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I have a friend who works in renewables development on the financing side (on the developer not finance side). She told me that IRA has unleashed a ton of financing but is also delaying things because the incentives to buy domestically manufactured panels and batteries now wildly outpaces production capacity. Have you heard much about this? Any idea of resolution timeline?

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Yes, I've read a good deal about this - that's where geopolitics brings its own tradeoffs. Since China has the most & cheapest solar & battery manufacturing right now, the fastest way to reduce emissions would be to buy everything from China. But the U.S. obviously doesn't want that, and Biden's IRA heavily incentivizes American manufacturing. Lots of American solar & battery manufacturing capacity is being built right now (I've written about many, many, MANY new factories in my newsletter) and we'll likely see an even bigger renewables boom in the second half of the 2020s (2025 onwards) once those factories are online.

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Another great issue! Where to start!

1. Dengue fever a quickly spreading-problem..now in Puerto Rico on a large scale. Hope we use the Japanese vaccine!

2. India solar development! What a project!

3. American nuclear power renaissance.. unfairly maligned in days gone by, but making a comeback. With a few reservations, I'm onboard with it!

4. Twirling behavior in fish. A serious problem, but pretty well known. I found this on the web (a site devoted to aquarium maintenance):

"This symptom is most often caused by a gram-positive bacterium. Per the book “Fundamentals of Ornamental Fish Health”, Helen Roberts, 2010, Page 181:

“The most common bacteria in this group that cause disease in fish are Streptococcus spp.; other Gram-positive genera that are closely related to Streptococcus and cause disease in fish include Lactococcus , Enterococcus , and Vagococcus . Neurological signs are extremely common in fish with streptococcal infections, and abnormal swimming behavior such as spiraling or spinning is often reported (Yanong and Francis-Floyd, 2006). High mortality may also occur.

Streptococcus infection can cause neurologic signs if it enters the brain. This infection is rare but has been found in rainbow sharks, rosy barbs, danios, and some tetras and cichlids. All fish are considered susceptible. Signs of neurologic disease caused by Streptococcus infection include spinning or spiraling in the water..."

https://aquariumscience.org/index.php/11-8-twirling/

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Thank you Michael!

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As an admirer and supporter of wildlife, I appreciate the hybrid wolves story. As usual, man always chooses to kill first, regret later, if ever. The coral reef bit was also nice to read. Very professionally put together. Thank you!

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Really enjoy your positive take on fighting climate change. Thank you for this newsletter. Want to flag the importance to demand our clean energy transition be done with detoxification. That is not happening with solar, EV, or hydro fuel cells. Please consider researching more on the use of PFAS and other forever chemicals within these market sectors. UN human rights experts issued a strong statement recently condemning companies like Chemours and DuPont for decades of toxic PFAS pollution.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/us-companies-dupont-and-chemours-generated-extensive-contamination-toxic

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