Making Sausage
It’s 0240 HRS atop Arizona’s remote Mogollon Rim, and I’m sitting at my desk chipping away at tomorrow’s blog, musing about writing and wondering whether I should waste my time on a new book I’d like to write (not Havana – see below) in light of other projects underway. Life only offers two things. Time and the choice of how to spend it. So I need to make some allocation decisions.
A life-flight helicopter just flew overhead to land at the fire station (where there is a helipad for medivac/casevac use) about a mile away. They don’t fly the helicopter to this remote site (with its expensive equipment and crew) unless there’s a reason. So as my day begins, somebody else’s may be ending. I selected this site for the White Wolf Mine in part because of a paramedic manned fire station (24/7/365) in a place where there are so few of them. I’m not bothered in the least by the sound of the arriving helicopter in the darkness because I know – ask not for whom the bell tolls. Much of the time, it’s because some moron is driving through the night on the two-lane hardball road (the only one that will take you from here to there), oblivious of the elk. The elk carcasses on the roadside that lions, wolves, coyotes, bears, etc., feast on are mute witnesses to the cars loaded with passengers that hit them in the dark on a mountain with spotty to no cell service. (Satphones work, but not many people invest in those.)
A friend called yesterday with some work (in-n-out) in Kuwait. When the money lands, I’ll know it’s real. See time allocation (above). Okay, back to work on surreal tasks in a surreal world.
Bullet Points:
** When you take the Crusade, and you run out of cash, what do you do?
** Those are some motley-looking British soldiers.
** Should I do a graphic novel (see right)? There isn’t a solid market, and they’re a lot of work…so I’m torn.
** This is a very good explanation of marine fuels and what it takes to make them work. Even if you don’t care much about the subject, the education is still worth the time it takes to read the article. Fuels are never as easy as they seem to be. Marine bunker fuel is even more complicated. Understanding crude oil and its distillates clarifies so much about fuels and lubricants. The article isn’t a primer on that – it stands on its own.
** A discussion of the Ogallala Aquifer. We need to build nuclear power plants to desalinate seawater and pump fresh water wherever it’s needed, and we should have been doing it yesterday.
** (h/t Ken) China and Russia are not natural allies. They are partners of convenience held together mainly by a shared rivalry with America. Trump’s strategy is simple: Show limited goodwill to one side so the other side becomes nervous about being isolated. That psychological pressure weakens trust between Beijing and Moscow over time. This is a classic offshore balancing strategy- the same logic Britain used in Europe for centuries, and the same logic America used during the Cold War to split China and the Soviet Union. Trump is not trying to “please” Xi Jinping. He’s trying to prevent the emergence of a united anti-American bloc. From Washington’s perspective, stopping China and Russia from fully merging strategically may be the single most important geopolitical objective of the decade.
** Jules explores Frogs, Folklore, and Boiled Heads.
** LSP prowls the bright side of London as his walkabout continues.
** OldNFO celebrates his 19th!
** VDH explains how democrats are like thirteen-year-old children.
** An explanation of American logistics in the Pacific Theater in WW2.
From the Wayback Machine
SMRs Afloat
CDRSAL laments the DDG(X). It’s easy to see where he’s coming from. Capital ships from design to commission take decades and span administrations. Will a future generation kill the Trump Class BBGN(X) project? Does that kick the DDG(X) design down the hallway a decade or more? The answer is that nobody knows, but at some point before the Arleigh Burke Class design reaches 100 years in age, a new design might be considered. Though CDRSAL doesn’t poke the elephant in the room, LCDRLL will.
A lot rides on the development of small nuclear generators (reactors) (SMR), with designs that are currently legion. Because it’s a ship, there is plenty of saltwater to cool the plant, so it doesn’t need to be a contained coolant reactor. BUT the coming DDG(X) will need a nuclear powerplant to operate weapons beyond 2050, so let’s just take that as a given. The Navy doesn’t want to commit itself to the idea that all future significant warships will be nuclear-powered, but they will be. Old NFO, Boats, and others who visit this blog may disagree, but I’m right. Even frigates (FFGN) could have small nuclear propulsion plants, which make the employment of energy weapons possible. We’re talking about a reactor the size of a CONEX container that won’t cost all that much more than a gas turbine engine to buy (if produced at scale for both military and civilian applications).
If I were a young man rather than an old man, I’d focus on designing a marine SMR for main propulsion across all shipping applications, rather than blogging (which you’ll admit is a waste of time). I’ve tried to push grandsons toward this, but they don’t have the vision, and I get it. They have their own dragons to slay. That notwithstanding, the future of energy until we can figure out fusion is with fission/uranium & trans-uranium decay. I am not anti-oil, and I’m not a climate alarmist. The truth is that if we can deliver it at a reasonable price, safely, it’s by far the best solution and makes worldwide dependence on unstable areas almost moot.
The Russians need to run a Gauntlet to Break Out
Additionally, the Baltic is shallow for submarines and tricky for surface ships. Currents, fog, and narrow (shallow) waterways make naval engagements tricky and unpredictable. You think the Strait of Hormuz is challenging. Naval mines come into their own in bottling up the Russians in the Baltic. Make mine warfare great again (For your ballcap: MMWGA – yeah, it’s getting out of control).
If I did a graphic novel, I think I’d set it in Havana in 2030.
Identify the Aircraft
1
2
two graphics
3
4
Parting Shot
End
Identify the Aircraft
1 – Arado Ar 234 V21
2 – McDonnell XP-67
3 – Fiat CR.42
4 – Polikarpov Po-2M
Outstanding
(1) I’m going to agree with the hint – Arado 234 v21.
(2) McDonnell XP-67 Moonbat, the State Aircraft of California.
(3) Looks an awful lot like a CR-42?
(4) IDK that one.
– Kle.
Well done. #3, the Fiat, flew with the Luftwaffe throughout WW2.
Desalination; x2 L.L. The west is still an ag frontier waiting for such a development. Where we lived in Southern Sonora, the locals, part of the ejido programs, waited 20 yrs for canal development from a reservoir 20 miles away. When the canals did come, what had looked like waste land – scrub cactus and Palo Verde turned into fertile crop rotations depending on the year’s rainfall. Yes, marginal ground but worth the investment of the seed companies that financed the crop endeavors. A few of the locals engaged and were able to ” work their land”. Others became no more than skilled laborers. Over all it brought life to the 1/2 abandoned villages.
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SMR and SNR land installations that you’ve been seeing deployed?
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Graphic novel; great art L.L. There’s a potential thousand words for each image. Let it flow and enjoy whatever you decide to do.
As of today, there are only two Small Modular Reactor (SMR) designs in commercial operation. While over 80 designs are currently in various stages of development, only Russia and China have successfully deployed operational units to their grids. And since those are ‘secret’, we don’t know in terms of open sourcing how they’re working out. Rolls-Royce’s entry is still tied up in UK regulatory paperwork, but the British Government has ordered 3 units that are expected to go online within 3 or 4 years. I am not suggesting that anyone do anything unsafe when it comes to nuclear energy, but the regulatory burden makes these systems many times more expensive to develop than they need to be. SMRs should be on line in Poland later this summer.
Thanks, I’m hoping that they pop up like daisies as prolific as the wind mills have. A local University started construction a couple years ago, not sure how far they’ve gotten. Link below.
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https://www.ans.org/news/article-6394/acu-gets-permit-to-build-nations-first-molten-salt-university-research-reactor/
Explanation of marine fuels – Wow – A lot to understand – I will stick with my basic understanding of #2, 3,4,5 & 6 FO and that marine engines typically run on #6 bunker fuel.
***
Ogallala Aquifer – A known problem and known for many many years. But no action will be taken until the tap runs dry. I have yet to see a good explanation of how or if it can be recharged other than stop the pumping and wait for the next ice age to top it off? Nuke powered desalination and pumping – I cannot see that changing things in the Ogallala. Even in a couple of lifetimes.. Diverting the great lakes – Bad bad plan
I wondered that myself about the capacity of desalinization.
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Great Lakes water: Molon Labe.
The capacity is based on the energy applied to the process and the scale at which one would build. It’s a lot like data centers. If you need them, you need to build reactors to service them and to desalinate seawater sufficient to support them along the coasts first.
.
300 million people receive drinking water from desalination worldwide. 95 to 110 million cubic meters of salt and brackish water are desalinated worldwide every day. This volume is produced by more than 21,000 operational desalination plants across roughly 177 to 185 countries. If you increase the scale. For comparison, Lees Ferry, Arizona: (The critical gauge used to divide the Upper and Lower Basins.) The naturalized, long-term average flow of the Colorado River translates to about 1.6 million cubic meters per day.
👍
Up early myself as an unexpected noise often does that when one lives ‘out’…had two field mice in the BBQ rattling around. Woke up to snow after a night of much needed off and on rain…which here in Montana will help the aquifer, albeit there is water 3 feet down in the hay fields running through the first layer of river gravel, and the spring fed small lake hasn’t dropped its level since we’ve been here. As for the mid-states, while concerning, I’ve heard the same dire reporting half my life, and yet nothing changes. ‘If you build it they will come’…and the Front Range in Colorado doesn’t seem to care how many McStain “neighborhoods” get built out over farmland, every single one wants a green lawn that they hire someone else to come mow. Yours is the only long term solution if the ‘revenue demanders’ (city managers, town councils, etc) continue without a care to increase their holding area and call it advancement. I call it something else.
***
Not a good look for the British military, is that what they really want?
***
Troy Movie Clip…an epic scene with many lessons shown.
***
Graphic Novel: Really enjoying the period artwork…will it become more of a job than ‘fun’ if doing the novel? That to me is the go/no go point anymore for such endeavors (as I sit here looking out the cabin window thinking it may be a snow day and maybe a day of ‘not working outside’ once in a while isn’t so wrong).
Greed is problematic. Most housing developments don’t take into account the impact on transportation (traffic), energy or water usage because developers bribe their way into planning meetings. I’ve seen it a lot in my years on Earth. There are some exceptions, but not many.
desalination – how do the Israelis do it? is it worthwhile to follow their example? I believe the Israelis are desalinating water from the Mediterranean; we have the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Gulf of America. The main power source for the Shafdan plan is biogas; we could use nuclear or biogas produced by waste treatment facilities.
I see nuclear as more reliable for large-scale projects. Biogas is better suited to smaller systems. Israel uses advanced seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination technology that is powered by methane (natural gas). I have no problem with using biofuel, but you should be able to drop an SMR almost anywhere without worrying about the gas supply. Israel is small and relies on its offshore fields (relatively close to their 5 desalination plants).
Just a bit to the east, the UAE has a number of huge desalination plants. If you drink the tap water, you don’t notice any odd flavors at all.
The big problems in the US for developing desalination plants are the various green groups and the legislators who take bribes from them to control our water supply. Decades ago, a plan to run a pipeline from the Mississippi to the lower portions of the Western states was developed and proposed. It would use solar power to work pumps and clean the Mississippi brown water to beautiful clear, clean water by the time it got to the destination. Of course that died right off the bat.
*****
California was going to build a plant for the LA basin but that was also shot down in flames.
*****
There are easy solutions to America’s basic problems, but they are common sense solutions with little ability to skim the bucks. So, they all die. I am hopeful for Valar Atomics micro reactors to gain traction and get our country moving again.
The California Coastal Commission keeps shooting them down as does the Surfrider Foundation. While I am a conservationist at heart, I don’t see how the two are not compatable.
not totally off-topic – maybe
one interesting point noted by an old (aging) man:
it appears bilateral lower extremity pitting edema becomes more common/obvious in those who sit (at a computer desk, for example); it also occurs in those of us who have to stand in one place without movement – I don’t think it’ll ever be seen in those with adult ADHD – conversing with them is like watching a tennis match
( and I’m not even going to discuss what’s normally known as “spreading”)
is it healthier to use a mike while walking around and then sit for a few moments to make corrections?
The solution is to transfer your consciousness into one of Musk’s robots.
And then you end up with an axe in hand waiting for Dorothy to come along and oil you.
Yeah, maybe. It worked out.
Parting Shot: What still galls is how the Liberals, and now the Left, have regressed the MLK effect in the last 20 years as if the prior 30 years hadn’t happened. Affirmative Action ran its course, albeit not a good solution (ie. government)…the Black/White ‘thing’ is massively worse now than when I was in High School, never saw color, only a person. (Same goes for welfare) Any honest person would admit that race relations are in tatters, for all races…and heaped on that is the trans delusion insanity that we’ve been force fed as something else to glom onto and be ‘tolerant’ (more made up baloney). The do-gooder tolerant ‘fix’ is what is now called DEI, which amps up the rhetoric without solving anything, and in fact, these actions of the self-appointed few produce more of the perceived problem, never less. Heck, toss in ‘climate whatevertheheck’ or any new form of angst-driven Chicken Little idiocy WTP are demanded to embrace. Maybe it’s me…maybe I’m old enough to have enough rearview to see what the ‘feelings driven’ meddlers do is more harm than good, and we’ve allowed this baloney to thrive instead of stomping it out at its germination.
When you blend rampant racism with teachers’ unions, you get the results that we see.
Results are what matters in determining the other sides agenda, and their results are miserable, so one wonders; is it stupidity, purely emotion-driven, or – in many instances – on purpose? Unless one takes into account unintended consequences, which seems rampant on their side of the chasm, some deference can be given to not ideal outcomes. But in these societal problems, their approach is to ‘throw more of our money and government nanny-ism’ at the problem which always escalates the problem. Don’t want drugs here in America, blow the traffickers up while en route…works. But they cry foul as this is considered inhumane (it’s not of course). As shown in a video you posted a moon or two back the ’cause-oriented’ people NEED the homeless to continue their grift. More of our money has been spent on ‘fixing’ (aka screwing with while giving their own cause millions) something any normal thinking person would generate a simpler solution inside of a month…yet we get little say, actually, we’re ignored (same as ‘desalination’ and ‘SMR’s’…solutions versus purposeful dithering).
This dynamic is no different than some families; one child is self-directed and mature, the other – often the younger – is lost (usually characterized as ‘a free spirit and fun at parties’). The lost one sucks all the parenting time as Mom and Dad try to ‘fix’ the wayward child while the other is left alone to fend for themselves. We’re the ‘fend for ourselves’ ones…the Lib/Left is the ‘directionless child’.
The grifting means that the people who actually need help are f-ed three ways from Sunday.
A sad commentary on what should be an enlightened society – greed is built into some DNA.
Stand by for upcoming Montana ObamaCare scam article (stay tuned to VM)
Don’t be shattering my Montana peaceful illusions.
Starting from scratch, American industry flung new ships into the water in WWII like nothing the world had seen before or since. For example, the first Liberty ships took about 8 months to build but before the war was over, that was down to little more than a month. Destroyers, aircraft carriers and subs were cranked out in enormous quantities as well. Certainly, warships are more complicated today, but considering today’s naval procurement process, look how far we’ve come (spit).
spit twice.
They were actually built faster than ‘monthly’. I seem to recall them taking a week or two from keel laying, to hitting the water.
**Life only offers two things. Time and the choice of how to spend it.** I don’t think truer words have ever been said…even if reality messes with your choices.
My favorite line from the Indiana Jones movies is where the old knight says “he chose poorly” right after his choice kills him.
X2
** Should I do a graphic novel (see right)? There isn’t a solid market, and they’re a lot of work…so I’m torn.**
Is it fun?
I need to sort out my work life over the next couple of months. The Middle East is a disaster, and from my humble perspective, American flip-flopping makes it impossible to do anything. I am a Pro-Trump MAGA guy, but the whole art-of-the-deal unpredictability makes business exceptionally difficult. I have several projects hanging fire, in different phases of development, and they interfere with writing and art. Situations with my children and grandchildren keep me in the work game because I want to help them.
They are fun to read, but they go too fast.
I’m still re-reading Broken Toys to run up to Hungry Ghosts.
**rather than blogging (which you’ll admit is a waste of time).**
Not true, not true at all. (From my point of view).
I appreciate that, but “commercially”, blogging takes up a lot of time with no return, and I refuse to do the tip jar thing.
We gain ‘the return’…
Your blog gives me a lot to ponder daily while [often] venting my spleen…which is rather cathartic, typos and all. But I seriously need to just purchase all your books to support the effort, even if it takes the rest of my days to finish reading them once ‘the projects’ are “finished”.
X2
should the event, I don’t know how much I would expend monthly/annually to subscribe to Virtual Mirage?
Then again, an important part of the blog (to me, anyway) is the responses by the people (highly intelligent with an very comfortable ease of exposition and a couple of millenia combined knowledge) who follow/read VM – and if they didn’t subscribe?
I’m with Boron.
I’d certainly contribute my widow’s mite.
VM ( in toto) is just too valuable
Juan
If I needed the money, I wouldn’t blog for it. I’m not tap dancing for tips. I’m not implying that I want them. I do appreciate it when you buy and review the books. I don’t deny that. It’s more of a validation thing for me.
Nice to know you are not alone in the thought universe, and we are not aliens from another world (if I say so myself).
That’s what they all say….
🤣
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Arado Ar 234 Blitz prototype.
2. McDonnell XP-67
3. Fiat CR.42LW Falco
4. Polikarpov U-2M
Perfect, Surly.
Marine fuels – Geeze, they make Marvel Mystery Oil for commercial maritime engines!?
It’s one thing to dump a bottle into an old Slant 6, and see if it helps anything. Putting
“magic juice” into a multi-tens-of-million-dollars ship’s engine the size of a building
is freakin’ nuts.
*
Oglalla aquifer – mass fission-fuelled desalination would be a good plan, but since
all the legislatures are full of Legislators instead of people, it’s a good thing that there
are plenty of other places lying fallow to farm when farming dies in these areas. The
super-efficiency of agribusiness (at least, output-wise) makes growing more food than
we need easy, even with the loss of the entire belt. Sure gonna be a lot of new ghost
towns, though.
*
DDG(X) – Yes, absolutely. We’re going to need a CGN(X), too. Also an actual FFG, instead of
a near-useless OPV/Cutter, even before your proposed FFGN(X). I expect the next generations
of destroyers and cruisers will need to be in the 12,000-18,000 ton and 20,000-25,000 ton
ranges, so (N) is the only sensible choice.
– Kle.
SMRs Afloat. Just curious. Would there be any thermal/stealth concerns from the reactor cooling water going back into the sea? Or is that rendered moot by other factors?
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Your time. The free education you provide here is invaluable. Thanks again.
There have been efforts to track nuclear submarines based on thermal signatures. I have never had access to those (classified) studies, but the fact that we still send them to sea suggests that the heat dissipation in the ocean works (so far). I’m talking about powering surface ships with SMRs, and you don’t need stealth to do that. I’m talking about power COMMERCIAL shipping with commercial SMRs that are MODULAR and can be removed if the hull is no longer viable. The heat exchange from a ship means that you don’t need to use some of the more exotic cooling schemes (expense), but you will still need a moderator medium within the reactor (pick one – liquid sodium, heavy water, light water, whatever), and the uranium or thorium does NOT need to be enriched to create a generator. You can design around it. Nuclear power plants that use non-enriched (natural) uranium primarily rely on heavy water or graphite as moderators to maintain a nuclear chain reaction. Unlike light-water reactors, which require fuel enriched to 3–5% U-235, these designs are efficient enough to use natural uranium, which contains only ~0.7% U-235.
Best blog on the planet bar none. I get a daily education.
Water situation—so complex and yet the modern man fails to grasp it. Early guys like Powell and I B Perrine knew the score. Mainly not forward thinking thanks to politicritters, fed and local.
Logistics—-again the average person has no idea. I was one of the first in the old Bell System to use JIT to run operations in Yuma. Headquarters was in Phoenix, so not exactly close. My successors went back to “That’s the way we always done it.” You can’t fix stupid. BTW one of the reasons I retired at 52 was we had DEI way before dims made it the norm.
Keep up the good work until you don’t enjoy it anymore!
x2
Juan
It can be a frustrating hobby.
Every time I watch some western where the farm or ranch looks like a dust bowl, I wonder how or why they did it.
The climate is a harsh mistress, EdB. As a geologist (among other things), I’m continually amazed at how the changing climate’s causes and effects have impacted Earth. Of course, that also extends to Mars, Venus, etc.
My thought as well, leave a bucolic Virginia farm with a thriving town center, often a nice comfortable life for the era, to parts unknown and dangerous and inhospitable.
the Ogallala Aquifer
Dry land farming is perhaps the riskiest gamble. On the high prairie East of the Rockies perhaps one in four years will yield a bumper crop. For sure, as is the situation this year, the farmer won’t make back the cost of planting some years. Drive CO 14 from Ault to Sterling and see what happened to homesteaders during the Dust Bowl era. You need to pay attention as the buildings are falling in and the large cemeteries have no nearby towns now.
There are many smaller aquifers that are declining faster than the Ogallala with few new ones being found. Seems there is a huge one under the Great Salt Lake.
I remember my older relatives always asking the question, “Where is the water?”, on any piece of land.
A lot of dry-farmed wheat is grown in the US.
When you figure it, a crop farmer has…what…40 or so seasons to get a good yield, often not happening. That’s when you hear “Maybe next year…”
A lot of bones were left bleaching on the prairie without a memorial marker.
Every time I’m out driving and see abandoned homes and barns, I always wonder who lived there? What was their story? Why did they leave?
This is off topic ,but I feel someone here will know.
Did Bebe call for US ground troops into Iran ? I thought I read it somewhere , but online search doesn’t find anything . Maybe my imagination .
I haven’t heard that.
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I’m surprised that we haven’t taken any of the channel islands. I’d be shocked if we hadn’t put recon ashore but the findings would be classified, so no joy there.
Re the Baltic, the Russians have two ‘ports’ there. Kaliningrad Oblast- which is their ‘big’ base in the Baltic, but no real major combatants, and only a few diesel subs. Leningrad Naval Base- actually sits on the island of Kotlin, north west of St. Petersburg, and has no submarines, minor surface combatants, and some auxiliary ships, mostly defensive in nature. From what I remember, all of the assets in those two bases were considered ‘write offs’ if things went rodeo. Graphic novels are EXPENSIVE to produce, and really can only be sold as hard copy. Unless you have a well known character, I don’t think they would ever make even the initial investment back… FWIW…
That was certainly true in the day of having to pay a line artist and then a colorist.
With AI, I wonder if that is still true.
An indication of my age would be to tell you the boilers I steamed were fueled with NSFO. Nasty, sticky, stinky crap that stained your hands and anything else it contacted. We heated it to 155degrees to get it to atomize so it would burn. What was worse was cleaning it off the tubes during a fireside evolution. I can still smell it.
Your blog is a wealth of knowledge and you bring up things that make a person consider what they otherwise may have not.. I learn here every time I swing by and read.
FWIW, I appreciate your worldly views and the more local ones as well. Your travel advice was certainly excellent.
So you were on the ark with Noah – BT. That works. Better than an animal tender.