Cop Car's Beat

Ah, yes, the good old days

Since nothing exciting is going on around here - still - I share a photo that I found online. (I don't recall what I was looking for or where I found the photo). It reminds me of the "Good Old Days" when everything, so many people claim, was perfect - except - we were engaged in World War II, we had no indoor plumbing, and I had already lost two siblings, one of whom could possibly have been saved with penicillin. A friend from our small town had been shot down in China, suffering a broken back in parachuting and unable to communicate with the Chinese peasants who came to his aid.

"What" I hear you ask, "...does Fred Emery [the parachutist] have to do with an early-day telephone switchboard?" Well...Fred's mother, Nettie Emery, was "our" switchboard operator. On rare occasion, if I behaved myself, Nettie allowed me to "help" her at the switchboard in her parlor. Ah, yes, the good old days!

ADDITION of 12/20/2021

1954 August or September - Missouri Air National Guard Summer Camp Communications Center - Casper, Wyoming

Equipment from back-to-front: Field Switchboard (hidden), Commercial Switchboard (staffed by Hunky Husband), and Teletype

It isn't apparent to me what the fourth airman, the only one with his airman's stripe showing, is doing. HH had written the date and place on the back of the photo, along with identifying the four airmen. I believe this to have been HH's first deployment for training in the Air National Guard as he would probably not yet have reached the age of 18 when the photo was taken, his birthday being in early September. (His parents would have had to sign a waiver for him to have joined at age 17.) HH no longer recalls much about most of his Air Guard service of 11 or 12 years.

Coda on Typewriters

Stu sent an email that included an image, below, and a link, each having to do with the Dvorak keyboard layout - a layout that did not even occur to me during composition of previous postings and comments concerning typewriters and keyboards. Thanks, Stu. I remember the Dvorak layout, but I don't recall ever having been faced with that layout on an actual typewriter. If I cared to do so, I could probably find conversion software for my current Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard; but, I am no more interested in making the switch, now, than was I in the 1950s. 👎 I'm happy using QWERTY.

For anyone interested in refreshing their memories, or adding to their knowledge base, I supply a full-keyboard image, below, and a link to another Wikipedia entry - this one in English.

More on typewriters

Royal Portable Typewriters for English Language Typing

Joared wrote in a comment to Roberta X made me do it of the keyboard layout of her Royal portable typewriter. I encouraged her to send me a photo of the machine and will post it if Joared has the time/energy/inclination to send one (or more). Until then, I am posting (below) a touch-typing guide that I found online, within an owner's manual. The manual is for a Royal Quiet Deluxe from 1952 which model did not include a separate key for "1" as does Joared's machine. (For those too young to know or to have used such a quaint machine, typists typed a lower case "l" in place of a "1" - which isn't too bad when using a font with serifs such as "l". I'm not sure whether Joared's machine includes that key because it is one year newer than the model addressed in the manual, or whether she bought a more expensive machine.

 

Typewriters for German Language Typing

Thanks to Stu for providing links to a couple of interesting German language typing websites. The photo, below, was found at Stu's link to his own website Eunoia, which posting has comments that include mine that predate some of the information in my own postings on typewriters.

Another view of a similar typewriter keyboard is found at Dreamtime (stock photos).

Note the QWERTZ layout as Stu wrote about in his comment. (I note a difference in the "upper case" ß since, in the photo (above) it seems to be a colon rather than a question mark.)

Here in Germany, we have a bigger alphabet,
the standard is QWERTZUIOP and the Y is bottom left.
U Umlaut is to the right of P
To the right of L we have O Umlaut then A Umlaut
SZ which looks like a Beta is below the question mark.

During the Nazi era there were also separate keys for the SS and for the swastika.

BTW: To access "cut copy and paste" German alphabet letters such as the eszett (ss), ß, I used the GYPU website.

IBM Executive Typewriters for English Language Typing

Other than the Smith Corona portable, about which I wrote in the previously linked posting, the only typewriter that I owned was purchased (used) from a shop in Albuquerque NM during the mid-1980s. It, an IBM Executive (photo of a machine similar to mine, above), made really gorgeous copy! The look of the finished page was enhanced by the proportionate spacing of the letters ("i" took one space while "W" took five spaces, as I recall), by the sans serif font (illustrated in the image, below), and by the machine's using a carbon ribbon (photo below the font image) rather than an inked ribbon. 

I really liked that machine; but, when I moved back to Kansas, knowing that it would be difficult to squeeze my household goods into Hunky Husband's already fully-furnished house, I gave the IBM Executive to Elder Brother and his wife who, at the time, lived in Santa Fe NM. He may/probably does still have it.

Roberta X made me do it

I mentioned in the next previous post, More of this and that - early October, that unlike my new computer keyboard which forces use of the left index finger to input a "6/^", I had been accustomed to using my right index finger for that key. I asked what was "standard" touch-typing for that key. In her comment, Roberta X (RX, henceforth), wrote that her '1942 U. S. Navy touch-typing chart shows finger choice for the "6" key (only!) as "optional" for left or right index finger.'

RX rightly reminds me that, over the many years since Elder Brother and I bought our portable typewriter (in 1951 or maybe 1952, I'm not really sure), the upper case numeral keys have changed. On the 1950s keyboard, the upper case "6" (I have to re-input each of the 6s because my fingers aren't paying attention!) was an underline, "_".

Although I was unable to find the graphic that RX referenced, I did succeed in finding two touch-typing charts (images, below) put out by Smith Corona, the company that made EB's and my portable typewriter. I'm pretty sure that a similar chart was included with the typewriter, explaining my habitual use of my right index finger for the "6" key (yes, I hit the 7 key, AGAIN!)

 

Below is an image of a manual portable typewriter quite similar to EB's and my typewriter - down to the case. [Alert: The rest of this paragraph should be viewed as "not necessarily so". Please see ADDITION at the end of the posting. CC] The only real difference I see is that the label on our typewriter was "SCM" followed by the company name in script. I don't recall whether the company name was Smith Corona or Smith Corona Monroe. I can find photos of "SCM" logos online, but I can find no mention of the company's having gone by Smith Corona Monroe, so I suspect the label included the former of the two.

Thanks, RX!

ADDITION of a few hours later: SCM

So much for my memory. It is like scrambled eggs. Perhaps I would have made more headway in my SCM "research" had I not remembered (incorrectly) that the "M" stood for Monroe - one of the Smith brothers. The "M" was for Marchant. I found History of Smith Corona Corp. which provides the following information about SCM.

Smith & Corona became known as Smith-Corona in 1946 and in 1953 was renamed Smith-Corona Inc. During the postwar years, the company worked to meet the challenge of the newest technology, the electric typewriter, which began to dominate the market in 1948. In 1955, Smith-Corona introduced an electric typewriter for the office. The result of a decade of research, the new machine featured a scientifically sloped keyboard fitted to natural finger movements, more controls in the keyboard area than any other electric typewriter, and automatic repeat actions on all keys. Continuing to branch out into other areas, Smith-Corona merged with Marchant Calculators in September 1958; the resulting company, Smith-Corona Marchant Inc. (SCM), became world renowned as an aggressive and diversified corporation.

....

....In 1985 Smith Corona was incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary of SCM Corp., and the following year, the London-based conglomerate, Hanson PLC, acquired SMC Corp. ....

More of this and that - early October

Grass - not the smoking kind

Today was a nearly perfect day for me - something to write about. Nothing exciting happened, nothing out-of-the-ordinary happened; but...well...maybe it was a bit out-of-the-ordinary. Much of my day (5 ½ 6 hours of it) was spent pulling Bermuda grass out of our back lawn. (I wrote a tiny bit about this project at Big accomplishments this week.) We've been having such hot, sunny weather that I dared not spend too much time out there (besides my hands not being up to too much grasping and pulling) - until today. Today was mostly cloudy and cool. Tomorrow, I'll take an update photo and post it below this sentence. It is too dark, now, and I didn't think of taking a photo before.)

ADDITION of 10/7/2 021

The yellow ovals indicate areas not yet de-Bermuda-ed while the diamond shows an example of a small patch that has been completed. The Bermuda is a bluish color in the dew - before I put in my first hour this morning.

What made the day so spectacular for me was how quiet it was. No one was mowing. No one was running power tools in their garage. McConnell AFB didn't have a bunch of KC-135s and KC-46s taking training flights and shooting landings, Fred was at work so his dogs were indoors, air conditioners were not running...you get the picture.

By now, my right hand is a bit swollen, but not too bad since I switched to doing extreme grasping/pulling with my left hand about mid-morning. In all, I took six turns outside pulling Bermuda for that 5 ½ 6-hour total time. Even the 1 3/4 hours that I put in after dinner were extremely pleasant. (Hunky Husband let me get away with our having DQ treats as dinner - he had a Blizzard, I had a Mocha Moolatte - which is okay considering the totally nutritious meals we had yesterday and for lunch, today.) Fred was at home and his Labs were outdoors, but I was far enough away from their side of our yard that they ignored me. (The Great Pyrenees dogs whose fence is fairly near to my work area bark "Hello", then ignore me.)

I am desperately trying to get the visible Bermuda grass pulled before Tendercare comes out on Monday to core aerate and slit over-seed the lawn with fescue. Because of my progress, today, I have a shot at making it; although, tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday are supposed to be hot - and Sunday will be dedicated to other activities. 

Microsoft Ergonomic Desktop

I'm almost getting used to my new keyboard. I'd been putting up with the truly awful keyboard that came with this computer, for nearly two years - basically because I was too lazy to look for a different keyboard. A couple of weeks ago I got irritated enough that I decided to go for a new keyboard. Doing a very little research, I decided on the Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard which was easy to order online through my Microsoft account. Only after it arrived did I discover that I had accidentally ordered the Desktop (keyboard+mouse) instead of only the keyboard. Oh, well. I won't use it when, as now, I am using the mouse to the left of my keyboard; but, I may try the mouse sometime when I am using the mouse to the right of my keyboard. The mouse is configured with a couple of controls that are located for use by one's (right) thumb.

In the above photo, I have pulled the keyboard tray all of the way out (the truly awful keyboard is above the ergonomic keyboard, resting on the desk.) That is not how I normally position it, which is most of the way forward; thus, you would (now) see four keys with white tape over them. I don't have a great sense of touch in my fingers (it's a good thing I don't try to use Braille), so I use little self-sticking bumps or tape to help me "find" certain often-used keys. It reminds me of 1951 when Elder Brother and I put our pennies together to buy a portable typewriter (EB was a junior in high school and taking typing - I was in 8th grade and would not take typing until my own senior year in 1954-55.)

Dad intruded. He covered each key with a square of electrician's tape (he was, after all, a Journeyman electrician.) His theory was that, if we couldn't see the labels on the keys, we would learn to touch-type properly. He was right! By the time I did take typing (which I took only to learn proper forms for letters), I typed so proficiently that Mr Bills put me on one of only three electric typewriters that he had and, later, onto a 10-key adding machine to learn it. Actually, the electric typewriter slowed me down since my throw of the carriage on a manual machine was faster than the electric carriage return.

BTW: It seems strange, but this ergonomic discontinuous keyboard showed me that I was in the habit of striking the "6/^" key with my right index finger. This keyboard has the "6/^" key located to the left of the discontinuity - for striking with the left index finger. Which hand is standard? I no longer know; but, I note that the "7/&" key is nearly twice as wide as the standard letter keys, so I am suspicious that my using my right index finger is "standard".

Odds & Ends - September 2021

Bag of Skin

T. Dawn Schrandt, PA-C (Physician Assistant - Certified)

On the 20th, Dawn did her annual visual scan of my bag of skin. This has been our ritual since 2004 when, on my first visit to her (sent by my primary care physician), she excised and cauterized a pencil-eraser-sized chunk from my upper lip. The biopsy showed it to contain a basil cell carcinoma. Each year, Dawn has taken it upon herself to reduce my mass by excising or freezing off chunks of skin. This time, she froze off several chunks of skin from quarter-sized down to pea-sized on face, hand, armpit, and torso, none of which warranted biopsy. Mostly, they itched or hurt on occasion - enough for me to want to be rid of them. Next exam will be on 9/26/2022. 

Exhuming an unused laptop computer

It proved difficult; but, of course, not impossible to revive Hunky Husband's laptop - unused since June 2018. Well...to be precise, he had picked up his emails on it once or twice in early 2019. What started me out on the quest was the desire to, as mentioned in Big accomplishments this week, to add his laptop to my Norton subscription. The exhumation proved to be a time-sponge. First, I had to wait for it to quit automatically downloading updates to Windows, which the computer started within microseconds of sensing that it had a connection to the internet.

It took about 30 minutes to get Norton re-installed, linked to my subscription, and working properly. All is good.

Finally, the real time-suck was getting the Windows 10 Version 20H2 to download and install properly. I recalled that it had taken me a few months to figure out how to get a successful install on this desktop computer; but, for the life of me, I couldn't recall how I had finally succeeded. I looked online for guidance. Found nothing useful. Before going to bed, last night, I scratched my head until I recalled that the problem solution for this machine involved my deleting some files. Which ones? Well...it had something to do with the automatic update trying to download files, but finding that some of those files were already downloaded.

Aha! I searched HH's laptop's hard drive, finally finding where downloaded files were stored. It took about an hour, but I deleted all of the files that had been downloaded on 9/26/2021. (No, I wasn't sitting contemplating my naval. The laptop is several years old, and slow...and there were bunches of files that required administrative OK to delete.) I then restarted the download and install process. All through the night, whenever I awoke, I visited HH's den to see how his laptop was doing. Each time it seemed to be chuckling right along. From the time I re-started the download and install of Windows 10 Version 20H2 sequence, it took another 12 hours to complete the installation. But it is done! It worked! I am happy!

COVID-19 Booster

Being of advanced years, HH and I now qualify for receiving booster COVID-19 shots. A few minutes ago, I checked (again!) our county's website to see if they were allowing appointments to be made. Yes, indeed. I made appointments for HH and me to get those shots on the morning of the 30th. The 29th had plenty of openings, but I decided to give them a day to work out the kinks in the system that is being restarted. For the past couple of months or so, all COVID-19 shots have been walk-in, rather than by appointment.

ADDITION OF 9/28/2021 - Machine Requirements

Windows 10 Version 20H2 System Requirements

If you are about to install Windows 10 on your PC, you might want to know if your device is capable of running the latest operating system from Redmond. Windows 10 version 20H2, which is released today, has the same requirements as its predecessor, version 2004.

 

Windows 10 Version 20H2 System Requirements

More Windows 10 version 20H2 resources:

Windows 10 Version 20H2 System Requirements

Windows 10 version 2004 will require a PC which fits the following specifications:

• • Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster processor or SoC
  • RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 2 GB for 64-bit
  • Hard disk space: 32 GB for both 64-bit and 32-bit OS
  • Graphics card: DirectX 9 or later
  • Display resolution: 800 x 600, a minimum diagonal display size for the primary display of 7-inches or larger.

Notice the storage size requirement. For Windows 10 version 1809 and prior, it was 16 GB for 32-bit OS 20 GB for 64-bit OS. For Windows 10 version 1903, 1909 and 2004 the value is at least 32GB. This is related to the reserved storage feature.

Also, storage controllers used in devices that run Windows 10 for desktop editions must meet the following requirements:

• • Storage controllers must support booting using the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) and implement device paths as defined in EDD-3.
  • Storage host controllers and adapters must meet the requirements for the device protocol used and any requirements related to the device storage bus type.
  • Bus-attached controllers must implement the correct class/subclass code as specified in the PCI Codes and Assignments v1.6 specification.

The processor should meet the following requirements:

• • Compatible with the x86 or x64 instruction set.
  • Supports PAE, NX and SSE2.
  • Supports CMPXCHG16b, LAHF/SAHF, and PrefetchW for 64-bit OS installation

Tip: Consider getting an SSD/NVMe drive instead of a hard drive if you use Windows 10 daily. It will greatly improve your user experience. Also, check out the post The REAL System Requirements for Windows 10.

If one follows that last link, above, one learns the optimal system requirements:

...the optimal hardware configuration for Windows 10 looks at least as follows:

• • Processor: Intel 8th generation processors (Intel i3/i5/i7/i9-7x), Core M3-7xxx , Xeon E3-xxxx, and Xeon E5-xxxx processors, AMD 8th generation processors (A Series Ax-9xxx, E-Series Ex-9xxx, FX-9xxx) or ARM64 processors (Snapdragon SDM850 or later)
  • RAM: 4 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 16 GB for 64-bit
  • SSD/NVMe: at least 128 GB for both 64-bit and 32-bit OS
  • Graphics card: DirectX 9 or later
  • Display resolution: 800 x 600, a minimum diagonal display size for the primary display of 7-inches or larger.

I don't know about you, but that last bit is a waste for me - mostly beyond my ken. Obviously, HH's laptop is old enough that it does not fulfill the requirements stated as optimal.

Big accomplishments this week

Well...not big; but, it beat not getting anything done!

Hunky Husband, it turns out, has been looking for a chronometer to replace his favorite (photo, below). I offered to do the research for him, which offer he gladly accepted. Not by skill, but by luck, I found an online video that told how to solve the problem he was having with his current piece, followed the simple directions, and restored his piece to full function. Note in the photo how the long, red hand (the timing, second hand) is pointing between 1 and 2. The reset indexed that hand back to the 12 position. That was all that HH needed - saving him $600.

About a month ago, the army worms hit our town - hard! Nearly everyone's lawns were hit. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to photographing the damage until this morning. In the photo (below), one can see that the army worms missed eating some of the roots of our fescue grass, and they have sprouted up. The part of our back yard that gets shaded by the cottonwood tree, was spared - something about trees seems to repel the army worms. Tendercare is to come slit seed the barren spots in back, and all of the front lawn, on October 11.

While the army worms readily devoured the fescue grass, they eschewed the native Bermuda that has, over the years, invaded the sunny area of the back yard. While Bermuda grass is much more suited to our current climatic conditions on the sunny side of the back yard, I won't have it, having fought it my whole life (starting at age 4 or 5 when Mom had Elder Brother and me pull the native Bermuda grass out of her rose beds). While the fescue grass is sparse is the ideal time to pull the Bermuda grass - which task I've been attempting since the mornings have cooled down during the past several days. Most days, I've been able to put in 30-60 minutes of work on that tasking, limited by when the sun starts hitting that area and/or my weariness.

In the photo, below, the yellow oval shows some of the Bermuda that has yet to be attacked while the yellow diamond encloses the visible part of the area on which I spent 55 minutes this morning. (The orange tubing running across the upper, right corner of the photo is part of the watering hose that I had out to water the newish trees in back.)

I had but one instance of performing IT services, this past week. It turns out that HH has been carrying a separate subscription to a Norton (Symantic) anti-virus suite that is installed on his laptop. I'm not sure that HH even knows his login for his laptop, these days, but I can state with confidence that the anti-virus suite on his laptop is not worth the $89.99 that he is paying each year - especially considering that he can have the coverage, free, from the up-to-5-machine subscription that I have from Norton, for which I pay $97.19 per year.

Currently, since removing Norton from the laptop that I've prepared to give to Elder Brother (Norton is a space hog and EB only accesses one website - to update his data on the stock market), there are only two machines using my subscription, HH's and my desktop machines. As I recall, at the time HH bought his laptop several years ago, my subscription was fully used on five machines; thus, HH had purchased a separate subscription.

It would be funny were it not so pathetic.

YouTube Channel 'Tech Support Scams' Taken Offline By Tech Support Scam (theregister.com)40

Posted by BeauHD on Wednesday July 28, 2021 @06:40PM from the well-that's-ironic dept.

The Tech Support Scams YouTube channel, operated by host and creator Jim Browning, was deleted after a tech support scam convinced Browning that the only way to secure his account was to delete it. The Register reports: "So to prove that anyone can be scammed," Browning announced via Twitter following the attack, "I was convinced to delete my YouTube channel because I was convinced I was talking [to YouTube] support. I never lost control of the channel, but the sneaky s**t managed to get me to delete the channel. Hope to recover soon." To fool Browning, the ruse must have been convincing: "I track down the people who scam others on the Internet," he writes on his Patreon page. "This is usually those 'tech support' call frauds using phone calls or pop-ups. I explain what I do by guiding others in how to recognize a scam and, more importantly, how to turn the tables on scammers by tracking them down."

Browning has made a name for himself with self-described "scam baiting" videos, in which he sets up honeypot systems and pretends to fall for scams in which supposed support staffers need remote access to fix a problem or remove a virus -- in reality scouring the hard drive for sensitive files or planting malware of their own. "I am hoping that YouTube Support can recover the situation by 29th July," Browning wrote in a Patreon update, "and I can get the channel back, but they've not promised anything as yet. I just hope it is recoverable."

Whether Browning is able to recover the account, and the 3.28 million subscribers he had gathered over his career as a scam-baiter, he's hoping to turn his misfortune into another lesson. "I will make a video on how all of this went down," he pledged, "but suffice to say, it was pretty convincing until the very end."

Residential electrical service entrance

Earlier this month, a comment string on the posting, More from News for Nerds - Heat pumps, led to another posting, Determining electrical service requirements - for the non-professional, with an abundance of comments. I do not intend to extend (I like that phrase; ) the discussion in this posting, but merely wish to provide a place to document some of the information and sources that I ran across during the earlier exchange. In no particular order, I include the following items.

City of Derby, Kansas, Underground Wiring in Residential Subdivisions 

I've made previous mention of utility supply lines of various sorts' being delivered to our homes by underground installations, and below is an excerpt pertaining to electrical and telephone service supply from our city's Subdivision Regulation, Article 7 Installation of Required Improvements (Download Article 7__201304041240165680).

Overhead Power Line Service

If the electrical service is delivered via overhead power lines, as has been the case in about half of the homes in which I've lived, the electrical service entrance is through the roof or through an exterior wall - above grade. 

The graphics, below, are from a simplified presentation at Electrical Academia, and illustrate some of the routing and terminology having to do with conducting overhead power line electrical service into a residential dwelling. The graphic on the left shows a "mast service drop"; on the right, a "clevis service drop".

 

 

 

 

 

Dealing with restoration of electrical service following damage due to a disaster

It is a sticky wicket, figuring out whom to call when disaster strikes a home, damaging the electrical service entrance. During my volunteer disaster relief work, in coordinating with governmental agencies, I have been party to several conversations concerning what various levels of government can/cannot do, what utility companies can/cannot do, and the responsibility of the home owner (who may engage a qualified electrician) in restoring electrical service following a disaster. It got very frustrating for the stressed home owners.

The following table of responsibility is from Basics of Residential Electric Service Drops (thespruce.com). 

How [sic - should be Who] Is Responsible For Fixing the Service Drop?
	Power Company	Qualified Electrician
Overhead wires running from pole to house	X
Service bracket attaching service wires to house	X
Electric meter	X
Weather head that attaches to service cable		X
Service cable from weather head to meter box, then to service panel (circuit breakers)		X
Meter socket		X

More from News for Nerds - Auto emissions, Bit Coin cost, & USA Fossil fuel use

Volkswagen, BMW Fined $1 Billion For Colluding To Make Dirtier Cars (theverge.com)123

Posted by msmash on Thursday July 08, 2021 @02:02PM from the closer-look dept.

Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler spent years illegally colluding to slow the deployment of cleaner emissions technology, says the European Union, which is dishing out fines as a result. From a report: The EU's executive branch hit the Volkswagen Group (which owns Audi and Porsche) and BMW with a collective $1 billion fine on Thursday for their role in the scheme. Volkswagen Group must pay $595 million, while BMW will pay $442 million. Daimler, however, evaded a $861 million fine of its own because the automaker revealed the collusion to the regulators.

The scheme described by EU authorities is separate from the Volkswagen Group's massive Dieselgate scandal, in which the company installed software on its diesel vehicles that helped fool environmental regulators into believing they were compliant, when in reality, they were polluting far more than the legal limit. Dieselgate ultimately led to nearly $40 billion in fines, buybacks, and legal fees for the Volkswagen Group. Daimler also installed software on some of its diesel vehicles to cheat emissions tests and has paid billions of dollars in fines. BMW was careful to point out Thursday that, unlike the other companies it was caught colluding with, it had not cheated emissions testing.

 

Bitcoin Power Plant Is Turning a 12,000-Year-Old Glacial Lake Into a Hot Tub (arstechnica.com)69

Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday July 06, 2021 @11:30PM from the hot-tub-time-machine dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The fossil fuel power plant that a private equity firm revived to mine bitcoin is at it again. Not content to just pollute the atmosphere in pursuit of a volatile crypto asset with little real-world utility, this experiment in free marketeering is also dumping tens of millions of gallons of hot water into glacial Seneca Lake in upstate New York. "The lake is so warm you feel like you're in a hot tub," Abi Buddington, who lives near the Greenidge power plant, told NBC News. In the past, nearby residents weren't necessarily enamored with the idea of a pollution-spewing power plant warming their deep, cold water lake, but at least the electricity produced by the plant was powering their homes. Today, they're lucky if a small fraction does. Most of the time, the turbines are burning natural gas solely to mint profits for the private equity firm Atlas Holdings by mining bitcoin.

Atlas, the firm that bought Greenidge has been ramping up its bitcoin mining aspirations over the last year and a half, installing thousands of mining rigs that have produced over 1,100 bitcoin as of February 2021. The company has plans to install thousands more rigs, ultimately using 85 MW of the station's total 108 MW capacity. [...] The 12,000-year-old Seneca Lake is a sparkling specimen of the Finger Lakes region. It still boasts high water quality, clean enough to drink with just limited treatment. Its waters are home to a sizable lake trout population that's large enough to maintain the National Lake Trout Derby for 57 years running. The prized fish spawn in the rivers that feed the lake, and it's into one of those rivers -- the Keuka Lake Outlet, known to locals for its rainbow trout fishing -- that Greenidge dumps its heated water. Rainbow trout are highly sensitive to fluctuations in water temperature, with the fish happiest in the mid-50s. Because cold water holds more oxygen, as temps rise, fish become stressed. Above 70 F, rainbow trout stop growing and stressed individuals start dying. Experienced anglers don't bother fishing when water temps get to that point.

Greenidge has a permit to dump 135 million gallons of water per day into the Keuka Lake Outlet as hot as 108 F in the summer and 86 F in the winter. New York's Department of Environmental Conservation reports that over the last four years, the plant's daily maximum discharge temperatures have averaged 98 in summer and 70 in winter. That water eventually makes its way to Seneca Lake, where it can result in tropical surface temps and harmful algal blooms. Residents say lake temperatures are already up, though a full study won't be completed until 2023.

 

America Used Fewer Fossil Fuels In 2020 Than It Has In Three Decades (theverge.com)76

Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday July 06, 2021 @10:02PM from the pandemic-side-effects dept.

Americans gobbled up fewer fossil fuels in 2020 than they have in three decades, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The Verge reports: Consumption of petroleum, natural gas, and coal dropped by 9 percent last year compared to 2019, the biggest annual decrease since the EIA started keeping track in 1949. The COVID-19 pandemic was responsible for much of the fall as people stayed home to curb the spread of the virus and used less gas. In April 2020, oil prices nosedived below zero because there was so little demand. The U.S. transportation sector alone used up 15 percent less energy in 2020 compared to the year before. Higher temperatures last winter also helped to cut energy demand for heating, according to the EIA. As a result, greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels plummeted to a near 40-year low.

That downward trend will have to continue in order to stave off the climate crisis. Upon rejoining the Paris climate agreement, President Joe Biden committed the U.S. to slash its planet-heating pollution in half this decade from near-peak levels it reached in 2005. That's part of a global effort to keep global warming from surpassing a point that life on Earth would struggle to adapt to, a global average temperature that's roughly 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. To hit that goal, there should be no further investments in new fossil fuel projects, according to a recent landmark report from the International Energy Agency. The oil and gas industries are already feeling the crunch from lawsuits and activist investors forcing them to move faster toward more sustainable forms of energy.