clock. Number 45 learned this years ago with his lawyer Roy Cohn. Sue everybody who crosses you. It is a big stick he swings around to this very day.
The incidence of psychopathic behavior is a bit higher among CEOs. Commonly, a large spectrum of aberrant behaviors are tolerated by a Board of Directors, as long as the good numbers keep rolling in. If you are the Chairman, the CEO, and the major stakeholder, there is only the law and the market to set your boundaries. Even that can be challenged if you have good staff lawyers.
President #45 came into office from years as a television performer and as a Chief Executive Officer of resort property development and casino businesses. Apart from managing large organizations from the top level with accountability only to himself and possibly his creditors, #45 had zero experience, or interest evidently, that naturally leads to being president of a vast administrative branch of government with large international and military interests. Yet, under the guise of “draining the swamp” and the wide spread misogynistic antipathy towards Hillary Clinton, he became president of the electoral college, or ahem, the USA.
Ok. After this lengthy preamble, here is my point. A common rallying cry held by supporters of #45 is support for liberty and freedom. They look to a man whose entire professional career has been at the helm of autocratic organizations that bear no resemblance to a culture of liberty and freedom. Top down command of loyal associates is all he knows. His world view as an autocrat is “what can you do for me in addition to unswerving loyalty?” The crowds demand liberty and freedom but it is completely disconnected from what #45’s life has been all about. His presidency was a disaster for liberty and freedom.
(Updated 7/31/22) We took a little trip to Moab, Utah, recently. As expected it is a charming but very touristy little town. It is a good starting point for exploring what erosion has done to the Colorado Plateau. Moab has the frenetic energy of a ski town where everyone is planning a good time or will die trying. A few miles to the north are the red sandstone fins of Arches National Park. The tall fins result from fracturing of the local sandstone formation from uplifting. The vertical fins are what’s left when the cracks in the formation erode away and widen over the eons, leaving narrow vertical slabs of sandstone. Over time some of these fins were hollowed out by erosion, producing arch formations.
To the southwest a few miles is Dead Horse Point State Park. It has one main attraction which is a stunning overlook of the Colorado River and the northeast end of Canyonlands National Park. If you are in Moab it is worth a visit.
From Moab we traveled south and east across the La Sal Mountains and through the Paradox Valley in west central Colorado to visit Naturita and Uravan. Both are former uranium mill towns but Uravan is probably better known for it. The name comes from URAnium-VANadium ore found in the region. Moab also had a uranium boom and has a radioactive mill tailings legacy.
The settlement of what would later be called Uravan, the namesake of the Uravan Mineral Belt, began as a mill site for the production of radium. The Standard Chemical Corporation built the Joe Jr. Mill in 1912 next to where the town of Uravan would eventually be built. The market for the radioactive alkaline earth metal was very lucrative and it spawned a short-lived radium mining industry on the Colorado Plateau. Where there are rich occurrences of uranium you will find it’s decay product radium. At the beginning of the radium boom, starting in 1912, there were no known uses of uranium other than for making colored ceramic glaze or glass. The radium mill tailings would later be valuable for the uranium and vanadium content. As of 2011 radium is extracted from spent nuclear fuel.
The demand for American radium slumped in about 1921 due to cheaper imports from the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). There was little activity until 1935 when the US Vanadium Corporation bought the milling operations for the production of vanadium. Earlier it had been discovered that a small amount of vanadium alloyed with steel produced a valuable steel alloy. A few years later, as part of the Manhattan Project the US government started a uranium boom with attractive prices for yellowcake, the uranium oxide precursor to uranium hexafluoride. While US Vanadium produced vanadium, it had a secret contract with the War Department to provide uranium yellowcake as well. Vanadium production was a good cover for the production of uranium.
The mineral that was mined in the area was the bright yellow colored carnotite which was dispersed in sandstone. Carnotite is potassium uranyl vanadate hydrate, K2(UO2)2(VO4)2·3H2O. It is found in a 2 to 4 ft thick layer of the Morrison Formation, upper Jurassic, with an average concentration of 0.25 % U3O8 and 2 % V2O5. The deposits are usually found in clusters that have spotty distribution according to USGS surveys.
Notice that the U and V of the carnotite formula above is different from the U3O8 and V2O5 figures cited? A common way of expressing the composition of metals in an ore is to convert the various metal species into the metal oxide equivalents. This allows the direct comparison of different mineral compositions in terms of a common metal oxide equivalent.
Many towns thrived in the uranium belt during the boom time but began to collapse in the 1970’s and 80’s when the government quit buying yellowcake, U3O8. Naturita (pronounced ‘natta Reeta’) is such a town. While the town didn’t collapse, it did suffer when the uranium boom fizzled and employment disappeared with it. The town has an organization called the Rimrocker Historical Society with a decent museum that is worth a visit.
There is nothing left of the company mill town of Uravan. It has been bulldozed flat and completely buried. It is now a Superfund site ghost town. Radium contamination is a continuing legacy of the boom times in uranium country.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
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