Today in Carbon Credits

As I have noted the carbon credit market is a particularly criminogenic activity, and we have another example of this, with the CEO of a major carbon credit developer being charged with a massive years long carbon credit fraud.

Hoocoodanode?

On 2 October 2024, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced criminal charges against Ken Newcombe, ex-CEO of carbon credit project developer, C-Quest Capital LLC. Newcombe was indicted on wire fraud, commodities fraud, and securities fraud. If found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

In February 2024, Newcombe resigned as CEO of C-Quest Capital, the company he set up in 2008. C-Quest is incorporated in the tax and secrecy haven of Delaware.

Newcombe was a major promoter of carbon trading, having worked at the World Bank, Climate Change Capital, and Goldman Sachs, before launching C-Quest Capital.

He was a member of Verra’s board [The non profit responsible for setting the Verified Carbon Standard for carbon offsets] from 2007 to December 2023.

………

The charges are against Newcombe and Tridip Goswami, former head of C-Quest’s carbon and sustainable accounting team. Jason Steele, C-Quest’s ex-chief operating officer pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the US authorities.

The indictment accuses Newcombe and Goswami of carrying out a fraud from 2021 to 2023 that resulted in their company CQC Impact Investors LLC “fraudulently obtaining carbon credits worth tens of millions of dollars”.

They are accused of “fraudulently altering data to show that CQC’s cookstoves achieved increased fuel savings and by manipulating the data-collection process to make it appear that more of CQC’s stoves were operational than was actually the case”. CQC allegedly received millions more carbon credits than it otherwise would have done because of this fraud.

Newcombe is also accused of using the fraudulently obtained carbon credits to deceive an investor into agreeing to invest up to US$250 million in CQC. The deal also included the investor buying some of Newcombe’s shares for more than US$16 million.

As an FYI, this technology is nothing new.  It's called a, "Rocket Stove", and it is generally more efficient than conventional wood stoves.

Of course, their business model was to use this to generate carbon credits, and there it would be difficult, if not impossible, to get honest numbers for this, so they lied.

The carbon credit markets encourage fraud, whether it is something like this, or as is the casse of organizations like the Nature Conservancy, reselling forests that had already been set aside for preservation.

This is why I favor a carbon tax over cap and trade.

Always Been a Scam

Preach it John Oliver!

As I have noted on multiple occasions, carbon offsets are a scam. 

They are a way for non-profits, and brokers, to get money for things like protecting forests from logging that will never be logged, or, in more extreme cases, forests that have never existed.

David Antonioli, the CEO of Verra, which is responsible for the vast bulk of the certifications of these instruments after revelations that more than 90% of the offsets that it certified are fraudulent.

The process of buying and selling carbon credits is inherently criminogenic, kind of like cryptocurrency.

That fraud has taken over is a shame, but not a surprise:

The head of the world’s leading carbon credit certifier has announced he will step down as CEO next month.

It comes amid concerns that Verra, a Washington-based nonprofit, approved tens of millions of worthless offsets that are used by major companies for climate and biodiversity commitments, according to a joint Guardian investigation earlier this year.

In a statement on LinkedIn on Monday, Verra’s CEO, David Antonioli, said he would leave his role after 15 years leading the organisation that dominates the $2bn voluntary carbon market, which has certified more than 1bn credits through its verified carbon standard (VCS).

………

The announcement follows a difficult period for Verra, which has seen the environmental integrity of their carbon standard satirised by the comedian John Oliver and journalistic exposés about the integrity of their carbon credit certification process. [The vid is above]

In January, a nine-month investigation by the Guardian, the German weekly Die Zeit and the investigative group SourceMaterial found Verra rainforest credits used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations were largely worthless, often based on stopping the destruction of rainforests that were not threatened, according to independent studies. It also found evidence of forced evictions at a flagship scheme co-operated by Conservation International in Peru.

Antonioli strongly rejected the findings of the investigation and defended Verra’s impact on the conservation of rainforests. The organisation is in the process of introducing new rules for generating rainforest carbon credits, with all projects set to be using the new system by mid-2025.

Translation, "We are doing nothing wrong, and we promise never to do it again." 

I know that I say this way too often, but the people who are engaged in these frauds should be frog-marched out of their offices in handcuffs.

Carbon taxes are cheaper to administer and far less vulnerable to fraud, and the enforcement on transnational trade can follow the same model used for a value added tax.

The only advantage to cap and trade, and this applies only if you are a corrupt sociopath, is that you and your fellow Wall Street or City of London friends can make back sitting astride the transactions and extracting a toll.

They Are All Shams

A whistle-blower in Australia is claiming that Australia’s carbon credit scheme is, "largely a scam."

This is a feature, and not a bug, of carbon offsets, and to a slightly lesser degree cap and trade, as shown by the Nature Conservancy, where the bulk of their funding comes from their sales of fraudulent ecological offsets. (Selling offsets to save forests that will never be logged under any circumstances)

The problem with, "Market based solutions," to climate change, as opposed to explicit regulations or taxes, is that they inevitably require a lot of involvement from the finance industry, and corruption is how the finance industry makes money:

A whistleblower who spent years working on the integrity of the Australian government’s carbon credit system has launched an extraordinary attack on the scheme, describing it as a fraud that is hurting the environment and has wasted more than $1bn in taxpayer funding.

Prof Andrew Macintosh, the former head of the government’s Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee, said the growing carbon market overseen by the government and the Clean Energy Regulator was “largely a sham” as most of the carbon credits approved did not represent real or new cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

His critique – outlined in four new academic papers – has major implications for the credibility of the Coalition’s $4.5bn “direct action” emissions reduction fund, through which the government buys carbon credits from rural landholders and other businesses.

It also raises questions for the rapidly growing number of polluting companies promising to buy carbon credits to offset their impact on the planet. The private market in carbon credits was worth $150m last year.

A Feature, Not a Bug

I am completely not shocked that a massive carbon offset program in Australia is a fraud.

This is not a surprise.

As my posts on the Nature Conservancy show this is the default behavior.

Either they are taking credit for vegetation not under threat, or they are misrepresenting the savings involved:

Australia's carbon credit scheme was undermined by damning new research Wednesday, which found a world-leading reforestation project had been an underperforming "catastrophe".

Vast swathes of land across Australia's desert Outback have been earmarked for native forest regeneration, which is meant to offset emissions as new trees suck up carbon.

But researchers have found that across almost 80 percent of these plantations forest growth was either stagnant – or that woodlands were shrinking.………

Australia has set aside almost 42 million hectares (104 million acres) under the scheme, an area larger than the landmass of Japan.

Researchers said it was "one of the world's largest" natural carbon offset projects.

Officials claim that since 2013, the native forest spreading across this land has sucked up more than 27 million tonnes of carbon.

But the peer-reviewed research, which used satellite imagery to chart forest growth, has cast serious doubt on this figure.

………

The peer-reviewed research was published in the Nature Communications journal, Earth & Environment.

Australia has committed to cutting carbon emissions by 43 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels, on a path to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.

Australia's carbon dioxide emissions per person are among the highest in the world at 15.3 tonnes, surpassing US levels, World Bank figures show.

Carbon offsets are a criminogenic activity.

Its structure not only favors fraud, it practically demands fraud.

Carbon Tax Update

Well, it's beginning to look like France will impose its own carbon tax €17 ($24.90) per ton of CO₂.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to move France toward greater reductions in carbon emissions, but it is also a reflection of just how big a failure that Europe's cap and trade regime has been, with the creation of false offsets overseas, construction of hydroelectric plants without transmission lines in China, and paying farmers not to grow food.

In addition to that, there is the detail that the markets simply do not work, creating a "pollution fire sale,"^* which makes this system a joke.

In any case, I ran the numbers,^† and got about $0.2212/gallon, which in the scheme of things is not a huge chunk of change, particularly in France, where the price of a gallon of gas is about $6.00 including tax, but it is likely to make coal powered electricity much less competitive, particularly if the tax goes up over time.

France is emulating Finland and Sweden, who implemented carbon taxes over a decade ago, and got reductions in emissions, as opposed to the EU cap and trade, which hasn't ever worked.

On a related note, both Caterpillar and Federal Express are lobbying for a carbon tax instead of a cap and trade too.

They mention a number of reasons, not the least of which is the giveaways to big coal, but the big reason is buried a few paragraphs down here:

A predictable, graduated tax would have an impact on the role of the military overseas, improve the environment and be good for the economy, [FedEx CEO] Smith argued.

(emphasis mine)

Simply put, they don't want to live in a world where the cost of carbon credits will fluctuate day to day because of the machinations of that great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity,^‡ Goldman Sachs.

FedEx and Caterpillar, and pretty much everyone but the coal burning utilities can live with a carbon tax, it effects them all equally.

If you make carbon permits a trade able market commodity, and suddenly you have where the difference between survival and bankruptcy are choices in an opaque and volatile market.

You end up diverting enormous resources from upgrading equipment and doing research on more efficient ways to do things, and drive it into the blood funnel of the vampire squid.

^*Original author's pun, not mine.
^†I assume that the tax is actually per tonne (metric ton), so that is 1000 kg of CO₂, which is 273 kg of carbon. This means that the actual tax for a kg of carbon is about €0.0623 per kilo of carbon.

A good approximation of the formula for gasoline is C₈H₁₈ (It's actually a witches brew of different hydrocarbons), and the weight of a liter of gasoline 0.76, so the weight of carbon in a liter is about 0.64 kg.

This gives a tax of about €0.03989/liter, or about $0.2212/gallon
^‡Alas, I cannot claim credit for this bon mot, it was coined by the great Matt Taibbi, in his article on the massive criminal conspiracy investment firm, The Great American Bubble Machine.

Hydrocarbons on Saturn's Moon Hyperion

Straight from the NASA Pages. The more we study the solar system, the more we find of "the stuff of life".

I think that there are a lot of planets out there supporting life currently, though not in our solar system. (Mars might have at one time)

NASA Finds Hydrocarbons on Saturn's Moon Hyperion

PASADENA , Calif. - NASA's Cassini spacecraft has revealed for the first time surface details of Saturn's moon Hyperion, including cup-like craters filled with hydrocarbons that may indicate more widespread presence in our solar system of basic chemicals necessary for life.

Hyperion yielded some of its secrets to the battery of instruments aboard Cassini as the spacecraft flew close by in September 2005. Water and carbon dioxide ices were found, as well as dark material that fits the spectral profile of hydrocarbons.

Image right:This map shows the composition of a portion of Hyperion's surface. Blue shows the maximum exposure of frozen water, red denotes carbon dioxide ice ("dry ice"), magenta indicates regions of water plus carbon dioxide, yellow is a mix of carbon dioxide and an unidentified material. Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/Ames/Space Science Institute
+ Full image and caption
Related images: + Hyperion's Kaleidoscope of Color
+ Hyperion's Icy Surface
+ Related story

A paper appearing in the July 5 issue of Nature reports details of Hyperion's surface craters and composition observed during this flyby, including keys to understanding the moon's origin and evolution over 4.5 billion years. This is the first time scientists were able to map the surface material on Hyperion.

"Of special interest is the presence on Hyperion of hydrocarbons--combinations of carbon and hydrogen atoms that are found in comets, meteorites, and the dust in our galaxy," said Dale Cruikshank, a planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., and the paper's lead author. "These molecules, when embedded in ice and exposed to ultraviolet light, form new molecules of biological significance. This doesn't mean that we have found life, but it is a further indication that the basic chemistry needed for life is widespread in the universe."

Cassini's ultraviolet imaging spectrograph and visual and infrared mapping spectrometer captured compositional variations in Hyperion's surface. These instruments, capable of mapping mineral and chemical features of the moon, sent back data confirming the presence of frozen water found by earlier ground-based observations, but also discovered solid carbon dioxide (dry ice) mixed in unexpected ways with the ordinary ice. Images of the brightest regions of Hyperion's surface show frozen water that is crystalline in form, like that found on Earth.

"Most of Hyperion's surface ice is a mix of frozen water and organic dust, but carbon dioxide ice is also prominent. The carbon dioxide is not pure, but is somehow chemically attached to other molecules," explained Cruikshank.

Prior spacecraft data from other moons of Saturn, as well as Jupiter's moons Ganymede and Callisto, suggest that the carbon dioxide molecule is "complexed," or attached with other surface material in multiple ways. "We think that ordinary carbon dioxide will evaporate from Saturn's moons over long periods of time," said Cruikshank, "but it appears to be much more stable when it is attached to other molecules."

"The Hyperion flyby was a fine example of Cassini's multi-wavelength capabilities. In this first-ever ultraviolet observation of Hyperion, the detection of water ice tells us about compositional differences of this bizarre body," said Amanda Hendrix, Cassini scientist on the ultraviolet imaging spectrograph at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Hyperion, Saturn's eighth largest moon, has a chaotic spin and orbits Saturn every 21 days. The July 5 issue of Nature also includes new findings from the imaging team about Hyperion's strange, spongy-looking appearance. Details are online at: http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=3303 .

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

More information on the Cassini mission is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini .


Media contact: Carolina Martinez 818-354-9382
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Ruth Dasso Marlaire 650-604-4709
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.

Gee, What a Shame 🤣

Not generally a fan of the Trump administration's actions with regard to anthropogenic climate change, but as I have noted before, I am not a fan of carbon credits, which I see as an inherently corrupt system.

Frequently, as is most the egregiously the case with The Nature Conservancy  these credits involve the sale of, "Credits," derived from activities that already would have happened.  (The Nature Conservancy sells carbon credit for properties that they had already declared will never be logged)

Another case is credits to EV manufacturers, who would have tried to sell the same cars with or without carbon credits.

So we have a case where bad politics, their being pro-pollution, results in good policy, 

That is a bit of brightness in the dark, but this is not what I find amusing.

What I find amusing is that the 2nd most egregious abuser of this program is Tesla, whose profits would be nearly non-existent without those credits and now the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™ is having major butt-hurt over the loss of revenue: 

Despite the occasional stock market rally, Tesla is clearly struggling. The EV company, once the crown jewel of its industry, has seen steep declines over the past year, as its CEO, Elon Musk, continues to draw criticism over his political activities. Sales for the company are down all over the world, despite its recent introduction to new markets, like India. Now, as Tesla struggles to keep its head above water, another significant revenue stream is about to run dry, thanks largely to Musk’s former “buddy,” President Trump.

On September 30th, the EV regulatory credit is set to expire. The program, which has allowed gas-powered vehicles to sidestep federal fines linked to the pollution they create, has served to enrich a small number of electric vehicle producers, most notably Tesla. To avoid getting dinged over their emissions (the government has incentivized EV production by fining firms that fail to produce a certain threshold of zero-emission cars), traditional car companies can purchase “credits” from EV makers like Tesla, which allows them to stay within compliance.

For years, the EV regulatory credit has provided Musk’s company with a financial lifeline. Indeed, according to an E&E News analysis of Tesla’s securities filings, the company has earned over $10 billion from the scheme, a third of the company’s total profits over the last decade. Reuters reports that such credits are currently “crucial for Tesla’s finances” and that they have represented the “main driver” of the company’s profits during the first quarter of 2025. In that sense, despite its supposed mission of making the world a healthier place, Tesla has ironically helped to incentivize the continued production of gas-guzzling, emissions-producing cars, as the EV credits scheme has allowed many of the big-name automakers to continue on with business-as-usual.

 I've had my schadenfreude for the month.

Why Cap and Trade Sucks

At the core of Cap and Trade carbon controls is trading of tax credits, and the creation and trading of tax credits is a function which actively encourages fraudulent behavior. 

Case in point is the Massachusetts Audubon Society, which announced its intention to log thousands of acres that it was preserving in western Massachusetts so that it could then sell credits for not chopping down the trees.

Of course, it never actually intended to chop down these cheese, this was just a way to create carbon credits that had no basis in reality, and then sell them to polluting business, with no actual reduction in emissions.

In addition to the Mass Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy is notorious for its sale of meaningless carbon offsets:

The Massachusetts Audubon Society has long managed its land in western Massachusetts as crucial wildlife habitat. Nature lovers flock to these forests to enjoy bird-watching and quiet hikes, with the occasional bobcat or moose sighting.

But in 2015, the conservation nonprofit presented California’s top climate regulator with a startling scenario: It could heavily log 9,700 acres of its preserved forests over the next few years.

The group raised the possibility of chopping down hundreds of thousands of trees as part of its application to take part in California’s forest offset program.

Spoiler, the never intended to log this land.  They are engaging in a humbug.

The environmental organization has become a bunch of snollygosters.

………

The Air Resources Board accepted Mass Audubon’s project into its program, requiring the nonprofit to preserve its forests over the next century instead of heavily logging them. The nonprofit received more than 600,000 credits in exchange for its promise. The vast majority were sold through intermediaries to oil and gas companies, records show. The group earned about $6 million from the sales, Mass Audubon regional scientist Tom Lautzenheiser said.

On paper, the deal was a success. The fossil fuel companies were able to emit more CO2 while abiding by California’s climate laws. Mass Audubon earned enough money to acquire additional land for preservation, and to hire new staff working on climate change.

But it didn’t work out as well for the climate, unless Mass Audubon actually intended to start acting more like a timber company. The project wouldn’t achieve anywhere near the claimed levels of reduced carbon emissions if the nonprofit was getting credits for forests that were never in danger of aggressive logging. And every time a polluter uses a credit that didn’t actually save a ton of carbon, net emissions go up, undermining the point of the program.

………

New research by the San Francisco nonprofit CarbonPlan provides evidence that this is occurring: It shows that landowners in the program routinely maximize the number of trees they assert they could chop down if they weren’t given carbon credits, even if they have little history of logging or have mission statements in sharp opposition to such practices.

The research suggests the program could be significantly exaggerating the amount of carbon savings achieved.

“The nearly universal pattern we see in the data,” said Danny Cullenward, policy director at CarbonPlan and a coauthor of the study, corroborates concerns that “those projects are not delivering real climate benefits.”

(emphasis mine)

If you have direct tax on carbon, you eliminate this sort of fraud, what's more you can treat the carbon tax in the same way that a value added tax is, and refund upon export, and charge upon import, so as to make sure that bad actors on global warming don't get an effective subsidy for that bad behavior.

Of Course They Did

As I have noted a few times before, the whole carbon credit economy is an exercise in regulatory arbitrage and fraud.  This time it's Shell Oil that sold millions of dollars worth of fraudulent carbon credits:

Shell sold millions of carbon credits tied to CO₂ removal that never took place to Canada’s largest oil sands companies, raising new doubts about a technology seen as crucial to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.

As part of a subsidy scheme to boost the industry, the Alberta provincial government allowed Shell to register and sell carbon credits equivalent to twice the volume of emissions avoided by its Quest carbon capture facility between 2015 and 2021, the province’s registry shows. The subsidy was reduced and then ended in 2022.

As a result of the scheme, Shell was able to register 5.7mn credits that had no equivalent CO₂ reductions, selling these to top oil sands producers and some of its own subsidiaries. Credits are typically equivalent to one tonne of CO₂.

I am not surprised that the snollygosters in the Alberta government has gone all in on fraudulent carbon credits.

They have staked their economic future on tar sands, which are arguably more polluting than coal, so they are desperate to produce the illusion that those activities are eco-friendly.

They are not.

Really, Really, Really Bad Ideas: Carbon Trading Edition

Unfortunately, it's hit the big time, with Fortune Magazine declaring that it has hit "the big time", so it appears that much like new math, new Coke, sequels the Rocky, mortgage backed securities, and Astroturf, we will be seeing a lot of this.

The idea is that the government issues a limited number of carbon credits, basically permission to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and since there are fewer credits issued than would be actually needed, a "robust market" would be established where, because they can make money on these markets, carbon emitters would, through the magic of the profit motive, cut emissions.

You see, this market, with its highly compensated traders, and the complex investment vehicles that come with them, constitutes an unparalleled opportunity to create innovation.

Well, that's the first problem. That's what Alan Greenspan said about mortgage backed securities and credit default swaps, but it's supposed to work just fine with combating global warming.

The second problem is that any regime for this is going to be difficult. You have to decide how many credits are issued, and who issues them, and how to regulate the market so you don't have a lone trader bankrupting a multi-billion dollar company.

The most basic problem however, is that this is a tax on carbon.

Because your goal is to reduce carbon emissions, the number of credits issued must necessarily be lower than what the market really wants, at least a bit, which costs every business participating in it.

Only this tax goes to the polluters, at least the ones who manage to improve efficiencies or game the system by getting excess credits, and to the Bear Stearns types, who would leverage one of my farts if they could find a way.

If you are going to put a tax on pollution, then just tax that pollution, and let the government collect the monies, as opposed to the polluters and their parasites, and spend it on something other than multi million dollar executive compensation.

Australia Intends to Institute a Carbon Tax

Well, this is a good policy, at least until 2015, when they turn the whole idea over to the Vampire Squid^* and its ilk:

The Australian government has unveiled plans to impose a tax on carbon emissions for the worst polluters.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said carbon dioxide emissions would be taxed at A$23 ($25; £15) per tonne from 2012.

The country's biggest economic reform in a generation will cover some 500 companies. In 2015, a market-based trading scheme will be introduced.

(emphasis mine)

Once the market based trading scheme is implemented, we can expect to see the investment banks come up with all sorts of opaque trading schemes (Carbon Default Swaps anyone?) that will serve primarily as a means to extract fees and other rents from the process, and then we will see another orgy of fraud and speculation bring the market down.

Of course, this won't happen immediately, particularly since there would be floor and ceiling prices for the first few years, but it will happen, and money that is extracted from the public will go to private speculators rather than the public good.

^*Alas, I cannot claim credit for the bon mot describing Goldman Sachs as a, "great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." This was coined by the great Matt Taibbi, in his article on the massive criminal conspiracy investment firm, The Great American Bubble Machine.

Phoenix Mars Lander Readied for Launch

This is a highly ambitious project with a real possibility of finding signs of extra-terrestrial life.

Let's hope that NASA does not screw this up.

Phoenix Mars Lander Readied for Launch(Subscription Required)

Aviation Week & Space Technology
06/11/2007, page 56

Craig Covault
Denver, Colo. & Tuscon, Ariz.

The Phoenix lander—with U.S., Canadian and European technology—will broaden the search for life’s clues beyond Earth

Printed headline: Back to Mars

The NASA Phoenix Mars lander, carrying the most ambitious laboratory hardware ever sent to another planet, is ready for launch on a mission to taste Martian water and search for the organic carbon building-blocks of life near the planet’s north pole.

The spacecraft’s nearly 8-ft.-long robotic arm will dig trenches up to 3 ft. deep for imagery of subsurface layers and the retrieval of soil and ice samples for its complex mini-laboratories. This should enable Phoenix to determine what’s happening now, relative to the suitability for life, at a specific landing site where scientists know there’s water in the form of permafrost or ice. This is in contrast to the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which are equipped with geology sensors to determine what happened in the past, back to billions of years ago at their respective landing sites.

And Phoenix, with advanced technology from the U.S., Canada and Europe, will conduct much more complex sample processing and climate studies than was possible on the 1976 twin Viking landers that had a less capable arm and different analysis labs.


The Phoenix lander will lift off in August on a Delta II headed for touchdown in the north polar region of Mars. It will sample Martian water, ice and soil, searching for organic compounds critical to life. The circular Phoenix solar arrays, spanning 18 ft., were designed by ATK and adopted by Lockheed Martin for its winning Crew Exploration Vehicle design.Credit: PAT CORKERY/LOCKHEED MARTIN


Phoenix will land on 12 Aerojet hydrazine-powered rocket engines. They will be fired after separation from the spacecraft’s parachute at 1,870-ft. altitude 26 sec. before touchdown—171 million mi. from Earth. Phoenix is too large to use airbags, as did the Mars rovers and earlier Pathfinder lander. The 1976 Vikings also used powered descents.Credit: NASA JPL/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA


Water blasts through 12 descent engines on nonflight engineering model of spacecraft in critical test of propellant-line stresses as engines cycle on and off on split-second basis.Credit: PAT CORKERY/LOCKHEED MARTIN


Robotic arm (A) equipped with lights and scoop (B) will deposit water, ice and soil samples in eight TEGA ovens (C) that will bake out organic signatures at up to 1,800F. The arm will also deposit soil in MECA wet chemistry lab (D) that will add water to four cells. MECA also has 10 atomic force microscope slides. Canadian weather station (E) includes laser ranging beam and silver temperature/wind mast (center). Stereo imager (F) will take detailed images of trench layers. Lander must relay all data by UHF antenna (G) to Mars orbiters.


Phoenix in launch configuration is encased in aeroshell with heat shield at blunt end for a Mars atmospheric entry. It will employ Mars hypersonic guidance using a segment of the Apollo Earth-reentry algorithm.Credit: PAT CORKERY/LOCKHEED MARTIN

CFM International's Future Tech plans/

An interesting article on the conflicts between fuel economy and noise, and the technologies involved.

CFMI Trying To Anticipate New Climate Challenges (Subscription Required)
Aviation Week & Space Technology
06/04/2007, page 52

Michael Mecham
Evendale, Ohio

. . . and some new ones, as CFMI tackles fuel costs and environmental concerns

Printed headline: Some Old Plans . . .

It came as no surprise to CFM International that prospective customers of next-generation single-aisle aircraft rank reduced fuel consumption as their highest priority. But they also are awakening to a broadening of the clean planet debate that is likely to lead to a series of new regulations, such as carbon trading, from governments eager to respond to the growing clamor to do something about global warming.

Recently, CFMI, the 50-50 partnership between General Electric and Snecma, surveyed lessors, banks, legacy and low-cost carriers (LCCs) about their priorities for the LEAP56 (Leading Edge Aviation Propulsion) initiative for 18,000-33,000-lb.-thrust-class engines the company launched in 2005 to power a successor to the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 families.

......

CFMI likes what open rotors, whether in pusher (right) or puller configurations, can do to lower fuel burn. But noise and installation issues will make them a challenge. Credit: CFM CONCEPTS

But another bit of feedback is a sign of the times. "Focus on CO2," the LCCs advised. European political leaders have been the most pronounced adherents of the global warming message, which is to decrease levels of carbon dioxide from man-made sources. But the idea that increased regulation is necessary is gaining acceptance elsewhere.

"In the last six months, we have been impressed by how much the debate has picked up in the U.S.," says CFMI President and CEO Eric Bachelet.

.....

We can thank Al Gore for this.

Since CO2 emissions are directly related to fuel burn, reducing specific fuel consumption (SFC) is the most effective way to address the issue. The LEAP initiative is based on dropping SFC 10-15%, maintenance costs by about 15% and noise by 10-15 dB. to meet requirements expected in the next round of noise regulations, Stage 4, says Planaud. Additionally, oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions will need to exceed by 60% the Committee of Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP) 6 standards that come into effect next year.

Rig tests of the compressor, combustor and high- and low-pressure turbines in the initiative will begin this year at Snecma's facilities in Villaroche, France, and GE's at Peebles, Ohio. The tests are aimed at an engine launch in 2011, which is enough lead time for Airbus and Boeing to introduce a successor to their A320 and 737 programs, respectively, by mid-decade.

....

Started in 2005, LEAP56 includes composite fan case and fan blades, titanium aluminide 3D airfoils in the low-pressure turbine, ceramic matrix composite high-pressure turbine nozzles and a second-generation twin-annular pre-mixing swirler (TAPS) combustor. Clapper calls the combined technologies a "step change" for CFMI.

Composite fan blades are one of the most intense technology development efforts. GE introduced them on the GE90 and has extended the concept with composite fan cases for the GEnx. Those composites are laid in plies pre-impregnated with resin, a laborious process that GE tried without much success to automate. Besides saving weight and cutting SFC, composite blades are slashing maintenance costs. Only three blades have had to be replaced on GE90s since the engine entered service in 1995. Composite blades are so durable that GE is aiming for their certification on the GEnx with no service life limits (AW&ST Apr. 16, p. 60).

Using 18 wide-chord composite blades, rather than the customary 22 or more on older designs, combined with a composite fan case will save 400 lb. on LEAP engines, says Planaud.

However, the company anticipates LEAP56 production rates comparable to CFM56 engines, which have been as high as 2,000 a year, about five times higher than the GE90/GEnx series. As a result, the CFMI partners have been looking for composite manufacturing techniques that can be automated. Most promising is a process called Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) in which bands of dry preform are woven rather than laid on top of each other to create the composite structure.

The strength of small composite blades is an issue. The big GE90 wide-chord fan blades--as much as 115 in. long--have proven adept at dissipating the shock of bird and other foreign object strikes. But the smaller LEAP56 blades have less surface area to absorb such shocks. Tests on a CFM56-5C using 70-in. RTM blades will be done this year.

While noise, NOx, carbon particulate and carbon dioxide emissions are a growing political issue, the size of their fuel bill remains the biggest sore point for airlines.

All the world's airlines combined spent $43 billion on fuel in 2001--13% of their direct operating costs (DOC)--when Jet A cost $0.66 per gallon. At current rates of $2.03 per gallon, the bill for all airlines combined will hit $117 billion this year, or 26% of DOC, says Clapper.

To tackle this problem, CFMI assigned a team to use a combination of computer studies and the company's experience in maintenance to consider alternative engine designs. Most were rejected.

Among them were the geared turbofan (GTF) that Pratt & Whitney is developing. Its large-diameter, slower fan is expected to benefit fuel burn, but also will increase weight and drag, the CFMI team concluded. And the GTF was seen as driving up maintenance costs. Similarly, a two-stage turbine will be more efficient, but its higher operating temperatures are a worry sign for maintenance.

So the company ended up with a single-stage turbine, but with a higher pressure ratio for improved combustor efficiency than current models. "It's a simple, rugged design with fewer parts and higher reliability," says Clapper.

Looking beyond LEAP56, Snecma has been pursing an alternative strategy that holds some promise: a counterrotating fan to boost bypass.

More radically, CFMI has dusted off the unducted fan concept first proposed in the late 1980s as a weight-savings approach to lowering fuel costs in response to the industry's first oil shock. That idea faded in the early 1990s when fuel prices receded. But with fuel high again, and likely to stay that way because worldwide energy demands have increased so much, CFMI is taking a second look at unducted fans, which it's renamed "open rotors."

Last October, Rolls-Royce noted that it is exploring unducted fans, too. Pratt says mounting and noise issues are too great a hurdle and is sticking with its geared turbofan (AW&ST May 28, p. 65).

Without the weight and drag of an engine nacelle, CFMI calculates that a counter-rotating open rotor will save 10% in SFC beyond the improvements it foresees from LEAP56. Fans in both tractor (puller) and pusher configurations are under study. Using twin rows of blades improves their efficiency and allows slower speeds to reduce noise, Klapproth says.

An ultra-high bypass ratio, on the order of 35:1, is possible--four times the 9:1 ratio expected from LEAP56 and seven times the current CFM56 ratio of 5:1. Pressure ratios would be about 15:1, similar to LEAP56, but well ahead of the CFM56's 11:1.

But the open rotors are noisy, about 10% noisier than the LEAP engine, meaning cabins will need additional insulation. At its best, the engine is unlikely to meet the 20-dB. effective perceived noise reduction that the company foresees by 2020, Clapper acknowledges.

The largest CFM56 produced now, the -5C for the A340-300, has a 72-in. fan diameter. An equivalent-sized engine with an open rotor will require a 12-14-ft.-dia. rotor, posing significant challenges for mounting and certification.

Regardless of how well open rotor technology works, it's unlikely to appear until late in the next decade "at the earliest," says Clapper.

The noise issue alone could doom it. While engine makers are confident they can continue to lower fuel burn, which directly reduces CO2 emissions, and reduce NOx/carbon particulate pollution, they are increasingly worried about their ability to do so while simultaneously reducing noise because the technologies to do the former work against the latter.

Noise tends to be a local issue, emissions more national and international. So there's the possibility of an interesting debate taking place. It may be decided pragmatically. The pain of higher fuel bills may be so great that it will drive compromises that will still benefit the environmental camp, but work against those fighting to reduce engine noise.

My guess is that this will be changed with new forms of zoning that get residences away from airports. In a battle between global warming, and local noise, the localities lose.

A Forever Story

Over at Vox, they have a story titled, "WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann’s carbon credit crypto project sounds like a scam within a scam."

Not to be one to state the obvious,* but EVERY article that includes the phrase, "WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann," is about some sort of a scam.

Neumann is a bunco artist, and not a particularly convincing one.

The fact that he has not been charged with fraud is a mark of  the dysfunction of our criminal justice system.

Other stories that you know what they will be about once you get to a listing of the people involved:

• Congress + gun control = nothing happens.
• Congress + anthropogenic climate change = nothing happens.
  
• The Senate + filibuster = nothing happens.
• The Supreme Court + campaign finance = legalizing bribery.
  
• Republicans + LGBTQ = hate.
• Tesla + self driving = dead people.
• Blockchain = scam.

I'm sure that there are a few others that my reader(s) could add below.

^*OK, I am one to state the obvious. It's a term of art.

Rovers, reactors and 'green' rockets all on NASA's future-technology list

Here is an interesting rundown on the technologies that NASA is looking at:

Rovers, reactors and 'green' rockets all on NASA's future-technology list

Aviation Week & Space Technology
06/04/2007, page 50
Frank Morring, Jr.
Washington

Some advanced technology for long-term human space exploration is already getting on-orbit checkout as NASA targets about $350 million from its tight exploration budget this year on the long-lead items that may enable a return to the Moon en route to Mars.

There is some neat stuff here, but also some scary stuff.

But the program also is funding advanced-technology research ranging from composite space radiators that might save weight on Orion to a 5-ton nuclear reactor that would generate power for the outpost NASA plans to build on the Moon as a proving ground for expeditions to Mars.

The reactor is one of the scary things. The tech is described below, and I'll explain why it's scary (it's notbecause it's a nuclear reactor) after that.

One such system is getting a workout on the Orbital Express mission being conducted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa). Although the satellite-servicing testbed has had problems in orbit (AW&ST May 28, p. 22), they were unrelated to the Advanced Video Guidance Sensor provided by NASA.

Evolved over the past decade at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and previously space-tested on two space shuttle flights and the failed Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology mission in 2004, the sensor is designed for short-range rendezvous guidance between cooperating spacecraft.

I worked at the battery manufacturer for DART and did some (very) minor work on the batteries. It should be noted that the batteries worked just fine.

If it turns out that such a large piece of PICA can't handle the lunar-reentry heat flux, which is four to five times greater than that experienced by a reentering space shuttle, NASA will turn to two more contracts for backup heat-shield material. Boeing's Huntington Beach, Calif., facility will receive as much as $10 million to conduct early studies of a proprietary material known as the Boeing Phenolic Ablator (BPA). Textron Systems of Wilmington, Mass., won a contract worth as much as $24 million for preliminary work on two proprietary materials--Dual Layer, and a material called Avcoat that was used on the Apollo capsule.

"We're trying to relearn how to make that material," Moore says. "It's been a generation, and a lot of the people have retired who have done the Apollo heat shield, so we have lost a lot of that expertise."

They could also talk to the Russians.

Also under study are new fluids to carry the heat away from Orion electronics into the radiators--a mixture of propylene glycol and water is the baseline.

Don't confuse Ethylene Glycol and Propylene Glycol. The former is normal poisonous anti-freeze, the the latter is an alternative anti-freeze that is in the "pet safe" stuff, which is so non-toxic that you see it added to salad dressing.

Other advanced technologies under study for Orion include lightweight parachute material that can also fit into a smaller volume, and an amine swing-bed for carbon dioxide and moisture removal from the crew compartment. A bed of very small plastic beads is coated with chemicals that absorb CO2 and water vapor, and then release it when vented to the space vacuum.

NASA is developing a prototype amine swing-bed system to remove carbon dioxide and moisture from the Orion crew compartment.Credit: NASA/JSC

I think that this is of more concern for the Mars missions than the moon missions, where the use of conventional CO₂ sorbents might require too much weight and volume.

For crew safety, a team at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland is working on a "green" Orion attitude-control thruster system. Instead of requiring storage of highly toxic hydrazine fuel near the crew compartment, the system would burn gaseous oxygen and methane.

I think that this might be more of an issue of ISP (fuel economy) than environmental friendliness. The room temp propellants typically have a lower ISP, but Methane is much easier to store than liquid hydrogen, having a higher boiling point.

The dual propellant thrusters are more difficult to control precisely, but much more efficient.

Advanced preparations for the shuttle-derived Ares I crew launch vehicle that will carry Orion to orbit are also underway, piggybacking at times on routine shuttle-program tests to gather data. A case in point was the May 24 static test of a four-segment shuttle Reusable Solid Rocket Motor (RSRM) in Utah, which provided motor-signature data for a study at Ames Research Center on ways to detect impending failure in the five-segment RSRM that will serve as the Ares I first-stage.

Good move, but a better move is not to use solid rockets on man-rated systems. I continue to be dubious of solid rocket boosters on manned systems.

To help astronauts establish a lunar outpost and explore the surrounding terrain, the advanced-technology program is studying rovers, a nuclear power source and in situ resource utilization (ISRU) techniques. One promising activity at the Pasadena, Calif.-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory has field tested the All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestrial Explorer (Athlete), a six-legged vehicle as tall as a man that can move heavy payloads such as habitats around the surface either on wheels or by "walking." Another project at Houston-based Johnson Space Center, dubbed Scout, is an updated version of the unpressurized moon buggy that hauled Apollo astronauts around the lunar surface.

Two Athlete rovers undergo testing in California's Dumont Dunes. Athlete can roll over rough terrain using its wheels or its six legs, transporting heavy payloads during construction of the planned lunar outpost.Credit: JET PROPULSION LABORATORY

I think that this just looks cool, so here is the picture.

A big objective of the lunar outpost will be to test exploration technologies and techniques that can enable subsequent human exploration on Mars. Engineers at JSC are working on a variety of ISRU techniques to extract oxygen from the lunar regolith, as much for the experience as the resource.

Along the same lines, NASA and the Energy Dept. are working under a scaled-back version of the old Project Prometheus to advance some of the technologies that would be needed for a five-metric-ton, 40-kw. fission reactor that would take over from the solar power plant scheduled to provide initial power for the outpost. It would be fueled with uranium dioxide and cooled with a sodium/potassium liquid alloy.

This scares the hell out of me. Based on discussions with a Naval Nuke over a decade ago, metal cooled reactors are VERY twitchy things, with reaction times so fast that you can't operate them manually.

They are much more compact though, hence their use in the Soviet's Alpha class boats, where they worked (though their nuclear personnel glowed in the dark), and the unsuccessful use in the USN's original Seawolf, which was our 2nd nuclear boat.

They replaced it with a pressurized water reactor a few years after it was installed.

Economics Blog : Why Bernanke's Great Depression Research Matters Today

I think that this is a good rebuttal to the "Just make it tradable, and your problems go away" school of regulation.

Things like "Carbon Trading" encourage speculative money flows that eventually overwhelm the process for which the markets were created.

Economics Blog : Why Bernanke's Great Depression Research Matters Today
–Greg Ip

Ideas that Ben Bernanke pioneered years before becoming Federal Reserve Chairman could prove important in evaluating how financial stress, such as the subprime mortgage mess, affects the economy.

Since becoming Fed Chairman, Mr. Bernanke has spoken on countless issues ranging from China’s economy to free trade. But to understand where his economic heart truly lies, read the speech he delivered at the Atlanta Fed today, “The Financial Accelerator and the Credit Channel.”

As an academic in the early 1980s, Mr. Bernanke pioneered the idea that the financial markets, rather than a neutral player in business cycles, could significantly amplify booms and busts. Widespread failures by banks could aggravate a downturn, as could a decline in creditworthiness by consumers or businesses, rendering them unable to borrow. Mr. Bernanke employed this “financial accelerator” theory to explain the extraordinary depth and duration of the Great Depression. (Much of that work was done with New York University’s Mark Gertler, now a visiting scholar at the New York Fed.)

A lot has changed since the 1930s, but the financial accelerator is still relevant. Although Mr. Bernanke doesn’t say so specifically, the record level of consumer leverage today means a change in asset prices (such as homes or stocks) can produce a much larger change in consumers’ net worth, and as a result their ability to borrow and spend. “If the financial accelerator hypothesis is correct, changes in home values may affect household borrowing and spending by somewhat more than suggested by the conventional wealth effect,” that is, the tendency of a changes in asset prices to make consumers feel more or less wealthy, and thus spend differently. That is because “changes in homeowners’ net worth also affect their … costs of credit.”

...

Amazon Lying? Pshaw!!!!!

In the latest news about the bunch of contemptible rat bastard monopolists headquartered in Seattle  ……… No, not that one ………No, not that one EITHER ……… OK, it's Amazon, and they are lying through their teeth about their carbon footprint.

Of course they are lying.  It's kind of their thing:

Today, Amazon announced that it hit its 100% renewable electricity goal seven years early. But a group of Amazon employees argues that the company’s math is misleading.

A report from the group, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, argues that only 22% of the company’s data centers in the U.S. actually run on clean power. The employees looked at where each data center was located and the mix of power on the regional grids—how much was coming from coal, gas, or oil versus solar or wind.

Amazon, like many other companies, buys renewable energy credits (RECs) for a certain amount of clean power that’s produced by a solar plant or wind farm. In theory, RECs are supposed to push new renewable energy to get built. In reality, that doesn’t always happen. The employee research found that 68% of Amazon’s RECs are unbundled, meaning that they didn’t fund new renewable infrastructure, but gave credit for renewables that already existed or were already going to be built.

Carbon credits are a scam, as I have noted many times.

Amazon is aware of this, and they don't care.  They just want some public relations mojo.

If federal or state regulators want to make the world a better place, antitrust lawsuits, and the rollback of direct and indirect subsidies provided by governments to Amazon would go a long way to doing just that.

I Disagree With Paul Krugman

In his latest post, he thinks that Barack Obama gave too much credit to the Republicans in his Fox interview.

I agree with him on that. The ideas in question have been floating around in academic circles, and have been proposed by politicians on both sides for years.

What I disagree with is his classification of emissions trading as a successful policy.

Emissions trading is not a success relative to a tax of some sort.

They've never been shown to be more effective than a tax on emissions, they reduce revenues available to government, and they are more difficult to administer, which increases the regulatory load, and hence costs to taxpayers.

Additionally, if you think that mortgage backed securities are a morass of corrupt arbitrage, just wait until Wall Street gets its hands on actual dirt.

Carbon trading is a solution, it's just a bad one.

Drunk Blogging the Debates

10:39pm:
Final analysis:  Biden did not lose, so he won.

Trump really didn't make a case for himself though.

I am at no risk of alcohol poisoning at this juncture, so I call this personal win.

10:37pm:
The debate is over, thank God.

It was far less chaotic than I had anticipated.

10:35pm:
OK, I have learned that rum and coke is dangerous.

This may be the drunkest I have ever been in a debate.

10:32pm:
F%$# this, I need to watch cat videos.

10:30pm:
A quick note:  Biden just has to not lose.

He has managed not to lose so far.

10:29pm:
Trump is talking about the bird kills and massive carbon footprint of windmills.

This is a lie.

He goes back to claiming that Biden will ban fracking.  (False)

10:26pm:
Had to feed the cats some wet food to make sure that Destructo gets enough water in his diet.

I am so f%$#ing sh%$faced right now.

10:23pm:
Anthropogenic climate change comes up.

10:21pm:
Trump has a valid queation, "Why didn't you  do anything you get anything done in the 8 years that you were VP?"  About crime.

This is a talking point of his, but it is accurate.

10:20:
Biden actually admits to his earlier crime bills were a mistake.

I am completely sh%$ faced.

10:18pm:
Biden, "This guy has a dog whistle as big as a fog horn."

Heh.

10:16pm:
Moderator confronts Trump on his racist rhetoric.

Trump claims to be the least racist person in the room.  Only if David Duke is stuck with him in an elevator.

10:14pm:
Trump brings up a valid point:  Biden has over 40 years in politics, and over 8 years as VP, and these things were never addressed.

Don't know whether this will stick.

Thank god for real-time spell checking.  Without it, this will be comepletely incpomprehensible.

10:12pm:
I am unequivocally drunk.

Biden correctly reminds people that Trump called for the innocent kids from the Central Park 5.

10:10pm:
Biden talks relatively honestly, but does not mention his role in shepherding Clinton's horrible crime bill through the Senate.

Trump brings up the 1994 crime bill.  (True)  And claims that he has done more for the minority community than anyone since Lincoln (F%$#ing lie).

Trump talks up opportunity zones, which is money to rich white developers like ……… Donald Trump.

10:08pm:
Race in America.

Talking about "The Talk" that minorities have to give their kids a talk about how cops will just shoot you.

10:06pm:
The colloquy over immigration is just dueling liars.

Trump is horrible and cruel, and Obama, and by extension Biden, was horrible and cruel.

Trump talks about immigrant murders and rapists.  Take an drink.

10:04pm:
Trump makes the point that punitive immigration policies start with Obama.  The cages, etc.

That is actually true.  

Take a drink.

10:02pm:
Trump talks about the beautiful wall.

There is not enough alcohol in the world.

10:00pm:
$15.00/hr minimum wage.

Trump says, "Leave it up to the states," just like segregationists said about civil rights.

Bullsh%$.

9:58pm:
Trump says that the stimulus is a bailout for blue cities and states, and handouts to illegal aliens.

When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. When neither is on you side, pound the table.

9:56pm:
Trump accuses Nancy Pelosi of playing politics with stimulus.  Well, duh!

9:55pm:
Trump claims that Biden living in Scranton as a kid is a fraud.

I need to drink more.

9:52pm:
Trump says that Kamala Harris is more liberal than Bernie Sanders.

I am clearly not drinking ENOUGH.

9:50pm:
Biden notes that his plan adds a public option, and that he is opposed to single payer.

Bad move, let the ambiguity benefit your electoral prospects.  Single payer polls over 50% with Republicans.

9:49pm:
Trump claims that Biden will create a single payer system.

This is:

• Not true.
• A stupid thing to accuse Biden of, it's like accusing Biden of supporting motherhood.
  

9:46pm:
Shifts to Amy Coney Barret and Obamacare.

Trump claims credit for eliminating the personal mandate, and that Obamacare sucks.  

He's right that Obamacare sucks, but he has no plan, and if he did it would be worse.

9:45pm:
The moderator is losing control.  Will they cut the mic?

9:42pm:
The DPRK comes up.

Trump's claims of his wonderful relationship with Kim are bullsh%$.

So is Bidens's dick swinging on the DPRK, the standard Council on Foreign Relations crap.

Tweedle Dee, meet Tweedle Dumber.

9:38pm:
Trump: China, China, China!

9:34pm:
Biden talks about Trump's secret China bank accounts and his refusing to release his tax returns.

Trump claims that he he prepaid his taxes (bullsh%$) and accuses Biden of corruption.  

More drinking.

9:32pm:
Biden talks about Trump's formerly secret China accounts

9:30pm:
Trump brings up the Ukraine story.  Take two drinks.

9:28pm:
Pivots to national security, and now it's all Russia and Iran and election meddling.

Screw that.  I want to know how we get out of forever wars, and how we stop the US from being a purveyor of misery and drone strikes.

 9:25pm:
Good question from the moderator.  She called out Trump for trash talking Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Trump responds with false praise for the doctor.

9:23pm:
Biden notes that Trump is responding by blaming blue states.

Trump responds to this by blaming blue states.

9:20pm:
Trump notes that there is soaring drug abuse, domestic violence, suicides, etc. during the pandemic.

Remind me, who is sitting in the oval office right now?

9:19pm:
I am watching on the BBC, because American talking heads make me ill.

Unfortunately, there is some sort of problem at the Beeb studios, with libs not matching the words.

It's refreshingly surreal.

10:38pm:
It's over. Jeebus.  I need a f%$#ing drink.

9:18pm:
Getting some cross-talk now drinking.

9:16pm:
Biden:  Paraphrases to, "What did he know, and when did he know it?"

I love it when someone uses a classic.

9:14pm:
Not much interruptions yet, so I'm just having a pleasant drink and an unpleasant watch.

9:13pm
Biden notes that Trump is spending his time claiming that it will go away, instead of dealing with the problems.

9:11pm:
Trump tries to deflect to China.

9:09pm:
Shorter version Joe Biden response on Covid-19, "This guy has no clue, and is lying, and the US is in worse shape than the rest of Europe.

9:07pm:
Donald Trump is asked about what he will/has done on Covid-19.  Claims that everything is good, and that he is immune.

I think that he is arguing that he is Superman.  Take a drink.

9:04pm:
Introduction with notes that the microphones will be off for person B when person A is asked a question.