The real attraction for someone who wants a bruised shoulder and perfecting their skills? IMHO?
Pigeons. They nest in the city, fly to the farmer's fields, gorge, and return home. They defecate on everything and compete with people for food.
So, they have a system where wealthy gringos pay to be dropped off with water, a guide, and a case of shotgun shells to get in live practice shooting until they get tired. And harvest a bountiful natural crop.
Go premium, and the guide will reload your shotgun, so your thumb stays intact, collect the birds, and for lunch the truck comes by and picks up the harvest, drops off more ammo & food, and rolls to the next hunter, pickup at end of day and it's dinner and drinks around the fire pit, or hot tub.
The better lodges are luxurious, while the cheaper ones are bunk beds in a shed.
The pigeons get dressed, and are sold for food in the cities they plague. Win win, and when run with smart game management, it's a sustainable system unlike most of the eco-idiot crud on the planet.
Me? I'd never go to Columbia to hunt Hippos, I'm a coward, and unless it's from a helicopter with a M2 Browning, I don't want to get anywhere near these angry amphibious death machines. But if you want to, suggest it to the Colombian Government, and the Next U.S. President who's deemed competent to stand trial.
One, rather obvious in retrospect, effect of the Climate Con, is the massive destruction of the environment and use of low paid manual labor to crank up profits for uncaring greedy short sighted a-holes.
It's just cheaper and great for the Harvard MBA cult of higher profits each quarter, or fail. Screw the natives and their ruined lands and rivers, it's not a problem if all you care about is More Money and plan to abandon the mines and deforested eroding hills, choked and dead rivers, and move on. Meanwhile, yachts and mansions in countries that have clean air and water regulations is where the greedy live. Why care about peasants?
I'm sure a close look at coups and revolutions shows the death of leaders and movements that want to feed the people and have clean environmental protection, replaced by nice folk who appreciate the gifts the mine owners give.
Wells for fresh water? Cleaning up the plastic dumped into rivers and then the oceans? Mr. Beast, a Youtuber! Not the government. Too much money in selling carbon credits and wiping out old growth forests. Ecological diversity? Who cares? Tax Cow farts!
I don't know where the piles of not recyclable fiberglass and epoxy resin waste from Saint Greta's sponsors is. But it's not where they live. That and the money is all that matters.
Environmental protection is Dead. Replaced by strip mines and useful idiots gluing themselves to the street.
The good news is that Yellowstone had an anomalous eruption and I expect either a full lockdown of the country for Supervolcano Apocalypse, ( meaning all "mail in" votes ) or, if we're lucky, a Supervolcano Apocalypse.
Probably true. The last one killed all but 70 people according to DNA evidence. And at least that many will survive on the staff of Billionaire's super-shelters, the latest bragging rights status symbol for the super rich.
The article ignores the PURPOSE of the project, which is to make rich people richer, and tax poor & middle class to do so. At gunpoint with threat of prison. By Any Means Necessary.
Not to solve any problems.
Turning electricity and water into Hydrogen is a woefully inefficient process. It's workable, with large over supply of cheap power generation from modern safe clean nuclear, which is not the reality of the American power grid, thanks to the Green Nude Eel Grand Theft Taxes programs of the Biden* Regime.
You could argue, with bad math, that solar & wind that is unreliable and intermittent, is perfect for turning water into stored power useable in fuel cells. Since they suck for powering homes and industry. But cost per kilowatt is really high and environmental impact very high.
And unmentioned is the reality of large industrial scale electrolysis, that designing a system that can run on variable power input & turn on & off all the time is going to be more expensive and less efficient than a plant running at steady power and output, so it's going to need a natural gas burning boiler/turbine/generator plant dedicated to it. And it's going to use and drive up the price of natural gas better used to heat homes and power the grid. In a world where the Greenies forbid safe clean nuclear for politi-cult reasons. ( downfall of Western Civilization as designed by the Soviets )
Burning billions of BTUs to store millions in a new form.
Also ignored is it's cheaper & more efficient to turn natural gas into Hydrogen in chemical plants directly than burning it to make steam, to turn turbines to turn generators to power electrolysis machines to fill slow leaking storage tanks.
But logic, and solving an imaginary problem, isn't the point. It's to make rich guys who bribe the politicians richer. And steal that money from us. And give the politicians unlimited power. Unlike the intermittent lights and HVAC us peasants get.
Among others, one of the 2 bus builders is out of business, bankrupt. The other, Canadian, company hasn't made a profit.
Actually have to give credit to the Austin Useful Idiots for not going all in on one bus company! Especially since the bankrupt one is the one that the Biden* Regime supported.
It's actually smart to want electric buses for urban transportation. Less exhaust in people's faces in the city, quieter, and if built by competent manufacturers, like Thomas, reliable. Fewer parts to break.
But... You need twice as many buses to cover the routes, and a large increase in Grid Power Production to charge them.
Unburdened by what is, the increase in Grid Power Production is a religious blasphemy, so, it would take a rebellion to achieve.
Covering irrigation canals ( India ) to reduce evaporation and use otherwise unusable land.
Cover parking lots to reduce sun damage and keep cars cooler on otherwise unused land, plus reducing urban heat island effect.
That latter seems a great investment opportunity. It doesn't matter that the Climate Con is wrong and a Billionaire Scam, there's positive benefit and government money to pay for it.
I speculate Chevron will sell it's 'Frisco area refinery to a shell company that will use bankruptcy to get out of cleaning up the closed refinery. ( based upon local hazardous waste producing companies )
It's probably not going to be a spectacular fire and explosions refinery closing, there's a lot of expensive electronics and chemical plant gear that can be stripped out and sold for profit. Easily loaded on trucks and sent out of reach of Cali tax collectors. "Closed to be upgraded to new environmental regulations." is a great excuse to strip the facility, and technically true, since a closed refinery isn't making or using anything.
But I can conceive of a villain scenario where the new refinery owner strips the most profitable portable gear, sells out to the Chinese company that local Politicians ( see recent Xi visit ) would collect massive bribes to approve, and burn his bridges and moves to some comfortable place without extradition treaty. There's a bunch of nice yachts out there formerly owned by dead Russian oligarchs that annoyed Putin. ( he'd have to not actually get paid by the Chinese, so they don't come after him, but by not being too greedy, he could focus their ire on the politicians in Cali. )
Nothing is really changing. Chevron will continue to operate in California. They have been moving staff to Houston for several years now. The bulk of them are already there. Now that the hold out executives have retired, they are finally moving the flag. This has been in the works for years.
The inescapable fact is, If you want to replace gasoline in cars, you need to build 1.5 times as much power plant and grid capacity.
Pick any arbitrary unit & number you want, BTUs, Watts, HP, despite the efficiency of boiling water and spinning a turbine with steam, and electric motors converting power to spin, the losses in conversion from one form and one voltage to another, plus distance loss, means you need MORE power than you replace.
And we learned fairly early in the 20th Century with ships, that Diesel converts oil to power more efficiently than boiling water. Boilers and Turbines even then were a fairly mature technology, especially when you can gear the turbines down to prop speed.
Fun Historical facts, The US Navy went from Steam Piston to Steam Turbine drives, before they had the practice and tech to make the big gear reduction drives. ( Pioneered by the British ) So they went to Steam turbine to Generator to Electric drive Battleships, the Biggest fracking Hybrids ever!
And we made it work, despite handling ridiculous amounts of raw electricity in a steel hull in salt water. But when US manufacturing caught up with the precision and heat treating to make huge gear sets, we switched, because the loss in conversion gave less range than geared turbines. ( for a given tonnage in oil )
Meanwhile, in Germany, the Diesel had finally been made big enough to push a Cruiser sized ship around, and the German Navy ( which went through several name changes with government changes ) built long range Cruisers to attack enemy shipping, with longer range than a Steam drive ship. The tech wasn't "quite there" by the late 30's but today almost every commercial ship uses Diesel engines because of fuel efficiency.
We don't use Diesel in power plants, because you need a refined fuel ( Or an onsite heating/filtering/conditioning process ) and get less power out of a barrel of crude than you can out of a boiler, plus the turbine generator doesn't care HOW you boil the water, so you can use mirrors, wood, or Plutonium to boil it, and there's no difference to your AC, just to your wallet.
It is more efficient to use oil to generate electricity, transmit it to homes, and charge a car than it is to burn the oil in the car directly. Stationary power plants are very efficient. Even with transmission losses, the ev is overall more efficient. I have seen the math.
I'm not sure if you are right, or wrong on that. I suspect both. Depending.
My post was on SHIPS. There, you go from fuel to a spinning shaft, and a very limited range of rpm. There, the internal combustion engine rules today, because it's more efficient, or they would still be using steam.
Ironically, Steam Piston engines, in ships, went to triple, even quadruple expansion engines with the steam going to lower & lower pressure cylinders to get as much energy as possible, before condensing the steam back into water, then filtering out the lubricating oil to get pure fresh water.
Turbines were NOT as efficient, but had far fewer moving parts, and were much lighter per hp.
Dreadnought class Battleships in the US Navy transitioned in one class, where sister ships had different powerplants, one Triple Expansion Piston, one Turbine, and while both had the same top speed, the piston ship could only keep up top speed a limited time before it needed maintenance, all those lubrication points! Huge pistons slamming up & down!
Actually my post above can be used to denigrate my actual car choice, Hybrid, which has the Worst of both worlds, a heavy battery, multiple electric motors, and a complex gasoline engine.
But that's still my choice, ( for my econo-box ) because it has fewer limitations than a pure electric, range and cross country speed ( Near speed limits ) and fewer disadvantages than a gasoline only car. ( no belts, alternators, starter )
Our needs may be different, so choices are good. We live in a Golden Age.
I wish I had the mechanical genius to buy a used rental Tesla, and shove the drivetrain into a Dodge van. As my second car, and Thing Hauler, that would be awesome.
It is more efficient to use oil to generate electricity, transmit it to homes, and charge a car than it is to burn the oil in the car directly. Stationary power plants are very efficient. Even with transmission losses, the ev is overall more efficient. I have seen the math.
Now factor in all the energy (fuel) required to a) mine the ingredients for the batteries, b) refine those ingredients, c) manufacture the batteries, d) dispose of those batteries. Not to mention the damage to the planet in the open-pit mines used to extract lithium and other rare earth minerals required for the batteries.
Oh, and the cost of minerals and metals and labor and space required to expand the grid, once/if EV's are widely accepted and we have to heavy-up the entire NATION in order to charge all these damn things. We can't even cover air conditioner use during the summer - how are we supposed to charge a couple billion EV's every night?
You've "seen the math"? I doubt it took into account the WHOLE picture. 500,000 lbs of earth to make a 1,000 lb battery....that's a lot of energy just to GET THE MATERIALS.
And it's part of the equation. Just like oil wells and refineries are part of the ICE equation. If it was ACTUALLY better...the industry (and the market) would have changed to it organically, on its own. But, electric cars were tried - and died - way back in the 1910's. For a reason.
You can't just snap your fingers and an EV appears....
And none of this takes into account the impossibility of extinguishing a battery once it ignites - just sit back and watch, and hope your house is far enough away that it doesn't go up in smoke too.
Rat, all those costs are, obviously, built in to the price of the vehicle, and have zilch to do with energy efficiency. A 40k ev and a 40k ice car cost the same, yes? The ev costs far less to maintain and operate. An ev may not work for you, but does for a lot of folks, myself included. Have you driven a Tesla? Try it. You may change your mind.