Many people have seen the news about wind turbines, how much power they can produce, and how the major issue is storage of power. But there's one aspect that's often overlooked -- what happens to the blades when they reach end of life, or are damaged?

I took a look at this and found that it's a major issue. Of course, it's an issue avoided by those pushing for more wind turbines.

Plans for dealing with deteriorated turbine blades are insufficient and lead to absurd amounts of material and land waste.

There are around 58,000 wind turbines in the U.S. according to the U.S. Wind Turbine Database, with an estimated 3,000 more planned to be erected by the end of this year. While this looks like good news, it brings with it a problem that is becoming more intimidating as time progresses.

Turbine blades need to be replaced as frequently as every 10 years due to natural deterioration, damage or upgrades. As more turbines go up, it becomes a major issue to deal with so much waste.

There are currently no plans to dispose of retired blades in an environmentally friendly manner. The current process for getting rid of these blades is to pile them up and cover them with dirt like a mass grave.

Tossing these massive 120-foot pieces of fiberglass is incredibly wasteful and antithetical to the green aspect of this energy source. There are three alternatives to unsustainable landfills: recycling, repurposing and repairing.

There are ways to recycle these blades, but it is not easy. These long, white pieces of fiberglass are built to withstand the immense forces of hurricanes and tornadoes. They are designed specifically to be difficult to break.

Companies have been able to burn the blades in kilns to generate electricity, but this results in noxious pollutants and does not produce much power. They have also tried to grind blades into dust to extract chemicals, but with little success.

Two promising recycling methods have been pressing the blades into boards to use for construction and shredding the fiberglass into ingredients for cement. Neither of these have been fully implemented at an industrial scale.

While recycling increases the versatility of the waste material, the process increases the carbon footprint, which is not ideal for what is intended to be an environmentally friendly product.

There are other companies that would like to cut the blades up and use them for park benches, or other types of building projects, but again this is not ideal.

Then just the other day I see this article from MIT Technology Review. It appears that someone has found a way -- sort of.

To break down the epoxy materials, researchers submerged them in a mixture of solvents and added a catalyst, which helped accelerate the chemical reaction. They heated everything up to 160 °C (320 °F) for between 16 hours and several days, until the target material was fully broken down.

After some initial tests, the researchers used their method to chew up a one-inch-square chunk of a wind turbine blade. After six days, the result was nearly spotless glass fibers (and a supporting metal sheet that runs through most turbine blades) and vials of ingredients that could be used again in new materials.

This is the first time that researchers have been able to break down a reinforced epoxy material to recover both the plastic’s building blocks and the glass fibers inside without damaging either, Skrydstrup says.

While this process was able to chew up materials in the lab, it could be difficult to pull off at large enough scale to make a dent in the millions of tons of wind turbines coming out of service in the next few decades. “I think what’s important is that it shows a proof of concept that may inspire others to start looking in this direction,” Skrydstrup says.

This seems promising, right?

The next stage, Rorrer says, would be figuring out how this could work on an industrial scale, or determining what would need to be adjusted so the process could be quick and efficient enough to be economical.

One of the possible roadblocks to commercial operation is that the catalyst used in the researchers’ recycling method relies on an expensive metal called ruthenium. The researchers were using a lot of this metal, and though it doesn’t get used up during the reaction, it could be difficult to recover and use again.

There may be other methods better suited to recycling turbine blades in industry. Skrydstrup’s lab has developed another process that also breaks down turbine blades, which was referenced in a press release earlier this year by the wind turbine maker Vestas.

Skrydstrup says that approach is a two-part process and might be more feasible to run at commercial scale, though the researchers declined to give specific details because they’re working to submit the results to scientific journals.

There are many things working against their efforts. Keep in mind, with all forms of recycling the resulting carbon footprint must be considered. These are the rules the environmentalists have chosen to govern themselves by. This also creates a huge problem for anyone trying to recycle pretty much anything. I'll list a few:

• The very first thing that comes to mind is the process of heating the materials. As you've seen at the top of this post. Heating something the size of these turbine blades to 320 °F for days on end would require a massive amount of energy. Remember, in their study they are just heating small "one-inch-square chunk of a wind turbine blade." Where is that energy going to come from to heat something as large as a turbine blade, and how much carbon might that produce? Of course, they could cut the blades into smaller pieces, but this is a problem of thermal mass. The energy will be required either way, and perhaps even more if it is cut, cutting requires energy as well.
• There is a very expensive metal required in the process. This metal must be unearthed, and processed. I wonder if that is a consideration in their sustainability goals?
• The amount of energy required to remove the blades and transport them to a facility where they can be processed. Keep in mind, many of these turbines are located offshore. This would require a large vessel to transport the blades, most likely powered by diesel engines.

From an environmental standpoint, the giant wind turbines have unearthed a large number of issues. The very first one that comes to mind is the shortsightedness of the whole endeavor. Everyone was in a rush to get these wind turbines installed and running -- before even considering how they were going to maintain them as a system? Those "concerned with the environment" weren't concerned enough to think past step one? What does this say about other environmental endeavors?

It's for the reasons above that I don't believe those at the top of the environmental movement have "the environment" in mind when they make their decisions. If they were truly concerned about the issues they claim to be concerned about, the issues scientists are dealing with now (maintenance, replacement, and recycling) would have been considered at the onset. As we can see, they weren't considered at all.

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TikTok is said to be a danger to its users, and potentially national security, because it's used as a data mining tool. This isn't a new thing. Nearly every phone app is designed to gather information, that will be sold for profit. This is called Surveillance Capitalism. However, that information is normally used for commercial purposes.

This issue with TikTok is that its parent company ByteDance is owned by the Chinese government, CCP, Chinese Communist Party. Without getting into all the specifics, no company operates within China, without allowing the Chinese government complete access to all of their information and technology.

Trump took action on this in 2020.

"This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans' personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage," the executive order reads.

TikTok has downplayed its ties to Beijing, saying data it captures on U.S. users is stored mostly in Virginia. Officials at TikTok also insist the company has never turned over any data to Chinese authorities, despite the country's broad national powers to request such data from private companies.

The idea that the information in stored "mostly" in Virginia, and hasn't been handed over to the CCP is absurd. This is like giving a home intruder a gun when they walk in, but it's OK because you left the safety on. Nobody in their right mind would allow a foreign government this kind of power, unless they are bought off by that same foreign government.

In his new executive order, President Biden said that the federal government should evaluate threats posed by China-based apps and software through "rigorous, evidence-based analysis", and should address "any unacceptable or undue risks consistent with overall national security, foreign policy, and economic objectives".

He acknowledged that apps can "access and capture vast swathes of information from users".

"This data collection threatens to provide foreign adversaries with access to that information," he said.

How is allowing a foreign government's surveillance apparatus access to millions of American users' data a good thing? Biden acknowledges that what Trump warned of is true, the CCP can mine data, and that the data might threaten national security, but now that's OK?

Fast forward to today 2023, and the opposite seems to be true. Now once again congress is looking to ban TikTok in the US. Why? Because of national security concerns. The possibility that the CCP could gather data, so on and so forth. This isn't the first time that TikTok has been banned.

The following countries have implemented full or partial TikTok bans, according to the Associated Press:

• Afghanistan: Permanent total ban implemented in 2022
• Australia: Banned on all government-issued mobile devices in April 2023
• Belgium: Temporary ban on government-issued mobile devices in March 2023
• Canada: Banned on all government-issued mobile devices
• Denmark: The Defense Ministry banned the app from its employees work phones.
• European Union: Banned on European Parliament, European Commission and EU Council staff devices
• India: Permanent total ban implemented in January 2021
• Latvia: Banned on official foreign ministry mobile devices
• Netherlands: Banned several apps, including TikTok, on all government-issued mobile devices
• New Zealand: Banned on government-issued mobile devices used by lawmakers and Parliament
• Norway: Banned on Parliament’s work devices
• Pakistan: TikTok has been banned at least four times since October 2020
• Taiwan: Public sector ban implemented in December 2022
• United Kingdom: Banned on mobile phones used to government ministers and civil servants in March 2023
• United States: Deadline set to remove from TikTok from all federal government devices

Congress has proposed "Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act (RESTRICT Act), S.686.

S.686, the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act (RESTRICT Act), contains language that could be used to shut down any website or app with more than 1 million users that challenges the “reported result of a Federal election” — threatening websites and apps that allow free speech on their platforms including Truth Social and Rumble, not just TikTok, the supposed reason for the legislation.

Specifically, Section 3(a)(1)(C) of the proposed legislation states, “The Secretary [of Commerce], in consultation with the relevant executive department and agency heads, is authorized to and shall take action to identify, deter, disrupt, prevent, prohibit, investigate, or otherwise mitigate, including by negotiating, entering into, or imposing, and enforcing any mitigation measure to address any risk arising from any covered transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States that the Secretary determines… poses an undue or unacceptable risk of… interfering in, or altering the result or reported result of a Federal election, as determined in coordination with the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, the Secretary of Treasury, and the Federal Election Commission…”

The key words there are “interfering in, or altering the…reported result of a Federal election…” How does one “interfere” or “alter” the “reported result” of an election? By saying somebody else won the election and that it was rigged or corrupt.

That’s exactly what anybody, including former President Donald Trump in 2020 or former 2016 Green Party nominee Jill Stein or Al Gore in 2000 did by challenging the “reported result” of the presidential elections of 2020, 2016 and 2000, respectively, whether through lawsuits, television and print media or more recently, via social media.

This legislation is a Trojan Horse and entirely too broad spectrum to cover what's being publicly asserted. There are a few parts in particular that I am most concerned about.

A BILL
To authorize the Secretary of Commerce to review and prohibit certain transactions between persons in the United States and foreign adversaries, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

Consider the wording "review and prohibit certain transactions between persons in the United States and foreign adversaries, and for other purposes." What might constitute "certain transactions" between persons in the United States? What are "other purposes?" And, based on what criteria?

Let's continue.

(b) Considerations Relating To Undue And Unacceptable Risks.—In determining whether a covered transaction poses an undue or unacceptable risk under section 3(a) or 4(a), the Secretary—

(1) shall, as the Secretary determines appropriate and in consultation with appropriate agency heads, consider, where available—

(A) any removal or exclusion order issued by the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Secretary of Defense, or the Director of National Intelligence pursuant to recommendations of the Federal Acquisition Security Council pursuant to section 1323 of title 41, United States Code;

(B) any order or license revocation issued by the Federal Communications Commission with respect to a transacting party, or any consent decree imposed by the Federal Trade Commission with respect to a transacting party;

(C) any relevant provision of the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation and the Federal Acquisition Regulation, and the respective supplements to those regulations;

(D) any actual or potential threats to the execution of a national critical function identified by the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency;

(E) the nature, degree, and likelihood of consequence to the public and private sectors of the United States that would occur if vulnerabilities of the information and communications technologies services supply chain were to be exploited; and

(F) any other source of information that the Secretary determines appropriate; and

(2) may consider, where available, any relevant threat assessment or report prepared by the Director of National Intelligence completed or conducted at the request of the Secretary.

This means that the Secretary of Commerce can basically label anything as a potential threat, because it specifically excludes any requirements. The legislation uses terms such as "certain activities" and "any other source of information." There are no hard and fast requirements that must be met before action is taken.

This is the Internet version of Obamacare. It's not a law determining legality, it's a framework to allow one (or a few) individuals vast control of all public information sharing within the US.

Ask yourself, how well did the US government perform as it relates to Twitter, and Facebook? Did the government block and censor information? Did the government attempt to control public opinion for the benefit of one political party, or itself?

We know the answers to these questions. If this legislation passes, free speech will be forever limited on large platforms. Not only that, it will be limited to that which benefits one ideology.

Get ready for the information landscape to become much harder to navigate.

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At Carnegie Mellon University, they are experimenting with small information gathering devices called Mites. They are designed to gather information about the building, the way that normal "smart" sensors would. They are installed in TCS Hall, a brand new building to house the computer science students and faculty at Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Software Research. These students are not art majors, they're are engineers. They know what these devices are capable of.

This article from MIT Technology Review explains it well.

The Mites project was based on two basic premises: First, that buildings everywhere are already collecting data without standard privacy protections and will continue to do so. And second, that the best solution is to build better sensors—more useful, more efficient, more secure, and better-intentioned.

“What we really need,” Agarwal explains, is to “build out security-, privacy-, safety-first systems … make sure that users have trust in these systems and understand the clear value proposition.”

We're already tracking you through your phone, and nobody is stopping us, so we're just going to push on further. Oh, and privacy protections are complicated, and slow progress, so get used to less privacy. The premise seems to be that the privacy argument was settled a long time ago, and that people shouldn't expect privacy in any meaningful way. While that might be the case, it doesn't mean it's right, and it's not a mandate to further erode one's privacy.

In other words, Mites. But who thought of the name mites? Why mites? Because they can be all over you and you'll never even know they are there. Mites are dug-in, and hard to get rid of as well. Perhaps there was more though put into the naming of these devices than one might assume.

The hall’s futuristic features included carbon dioxide sensors that automatically pipe in fresh air, a rain garden, a yard for robots and drones, and experimental super-sensing devices called Mites. Mounted in more than 300 locations throughout the building, these light-switch-size devices can measure 12 types of data—including motion and sound. Mites were embedded on the walls and ceilings of hallways, in conference rooms, and in private offices, all as part of a research project on smart buildings led by CMU professor Yuvraj Agarwal and PhD student Sudershan Boovaraghavan and including another professor, Chris Harrison.

Let's take a peek under the hood of these little "Mites.io" devices. To do this I'll link to information from their website https://mites.io This is where things get interesting.

We believe in the vision of smart buildings – reactive homes and workplaces that prioritize their occupants’ comfort and wellbeing, creating safe and healthy environments that not only boost happiness and productivity, but are also more maintainable and environmentally sustainable.

To achieve this vision, buildings will need to augment their conventional suite of sensors (smoke detectors, thermostats, motion sensors, badge access points, elevator load, etc.) with more advanced capabilities, able to detect fine-grained building states and occupant activities. This raises a significant sensing paradox and research challenge: how does one create a building that knows its fine-grained state and what its occupants are doing so as to be smart and responsive, while at the same time protecting occupant privacy?

To investigate this important and timely topic, we have created a unique research system at Carnegie Mellon University called Mites. This is an end-to-end, hardware-software system for supporting and managing distributed general-purpose sensing in buildings with ground-up fundamental primitives for privacy and security, scalable data management, and machine learning.

Well, that's the question then isn't it. How do you gather fine-grained information on people and maintain "privacy." The truth is you can't. Once a system is in place, a system that can be used for for nefarious purposes, you can't assume that it will never be used for nefarious purposes. Does anyone really believe that it will never be used for spying? Really?

You'll own nothing and be happy remember? You'll also have no privacy, and never be happier. At least that's what the WEF (World Economic Forum) says.

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Lets face it, things just aren't right.

Lately conspiracy theories have become working theories with astounding frequency. That's not a good thing.

Does infection-acquired immunity outperform vaccines?

The immunity generated from an infection was found to be “at least as high, if not higher” than that provided by two doses of an mRNA vaccine, the authors wrote.

While Murray and Wachter agreed that vaccination remains the safest route, having a past Covid infection should at least be considered in policymaking decisions going forward, such as vaccination requirements, they said.

“What Europe did with this evidence made a lot of sense, which is where evidence of past infection was seen as essentially equal to vaccination in terms of requirements to go into events or for employment,” Murray said.

At the very least, he added, officials should accept that evidence of recent infection is equivalent to vaccination.

Notably, the immunity acquired from infection did appear to wane more slowly than the immunity from two doses of an mRNA vaccine.

What does this mean? It means that all of those people who were singled out for not getting the COVID-19 vaccine because they already tested positive and recovered -- were right and should have been left alone. Think of all the people's lives that were turned upside down simply because they didn't follow a government dictate. There were families that were torn apart over the issue of vaccines. I personally took steps to insure that my wife would no longer have to work. In truth, the government response to COVID-19 was orders of magnitude worse than COVID-19 itself.

Not only that, because of the Twitter Files releases, we know that the government was working to suppress the information found in the article above -- for two years! The government was aware all along that natural infection was better than vaccination. But at every turn the government and its associated "public health officials" lied, and misrepresented data, to insure that the most people possible were vaccinated.

The CDC's own infection fatality ratios from 2020 showed very early on that COVID-19 was no more deadly than the Flu.

In order to get the percentages representative of the number of people who were infected and survived, just multiply the Infection Fatality Ratio by 100 to make it a percentage, then subtract the value from 100. You can do the math in a spreadsheet and you end up with:

= 100 - (Fatality Ratio*100)

This should not be forgotten. Our own government has done more to damage the US people in general and the economy than any foreign enemy could ever hope to do. The question is why?

Let's continue.

EAST PALESTINE, Ohio (WKBN) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to Norfolk Southern claiming it failed to properly dispose of contaminated soil after the train derailment in East Palestine.

According to the letter, “Five railcar tankers of vinyl chloride were intentionally breached; the vinyl chloride was diverted to an excavated trench and then burned off. Areas of contaminated soil and free liquids were observed and potentially covered and/or filled during reconstruction of the rail line including portions of the trench /burn pit that was used for the open burn off of vinyl chloride.”

“I think it was not in the best interest of human health and welfare and the environment to simply cover it up and keep going without at least a preliminary evaluation to determine if the level of vinyl chloride that was present in the soil was going to create a potential contamination threat to surface or groundwater,” said Dr. Julie Weatherington-Rice who has a Ph.D. in soil science and has been working for Bennett & Williams Environmental Consultants since 1986.

Why was Norfolk Southern just covering up toxic chemicals -- before the EPA was on the scene? I would think that this kind of action would lead to serious fines, if not put individuals with Norfolk Southern at serious legal liability. Executives at Norfolk Southern had to know that nothing of consequence would come from their actions. How they knew that, I'm unaware, but it's certain that there was little concern on the part of Norfolk Southern executives as it relates to burying toxic chemicals.

A former EPA official weighs in on the East Palestine accident on PBS.

MEIBURG: Well, there are a couple of things. One is I will be specifically watching for continued monitoring, not because I think there's going to be much new information from it, but it's important to do that to reassure people that, in fact, you're continuing to watch. Secondly, there'll be continued sampling, especially water sampling and groundwater sampling, to see if there is any long-term contamination in groundwater or soils around the site of the accident. So those are two things that I would watch for.

Considering the US government's recent track record, I can't ignore how badly things have gone. And it's not just these two incidents. There are many incidents that have occurred over the last few years, here are (7) that come to mind.

1. Tyrannical COVID-19 Mandates
2. Border Crisis / Open Border
3. Deadly Afghanistan Withdrawal
4. Energy Dependence
5. Crime Surging
6. Rising Inflation
7. War on Parents and Americans in general

All of the things I listed above have resulted from policy changes -- at the onset of the Biden regime. These are also all outcomes that were completely predictable.

It's not that government officials are incompetent -- but this might all be on purpose. Why would anyone want to feign incompetence? I believe I might have the answer.

Consider, if the majority of Americans lose faith in the federal government's ability to function, on nearly all levels, who are they going to blame? The media is going to try and pin most of this on Trump, the illogical nature of such accusations are irrelevant. The idea is to make it known to the general public that the US government's most important agencies have failed on multiple levels. The CDC failed with COVID-19, while the European nations did better under the direction of the WHO (World Health Organization). Couple all of this with the Biden regime handing over control of the US Public Health apparatus to the WHO, and you have a seriously strange situation.

Could it be that US government agencies will prove to be untrustworthy, and incompetent? I believe that's precisely the point of this exercise. The idea being that the US government's agencies need to be replaced by a much more "diverse global government" that's not corrupt and incompetent. Why else drive every US agency straight into the ground, while simultaneously dissolving US sovereignty through globalized health directives?

If you have a better argument, let me hear it.

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There are many strategies in war, but some work regardless of the opponent -- or their technological capabilities.

Years ago I read about how during the cold war Russian soldiers were trained to carry out missions nearly entirely based on time. I can’t find any of this information now because an Internet search will only bring up the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The reason Russia went with this type of strategy was simple. Both the US and Russia could monitor radio frequencies and intercept communications, otherwise making ground forces vulnerable. The US, long ago, had the ability to decrypt digital encrypted communications in almost real time. Also, any transmissions sent would be scrutinized. Those transmissions, even if not decoded, could still be recognized and used for a counteroffensive. This meant that there was no “safe” way to communicate with ground forces once they were in the field. So, timing was determined to be the best way.

Russian soldiers were to go out, and perform various parts of their mission at precise time windows, to avoid the need for communications. This was a rather brilliant plan. Of course, a lot could go wrong, but a lot could go right. Also, there was little chance that the opponent would know what you’re planning, because everything just “happens.” This puts the opponent on a reactive footing for nearly the entire operation.

This brings us to the balloon issue. We know that the first balloon that made it into the news was rather large, and had a huge array of instruments suspended from it. Whatever it was sent here to do, it was not disguised, and there was no attempt to hide it. So, why was it here?

The answer to that question would require honest military leaders, which we are sadly short on these days. There are a few different hypotheses for this event. I will list a few possibilities that I have considered.

After reading a rather interesting Substack post, the payload came into question. Of course the last balloon that was shot down had “strings hanging from it” according to one of the F-16 pilots. The writer pointed out that during the Vietnam war, the US put seismic sensors all along the Ho Chi Minh trail. This alerted the US military as to when the Viet Cong were moving supplies by truck, and could send in an air strike to maximize their effectiveness. These devices were not transmitting unless there was enough seismic activity, so they were largely undetectable. So, where did the balloon's payload go?

CBS ran a story on this very issue, apparently nobody knows.

“Assistant Secretary of Defense Melissa Dalton said in a briefing with reporters on Sunday that the U.S. has been more closely scrutinizing airspace at certain altitudes, including enhancing the radar.

“The unidentified object that was downed near Alaska was the size of a small car, according to the Pentagon. The object shot down over Lake Huron appeared to be octagonal in shape with strings hanging off, but no discernible payload, a senior administration official said.”

The first balloon was very obvious, the balloons that followed were much smaller and harder to detect. But they were able to make it over US territory. Why? Well there are a few reasons for that. Active surveillance is the reason that most people are stating. It was said that the US military made sure the first balloon wasn’t transmitting data. Which really means, it wasn’t transmitting data. So, what was it doing.

I have a few theories on this. Let’s incorporate the payload, and time aspect into this. Let’s assume that China is going to invade Taiwan, everyone thinks that this is going to happen at some point. The question is when? Now how could these balloons help the Chinese war effort? The balloons can deploy small units on the ground (their payloads). These units that can determine what’s going on around US military installations, or anywhere else that they drifted over.

These units don’t need to broadcast continually, perhaps only once initially. They can send one broadcast to transmit their relative location (using US GPS coordinates) then wait. China knows when it’s going to invade Taiwan, they can have these units sleep until they begin military operations. Using this method, the devices will remain undetectable because they won’t be emitting any radio signals, just sitting on the ground and charging batteries with non-reflective solar cells, awaiting either a wake-up command, or a timer will activate them.

When the US decides to launch missiles, B-52 aircraft, or any other defensive measure, the Chinese will know ahead of time what’s coming, where it's coming from, and when it took off.

I’m not a military expert, but I can see how this might be used in an offensive manor, I’m sure I’m not the only person on the planet that believes this is possible, but for some reason, nobody within the US government is talking about any of this. At this point it would make sense for people in the surrounding states to look around in remote areas to see if they can spot something! Remember, we wouldn’t even have known about the first balloon if it wasn’t for regular citizens paying attention.

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