The Viking Tir leaves Vienna this afternoon for Budapest, which will be featured in my blog tomorrow.  Today.  I'll instead post a sci-tech article which usually appears on Wednesdays. I regularly report on information provided by the American Energy Society.  While this society promotes energy, it tries to protect the environment, and attempts to curb global warming is an important goal. This year, the  AES writer of the year is Rosanna Xia . Her works offers new ways for us to think about resiliency and our relationship with the environment. Xia is an environmental reporter for the  Los Angeles Times . She wrote an award-winning 2023 book,  California Against the Sea . This year, she released  Out of Plain Sight,  a documentary film about the half a million barrels of toxic waste that were quietly dumped into the ocean decades ago, just off the coast of Los Angeles. I haven't read her book, nor seen her documentary, but understand from wh...

 Today, more from Energy Matters of the American Energy Society: Electricity cost of generation from 209 coal power plants are more expensive than from solar or wind farms. Yet, fossil fuels still dominate in the production of electricity. However, how about this stunning bit of information?    Global coal consumption reached an all-time high in 2022 and will slightly increase in 2023 . Part of the problem with wind and solar is that they are intermittent.  Cost effective storage is a must.  Form Energy announced an agreement with Xcel Energy to deploy its  iron-air battery  systems to integrate more renewable energy for its customers. The sleeping giant of energy storage is  pumped storage . EV and hybrid vehicle sales continue to increase. The U.S. is on pace to set a new oil production record sometime in 2024. The  oil industry in Venezuela has collapsed . Produced 3.1 million barrels / day in 1988. Today, only 0.7 million barrels/day. How...