Faced with cleaning and maybe a complete restart of my PC. My email address at outlook.com was blocked by persons unknown. Outlook will not let me start a new account, more, more.
Currently on Windows 10. Should I go to Windows 11?
Currently on Google Chrome. Sggestions.
Currently do not use Microsoft Edge or Quick Access. Should I?
Using Bitdefender. Something better around?
My enjoyment of WUWT is being upset by these PC complications. I prefer to spend time writing articles for WUWT, not fixing a wounded PC half the time.
Thanks Geoff S
I’ve been struggling with PC issues they they first existed. Drives me crazy. I never owned a Mac because I couldn’t afford one- and some essential software wasn’t available on it. But people I know who have Macs never seem to have these PC problems.
Great way to force people to buy new computers. I don’t junk them based on MS’s abandoning an OS- I wait a few years and keep those as back up PCs. I now have W11 on my newest PC and it truly sucks.
I keep two Win XP systems running, one for flight sim and one for my archive of work stuff. XP was the best. Win 7 was OK, Win 8 a disaster, Win 10 tolerable. My wife has the only Win 11 in the house, HP laptop. No problems with it yet, fortunately.
I’m currently running Windows 8. Only because Microsoft wouldn’t update XP.
Microsoft can’t leave well enough alone and loads up their new operating systems with bloatware. I spend most of my time removing these irritating additions, when I “upgrade”.
I also use an IPad from Apple. Apple products usually work well.
I had a game (Pacific General) that ran on XP. That PC died and I got one that ran Windows 7 pro.
It wouldn’t run.
I upgraded the OS, eventually, to Windows 10 pro.
On a whim I tried the game again it still wouldn’t run but this time there was a message saying I needed “DirectPlay”.
Turns out it was a feature of Windows 10 that was turned off by default.
I turned it on and the game worked.
Perhaps other XP programs besides old games will work if it’s turned on?
(I don’t know if Windows 11 has it.)
The main problem with XP for me was it would not play some videos because it needed an upgrade to play them and Microsoft chose not to fix the XP software to enable it to play the new video formats.
It may not suit your taste, but I use Linux Mint, Firefox and Thunderbird mail on a laptop I inherited upwards from my son because it wouldn’t run Win10 very well. I find it worth any amount of blood pressure meds, but it bears more resemblance to XP than anything newer. Libreoffice is a bit clonky but does everything I want, and is compatible with .doc .xls etc
I still prefer Win 7 Prof.
Openoffice is much easier to use as Word.
Excel has several limitations, nevertheless I prefer it as I used it since the beginning.
Openoffice calc has not these limitations but it seems to be slower than Excel.
Open Office Calc is useless for me. I use Excel for quick looks at CANBuss data. and Calc can’t handle large files, nor can it plot the data in any meaningful way. That said, Office365 is the most obnoxious ‘upgrade’ I’ve ever seen. I’ve wasted more time dealing with its perverse idiosyncrasies than any other software I’ve used in my 59 year engineering career.
Try in Excel to plot daily sunspots since 1818 in one chart…
Calc needs some time but is able.
Dates earlier than Jan. 1, 1900 are not usable in Excel for calculations.
But I still use the old Excel from XP and won’t change it.
I’m on your side! I keep a couple of PCs around running Windows XP just to run an old AutoCad 2002 version I have that only runs on XP. It does everything I need. I occasionally use an even older Excel from Office98 on occasion, but it only reads .xls files. I mostly use Excel2010 since it uses .xlsx files. I only use Office365 for work requirements. It also does great Chinese translations.
I’m not sure what the limitations in LibreOffice that people complain about are. It supports Open Office Basic. I have never used this but it seems to be a fully featured language complete with IDE. It also supports Python. Gnumeric supports Python and Pure. Comes with a database package. And you can build fairly huge models with it, if you insist on doing that with a spreadsheet.
Gnumeric also supports both Python and Pure.
But the question is, whether, if you are writing spreadsheet applications which require Visual Basic, Python or Pure, you should be using a spreadsheet at all.
Spreadsheets aren’t a safe programming environment, and adding the ability to write macros or subsystems of the spreadsheet program in a proper language is not the answer. A proper programming language with data and program separated, comments and structure is the answer. Spreadsheets in the usual self taught hands turn into undocumented spaghetti in no time, without anyone realizing it.
Most of them don’t even realize they are writing programs, in effect writing apps. But that is how modern spreadsheet applications are actually often being used nowadays.
Who me? I’ve been using LM Cinnamon since XP support ended! W7 was not my idea. 🙂 But… cd? I don’t think it will fit any more… Nope, the ISO file is 3Gb, but it boots very nicely from a USB stick. Last time I tried though I had to go 10 rounds with Microsoft Secureboot or whatever it’s called to do what I wanted with MY laptop. And even then it wouldn’t dual boot properly. That was the death of Windows since I hardly used it anyway.
Agreed with a couple of others that Linux Mint is a serious candidate, except that I would recommend the MATE desktop, rather than Cinnamon. MATE is a very simple, get out of your way desktop environment.
I think Mint still comes in a couple of flavors, and if that is still the case, you want the Debian flavor rather than Ubuntu. Not sure if that is still a choice.
Any version of linux will come with a repository of all kinds of free software which you just download and install. A few suggestions:
Install claws mail for your email client. For the web, Chrome is OK, but you might also try librewolf and firefox. Most people do not bother with AV, but you can get clamav and it will run quietly in the background.
As to office, libreoffice is fine, but you can also consider gnumeric for a more specialist spreadsheet. Someone objects to libreoffice that it will not handle large files in the spreadsheet app. Well. One reply would be that if its too big for libreoffice don’t use a spreadsheet at all, use a proper programming language. Like Python.
There will be a ton of free software in the Mint repositories, well in any distribution’s repositories, for graphing and scientific and math stuff of all sorts. IDEs for Python. Some of the old fashioned tools that come with Linux are astonishingly useful and powerful. I am thinking of a tiny ancient language called AWK as an example, a sort of precursor of Perl. Fast, simple and powerful for any kind of text manipulation, extraction of data.
Get Lyx for a writing tool, and get Cherrytree for a note taking app. Get geany for a text editor.
You will find all these in the repositories of any linux distribution.
Two other Linux distributions worth looking at are Void Linux and MX Linux. MxLinux is Debian based (a good thing). MX is generally rated as very fast and very stable. Void is a bit more expert user oriented, MX is generally rated as very easy to pick up and use. If you go with Void, install MATE as the desktop. MX comes with an XFCE flavor, and if you go with MX that is a very acceptable alternative to MATE, similar approach, fast, light and keep out of your way.
Mint and MX will make it easy to do whole disk drive encryption, Void you have to get a bit technical for that. If this is an issue try Mint or MX.
Choosing between MX and Mint? Mint is probably more a full fat version. MX is going to be smaller, less frills and faster. There is a key difference in the init system as well. Mint is something called systemd, whereas MX will let you pick between SysV and runit. I would pick runit, but there is not a lot in it. Mint with systemd will also work perfectly well, its pretty much a matter of taste.
Win-10 is 9 years old, Win-11 2.5 years old.
I had problems with a computer about 6 years ago.
Prior, when I switched to Win10, the computer I had than went dark and I had to take it for repair. I then had an issue with connectivity on my local network. That computer worked in the shop, but not in my home. No explanation could be found. I said “trade me up” and they did. I went home with a used DELL 3640 tower [Precision line]. 16 GB or RAM.
When 11 was introduced, I waited about 10 months before upgrading to Windows 11 Pro. I use EDGE. I’ve had no problems with this system.
J. Zorzin’s comment is relevant. My recent system has been the first trouble-free experience since my purchase of a VIC-20 forty-three years ago.
John,
Thank you and to all others who responded.
Seems my problem had an Australian peculairity because of an old email address with a local carrier. However, it remains that bloatware from the majors is steadily increasing as are the sneaky ways for unhappy people to try to steal information and money from the ordinary computer user.
Geoff S
Wheels coming off? Anyway, off to prove to myself that a pro-renewables site based in rabidly anti-nuclear Australia probably hasn’t a clue about Chinese nuclear (they are still building 25 reactors btw, just fired one up this year already and started building another)….
The point is that even China is behind the schedule on nuclear – the country that can overbuild everything it wants in its five-year plans. While regularly overachivieng their renewable goals.
And single wind projects being canceled…not impressive if you look how many are being build. Nimbyism will always produce enough new articles to delude you into thinking “Wheels coming off”.
Here, I shifted through my bookmarks so you may have more Sunday fun:
… that is a western degenerate leftist political problem …
… which will end up causing massive electricity shortages.
With moronic governments taking up gormless and impossible “Net-Zero” targets and penalising reliable coal and gas fired electricity production in numerous ways, why would people invest.
But that lack of investment is what will eventually lead to the collapse of electricity supplies system in some western countries.
I hope you will “feel” good when you realise that you have supported that collapse.
Inner-city ghettos will hopefully be by far the worst effected.
The right is in it as well in the US. $US200 trillion is the estimated amount that needs to be spent by 2050. There is a lot of profit in that spending to be made.
Even two-thirds of Republicans under 30 support the so-called “Climate Change” agenda.
Very kind, thanks. That -1 wasn’t me.
China has 56 operational reactors, which in 2022 produced 418GWh. In 2021 they also got 656GWh from wind and 328GWh from solar (PRIS/IRENA). So that was pretty good from both camps. Since 2011 in energy terms, wind has grown by a factor of 10, and nuclear by a factor of 5. Solar by nearly 100, but from nothing really, and still behind nuclear.
So,what to make of all that? Certainly China is building a lot of renewables, but I don’t see any ‘switch from nuclear to renewables’. They seem to be building as much electrical generation as they can throw up, whatever it is. They are still building 25GW or so of new reactors, and will very likely overtake France in a year or two. Following from your link to WNN, they are proposing to build way more than that. One chuckle in there:
“China General Nuclear Power (CGN) was expecting to have 34,000 MWe nuclear capacity online by 2020, providing 20% of the province’s power, and 16,000 MWe under construction then. From 2010 it expected to commission three units per year and, from 2015, four units per year. CGN is also, due to State Council policy, committed to developing significant wind capacity through CGN Wind Co. It projected a total of 500 MWe wind by 2020.”
In 2020 there were 47.5MWe of nuclear plants in China and in 2023 there was still only 442MWe of wind.
I can’t really fault RenewEconomy’s maths, so not as funny as I’d hoped, but their conclusions are still amusing.
One more little chortle – from your RenewEconomy link above:
“Meanwhile the deployment of renewable energy (primarily solar and wind energy) was dramatically accelerated in 2023, with the installation of 217GWe of new solar capacity and 70GWe of new wind capacity.
This represents an increase of around 400TWh in annual low emission generation – the quantitative equivalent of 40 large nuclear power reactors”
So 217GW of solar plus 70GW of wind is equivalent to 40GW of nuclear. Yep, got that.
Finally got round to reading this piece written by:
“Connor Chung is a Research Associate at IEEFA. His work focuses on the intersection of climate change and financial risk, and on protecting investors, markets, and the public from the economic uncertainties associated with fossil fuel reliance.”
So about as unbiased as the IPCC then. I’m no expert on finance, so can’t really comment but the largest wind turbine manufacturer is apparently Siemens Gamesa at a revenue of $78bn, and there is no Chinese company in the top 10 to my surprise. The biggest oil company is Saudi Aramco with a revenue of $590bn, followed by China Petroleum and Chemical, and PetroChina.
I may be comparing apples to carrots. Which is the best to invest in? Haven’t a clue, sorry.
One said that in China, factories were given set forward quotas for production of solar panels.
So these quotas were produced whether or not there were sales orders for them.
When they found that orders were slow and so production had massively over-produced, they just plonked all these panels wherever they could co-opt a tract of land, and left them there.
Guessing but I bet most of the better land for solar is far from the population centers- in the desert areas to the north and west. I wonder how well the grid is developed to service those areas. I doubt they’ll put much solar in the rich farm lands.
Throws about labels without defining them, makes statements without justifying them. Worse than useless, quit after 10 minutes.
Should have quit after the opening statements:
Antifa is not a group of people
You can’t join
There is no single website
No official leadership structure
No one official Twitter page
Thanks for posting that so that hopefully nobody else will view it.
Antifa pretends to be leaderless and anarchic. To a certain extent it seems to operate that way-superficially.
It’s conceivable that Lusername is in fact stupid enough to believe that there’s no hidden leadership orchestrating action through apparently random ‘influencers’ apparently acting autonomously.
According to the World Nuclear Association as of June 2023 China had 54 operating nuclear power stations and a further 21 under construction.
Are you sure you are not getting China mixed up with Germany?
strativarius
April 28, 2024 3:13 am
The death of coral reefs – globally – is still doing the rounds. But today’s Observer (the Sunday Guardian) has an answer…
“Scientists’ experiment is ‘beacon of hope’ for coral reefs on brink of global collapse
An underwater experiment to restore coral reefs using a combination of “coral IVF” and recordings of fish noises could offer a “beacon of hope” to scientists who fear the fragile ecosystem is on the brink of collapse.” … “All corals in all ocean basins in the world are under pressure,” said Prof Peter Harrison, a coral ecologist at Southern Cross University in Australia. … He has pioneered a form of “coral IVF” that involves capturing millions of spawn from “heat-tolerant” reproductive coral after it floats to the sea surface or, alternatively, surrounding coral that has withstood a bleaching event with a cone-shaped net. The net functions like a huge “coral condom”. … To attract the larvae to settle on a degraded reef, the scientists are broadcasting recordings of fish noises that were captured near a busy, healthy reef. … “They look very simple, and they don’t have ears or a brain, but coral were probably among the earliest animals cueing into their soundscape and dancing to the beat.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/20/scientists-experiment-is-beacon-of-hope-for-coral-reefs-on-brink-of-global-collapse
“They look very simple, and they don’t have ears or a brain, but coral were probably among the earliest animals cueing into their soundscape and dancing to the beat.”
These ‘experts’ know, but their income and status depend on hiding what they know. If you are a top coral reef expert and you say that the reefs are doing well, you have just destroyed your own career. Grants flow for reefs reportedly in trouble, reefs that reportedly need saving. If you get vast grants flowing to save the reefs, and if the reefs then survive and flourish as you always knew they would, then you can claim that your efforts to save the reefs were successful (but more grants are of course needed to keep the reefs healthy).
The rain it raineth every day
upon the just and unjust fella,
but more upon the just because
the unjust has the just’s umbrella.
Teacher: “Class, what should we do to keep the planet safe from dangerous heating?”
From the back row: “I know, I know! Let’s flood the low points with liquid natural refrigerant. In the highly mobile atmosphere, it will vaporize, form clouds, and end up spritzing the rest of the surface with condensed droplets! It will be dynamically self regulating!! Just enough energy retained to maintain the circulation, and just enough sunlight reflected to keep it comfortable.”
“To quote Dr. Wojick, BOEM’s convoluted plans “make nuclear look easy!”” Exactly. If only the CA and NY governors would wake up to this obvious reality, that the common ground with skeptics of climate alarm is nuclear power. Onshore wind is bad. Offshore wind is theoretically better, but obviously worse in practice. Offshore floating wind is nuts.
If the water is half mile deep and it takes 8 mooring lines for a single floating tower that is well over 4 miles of lines since they do not go straight down. Plus the power line has to dangle down to the sea floor. So 50 towers means 400 huge mooring lines plus 50 power lines. Lots of stuff for critters to hit. Plus I just read that mooring lines “thrum” in currents. Nasty and noisy. And nuts.
Even Orsted admit that each of the 4 different types of offshore wind turbines has their own disadvantage
1 Tension leg platform.
Lighter than other types, smaller mooring footprint, most stable when installed but can also be less stable to install and transport due to lighter design.
2 Semi submersible.
Versatile design that fits many different conditions and is relatively simple to install, but structure can be complex to build and is less stable than other designs.
3 Barge
Like 2 is versatile and relatively simple to install , but is less stable than other designs.
4 Spar buoy
Can be simple to build and has good stability. However, owing to its depth it requires a very deep harbour to install the turbine or, for offshore installation, a deep water installation vessel
Thanks Dave, very useful! I call the spar the bottle because it is like a verticals bottle half full. There is a nasty trade off. You need lots of water inside for stability but you also need buoyancy so must make it bigger to get enough air to float it.
All four designs are way more expensive than the simple monopile fixed wind sits on so floating has to cost a lot more than fixed which already costs too much.
But they are leasing float sites off Oregon and Maine this year.
A simple question I cannot find an answer to. Are the mooring lines required to keep the monster tower and floater from blowing over or just to keep the rig in place?
‘Mooring Systems for Floating Offshore Wind: Integrity, Management Concepts, Risk and Mitigation’ World Forum for Floating Offshore Wind (WFO) PDF
It’s a little dated (May 2022) but towards the end says
“In recent years international classification societies have developed floating wind-specific standards, but these currently reflect a limited understanding of mooring system behaviour, requiring harmonisation and an ongoing development in line with growing operational experience”
They left out the only one that has any chance of working: Make an island first, then put the turbines on the island. It has the extra advantage that you can then extend your national waters out another 200 miles or whatever the distance is, and add a naval/military base to threaten your now much nearer neighbours. We know it works, because it has already been done (though I don’t think they bothered with the turbines).
corky
April 28, 2024 4:59 am
I’ve found a new word Kakistocracy, the opposite of Meritocracy, where the stupid and ignorant rise to the top. The ancient Greeks obviously anticipated modern western society.
We have a Ford hybrid Escape it gets 40 miles per gallon. The old Ford Escape got 20 miles per gallon. I’m thinking that if it were a plug-in hybrid it would do better than that by a wide margin.
During the ’70s OPEC gas shortage Jet Industries in Texas produced all electric cars with lead-acid batteries that would go 50 miles.
Somewhere in those two facts above there’s a place for a modest sized car to exist that for most local trips wouldn’t use any gas and wasn’t a fire risk in your garage.
Excellent piece explaining in specifics how intermittency affects pricing to customers, what the likely effect of grid scale battery installations will be, and (by implication) why the UK net zero generation plans are headed off the cliff. Takes one UK day, explains how it all works, and projects what it will be like on a similar day a decade out.
Actually I did read it. It seems Octopus is allowing exposure to wholesale prices, which have ups and downs, but are often even negative. And the author says those on the Agile tariff are free-loading.
But anyone can choose to be with Octopus on that tariff.
“Clean energy infrastructure project developer NatPower Group has pledged to invest over GBP 10 billion (USD 12.82bn/EUR 11.7bn) in the British battery energy storage market, targeting the deployment of over 60 GWh of capacity by 2040.”
A question for the WUWT readership: At today’s prices in the year 2024, what would 60 Gigawatt-hours of battery storage cost? I’m guessing it’s a fair bit more than $13 billion USD.
The Grauniad ran a piece about this (7th March 24)
That ended with this paragraph
“NatPower UK, which launched in the UK in 2022, is part of a specialist Luxembourg- headquartered European Energy group that is backed by its management team and Tyrus Capital, a private equity firm”
The article also said it planned to submit planning applications for 3 “gigaparks” with a further 10 to follow next year.
Sounded a bit unrealistic but maybe that’s just me.
With Labour set to deal the Tories a shattering political defeat, now is the time to get in line for the massive increase in Net Zero spending which is about to happen in the UK.
Fran
April 28, 2024 9:05 am
I am very slowly reading Javier Vinos’ “Solving the Climate Puzzle”. It is complicated, but what was a complete surprise was planetary waves (Rossby waves). Nothing I have read on WUWT over several years prepared me for this phenomenon.
Story tip… Tax oil companies to finance the loss and damage fund.
– – – – – – – – –
Taxing big fossil fuel firms ‘could raise $900bn in climate finance by 2030’
Levy on oil and gas majors in richest countries would help worst-affected nations tackle climate crisis, says report
The report is backed by dozens of climate organisations worldwide including Greenpeace, Stamp Out Poverty, Power Shift Africa and Christian Aid.
The Climate Damages Tax
A guide to what it is and how it works
(From 2018. 32 pages. Topics covered: Climate justice, droughts, floods, fossil fuel subsidies, Green Climate Fund, GHG emissions, hurricanes, IPCC SR15, models) https://reporterre.net/IMG/pdf/cdt_report_december_2018_2_.pdf
More demonizing of the oil companies. That’s what climate alarmists do.
And guess who is going to pay any increased taxes on oil companies? That’s right, it won’t be the oil companies, it will be the customers of the oil companies, you and me.
This is just another scam to raise money for radical leftwingers to use to undermine our societies.
Several years ago, I remember reading about how climate alarmists were thinking/claimig that the traditional “Tornado Alley” focus of tornado outbreaks was moving east away from Texas and Oklahoma and Kansas to the Southeastern States because of human-caused climate change.
You couldn’t tell there was an eastward move observing the tornado outbreaks over the last few days. The focus of tornado activity was squarely in the traditional Tornado Alley areas.
The reason the focus of tornado outbreaks varies is determined by how the subtropical jet stream is oriented, and where it enters the United States. CO2 has nothing to do with it.
We had quite a few tornadoes form in Oklahoma the last few days, and our storm chasers did a magnificient job, in the dark of the night, of finding them and giving the public the news they needed to know when to take cover.
Question for those far smarter than me, which is most of the people that post here. How is it that states like North Dakota and Iowa are able to get such a large percentage of their electricity from wind (ND: 37%, Iowa 57% – actual electricity provided, not nameplate capacity) while keeping their rates low – Iowa 11.85 c/kwh, ND 9.88 c/kwh. Is it because of the way subsidies are used in those states? Do those states do a better job of hiding the true costs in a manner not reflected in the electricity rates? Asking for a friend.
I assume it has something to do with population density and generation capacity. #37 ranked Iowa has 3.35M population and #47 ranked North Dakota has 811K people, both with high generation capacity where the wind regularly blows strongly.
During the arctic cold front that came through in February 2021, Oklahoma had about 220 windmills operating.
After the arctic front came through, there were only about 20 windmills functioning in Oklahoma.
We didn’t have any widespread blackouts like happened in Texas. The coal-fired power plant that is located about 20 miles from my home was humming right along, unaffected by the cold weather.
Faced with cleaning and maybe a complete restart of my PC. My email address at outlook.com was blocked by persons unknown. Outlook will not let me start a new account, more, more.
Currently on Windows 10. Should I go to Windows 11?
Currently on Google Chrome. Sggestions.
Currently do not use Microsoft Edge or Quick Access. Should I?
Using Bitdefender. Something better around?
My enjoyment of WUWT is being upset by these PC complications. I prefer to spend time writing articles for WUWT, not fixing a wounded PC half the time.
Thanks Geoff S
I’ve been struggling with PC issues they they first existed. Drives me crazy. I never owned a Mac because I couldn’t afford one- and some essential software wasn’t available on it. But people I know who have Macs never seem to have these PC problems.
One thing to consider is that Microsoft has set the end of support for Windows 10 in October 2025.
Great way to force people to buy new computers. I don’t junk them based on MS’s abandoning an OS- I wait a few years and keep those as back up PCs. I now have W11 on my newest PC and it truly sucks.
I keep two Win XP systems running, one for flight sim and one for my archive of work stuff. XP was the best. Win 7 was OK, Win 8 a disaster, Win 10 tolerable. My wife has the only Win 11 in the house, HP laptop. No problems with it yet, fortunately.
“XP was the best.”
Definitely!
I’m currently running Windows 8. Only because Microsoft wouldn’t update XP.
Microsoft can’t leave well enough alone and loads up their new operating systems with bloatware. I spend most of my time removing these irritating additions, when I “upgrade”.
I also use an IPad from Apple. Apple products usually work well.
I had a game (Pacific General) that ran on XP. That PC died and I got one that ran Windows 7 pro.
It wouldn’t run.
I upgraded the OS, eventually, to Windows 10 pro.
On a whim I tried the game again it still wouldn’t run but this time there was a message saying I needed “DirectPlay”.
Turns out it was a feature of Windows 10 that was turned off by default.
I turned it on and the game worked.
Perhaps other XP programs besides old games will work if it’s turned on?
(I don’t know if Windows 11 has it.)
The main problem with XP for me was it would not play some videos because it needed an upgrade to play them and Microsoft chose not to fix the XP software to enable it to play the new video formats.
It may not suit your taste, but I use Linux Mint, Firefox and Thunderbird mail on a laptop I inherited upwards from my son because it wouldn’t run Win10 very well. I find it worth any amount of blood pressure meds, but it bears more resemblance to XP than anything newer. Libreoffice is a bit clonky but does everything I want, and is compatible with .doc .xls etc
I still prefer Win 7 Prof.
Openoffice is much easier to use as Word.
Excel has several limitations, nevertheless I prefer it as I used it since the beginning.
Openoffice calc has not these limitations but it seems to be slower than Excel.
Open Office Calc is useless for me. I use Excel for quick looks at CANBuss data. and Calc can’t handle large files, nor can it plot the data in any meaningful way. That said, Office365 is the most obnoxious ‘upgrade’ I’ve ever seen. I’ve wasted more time dealing with its perverse idiosyncrasies than any other software I’ve used in my 59 year engineering career.
Try in Excel to plot daily sunspots since 1818 in one chart…
Calc needs some time but is able.
Dates earlier than Jan. 1, 1900 are not usable in Excel for calculations.
But I still use the old Excel from XP and won’t change it.
I’m on your side! I keep a couple of PCs around running Windows XP just to run an old AutoCad 2002 version I have that only runs on XP. It does everything I need. I occasionally use an even older Excel from Office98 on occasion, but it only reads .xls files. I mostly use Excel2010 since it uses .xlsx files. I only use Office365 for work requirements. It also does great Chinese translations.
What is CANBuss?
I’m not sure what the limitations in LibreOffice that people complain about are. It supports Open Office Basic. I have never used this but it seems to be a fully featured language complete with IDE. It also supports Python. Gnumeric supports Python and Pure. Comes with a database package. And you can build fairly huge models with it, if you insist on doing that with a spreadsheet.
Gnumeric also supports both Python and Pure.
But the question is, whether, if you are writing spreadsheet applications which require Visual Basic, Python or Pure, you should be using a spreadsheet at all.
Spreadsheets aren’t a safe programming environment, and adding the ability to write macros or subsystems of the spreadsheet program in a proper language is not the answer. A proper programming language with data and program separated, comments and structure is the answer. Spreadsheets in the usual self taught hands turn into undocumented spaghetti in no time, without anyone realizing it.
Most of them don’t even realize they are writing programs, in effect writing apps. But that is how modern spreadsheet applications are actually often being used nowadays.
I have been using Linux Mint Cinnamon since Windows 7 support ended. Boot up a live cd and give it a try.
Who me? I’ve been using LM Cinnamon since XP support ended! W7 was not my idea. 🙂 But… cd? I don’t think it will fit any more… Nope, the ISO file is 3Gb, but it boots very nicely from a USB stick. Last time I tried though I had to go 10 rounds with Microsoft Secureboot or whatever it’s called to do what I wanted with MY laptop. And even then it wouldn’t dual boot properly. That was the death of Windows since I hardly used it anyway.
Agreed with a couple of others that Linux Mint is a serious candidate, except that I would recommend the MATE desktop, rather than Cinnamon. MATE is a very simple, get out of your way desktop environment.
I think Mint still comes in a couple of flavors, and if that is still the case, you want the Debian flavor rather than Ubuntu. Not sure if that is still a choice.
Any version of linux will come with a repository of all kinds of free software which you just download and install. A few suggestions:
Install claws mail for your email client. For the web, Chrome is OK, but you might also try librewolf and firefox. Most people do not bother with AV, but you can get clamav and it will run quietly in the background.
As to office, libreoffice is fine, but you can also consider gnumeric for a more specialist spreadsheet. Someone objects to libreoffice that it will not handle large files in the spreadsheet app. Well. One reply would be that if its too big for libreoffice don’t use a spreadsheet at all, use a proper programming language. Like Python.
There will be a ton of free software in the Mint repositories, well in any distribution’s repositories, for graphing and scientific and math stuff of all sorts. IDEs for Python. Some of the old fashioned tools that come with Linux are astonishingly useful and powerful. I am thinking of a tiny ancient language called AWK as an example, a sort of precursor of Perl. Fast, simple and powerful for any kind of text manipulation, extraction of data.
Get Lyx for a writing tool, and get Cherrytree for a note taking app. Get geany for a text editor.
You will find all these in the repositories of any linux distribution.
Two other Linux distributions worth looking at are Void Linux and MX Linux. MxLinux is Debian based (a good thing). MX is generally rated as very fast and very stable. Void is a bit more expert user oriented, MX is generally rated as very easy to pick up and use. If you go with Void, install MATE as the desktop. MX comes with an XFCE flavor, and if you go with MX that is a very acceptable alternative to MATE, similar approach, fast, light and keep out of your way.
Mint and MX will make it easy to do whole disk drive encryption, Void you have to get a bit technical for that. If this is an issue try Mint or MX.
Choosing between MX and Mint? Mint is probably more a full fat version. MX is going to be smaller, less frills and faster. There is a key difference in the init system as well. Mint is something called systemd, whereas MX will let you pick between SysV and runit. I would pick runit, but there is not a lot in it. Mint with systemd will also work perfectly well, its pretty much a matter of taste.
If it were me? I would go with MX. Download here:
https://mxlinux.org/download-links/
duckduckgo.com / firefox imho
Win-10 is 9 years old, Win-11 2.5 years old.
I had problems with a computer about 6 years ago.
Prior, when I switched to Win10, the computer I had than went dark and I had to take it for repair. I then had an issue with connectivity on my local network. That computer worked in the shop, but not in my home. No explanation could be found. I said “trade me up” and they did. I went home with a used DELL 3640 tower [Precision line]. 16 GB or RAM.
When 11 was introduced, I waited about 10 months before upgrading to Windows 11 Pro. I use EDGE. I’ve had no problems with this system.
J. Zorzin’s comment is relevant. My recent system has been the first trouble-free experience since my purchase of a VIC-20 forty-three years ago.
John,
Thank you and to all others who responded.
Seems my problem had an Australian peculairity because of an old email address with a local carrier. However, it remains that bloatware from the majors is steadily increasing as are the sneaky ways for unhappy people to try to steal information and money from the ordinary computer user.
Geoff S
Geoff,
I have recently had troubles associated with the forced switch of email from TPG to another provider. Are you on TPG?
Nick,
Nice to see one your comments without negative “likes”.
You were just trying to help, CC aside.
Sunday Time!
China’s quiet energy revolution: The switch from nuclear to renewable energy
https://reneweconomy.com.au/chinas-quiet-energy-revolution-the-switch-from-nuclear-to-renewable-energy/
The Philosophy of Antifa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwS_FMZ3nQ
Because why not, and I have a feeling that strange ideas about antifa float around here.
Who is going to pay for your Utopia Cities?
No cities this time. 🙁 Maybe next week.
Antifa is fascist
6th form intellects
Thanks for showing the reason it should be posted.
I didn’t view it
But antifa seems very much your bag….
After a year of anarchy and unchecked violence, prosecutors are finally doing something about Antifa’s rolling riot in Portland, Ore
https://nypost.com/2021/06/07/finally-portland-antifa-is-being-brought-to-justice-for-its-violence/
Thanks for the antisocial heads up
I would not view a YouTube video about Antifa that Lusername would recommend. It may be monetising Antifa thugs.
Antifa(scist) [=] Procom(munist)
Oh dear, I was looking forward to a few Sunday laughs, but I don’t watch Youtube vids, so you’ve only given me one! Number one article from your link:
https://reneweconomy.com.au/major-wind-farm-withdrawn-after-more-planning-delays-downsizing-name-changes-and-fierce-opposition/
“It is the second time in six months that Ark Energy has withdrawn from a hotly disputed wind project. In October last year it abandoned plans to build the Western Plans wind farm, a 50 MW facility in the north-west of Tasmania, near Stanley, and focus instead of larger scale projects.”
Wheels coming off? Anyway, off to prove to myself that a pro-renewables site based in rabidly anti-nuclear Australia probably hasn’t a clue about Chinese nuclear (they are still building 25 reactors btw, just fired one up this year already and started building another)….
The point is that even China is behind the schedule on nuclear – the country that can overbuild everything it wants in its five-year plans. While regularly overachivieng their renewable goals.
And single wind projects being canceled…not impressive if you look how many are being build. Nimbyism will always produce enough new articles to delude you into thinking “Wheels coming off”.
Here, I shifted through my bookmarks so you may have more Sunday fun:
Financial rationale for investing in fossil fuel industry continues to unravel
https://ieefa.org/articles/financial-rationale-investing-fossil-fuel-industry-continues-unravel
Wind and solar certainly aren’t “over-providing” anything in China.
Basically a nothing-burger.
And as for financing for coal..
… that is a western degenerate leftist political problem …
… which will end up causing massive electricity shortages.
With moronic governments taking up gormless and impossible “Net-Zero” targets and penalising reliable coal and gas fired electricity production in numerous ways, why would people invest.
But that lack of investment is what will eventually lead to the collapse of electricity supplies system in some western countries.
I hope you will “feel” good when you realise that you have supported that collapse.
Inner-city ghettos will hopefully be by far the worst effected.
Ah how quaint, bnice! People invest? That’s so 20th century bourgeois!
In Luserworld, people trying to ‘speculate’ will be punishable by death.
The right is in it as well in the US. $US200 trillion is the estimated amount that needs to be spent by 2050. There is a lot of profit in that spending to be made.
Even two-thirds of Republicans under 30 support the so-called “Climate Change” agenda.
Very kind, thanks. That -1 wasn’t me.
China has 56 operational reactors, which in 2022 produced 418GWh. In 2021 they also got 656GWh from wind and 328GWh from solar (PRIS/IRENA). So that was pretty good from both camps. Since 2011 in energy terms, wind has grown by a factor of 10, and nuclear by a factor of 5. Solar by nearly 100, but from nothing really, and still behind nuclear.
So,what to make of all that? Certainly China is building a lot of renewables, but I don’t see any ‘switch from nuclear to renewables’. They seem to be building as much electrical generation as they can throw up, whatever it is. They are still building 25GW or so of new reactors, and will very likely overtake France in a year or two. Following from your link to WNN, they are proposing to build way more than that. One chuckle in there:
“China General Nuclear Power (CGN) was expecting to have 34,000 MWe nuclear capacity online by 2020, providing 20% of the province’s power, and 16,000 MWe under construction then. From 2010 it expected to commission three units per year and, from 2015, four units per year. CGN is also, due to State Council policy, committed to developing significant wind capacity through CGN Wind Co. It projected a total of 500 MWe wind by 2020.”
In 2020 there were 47.5MWe of nuclear plants in China and in 2023 there was still only 442MWe of wind.
I can’t really fault RenewEconomy’s maths, so not as funny as I’d hoped, but their conclusions are still amusing.
47.5GWe of nuclear…
China quadrupled electricity produced by nuclear in the last ten years (China Electricity Council figures).
One more little chortle – from your RenewEconomy link above:
“Meanwhile the deployment of renewable energy (primarily solar and wind energy) was dramatically accelerated in 2023, with the installation of 217GWe of new solar capacity and 70GWe of new wind capacity.
This represents an increase of around 400TWh in annual low emission generation – the quantitative equivalent of 40 large nuclear power reactors”
So 217GW of solar plus 70GW of wind is equivalent to 40GW of nuclear. Yep, got that.
no NIMBYs in China
Good point.
You find out you don’t have any claim to your back yard…so NIMBY can’t even be a thing…
Finally got round to reading this piece written by:
“Connor Chung is a Research Associate at IEEFA. His work focuses on the intersection of climate change and financial risk, and on protecting investors, markets, and the public from the economic uncertainties associated with fossil fuel reliance.”
So about as unbiased as the IPCC then. I’m no expert on finance, so can’t really comment but the largest wind turbine manufacturer is apparently Siemens Gamesa at a revenue of $78bn, and there is no Chinese company in the top 10 to my surprise. The biggest oil company is Saudi Aramco with a revenue of $590bn, followed by China Petroleum and Chemical, and PetroChina.
I may be comparing apples to carrots. Which is the best to invest in? Haven’t a clue, sorry.
China’s electricity production 2023… solar and wind are a pittance
And I bet if all their solar and wind “farms” just vanished- they wouldn’t miss it with all their ff and nuclear facilities.
China energy usage..
Use a magnifying glass for wind and solar
Some of it not even be contributing much since, I read, some isn’t yet connected to the grid.
Yes, I’ve seen stories about that.
One said that in China, factories were given set forward quotas for production of solar panels.
So these quotas were produced whether or not there were sales orders for them.
When they found that orders were slow and so production had massively over-produced, they just plonked all these panels wherever they could co-opt a tract of land, and left them there.
A simpler solution than land-fill I guess.
Guessing but I bet most of the better land for solar is far from the population centers- in the desert areas to the north and west. I wonder how well the grid is developed to service those areas. I doubt they’ll put much solar in the rich farm lands.
As for the antifa comedy sketch.
Only a mindless fool like you would fall for that sort of propaganda pap.
AntiFa are a fascist, totalitarian bunch of low-life scumbags.
You would be right at home.
MUN thinks that Antifa are a new group of Teenage Ninja Turtles.
He’s 9.
Throws about labels without defining them, makes statements without justifying them. Worse than useless, quit after 10 minutes.
Should have quit after the opening statements:
Antifa is not a group of people
You can’t join
There is no single website
No official leadership structure
No one official Twitter page
No “Philosophy of Antifa”.
Thanks for posting that so that hopefully nobody else will view it.
Antifa pretends to be leaderless and anarchic. To a certain extent it seems to operate that way-superficially.
It’s conceivable that Lusername is in fact stupid enough to believe that there’s no hidden leadership orchestrating action through apparently random ‘influencers’ apparently acting autonomously.
Have we wasted enough electrons on Lusername yet? Could we move on?
Are you Antifa Lusername? I wouldn’t be surprised.
According to your link, Antifa:
So, the extreme left, “anti-fascists” use violence and intimidation to push their agenda and you don’t see the irony
China’s “quiet energy revolution”:
According to the World Nuclear Association as of June 2023 China had 54 operating nuclear power stations and a further 21 under construction.
Are you sure you are not getting China mixed up with Germany?
The death of coral reefs – globally – is still doing the rounds. But today’s Observer (the Sunday Guardian) has an answer…
“Scientists’ experiment is ‘beacon of hope’ for coral reefs on brink of global collapse
An underwater experiment to restore coral reefs using a combination of “coral IVF” and recordings of fish noises could offer a “beacon of hope” to scientists who fear the fragile ecosystem is on the brink of collapse.”
…
“All corals in all ocean basins in the world are under pressure,” said Prof Peter Harrison, a coral ecologist at Southern Cross University in Australia.
…
He has pioneered a form of “coral IVF” that involves capturing millions of spawn from “heat-tolerant” reproductive coral after it floats to the sea surface or, alternatively, surrounding coral that has withstood a bleaching event with a cone-shaped net. The net functions like a huge “coral condom”.
…
To attract the larvae to settle on a degraded reef, the scientists are broadcasting recordings of fish noises that were captured near a busy, healthy reef.
…
“They look very simple, and they don’t have ears or a brain, but coral were probably among the earliest animals cueing into their soundscape and dancing to the beat.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/20/scientists-experiment-is-beacon-of-hope-for-coral-reefs-on-brink-of-global-collapse
They have a lot in common with some academics.
Well most of the academics have ears, though.
They don’t listen
These jokers haven’t yet worked out that reef-forming corals LOVE the warmest waters they can find all around the world.
They will adapt and evolve to any sea conditions.
For example, new varieties of non-reef forming corals have just been discovered deep in some fjords in the coldest waters of British Columbia.
And the coral reefs growing in the mud bottom of the Amazon delta estuary must have caused plenty of head-scratching at Southern Cross University.
I keep saying that corals are the marine version of weeds – they will grow anywhere, some are very pretty, and you can’t get rid of the buggers.
The resurrected coral reefs at Bikini Atoll must laugh at Prof Harrison and his motley crew.
They bleach for a while when they change their symbionts.
These ‘experts’ know, but their income and status depend on hiding what they know. If you are a top coral reef expert and you say that the reefs are doing well, you have just destroyed your own career. Grants flow for reefs reportedly in trouble, reefs that reportedly need saving. If you get vast grants flowing to save the reefs, and if the reefs then survive and flourish as you always knew they would, then you can claim that your efforts to save the reefs were successful (but more grants are of course needed to keep the reefs healthy).
The rain it raineth every day
upon the just and unjust fella,
but more upon the just because
the unjust has the just’s umbrella.
(attributed to Charles Bowen)
Teacher: “Class, what should we do to keep the planet safe from dangerous heating?”
From the back row: “I know, I know! Let’s flood the low points with liquid natural refrigerant. In the highly mobile atmosphere, it will vaporize, form clouds, and end up spritzing the rest of the surface with condensed droplets! It will be dynamically self regulating!! Just enough energy retained to maintain the circulation, and just enough sunlight reflected to keep it comfortable.”
Teacher: “You really think that will work?”
From the back row: “Let’s watch and see.”
(GOES West, Band 16, yesterday.)
So simple but the incompetent climate bothers can grasp this simple self-regulating process.
Water vapor and CO2 are coolants in the atmosphere.
WV mass 18 with Cp of 1.99. 35.82 when multiplied.
CO2 mass 44 with Cp of .85 (depending on temperature). 37.4
Two of largest combination of atmospheric gases.
“Turbine tall tales” looks at the folly of floating wind.
https://thejoulethief.substack.com/p/turbine-tall-tales?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
“To quote Dr. Wojick, BOEM’s convoluted plans “make nuclear look easy!””
Exactly. If only the CA and NY governors would wake up to this obvious reality, that the common ground with skeptics of climate alarm is nuclear power.
Onshore wind is bad.
Offshore wind is theoretically better, but obviously worse in practice.
Offshore floating wind is nuts.
If the water is half mile deep and it takes 8 mooring lines for a single floating tower that is well over 4 miles of lines since they do not go straight down. Plus the power line has to dangle down to the sea floor. So 50 towers means 400 huge mooring lines plus 50 power lines. Lots of stuff for critters to hit. Plus I just read that mooring lines “thrum” in currents. Nasty and noisy. And nuts.
Even Orsted admit that each of the 4 different types of offshore wind turbines has their own disadvantage
1 Tension leg platform.
Lighter than other types, smaller mooring footprint, most stable when installed but can also be less stable to install and transport due to lighter design.
2 Semi submersible.
Versatile design that fits many different conditions and is relatively simple to install, but structure can be complex to build and is less stable than other designs.
3 Barge
Like 2 is versatile and relatively simple to install , but is less stable than other designs.
4 Spar buoy
Can be simple to build and has good stability. However, owing to its depth it requires a very deep harbour to install the turbine or, for offshore installation, a deep water installation vessel
https://orsted.com/en/what-we-do/renewable-energy-solutions/floating-offshore-wind-energy
Thanks Dave, very useful! I call the spar the bottle because it is like a verticals bottle half full. There is a nasty trade off. You need lots of water inside for stability but you also need buoyancy so must make it bigger to get enough air to float it.
All four designs are way more expensive than the simple monopile fixed wind sits on so floating has to cost a lot more than fixed which already costs too much.
But they are leasing float sites off Oregon and Maine this year.
A simple question I cannot find an answer to. Are the mooring lines required to keep the monster tower and floater from blowing over or just to keep the rig in place?
Not sure. This may help
‘Mooring Systems for Floating Offshore Wind: Integrity, Management Concepts, Risk and Mitigation’ World Forum for Floating Offshore Wind (WFO) PDF
It’s a little dated (May 2022) but towards the end says
“In recent years international classification societies have developed floating wind-specific standards, but these currently reflect a limited understanding of mooring system behaviour, requiring harmonisation and an ongoing development in line with growing operational experience”
Sorry no longer have direct link.
They left out the only one that has any chance of working: Make an island first, then put the turbines on the island. It has the extra advantage that you can then extend your national waters out another 200 miles or whatever the distance is, and add a naval/military base to threaten your now much nearer neighbours. We know it works, because it has already been done (though I don’t think they bothered with the turbines).
I’ve found a new word Kakistocracy, the opposite of Meritocracy, where the stupid and ignorant rise to the top. The ancient Greeks obviously anticipated modern western society.
like the crud that rises to the top of a septic tank
Unfortunately, it seems that those who can’t do anything else go into politics as an alternative to being homeless.
We have a Ford hybrid Escape it gets 40 miles per gallon. The old Ford Escape got 20 miles per gallon. I’m thinking that if it were a plug-in hybrid it would do better than that by a wide margin.
During the ’70s OPEC gas shortage Jet Industries in Texas produced all electric cars with lead-acid batteries that would go 50 miles.
Somewhere in those two facts above there’s a place for a modest sized car to exist that for most local trips wouldn’t use any gas and wasn’t a fire risk in your garage.
I’d buy one in a New York minute.
A personal transport vehicle is a tool to make our lives easier, more productive.
Just as you should with any tool, you should choose the best version of that tool for the application at hand.
Well said!
Besides that the 0-60 performance is stupendous!
Yep.
If that’s the tool you need, that’s what you should get.
0-60 isn’t exactly “tooling” around a neighborhood in “American Graffiti” style though.
Story Tip
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/agile-octopus-freeloader-problem
Excellent piece explaining in specifics how intermittency affects pricing to customers, what the likely effect of grid scale battery installations will be, and (by implication) why the UK net zero generation plans are headed off the cliff. Takes one UK day, explains how it all works, and projects what it will be like on a similar day a decade out.
Nick Stokes should read. Its not going to work.
Actually I did read it. It seems Octopus is allowing exposure to wholesale prices, which have ups and downs, but are often even negative. And the author says those on the Agile tariff are free-loading.
But anyone can choose to be with Octopus on that tariff.
NatPower commits to spending GBP 10bn on UK battery rollout
“Clean energy infrastructure project developer NatPower Group has pledged to invest over GBP 10 billion (USD 12.82bn/EUR 11.7bn) in the British battery energy storage market, targeting the deployment of over 60 GWh of capacity by 2040.”
A question for the WUWT readership: At today’s prices in the year 2024, what would 60 Gigawatt-hours of battery storage cost? I’m guessing it’s a fair bit more than $13 billion USD.
The Grauniad ran a piece about this (7th March 24)
That ended with this paragraph
“NatPower UK, which launched in the UK in 2022, is part of a specialist Luxembourg- headquartered European Energy group that is backed by its management team and Tyrus Capital, a private equity firm”
The article also said it planned to submit planning applications for 3 “gigaparks” with a further 10 to follow next year.
Sounded a bit unrealistic but maybe that’s just me.
With Labour set to deal the Tories a shattering political defeat, now is the time to get in line for the massive increase in Net Zero spending which is about to happen in the UK.
I am very slowly reading Javier Vinos’ “Solving the Climate Puzzle”. It is complicated, but what was a complete surprise was planetary waves (Rossby waves). Nothing I have read on WUWT over several years prepared me for this phenomenon.
Here’s an interesting story tip on California epic rain & water.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-04-25/atmospheric-rivers-could-pound-california-with-more-extreme-rain
Rivers in the sky’ have drenched California, yet even more extreme rains are possible
California has droughts and heavy rains. It is nothing new.
Of course. But instead of a LA Times story on permanent AGW drought this is about new science showing historical epic rains that could or may return.
Story tip… Tax oil companies to finance the loss and damage fund.
– – – – – – – – –
Taxing big fossil fuel firms ‘could raise $900bn in climate finance by 2030’
Levy on oil and gas majors in richest countries would help worst-affected nations tackle climate crisis, says report
The report is backed by dozens of climate organisations worldwide including Greenpeace, Stamp Out Poverty, Power Shift Africa and Christian Aid.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/29/taxing-big-fossil-fuel-firms-raise-billions-climate-finance
The Climate Damages Tax
A guide to what it is and how it works
(From 2018. 32 pages. Topics covered: Climate justice, droughts, floods, fossil fuel subsidies, Green Climate Fund, GHG emissions, hurricanes, IPCC SR15, models)
https://reporterre.net/IMG/pdf/cdt_report_december_2018_2_.pdf
More demonizing of the oil companies. That’s what climate alarmists do.
And guess who is going to pay any increased taxes on oil companies? That’s right, it won’t be the oil companies, it will be the customers of the oil companies, you and me.
This is just another scam to raise money for radical leftwingers to use to undermine our societies.
Several years ago, I remember reading about how climate alarmists were thinking/claimig that the traditional “Tornado Alley” focus of tornado outbreaks was moving east away from Texas and Oklahoma and Kansas to the Southeastern States because of human-caused climate change.
You couldn’t tell there was an eastward move observing the tornado outbreaks over the last few days. The focus of tornado activity was squarely in the traditional Tornado Alley areas.
The reason the focus of tornado outbreaks varies is determined by how the subtropical jet stream is oriented, and where it enters the United States. CO2 has nothing to do with it.
We had quite a few tornadoes form in Oklahoma the last few days, and our storm chasers did a magnificient job, in the dark of the night, of finding them and giving the public the news they needed to know when to take cover.
Question for those far smarter than me, which is most of the people that post here. How is it that states like North Dakota and Iowa are able to get such a large percentage of their electricity from wind (ND: 37%, Iowa 57% – actual electricity provided, not nameplate capacity) while keeping their rates low – Iowa 11.85 c/kwh, ND 9.88 c/kwh. Is it because of the way subsidies are used in those states? Do those states do a better job of hiding the true costs in a manner not reflected in the electricity rates? Asking for a friend.
I assume it has something to do with population density and generation capacity. #37 ranked Iowa has 3.35M population and #47 ranked North Dakota has 811K people, both with high generation capacity where the wind regularly blows strongly.
During the arctic cold front that came through in February 2021, Oklahoma had about 220 windmills operating.
After the arctic front came through, there were only about 20 windmills functioning in Oklahoma.
We didn’t have any widespread blackouts like happened in Texas. The coal-fired power plant that is located about 20 miles from my home was humming right along, unaffected by the cold weather.