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Category: Energy Policy

  • Alligator Alcatraz and Other Signs of Times

    Alligator Alcatraz

    Florida is constructing an ‘Alligator Alcatraz‘, a deportation facility in the m Everglades. An abandoned airport project will be (government) quickly converted into a 5000 bed facility with an idea that the surrounding swamp area with its alligators and pythons would be part of the security. Federal government will use FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program money for the center. Presumed Federal costs will be 450 million dollars annually. Assuming processing speed of two weeks per deportee and full occupancy, that housing alone will cost 3750$ per person though I doubt government will be that efficient. But Alligator Alcatraz is a catchy name, good marketing!

    The immigration industry seems to still provide good income for some – left loves to import immigrants with government paying the housing, whereas right loves to deport immigrants with government paying the housing.

    Nigerian Oil Production Woes

    Alleged 7.2 billion US dollar fraud in Nigeria has led to the arrest of two officials in Nigeria’s state owned oil corporation and three other officials are being investigated. Annual allocations of money meant for revamping and rehabilitation of old oil refineries had not been efficient, as Kaduna, Warri and Port Harcourt refineries “haven’t been producing fuel in recent years” as Oilprice.com reports. Nigeria is struggling to meet (as in has not met) its OPEC quota of oil production due to crime and “struggles to launch new projects”(ibid.)

    Sweden has illiteracy problem

    Regardless of the possible reasons for the Swedish education crisis described in this Zerohedge article (originally from Epoch Times but they require registration), about 800000 of 10 million inhabitants of Sweden are categorized as illiterate. While he definitions of literacy may have changed over the centuries, this is according to the author “the highest number since at least the mid-19th century, possibly since the early 18th century.”

    During 18th century Finland was part of the Sweden, and literacy was then enforced by strong state church that demanded that everybody had to pass confirmation (which was prerequisite for get married – premarital relationships were strongly disapproved those days) and to pass confirmation had to know how to read (the material promoted by the state church , other literacy was a bonus.) Perhaps, if literacy would again be a basis for full civil rights (e.g., one would need to be able to read a contract for their signature to be legally binding), the literacy rates would begin to climb again. Without motivation to learn, there will be a segment of population that will not make an effort.

    Also, what was alluded in the article but I think should be emphasized is that many of the modern students do not even speak Swedish, and before they learn the language they won’t be able to read or write it, either. Also the Finnish literacy levels which used to be among the highest in the world are declining, at least according to PISA statistics.

    A picture from Finland, February 2025, not directly related to Alligator Alcatraz, Nigerian oil production or Swedish literacy.

  • Some News

    Nobody expects the Spanish interruption

    This week Iberian Peninsula had a massive power outage that darkened large parts of Spain and Portugal, affected Andorra, France and according to some, Netherlands and Belgium. I have not yet seen the proximal cause for the outage published, though speculations have run from Russian hackers to atmospheric phenomena. What is increasingly clear is that the Western European power grid has become extremely vulnerable to disturbances and even the slightest wobble can collapse the interconnect.

    European power grid is at 50 Hz and already 0.5 Hz out of sync causes massive troubles – the power grid can choose to shut down or experience massive damage when the system goes off even that slightly. In Spain, the power grid began to experience fluctuations blamed at some point on ‘induced atmospheric oscillations’ (a mistranslation?) or anomalous heating. However, the power grid had lost large fraction of its buffering capacity as the power production has moved from traditional big power stations with big turbines that maintain inertia against minor fluctuations to renewable energy which uses inverters. In other words, the power grid had become more fragile. Spain had just six days earlier boasted about having produced 100% of its daily energy by renewables. Spain is not alone with its fragile grid, the EU wide race to Net Zero has weakened grids over the Western continent. Individual countries have relied on power production of their neighbors to subsidize their climate programs, and when the neighboring countries transform from help to drain, whole Western Europe is in trouble,

    Snake

    Unrelated to European problems, Japanese Tokaido Shinkansen line had about an hour and half train stoppage due to a power outage caused by a snake that had slithered into power line. Or maybe the snake was a tool of a global conspiracy against power grids. The article did not know the fate of the snake.