NNadir

NNadir's Journal

January 14, 2023

So I have that new improved souped up XBB.1.5 Covid.

As I noted in a previous post in this space my wife got Covid last week:

The mask is back on. My wife has XBB.1.5 (apparently) Covid.

I commented on some of the science behind this new variant, which apparently is well equipped to evade antibodies generated by vaccines here: Some pretty bad news on the XBB.1 Covid Variant.

My wife was pretty sick for about two days; she's almost completely better, five days out.

My son also tested positive; he had a cough, some lethargy, and congestion. He had to organize an art show he's supervising remotely, so not as to infect people, not an easy trick, but he was not so sick as to be unable to do it.

Now I have it. Like my previous adventure with breakthrough Covid, it feels like a very, very, very bad cold, chills, mild fever, congestion, occasional cough, headache and lethargy. I think the worst was yesterday. I'm feeling better today. I'm still sick, but have been able to read.

I may have a better set of antibodies than my wife had, since I had a breakthrough case between my last "regular" vaccine and the booster. I suspect that this case had some of the mutations now found in XBB.1.5. I'm sure too, the vaccines helped.

The good news is that the cases we all had were not life threatening, annoying but not life threatening.

January 13, 2023

Biggest Sources of Electrical Generation in Canada and the US.

Mapped: Biggest Sources of Electricity by State and Province

We're nearly half a century into "renewable energy" will save us. This is where we are.

Here's another place we are:

January 12: 419.70 ppm
January 11: 418.90 ppm
January 10: 419.15 ppm
January 09: 419.17 ppm
January 08: 419.32 ppm
Last Updated: January 13, 2023

Recent Daily Average Mauna Loa CO2

The broader trend:

Week beginning on January 01, 2023: 419.31 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 417.55 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 394.96 ppm
Last updated: January 13, 2023

Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa

The first graphic has a small title about an "energy shift."

My opinion is that the shift is from bad to worse.

January 13, 2023

"Renewable Energy" researcher recycles text; ten papers retracted or to be retracted.

Just for fun:

Renewable energy researcher recycled material, agrees to withdraw 10 papers

Investigations at two institutions at Taiwan determined in 2013 that a renewable energy researcher duplicated his own work; the researcher agreed to pull 10 papers. A total of six have been withdrawn or retracted, two in November, 2015.

Shyi-Min Lu is the corresponding author on the two newly retracted papers, from Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. The retractions follow investigations at the Industrial Technology Research Institute, where Lu used to work, and National Taiwan University, his former employer. Lu admitted to committing offenses in 10 papers. He was fired from NTU, where he was a research assistant at the university’s Energy Research Center.

First author Falin Chen — also a co-author on the paper duplicated by the retractions — was not aware that the papers bearing his name had been submitted. He told us how he found out: ...

January 12, 2023

Some pretty bad news on the XBB.1 Covid Variant.

My fully vaccinated wife has Covid and was pretty sick, although she seems to be improving. My son is also not feeling well. I have a slight cough.

This situation motivated me to look into the XBB.1.5 variant that seems to be circulating, which I suspect my wife has.

I accessed this paper this morning: Qian Wang, Sho Iketani, Zhiteng Li, Liyuan Liu, Yicheng Guo, Yiming Huang, Anthony D. Bowen, Michael Liu, Maple Wang, Jian Yu, Riccardo Valdez, Adam S. Lauring, Zizhang Sheng, Harris H. Wang, Aubree Gordon, Lihong Liu, David D. Ho, Alarming antibody evasion properties of rising SARS-CoV-2 BQ and XBB subvariants, Cell, 2022, a corrected proof in press.

The paper is fully open sourced, anyone can read it, but I'll produce the opening paragraphs and a pretty depressing graphic from the paper as well.

The intro:

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), continues to rage due to emergence of the Omicron variant and its descendant subvariants.1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 Although the BA.5 subvariant is globally dominant at this time (Figure 1A), a diverse array of Omicron sublineages have arisen and are competing in the so-called “variant soup”.11 It has become apparent that four new subvariants are rapidly gaining ground on BA.5, raising the specter of yet another wave of infections in the coming months. BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 were first identified in Nigeria in early July and then expanded dramatically in Europe and North America, now accounting for 67%, 35%, and 47% of cases in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, respectively (Figure 1A). XBB and XBB.1 were first identified in India in mid-August and quickly became predominant in India, Singapore, and other regions in Asia (Figure 1A). BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 evolved from BA.5, whereas XBB and XBB.1 resulted from a recombination between two BA.2 lineages, BJ.1 and BA.2.75 (Figure 1B). These two sublineages are continuing to evolve and diversify, with an ever-increasing complexity of spike mutations. However, the spike protein of the predominant BQ.1 subvariant harbors the K444T and N460K mutations in addition to those found in BA.5, with BQ.1.1 having an additional R346T mutation (Figures 1C and S1). Strikingly, the spike of the predominant XBB subvariant has 14 mutations in addition to those found in BA.2, including 5 in the N-terminal domain (NTD) and 9 in the receptor-binding domain (RBD), whereas XBB.1 has an additional G252V mutation (Figures 1C and S1). The rapid rise of these subvariants and their extensive array of spike mutations are reminiscent of the appearance of the first Omicron variant last year, thus raising concerns that they may further compromise the efficacy of current COVID-19 vaccines and monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapeutics. We now report findings that indicate that such concerns are, sadly, justified, especially so for the XBB and XBB.1 subvariants.

I added the bold.

The XBB virus has been fully sequenced, and the sites of the mutations are known. "K444T" refers to the substitution at the 444th residue in the spike protein of a threonine for a lysine. "N460K" refers to a substitution at the 460th residue of a lysine for an asparagine.

The following graphic shows the evolutionary history of variants of Covid:

The caption:

Figure 1. The rise of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BQ.1, BQ.1.1, XBB, and XBB.1 subvariants

(A) Frequencies of Omicron subvariants from the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID). Variants were designated according to their Pango dynamic lineage classification.12 Minor sublineages of each subvariant were grouped together with their parental variant. The values in the upper left corner of each box denote the cumulative number of sequences for all circulating viruses in the denoted time period.

(B) Unrooted phylogenetic tree of Omicron subvariants along with other main SARS-CoV-2 variants. The scale bar indicates the genetic distance.

(C) Key spike mutations found in XBB and XBB.1 in the background of BA.2 and in BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 in the background of BA.4/5. Del, deletion. The positions of these mutations on the spike trimer are shown in Figure S1.

This graphic shows the location of the mutations on the spike protein:

The caption:

Figure S1. Key spike mutations of BQ and XBB subvariants, related to Figure 1

(A and B) Key mutations of BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 in the context of BA.4/5 (A), and key mutations of XBB and XBB.1 in the context of BA.2 (B).

See also Figure 1.

And now for the real depressing graphic, showing the decreased neutralization capacity of antibodies:

The caption:

Figure 3. Resistance of Omicron subvariants to monoclonal antibody neutralization

(A) Footprints of NTD- and RBD-directed antibodies tested are outlined, and mutations within BQ.1, BQ.1.1, XBB, and XBB.1 are highlighted in red.

(B) The fold changes in neutralization IC50 values of BQ.1, BQ.1.1, XBB, XBB.1, and the individual mutants compared with BA.4/5 or BA.2, with resistance colored red and sensitization colored green. The raw IC50 values are shown in Figure S2.

See also Figure S2.

The good news, as I understand it, is that this variant does not seem as severe in terms of illness, and there is some protective effect with vaccination status, although how much is on clear.

The authors make the comforting statement I will put in bold:

Therefore, it is alarming that these newly emerged subvariants could further compromise the efficacy of current COVID-19 vaccines and result in a surge of breakthrough infections as well as re-infections. However, it is important to emphasize that although infections may now be more likely, COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to remain effective at preventing hospitalization and severe disease even against Omicron35,36,37,38 as well as possibly reducing the risk of post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC or long COVID).39,40,41

But it's also clear from my perspective, we're going to need another vaccine. We do have the machinery to do this now, so that is also good news.

The authors conclusions:

Lastly, we found that the spikes of BQ and XBB subvariants have similar binding affinities to hACE2 as the spikes of their predecessors (Figure 5), suggesting that the recently observed growth advantage for these novel subvariants is likely due to some other factors. Foremost may be their extreme antibody evasion properties, especially considering the extensive herd immunity built up in the population over the last three years from infections and vaccinations. BQ.1, BQ.1.1, XBB, and XBB.1 subvariants exhibit far greater antibody resistance than earlier variants, and they may fuel yet another surge of COVID-19 infections. We have collectively chased after SARS-CoV-2 variants for over two years, and yet, the virus continues to evolve and evade. This continuing challenge highlights the importance of developing vaccine and mAb approaches that protect broadly and anticipate the antigenic trajectory of SARS-CoV-2.

I have heard, peripherally, I will now look into it more deeply, that a "master" vaccine that may work against all or most corona viruses, including those responsible for the common cold, is under development.

My wife is suffering from nausea and diarrhea, before taking Paxlovid, and these are side effects of the drug, so she's reluctant to take it.

I'm going to work from home until it becomes clear what the situation is.

The bottom line: Be careful, keep your Covid supplies handy.

Update: My son just tested positive. The historical test kits seem to respond to this variant. He's sick, but not as sick as my wife.

January 11, 2023

The mask is back on. My wife has XBB.1.5 (apparently) Covid.

She, like me, is fully vaccinated, but was pretty sick, nausea, headache, running a low grade fever. The test was run in the doctor's office, flu, A&B; RSV; and Covid all together. Covid won.

Nature News describes XBB.1.5 as "The Great-Grandchild of Omicron."

We're fully stocked with supplies; I'll work from home until next week, and I'll mask up wherever I go. She got a Paxlovid scrip and has been told to quarantine until Saturday.

I'm OK; my son was mildly ill a few days back, but tested negative with a home kit.

I don't feel sick, but if I do, I'll test. I do wonder about the specificity of the test kits I have, since they are generally ligand binding assays, but hey, if I get sick, I'll go to the Doctor myself.

January 8, 2023

Good News! The Wind's Blowing in Germany! German Carbon Intensity Is Only 788% Higher Than...

...That of France! It's 23:45 01/08/23 Sunday evening, Berlin time

Electricity Map Accessed 01/08/23 5:45 pm EST US.

I'm sure everyone loves "percent talk." It's very popular.

January 7, 2023

Telomere Shortening, a Biomarker for Aging, Is Increased by High Ambient Temperatures.

The paper I'll briefly discuss is this one: Higher Daily Air Temperature Is Associated with Shorter Leukocyte Telomere Length: KORA F3 and KORA F4 Wenli Ni, Kathrin Wolf, Susanne Breitner, Siqi Zhang, Nikolaos Nikolaou, Cavin K. Ward-Caviness, Melanie Waldenberger, Christian Gieger, Annette Peters, and Alexandra Schneider, Environmental Science & Technology 2022 56 (24), 17815-17824.

KORA is an abbreviation (in German) of "Kooperative Gesundheitsforschung in der Region Augsburg," a series of longitudinal epidemiological studies conducted in a region of Germany.

Genetic Epidemiology of Refractive Error in the KORA

Germany is a nation that has committed, albeit informally, but nonetheless in a practical sense, to make climate change accelerate, having decided to replace nuclear energy with coal.

Originally the intention was to replace nuclear energy with huge amounts of dangerous natural gas, an idea which their former Chancellor, Gerhardt Schroeder worked to promote when in office. Schroeder is now working as a salesman for Gazprom, Putin's dangerous natural gas company, but Germany rather sheepishly switched from gas to coal after their blindfolds came off to reveal they were funding a vicious war of conquest in Ukraine, a nation with which Germany already has an unhappy history.

The plan, which involves dumping dangerous fossil fuel waste directly into the environment, has left Germany with what is consistently one of the highest carbon intensities for electrical generation in Europe.

Anyway, about the paper based on the German KORA study:

The full paper is open by "authors choice," and there is no need to excerpt it extensively, but a description of what a telomere is, which is quite succinct is excerpted for convenience:

...Telomeres are highly conserved tandem repetitive nucleotide sequences (TTAGGG), which provide a protective cap at the ends of chromosome to maintain genome stability. (12,13) Telomeres are fundamental for cell division and shorten after each round of cell division. (14) Consequently, leukocyte telomere length shortening is evaluated as a potential biomarker for biologic aging, and telomere shortening has been associated with increasing numbers of age-related diseases such as stroke, cardiovascular disease, or cancer. (15?18) A recent large cohort study from the United Kingdom Biobank found that shortened leukocyte telomere length was associated with increased overall cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, musculoskeletal, and COVID-19 mortality. (19) A further review study showed that telomere attrition was influenced by genetic and environmental factors. (12) Evidence is rapidly growing that telomere shortening can be accelerated by exposure to nonoptimal environmental factors like air pollution, (20,21) and pesticides. (22)...

The introduction continues:

...Air temperature is an important environmental factor, especially in the context of climate change. A study in the three largest English cities (Greater London, Greater Manchester, and West Midlands) found that heat and cold exposure increased the risk of mortality and years of life lost. (23) In addition, high air temperature or heat stress has been associated with higher levels of oxidative stress and inflammatory biomarkers. (24?27) As oxidative stress and inflammation can speed up telomere attrition, (28,29) these findings suggest that air temperature might affect telomere length. However, only one birth study has reported that prenatal high and low air temperature exposures were associated with shorter cord blood telomere length. (30) So far, the effect of air temperature on leukocyte telomere length has not been investigated among an adult population.
Therefore, we aimed to examine the short-term associations between air temperature and leukocyte telomere length in the region of Augsburg, Germany, within two independent adult cohorts...

A brief excerpt from the discussion of the finding:

...We found both significant immediate and lagged effects of air temperature on leukocyte telomere length at lags 0–1, 2–6, 0–6, and 0–13 days. The results indicate that high air temperatures over the preceding 2 weeks are associated with shorter telomere length. A recent epidemiological study based on 1792 participants with overweight/obesity reported a decreasing trend in leukocyte telomere length in association with increasing PM10-levels, which was observed with a lag of up to 2 weeks. (44) These findings suggest that short-term effects of environmental factors on leukocyte telomere length should also be considered as adverse effects with potential health implications. Moreover, this study indicates that the more delayed effects (lags 0–13 days: ?6.69% [?9.04%; ?4.27%]) are larger than the immediate effects (lags 0–1 days: ?2.96% [?4.46%; ?1.43%]). It is conceivable that the immediate effects on telomere length on a day-to-day basis are at least partly compensated. However, the findings of this study suggest that repeated exposure to high temperatures may have compounding effects on telomere length. The reversibility of these effects still needs to be explored, in particular, to determine if there is an exposure level or frequency at which effects become partially or totally irreversible...

Again, the full paper is open sourced. It's an interesting read.

Have a nice weekend.

January 7, 2023

Minister in German Antinuke Government Calls for Removing the Ban on Fracking.

I have no comment. The article speaks for itself.

German Finance Minister Calls For Reverse Of Fracking Ban

Amid Russia’s war on Ukraine and a European energy crisis, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner is calling for a lifting of the ban on fracking, citing the high prices the country is paying for liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Fracking was banned in Germany in 2017.

Speaking to Germany’s Bild am Sonntag, Lindner said Germany should lift the fracking ban and “then private investors can decide whether extraction is economical.”

“Compared to gas from other regions of the world, I expect competitive advantages.” Lindner said.

In his call to allow fracking, Lindner is breaking ranks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats and Minister of Economy Robert Habeck of the Greens–both of whom are coalition partners.

Germany has rejected fracking not only over environmental concerns.

Last month, Scholz noted that fracking would be a costly and wasteful undertaking that would take too long to begin production. By the time production could be feasible, Scholz noted, demand for natural gas will have declined.

The German Chancellor noted there was zero support for exploiting natural gas reserves through fracking in the country.

“If you get close to it, it vanishes into thin air,” German media quoted him as saying in December.

It is widely understood that Germany, due to its dense population, is not suitable for fracking, while the technological complexities would render it irrelevant to the current energy crisis.

Instead, Germany has been building out LNG infrastructure at breakneck speed to increase its capacity to take in fracked American natural gas...

January 6, 2023

Ammonia Synthesis, Using Hydrogen, Accounts for 35% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the Chemical...

...Sector.

I came across this paper this evening as I work to catch up on my reading after the holidays: Model-Based Analysis of Ammonia Production Processes for Quantifying Energy Use, Emissions, and Reduction Potentials Banafsheh Jabarivelisdeh, Enze Jin, Phillip Christopher, and Eric Masanet ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering 2022 10 (49), 16280-16289.

For most of my adult life - I'm hardly young - I've heard, with varying intensity, waxing and waning, all kinds of bullshit about hydrogen cars, hydrogen buses, hydrogen fuel cells, blah, blah, blah. The biggest surge in this nonsense took place around the turn of the 21st century, put out by the functional idiot (who defines himself as a "scientist" ) Amory Lovins. For a so called "scientist" he seems blissfully unaware of the laws of thermodynamics, and, as far as his energy predictions go, well, one could do better with a psychic in a cheesy booth on a New Jersey shore boardwalk.

We've seen some of this stuff around here recently, usually in connection with the usual fantasies that the solar and wind industries are meaningful, sustainable, and green. Of course, this is nonsense. After the expenditure of trillions of dollars, and the trashing of vast land areas, some of it former wilderness rendered into industrial parks, the solar and wind industries are trivial

In response to it, I've occasionally reproduced a graphic from a recent paper in the scientific journal Energy & Fuels.

The caption:

Figure 1. Global current sources of H2 production (a), and H2 consumption sectors (b).

Progress on Catalyst Development for the Steam Reforming of Biomass and Waste Plastics Pyrolysis Volatiles: A Review Laura Santamaria, Gartzen Lopez, Enara Fernandez, Maria Cortazar, Aitor Arregi, Martin Olazar, and Javier Bilbao, Energy & Fuels 2021 35 (21), 17051-17084]

I referred to this graphic, and reproduced it, discussing a paper in the journal I discussed above here: The current sources and uses of hydrogen.

The paper at the outset refers to the unsustainable ammonia industry (on which the world food supply depends) with some interesting facts and figures that are rather compelling, including the energy requirements to make ammonia. The first sentence in the abstract - which is open sourced at the link - speaks of the scale of emissions:

The current ammonia production industry is highly unsustainable, responsible for ?20% of total energy consumption and ?35% of CO2 emissions of the whole chemical sector.

From the introduction to the paper in the full text:

Ammonia (NH3) is one of the largest volume products in the chemical sector with a global production of approximately 185 million metric tons in 2020. (1) Demands for ammonia are mainly related to agriculture, such that more than 80% of the ammonia produced worldwide is utilized for fertilizer manufacturing (mainly urea and ammonium salts). (2) Driven by the increased global population and the economic growth, it is estimated that the demand for ammonia will increase by up to 40% by 2050 relative to today, mainly due to increases in fertilizer demand. (1) Additionally, the use of ammonia as a low-carbon fuel has been proposed to decarbonize other sectors, notably marine transport, which could further increase future demand. (3)

Ammonia production is energy- and emission-intensive and currently relies on fossil fuels. In 2020, global ammonia production was responsible for ?8.6 EJ of final energy consumption and ?450 million tons of CO2 emissions. This corresponds to ?20% of total energy consumption and ?35% of the CO2 emissions of the whole chemical sector. (1,4) Ammonia is principally manufactured from hydrogen (H2) and nitrogen (N2), which are then reacted to produce ammonia through the Haber–Bosch process. (5) Currently, close to 100% of the required hydrogen for ammonia production comes from fossil fuel feedstock mainly through the steam reforming of methane derived from natural gas (NG) and the gasification of coal. (1) Besides serving as a feedstock, fossil fuels also account for essentially all the process energy that supplies the heat and pressure required to drive different process units. In 2020, ammonia production accounted for 50 and 44% of the global chemical industry’s use of NG and coal, respectively. Accordingly, with on average 2.4 ton of CO2 per ton of product, ammonia is the largest contributor to emissions within the chemical sector. (1)...

I have added the bold.

What is interesting is to compare the 8.6 EJ of energy with the world output of the solar and wind industry on the entire planet that people misrepresent as being an option to make hydrogen.

Here's another graphic I reproduce from time to time, world energy sources as reported by the most recent annual International Energy Agency WEO publication:

Source: 2022 IEA World Energy Outlook Table A 1a, page 435.

After half a century of cheering, the solar and wind industries, which have been the subject of much chanting about saving the world, over all about as effective at saving the world as Gregorian chants in medieval monasteries were at bringing Jesus back to save us all, combined to produce 11 Exajoules of energy out of 624 Exajoules consumed by humanity in 2021.

That leaves three Exajoules to produce all that elusive "green hydrogen" that about which we hear so much prattling.

If "green hydrogen" were really a thing, rather than an idiot fantasy that crops up in the public (and regrettably political) sphere like the heads of the Lernaean Hydra in Greek Mythology. Hercules killed the thing in the myth, by burning the roots of the heads.

The hydrogen hydra of today by contrast, is another mindless diversion through the agency of popular bad thinking that is doing nothing more than contributing to the burning of the planet. There seems to be no intellectual Hercules who can kill it. It's helping to drive climate change, and will do nothing to stop it. The laws of thermodynamics are not subject to public wishful thinking. Perpetual motion machines do not exist.

A graphic from the paper showing the alternate (coal or gas) process chemistry for making ammonia with the hydrogen driven Haber-Bosch process:

The caption:

Figure 1. Model structure following typical process flowsheets for ammonia synthesis through (A) NG steam reforming and (B) coal gasification.

If we were really going to have "green hydrogen" I would suggest that serious people - and I'm certainly not talking about people who watch hyping cartoons showing vast stretches of land wasted to install solar junk - would make the hydrogen on which the world food supply depends "green" first.

That's not happening. Hydrogen remains a very, very, very, very dirty fuel.

Have a nice day tomorrow.

January 4, 2023

Everything he touches dies.

I really don't care if his touch kills the Republican party; it's my country I worry about.

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