Maasa

 When the Europeans got to America in 1492, they discovered that the local people had developed many new vegetables from the local plants.  While in Europe, the farmers had developed the brassica family (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli etc), the Americans had concentrated on the Solanaceae family (Tomatoes, potatoes, Capsicums, egg plants and hot peppers) and from a scrubby little plant called Teosinte, (tea-o-sin-tay) they developed Corn.  Explorers took these back to Europe and Corn was a big hit.  When you plant grain crops like wheat, Rye, Barley and so forth, If all goes well, one seed gives you, typically, 25 seeds back.  Corn on the other hand gives you about 250 seeds per seed planted.  In addition it gives you large amounts of foliage that you can feed as-is to ruminants or make silage, also for feeding herbivores.

Corn (called maize in the UK) is a C4 plant while the members of the wheat family are C3 plants.  In C3 plants, Oxygen and Carbon dioxide compete with each other, in the chemical process of photosynthesis, limiting production.  C4 plants have somehow 'worked out' a system to diminish this competition and so fix far more Carbon from the atmosphere than C3 plants. (another notable C4 plant is sugar cane).  The explorers (or exploiters, if you like) brought back the plant but not the technology.  Corn seemed to be the ideal food to feed your workers but those that ate it to the exclusion of other crops, became sick.  Their skin roughened, they got diarrhea, dementia and died.  They had what we now call Pellagra which is a Niacin deficiency disease 

Sad, since Corn is actually rich in niacin but it is in a chemically bound up form which is not available to the human digestive system.  The Niacin is easily released and the Americans indigenous people had discovered how to do this.  They boiled the corn first in an alkaline solution.  They used wood ash which, once wetted, is rich in Potassium hydroxide. The precursor of niacin is tryptophan and the nixtamalization process releases this substance and the body turns it into Naicin.   At home we use Slaked lime which is Calcium hydroxide, also a strong base.  Just a quick diversion to describe how to treat corn for home use.

 

Nixtamalizatation

Take however many cups of corn kernels* you want to treat and weigh them.  Weigh out 2% as much Calcium Hydroxide.  Mix the corn and the lime (Calcium hydroxide) with lots of water in a large pot.  The corn is going to absorb a lot of water and expand.  

* Note we are not talking about the corn from corn on the cobb, which once dried is shriveled up but corn that has full rounded seeds when dry.  Flint corn is great for this. 

 

Do it in the morning and leave it to soak until the afternoon.  If necessary, add more water.  When cooked, the corn is going to expand even more and use up more water.  In the afternoon, boil the corn and lime mixture with occasional stirring to bring the lime up from the bottom of the pot.  Boil for at least half an hour or better still bring to a boil and simmer for one hour.  Add more water if necessary.  Stir, put on the lid and let it soak  overnight.

 

In the morning, rinse thoroughly until the water is clear and a much of the sloughed outer coat has been removed.  The outer skin of the corn will have sloughed off and the kernels will be a lovely yellow. Run the corn through your meat grinder with the finest holes you have. Package in plastic bags and freeze.  We find that 300g per package is a useful amount.  Now you can add a package to your bread, waffles, Pizza base, and best of all to a pot of Chilliconcarne that you want to thicken once  the beans have been cooked to tenderness.  

 

Why I say best of all is because the amino acids missing in corn are found in beans and vice versa.  Corn and beans together are a balanced protein but to be absorbed by the body, both must be eaten at the same time. A great meal for a vegetarian but you don't have to be a vegie to love a good pot of Chilli.

 

Masa is also made into tortillas and other favorite Mexican delicacies.  In some stores you can buy flour made from Masa.  It is called masa harina and is not the same as corn starch or corn flour.  These later have not been nixtamalized.  Note that another benefit of the process of nixtamalization is that phytotoxins have been removed, especially Aflatoxins.  Aflatoxins are highly carcinogenic compounds produced by a range of  molds.  They tend to contaminate seed crops, especially in warm, moist environments.

 

Anyway, I don't think the technology ever was used in Europe.  After all, what could a bunch of uneducated, pagan natives know.  Another example of  idiotic hubris. 

Increasing my electricity bill

To my power company

CC to government

 

You have seen fit to increase the cost of electricity to my  family when my former contract ended.  This is a scurrilous abuse of the privilege you have been given as a supplier of electricity in New Zealand.  Why do I say this. There are a number of reasons.

1.  Much of the electricity that we use in New Zealand is generated by our extensive hydro-electric dams (57%).  They were built sufficiently long ago that their capital costs should have been totally paid off.  Now all the cost is for running and maintenance.  The water you use belongs to the people of New Zealand.

 

2.  Another large portion of our electricity is from geo-thermal (20%), meaning that a total of three quarters of our electricity is generated without having to purchase any fuel. Our first geothermal plant was commissioned 68 years ago so the capital costs of that plant should have been long since paid for.  Another plant was commissioned 2 years ago.  The thermal resources of New Zealand belong to the people of New Zealand.

 

3.  We have been installing wind and solar power for some time now.  Both are, by far, the least expensive way of generating power today.  The wind over New Zealand belongs to the people of New Zealand and just as in the case of water and geothermal resources, you have been granted the privilege of being able to use them. Again, no fuel needed.

 

4.  The electricity from wind and solar, including the amount that is sent to you from private dwellings, is generated closer to end users, reducing, or at least delaying the need for you to invest in high voltage power transmission lines.  As wind and solar installations increase, private and commercial, this tendency will continue and increase.

 

5.  As we, the people, install more and more solar panels and batteries, excess electricity is being sent to you at a discount, for you to sell at the full retail price.  This costs you nothing in capital costs.  We are bearing the investment costs and you reap part of the benefits. If you install your own mega batteries, you can purchase cheap and sell at a profit.

6. Up to the late 1980s, power generation and transmission was a government function.  The whole system was built, financed by the people of New Zealand.  Starting in the late 80's a misguided government agreed to privatization.  Now you generate revenue which has to be shared with share-holders instead of it being passed back to the exchequer and hence to the people. I would have thought that this would impose on you and the other power generation and transmission companies a duty of care to give the best prices possible to Kiwis and not just think of your share holders. Virtually all the fuel you use (water wind and sunshine) are free.   I think you have got the balance wrong. 

 

7.  With the electrification of our country in the form of, induction cook tops instead of gas, Heat pumps instead of burning fuel, and the uptake of EVs instead of ICE cars, your sales are  steadily increasing.  Your prospects for the future is a continuing of this trend, with some of the capital costs of generation being born by us as we install solar panels on our roves.  

 

8.  As you find the need for more generation you now have the option of wind, solar and mega batteries.  These options are quick to install compared to hydro, geothermal, nuclear and pumped storage and all generate electricity with lower costs than any of the pre-renewable options.

 

At the core of the problem is the cockamamy system of pricing electricity.  In the  bidding that occurs every half hour, if the first and major bidder gives a quote for each mWh of electricity they will supply, that is not what they receive.  All bidders get the price of the most expensive bid.  Giving all the bidders the rate of the last and most expensive bidder  (often for gas generated electricity) is just dumb and makes a mockery of the bidding system.  I have heard that there are some disadvantages of paying what was bid, but I am far from understanding why.  This system must be reformed.

If you 'get with the program' and install wind, solar and mega batteries, there soon should be no need for a gas back up.  Is this possibly a reason for dragging your feet on installing such equipment.  With gas out of the picture, and even using the silly bidding system we now have, the highest price electricity might be what a mega battery can provide.  Batteries will be the 'peaker plant'.

By the way, the Hornsdale experiment showed that besides the cost benefit, mega batteries stabilized the voltage and frequency of the grid.  Electronic equipment, which we all have in ever increasing amounts in our houses, do not respond well to spikes and drops in voltage.  

Lets get on with the transition and stop charging us ever increasing costs for our electricity.  Costs should be steadily decreasing in our present technical climate.

Punctuated Evolution

 Punctuated evolution refers to a short (in geological time) period in which a burst of evolution occurred with either a species rapidly changing into a different species or a bunch of species evolving from one species.  It is stated that this goes against the theory of gradualism proposed by Darwin.  

To my mind, this is hardly surprising, and Punctuated evolution is happening all the time.  The real surprise, the thing we have to explain, is why species stay the same for long periods.  

The reason is that punctuated evolution is overlayed/restricted by natural selection and natural selection is much more involved in keeping species the same rather than creating new species.  Ever since Darwin we have been focused on the role of natural selection to create new species.  That is pretty understandable, as we advanced from a religious point of view (everything is explained in terms of a belief system, evidence to the contrary not withstanding.)  Examples of punctuated evolution are all around us.

Take the Wolf/dog situation.  If we were looking back on the fossil record from half a million years in the future, and looked at the most recent 30,000 years, when man has apparently being associated with the wolf/dog, we would say that the wolf had experienced a period of punctuated evolution resulting in a vast number of varieties of dogs.  30,000 years is just the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms.  We would also be aware that, if any of these varieties had become geographically isolated (as may well be the case if we destroy our present technological society and have to revert to walking to get anywhere) then by simple genetic drift and the accumulation of different genes, genetic cross overs and flipping of sections of genes,  these varieties would no longer be able to produce viable offspring (in other words would have become separate species).  Looking at the fossilized skeletons of these varieties, a future paleontologist could be excused for positing that the skeletons of a Chiwwawa and a Great Dane were from different species

What this indicates is that the wolf species (and virtually all species) are throwing out sports (mutations) at a rapid rate*.  So, now we have the question, why hasn't the Wolf in nature radiated into a whole bunch of different forms.  This is where natural selection comes in.  Once a species is pretty well adapted to a reasonably unchanging environment, natural selection, will work against new 'sports' that are for the most part more poorly adapted to the environment than the dominant form.

*And the rate of the production of 'sports' is far larger than even the variety of dogs suggests.  Add to the apparent number of sports that man has selected for to produce dogs with characteristics different to the wolf, to the number rejected and it is amazing that Natural Selection has kept the Wolf pretty well the same over this period (and before) .

 

The fealty of the wolf to its body plan is less difficult to grasp when we realize that a female alpha wolf in nature can typically produce 5 cubs each year and typically she can live for 7 years.  That is 35 cubs produced during her lifetime.  But,we are not over-run with wolves.  Once population equilibrium in a new area has been achieved, a pair of wolves will leave, on average 2 offspring.  Thirty three have been culled by nature*.  Natural selection is a bitch.  Random accidents will kill some but basically, only the wolfiest cubs will survive to reproduce.  And almost every mutation to an already highly successful wolf will put that wolf at a disadvantage.  Mutations that have no effect on the phenotype of a wolf will, on the other hand, accumulate.

*Sorry, I have played fast and loose with Wolf biology.  In actual fact, in a pack, only the partner of the Alpha Male will produce cubs.  Let's say that an average wolf pack consists of 10 individuals.  Then you could say that 10 wolves produce 35 cubs over 7 years.  10 survive to replace the pack and 25 have been culled by nature. That is still a harsh level of selection against sports surviving plus the fact that the other wolves are likely to kill a less wolfish wolf. Note that wolves are able to have pups at 10 months of age although this is unusual.  But this adds to the potential number of wolves produced by the original pack of wolves and the principle still holds that on average, 10 wolves only leave 10 wolves to carry on the species.

 

Lets look at the somewhat trite example of the color pattern of the common pigeon.  The natural color pattern is that dun grey banded pattern.  Suppose a white pigeon is produced.  As soon as it can fly it is the target of every peregrine falcon in the area. It is far easier to focus on an animal of a different color in a flock.  Same for a stripe-less zebra in a herd of stripy zebras. 

 

You might ask why in the park when we feed the pigeons do we see all sorts of other colors.  This is because man has bred pigeons for thousands of years both for their meat (Squab) and for their homing characteristics.  And we love to save sports and breed from them.  When you have a flock of pigeons, you habituate them to a feeding time and then, after a while, release them to fly just before the feeding time.  These birds of different color patterns "pollute" the wild birds.  

There is another interesting wrinkle to this story.  A very successful animal (and pigeons and people are examples) can show a lot of variety since natural selection is hard pressed to keep the species invariable.

Suppose we went to an island far from the mainland and bred white pigeons.  Once we had a large flock established, we brought in Peregrines.  I bet they would cull any non-white birds that appeared.

 

  So when will punctuated evolution occur.  There are a number of instances but in essence it is when the environment changes. 

This could be when a species finds a new geographical area where its kind is not extant.  There is lots of room, for a while, for sports to get away from the flock/herd

Or it could be when a natural disaster has altered the environment by physically altering  the landscape or by eliminating many existing species.

A key thing is that a disaster has not altered the environment so much that it is outside of the ability of the species in question to survive.  So where do the variations come from that allow a species to branch out and survive.  If the change is too radical, a species will go extinct rather than evolving into a new form.

So where does the vairability come from to create new species.  Of course, there are new mutations but will one come along in time to save the species.  Undoubtedly this is possible and will have happened in the few billion years that organisms have existed on earth.  However there is another source.  

 

Any population will have been accumulating mutations over its existence.  They may have altered some members of the population within the envelope of survivability or they may be recessive genes.  That is to say, ones that are not expressed phenotypically (visibly) unless two of them come together in the same individual.  Very successful species have lots of variability in their genes (look at humans), other species  are very specific in the conditions they need (Panda and Koalas for instance).  Both need very specific foods, Humans can get along with almost anything organic as nutrient. This points out how some species are very vulnerable to a change in their environment while other species are far more robust.

The Galapogos Finches are an interesting example of very fast evolution from existing genes within their genome.  As we shift from El Nino to La Nina and back, some of the islands produce a lot of large hard seeds and then a lot of small easily cracked seeds and back again.  The beaks of one of the species of finches follows these trends with different beaks.  All this really means is that both variations of beaks are coded into the genome of these finches and year by year, the ones that have the greatest number of young with the suitable beaks survive in much larger numbers.  If one of these seed regimes lasted for a long time, pretty well all the less fit genes would be selected out and the finches would be 'fixed' in one state.

Sparrows give us an interesting example.  A successful pair of sparrows can produce 5 young, five times per year and live for over 5 years.  Yet we are not overrun by sparrows.  Their population remains about the same from year to year.  Just think what the attrition rate from natural selection is on sparrows.  Successful sparrows have to be top notch in all sparrowy characteristics to leave offspring.  Once many generations have gone by in a pretty much stable environment, I would take a pretty amazing new mutation to make a sparrow more able to pass on this genetic variation to its offsprings.  Again, natural slection has much more to do with keeping a species the same than to produce new forms.

The AMOC

 In a recent conference (Nov 2025) Jim Hansen opined that some of the so-called tipping points are simply reversable phenomenon which would reverse if we were to decrease the green house gasses in the atmosphere* However he did say that he thought that the AMOC shutting down would be a genuine tipping point.  So what would the consequences be.  It has often be suggested that Europe would become quite a bit cooler as heat was no longer transferred from the tropics by the surface current and that hurricanes in the south would be stronger due to the extra heat left in tropical waters.  Demise of corals and various other consequences are predicted.  But could anything positive happen?

* They might show hysteresis (going down a different path than on the way up) so to us it would look, on our human time scale, like a tipping point. 

Up to now, the temperature differential between the Arctic and the tropics has been decreasing as the Arctic heats faster than the rest of the world.  And scientists have attributed a number of things to this decreasing of the 'delta T' between the tropics and the Arctic.  Namely:

The slowing of the spin of the three Northern Hadley cells#.

The increased wobbliness, North and South of the Jet stream

Outbreaks of cold, polar weather further south than was usual

Outbreaks of warm weather further North than was usual

Stalling of weather systems, giving long periods of drought or precipitation to areas instead of the regular march of rainy and sunny weather systems around the world.

Creeping northward of agricultural zones

# There are three Hadley cells in the Northern Hemisphere.  The Equatorial Hadley cell is powered by the heating of the land at the equator by the sun.  The air rises, flows North and South at Altitude and sinks at 30 degrees North.  The Polar Hadley cell is powered by air above the Arctic, radiating heat into space, becoming dense and sinking.  Surface wind flow south along the ground and rise at 60 degrees North, returning north at altitude.  The Ferrel cell fits between these Hadley Cells, powered by the friction with rising air at its northern border and falling air at its southern border.  There are Jet streams at altitude where two cells meet. (very much simplified explanation)

 

 

With the heat differential re-established, due to the heat retention in the South and heat not transferred to the Arctic North, the Hadley cells should speed up to their previous intensity causing the  Hadley cells to re-energise, the jet stream to increase to its previous speed and to stop waving back and forth, North and South so much.  All the above mentioned effects should return to the situation that was usual many decades ago.

In addition the colder temperatures in the north should cause whatever snow falls on Greenland to stay there instead of melting and flowing to the sea.  If the effect is intense enough, it might even lead to the accumulation of snow on the high lands of Baffin Island (where the North American continental glaciers begin to accumulate)  Sorry, forget this last one.  It is pulling a very long bow.

The Sea Ice in the Arctic should form earlier, melt later and increase in thickness over the winter, allowing the native people to utilize the ice as they did before the present melting occurred.

Agricultural zones, which have been creeping North for a few decades, should return to closer to their historical position although they might be narrower than they were before the warming began.  

 

The more regular march of weather patterns, mentioned above, should favor dry land agriculture* as rain follows clear weather, follows rain, follows clear weather etc.

* Agriculture without irrigation

With the accumulation of snow on Greenland, sea level might stop rising although if the new regime results in more melting in the Antarctic, that could overpower this effect. 

 

There is no way of telling if any of the above will come to pass until the AMOC shuts down and it does or does not occur. Models are prone to GIGO.

Chris Hayes and Bill McKibbin

 Chris Hayes, a most excellent MSNBC television host, has a podcast.  It is called Why Is This Happening.  In one of his latest podcasts Chris interviews Bill McKibbin, the creator of   350.org and Third Act.  Bill is one of the earliest and staunchest voices on Climate Change.

This is about the most uplifting Youtube item I have seen.  If I could summarize the message in a sentence or two I would say, The switch to renewable energy has really taken off over the last half decade and is now unstoppable.  It is now in a race to become sufficiently wide spread soon enough to save us from our sorry selves.  There are revelation after revelation in this Youtube item and I have described them below.  but if you want to watch the original (a well spent hour) here is the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9MmJkkv780&list=PLDIVi-vBsOEzArBz5VnChpoJEf4DQCgvG

Comments in order of their appearance in the Podcast:

1.  This is the most important, revolutionary change for the human race and is not covered hardly at all in the mainstream media.  The social implications are as profound as the physical implications.

2.  Bill McKibben's latest book is Here Comes The Sun A last chance for the climate and a fresh chance for civilization.  This podcast is based on this book.

3.  Over the past 36 months or so, the deployment  of renewable energy kit has gone exponential.

4.  Half a gigawatt,  is about the power of a coal fired power station.  This May (2025) the Chinese were installing 300 gigawatts per day.

5.  The Nuclear 'Renaissance' might provide half a gigawatt by 2035.

6.  California has reached a tipping point.  Now almost every day, more power is produced for long stretches of the day than is used.  The excess goes into charging batteries which extend the time that no fossil fuel has to be burnt.  California in 2025 is using 40% less natural gas to produce electricity than in 2023.

7.  Every tenth of a degree that we warm the planet, moves another 100m people out of a tolerable climate zone.

8.  California is being outdone by Texas in adopting solar and wind energy - Texas, the center of fossil fuel production and refining!!!  Solar is being installed in Texas at a phenomenal rate because it is so financially advantageous.  The Texas government tried to put a bill into place that if you installed 5mW of solar, you also had to install 5mW of natural gas development.  People started to appear in Austin (the capital) from all over Texas telling the government to back off.  This is how we finance our schools, elderly care and so forth they said, and the government backed down.   

 

9.  Pakistan is importing masses of solar panels from her neighbour, China who has excessive manufacturing capacity.  Staring about 18 months ago, the amount of energy been drawn from the grid began to decline.  Google earth gave the answer.  Solar panels were being installed like mushrooms coming up after a rain.  In an 8 month period, individual Pakistanis installed an amount of solar capacity equal to half the electricity from the grid. They found out how to install them from tick tock.  The biggest adopters were farmers who traditionally would use diesel generators to pump up their water from their wells.  Now they use electricity from their solar panels and the import of diesel oil has fallen by 35% in a one year period.

10.  We almost were launched onto this trajectory back in the early 1980s when the Democrat, Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House as a signal of his intentions.  In Carter's last budget he included research money to push the necessary research for the adoption of renewable energy.  Of course he was succeeded by Regan (the great orator), who ripped the solar panels off of the roof of the White House, signalling his intentions.  (sounds like Trump doesn't it) 

11.  Around 2000, the Greens held the balance of power in Germany and in return for their co-operation, insisted that people with solar panels on their roves were given good rates for the power they sent to the grid.  This really pushed the installation of solar in Germany*  and the increased demand allowed China to ramp up her production efficiency and research, bringing down the price of solar panels for Germany but also for the rest of the world.

 * The North of Germany averages one hour of 'peak solar' per day, the south, two hours.  A most unlikely place for solar power to really get off the ground.  The best solar areas of the world have about 6 peak hours per day.

12.  Every time we double the production of solar panels the price is slashed in half.

 

13.  About 5 years ago (2020) the line was passed in which electricity from solar panels and wind turbines was equal to the price of burning stuff.  From then on, it has continued down.  

14.  June 2023 was the month when since then, monthly temperatures have been great than at any time since the Eemian interglacial, 125k years ago. 

15.  As for an equivalence in planet degradation that the critics try to draw between fossil fuel and renewable energy, the mining of iron, for instance, remains about the same in either case.  We use iron for a huge range of uses.  Fossil fuel, we mine or drill for and burn it.  We then have to mine some more.  Resources such as lithium, Rare Earth Minerals and so forth, we mine and first off, they produce power for, say, 25 years.  Then they are recycled and used again and again and again.  There is no comparison.

16.  The volume of Lithium we will have to mine for the whole battery transition is less than the volume of coal we mined just in 2024. (ps. and coal mining is already in decline.  What would the comparison be if we looked at 'peak coal')

17. Picture a ship crossing the ocean carrying solar panels.  Over one life time (before they are recycled) these panels will produce 500 times as much energy as the coal that the same ship could carry.  

18.  Besides the health costs of burning fossil fuel which is about 20% of the deaths that occur, much of the nastiness of our present zeitgeist is due to the value of fossil fuels and the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few countries and individuals.  Just think of the Koch Brothers and the way their wealth has polluted democracy in America for instance.  With energy generation dispersed and owned by all, this is no longer possible.

 

19.  Following the start of the war in Ukraine, Europe has suddenly realized that they must transition to Renewable Energy and stop buying fossil fuel from Russia which she uses to finance the war.  Trump is trying to pressure Europe with tariffs to buy American liquefied natural gas.  (quid pro quo for the American fossil fuel industry supporting his election.)  

 

20.  Indonesia has just announced plans to install 100gW of solar power over the coming 10 years.  Indonesia is the 4th most populated country in the world.  

 

21.  Batteries, of course, give us power when the sun goes down.  Wind turbines sometimes give power at night but on average less than during the day and we are not going to run out of Li.  There is lots of it.  But the new EVs from China are using sodium ion batteries and we have an ocean of sodium plus mineral deposits of NaCl all over the world. (ps.  Look at this site.  Batteries may not be the only solution.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-cOgrBIAuc&t=7s)

 

22.  The TEXAS, for heaven sake, the institution that is responsible for the supply of energy from their grid has announced that they don't believe there will be any black or brown outs over the coming year because they have now got enough renewable energy and batteries in the mix to mitigate this.  This from the fossil fuel state of the USA.

 

23. Half of the corn that is grown in the county were Bill lives  (Illinois) is grown to make ethanol which is used, along with fossil fuel, to power vehicles.  A farmer pointed out to him that in a single acre he can grow enough corn to power his Ford F150 pick up (the most popular truck in farm country) 25,000 miles.  If I cover that same acre with solar panels, I can power my Ford 150 Lightning (the electric version of the F150 Pick Up) 700,000 miles.  (I hate to say this but there is a bit of a fallacy in this argument.  See if you can spot it)

24.  In the field with the solar panels, half of the field is still usable and there is a new science developing called agro-voltaics - the science of growing crops under solar panels.  And there are surprises.  In France one study found that the yield of grapes increased in fields with solar panels.  And in Vermont, some areas with solar panels are being planted with wild flowers and the insect population is up 100 times.  Nearby orchards are getting much better fruit set because of the pollinating insects.  (ps. Have you oldies, like me, noticed that the windscreen of your car and your radiator no longer is splattered with insects when you drive on a summer day like it used to be around 1950.)  And in a warming world, a bit of shade is reducing the evaporation of water from fields with solar panels.  

25.  The whole supply chain of the supply of fuel to a vehicle is incredibly complicated and messy.  The supply of electricity from solar panels incredibly simple and clean.  You must do some extraordinary drilling and fracking, transport the raw fossil fuel to a refinery, apply energy and chemistry to the oil to produce the types of fuel you need, transport this fuel to a distribution point and put it in your tank.  Then only, at the best, 30% of the energy in this finished fuel, is transformed into work.  The rest goes off in unusable heat.  And at the same time it pollutes our air.  

With photovoltaics, the electricity is converted to Alternating current at the appropriate voltage, transported to your home or charging station by power lines and used to charge your car.  90% of this energy used to charge your battery and it is in turn 90% of the energy collected by the solar panels.  While plants convert one or two percent of the solar energy falling on them into chemical energy.  Solar panels convert about 20% of the energy falling on them into electricity.

26. The war by tRUMP on wind and solar power and his pulling out of COP30 that is taking place in Brazil this year, is the greatest gift that he could have given to China.  It will establish the technical superiority of China over America and her political influence in the world.  Trump's policies are monumental stupidity.  In his campaign for re-election he said to the fossil fuel industry, Give me a billion dollars and you can have anything you want when I am elected.  They gave about half a billion and Trump is giving them everything they want.

If this trend was to continue, America would become a back woods theme park in which people from around the world would come to see how they did it in the olden days with internal combustion engines.  Joe Biden did his best to set in place measures that would allow America to catch up to China.  Trump has and is destroying all those efforts. (ps.  When are Republicans going to wake up to the fact that at least for one election, they have to switch allegiance and vote Democrat.  Otherwise their country is finished in any form that they would like it to be.)

27.  Sun Day is going to be on Sept21 when all over the USA, people will be demonstrating for the use of renewable energy instead of fossil fuel.

28.  40% of the households in Australia have solar panels on their roves.

29.  Much of Europe has balcony solar.  You buy a panel, hang it on your balcony and plug into the nearest plug point.  This is illegal in all but the state of Utah which has legislated that this is legal.