News roundup for Fri, Aug 12, 2022

Carlotta SusannaStaff - August 11, 2022

In short: The River Rhine is drying up and threatening the flow of 80% of Germany’s commerce. Backyard hens’ eggs in Australia contain 40 times more l
[See the full post at: News roundup for Fri, Aug 12, 2022]

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“War games found that the US and Taiwan could fend off China—at massive cost of personnel and materials.”

This apparently assumes that China acts alone against an alliance of Taiwan, Japan, and USA. It also assumes that all alliance members are willing to sacrifice a large portions of their militaries to protect Taiwan. Japan has a lot of skin in the game due to being another Chinese neighbor, and probably is willing to sacrifice a lot. I would hope that USA is similarly committed, but I’m not at all certain that it is. This simulation assumes that USA does 1000x  more for Taiwan than we’ve done for Ukraine, for example.

 

Japan doesn’t really have a military; there’s very little they could do.

 

Japan actually has a very capable military

 

Thanks for the correction!  I see Japan has been busy while I wasn’t paying attention!

 

Welcome to the site, jp! 😀

 

“Rainwater almost everywhere on Earth has unsafe levels of ‘forever chemicals’ (PFAS), according to new research.”

I wonder if the PFAS are airborne and when the rain drops it collects those particles and that is why “rainwater has unsafe levels of forever chemicals”, or if even distillation isn’t able to remove the forever chemicals from the water droplets.

Even if you don’t drink rainwater, that rainwater will get into your drinking water source. Luckily the common prepping home water filter Berkey is able to filter out these pfas.

 

Unfortunately, Berkey does not do a thorough enough of a job filtering PFAS despite their website’s claims. Third-party testing has proven otherwise. 

For more information on how to prevent PFASs in your home, diet, water, and land, view information at the EWG.org (water filters, food, products) and Mamavation.com (products, food, water filters).

 

Iraq has been struggling through some 120+ degree heat and power grid shutdowns.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/iraq-broils-in-dangerous-120-degree-heat-as-power-grid-shuts-down/

 

How horrific!

 

’energy bills could increase ahead of the expected rise in October,‘ this isn’t really the case – it’s a bit misleading! The prices for DOMESTIC users will not go up until the price cap is reviewed in October, but the way it is calculated means it will go up.

Direct debit is simply a payment system and companies have to give you written notice if they are planning to increase how much you pay each month (unless you’ve agreed to a variable DD). It’s not the prices being increased in August it’s potentially the payment (Sorry I’m being pedantic!)

But yes we’re expecting bills to rise to ridiculous prices. A knock on effect of this is that as domestic fuel prices rise there is a increase demand on food banks as people try to balance their budgets. Some food banks in are concerned that they may run out of food if donations continue to decline as demand rises – I found this to be a warning bell for the coming months.

 

FWIW  – I ran across this article in Popular Mechanics on a device that uses solar power, water, and CO2 to create jet fuel.  It’s carbon neutral since it is recycling the CO2.  Thought it was a cool concept.  

Apparently I suck at copying & pasting links.   If you look up Popular Mechanics, the article is entitled:  “This solar tower can transform air into jet fuel”.

 

Here’s the link for those wanting to read it. It’s a very interesting project and I hope it does well. They say in March that a Swiss airline is going to fly with this new jet fuel, and if it goes well that could be a game changer for the airline industry.