Month: April 2025

By Gordon Grab

Governor Josh Shapiro's proposal to limit electricity prices could, according to America's power, a trade organization of coal -fired power plants, perverse to higher customer bills and a higher risk of power failures.

After negotiations with the governor, the PJM connection operator of the power grid to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FREC) presented a plan to limit the prices for two years – a period that would happen to go beyond the re -election of 2026 from 2026. On April 22, Ferc approved the agreement.

As usual, the governor led an early victory round. Last year, Shapiro described an increase in electricity costs of $ 14.7 billion as “largest unjust transfer of wealth in the history of the US energy markets”. The organizer claimed that the price limit would deliver savings of almost 22 billion US dollars.

However, the higher prices at the PJM auction of the past year result from the increasing demand for electricity and a lack of manufacturers who were willing to offer new supplies. The auctions are supposed to reproduce a market on which the prices with the difference between supply and demand rise and fall.

In a protest submitted at Ferc, America's PJM explained that the PJM “proposal to appease governor Shapiro could be appealed superficially to help consumers in turbulent economic times, but that is only his aura, not his reality.” The trading group increases the ghost of “catastrophic consequences” from PJM's “Russian Roulette Russia Roulette” by PJM.

America's strength may sound hyperbolic. But in connection with more than 200 deaths in Texas due to the lack of reliable generation and fuel, legislators must take the warning words of the trading group seriously.

Other organizations have published the same warning.

“The governor's proposal is dangerous because he is anesthetizing the market for price signals, as investments in the capacity of new generation are directed,” said David Taylor, CEO of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Association. “He would damage an already endangered electricity market, further undermine the reliability of the grids and possibly have people kill if the power fails.”

The PJM monitors the electricity transmission in 13 countries and has published several warnings of electricity shortages in the region in the next few years. These warnings result from the forced closure of coal-fired power plants through regulations and wind and solar subsidies that increase the market. Instead of attracting new energy sources, the price limit would accelerate the shutdown of highly reliable coal systems that, according to America, can lead for months of fuel supply for emergencies on site.

Since your operations are dependent on the weather, wind turbines and solar panels cannot match the reliability of units that are powered by coal, natural gas or nuclear energy. As a more reliable facilities, most new generation of wind and solar operators are calling for most new suggestions for PJM.

PJM, said America's power, sacrificed his role as a market manager for the complaint of governor Shapiro: “PJM, who is disappointing under the weight of the state -based political pressure, and not to protect the market integrity and reliability, which could lead to disasters consequences.”

Let us be clear: the negotiated price limit does not save any money. It only limits cost increases.

“The tariffs will continue to increase as part of this agreement,” said Senator Joe Pittman.

In other words, Shapiro's intervention will probably extend the time of increasing prices. If the governor continues his war against reliability with carbon taxes and increased subsidies for unreliable energy sources, the gap between demand and supply will further increase prices.

The lack of a new reliable production could force PJM to use expensive “reliability agreements”. These agreements enable the systems that are closed for economic reasons in order to continue to compensate them at relatively high prices, according to American power.

In short, bad government guidelines limit the power supply and drive your electricity bills. The PJM settlement will tighten this problem.

Nappy power is of particular importance in winter or summer when extreme temperatures are considerable risks for people. In addition, price peaks are magical in the event of cold when the requirements for the home heating are competing with power plants for natural gas. During a polar vertebrae in January, coal systems may avoid increased costs of 1.4 billion US dollars and delivered more than 40 percent of the additional energy required for warm houses and companies, according to America.

The Shapiro-PJM settlement approved by FREC comes out to a question: What use is lower prices if there is no electricity if it is most urgently needed?

This comment was first published on April 28, 2025 in the DV Journal.

Gordon Tomb is a senior consultant in the CO2 coalition.

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By Andy Tomaswick

April 25, 2025

Recently there has been many progress in 3D pressure objects from the moon regoliths. We have reported several projects that tried this with different success. However, most of them require some additional functions, such as a polymer or salt water, as a binder. Recently, a newspaper from Julien Garnier and its co-authors of the University of Toulouse tried to produce compressing 3D printed objects with nothing but the Regolith itself.

It is expensive to bring things into space. So it should not be a surprise that a 3D printing technology that requires shipping large quantities from the earth is at a disadvantage. Various projects, such as one of a company called AI Spacefactory, use additives such as polymers that need to be produced on earth and are then shipped to the moon before they are combined with Regolith in situ.

Dr. Garnier hoped to deal with this requirement through selective laser melting (SLM) on a certain type of regolith analogue. This basalt of Pic d'Asson (BPY) is known and is collected from the picture d'Asson, an old, extinct volcano in France. In the early 2000s it began as a mondregolith simulant, due to its chemical and mineral composition, similarity to basaltic rocks that were found on the moon itself.

The Lunar Regolith will also be a massive pain for explorers at the beginning, like Fraser with Dr. Kevin Cannon discussed

BPY was the goal of several studies on the 3D -Lunar print. ESA researchers have published a paper in which a “solar sinter” technique is described that uses the power of the sun to merge PBY powder. Project Moonrise, of which we previously reported, also used BPY as the starting material in its 3D printing applications with zero gravites.

However, most of these studies have found that the BPY was not a snuff about tobacco, at least with regard to the compression strength of the resulting material. Despite the lower gravity of the moon, there are still stress on the buildings and equipment structures on the moon. If the pressure resistance of a material with this weight, even in the lower gravity, cannot handle weight, it is not used much as a building material.

Measurements for the compressive strength of 3D printed BPY vary dramatically on the type of 3D printing technology used. Powers of powder fusion processes that are used regularly to print metals on earth had a compressive strength of 4.2 MPa, just more than a standard masonry. However, this was with a porosity of almost 50% – which was almost half of the structure full of holes. The combination of 3D printed BPY with a geopolymer binder can increase its strength, but at the expense that the geopolymer must be shipped from the earth.

What can we make on the moon? Fraser discusses this question with Dr. Alex Ignatiev

The researcher Dr. Garnier and its co-authors focused on trying to uncover which properties of the BPY could lead to better mechanical properties. They varied properties, as the powder was primarily “crystalline” or “amorph”. Crystalline powder has a very orderly structure with some properties, such as: B. pressure resistance, which depending on the direction in which the organized crystal structure points are suitable. On the other hand, amorphous powder is much more disorganized, with its physical properties being the same in all directions.

The experiments showed a doubling of the pressure resistance of powder, which compared to powder, which was 100% amorphous, 100% crystalline, which emphasizes the importance of the regolith structure that was selected for the construction of the building materials of any future lunar base.

The optimization of this mixture between amorpher and crystalline structure remains on the list of things that can be done for future work, as well as the optimization of the particle size in the output floor and the parameters used in the SLM process to create the final material. It is still a long way for astronauts to print out something usable on the surface of the moon. But when the date for the return of mankind comes closer, it probably only uses a matter of time before a mission uses the resources that are available on our moon night – and you can do so by melting it with a laser.

Learn more:
J Garnier et al. -Selective laser melting of partially amorphema regolite analog for ISRU moon applications
Ut – moonrise: melting morulatory regolith with lasers to build structures on the moon
UT – NASA sends a 3D printer for mondregolith and more to the ISS
UT – What could we build with Mondregolith?

Grok ai created picture.

Hans-Joachim Dammschneider has written a book about the climate history of the Southern Harz region. In the historical weather data, he discovered climatic fluctuations that should not exist according to the inter -state body for climate change (IPCC).

Long before industrial CO2 has accumulated in the atmosphere, there were already changing warm and cold phases.

The so -called medieval warm period (MWP) has been the subject of scientific debate for years. It is not so much a question of whether this warm time actually took place in Europe, but how it happened. Was it a local phenomenon that was limited in time and was mostly limited to Europe, or was it a time of intensive climate change that also had a global effect?

One thing is certain: from around 950 AD to Germany, a temperature increase of at least 300 years rose, which led to a pronounced warm phase that was cheap for agriculture and life. From the beginning of the 14th century, however, this period was replaced by a relatively fast temperature drop and climatic turbulence towards the so -called small ice age.

In the early reports, the IPCC (1990, AR1) still dedicated a lot of attention to the MWP. However, this focus over the years, and in the latest rating (2021, AR6) the medieval warm time was only given a little space. Studies often even wonder whether it was a global phenomenon. However, a mapping of the available scientific publications (from 2022), which was initiated by S. Lüging, shows that the warm time has certainly left evidence on continents.

From the point of view of natural and cultural history, many reports show that Germany was in a phase of intensive cultural and economic growth of around 1,000 AD. This time is characterized by the establishment of numerous cities, the expansion of the agricultural country and the strong population growth. The forests were clarified, tree methods influenced and increasing temperatures and the resulting positive agricultural economy contributed to prosperity.

Of course, there were no scientific methods to record the weather, but modern climate research uses so -called “proxies” to derive the climate arameters of the time. For example, the cultivation of figs north of Cologne, successful wine production to Schleswig-Holstein and (overall) the Pfister index, which results from numerous characteristics, indicate a longer phase of mild temperatures and favorable climatic conditions. Climate-numerical backward simulations basically confirm this “warm time”.

Historically, periods were often periods in which life bloomed – an idea that plays a rather ambivalent role in the climate debate for the 21st century.

The example of Weischer Koldery The landscape of the southern Harz monastery shows the solid consequences of the MWP: the recovery of swampy areas, the development of the upper Harz water management system, the promotion of mining and the intensive use of wood for construction and energy purposes are just a few examples.

However, this phase of monastic prosperity between 1130 and 1300 AD was apparently completed by a quick drop in temperature. The beginning of the “small ice age” brought very unpleasant weather conditions, which lasted until the end of the 18th century. Already at the beginning of the 14th century, the country was hit by destructive rainfalls and floods (“Schluchtenreis” / Magdalenen flood), failed harvest followed intensive drought (Dante Anomaly) and devastating plagues with millions of deaths in epidemics partially destroyed. These instabilities and difficulties, which were determined/induced not least by the climate, certainly had devastating effects on the livelihood of the monasteries in the South Harzz region. They led to considerable inner crises (including the loss of converts and lay brothers) and ultimately to the end of the huge group of monastery (with the task of large areas of the Harzerz mining industry) in the 15th century.

If this was the case, which overarching climatic processes contributed to this? It can be assumed that in addition to the temperatures, other factors such as the duration of the sunshine also played an important role under the living conditions: the sun actually seems to have been the factor of the MWP, while CO2 is that of modern times.

The latest analyzes and the AMO index (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation), which can be traced back to 900 AD, show that the energy influences of cyclical SST (sea surface temperature) from the Atlantic can have a significantly influenced cloud cover and thus the sunshine duration and temperatures in Europe. These interactions were also important for the southern Harz and Waceenried. Can reviews of current climatic processes indirectly allow conclusions to be drawn about earlier physical and social changes with the associated promotion and descent phases between 1000 and 1400 AD?

The present study examines these questions and attempts to draw conclusions for the interactions of the medieval climate from large -scale processes of potential “teleconia” and oceanic cycles. Among other things, the book is intended as a sequence of steps that help to better understand the complex interrelationships of medieval climate change. It shows which “natural” parameters could have contributed to the rise and fall of the vaulted monastery. “

Hans-J. Dammschneider (2025)
Climate history of the southern Harz monastery landscape – Walkenried monastery
ISBN 9783759779878, 106 Pages, Hamburg/Norderstedt 2025
Order from Amazon or all bookstores