In Support of Industrial Incinerators

 The following piece was submitted to the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal and was published in their April 24th edition under "Letter of the Day".

A while back I came across a report on a large incinerator complex in Austria, Spittelau, that is used to process garbage. From about 250,000 tonnes of household waste, they produce on average 60 GWh of electricity and 500 GWh of heating to local homes and businesses. In fact, the energy extracted is enough to heat more than 60,000 households. Austria imposed a law forbidding the dumping of untreated waste, something we do without thinking of the ramifications yet with the belief we are being “environmentally friendly” whereas Austria is not only talking the talk but walking the walk.

At the facility, the waste is incinerated. The hot flue gases are passed through a heat exchanger to generate steam which is then piped to local homes and businesses for heat or sent through a steam turbine to generate electricity. The flue gases are then cleaned using state-of-the-art systems. Only then are the purified flue gases released to the atmosphere.

In addition to heat and electricity the plant generates about 6,000 tonnes of scrap iron and 60,000 tonnes of clinker, ash, and filter cake. So, from an input of 250,000 tonnes the output is 26%, or about ¼. In addition, the scrap can be sold for additional revenue and the clinker used in concrete construction.

We have been told for a long time now to follow the 3 R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. In Europe they follow that mantra. Why don’t we? Ironically, we do not have industrial scale incinerators in Canada with state-of-the-art purification of the flue gases because of … environmentalists! The people who pound on us for being wasteful and to be environmentally friendly yet lobby to prevent viable solutions! The excuse is always the short-sighted view in that “they produce air pollution”.

For a long time, incineration was a staple for many people to reduce the amount of garbage that would go to the local dump. Even there, waste was typically burned. As a result of both measures dumps lasted for years before a new location was needed. With the advent of landfills, and the ban on the incineration, we now have quickly growing mountains of waste; buried out of sight but impacting local ground water. Not smart.

We need to push back on these “environmentalists” as their dishonesty is causing more problems than we had previously. Another irony, to be true to the ideals of environmentalism we need to fight environmentalists! All because they are dominated by parasites who use this to live off the rest of us under the guise of “saving the earth” while all we have done is find ways to do damage differently. This needs to stop! And implementing industrial scale incinerators with state-of-the-art technology is a big step in the right direction!

 

The Wrong Path Taken

 On April 2nd I wrote the following piece and submitted it to the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal. They published it in the April 6th edition of the paper under the title "Leaders take us down the wrong path".

There is in the news a lot these days something called the “Great Reset”, what ever that means. Having said that I would like to see a reset, one where we go back to a time where everyone was considered “essential”. Where we did not have a government trying to bankrupt us resulting in, we, the people, risking freezing in the dark. And we all know that with our climate, which unfortunately has not got any warmer, that death by freezing is far too likely. A time where government would not even think of trying to impose restrictions on us without solid evidence that it worked and that had been properly vetted by our elected representatives rather than imposed by a heartless bureaucracy.

A time when “government” was involved in setting reasonable rules that still allowed free enterprise to do its magic of providing jobs for those with, at times, simply basic skills and producing products that at one time were only available to the rich and in doing so made us feel richer than we really were. A time where we showed much more respect for one another. Where we felt that we were equal in that we all had the same opportunity no matter our wealth status.

I could go on, but I hope you get the point. Up until the early 1990’s that was our world. As Timbuk 3 sang back in 1986, at that time we all thought with reasonable certainty that “the future is so bright, I gotta wear shades”. Now the future is looking darker and darker as our Provincial and Federal leaders have forgotten, some intentionally, why they were elected in the first place; to provide good government to Canadians and ensure our future and the future of generations to come.

I know that by wanting to go back I sound like a traditional Conservative, one who “conserves” and does not like change but that is not the case. Rather staying on the beaten path and building on past accomplishments we let ourselves get sidetracked on a path that even at that time was fraught with uncertainty as the reasoning used was unsound yet far too many of us had grown complacent and privileged to the point that it was believed we could do what was impossible. Too many bought into the idea we were omnipotent. We are not, never have been and never will.  We went down the wrong path for the wrong reasons and the time is running out to backtrack to where we went wrong and get back on the right path. Let us not be like those people who followed their GPS down a back road during winter to become stuck and end up freezing to death just because they gave unquestioned fealty to that fancy gizmo they thought was taking them down a better path. There is no shame in admitting you were wrong and backtracking to a better route forward. That is a reset worth doing, while we still can.

Another Covid Rant

Normally I use this blog as means to get something off my chest. Of late there have been a few and as a result I have contributed to this blog more frequently than typical in the past. This morning I worked on a project of interest and did not check my usual sources of news and information until after lunch, a time I usually start to relax. But then a news item caught my eye. One that meshed with a couple of answers I had made recently to Quora. So, I fired up my word processor and within short order came out the following. If I do anything further with it time will tell. Note that I edited the original post a couple of days later as I reflected on trying to find the best way to say what I did.

 

On March 31^st, the Canadian Press reported that “there was a total of just 66 confirmed cases” for influenza in Canada when normally by this time there would have been about 43,000 confirmed cases. I find this interesting but not surprising. The reason I am not surprised is it is just further confirmation that the issue that we have not dealt with is that the “test” for SARS-CoV-2 does not work as advertised.

First, a quick overview as to what this “test” is. It is a method to take a piece of RNA, convert it into DNA and then replicate until there are enough copies to do some evaluation with. The process relies on using pieces of protein building blocks called “primers” that are supposed to be unique to the RNA we want to evaluate, and pieces called “probes” that react to light by fluorescing which then can be detected using a photometer. These pieces are used to build each new copy of DNA. A single strand of RNA will produce 34.36 billion copies of DNA after 35 replication cycles. Thus, if you repeat the process long enough you will always get a “positive” result (enough fluorescence to be detected) even if only one piece was in the initial sample regardless of where it came from, including contamination. Assuming too that the “primer” used really is unique to the target virus RNA. That unfortunately has not been proven unequivocally. There is far too much uncertainty in the process for it to be considered reliable, yet it is being used indiscriminately.

Ah, you say, but the social distancing and the requirement to wear masks is responsible! Unfortunately, facts get in the way. The flu viruses are about the same size (80 to 120 nanometres) as the SARS-CoV-2 virus (50-140 nanometres). Keep in mind that a N95 mask will filter out particles 300 nanometres or larger. If masks work at all, then they should work just as well for both viruses. And there is no evidence that they work against any virus, especially SARS-CoV-2. A quick check is to locate reported case and death data forCovid-19. There are none that show any correlation at all with the imposition of mask! There is no correlation with lock downs either! Neither has suppressed anything! And none of the other measures forced on us have had any positive impact.

I have no doubt that the SARS-CoV-2 virus exists. The fact we had an outbreak last spring at a time when the annual flu season was almost done was proof of that. The real problem is that we have tried, thanks to the ineptitude of health officials and supported by politicians, techniques that were never used previously nor shown to work yet are like using a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito. Too extreme for the target with the victims not being the mosquito but us. We are collateral damage who have been seriously beaten and bloodied by people who should have known better. People who are supposed to be compassionate. People who are supposed to be knowledgeable in science.

Right from the very start rather than the correct action for the moment being implemented it has been the exact opposite. When data started being gathered that pointedly showed the new virus variant was not the scourge it was first made out to be, what happened? With rare exception the powers that be doubled down on the draconian measures!

This time last year there were two large ships, the DiamondPrincess cruise ship, and the US aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, where outbreaks took place. Both ships were put into quarantine. All onboard had no means to escape, “social distance” from one another or use masks. Almost all on both ships were tested using the RT-PCR test, the one still being dominantly used. Out of a total of 8,490 people on those 2 ships 1,890 (22%) tested “positive” yet only 1000 (11.8%) experienced symptoms! Of those that tested “positive” 47% did not get symptoms so were either asymptomatic, false positives or a combination of the two. Yes, you read that tight, 47%, almost half! And a total of 15 (0.18%) died, all over the age of 50 with most over 70 in age. Were you aware of this? While available at sites such as the Centre for Disease Control in the US and in isolated technical journals, most media never reported these numbers. This was the start of the good evidence to show lockdowns, forced masking and focusing on “cases” do not work. Evidence being ignored or suppressed to our detriment.

We have a legislature for a reason, and that is to debate things like this to set the rules the bureaucrats then follow. But they have not done their job. But then again it was these same people who originally passed the draconian quarantine laws that blatantly go against our basic rights and freedoms as set out in our constitution. It is these same laws that unelected bureaucrats are abusing by going power mad falling over themselves coming up with nonsensical and irrational “rules”, none of which have any scientific support. Many of whom are medical “professionals” that took an oath to “do no harm”!

As a result, we are being held hostage by the very people we elected or trusted to represent out best interests. And they are unwilling to admit to the ever growing list of mistakes they had made! To make matters worse there are now “vaccines” for which we have no idea what the health risks are nor the effectiveness. Note that the ships cited above show the human immune system has an effectiveness of about 88% at a time many of the “vaccines” are saidto be 90% effective! Yet we are all expected to be guinea pigs. Even if you take the vaccine can you now shed the mask and return to normal? No. That right there tells the real story. Our faith in government is being taken advantage of. Similarly, our trust in the media. The real virus is this corruption that now permeates our society. This madness must stop very soon because if it does not the harm done will become irreversible at the detriment to all of us.