Guest “I couldn’t make this sort of schist up, if I was trying” by David Middleton
Texas Freeze Triggers Global Plastics Shortage
Numerous chemical plants were shut down as state lost power last month, disrupting a global supply chain for consumer goodsBy Christopher M. Matthews , Austen Hufford and Collin Eaton
Updated March 17, 2021 9:28 am ETThe February freeze that triggered mass blackouts in Texas led to chemical plant shutdowns that are disrupting global supply chains, causing a shortage of the raw materials needed for everything from medical face shields to smartphones.
The power outages brought the world’s largest petrochemical complex to a standstill, forcing more plants in the Gulf of Mexico region to shut down than during Hurricane Harvey in 2017. A month later, many remain offline, and analysts said it could be months more before all are fully back.
[…]
Wall Street Journal
Who would have guessed that we needed fossil fuels to make “everything from medical face shields to smartphones”?
Weekly Resin Report: Supply Shortages and Soaring Prices Put Processors on Edge
Prices continued to climb, sometimes twice per day, and by the end of the week, average spot polyethylene prices had tacked on $0.10/lb, while polypropylene shot up another $0.12/lb.
PlasticsToday Staff | Mar 02, 2021The resin market’s wild ride got even hairier last week. Supply shortages intensified, prices rose, and processors flocked to the spot market, scooping up every reasonable offer. After those were gone, they proceeded to grab the unreasonably priced offers, too. Not surprisingly, market prices continued to climb, sometimes twice per day, and by the close of business on Feb. 26, average spot polyethylene (PE) prices had tacked on $0.10/lb, while polypropylene (PP) shot up another $0.12/lb, reports the PlasticsExchange in its Market Update. Though some processors fell off, not willing to chase material in this seemingly ever-rising market, a steady stream of demand persisted along with sometimes strong surges. Some buyers became more liberal with requirements, as crises demand creativity — many have expanded their typical technical specifications and packaging requirements to accommodate available material until better market conditions eventually return.
Resin production meets a perfect storm.
It has been two weeks since a massive winter storm struck the Houston area, knocking out power and shutting down the entire petrochemical-producing region, including some 80 to 85% of US PE and PP production. Resin supplies were already reeling from a series of other disruptions that have plagued the industry for the past six months, notes the PlasticsExchange, so the market was in no condition for another wallop.
[…]
Read the full Market Update on the PlasticsExchange website.
PlasticsToday
This is just fracking hilarious…
CAREER NEWS 09 MARCH 2021
‘Does anyone have any of these?’: Lab-supply shortages strike amid global pandemic
Scientific labs worldwide struggle to find enough sterile gloves and other basics as supply and manufacturing chains break down.Chris Woolston
Scientists around the world are scrambling to secure basic supplies in the wake of the COVID‑19 pandemic, which has increased demand for testing materials while disrupting manufacturing and distribution channels.
[…]
Nature
The buffoons (Nature) most desperately wanting to kill fossil fuels are now in full panic mode due to the plastics crisis.
Smart phone unavailability caused by fossil fuel shortage should give the people something real to think about.
gosh, can’t they just switch over to stiff paper, a la paper straws, since plastic is evil anyway? ☺☺☺
I’m chuckling at that, as I shake my head at ‘reusable straws.
Some are actually packaged with a cleaning brush.
I did not take the time today to investigate a collapsible reusable steel one I passed by in a store – how can that be cleaned?
Some of the reusable ones I see are SS, many are silicone (flexible, some with end bent at angle).
The larger silicone ones can be used for strain relief on power connectors to my laptop computers, as IBM/Lenovo are too cheap to provide proper strain relief.
(I don’t remember what was used for straws in the 50s, perhaps rolled paper, perhaps stainless steel that you returned with the glass container, SS does sound cold on lips.)
I remember in the 1950s when straws came out with different sugar-flavored coatings on the inside of them — there was strawberry, chocolate, etc. Children could put the straws in a glass of milk, and it tasted pretty good until all of the coating was dissolved out.
Along with their teeth
In the 1960s they were made of paper, one thin strip glued into a helix.
I can recall ads on TV for the new fangled plastic straws, and the fancy ones had an acordion type of structure pressed into them to allow them to bend any which way.
Everyone served paper straws with their drinks, until the fast food chains started selling their slurpees with large bore plastic straws.
Large servings of drinks closely followed.
I remember collapsing paper straws on thick milk shakes, especially as the straws got soaked.
Even the early plastic straws collapsed easily on the thick stuff. One just had to slow up drinking their milk shake.
We still occasionally play with the accordion plastic straws to make the noise when you straighten them quickly.
brrrrpppp
Rolled paper and they got soggy before one could finish a milk carton.
Paper-based smartphones coming soon
Even better, we should pass a law that bans polyethylene and polypropylene, and in the interest of conservation of resources mandates the use of just ethylene and propylene. Forget all that extravagant “poly” stuff.
I feel sorry for the parrots
There’s always “polyputaketlon” (thanks Sir Terry)
We seem to be in a world where the phones are now smarter than many of the users.
If any of the corundum crystal growing plants that manufacture the screens was forced to shutdown, smart phone availability may be stressed for quite awhile.
Need plastic? Go to the mouth of rivers in Guatemala…
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PavA4rUypE&w=560&h=315%5D
or DRC…
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVG_e1m2Djc&w=560&h=315%5D
…etc., and scoop it out!
Regards,
Bob
Bob ==> This is the case in almost all very poor countries — when they don’t have the economic resources to pick up and proper landfill or burn the trash, it collects on the streets and then, when the heavy rains come, the plastic trash washes into the rivers(often with the entire contents of whole shanty-towns) where it collects at the river mouth. wind and waves then wash in onto the local shoreline.
In the Dominican Republic, the President regularly hires a couple of thousand jobless people and they collect and shovel it all into dump trucks and haul it to the land fills. — This for the sake of tourism, of course.
The irony is that the alarmist “woke” crowd regularly stages vicious attacks on all things plastic — then panic and cry when plastic production is threatened. What would they do without their wet-wipes for their precious bums?
It’s not about resources. Being poor does not mean you have to throw all your garbage over your shoulder. It’s cultures which don’t care about trashing everywhere.
I was in Honolulu in the 80s and a teen threw some paper on the ground. An old lady pulled him. He tried to ignore her but she kept on until he picked it up. It’s a question of culture.
You mean $h!thole countries?
What would they do without their face masks (especially those wearing two)? Those are all single use plastic. The home made ones are of little use anyway.
Agree, They are certainly of no use when the wearers continually pull them up/down by holding the front where the virus, should it be there from others, would be. Pulling them down to cough and/or sneeze is comical.
I’ve also noticed that there are lots of political messages on the masks which is possibly more important to the wearer than for medical reasons.
You’re ticking all the boxes I had in mind and there are lots more, not even to mention the virtue signalling that they are “the right sort of people”. This has been a political watershed from the beginning, tainted by partisan ideologues and excessive regulation. Many are now suggesting, vaccine or not, distancing and masks should continue. A paranoid society is good for the Left.
Either a vaccine provides immunity from catching (and spreading) a disease, or it does not. Those who have recovered from COVID 19 or have received the vaccine and yet continue with the “mask and distance” nonsense are declaring to the rest of us that they do not trust the “immunity” they supposedly have, and therefore give us little reason to trust or take the vaccine.
It states right in the vaccine paper work:
All of the vaccines have these little waffle clauses.
When two of pharmacopeia companies announced stunning vaccine effectiveness rates, some officials expressed doubts…
Which, unsurprisingly, were immediately cancelled by officials in charge.
Part of the pre-vaccine questions are to weed out people who have already received a vaccine.
Meaning, the only method to test whether the vaccine is effective is whether one catches COVID-19.
To the current administration, that is a win-win situation.
Perhaps next year’s immunizations will be influenza/COVID combinations?
Exactly so. The response to this mess has been entirely inappropriate for this level of infection.It was obvious from the beginning that the whole goat rodeo was intended to smear Trump and affect the election. They can’t walk it back without looking foolish … and they don’t want to relinquish their new, ill-gotten power.
The sheep will just go along with the scam, having already been desensitized to enjoying freedom. 20 years of non-stop global warming propaganda has already cleared the way.
Rory ==> Opinions vary (but not the science) — masks are almost worthless for the purpose of protecting the wearer from infection by airborne or particle borne viruses for the general public outside of specific institutional uses.
Proper medical masks worn my nurses and doctors in operating rooms protect the patient. . . . mostly from bacterial infection.
I have spent a lot of time looking into this, and to me the scandal is that after a full year, we do not have proper OSHA rated medical grade respirators for every man woman and child here in the US.
Meanwhile public health authorities talk as if any sort of thing you put on your face counts as a mask.
To some small extent, even a piece of cloth is better than nothing if someone is spewing virus in your vicinity, as they will block larger droplets.
If everyone is wearing something, there will be less virus floating around and so less settling onto surfaces.
But the devil is in the details…one needs to keep in mind proper donning and doffing, etc.
It is comical that people wear a mask but then pull it down to talk face to face with someone.
The history of the N-95 medical mask:
The untold origin story of the N95 mask (msn.com)
The Physics Behind N95 Masks – A Cosmic symphony (wordpress.com)
People have likened the spacing between the fibers of an N-95 mask and the size of a virion to throwing gravel at a chain link fence, but what is missed in this analogy is the thickness of the mask material.
They are a couple of millimeters thick, so it is more like throwing gravel at a wall of chainlink a few thousand meters thick.
Not to mention the electrostatic charges, which are the real difference between a mask and a proper medical respirator, plus the fit.
They need to have straps that wrap around the head to have any chance of a proper seal.
The around the ear straps are a joke…a bad joke.
Exactly right. Masks are part of the prophylaxis protocol to maintain a sterile field during medical procedures. As you say, they are intended as a barrier to bacterial infection. Until recently there was a disclaimer on the packaging exclaiming their inappropriateness against viral infection.
The Dominican Republic is well organized today, dramatic difference in environment from the mystical society that shares the island – Haiti.
Countries in Central America are very troubled, that’s why so many people go north to try to sneak into the US. Honduras had a reasonable government and the resolve to prevent a president from changing the constitution to allow him to be president for life. But a hurricane trashed the Honduras economy, which is primarily agricultural.
Kevin ==> Compared to Haiti, the Dominican Republic is heavenly. But the government is still a kleptocracy, many basic functions of government only happen because of dedicated civil servants who keep trying their best despite the crooked and dysfunctional political structure. Basic services are hit and miss — hospitals go without basic equipment (especially in the public hospitals for the poor).
Leonel Fernández was president while we were there and is the last (only?) President of the DR to not be accused and investigated for widespread fraud and influence peddling. He was a good guy. Met him and his wife and worked with his governmental agencies on a lot of humanitarian projects.
In the ten years we served there, we saw a lot of progress — but I don’t know how it has fared in recent years.
And I recall my über-Green friend a couple of years ago chastising me for not boycotting the plastic straws from the fast-food dispenser in favour of, like her, using some re-usable stainless-steel device. First-world problems?
Suffolk
A food server in San Francisco faces a 6 month jail sentence if he/she offers a customer a plastic straw.
Meanwhile, of the 400,000 plastic syringes freely given out in the city EVERY MONTH (!!), about a quarter of a million are discarded in the streets.
While we all could go on and on highlighting these types of insanities, we should be ever mindful that this data, this info, is NOT widely presented on MSM sites and only we cyber Truth Tellers are motivated to continue to ‘spread the word’
The tide is starting to turn.
I live in hope that is true, but the evidence of the recent US election would suggest otherwise. “Wokeness” and mobs of SJWs, Antifa and BLMs seem to be gaining ground.
Many disabled people were harmed by ban on plastic straws, as others are hard for them to use – and they need to use straws, regular bodies can do without.
LOL – nothing surprises me these days.
Sounds like how the ammo supply shortage started last Spring. It still continues unabated to this day, 1 year later.
Toilet paper, isopropyl alcohol, and bleach finally returned to the store shelves but the supply chains on those items are not complicated like they are for all the chemicals used in the manufacture of ammunition powders and primers.
When the hyper-inflation hits from the Democrat’s tandem War on Capitalism and War on the Fossil Fuels, there’s going to be some real economic reckoning for this living off OPM and the money printing press.
Sorry to say that the Democrat’s war is apparently on the Constitutional Republic itself. That’s the war. The rest are battle fields.
The Democrats were not behind the January 6th attack on the Constitutional Republic.
You’re right! They were behind the November 3rd attack on the Constitutional Republic as documented by election rule changes in 6 different swing states. But hey, “election month” is OK by you in a republic, right?
Nobody died on November 3rd as a result of the rule changes.
Oh, and it was nine states, not six. Guess you only complain if the vote went against Fearless Leader.
Also note, only three of the nine were “swing” states.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/9-states-where-rules-voting-have-been-changed-or-challenged-n1026886
Apparently no one died in the supposed riot except for the woman who was shot by a Capitol policeman while she was being pushed through a broken sidelight by leftist agitators! Every one else who was claimed to have been killed was found later to be from something not related; much like George Floyd dying from a drug overdose, but trying the officer who followed his training instead!
You insult the memory of Brian Sicknick
No, he gets honored by telling the truth – it is your lies that dishonor him.
That’s funny! I honor his service and wonder why the REAL cause of his death has been covered up! You, on the hand, take the usual leftist tack and blindly accept whatever you are told! Congratulations, comrade!
Nobody died on Jan 6 either – except one of the protesters that was shot by a cop.
Tim Gorman, Sicknick died defending the Capitol from insurrectionists. That is the truth, and you can’t change that. You dishonor him by your inability to accept the facts.
You might want to do a little additional research, parroting leftists lies is weak!
Rog-o here is likely an antifa agitator.
We don’t know how or even when Officer Sicknick died. No Coroner’s report has been released, his body was cremated within 24 hours of his death, and there’s no ongoing investigation into his death as far as I can tell. I don’t think even the death certificate has been released. All we have is the media telling us that he was killed by the rioters, but they present no evidence of any kind. His body was found many hours after the riot was quelled, and people that claimed to have been seen him said there was no apparent injuries. With all the contradicting claims, I’m waiting for some real evidence, but at the moment it looks suspicious as hell.
And I notice you don’t want to talk about the unarmed woman that was shot by the capitol police. Why aren’t you outraged that there has been no talk about an investigation into that? Imagine the reaction if one of the rioters that burned down the Minneapolis Police precinct (a real insurrectionist attack) had been shot and killed? I think it would have been very different.
Paul,
Officer Sicknick’s brother reportedly spoke to him on the phone AFTER the the false flag event at the Capitol. He said he was fine yet died the next day for unknown reasons; his body was cremated immediately without his family’s knowledge! Something very strange went on there yet the media continues to repeat the initial lies and falsehoods!
Oh, there’s no doubt they were “behind” it … just like they were behind the previous months of rioting. They just managed to keep their hands clean while they shifted blame on Trump.
ROTFLMFAO: “ there’s no doubt they were “behind” it”
.
thanks for the laugh.
That you find reality to be funny, is neither new, nor unusual.
Show the evidence MarkW.
You have already proven that you’re no fan of logic, evidenced by numerous logical fallacies in all your responses. The only party to benefit from the planned “riot” were the Democrats who openly supported or ignored the months of rioting, looting and murder .
Trump had no reason to cause a riot on January 6th, and was the only leader on record to have called for peace. Pelosi and her gang did everything in their power to promote and/or exacerbate the situation … in the same way the Democrat leaders did in all the states and cities hit hardest by the year long insurrection.
What logical fallacy? Please point it out.
Expounding facts are not considered fallacies.
Just a short list of your fallacies off the top of my head …
ad hominem
appeal to authority (argumentum ad verecundiam)
equivocation
distinction vs. difference fallacy
hasty generalization
both
cum hoc ergo propter hoc
and
post hoc ergo propter hoc
There were probably others, but that’s plenty in such a brief time.
“Trump had no reason to cause a riot on January 6th, and was the only leader on record to have called for peace.”
Trump offered to supply 10,000 National Guard for security around the Capitol Building, before the break-in took place, and the offer was turned down by whoever is in charge at the Capitol Building.
I believe Nancy Pelois is at the head of that particular chain of command. What did Nancy know, and when did she know it, and what did she do about it?
That’s my belief as well. It will be fascinating to watch how the “investigation” will manage to hide the truth and leave no one but MAGA hat wearers to blame.
Pelosi has had a hand in the mix from the beginning. The reason I know it has all been the Democrats is; they’re 100% predictable. Everything they blame Trump of doing, they have done or are doing. Their projection has been consistently laughable and the media goes along with it … even to the exact wording.
Poor Rogered,
Yes, the Democrats ARE responsible for the attack on the constitution.
Its what they do. !!
They HAVE to destroy the US Constitution to implement their socialist/marxist totalitarian agenda.
In what way wait an “attack” on the “Constitutional Republic” ? A bunch unarmed people entered an essentially undefended building without hurting anyone, an event and action the FBI knew about well in advance.
The cause of death of the policeman has not been released but was not caused by a beating as falsely claimed in the press.
To understand the depth of corruption in Washington see the Epoch Times interview of Patel released today in which he explains the investigation into those behind the Russia collusion hoax. It is good to know there are still honest men of virtue and principle defending the public interest.
Thanks for the info from the Epoch Times. I’ll head over there soon. The entire pustule of Washington collusion has boiled to a head during Trumps tenure. He has been a catalyst by setting the cat among the chickens … exposing the corruption within both parties. He terrified everyone … and they knew that a second term would have meant exposure on both sides of the isle.
The ex USA constitution of the ex Constitutional Republic
of USA, did not accommodate or offered any immunity of any kind to any power of governance, even to the power of the Capitol Hill,
against the overthrowing by the will and decision of
The People.
Even to that Governing pillar no any clause of immunity or exception, when considered as Tyrannical and invested clearly against the interest of The People.
The January 6th was just The People’s move, against a Governmental Power invested against the interest of
The People and against the Constitutional Republic and the Constitution itself…
A quite non violent act by The People, the ex Master of The House of Republic, as per the USA Constitution… within the full of right and duty.
What immediately followed next was a real attack against
The People and the Constitutional Republic.
Well, The People lost…. and now living under the rule of a new illegitimate “Master”….
Well, whatever.
cheers
The January 6th “People’s Move” failed, therefore the majority of the People that were not a part of the seditious uprising have the right to punish the participants in their failed revolt.
..
PS there are six dead people that were on both sides of this who would be alive if not for this violent uprising.
You sound exactly like Mussolini and Chaushesku in one..
You condone the January 6th insurrection?
Roger,
indeed you do condone the January 6th 2021…
the date of the unconstitutional illegitimacy.
No whiten, I do not condone the attack on the Capitol. I do not condone the deaths caused by the rioters. There was nothing unconstitutional about the January 6th vote count in Congress.
Of course you do. It’s the best thing that ever happened for democrats. You bring the subject up and point to it to use as evidence of your position. Now, three months later, the walls and concertina wire that were built to keep the people you dislike from exercising their first amendment rights and the troops brought in to kill them if they try are just fine and dandy for you. It’s as if you enjoy tyranny and you can’t shut up about how wonderful it is.
It wasn’t an insurrection. It was a PROTEST! An insurrection is an attempt to take over the government – and that was NEVER a goal of the protesters!
Stop lying.
People do not bring baseball bats to a protest. People do not bring bear spray to a protest. People do not bring gallows to a protest.
Then all of the BLM/Democrat/Antifa actions, lasting nearly a year in cities across the country, that the MSM and the Democrats called “peaceful protests”, were insurrections. Pelosi throwing up armed barriers against the public from their “House” is treason.
Insurrection with bear spray and baseball bats?
Antifa does.
Roger,
Do you support the US government working with criminal gangs like the CCP and the Mexican drug cartels? Which do you prefer; the human and child sex trafficking, or the import of drugs like fentanyl that kill 50,000 or more Americans every years?
Do you condone the flagrant election cheating ??
Caused by Antifa.
Meanwhile cities across the US are under siege. Seattle is a perfect example.
Antifa was not behind the January 6th uprising. FBI Director Wray said so.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/fbi-director-wray-capitol-riot-senate-hearing
You are a liar, who is regurgitating DNC regressive radical lies.
.
Seems you missed a couple of words.
Is the the same FBI Russia colluuuusion 😉
Unfortunately, we cannot rely on what the FBI, the Justice Department or the U.S. Intelligence agencies say to be the truth.
Experience shows us that all of them lie to the American people in order to promote Democrat political efforts, especially when a criminal Democrat like Biden is leading the charge.
Americans can no longer trust their Executive Branch government officials. And we are rapidly reaching that point with the Cowardly Courts.
And just how did these people die? No guns were found on Capitol property or on anyone arrested!
Ask yourself why we now have a Fort Pelosi at the Capitol with more armed soldiers than we have in Afghanistan!
When a government becomes afraid of the people that elected them it’s time for that government to begin questioning its policies – it is *not* time to hide behind razor wire like Maduro in Venezuela.
The armed soldiers are at the Capitol to protect Congress from Trump supporters. January 6th shows that Trump supporters are violent, and intended to do harm to Congress and Pence.
“January 6th shows that Trump supporters are violent, and intended to do harm to Congress and Pence.”
The total number arrested was about 300 people. We don’t know who all these 300 people belong to.
Meanwhile, 50,000 peaceful demonstrators stayed outside the Capitol building and didn’t break the law.
Democrats want to tar 75 million Trump supporters with the actions of a very small minority of people of unknown loyaties.
That’s typical of Democrats. Every Republican is a racist. Now it’s every Republican is an insurrectionist.
Tim,
Asking Roger Rabbitbrain to think and question is an exercise in futility! He doesn’t have the wisdom to question anything his masters tell him to believe! He is good little Nazi like most leftists!
Most of those rioting were leftists. The 100k-plus marching nearby were neither leftists nor rioters.
At least four of those who died were of natural causes, the jury is still out on how the Capitol policeman died, and Ms Babbitt was shot dead by a Capitol policeman and noone seems to know why.
If you actually believe that you are run of the mill ill informed; otherwise you’re just rooting for your team!
Why did Nanzi Pelousy and DemoKKKrat leadership obstruct Trump’s request for Nat’l Guard troops? What happened to the Antifa and BLM agents provocateur who were on social media planning the “riot?” Why were the crowds welcomed into the Capitol Complex?
For an “armed insurrection” there seems to have been a remarkable lack of arms of any kind; but you’d rather spread lies and half truths. Typical leftist!
I love the breathless hyperbole of “armed insurrection” and “uprising” and the like to describe a modest-sized riot. Have to give it those big impressive names to justify the reaction.
Anyone using those terms to describe what happened in January has absolutely no understanding of history or any sense of what an insurrection or uprising REALLY is, and only parades their ignorance by their use of the terms.
Interrupting the Constitutionally mandated acceptance of the EC vote is in fact an “insurrection.” Baseball bats and bear spray qualifies as “arms.”
TonyG, were the gallows they brought for Pence real?
#
.
Fake news.
Interrupting, blocking and jeopardizing the Constitutionally mandated acceptance of the Certificates of Electors is in fact indeed an unconstitutional act…
Abuse of Power in service and duty, plus
gross diminished responsibility involved with it, constitutes as Treason.
There corrected for you.
cheers
Who abused what power?
Who abuse what power.
There corrected for you again. Rhetorically.
You are smart enough, are you.
cheers
“Who abuse what power.” is not proper English.
But you are smart enough, are you.
Interrupting the operation of the federal courthouse in Portland is then also an insurrection. Why do you never equate the two?
And the protesters in Portland armed with bear spray, high powered lasers, and commercial fireworks QUALIFIES AS “ARMS” AS WELL!
Tim, define “whataboutism”
Tim,
Roger does not engage in good faith, as he has proven repeatedly in this “discussion”, it’s pointless to bother with him.
The same people who are so eager to declare the actions of Jan. 6th a riot, have been adamant in not labeling the actions of BLM and antifa around the country as riots.
MarkW, do you know the definition of “whataboutism?”
Seems like there was a good bit of false flag mixed into the Capitol operation! Roger seems to be a run-of-the-mill leftist troll without the wit and wisdom to recognize the truth if it bites him on the butt!
“What happened to the Antifa and BLM agents provocateur ”
..
You need evidence, not regurgitated conspiracy theories. There were none, it was strictly Trump supporters.
Russia colluuuusion an I right Roger 😉
Is English a 2nd language for you?
Roger,
Your ignorance and naïveté is repugnant and an insult to good people everywhere; but especially to the highly intelligent and well informed crowd that frequents WUWT!
Your support for racism and human trafficking is implied by your willingness to blindly follow the diktats of the ChiCom leadership and their servants in the US government! I won’t hold animosity towards anyone who honestly tries to learn, so if you ever want to reverse your rectal/cranial inversion I’ll be happy to point you to places you might find some real Truth as opposed to the corporate propaganda you parrot!
And a NON-language for rogered.
You are still Holden on to Russia colluuuusion 🤓
Yeah! Those videos and online chats never happened! Are trying to convince us that you’re stupid? It’s working!
Yeah, right! And the FBI didn’t know that the Russia investigation was a hoax by March of 2017 and the Chinese, Russians and Ukrainians didn’t pay millions of dollars to the Biden Crime Family!
Your intellectual brilliance is as dazzling as a lump of coal!
Imagine that, a crowd demanding that congress follow the process set out in the constitution is an attack on the constitution.
Progressives really do live in an alternate reality.
The “crowd” interrupted a constitutionally mandated process. That is not “following the process set out in the constitution.”
..
Congress did in fact follow the process. Just because you don’t like the result of that process does not allow you to interrupt it.
Jeez Roger. I knew that this coterie had Dan Kahan System 2 problems w.r.t. AGW. And also that they mumbled to themselves about the election (coup!) and Covid (shamdenic!). But I had NO idea that they were so all in with this alt.fact family of election and Jan 6 lies. You not only lifted up the rock for us, you gave us a slew of screen grabs of what was crawling around under it.
That this group would echo this **** amongst themselves was predictable (as was the fact that I blithely hoped they would draw the line at this hatred of US democracy in action), but you provided the actual proof. Thx….
Now big bob shows up to repeat the official antifa line.
Surprised? Not in the least.
It was antifa, liar, need look no farther than John Sullivan.
Poor Roger 🙁
His DESPERATION is palpable
Its rather funny..
.. if it wasn’t so sadly pathetic !
Antifa Rog is in need of a redpill PDQ.
As far as I can tell, making something from plastic usually uses less energy than making it any other way. OK, it’s a bit more complicated than I first guessed.
Nice find Bob
I’ve never been a big fan of the “Just In Time” supply chain. This past year has offered many, many examples of how in can backfire, mostly pandemic related.
Virtually all of the “backfires” can be attributed to a gross misunderstanding of the SYSTEM of Just in Time manufacturing (and distribution). Too many companies tried to take advantage (e.g. via lower inventories) of the new responsive shipping options between process stages WITHOUT reconfiguring the rest of their manufacturing and distribution chain.
Shiego Shingo (Toyota) helped US companies learn the Toyota Production System (TPS). When asked if he was afraid that would lose Toyota a competitive advantage he said (paraphrase) “No, TPS is like a suit of clothes and Americans are too fat to wear them!”.
While he was correct for many US companies who tried to adopt TPS “on the cheap”, the Toyota USA plants proved American workers and managers were capable of operating the system. Toyota US went on to unselfishly teach other American companies to use the philosophy and its techniques.
I was later told by a Sr Toyota executive that despite Shiego Shingo’s bias, the Toyoda family (correct spelling) initially copied and named their system in honor of Henry Ford’s FPS (Ford Production System) and later the Toyota company borrowed the US WWII industrial training manuals (for female replacement of male factory workers) TWI (Training Within Industry) that standardized elements of a job. As Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story.
I worked for a japanese company in maine making toyota tie rods. JIT worked ok until the one time it didn’t.
they then immediately shifted from 1 week supplies to 2 weeks and all was good.
they had the institutional knowledge that allowed them to QUICKLY change as needed while still maintaining low warehousing.
Toyota copied the just-in-time system (Kanban) from Hallmark.
On the subject of plastic if not the immediate topic….
Just recently in the UK, just as the Texan cold snap was haha ‘warming up’…
(and in the UK now, sadly, you could make this up daily)
Quote:””NHS gowns ‘suspended’ from use due to packaging concern“”
See the figure mentioned there, £70 million, now see the the following link and cry.
NB: You are not human if you don’t cry. sorry. no excuses.##
Quote: “”Capt Tom donations: What was the £33m spent on“”
And, lead by Bonehead Boris and his mistress, Capt Tom got a ‘National Clap’ following his death from Covid
Have you ever, ever and in Your Entire Life, come across anything so toe-curling, embarrassing and utterly cringe-worthy as ‘A National Clap‘
[shakes head and mutters]
## But wait, there are inhuman creatures out there…
Because, while during and after his children took him on a final holiday to somewhere nice, Covid Trolls tried to make his (remaining few days of) life = Hell
and are still doing it.
What planet is this – I wanna get off
The number of times BoJo has put it around I’m surprised he isn’t responsible for the national clap
No plastic, no modern health services. Surely that’s obvious?
No fossil fuels, no plastics, no modern health services, more like it! Wonder if this simple fact will register or just fall on deaf ears.
“or just fall on deaf ears”
No cochlear implants for deaf children, hearing aids, glasses, contact lenses, kidney dialysis or condoms.
No biological research too, better shut down the lab and go offgrid
Where do I buy my Made in America wooden boar bristle toothbrush? I can’t find any.
Another word: consumption
Yet another word: education
I should have listened back in ’68!
Aaanndd … during the height of Covid alarm months ago, the ubiquitous hand cleaning solutions were primarily made from … wait for it … PROPENE and water … aka known as isopropyl alcohol.
Propene, naturally, is a derivative of hydrocarbons.
For those of us who are staunch boosters of the Appalachian Basin hydrocarbon industries, the current Texas petchem curtailments should prompt sentiment to shift strongly positive for the PTT cracker in Dilles Bottom, Ohio. Announcement for FID might come in next few months. (At least 2 other crackers have been on the drawing board. The near term start up of Shell’s cracker in Monaca might encourage the additional development).
I worked in a small solution polymerization facility back in the day. From time-to-time we’d lose a batch due to operator error, “hot” catalyst, equipment failure, etc. Always a mess, as hundreds of gallons of goo would either blow a disk and end up in the parking lot or simply foul-up the cooling condensers and/or cross-link in-situ in the reactor. Based on this experience, I bet it takes weeks of the modern equivalent of chipping out the gunk before these Texas facilities come back on line.
Cat-crackers and certain polymerization processes may use catalysts that are very oxygen unfriendly. When you want to do a maintenance turnaround on them you have to follow a very specific procedure. If these processes went through an unplanned shutdown, that could be very bad. They’re probably still trying to figure out how to open up some of them without a *boom!* or lighting a really large Roman candle.
Benzoyl-peroxide, aka “bang-o”, was commonly used in our facility. If I recall, it was a powder that came in small bags. Some of the nitwit operators in the plant used to amuse themselves during the late shifts by sprinkling small amounts of it under chair legs, etc.
We are moving towards a Carbon Neutral World….led by Total Petroleum Inc….it will be a Carbon Zero World…a Wonderful Green World…doesn’t it make you proud to be part of this Green Movement? Follow Total into our Carbon Level Future.
Hell, one company was advertising “carbon free” sugar a few years ago. Now that is a chemical process I’d like to see.
There was a polyethylene shortage before the Texas storms. Basically due to all the medical needs.
There was also a cardboard shortage… Even when they had plastic, they were having trouble shipping it out… No boxes.
As the Plastics Today article points out, they were already having trouble keeping up with demand before Winter Storm Younger Dryas shut down much of the petrochemical industry.
At the start of the current pandemic South Australia had a company making hand sanitiser but could not ship it due to a shortage of plastic bottles from China.
Remind me again how lithium ion batteries are packaged and what EVs are made of inside and out to reduce weight and what the plastic tonnage factor is for the green policy elite?
Just when your life and goods had been lightened to comply with CARB’s grand plans, this happens.
Most petrochemical plants (which make plastics), whose compressors and pumps are normally powered by electric power, have backups which can be driven by diesel generators, or sometimes steam turbines during a power failure.
Was a few days of freezing weather so bad that the petrochemical plants ran out of diesel fuel in Texas (the nation’s largest oil-producer), and they ran out of natural gas for their boilers?
Other states that have large petrochemical plants, such as Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, which have much more frequent freezing weather, manage to keep the power on and the petrochemical plants running most of the winter.
Texas needs to winterize its oil and gas production facilities, and their refineries and chemical plants. Although it doesn’t snow very often in south Texas, that area needs to be prepared for when it does snow, and that such a storm doesn’t paralyze the state.
You might want to consider what the power requirement of these large facility are. I know of one genco that maintained two old steam units a while back for purposes of selling capacity to the iso. They were about 500 MW each and burned fuel oil that had to be trucked in. Even when the on-site storage tanks were initially full, they could only run for several days before supply by truck became inadequate.
No need to winterize, just allow the oil and gas to run at most efficient caseload levels in first place. Any other sources likely un necessary, but if truly cheaper alternative, will rise in demand by their own merit.
Reactor effluent compressors can be 50MW
That is an awfully big diesel
i thought plastic came primarily from off shore. Most everything is manufactured there. A few years back, I worked on the decommissioning of a couple plastic production plants south of Houston. I assumed they were shut down because of off-shore competition.
David,
Just wanted thank you for wading through the sewage to find these choice bits for our edification! I do get worried that repeated exposure to leftist stupidity will have harmful effects on your mental processes; I know it did on mine back in college!
As an antidote I recommend regular doses of a good bourbon or single malt scotch! Happily, I am NOT cactus intolerant so I can utilize tequila as well!
How many plastic products did that movie generate from royalty payment wealth?
David,
Thanks for once again highlighting the idiocy of the alarmists! They always seem to forget to ask the very important question framed by the brilliant Thomas Sowell: “Then what?”
Modern civilization relies on plastics for so many things that it would virtually grind to a halt without fossil fuels. Yet GangGreen would rather do away with their production, raising prices and limiting their availability to hurt the poorest amongst us the most!
I apologize for the tantrum today, but there seem to be some particularly stupid trolls visiting! As you are wont to say; “You can’t fix stupid!” But great ignorance is hard to watch in silence!
Which man of straw wants to “kill fossil fuels” needed for necessary chemical and plastics production? Not this one.
Bigger pic, it’s been a month, and the original wind whiners are slinking away from their fact free allegations. The closest entity that I have seen still clinging to that silliness is the EIR, with their selective group of prejudgments. The original wind whiners are also (predictably) deflecting away from seriously investigating what happened, who forgot what when, and then coming up with the lowest total cost way of minimizing the impact of a repeat. Thereby firming up MHO’s, based only on decades of on the ground oil and gas biz experience, and my degenerate addiction to $ following.
Adjacent, after a few sudsy bev’s with my favorite visiting Dallas economist/younger bro, last week, he told me that eyes are on interruptible power contracts with gas fired utilities. Between him and my (also an economist) missus, they managed to school me on why that might have been a good move, pre 2/2021. The peaks you all were most worried about in the past were in the summer. Gas is available then – low building heat requirement, little weather related down time – so you take the lower rate with low risk. Then, when 57 die in the cold, (from low remaining base gas deliverability, neglected/underbuilt gas storage and transportation peaker capacity), it’s just a cost of doing business in central Texas….