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NNadir
NNadir's Journal
NNadir's Journal
March 23, 2022
Our media has a nasty habit of repeating the dubious statement that wind power has something to do with fighting climate change.
This is a nonsense statement.
Vast worldwide enthusiasm for wind power, backed by trillions of dollars thrown at it, has done nothing, zero, zilch, to address climate change. Indeed with the rising popularity of converting places like the Gaviota beach into industrial parks, climate change is accelerating.
This of course is not the only dubious area that our media has a contentious struggle with the truth, but it is rather typical.
I am pleased to see for the first time in a long time that there are real conservationists, as opposed to say the Sierra Club, founded by John Muir in his losing battle to prevent the industrialization of the Hetch Hetchy valley, and now run by people who have a hard time finding a wilderness that they don't want to lace with access roads, wires, and grease ball, microplastic spitting, wind turbines.
A Chumash tribe and conservationists fight offshore wind turbines
LA Times: Nobody Seems to Like This Offshore Wind Project.
LOMPOC, Calif. — Along the wind-blasted shores of the Gaviota Coast, near the rocket gantries of Vandenberg Space Force Base, lazy breakers claw at the base of sandy bluffs and dunes, while farther out to sea, great white sharks cruise beneath churning whitecaps.
It’s a stunning and uniquely Californian vista, a place where pristine headlands overlook the submerged remains of sacred Chumash villages and launchpads fire the nation’s newest and most secret technology into orbit.
But in recent months, this stretch of the Santa Barbara County coastline has become a bitter collision point for several national and global imperatives — the reduction of planet-warming greenhouse gasses, the conservation of natural habitats and the atonement for injustices committed against Indigenous populations.
A plan by private corporations to float up to eight wind power generators less than three miles offshore has run headlong into efforts to designate a vast area of ocean off the Central Coast as a Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.
The turbine proposal has sparked outrage among conservationists and members of the Northern Chumash Tribe, who say the sanctuary is intended to preserve Chumash tribal history and protect the area’s rich biodiversity. Building a network of floating turbines that are tethered to the seafloor and connected to one another and the mainland with electric cables is an affront to preservation, they say...
It’s a stunning and uniquely Californian vista, a place where pristine headlands overlook the submerged remains of sacred Chumash villages and launchpads fire the nation’s newest and most secret technology into orbit.
But in recent months, this stretch of the Santa Barbara County coastline has become a bitter collision point for several national and global imperatives — the reduction of planet-warming greenhouse gasses, the conservation of natural habitats and the atonement for injustices committed against Indigenous populations.
A plan by private corporations to float up to eight wind power generators less than three miles offshore has run headlong into efforts to designate a vast area of ocean off the Central Coast as a Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.
The turbine proposal has sparked outrage among conservationists and members of the Northern Chumash Tribe, who say the sanctuary is intended to preserve Chumash tribal history and protect the area’s rich biodiversity. Building a network of floating turbines that are tethered to the seafloor and connected to one another and the mainland with electric cables is an affront to preservation, they say...
Our media has a nasty habit of repeating the dubious statement that wind power has something to do with fighting climate change.
This is a nonsense statement.
Vast worldwide enthusiasm for wind power, backed by trillions of dollars thrown at it, has done nothing, zero, zilch, to address climate change. Indeed with the rising popularity of converting places like the Gaviota beach into industrial parks, climate change is accelerating.
This of course is not the only dubious area that our media has a contentious struggle with the truth, but it is rather typical.
I am pleased to see for the first time in a long time that there are real conservationists, as opposed to say the Sierra Club, founded by John Muir in his losing battle to prevent the industrialization of the Hetch Hetchy valley, and now run by people who have a hard time finding a wilderness that they don't want to lace with access roads, wires, and grease ball, microplastic spitting, wind turbines.
March 20, 2022
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
I saw a revival of Weber's "Cats" last night. I had a few words for my cat when I got home.
I told my cat that the other cats not only talked about mice and rats - when we have mice my cat regards them as play friends - but they also sang and danced, really, really, really well.
The cat just looked at me, offered me a weak "meow" - the "feed me" meow - and went over to her dish. After being fed, she ran over to her favorite petting spot and began rolling around which is they way she communicates "pet me now!"
Definitely not one of T.S. Eliot's/Weber's cats.
My wife surprised our family with the tickets on a whim, pricey but well worth it. (My life has been made worth living because of my wife's whims; including the whim of becoming my friend and later my lover.)
We saw it at the NJ State Theater; it's a traveling tour with incredibly talented young people. The choreography, the singing and most impressively, the set design and lighting, were remarkable.
This was the resumption of a tour that was cancelled because of Covid. I really felt for those very talented actor and actresses, so early in their careers, who had a career interruption for a plague.
This is the production: Cats at the NJ State Theater.
The production was preceded by a brief talk by a professor at the New Jersey School of Arts, Mason Gross, theater department, (my oldest son is a graduate of that school's visual arts program and now works there) and two of her undergraduate students. My son went with us and brought a friend to use my other son's ticket, as he was unable to join us because of other commitments.
The brief lecture referred to the poems of T.S. Eliot and when I got home, I took the time to recall "The Hollow Men," and call it up.
Life is so beautiful, and then you die, and in the midst of all this beauty, I was reminded of how many times I reflected on Eliot's most famous lines:
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
March 20, 2022
Benzene. Recently at DU there was a hullaballoo about the detection of benzene in cosmetic products. The attention paid is something of a cruel joke to anyone who is familiar with chemistry of petroleum. If someone is really concerned about benzene, they should be working on banning petroleum, and not with wind turbines and solar cells, but with something that works on scale.
Won't happen.
The oxidation of petroleum to CO2 is not without some intermediate risks according to the authors, further on:
The authors found a place to study this, an abandoned petroleum refinery which is not named, probably to prevent the owners from facing lawsuits and bad publicity, and use some novel techniques, cryogenic coring, via the injection of liquid nitrogen, followed by the use of the ultra-high resolution mass spectrometry available at the National High Magnetic Field facilities in the State that recently seceded from human decency and democracy with Baby Putin Desantis, Floridistan.
By the way, the effects on ground water from an abandoned petroleum refinery will pale when compared to the effects on ground water obtained from fracking while we all wait, breathlessly - our breath becoming more dangerous by the hour - for the grand electric car/wind/solar nirvana that has not come, is not here, and will not come.
Anyway, the petroleum is being metabolized, which over tens of thousands of years may prove to be a good thing, immediate effects on ground water notwithstanding.
Organisms in the petroleum contaminated soil:
The caption:
Counts of the hetero atoms in molecules associated with the metabolism of petroleum:
It's problematic that in the absence of oxygen, methanogenic organisms release the potent greenhouse gas methane, but letting water flow into the petroleum avoids this problem.
An excerpt of the conclusion:
I'm not quite sure how well humanity will survive, but it's comforting to note that probably life itself will.
I trust you're having as pleasant a Sunday as one can have in a time of tragedy.
Life Fights Back: Detection of Oxygenation of Petroleum Contamination by Microbes.
As my life winds down, I worry all the time about the destruction to the planet my generation has wrought and whether or not the planet will ever be healed.
There isn't much good news on stopping the destruction; indeed, the preferred "solution" for the energy and environmental disaster is to destroy more wilderness with huge industrial facilities we misname "renewable energy." (It's dependent on vast land use changes as well as vast mining - there's nothing "renewable" about it.)
The petroleum industry was driven by the rise of the automobile, the automobile being proposed early in its history as a means to address an environmental problem of the 19th and early 20th century: The accumulation of horse manure in cites.
That worked out well, didn't it?
I wonder what the legacy pollution of the automobile, which I expect will not go away for tens of millions of years, if ever.
I'm used to pessimism I guess, but here, for what it's worth is a little bit of good news, involving the damage done by the operations of a petroleum refinery that seems to be somewhere in Colorado, as reported in the following paper:
Discovery of Oxygenated Hydrocarbon Biodegradation Products at a Late-Stage Petroleum Release Site Olivia K. Bojan, Maria Irianni-Renno, Andrea J. Hanson, Huan Chen, Robert B. Young, Susan K. De Long, Thomas Borch, Thomas C. Sale, Amy M. McKenna, and Jens Blotevogel, Energy & Fuels 2021 35 (20), 16713-16723.
Some text from the introduction of the paper:
Subsurface releases of petroleum liquids are among the most common causes of soil and groundwater contamination in the world. Spills can range in size from 10s to 100 000s of cubic meters at various sites from retail to refining facilities. Typically, a substantial share of subsurface light nonaqueous phase liquids (LNAPLs) are biodegraded anaerobically to CO2 and CH4 through natural source zone depletion (NSZD) processes. (1?5) Biogenic gases migrate upward through off-gassing and ebullition to the vadose zone where the methane is mineralized by methanotrophs using downward-diffusing atmospheric oxygen. (5?7) The fate of subsurface petroleum liquids follows the short-term carbon cycle wherein C–H bonds are iteratively replaced with C–O bonds and ultimately oxidized to CO2, which cycles back into organic compounds via photosynthesis.
Subsurface petroleum releases evolve with time. (8) Early stage releases are largely about expanding pools of unaltered LNAPLs in transmissive zones of the aquifer. At early stage sites, active recovery efforts are commonly employed to deplete LNAPL to the extent practicable. (9) With time, NSZD and active recovery efforts transform early stage LNAPL sites into middle-stage sites, where continuous LNAPL is largely depleted, while dissolved-phase total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) as well as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX) persist in groundwater. Soluble species move into low-permeability (low-k) zones within the aquifer via slow advection and diffusion. Given the limited efficacy of active remedies at middle-stage sites, NSZD often emerges as the primary factor driving the maturation of LNAPL sites with reported rates of cleanup due to NSZD ranging from 1000s to 10 000s of liters per hectare per year. (10)...
Subsurface petroleum releases evolve with time. (8) Early stage releases are largely about expanding pools of unaltered LNAPLs in transmissive zones of the aquifer. At early stage sites, active recovery efforts are commonly employed to deplete LNAPL to the extent practicable. (9) With time, NSZD and active recovery efforts transform early stage LNAPL sites into middle-stage sites, where continuous LNAPL is largely depleted, while dissolved-phase total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) as well as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX) persist in groundwater. Soluble species move into low-permeability (low-k) zones within the aquifer via slow advection and diffusion. Given the limited efficacy of active remedies at middle-stage sites, NSZD often emerges as the primary factor driving the maturation of LNAPL sites with reported rates of cleanup due to NSZD ranging from 1000s to 10 000s of liters per hectare per year. (10)...
Benzene. Recently at DU there was a hullaballoo about the detection of benzene in cosmetic products. The attention paid is something of a cruel joke to anyone who is familiar with chemistry of petroleum. If someone is really concerned about benzene, they should be working on banning petroleum, and not with wind turbines and solar cells, but with something that works on scale.
Won't happen.
The oxidation of petroleum to CO2 is not without some intermediate risks according to the authors, further on:
...Of emerging scientific, engineering, and regulatory concerns are oxygenated hydrocarbon transformation products, sometimes referred to as “polar hydrocarbons”, “oxyhydrocarbons”, or “petroleum biodegradation metabolites”. Oxygen-containing metabolites such as organic acids, esters, alcohols, phenols, aldehydes, and ketones are generated through biologically mediated “weathering” processes. (12) Partially oxidized petroleum metabolites can comprise up to 100% of the extractable organic carbon in the downgradient groundwater plume (2,13,14) with a principal concern being increased water solubility and mobility of metabolites in aqueous environments. (15?17)...
The authors found a place to study this, an abandoned petroleum refinery which is not named, probably to prevent the owners from facing lawsuits and bad publicity, and use some novel techniques, cryogenic coring, via the injection of liquid nitrogen, followed by the use of the ultra-high resolution mass spectrometry available at the National High Magnetic Field facilities in the State that recently seceded from human decency and democracy with Baby Putin Desantis, Floridistan.
...Herein, we uniquely explore a late-stage petroleum hydrocarbon-contaminated site in both transmissive and low-k zones at the upgradient edge of a 40-year-old depleted petroleum LNAPL body at a former refinery. Our work was motivated by the vision that an enhanced understanding of the nature of late-stage sites will support better-informed decisions regarding best management practices for middle- and late-stage petroleum LNAPL sites...
By the way, the effects on ground water from an abandoned petroleum refinery will pale when compared to the effects on ground water obtained from fracking while we all wait, breathlessly - our breath becoming more dangerous by the hour - for the grand electric car/wind/solar nirvana that has not come, is not here, and will not come.
Anyway, the petroleum is being metabolized, which over tens of thousands of years may prove to be a good thing, immediate effects on ground water notwithstanding.
Organisms in the petroleum contaminated soil:
The caption:
Figure 2. Active microbial community composition and relative abundances in the oxic transmissive zone and in the anoxic low-k zone. Assignments were made at the genus level; in cases where genera were unclassified, higher level taxonomic identifications are reported, but grouped taxa shared >95% sequence similarity. Not detected indicates that no amlicon could be generated for sequencing.
Counts of the hetero atoms in molecules associated with the metabolism of petroleum:
Figure 3. Heteroatom class distribution derived from (?
ESI FT-ICR MS for toluene-soluble extracts in the anoxic low-k (blue) and oxic transmissive (red) zones.
ESI FT-ICR MS for toluene-soluble extracts in the anoxic low-k (blue) and oxic transmissive (red) zones.It's problematic that in the absence of oxygen, methanogenic organisms release the potent greenhouse gas methane, but letting water flow into the petroleum avoids this problem.
An excerpt of the conclusion:
Our molecular-level investigations of the transmissive and low-k zones in a heterogeneous aquifer offer a unique and astounding first glimpse at a late-stage petroleum hydrocarbon release site. At this particular study site, petroleum hydrocarbons in the anoxic low-k zone must be primarily biodegraded under methanogenic conditions. However, a small diffusive influx of molecular oxygen from river water recharge in the oxic transmissive zone likely leads to limited aerobic metabolism and the accumulation of highly oxygenated metabolites. In contrast, more abundant O2 in the transmissive zone enables the rapid aerobic mineralization of petroleum hydrocarbons without the accumulation of highly oxygenated species. Biodegradation processes are active for a broad range of petroleum hydrocarbons, from aliphatic to aromatic compounds as well as from low- to high-molecular weight components...
I'm not quite sure how well humanity will survive, but it's comforting to note that probably life itself will.
I trust you're having as pleasant a Sunday as one can have in a time of tragedy.
March 19, 2022
It's from this publication: Rami S. El-Emam, Hasan Ozcan, Calin Zamfirescu, Updates on promising thermochemical cycles for clean hydrogen production using nuclear energy, Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 262, 2020, 121424,
I found it as a reference in this publication while catching up on my reading: Hydrogen Production Technologies: From Fossil Fuels toward Renewable Sources. A Mini Review Pedro J. Megía, Arturo J. Vizcaíno, José A. Calles, and Alicia Carrero Energy & Fuels 2021 35 (20), 16403-16415
Hydrogen from so called "renewable energy" - about which much has been written for no result - is, like so called "renewable energy" itself, a nonstarter.
Nevertheless as my son starts his Ph.D research this summer in nuclear engineering, particularly as his BS and MS are in materials science, I am encouraging him, for thermodynamic reasons - high efficiency - to think in terms of very high temperature nuclear reactors.
Hydrogen in and of itself is not a safe consumer fuel, but as a captive intermediate it can do a great deal.
A Very Nice Graphic on Thermochemical Hydrogen Production.
This is it:
The caption:
Fig. 1. Potential of nuclear reactor technologies for integration with hydrogen production technologies based on ranges of operating temperature.
It's from this publication: Rami S. El-Emam, Hasan Ozcan, Calin Zamfirescu, Updates on promising thermochemical cycles for clean hydrogen production using nuclear energy, Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 262, 2020, 121424,
I found it as a reference in this publication while catching up on my reading: Hydrogen Production Technologies: From Fossil Fuels toward Renewable Sources. A Mini Review Pedro J. Megía, Arturo J. Vizcaíno, José A. Calles, and Alicia Carrero Energy & Fuels 2021 35 (20), 16403-16415
Hydrogen from so called "renewable energy" - about which much has been written for no result - is, like so called "renewable energy" itself, a nonstarter.
Nevertheless as my son starts his Ph.D research this summer in nuclear engineering, particularly as his BS and MS are in materials science, I am encouraging him, for thermodynamic reasons - high efficiency - to think in terms of very high temperature nuclear reactors.
Hydrogen in and of itself is not a safe consumer fuel, but as a captive intermediate it can do a great deal.
March 19, 2022
I'll excerpt another letter on the Enamine webiste, from earlier in the war, from Dr. Tolmachov:
There is a cost to this savagery beyond the lives lost directly by war.
This is a modern equivalent of the burning of the Library of Alexandria more than 1000 years ago, a tragedy for all humanity.
OPEN LETTER FROM ENAMINE FOUNDER AND CEO DR. ANDREY TOLMACHOV in Kyiv.
Enamine is a company that produces building blocks for modern small molecule drug development. I have not done business with them, but I have met some of the team members here in New Jersey.
Apparently 50% of the worlds building block core structures are synthesized in Ukraine, and important drug discovery efforts around the world are supported by Ukrainian organic chemists. I have been wondering about the safety of Enamine's chemical libraries - well over a million compounds - ever since the war broke out.
Dr. Tolmachov's letter is here: OPEN LETTER FROM ENAMINE FOUNDER AND CEO DR. ANDREY TOLMACHOV
I produce it here in its entirety:
Dear Customers, Dear Colleagues, Dear Friends,
The war in our country lasts more than 10 days. We have put on hold most of our operations in Kyiv and ask our customers to wait until this situation is resolved. We thank all of you for your patience. During this time, we have been able to estimate our resources, capabilities, and plan next steps to be done. Now I would like to highlight some of them:
Data. We have already fully transferred all the digital data on safe servers outside Ukraine. Thus, all our databases, all our internal documentation and procedures, and all the confidential information of our clients are secured and now physically located outside of Ukraine. Also, our internal system is not tied to Ukrainian servers and this fact can facilitate the further organization of the manufacturing process outside Ukraine.
Our stock. The entire collection of screening compounds and major building block collection are in Kyiv. Delivery from Kyiv is impossible now. Our EU stock in Riga and US stock in New Jersey operate as usual. Last few days Ukrainian government has made important steps to facilitate logistics inside and outside Ukraine. Therefore, we hope to resume (at least partially) the delivery process in the nearest time and do our best to ensure the gradual replenishment of both the EU and the US stocks with substances from Ukraine. We cannot disclose any details now, but we actively work in this direction.
Synthesis work. We are going to relocate part of the chemists outside of Ukraine to continue at least part of synthetic work mostly for our FTE customers. The new location is in Riga, Latvia. During the last week, we have received many proposals to accept our people in different institutions/universities/companies located in various countries of Europe. After several discussions, we have decided to focus on Riga.
First, we have a long-time partnership with the Latvian Institute of Organic Chemistry (LIOS) that is ready to provide us a lab space for up to 20 chemists to retain the synthetic work. We would like to thank our Latvian friends and personally Prof. Osvalds Pugovičs, the head of LIOS, for their willingness to support us. Also, the presence of our EU stock and logistic center in Riga can facilitate smooth workflow in this new location.
The work won’t be so effective and productive as in Kyiv. The EU stock is relatively small and at least in the nearest few weeks, the transfer of reagents and building blocks from Ukraine will be limited. Also, we cannot expand large-scale activities in Riga, and currently, the team of ~15 chemists are the maximum we can transfer to Riga: according to the martial law, men aged 18-60 cannot leave Ukraine. Also, many chemists have been mobilized and take an active part in volunteer movement. Some cannot leave the country for family reasons.
Nevertheless, this week first Enamine chemists will come to Riga and start preparing for the arrival of the rest of the team.
We also understand that in these circumstances we need some additional labs where we can deploy at least partial work on the building block synthesis and some custom synthesis tasks. We understand that our building blocks are extremely important for our customers and that their production costs should not increase significantly. Taking this into account we are searching for a possibility to purchase or rent some additional site in Europe or Asia. Alternatively, we are looking for a possibility to enter partnerships with other CROs or vendors to resume the synthetic work on their facilities.
We understand our customers wait for concrete decisions from us to plan future works on their programs. In the nearest time, we are going to disclose some further steps for the stabilization of the Enamine operations.
It is an extremely challenging time for us, but Ukraine will stand.
And Enamine will stand as well.
Slava Ukraini!
Andrey Tolmachov
The war in our country lasts more than 10 days. We have put on hold most of our operations in Kyiv and ask our customers to wait until this situation is resolved. We thank all of you for your patience. During this time, we have been able to estimate our resources, capabilities, and plan next steps to be done. Now I would like to highlight some of them:
Data. We have already fully transferred all the digital data on safe servers outside Ukraine. Thus, all our databases, all our internal documentation and procedures, and all the confidential information of our clients are secured and now physically located outside of Ukraine. Also, our internal system is not tied to Ukrainian servers and this fact can facilitate the further organization of the manufacturing process outside Ukraine.
Our stock. The entire collection of screening compounds and major building block collection are in Kyiv. Delivery from Kyiv is impossible now. Our EU stock in Riga and US stock in New Jersey operate as usual. Last few days Ukrainian government has made important steps to facilitate logistics inside and outside Ukraine. Therefore, we hope to resume (at least partially) the delivery process in the nearest time and do our best to ensure the gradual replenishment of both the EU and the US stocks with substances from Ukraine. We cannot disclose any details now, but we actively work in this direction.
Synthesis work. We are going to relocate part of the chemists outside of Ukraine to continue at least part of synthetic work mostly for our FTE customers. The new location is in Riga, Latvia. During the last week, we have received many proposals to accept our people in different institutions/universities/companies located in various countries of Europe. After several discussions, we have decided to focus on Riga.
First, we have a long-time partnership with the Latvian Institute of Organic Chemistry (LIOS) that is ready to provide us a lab space for up to 20 chemists to retain the synthetic work. We would like to thank our Latvian friends and personally Prof. Osvalds Pugovičs, the head of LIOS, for their willingness to support us. Also, the presence of our EU stock and logistic center in Riga can facilitate smooth workflow in this new location.
The work won’t be so effective and productive as in Kyiv. The EU stock is relatively small and at least in the nearest few weeks, the transfer of reagents and building blocks from Ukraine will be limited. Also, we cannot expand large-scale activities in Riga, and currently, the team of ~15 chemists are the maximum we can transfer to Riga: according to the martial law, men aged 18-60 cannot leave Ukraine. Also, many chemists have been mobilized and take an active part in volunteer movement. Some cannot leave the country for family reasons.
Nevertheless, this week first Enamine chemists will come to Riga and start preparing for the arrival of the rest of the team.
We also understand that in these circumstances we need some additional labs where we can deploy at least partial work on the building block synthesis and some custom synthesis tasks. We understand that our building blocks are extremely important for our customers and that their production costs should not increase significantly. Taking this into account we are searching for a possibility to purchase or rent some additional site in Europe or Asia. Alternatively, we are looking for a possibility to enter partnerships with other CROs or vendors to resume the synthetic work on their facilities.
We understand our customers wait for concrete decisions from us to plan future works on their programs. In the nearest time, we are going to disclose some further steps for the stabilization of the Enamine operations.
It is an extremely challenging time for us, but Ukraine will stand.
And Enamine will stand as well.
Slava Ukraini!
Andrey Tolmachov
I'll excerpt another letter on the Enamine webiste, from earlier in the war, from Dr. Tolmachov:
Dear Customers, Dear Colleagues, Dear Friends,
Andrey TolmachovWhen I started the company after the USSR collapse there were just a couple of labs in the academic institute. Nowadays my company is well known around the world.
For years, Ukraine has been a valuable partner for drug discovery delivering chemical innovation and new technologies. Enamine’s contribution to the world’s stock of chemical building blocks and reagents is over 70%. As Derek Lowe said in his “In the pipeline”, “the catalogs are full of synthetic building blocks with easily coupled functional groups” delivered by Enamine has transformed medicinal and synthetic organic chemistry into “a Lego-like exercise in sticking pieces together”.
Ukrainian companies Enamine, Life Chemicals, and Otava Chemicals contribute a lot to the world’s stock of chemical screening compounds: over 50% of the molecules originate from Ukraine. And I think that the contribution of these compounds to drug discovery research has become much higher. Every month we deliver thousands of novel compounds and thus simplify and speed up the search for new medicines...
Andrey TolmachovWhen I started the company after the USSR collapse there were just a couple of labs in the academic institute. Nowadays my company is well known around the world.
For years, Ukraine has been a valuable partner for drug discovery delivering chemical innovation and new technologies. Enamine’s contribution to the world’s stock of chemical building blocks and reagents is over 70%. As Derek Lowe said in his “In the pipeline”, “the catalogs are full of synthetic building blocks with easily coupled functional groups” delivered by Enamine has transformed medicinal and synthetic organic chemistry into “a Lego-like exercise in sticking pieces together”.
Ukrainian companies Enamine, Life Chemicals, and Otava Chemicals contribute a lot to the world’s stock of chemical screening compounds: over 50% of the molecules originate from Ukraine. And I think that the contribution of these compounds to drug discovery research has become much higher. Every month we deliver thousands of novel compounds and thus simplify and speed up the search for new medicines...
There is a cost to this savagery beyond the lives lost directly by war.
This is a modern equivalent of the burning of the Library of Alexandria more than 1000 years ago, a tragedy for all humanity.
March 19, 2022
He doesn't know, like most "I'm not an anti-nuke" antinukes - a class to which he also belongs; I once engaged him on a blog whereupon I had the opportunity to express my contempt for his bad thinking - about nuclear reactors. Nothing at all, except he hates them.
Here's his "solution" to the cobalt, copper, lithium, cadmium, and lanthanides (so called "rare earth elements" ) : Mine the shit out of the ocean:
Even Sovacool, a typical weak thinker of the the "renewables will save us" sort, who is willing to tear the entire planet, not only land, but the oceans to chase the useless and destructive faith based "renewable energy" scheme, understands how what he calls (absurdly) "low carbon energy" the implications of mining.
(He's also fond of what he calls "artisanal and smallscale mining (ASM)" - you know, that the cobalt warlords should free their slaves and let them dig cobalt for themselves; a 21st century "forty acres and a mule" redux. Apparently those cobalt slaves are troubling him, not so much that he's willing to change his mind.)
And yet, here and now, I am presented with a claim that so called "renewable energy" advocates give a shit about mining? Am I supposed to laugh or cry?
Let's be clear on something, OK? There is not enough cobalt on this planet to be dug by African defacto slaves in the Congo River region, or nickel at the Russian Norlisk mines, about which I wrote here, Nickel oxide is literally green, which is good for your very "green" electric car that's saving... to address this obscene bourgeois fantasy about electric cars and wind turbine batteries designed to carry over a grid for weeks of Dunkleflaute, when there are wind droughts, periods during which the Germans burn coal and dump the waste on all people now living and on all future generations.
Anyone who says that batteries can "engineer away" the grotesque, expensive, and failed "renewable energy" scheme apparently knows very little about engineering, nothing about materials science, zero chemistry and very little about environmental issues.
However much people want to whine that "NNadir is an idiot" because we can tell him this kind of shit and expect him to accept it, has obviously not spent very much time thinking about energy and the environment.
As for the "better than nothing" excuse I repeatedly hear from people who think that so called "renewable energy" isn't that bad, even that it's a good thing - you know, to paraphrase, "what would the reading be at Mauna Loa if we hadn't spent 3.2633 trillion dollars dominated by wind and solar and to a lesser extent other wilderness destroying schemes" - we should consider what the result would have been if we spent the same money on stuff that works rather than embracing a "renewable energy" cargo cult.
Nuclear power plants are now designed to last 80 years. China, the most coal dependent large economy in the world, has built 54 of them in the last 20 years. How much coal would they burn if they hadn't built them? Even more than Germany's burning right now, to be sure. The Fuquing 6 reactor that reached full power last week, as well as the Hongyanghe reactor now starting up, will be operating when today's toddlers are grandparents.
Historically, using 1960's and 1970's technology, the United States built over 100 of them in a 20 year period, many of which still operate, gifts of an earlier more sensible generation to our ethically challenged generation.
And still we hear the delusional statement "we aren't building 100 reactors." They question is not whether it is feasible to build 100 reactors here - that has already been established in history - but rather, why we aren't building them?
Why not, in God's name, why not?
I know why: People spewing idiot rhetoric have won, and the consequences are upon all of humanity. Basically though, the rest of the world need not embrace the rhetoric in the American provinces.
(The Biden administration has just promoted Kathryn Huff to Assistant Secretary of Energy; she is very much involved in reality. It is a clear sign that our party, led by our President, is waking up.)
My State's coast is about to be industrialized with wind turbines, at a cost of over 5 billion dollars, for shit that will be landfill "by 2040." They will not be as reliable as the Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant, recently shut, the electricity will be expensive, backed by dangerous natural gas which may or may not be available, and will have to be decommissioned and replaced when my sons are in mid career. Oyster Creek, which came on line in 1969 and shut in 2018 - it could have operated longer. It operated 48 years, designed and built by engineers who mostly relied on slide rules.
Of course, we've heard this endless bullshit about how wind and solar can be built faster than nuclear plants. Really, with the need to be totally replaced every two or three decades? Anyone embracing this popular lie has never opened a single recent issue of the IEA's World Energy Outlook. After 50 years of mindless cheering, the solar and wind energy have never, not once, produced as much energy as primary nuclear energy - even with catcalls from ignorant people who spout ridiculous dogma - has been producing since the early 1990s, around 28 exajoules. Not once. Never. And yet, and yet, and yet, we hear the same lie repeated over and over and over and over, "it takes too long to build a nuclear plant; solar and wind are faster..."
Really?
One can look it up, if one give's a rat's ass about energy and the environment. If one doesn't give a rat's ass, one can continue to spew dogmatic pabulum that conflicts with reality.
Have a nice weekend.
Again, I can't believe that there are people who think I'm stupid and uninformed so as to talk...
...about mining and so called "renewable energy," to support this useless crap, and, on top of that, to have the moral and intellectual and educational audacity to mention batteries in the same claim.
First of all, every wind turbine on this planet, all of them, without ever having produced 10 exajoules of primary energy out of the roughly 600 exajoules of energy humanity is consuming, will need to be replaced in the next 20 to 30 years, most in less than 20 years.
Danish Master Register of Wind Turbines
Every one of them. And then, according to people repeating ridiculous dogma in support of them, they will have to scale them by a factor of 50 beyond that. Whence is the steel, and land, and diesel fuel, concrete and asphalt supposed to come?
Vaclav Smil's short text, linked above in my previous, on the materials requirements of wind turbines, which have absurdly low energy to mass ratios, and obscene land use requirements, is easy to read. It contains no equations; it is a simple statement of something called "facts." Smil thinks; he doesn't wave his hands with misinformation and spin insipidly. Of course, a wind advocate would refuse to read it. They apparently buy into Trumpian "alternate facts" rhetoric.
Here's the shit for brains, "nuclear is too dangerous," "renewables will save the world" asshole Benjamin Sovacool writing about minerals for what he, and many other delusional call, "low carbon energy:" Sustainable minerals and metals for a low-carbon future. (This is, as is the case of almost everything Sovacool writes, derivative, there are thousands of better discussions of this issue in the primary scientific literature.)
Let me open the report - in case it's behind a firewall - and quote what this asshole says about his so called "renewable energy" scheme, enthusiasm for which is delaying real action on climate change:
These extractive and smelting industries have thus left a legacy in many parts of the world of environmental degradation, adverse impacts to public health, marginalized communities and workers, and biodiversity damage. We identify key sustainability challenges with practices used in industries that will supply the metals and minerals—including cobalt, copper, lithium, cadmium, and rare earth elements (REEs)—needed for technologies such as solar photovoltaics, batteries, electric vehicle (EV) motors, wind turbines, fuel cells, and nuclear reactors.
He doesn't know, like most "I'm not an anti-nuke" antinukes - a class to which he also belongs; I once engaged him on a blog whereupon I had the opportunity to express my contempt for his bad thinking - about nuclear reactors. Nothing at all, except he hates them.
Here's his "solution" to the cobalt, copper, lithium, cadmium, and lanthanides (so called "rare earth elements" ) : Mine the shit out of the ocean:
Although mining in terrestrial areas is likely to continue to meet the demands of low-carbon technologies in the nearer term, we need to carefully consider mineral sources beneath the oceans in the longer term. The International Seabed Authority, set up under the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Law of the Sea, is in the process of issuing regulations related to oceanic mineral extraction. This process is a rare opportunity to be proactive in setting forth science-based environmental safeguards for mineral extraction. For metals such as cobalt and nickel, ocean minerals hold important prospects on the continental shelf within states' exclusive economic zones as well as the outer continental shelf regions. Within international waters, metallic nodules found in the vast Clarion-Clipperton Zone of the Pacific as well as in cobalt and tellurium crusts, which are found in seamounts worldwide, provide some of the richest deposits of metals for green technologies.
Even Sovacool, a typical weak thinker of the the "renewables will save us" sort, who is willing to tear the entire planet, not only land, but the oceans to chase the useless and destructive faith based "renewable energy" scheme, understands how what he calls (absurdly) "low carbon energy" the implications of mining.
(He's also fond of what he calls "artisanal and smallscale mining (ASM)" - you know, that the cobalt warlords should free their slaves and let them dig cobalt for themselves; a 21st century "forty acres and a mule" redux. Apparently those cobalt slaves are troubling him, not so much that he's willing to change his mind.)
And yet, here and now, I am presented with a claim that so called "renewable energy" advocates give a shit about mining? Am I supposed to laugh or cry?
Let's be clear on something, OK? There is not enough cobalt on this planet to be dug by African defacto slaves in the Congo River region, or nickel at the Russian Norlisk mines, about which I wrote here, Nickel oxide is literally green, which is good for your very "green" electric car that's saving... to address this obscene bourgeois fantasy about electric cars and wind turbine batteries designed to carry over a grid for weeks of Dunkleflaute, when there are wind droughts, periods during which the Germans burn coal and dump the waste on all people now living and on all future generations.
Anyone who says that batteries can "engineer away" the grotesque, expensive, and failed "renewable energy" scheme apparently knows very little about engineering, nothing about materials science, zero chemistry and very little about environmental issues.
However much people want to whine that "NNadir is an idiot" because we can tell him this kind of shit and expect him to accept it, has obviously not spent very much time thinking about energy and the environment.
As for the "better than nothing" excuse I repeatedly hear from people who think that so called "renewable energy" isn't that bad, even that it's a good thing - you know, to paraphrase, "what would the reading be at Mauna Loa if we hadn't spent 3.2633 trillion dollars dominated by wind and solar and to a lesser extent other wilderness destroying schemes" - we should consider what the result would have been if we spent the same money on stuff that works rather than embracing a "renewable energy" cargo cult.
Nuclear power plants are now designed to last 80 years. China, the most coal dependent large economy in the world, has built 54 of them in the last 20 years. How much coal would they burn if they hadn't built them? Even more than Germany's burning right now, to be sure. The Fuquing 6 reactor that reached full power last week, as well as the Hongyanghe reactor now starting up, will be operating when today's toddlers are grandparents.
Historically, using 1960's and 1970's technology, the United States built over 100 of them in a 20 year period, many of which still operate, gifts of an earlier more sensible generation to our ethically challenged generation.
And still we hear the delusional statement "we aren't building 100 reactors." They question is not whether it is feasible to build 100 reactors here - that has already been established in history - but rather, why we aren't building them?
Why not, in God's name, why not?
I know why: People spewing idiot rhetoric have won, and the consequences are upon all of humanity. Basically though, the rest of the world need not embrace the rhetoric in the American provinces.
(The Biden administration has just promoted Kathryn Huff to Assistant Secretary of Energy; she is very much involved in reality. It is a clear sign that our party, led by our President, is waking up.)
My State's coast is about to be industrialized with wind turbines, at a cost of over 5 billion dollars, for shit that will be landfill "by 2040." They will not be as reliable as the Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant, recently shut, the electricity will be expensive, backed by dangerous natural gas which may or may not be available, and will have to be decommissioned and replaced when my sons are in mid career. Oyster Creek, which came on line in 1969 and shut in 2018 - it could have operated longer. It operated 48 years, designed and built by engineers who mostly relied on slide rules.
Of course, we've heard this endless bullshit about how wind and solar can be built faster than nuclear plants. Really, with the need to be totally replaced every two or three decades? Anyone embracing this popular lie has never opened a single recent issue of the IEA's World Energy Outlook. After 50 years of mindless cheering, the solar and wind energy have never, not once, produced as much energy as primary nuclear energy - even with catcalls from ignorant people who spout ridiculous dogma - has been producing since the early 1990s, around 28 exajoules. Not once. Never. And yet, and yet, and yet, we hear the same lie repeated over and over and over and over, "it takes too long to build a nuclear plant; solar and wind are faster..."
Really?
One can look it up, if one give's a rat's ass about energy and the environment. If one doesn't give a rat's ass, one can continue to spew dogmatic pabulum that conflicts with reality.
Have a nice weekend.
March 19, 2022
I don't have time to go through the whole paper, but here's a scary map from it:
The caption:
On the other hand, I do eat a fair amount of rice and I'm noticeably alive.
I'm not sure I know what the implications are in their entirety, but it's probably something to keep in the back of one's mind. I am not generally all that familiar with organoarsenic chemistry, so I cannot say if boiling the rice leads to hydrolysis. Hopefully it does.
Have a nice weekend.
A disturbing map: Occurrence of dimethylmonothioarsenate around the world.
Arsenic poisoning from eating rice has been described as the greatest mass poisoning in world history in Bangladesh. The decrease in the flows of the Ganges River in its delta, which practically constitutes the entire nation of Bangladesh, has caused farmers to rely on groundwater, which percolates through natural arsenic containing rocks.
The toxicity of arsenic is very much connected to its oxidation state, the +3 state is far more toxic than the +5 state. (In Bangladesh it is present in the more soluble and more toxic +3 state in ground water.
However some compounds are toxic in the +5 state.
Here's a paper on one of these compounds: Widespread Occurrence of the Highly Toxic Dimethylated Monothioarsenate (DMMTA) in Rice Globally Jun Dai, Zhu Tang, A-Xiang Gao, Britta Planer-Friedrich, Peter M. Kopittke, Fang-Jie Zhao, and Peng Wang Environmental Science & Technology 2022 56 (6), 3575-3586.
Some text from the introduction:
Synopsis
Dimethylated monothioarsenate (DMMTA), a potentially highly toxic arsenic species, is found in rice worldwide, but has so far been being mistaken as a relatively harmless, nonregulated arsenic species.
Introduction
ARTICLE SECTIONSJump To
Inorganic arsenic (iAs) is classified as a nonthreshold (Class I) carcinogen. (1,2) Human exposure to iAs can cause a wide range of health problems, such as cancers of the bladder, lung, and skin, as well as cardiovascular and metabolic disorders. (3?5) Arsenic is ubiquitous in paddy soils, threatening the production of rice (Oryza sativa). (6,7) Paddy rice accumulates more As in the grain than other major cereal crops because arsenite is mobilized under anaerobic conditions in flooded paddy soils, (8) and arsenite is taken up efficiently by the highly expressed silicon uptake pathway in rice roots. (9) Understanding the accumulation of As in rice is of critical importance─rice grain is the main staple food for more than half of the world’s population, resulting in the consumption of rice being a major source of iAs. (10?14) As a carcinogen, iAs is regulated by food safety regulations. For example, it has been recommended that the limit of iAs in polished rice should be 200 ?g/kg, while for children/infant foods, it should be 100 ?g/kg. (15) Apart from iAs species, methylated As species such as dimethylated arsenate (DMA) are also commonly reported in rice grains. (6,16?19) It is generally recognized that DMA, with As in the pentavalent oxidation state, is much less toxic to humans, (20?22) and is therefore exempt from food safety considerations.
Although iAs and DMA are the two most commonly reported species of As in paddy systems, methylated thioarsenate species, predominantly dimethylated monothioarsenate [DMMTA, (CH3)2AsSOH], have recently been detected at considerable levels in porewaters of paddy soils. (24?26) Concentrations of DMMTA in the paddy porewaters varied from 0.2 to 36.2 ?g/L, accounting for up to 58% of its precursor DMA and up to 34% of the total dissolved As. (24?27) DMMTA can be taken up by rice roots where it is efficiently translocated to the shoots. (28) In contrast to DMA(V), which is considered to be of low toxicity, numerous in vitro studies have shown that DMMTA(V) (also sometimes referred to as thio-DMA(V)) is by far the most toxic As species to human cells, with cytotoxicity being 3 to 10 times higher than that of iAs. (14,20,21,29?31) Furthermore, DMMTA has frequently been detected in human urine samples following exposure to inorganic arsenic and arsenosugars. (32?35) It remains unclear whether DMMTA is produced as a metabolite following ingestion of the arsenite- or arsenosugar-containing foods or is derived directly from dietary exposure...
Dimethylated monothioarsenate (DMMTA), a potentially highly toxic arsenic species, is found in rice worldwide, but has so far been being mistaken as a relatively harmless, nonregulated arsenic species.
Introduction
ARTICLE SECTIONSJump To
Inorganic arsenic (iAs) is classified as a nonthreshold (Class I) carcinogen. (1,2) Human exposure to iAs can cause a wide range of health problems, such as cancers of the bladder, lung, and skin, as well as cardiovascular and metabolic disorders. (3?5) Arsenic is ubiquitous in paddy soils, threatening the production of rice (Oryza sativa). (6,7) Paddy rice accumulates more As in the grain than other major cereal crops because arsenite is mobilized under anaerobic conditions in flooded paddy soils, (8) and arsenite is taken up efficiently by the highly expressed silicon uptake pathway in rice roots. (9) Understanding the accumulation of As in rice is of critical importance─rice grain is the main staple food for more than half of the world’s population, resulting in the consumption of rice being a major source of iAs. (10?14) As a carcinogen, iAs is regulated by food safety regulations. For example, it has been recommended that the limit of iAs in polished rice should be 200 ?g/kg, while for children/infant foods, it should be 100 ?g/kg. (15) Apart from iAs species, methylated As species such as dimethylated arsenate (DMA) are also commonly reported in rice grains. (6,16?19) It is generally recognized that DMA, with As in the pentavalent oxidation state, is much less toxic to humans, (20?22) and is therefore exempt from food safety considerations.
Although iAs and DMA are the two most commonly reported species of As in paddy systems, methylated thioarsenate species, predominantly dimethylated monothioarsenate [DMMTA, (CH3)2AsSOH], have recently been detected at considerable levels in porewaters of paddy soils. (24?26) Concentrations of DMMTA in the paddy porewaters varied from 0.2 to 36.2 ?g/L, accounting for up to 58% of its precursor DMA and up to 34% of the total dissolved As. (24?27) DMMTA can be taken up by rice roots where it is efficiently translocated to the shoots. (28) In contrast to DMA(V), which is considered to be of low toxicity, numerous in vitro studies have shown that DMMTA(V) (also sometimes referred to as thio-DMA(V)) is by far the most toxic As species to human cells, with cytotoxicity being 3 to 10 times higher than that of iAs. (14,20,21,29?31) Furthermore, DMMTA has frequently been detected in human urine samples following exposure to inorganic arsenic and arsenosugars. (32?35) It remains unclear whether DMMTA is produced as a metabolite following ingestion of the arsenite- or arsenosugar-containing foods or is derived directly from dietary exposure...
I don't have time to go through the whole paper, but here's a scary map from it:
The caption:
Figure 4. Global rice DMMTA concentrations. (A) Mean concentrations of DMMTA in polished rice produced in different regions/countries (or continents). Data for DMMTA were (i) taken from the global basket survey in the present study (n = 140) and (ii) calculated based on eight previous studies that used the acid extraction method to extract the As species and reported DMA concentrations in rice (n = 1731) from 86 distinct main rice production regions, with DMMTA concentrations calculated to be 30% of the total DMA based on the ratio of DMMTA to DMA observed throughout Chinese field survey and global market surveys (Figures 2F and 3C). (B) DMMTA concentrations and percentages in rice produced in different countries as a function of latitude. Different letters indicate difference at P < 0.05.
On the other hand, I do eat a fair amount of rice and I'm noticeably alive.
I'm not sure I know what the implications are in their entirety, but it's probably something to keep in the back of one's mind. I am not generally all that familiar with organoarsenic chemistry, so I cannot say if boiling the rice leads to hydrolysis. Hopefully it does.
Have a nice weekend.
March 17, 2022
I'm running out of lifetime, I think, and here's all the energy dreams of my time in one fantastic schematic.
Didn't happen, isn't happening, won't happen but in these times, if no other, theory (or perhaps wishing) trumps reality.
(Trump and reality side by side. It's 2022. Anything is possible. Right? "By 'such and such' a year, nirvana.)
Nearly three quarters of a century of talk and it's not like we've stopped talking, nor will we, until the last molecule of CO2 is in the air.
We're pushing 419 ppm of CO2 in the planetary atmosphere this week, but don't worry, be happy; it's such a cute picture, isn't it?
Won't happen, but here's all the stuff about which people prattle in one picture.
Here you go, from Toward a Fundamental Understanding of Geological Hydrogen Storage Adnan Aftab, Aliakbar Hassanpouryouzband, Quan Xie, Laura L. Machuca, and Mohammad Sarmadivaleh Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 2022 61 (9), 3233-3253
The caption, for what it's worth:
Figure 1. Graphical representation of entire carbon-free and sustainable hydrogen energy production and supply chain mainly comprising H2 geostorage in depleted gas reservoirs and salt caverns
I'm running out of lifetime, I think, and here's all the energy dreams of my time in one fantastic schematic.
Didn't happen, isn't happening, won't happen but in these times, if no other, theory (or perhaps wishing) trumps reality.
(Trump and reality side by side. It's 2022. Anything is possible. Right? "By 'such and such' a year, nirvana.)
Nearly three quarters of a century of talk and it's not like we've stopped talking, nor will we, until the last molecule of CO2 is in the air.
We're pushing 419 ppm of CO2 in the planetary atmosphere this week, but don't worry, be happy; it's such a cute picture, isn't it?
March 17, 2022
I'm sure I've posted this before somewhere, but now...
The mood I'm In As I Contemplate Those Suffering For Their Bravery...
The Unknown Dissident:
I'm sure I've posted this before somewhere, but now...
March 16, 2022
The title speaks for itself.
Of particular interest is the remarks of of Dr. Roman Sidortsov of Michigan Tech, particularly the statement he says, um, might be controversial which is that the so called "energy transition" needed Russian and Saudi oil.
(There is no energy transition; the rate of climate change gas releases is increasing not decreasing, but still it's a public chant that such a thing exists, although there's no evidence of it._
Reliance on dangerous fossil fuels is increasing, not decreasing, although the EU has announced another of those wonderful "by such and such year" statements that it will stop using Russian oil "by 2027."
We'll see.
We still have people here thinking that the German energy policy - "wind and solar will save us" - is about eliminating dependence on dangerous fossil fuels, about climate change. The opposite is true. It's not about climate change, never was. This is a fact. Facts matter.
An Energy Battleground Between Russia and Germany with Dr. Filip Cernoch
This is a lecture I attended yesterday on line with reference to the Ukraine War. It's available on You Tube:
The title speaks for itself.
Of particular interest is the remarks of of Dr. Roman Sidortsov of Michigan Tech, particularly the statement he says, um, might be controversial which is that the so called "energy transition" needed Russian and Saudi oil.
(There is no energy transition; the rate of climate change gas releases is increasing not decreasing, but still it's a public chant that such a thing exists, although there's no evidence of it._
Reliance on dangerous fossil fuels is increasing, not decreasing, although the EU has announced another of those wonderful "by such and such year" statements that it will stop using Russian oil "by 2027."
We'll see.
We still have people here thinking that the German energy policy - "wind and solar will save us" - is about eliminating dependence on dangerous fossil fuels, about climate change. The opposite is true. It's not about climate change, never was. This is a fact. Facts matter.
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