What's Missing From Consumers Energy's Announcement?

The Detroit News: Consumers Energy plan calls for more than doubling capacity by 2040

Consumers Energy says it will more than double its system capacity by 2040 by using an “all-of-the-above” mix of natural gas, solar, wind, pumped and battery storage as part of a long-term supply proposal.  

Energy matters.  America's economy, businesses, and consumers all depend on available, reliable, and (relatively) inexpensive energy.

And we as a country have been deliberately negligent in maintaining that available, reliable, and (relatively) inexpensive energy - whether going for the Greenies with their no building of power plants whether coal or nuclear at all, to the Green New Deal with its demand of having unreliable solar and wind to replace reliable baseline power.

That Consumers is announcing they will double production capacity is welcome news, especially as all coal plants in Michigan have been set to close by 2032 and we're down to two nuclear plants from five and energy demand has not decreased.

In short, there's not going to be much in the way of reliable baseline production aside from some natural gas plants.  

Certainly that will be badly needed, as there's been scant increase in reliable production capacity. But notice that nuclear is missing from the  “all-of-the-above” mix.

Nuclear provides excellent baseline power and is reliable and yes, safe, and verily non-polluting and not even making those greenhouse gases the Greenies fret about, so long as you don't put communists in charge of it. 

A pity Consumers isn't leading the way with the new SMR reactors or even the large safe reactor designs. 

Tornado Warning

We are now under a Tornado Warning.

The sirens are going off, the sky is all sorts of dark, the wind is whipping impressively, and the rain is coming down in solid sheets.

So, I thought it was a good idea to quickly review tornado safety procedures:

 Good advice, that.

 Happy to be working from home today, and it is down to the basement I go.

Update:  I Did lose internet yesterday, but I didn't lose power more than a few short moments, and a few trees near me are down, but everything is back to normal with just some thunder storms around today.

At Least Some Michigan Democrat Supporters Are Waking Up

Crain's Detroit Business:  Democratic donors break with party to back Rogers over El-Sayed in Senate race

It remains to be seen whether the defections amount to an isolated break or a broader problem for Abdul El-Sayed. 

Hopefully it will indeed be considered a broader problem as all but progressives realize who he is and what he represents.

Good to see how some at least are waking up and not falling for the "Vote Blue No Matter Who" and "Sacrifice Yourself for the Democratic Party" lines.

Nessel Bends The Knee To The Democrat Party

For the Democrat stalwarts, it is Party over principle, every time.

And they are calling on Democrat  Jews to be chickens for KFC.

The Democrats have their Kapos publicly urging Democrat Jews to put aside their very valid concerns over El Sayed including his support for Iran and even more locally, excusing and rationalizing of the attack on Temple Israel, so long as the Dems get to keep a Senate seat.

MSN/Detroit News: Nessel urges Jewish Dems to place world's needs above self-interest

Attorney General Dana Nessel suggested in a private speech to Jewish Democrats on Aug. 30 that they should sacrifice their own safety and comfort in exchange for what she described as "the opportunity to save the rest of humanity."

Nessel, Michigan's top law enforcement officer who is also Jewish, was honored by the Michigan Democratic Party's Jewish Caucus during a celebration in Birmingham. Members of the media were barred from the gathering.

In other words, bend the knee, vote for El-Sayed because he has a (D) after his name even though he is without a doubt extremely contrary to Jewish and indeed American interests.

This is the same Attorney General Dana Nessel who announced she was not going to the Michigan Democrat Convention due to threats against her for being Jewish due to the progressive wing of the party going full on anti-Israel and anti-Semitic in their fervor for Abdul El-Sayed.

We will also note that Ms. Nessel is a lesbian -- not that there is anything wrong with that -- yet she did not call on lesbians to sacrifice their safety and comfort to the Democrat Islamic wing of the party, the same one that has banned pride flags from flying in Hamtramck.  Funny that.

At this point Vote Blue No Matter Who has now nominated a man with a Nazi tattoo (only removed by the Dems from the race when all the polls showed he would lose); an Islamic terrorist supporter, Adam Hamawy who testified and provided material support for the World Trade Center bomber; and of course, Mamdami in NYC.

No, Don't Do That

The Detroit Free Press: Teenage e-bikers on Oakland airport runway force plane to abort landing

Teenage e-bikers on an Oakland County airport runway last week forced a pilot to abort his landing, taking the potential perils of e-bike misuse to a whole new level.

"This is very, very dangerous," Oakland County Airport Aviation Manager Cheryl Bush said. "They aren’t respecting the impact they could have on aircraft trying to get in or out or what it could do to them."

Unfortunately, the idiots made their way in to the Oakland/Southwest Airport in New Hudson from a trail at the southeast of the airport. They then crossed a taxiway and proceeded to do wheelies on the runway, forcing a landing aircraft to do a go-round to avoid them on landing.

Not smart at all to enter airport property and then go onto an active runway and mess about. 

Morons. 

That Was A Tad Unusual

Saw a rather unusual thing during a Blackbeard's night dive.

While on a night dive back on July 8 with Jim and Kevin, we came across a quite large underwater worm.

 Quite a big worm, eh?  It got quite  close to us and our lights and was wiggling along its way through the ocean. 

Things then got weird with what it did next:

 

As you can see, at 36 seconds into the second video, the worm quite simply explodes into multiple pieces right in front of us which then dissipate into the water.

None of us had seen something like that happen before and we all looked at each other like "WTF just happened?".

It turns out, some underwater polychaete worms apparently do this, and they do it on purpose.

They explode like this in order to scatter their gametes (eggs and sperm, whichever they happen to have on board), into the ocean to try and reproduce with other worms.  

You could say the experience blew this worm's mind, and verily the rest of it, all over the place.  

You could say it went out with a bang.

First time seeing it happen and quite neat to catch it on video.  

If You Owe A Bank $100 That's Your Problem, If You Owe The Bank $100 Mllion That's Their Problem. But If

Anthropic is going to end up owing the Banks $10 Billion, I expect it may become everybody's problem.

Fintech Blueprint:  AI: Banks scramble to lend $10B to Anthropic

Anthropic is asking Wall Street for more than $10B of credit.

Reuters reported that Anthropic is arranging a revolving credit facility expected to exceed $10B ahead of its IPO. The largest banks have reportedly been asked to commit around $1.25B each, second-tier banks around $1B, and others $750MM or less.

What could possibly go wrong?  

Dolly Parton Day

Dolly Parton, was by all accounts, a fantastic human being who did a lot of good things for this country and was well-liked by sane people.

With the sad news of Dolly Parton dying I'd like to join the movement for Congress (they might as well do something useful)  to introduce and then pass "Dolly Parton Day" to have a day on the calendar in her honor.

The day to be marked in her honor should be 9/25.