A Little Arithmetic: The Costs Of A Solar-Powered Grid Without Fossil Fuel Back-up
By Francis Menton – Manhattan Contrarian – July 29, 2021
Yesterday’s post made the point that states or countries seeking to march toward 100% “renewable” electricity don’t seem to be able to get past about the 50% mark, no matter how many wind turbines and solar panels they build. The reason is that, in practical operation, due to what is called “intermittency,” no output is available from the solar and wind sources at many times of high demand; therefore, during those times, other sources must supply the juice. This practical problem is presented most starkly in California, where the “renewable” strategy is based almost entirely on solar panels, with only a very small wind component. Daily graphs published by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) show a clear and obvious pattern, where the solar generation drops right to zero every evening just as the peak demand period kicks in from about 6 to 9 PM.
Commenter Sean thinks he has the answer: “Given the predictable daily power generation cycle of solar in sunny places like California and the predictable daily demand which peaks in the evening perhaps solar generators should be required to have electricity storage equivalent to the daily generation of their PV system.”
I thought it might be instructive to play out Sean’s idea to see just how much solar generation capacity and storage it would take to make a system out of just those two elements that would be sufficient to fulfill California’s current electricity requirements. Note: this is an exercise in arithmetic. It is not complicated arithmetic. There is nothing here that goes beyond what you learned in elementary school. On the other hand, few seem to be willing to undertake the effort to do these calculations, or to recognize the consequences.
We start with the current usage that must be supplied. Currently, the usage ranges between a low of around 30 GW and a high of around 40 GW over the course of a day. For purposes of this exercise, let’s assume an average usage of 35 GW. Multiply by 24, and we find as a rough estimate that the system must supply 840 GWH of electricity per day.
How much capacity of solar panels will we need to provide the 840 GWH? We’ll start with the very sunniest day of the year, June 21. California currently has about 14 GW of solar capacity. Go to those CAISO charts, and we find that on June 21, 2021, which apparently was a very sunny day, those 14 GW of solar panels produced at the rate of about 12 GW maximum from about 8 AM to 6 PM, about half that rate from 7-8 AM and 6-7 PM, and basically nothing the rest of the time. Optimistically, they produced about 140 GWH for the day (10 hrs x 12 GW plus 2 hrs x 6 GW plus a little more for the dawn and dusk hours). That means that to produce your 840 GWH of electricity on a sunny June 21, you will need 6 times the capacity of solar panels that you currently have, or 84 GW. When 7 PM comes, you’ll need enough energy in storage to get you through to the next morning at around 8 AM, when generation will again exceed usage. This is about 13-14 hrs at an average of 35 GW, or around 475 GWH of storage.
That’s June 21, your best day of the year. Now let’s look at a bad day. For the past year, a good example would be December 24, 2020, which besides being one of the shortest days of the year, must also have been rather cloudy. Production from the existing 14 GW of solar capacity averaged only about 3 GW, and only from 9 AM to 3 PM. That’s 18 GWH in that window (3 GW x 6 hrs). Then there was another about 1 GWH produced from 8 to 9 AM, and another 1 GWH from 3 to 4 PM. About 20 GWH for the whole day. You need 840 GWH. If 14 GW of solar panels only produced 20 GWH for the day, you would have needed 588 GW of panels to produce your 840 GWH. (14/20 x 840) That 588 GW of solar panels is some 42 times your existing 14 GW of solar panels. And when those 588 GW of capacity stop producing anything at all around 4 PM, you are also going to need at least 16 hours worth of average usage in storage to get yourself to 8 AM the next morning. That would be around 560 GWH of storage.
So you can easily see that Sean’s idea of providing storage “equivalent to the daily generation of the PV system” doesn’t really get to the heart of the problem. Your main problem is that you will need capacity of close to 15 times peak usage (nearly 600 GW capacity to supply peak usage of around 40 GW) in order to deal with your lowest-production days of the year.
Cost? If you assume (charitably) that the “levelized cost” of energy from the solar panels is the same as the “levelized cost” of energy from a natural gas plant, then this system with 15 times the capacity is going to cost 15 times as much. Plus the cost of storage. In this scenario, that is relatively modest. At current prices of around $200/KWH the 560 GWH of storage will run around $112 billion, or around half of the annual budget of the state government of California.
But you may say, no one would build the system this way, with gigantic over-capacity in place just to cover the handful of days in the year with the very lowest solar output. Instead, why not build much less solar capacity, and save up power from the summer to cover the winter. Since the average output of the solar facilities in California is about 20% of capacity averaged over the year, then you ought to be able to generate enough power for the year with capacity of about 5 times peak usage, rather than the 15 times in the scenario above. You just will need to save up power all the way from the summer to the winter. Oh, and you will need a huge multiple more storage than for the one-day-at-a-time scenario. If 180 days per year have less production than usage, and the average shortfall of production on each of those days is 300 GWH, then you will need 54,000 GWH worth of batteries (180 x 300). At $200 per GWH, that will run you around $10+ trillion. This would be about triple the annual GDP of the state of California.
But don’t worry, batteries to store power for six months and more and release it without loss on the exchange don’t exist. Maybe someone will invent them in time for California to meet its 2030 renewable electricity targets.
Any reader can feel free to check my math.
I just can’t believe that anybody talks about this as something remotely connected to reality.
The Triumphant March Toward 100% “Renewable” Electricity: Germany and California
By Francis Menton – Manhattan Contrarian – July 28, 2021
As a state or a country, if you want to have any status in the ranks of the climate virtuous, the key metric is your commitment to get most or all of your energy from “renewables” (mainly wind and solar) by the earliest possible date. Everybody is doing it, and you are nobody if you don’t get in on the bidding. Just a couple of weeks ago (July 14), according to Reuters, the European Commission entered a bid of 40% of final energy consumption from “renewables” by 2030. Back here in the US, the most recent bid from the Biden administration (from April 28) is a goal of 80% of electricity by 2030, which is ambitious on its own, although electricity is a minority of final energy consumption. Congress has yet to consider the Biden administration bid.
Within both the EU and the US, there are national and state champions that are far out-virtuing everybody else. In the EU, it’s Germany. Germany adopted its “Energiewende” way back in 2010 to transition its energy sector to wind and solar. Since then Germany has repeatedly ramped up its renewable energy targets. Most recently, in December 2020, Germany adopted by statute a binding goal of 65% of electricity from renewables by 2030. Here in the US, our champion is California. In California the governing law is the famous SB 100, enacted in 2018, which sets mandatory targets for the electricity sector of 60% from “renewables” by 2030 and 100% by 2045.
As readers here know, the Manhattan Contrarian from time to time has expressed a high degree of skepticism as to whether these mandatory targets are achievable in the real world. Indeed, I have often noted that at somewhere around 40 – 50% of electricity from “renewables,” it becomes impossible as a practical matter to increase the share of electricity from renewables just by adding more renewable capacity. As far as I am aware, no large jurisdiction to date has gotten its percentage of electricity generation from “renewables” up above 50% for any extended period of time. (If a reader can point me to an example, I will be very interested.)
But maybe I’m just a crank. Surely these geniuses in Germany and California must know what they are doing. So let’s check in on the latest news.
Germany
The website No Tricks Zone has a report on July 27 covering electricity output in Germany for the first half of 2021. The No Tricks Zone post is based on data compiled at a German website called Die kalte Sonne.
And the answer is that in the first half of 2020 Germany achieved the level of 50% of its electricity from “renewables.” But in 2021 that level fell back to 43%:
“The share of renewable energies in gross electric power consumption in the first half of 2021 fell from 50% to 43% compared to a year earlier,” Die kalte Sonne reports.
What happened? The wind just didn’t blow as much:
“The production of onshore and offshore wind energy decreased by 20%.” . . . The reason for the steep drop, according to the findings, was due to unfavorable weather conditions. “This year, especially in the first quarter, the wind was particularly still. . . .”
So did solar energy then pick up the slack? Unfortunately, no:
“[T]he sun output was low. . . . Solar energy output . . . rose a modest 2%.”
So how did Germany make up the difference? The answer will not surprise you:
“Coal energy saw a renaissance. Brown coal [lignite] power plants produced 45.8 terawatt-hours of the net power – that is the power mix that comes out of the outlet. That’s a strong increase of 37.6% compared to 2020, when only 33.6 terawatt-hours were produced. The net production by black coal power plants also increased, by 38.9% to 20.4 terawatt-hours after 14.4 terawatt-hours in 2020.”
Basically, Germany has hit the limit of what can be achieved by adding capacity of wind and solar power sources. To get to the higher levels of “renewable” market share that they have committed to, they will need to add large and rapidly-increasing amounts of grid-scale storage. So far, they have barely begun that process.
California
Perhaps you remember the excited headline from the LA Times from April 29: “California just hit 95% renewable energy.” April 29 was just the very day after President Biden had announced his goal of 80% of US electricity from “renewables” by 2030. Now California was already showing the world that they were way ahead and basically all the way to home plate:
Something remarkable happened over the weekend: California hit nearly 95% renewable energy. I’ll say it again: 95% renewables. For all the time we spend talking about how to reach 100% clean power, it sometimes seems like a faraway proposition, whether the timeframe is California’s 2045 target or President Biden’s more aggressive 2035 goal. But on Saturday just before 2:30 p.m., one of the world’s largest economies came within a stone’s throw of getting there.
(Emphasis in the original.). But maybe we shouldn’t get too excited just yet. First, although the author (Sammy Roth) says this was “95% renewable energy,” it turns out as you read further that he is only talking about electricity, which is only about 30% of energy consumption. And for how long did the renewables provide the 95% of electricity consumption?
Saturday’s 94.5% figure — a record, as confirmed to me by the California Independent System Operator — was fleeting, lasting just four seconds.
So what’s the real picture over the course of multiple months or a year? For that you’ll have to ignore the cheerleading reporters at the MSM, and try to find some aggregate statistics. Here are the figures from the California Energy Commission for the full year 2020. The total contribution to electricity supply from “renewables” is claimed to be 33.09%. Oh, but that includes 2.45% from “biomass,” 4.89% from “geothermal,” and 1.39% from “small hydro.” Take those out and you’re left with a big 24.36% from wind and solar. And since electricity is only about 30% of final energy consumption, that means that wind and solar are only contributing around 8% of total energy consumption in California.
Over at the website of California’s Independent System Operator (“CAISO”) they provide a chart for every day’s electricity production that dramatically illustrates the problem. California’s peak electricity demand is around 40 GW, generally occurring around 6 – 8 PM. The large majority of their “renewable” production is from solar. Their current solar capacity, on a sunny mid-summer day like today, provides around 12 GW from about 9 AM to 5 PM — and nothing the rest of the time, including at the time of peak usage. In the winter, the output is more like 8 GW from 10 AM to 4 PM, and nothing the rest of the time. So far, they have almost nothing in the way of grid scale energy storage. In the evening, they ramp up the natural gas plants, and import power from Arizona and Nevada — mostly natural gas, nuclear, and coal. Close to 30% of California’s electricity comes from imports from neighboring states.
Is California going to meet its statutory mandatory goal of 60% of electricity from renewables by 2030? I know which way I’m betting.
This Year’s “ Greenland Meltdown” Scare
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | July 30, 2021
Boy, they are getting desperate now!
From Sky:
In fact, until this week Greenland had barely had a summer at all, with heavy snow meaning that the ice mass was way above average for the time of year. Even with the latest melt, the cumulative ice mass balance is still about a quarter above the 1981-2010 mean:
http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/
According to DMI, the grey band indicates:
http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/
In other words, anything within that grey band has happened at one time or another since 1981. There is therefore nothing unusual at all about the June 28th melt, and it certainly does not mean Florida will get flooded. It is something that happens every summer.
Melting of ice in Greenland, as well as the opposite, snowfall, is determined by the weather. Whereas the last two months have been dominated by low pressure, this week has seen high pressure take over. High pressure means plenty of sunshine, which in turn is what melts the ice. It has nothing to do with carbon dioxide.
Weather forecasts suggest high pressure will remain for a few more days, before giving way to low pressure and more snow:
BBC Forecast 30th June
With the end of Greenland’s melt season just a couple of weeks away, it looks as if we will end up with a pretty much average ice mass balance.
As for claims that the Arctic is warming three times faster than the global average, the Arctic has actually been colder than normal this summer. It is usually only during winter when Arctic temperatures are above normal, when of course it makes no difference whatsoever.
And so far this summer Arctic sea ice extent is doing what it always done at this time of year:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/index.uk.php
Yet every year, we get the same fraudsters out, trying to persuade the gullible public that the Arctic is melting down rapidly.
Mask-free Sweden nears zero daily Covid deaths
Chief epidemiologist warns against ‘far-reaching conclusions’ about Delta strain
RT | July 31, 2021
As the CDC urges Americans to mask up against the Delta variant, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist has argued that more data is needed about the strain’s infectiousness. His mask-free nation is hovering at zero Covid deaths per day.
Anders Tegnell said on Friday that there was “a lot we do not know” about Delta and cautioned against drawing “far-reaching conclusions” about the coronavirus strain. He noted that the variant had been circulating in Sweden “for quite some time” with little effect, particularly in high-risk settings such as nursing homes.
His comments were made in response to newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggesting the Delta strain is more transmissible and could potentially cause more severe illness. The New York Times and other media outlets ran stories reporting that the CDC now believes the Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox – but this comparison didn’t seem to impress Tegnell.
“It is difficult to say how contagious Delta is, [as] when it comes to chickenpox, we have been able to follow the disease for several years. The infectivity [of Delta] seems to be very uneven – in some cases, one person infects a hundred people, then we have other occasions when an infected person does not infect anyone at all,” he told Sweden’s Aftonbladet.
In separate remarks, he pointed to the fact that one-third of the country’s municipalities reported zero new Covid cases over the past week. At the same time, there was an uptick in cases among young people in Stockholm and other large cities.
And while US health authorities are pressing Americans in “high transmission” areas to mask up, Sweden dropped its last remaining mask recommendation – related to public transport – on July 1. While Sweden’s public health agency has supported measures such as social distancing and remote working, it has no recommendations for the use of face coverings in public spaces.
Reviled by the media for refusing to impose harsh lockdowns, Sweden’s less draconian approach to the health crisis appears to be paying off: The Scandinavian nation has recorded a total of eight Covid-linked deaths so far this month, an average of 0.25 deaths per day. While it’s possible this number will increase due to reporting lags, deaths have undoubtedly plummeted over the past several months. On June 4, Sweden reported 13 deaths – more than the entire month of July.
Daily hospitalizations have also hovered near zero in July: On most days this month, the country saw between 0-2 Covid-cases requiring hospital treatment. At the same time, daily cases have fallen sharply since April. … Full article
Neil ‘Master Of Disaster’ Ferguson Gets It Wrong AGAIN
By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | July 26, 2021
Professor Neil Ferguson, the controversial epidemiologist who predicted there would be as many as 200,000 COVID cases a day in the UK if restrictions were lifted, is facing scrutiny after infections continued to drop for the 6th day in a row.
The day before so-called ‘freedom day’ in England, where most mask mandates and social distancing restrictions were lifted, Ferguson was asked by the BBC’s Andrew Marr where the country was heading as a result.
“It’s very difficult to say for certain, but I think 100,000 cases a day is almost inevitable,” said Ferguson, adding, “The real question is do we get to double that or higher? We could get to 200,000 cases a day.”
The professor went on to warn of “major disruption” to the NHS and the interruption of elective surgeries.
Ferguson is being proven wrong by the statistics once again, which today showed there were 24,950 new coronavirus cases, the sixth consecutive daily fall.
“Lockdown zealots will attribute this decline to the vaccines, but that begs the question of why they weren’t confident the vaccines would prevent cases from surging when they predicted armageddon last Monday?” asks Toby Young.
As Christopher Snowdon highlights, the scientists who claimed England’s unlocking represented “a threat to world” are also being proven spectacularly wrong. SAGE government advisers who claimed that relaxing restrictions was “a dangerous and unethical experiment” also face embarrassment.
The issue once again begs the question; Why does the government continue to follow advice given by arch-lockdown advocates who have got it wrong time and time again?
Don’t forget that it was Ferguson who infamously warned that half a million Brits would die without a draconian lockdown, despite the fact that countries like Sweden which didn’t impose lockdown had similar waves and infection rates.
Not only has Ferguson repeatedly proven himself to be totally unreliable (after having already disgraced himself during the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak), but he infamously betrayed what he really thought about the severity of the pandemic via his own behavior.
During the first lockdown, when Ferguson himself was predicting up to half a million deaths, the professor took the threat of the virus so seriously, he allowed his mistress to violate the rules by traveling back and forth across London to continue the pair’s sordid affair.
“It’s OK when we do it!”
Principia Scientific International editor’s note: For those who are not familiar with Neil Ferguson’s record:
This is from the BBC virus webpage yesterday:
As you can see, new cases are falling rapidly.
COVID PCR Tests Recalled by FDA? Only One Test Recalled – Dozens Remain
By Michael Kane | NY Teachers for Choice | 7-25-21
On July 21, 2021, the FDA announced a recall of the CDC’s February 2020 PCR test. What this precisely means is creating a lot of confusion on social media.
Here is my take confirmed by Dr. James Lyons-Weiler:
Back in February of 2020 The CDC rushed a PCR test to market that was subpar and created false negatives and false positives like crazy (way worse than what we have today). I remember distinctly at that time Dr. James Lyons-Weiler slamming the CDC for this debacle that so deeply disgusted him as a scientist. Weiler blamed the entire thing on CDC’s greed to own the patent of the test approved in the US.
The CDC then went and created a new PCR testing platform in March and THAT is the basis for the more than 100 PCR tests on the market today. So all the FDA did recently was revoke the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the original CDC test that is no longer in use anyway because everyone has known for over 16 months that it is a garbage test.
I have sent an email to three of TEACHERS FOR CHOICE core attorneys as well as Dr. James Lyons-Weiler asking Dr. Weiler to clear up the confusion that is resulting. I am sure he will be able to get us 100% accurate info in minutes as this falls within his area of expertise.
We will post more as soon as we know more.
UPDATE – Within one hour of sending an email to Dr. James Lyons-Weiler asking him to confirm my below analysis he responded. Dr. Weiler’s full email response is included below:
***
Dr. James Lyons-Weiler’s email response on 7-25-21 below:
This is only about the CDC’s original test. It was flawed:
“CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel”
That is the precise name of the test that CDC designed after it refused to adopt the test that had been developed in Germany. There has been speculation that this means that they might drop PCR testing all together however I believe that is unlikely.
The Smoking Gun is the use of a lower CT threshold for people who have been vaccinated. CDC is only reporting breakthrough cases with CT less than 28 and dead or hospitalized. They are reporting in the unvaccinated CT up to 38 or 39. This will bias the reports and make it look like Delta or other variants are occurring only in the unvaccinated.
They know precisely what they’re doing, we called them out on it. The mainstream media and the so-called fact-checkers said that we were wrong, but if you look at the CDC’s website it’s exactly what they’re doing.
This blatant in-your-face biasing of Public Health Data reporting and should be grounds for dismissal and or imprisonment. It is, in my view, falsification of public health records.
I hope this is helpful.
Our approach (at IPAK) is to conduct research on positive and negative PCR cases using Sanger sequencing to determine whether SARS CoV-2 is present or not, and what other pathogens might be present in people who are sent home to wait to see if they get sick enough for emergency care.
See the NAATEC page at http: ipaknowledge.org
Face it, we are not immortal
By Manfred Horst | The Conservative Woman | July 30, 2021
WHEN Boris Johnson said in October 2020 that the median age of Covid fatalities was above life expectancy, he was clearly on to something. It is a pity, and a terrible mistake of historical dimensions, that he – and so many others – did not drive their reasoning to the logical conclusions, let alone act on them.
The following is a translation and adaptation of an article which appeared on the German blog Achse des Guten (Axis of the Good) a few days before Johnson’s remarks were made public through his former adviser Dominic Cummings. The numbers are from official German statistics; the percentage distributions derived from those numbers are remarkably similar across the whole Western world.
***
In the course of the last 150 years, mankind has landed many notable successes in its fight against disease and death, against infant and maternal mortality. It has thus raised the average age of death in the Western world from 35 years to around 80 years. (1)
Some people still die at a younger age, but fortunately far fewer than in earlier times. A total of 939,520 people died in Germany in 2019, with the following distribution in age groups: (2)
Mortality Table Germany 2019
With the ageing of our population, the total number of deaths has been increasing steadily in recent years. (3) However, the mean age of death and the percentage distribution among age groups have remained relatively constant ; (4,5) they are also fundamentally similar across all countries of the Western world. (6)
For almost one and a half years now, we have been kept in anxiety and fear with the daily cumulative figures of ‘corona deaths’. (7) The age distribution of these deaths ‘with coronavirus’ (the official denomination, i.e. death of a person with a positive test, not necessarily from a viral pneumonia) in Germany up to June 29, 2021, looks as follows: (8)
Mortality table ‘with coronavirus’, Germany 2020/21 :
One may compare the percentage age distribution of these ‘corona deaths’ with the one of the general population and ask the following questions :
– How do the ‘corona deaths’ differ from the natural mortality table ?
– For which subgroups, if any, would it make sense to explore life-prolonging measures?
– Which age groups should be considered in such a discussion about possible life-prolonging measures?
Don’t the deaths ‘with coronavirus’ (i.e. with a positive PCR test) look as though they are part of the normal and unpreventable death pattern in Germany? Is this not the basic hypothesis that every statistician or epidemiologist worth his or her salt would have enounced if it weren’t for the fact that we have entered an era of extraordinary public hysteria? Also, these figures are remarkably similar everywhere in the world – no matter which measures had been taken against the Coronavirus, see for example in Sweden. (9)
Since the virus does nothing to neonates, children and adolescents – or perhaps because they have so far been submitted to fewer tests – people ‘with corona’ actually reach an average age which is a little higher than that of the rest of the population.
In statistical terms, the coronavirus (or rather the positive PCR test) is a ‘random variable’ with regards to the result ‘death’ – like athlete’s foot or wearing red socks. Of course, severe forms of respiratory infections caused by / with SARS-CoV-2 do exist. Of course, medicine is obliged to help and support each and every one of the people affected. Of course, individual cases can be heartbreaking. Of course, NHS capacities may be stretched during the winter (they generally are). On average, however, the ‘corona deaths’ would have left this world at the same time, with corona or from (or with) another virus or another disease.
All those calculations of allegedly lost lifetime (10) claim that the cohort (group) of people who had died ‘with corona’ would have reached an average age of well beyond 90 years, had it not been for the virus. This is statistical nonsense. One cannot and must not transfer the remaining life expectancy of a person alive at age 80 to a cohort of dead people. Following this methodology, it would be possible to declare any random variable (red socks for example) to be a mortal danger. (11)
Some authors (12) have put forward the hypothesis that the mortality risk due to (or with) corona is equal in its age distribution to, but (largely) additional to the normal mortality risk: so the virus acts like a terrorist who kills 100,000 people with the same age distribution as the mortality table in the general population. If this were true, if this were even possible, we would have had to see a corresponding increase in general mortality across all countries – which we have not. (13) As we are talking of people killed by (or with) a respiratory disease which is mild in the majority of cases, not of people killed by a terrorist, we would furthermore again have to ask the essential question: Why should they have lived significantly longer than the rest of the population, what would have pre-destined this particular cohort (of corona test-positives) to a longer than average lifespan? No, this assertion is not tenable either.
People in the 50-70 age groups also die of (or “with”) Corona? Is it normal to die at age 60 the reader may ask. No, it’s not, of course not, every single case is tragic (and deserves medicine’s full and best attention). But our politicians should know that it inevitably happens sometimes, and that you need to compare and analyse numbers on a population level, instead of being swayed by emotion about individual cases. Specifically in answer to that question, in every population, there are always some 50-70 year olds who unfortunately die – this is inevitable in the human condition. Some of these 50-70 year-olds have always died of (or with) a viral respiratory infection (like the one caused by the Coronavirus). The essential question is whether more people of these age groups die because of the Coronavirus than previously. The answer is no because:
1) We have not observed and are not observing a significant excess mortality in these age groups.
2) The percentage of Corona mortality in these age groups is not only not higher, but effectively lower (!) than the one in the general population.
The conclusion is – the Coronavirus has no influence on the mortality of the 50-70 age groups. And that very conclusion is the same for all groups below 80 years of age. As 80 is the average age of death in the population, the general conclusion therefore is that the Coronavirus has no influence on population mortality.
Science and virology have certainly progressed over the last 16 months, and perhaps humanity will benefit from this in the future. Nevertheless, in 2020 and in 2021, the ‘corona deaths’ would have died, on average (not in every individual case), at roughly the same time. We are not immortal. On average, we die at our average age of death.
Since March 2020, our societies have been treating this normality as if it were a catastrophe. However, no short-term political or social intervention can prevent general population mortality at an average age of currently about 80 years. Nor can it prevent our continuous (especially during the cold season) and immunising confrontation with freshly mutated respiratory viruses. We could have known this, many experts and politicians (perhaps Boris Johnson among them) certainly knew it at the latest on March 12, 2020, when the Italians publicly announced the data on their first 2,003 ‘corona deaths’ (largely from Bergamo and its surroundings): Average age 80.3 years, all (‘with two possible exceptions’) suffering from severe pre-existing conditions. (12)
Incidentally, no vaccination can prevent normal population mortality either, and I suppose many of my former colleagues in the pharmaceutical industry know this. As a pre-requisite for any marketing authorisation – even more so for such hasty and therefore risky ones – the regulatory authorities should have demanded mortality studies (i.e. proof of a lower total number of deaths in the vaccinated group compared with the placebo group).
Such a study would have been very unlikely to produce a positive result though, as normal human mortality at the general average age of death cannot be prevented.
Instead, the evidence of a reduction in common cold symptoms with a positive test was declared a relevant clinical endpoint and published with great fanfare, (13) and the seasonal decrease in test-positive cases and deaths – which was already observed last summer – is being celebrated as a success of vaccination. German (and other) professional associations claim, against their better judgement, that the vaccines’ pivotal studies have proven that they prevent severe forms and deaths by almost 100 per cent. (14)
However, even if entire populations become vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, people will continue to catch common colds and flu, severe forms will continue to occur in the elderly and immunologically weakened, and a yearly fluctuating number of average 80-year-olds will leave us as always, with the coronavirus or with other mutated respiratory viruses and with their constantly mutating variants.
If the human consequences of the political and societal response to this one respiratory virus were not so horrific, we could almost watch and enjoy the whole thing as a grotesque farce. Perhaps in the not too distant future, a (hopefully still – or again!) free humanity may learn useful lessons from this dystopian episode. In particular, we need to develop a healthily sceptical distrust of a certain type of scientists who spread fear and anxiety with their model-based predictions, and of their political followers.
References:
(3) https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/156902/umfrage/sterbefaelle-in-deutschland/
(4) Sonderauswertung – Sterbefälle 2016 bis 2021 (Stand: 05.07.2021) (destatis.de)
(5) 2_5251422028526783027_online.pdf (2020news.de)
(6) https://www.statista.com/statistics/241572/death-rate-by-age-and-sex-in-the-us/
(7) https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
(9) https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107913/number-of-coronavirus-deaths-in-sweden-by-age-groups/
(10) https://fullfact.org/news/boris-johnson-whatsapp-covid-life-expectancy-cummings/
(11) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7646031/#eci13423-sec-0005title
(12) https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3259)
(13) https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Cross-Section/Corona/Society/population_death.html
(14) https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577
(15) Coronavirus, Brusaferro (Iss): età media dei deceduti è 80,3 (today.it)
(16) https://www.dgi-net.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/20210323_COVID_Impfung_Stellungnahme.pdf
Tunisia’s instability and coup are backed by the UAE, Saudi
By Robert Inlakesh | MEMO | July 30, 2021
With Tunisian President Kais Saied seizing power, in what has been called a coup by the country’s largest political party, it seems that the last stronghold of democracy in Northern Africa, having emerged from the Arab Spring, is falling. Celebrated by some, such a transition could have its consequences especially with the involvement of Gulf dictatorships.
Tunisia is often held up as the one standing success story of the 2011 Arab Spring. Having overthrown former President and dictator Ben Ali, during the Jasmine Revolution, the people of Tunisia have experienced a bumpy ride since, but have maintained a democracy. This could all be changing soon with Gulf despots looking to pick up the pieces of any shattering of the nation’s democratic model.
Fears are now emerging, of a repeat of the affairs which transpired in Egypt, destroying the democratic system set up in the country and installing a military dictator. However we aren’t quite seeing such a dramatic shift and there are key differences between the move to dissolve parliament, fire the prime minister and consolidate power, in Tunisia, and the all out military coup which occurred in Egypt in 2013.
But, as there are differences between Egypt’s coup and Tunisia’s, there are also some alarmingly similar forces at work. In Egypt the target was the democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi, he represented the Muslim Brotherhood and in order to remove him, we now know that the UAE and Saudi Arabia both worked to bankroll his overthrow. In Tunisia, for years the UAE and Saudi Arabia have been working to oust the ruling Ennahda Party, which is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The two Gulf regimes have historically bankrolled the opposition to Ennahda and Abu Dhabi was even accused of attempting to organise a coup in Tunisia. As President Kais Saied took control, the office of Al Jazeera came under attack by his security forces who stormed the Qatari funded outlet’s building and forced its journalists out. This has been interpreted as a clear attack on the channel, due to its political leanings towards the side of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Last year it was also reported that Turkish intelligence had foiled an attempted coup plot inside Tunisia, which was allegedly coordinated by the United Arab Emirates. Around that time, a group of demonstrators calling themselves the ‘Salvation Front’ took to the streets of the capital to condemn the Ennahda Movement and its alignment of the Qatari/Turkish axis, it was later discovered that the facebook group for the movement was run by two individuals based in the UAE.
The UAE may have well backed last year’s alleged coup attempt, after their anti-Muslim Brotherhood ally in Libya, Khalifa Haftar, was starting to suffer loses following the introduction of Turkish military aid to help the GNA forces of Fayez Al-Sarraj. Being involved in combating neighbouring Tunisia’s Ennahda Party, could be in part about securing a pro-Haftar dictator for the UAE. The UAE has a well known track record of anti-Muslim Brotherhood and anti-democracy action, having backed reactionary actors in countries like Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Sudan and Yemen.
It’s also no secret whose side the UAE, Saudi Arabia and even their allies like Egypt are on, having celebrated the political turmoil in Tunisia as the “final fall” of the Muslim Brotherhood. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have also been using social media accounts to whip up anger online and drive the country further into chaos.
Prominent Saudi journalist, Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, wrote a celebratory opinion piece in the kingdom’s Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper saying something quite rich for a supporter of Saudi Arabia’s regime: “It is not surprising that the “Brotherhood” has fallen in Tunisia now, but rather it is years later than was expected… they were associated with chaos, assassinations, and deliberate obstruction operations to thwart government action”.
The economic problems, government mismanagement, corruption and the anger over the mishandling of the current health crisis, are all real issues and Tunisia has risen up many times since 2011 to demand a change. None of these real issues should be undermined, nor should it be stated that there is no Muslim Brotherhood alliance. But when it comes to a domestically created group which engages in a democratic process and the power of foreign brutal dictatorships with some of the worst human rights records on earth, it’s clear which option is more detrimental.
It cannot be understated, the insidious role that the UAE and, to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia, have been playing to stir up civil unrest in Tunisia. If President Kais Saied crowns himself dictator, aligning himself with Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, this could have serious repercussions for the country. It is not as of now certain that we will see such a takeover, but regardless of what transpires, the UAE and the Saudi will not stop working to destabilise Tunisia in order to remove the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence.
Importantly, if the West, which claims to care so much about democracy, truly cared for it at all, it would quickly drop its alliances with the brutal regimes of Saudi’s Mohammed Bin Salman and the UAE’s Mohammed Bin Zayed. The destructive role of these Gulf actors and their strides towards crushing all Arab democracies, whilst remaining the best of friends with the self proclaimed “worldwide spreader of democracy” [the US] shows exactly which side the American government is truly on.
Informed sources: Raid on Israeli-managed vessel was retaliation for Israeli raid on Syria
Press TV – July 30, 2021
Informed sources have told Al-Alam television that an attack on an Israeli-managed petroleum products tanker off the coast of Oman in the Arabian Sea that killed two crew members was in response to an Israeli missile attack on Syria that killed two resistance forces.
The Mercer Street, a Liberian-flagged, Japanese-owned ship, came under attack about 152 nautical miles (280 km) northeast of the Omani port of Duqm on Thursday, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), which provides maritime security information.
In a statement on Friday, Zodiac Maritime, the Israeli-owned firm managing the oil tanker, claimed that two crewmen, a Briton and a Romanian, had been killed in the assault.
“Details of the incident are still being established and an investigation into the incident is currently underway. We continue to work closely with the UKMTO and other relevant authorities,” London-based Zodiac said on its website.
It also said it was “not aware of harm to any other personnel” than the British and Romanian crewmen who were allegedly killed.
According to Refinitiv ship tracking, the medium-size tanker was headed to Fujairah, a port and oil terminal in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), from Tanzania. Earlier on Friday, the firm described the incident as suspected piracy, but the UKMTO categorized it as not piracy-related.
The company said the vessel was now sailing under the control of its crew and on its own power to a safe location with a US naval escort.
In recent months, several other Israeli ships have come under apparent attacks on various maritime routes across the world. Earlier in the month, a fire broke out on an Israeli-owned cargo ship after it was struck by an “unidentified weapon” in the northern Indian Ocean. Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television network said the Israeli vessel had been on route to the coast of the UAE when it was attacked.
Back in February, an Israeli-owned ship was hit by an explosion in the sea of Oman. In April, another Israeli ship came under attack off the coast of the UAE.
The attacks come against a backdrop of the Israeli regime’s various assaults on cargo ships across the Persian Gulf region and elsewhere.
History tells us the United States’ supposed ‘concern for democracy’ in Nicaragua is nothing of the sort
By Daniel Kovalik | RT | July 30, 2021
A century and a half has shown us that American meddling in Nicaragua is never about improving the lot of the people of that nation, and only ever about furthering Washington’s imperialist agenda.
The US government is back at it. It is again expressing concern about the state of democracy in Nicaragua, and conjuring up a new round of punitive sanctions against that tiny country to allegedly prevent dictatorship from taking hold there.
The newest sanctions bill against the country is titled “Reinforcing Nicaragua’s Adherence to Conditions for Electoral Reform (RENACER) Act.” As the Senate version explains, “This bill requires the Executive branch to align US diplomacy and existing targeted sanctions to advance democratic elections in Nicaragua, and includes new initiatives to address corruption, human rights abuses, and the curtailment of press freedom.” Sadly, many US non-governmental organizations and ‘intellectuals’ who should know better have sided with the government in its attack on Nicaragua.
However, a brief history of US involvement in Nicaragua is worth recounting here to fairly assess the government’s bona fides regarding its interest in democracy in that country. The first instance of US intervention in Nicaragua came in the form of William Walker in the mid-19th century, at around the time the Monroe Doctrine, by which the US proclaimed its sole prerogative to dominance over the Western Hemisphere, was announced. William Walker declared himself president of Nicaragua, reinstituted slavery there, and burned down the historic city of Granada for good measure, yet his foray into the country was supported by many Americans as an exercise in progressive advancement.
John J. Mangipano explains this phenomenon well in his peer-reviewed dissertation titled ‘William Walker and the Seeds of Progressive Imperialism: The War in Nicaragua and the Message of Regeneration, 1855-1860’. As he explains: “For a brief period of time, between 1855 and 1857, William Walker successfully portrayed himself to American audiences as the regenerator of Nicaragua. Though he arrived in Nicaragua in June 1855 with only fifty-eight men, his image as a regenerator attracted several thousand men and women to join him in his mission to stabilize the region. Walker relied on both his medical studies as well as his experience in journalism to craft a message of regeneration that placated the anxieties that many Americans felt about the instability of the Caribbean. People supported Walker because he provided a strategy of regeneration that placed Anglo-Americans as the medical and racial stewards of a war-torn region. American faith in his ability to regenerate the region propelled him to the presidency of Nicaragua in July 1856. … Though William Walker did not ultimately succeed as a regenerator, American progressives such as Theodore Roosevelt revived his focus on medical and racial stabilization through their own policies in the Caribbean, starting in the 1890s.”
As Mangipano concludes, “The continuity existing between these groups of imperialists suggested that the regenerators, despite their temporary failures, succeeded in nurturing ideas about why Americans needed to intervene in the Greater Caribbean.” This impulse to “progressive imperialism” – now called by the kinder and gentler-sounding “humanitarian interventionism” – continues to motivate even many US leftists in their attitudes towards Nicaragua and other countries of the Global South, and with the same terrible results.
Meanwhile, in the name of progressivism and democracy promotion, the US would go on to send the US Marines to occupy Nicaragua in the early part of the 20th century and set up the Somoza dictatorship that ruled Nicaragua with an iron fist for over four decades from 1936. The Marines were routed by Augusto César Sandino and his gang of merry men and women, Sandino was later assassinated, and the Somozas held control. America would then organize, finance, and direct the murderous ex-Somoza National Guardsmen in the form of the Contras to try to destroy the Sandinista Revolution, which finally overthrew the US’s beloved dictatorship in 1979. Washington coerced the Nicaraguan people into voting against the Sandinistas in 1990 with the threat of continued war and brutal economic sanctions. Then, in 2018, they supported violent insurrectionists who terrorized Nicaragua for months in an effort to topple the very popular Sandinista government that was re-elected in 2006.
In short, there is a grave threat to democracy in Nicaragua. But it is not from Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas, who have built the first democratic state in that country in years. Rather, it is from the United States and the “useful idiots” who continue to believe the US is somehow attempting to bring democracy, despite all evidence to the contrary.
One way the US is threatening democracy is by funding destabilizing and anti-government efforts to the tune of millions of dollars. Nicaragua has responded, as any self-respecting nation would, by punishing those facilitating such foreign interference pursuant to its Law 1055, titled ‘Law for the Defense of the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination for Peace’. As Stephen Sefton, an educator and decades-long resident of Estelí, Nicaragua, explains,
“Under the law, it is a crime to seek foreign interference in the country’s internal affairs’ request military intervention; organize acts of terrorism and destabilization; promote coercive economic, commercial and financial measures against the country and its institutions; or request and welcome sanctions against the State of Nicaragua and its citizens.
“In addition, Cristiana Chamorro of the Violeta Chamorro Foundation, Juan Sebastián Chamorro of the Nicaraguan Foundation for Economic and Social Development (FUNIDES), Félix Maradiaga of the Institute for Strategic and Public Policy Studies (IEEPP) and Violeta Granera of the Centre for Communications Research (CINCO) may also face charges for money laundering and breaking the ‘Foreign Agents’ law which requires all organizations receiving finance from overseas [in this case, the US] to register with the authorities, report the amount of money received and how it is used.”
However, as Sefton emphasizes, “Despite numerous reports in international media to the contrary, none of the people arrested had been selected by any of Nicaragua’s political alliances or parties as possible candidates for the upcoming general election on November 7th this year. Cristiana Chamorro, Juan Sebastián Chamorro, Arturo Cruz and Félix Maradiaga had earlier stated they aspired to the candidacy of one of the political parties, most likely the Citizens for Liberty political alliance. But none of them was formally under consideration. In any case, as many observers have noted, the figure of their possible candidacy in the elections has served as a smokescreen to distract from the criminal charges against them, for which they would face prosecution in practically any country in the world.” Note that last, important phrase.
To put it bluntly, it is the US which, as it has now done for about a century and a half, is trying to dictate to the Nicaraguan people the type of government and economic model they should choose. As an independent, sovereign nation, Nicaragua has every right to push back against this incessant meddling.
I’ve just returned from Nicaragua, where, along with other members of an international delegation, I witnessed first-hand the Nicaraguan people’s enthusiasm for the Sandinista Revolution on its anniversary, July 19. I saw the crowd of thousands assemble in Pope Paul II Plaza, in Managua, to celebrate this extraordinary event, in which the Sandinista Front, led by Daniel Ortega, overthrew a dictator heavily armed by the US government. Our delegation visited Masaya, which was bombed from the air by Somoza in the final days of his brutal rule. It is continuing to rebuild after the destruction wrought by the neo-Contras of 2018, who, with US backing, laid siege to the city and terrorized it for months, until the historic combatants who defeated Somoza routed them with the assistance of the police.
During our trip, we saw for ourselves the incredible advancements of the Sandinista government, which is providing free healthcare and education to all Nicaraguans. We witnessed the children, who had suffered such poverty and deprivation during the Somoza years and the Contra War that followed, attend school and play in the beautiful parks erected across the country by the Sandinistas. We traveled throughout Nicaragua on beautifully paved roads that once were dirt and stone, if they existed at all
I myself travelled on those dirt roads in 1987 and 1988, when I visited Nicaragua for the first time. Back then, I saw children dressed in rags and without shoes, barely able to get enough to eat because of the US sanctions and the brutal war. One does not see that type of destitution in Nicaragua now, and that’s thanks to the Sandinista Revolution, which, contrary to mainstream claims, has stayed true to its values of defending the poor and the most vulnerable.
Nonetheless, the US is intent on destroying it, and the progress it has brought for the Nicaraguan people. And the people are fully aware of this, and that is why 85% of those polled oppose foreign interference in their country, just as any self-respecting nation would. I stand with them in denouncing US interference, sanctions, and aggression toward that little country which has mightily stood up to the Goliath of the North. In this Biblical struggle, all my support is with David.
Daniel Kovalik teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and is author of the recently-released No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using “Humanitarian” Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests.
WaPo’s big CDC scoop on Delta variant in the vaccinated is unintelligible. Was it meant to be?
By Meryl Nass, MD | July 30, 2021
Here is the WaPo article, which the paper exclaims is “free” for all, not kept behind a paywall like the rest of the Post. So they want everybody to read it. Perhaps a federal agency or vaccine company paid for the privilege?
In a nutshell: WaPo reports that CDC admits that vaccination does not protect you against the Delta variant. Unsaid is whether it protects you against the other variants.
Has protection worn off, or was it missing for Delta to begin with? That simple question is never addressed. Might the vaccine make you more susceptible? This is a rare possibility, if it induced blocking antibodies.
Or is antibody dependent enhancement occurring? I don’t think we know yet.
Ingrained in this message is the hint that we will immediately need boosters–but they may not actually be boosters, if there is no immunity to boost. We might instead need a newly designed vaccine. Two more doses? But not to worry, that was the whole idea of the mRNA vaccines: new versions can be put together in a hurry. And Pfizer has been working on it.
Don’t forget, our government in its infinite wisdom contracted for a couple of billion doses. What did they know that we didn’t?
No doubt this story will stoke the market for monoclonal antibodies, a several thousand dollar treatment that only works in the early stage of illness, before you actually know whether you need it.
This article is allegedly based on a leaked slide show from CDC. And CDC is said to have its knickers in a twist over its vaccine “messaging.” How will CDC deal with the fact that government officials told a Big Lie last week about 99.5% of hospitalized cases being unvaccinated, when the truth might stoke vaccine hesitancy? What message can they now use, having painted themselves into a corner?
But why did they paint themselves into a corner? Why did Fauci et al. make such an outrageous claim (the 99.5% one), when data from Israel, the UK, Singapore and elsewhere belied the lie?
Much of the rest of the article is a collection of quotes from people to whom the WaPo showed the slides. Since these experts are vaccine boosters, what would you expect them to say? Their remarks are vapid and unenlightening.
Of course this is more fear-mongering (CDC claiming that delta is the most virulent strain of all) designed to make us happily grab our retired masks and stop hanging with our vaccinated friends.
And now the government is going to force a vaccine that doesn’t work on millions of employees.
The one thing that is clear in this whole story is they want the ability to inject us with something, and to do it over and over. We don’t know why. And they’re not telling.
The NYT says half a million Americans are getting the shot every day. Join the crowd! The Europeans are besting us in the number vaccinated. Do I believe the NYT ?
The NYT is confused tonight. It has one article on the Delta variant– CDC slides story, while it has another article claiming:
Although those steps fall short of a mandate, Mr. Biden also ordered the Defense Department to move rapidly toward one for all members of the military, a step that would affect almost 1.5 million troops, many of whom have resisted taking a shot that is highly effective against a disease that has claimed the lives of more than 600,000 Americans.
And Biden was late to get the message about the CDC slides, saying today:
“This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Mr. Biden said, calling it an “American tragedy” and talking directly to the 90 million Americans who are eligible for a vaccine but have not gotten one. “People are dying and will die who don’t have to die. If you’re out there unvaccinated, you don’t have to die. Read the news.”
I guess those CDC slides really were leaked unexpectedly. I had been wondering if the federal employee vaccine mandate might bring a few federal whistleblowers out of the woodwork. Let’s hope they keep the information coming.
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Are There 50,000 ‘Israeli-born’ Individuals Living in the UK?
By Professor David Miller | August 18, 2026
Recent disclosures by the Zionist regime show that some 2,069 British nationals were serving in the IDF as of March 2025, according to Freedom of Information (FoI) requests submitted to the occupation forces (1,686 dual British-Israeli, plus 383 multinational). We cannot tell from the figures how many of these were already settler colonists and intend to stay in the colony, and how many will return or have returned to the UK. Presumably, those returning to the UK will number far fewer than 2,000, since many are known to have become permanently residents of the colony.
Additionally, the IDF figures only provide a snapshot, and do not tell us how many have served in the Jewish supremacist military either before or after March 2025. One way into the question of how many genocidaires are living in Britain is to ask how many current British residents were born in the Zionist colony. There is data on that, as we shall see. … continue
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