Posted by orrinj at
12:00 AMWHEN SIDES SIT DOWN TO NEGOTIATE...:
President Biden spoke to reporters today after his meeting with House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) about raising the debt ceiling. "I just finished, I thought, a productive meeting with the congressional leadership about the path forward to make sure America does not default--I emphasize does not default on its debt for the first time in history," he began. "And I'm pleased but not surprised to hear [the] Republican minority leader of the United States Senate saying...at our meeting that the United States is not going to default. It never has, and it never will. And he's absolutely correct." The teams will continue to meet before the principals reconvene on Friday.
Biden went on to lay out the differences between his plan and that of the Republicans under McCarthy. He began by warning that a default would create a "significant recession," devastating retirement accounts and increasing the cost of borrowing. He quoted Moody's Analytics that nearly 8 million Americans would lose their jobs and added that our international reputation would be ruined.
"Default is not an option," he repeated. "America is not a deadbeat nation. We pay our bills." Congress avoided default three times under Trump "without once--not one time--creating a crisis, rattling the markets, or undermining the unshakable trust the world has in America's commitment to paying its bills." Biden noted that Trump drove the debt up significantly and that in his own first two years he had reduced the debt by an unprecedented $1.7 trillion.
...one has already won.
Posted by orrinj at
12:00 AMTHANKS, VLAD!:
A Gallup survey released in late April found that 55 percent of U.S. adults support the use of nuclear power. That's up four percentage points from last year and reflects the highest level of public support for nuclear energy use in electricity since 2012.
Posted by orrinj at
12:00 AMWHAT ABOUT DAYS WHEN THE CENTER OF THE EARTH ISN'T HOT?:
Abandoned coal mines generally fill with water when the mining has ceased. That water contains heat from far below the earth's surface. People can drill bore holes to bring that heat to the surface, then pass it through heat exchanges and heat pumps in buildings and in homes.
The first neighborhood mine-water heating scheme in Great Britain just went into full operation at the end of March and will eventually serve over 1,200 homes.
"Each minable scheme poses its different challenges, and there will be expenses involved with drilling bore holes or laying district heat network pipes in the ground," explained Gareth Farr, head of heat and by-product innovation at the Coal Authority in Mansfield, England. "But hopefully most of these schemes, if not all of them, will be able to operate at a similar or better cost to the traditional fossil-fuel heating schemes we have at the moment."
Geothermal energy is not new, but taking it from abandoned coal mines is not yet common, especially in the United States.
Professor and director of the Environmental Studies Program at Ohio University, Natalie Kruse-Daniels, and her students are studying abandoned mines in Appalachian Ohio to see which ones are close enough to towns to be used for home heating.
