Category Archives: Energy

From Gold to Grid: Russia’s Foreign Infrastructure Control Playbook

Russia’s lone veto of a Sudan ceasefire (1-14 UN vote) last week follows a pattern of infrastructure manipulation — one that provides a warning about cryptocurrency’s growing control over American power grids. In Sudan, Russia profits from gold market chaos while blocking peace. In America, crypto operations fight oversight while gaining unprecedented control of power infrastructure. The parallel is clear: using critical infrastructure for political leverage while building shadow financial networks.

From Gold to Grid

Russia’s strategy in Sudan is brutally effective: maintain political chaos to control resource extraction while cynically preaching “sovereignty.” By arming both the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in their civil war, Russia secures gold extraction and port access while creating untraceable channels for moving money outside Western oversight. Over 10 million displaced civilians, and research from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine estimating more than 26,000 violent deaths in Khartoum alone between April 2023 and June 2024, show the spiraling human cost of this cruel profit scheme.

Now cryptocurrency’s evolution in America follows the same deadly playbook of undermining safety for profit:

Phase 1: Infrastructure Control

Phase 2: Shadow Financial Networks

Phase 3: Political Capture

  • Moving from obstruction to active elimination of oversight
  • Using infrastructure control as political leverage
  • Funding campaigns to dismantle regulatory frameworks

Putin’s Playbook in Action

In Sudan, Russia’s approach exposes their strategy: claim to fight “colonialism” while actually colonizing through chaos. They maintain puppet influence while stirring violence, creating opportunities to undermine local authority through:

  • Resource extraction (gold mines, ports)
  • Secret trade networks (sanctions evasion)
  • Diplomatic leverage (UN veto power)
  • Infrastructure control (both military and economic)

The cryptocurrency industry follows this same pattern domestically. While claiming to fight for “financial freedom,” they’re actually building concentrated control over critical infrastructure. In Texas alone, their 41 GW of mining requests represents unprecedented leverage over the power grid – especially concerning given crypto industry’s millions in political donations to state officials overseeing grid policy.

National Security Implications

Energy Secretary Granholm has expressed that projected 15% increases in electricity demand by 2050 “literally” keep her up at night. But the immediate threat isn’t just about capacity — it’s about control and who profits from chaos.

The industry’s progression from resisting oversight to actively funding its elimination mirrors Russia’s approach: create crisis, build parallel financial networks, and convert infrastructure control into political power.

Infrastructure as Political Weapon

Like Russia’s exploitation of Sudan’s gold, cryptocurrency operations are transforming American infrastructure into a political weapon. Their concentrated control in vulnerable grid areas combined with active resistance to transparency creates both direct infrastructure leverage and political influence. The goal isn’t profit — it’s power.

The EIA’s estimate of 0.6-2.3% of U.S. electricity consumption deliberately understates their true leverage, given their strategic positioning and successful obstruction of data collection. Like Russia hiding gold trades, crypto hides its true footprint.

Warning Signals

When Russia vetoes peace in Sudan while profiting directly from gun violence and limited government, they expose how infrastructure capture really works. Create chaos, promise freedom, seize control. The cryptocurrency industry uses identical tactics especially in Texas: fight “government overreach” while building unprecedented private control over American infrastructure.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Just as Russia’s “anti-colonial” rhetoric in Sudan masks deadly exploitation, cryptocurrency’s “financial freedom” claims hide a systematic effort for unaccountable elites to seize America’s critical infrastructure. Sudan today shows us America’s tomorrow if we continue allowing private interests following an authoritarian playbook to drive the political narratives.


Sources:
EIA Today in Energy
Utility Dive Report
Reuters on Russia’s Restrictions
The Heatmap

Tesla Deaths Rise in Stark Contrast to “vehicles with lowest driver death rates”

First, you have to wonder just how many more people must die (as dutifully reported by TeslaDeaths.com) before Tesla is properly banned from public roads?

Tesla Deaths Per Year

Source: TeslaDeaths.com

Remember, the Ford Pinto had killed around 25 people (as told by Ford) when the entire country had to shift into gear in order to regulate against safety design negligence by car makers.

Front doors jam shut preventing escape or rescue from a burning car? That sounds just like a Tesla! Except Tesla is on track to kill 25 people per month! How are they legal?

I mean do we expect a market to somehow adjust itself today such that people stop owning Tesla, as well as stop riding in and around them? I have doubts about such consumer self-correction as I still weekly read news from grieving families who say, too late, they never understood the very fast growing risk of their loved ones being burned alive, hit head-on or run over by Tesla.

And on this tragic note about the exploding number of deaths in defective cars, which seem to only be stopped with regulation, Tesla has many shockingly old safety design defects. Consider for comparison an assorted list of high safety models, from far better engineered brands.

  • Acura MDX four-wheel-drive
  • Audi Q5 four-wheel-drive
  • Chevrolet Traverse four-wheel-drive
  • Lexus RX 350 four-wheel-drive
  • Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan four-wheel-drive
  • Porsche Macan
  • Subaru Ascent
  • Toyota C-HR
  • Volvo XC60 four-wheel-drive

There are even more options than these, because it’s apparently easy to post better safety results than the high-priced low-quality “luxury” Tesla. This reference is only to show many cars achieve extremely low death rates in the latest real world results (NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System). In other words, no Tesla achieves what others can.

Source: IIHS

The IIHS emphasizes another angle on the data as well. They say marketing of the technology has as much to do with high death tolls as the designs themselves, or perhaps even more impact.

The explanation may lie in the image of the vehicles. Luxury cars are associated with ease and comfort. In contrast, the [most deaths] on this list are associated with [dangerous behavior suggestions that] influence how they’re driven. […] Marketing for the Dodge Charger HEMI, for example, focuses on its “ground-shaking” power, its acceleration “bolting off the line” and its “racing-inspired” high-performance brakes, while the Chevrolet Camaro promises buyers the ability to “dominate on the daily” with an “extreme track performance package” and the Ford Mustang offers “adrenaline chasers” the power to “keep ahead of the pack.”

Tesla’s infamously thoughtless “appetite for destruction” strangely isn’t mentioned in this paragraph, even though the brand is regularly posting dangerous behavior suggestions… such as their CEO boasting to customers that “accidents probably won’t happen” when they drive drunk or fall asleep at the wheel.

The latest NHTSA formal defect investigation letter to Tesla that the company must stop false advertising of “driverless” capabilities seems to fit. Tesla might be the most causal relationship of all, given repeated fraudulent safety statements leading directly to high death rates. I’d still argue Tesla engineering defects are a significant factor, however. No other brand has been reporting multiple cases of everyone inside being burned to death (again and again), for one obvious example, given the notorious “death trap” design defect that seals Tesla doors shut after a crash.

Are you driving the deadliest car in the world?

To put it another way, in 1971 a new agency (NHTSA) was pushing the first major safety regulations, against the desires of a hugely popular racist president Nixon. The “pro business” President expressed a list of clear disdains:

  1. Environmental protection (“fighting a delaying action”)
  2. Consumer advocacy (“Naderism”)
  3. Safety regulations (“greatly exaggerated”)
  4. “Environmentalists and consumerism people” who he claimed were “enemies of the system”

Most tellingly, Nixon dehumanized people if they were concerned with the environment, literally calling them animals and a threat:

…we can’t have a completely safe society or safe highways or safe cars and pollution-free and so forth. Or we could have, go back and live like a bunch of damned animals. […] They’re not one damn bit interested in safety or clean air. What they’re interested in is destroying the system.

He went even further to turn his comments racist and target Native Americans, as if to build a “white man” argument against environmental progress:

You see, what it is, too, is that we are, we are now becoming obsessed with the idea that … progress … industrialization, ipso facto, is bad. The great life is to have it like when the Indians were here. You know how the Indians lived? Dirty, filthy, horrible.

And so does anyone really think that the Tesla and Trump Whitehouse will reveal anything different than Ford and Nixon did with the Pinto? Hint: Ralph Nader refers to Tesla as manslaughter.

Transcripts reveal for historians how Nixon fundamentally sided with industry over public safety and environmental concerns, viewing regulation as an attack on business rather than an innovation engine for protection of people. He acted to delay critical safety requirements (like airbags) after meeting with car executives, proving himself to be a corrupt (ultimately criminal) President who dangerously prioritized big corporate short-term interests over sustainable investments and public safety.

Related: Tesla topped iSeeCars list of most dangerous car brands with an almost unbelievable crash frequency that has climbed to 5X the number of Tesla being produced.

Key Observations: Data clearly shows that both serious incidents (orange line) and fatal incidents (pink line) are increasing at a steeper rate than the fleet size growth (blue line). This is particularly evident from 2021 onwards, where: Fleet size (blue) shows a linear growth of about 1x per year. Serious incidents (orange) show an exponential growth curve, reaching nearly 5x by 2024. Fatal incidents (pink) also show a steeper-than-linear growth, though not as dramatic as serious incidents. The divergence between the blue line (fleet growth) and the incident lines (orange and pink) indicates that incidents are indeed accelerating faster than the production/deployment of new vehicles.

Tesla Robovan: National Security Implications of Cold-War Tech Theater

This analysis examines how Tesla and its CEO employ Cold War-era propaganda techniques to potentially undermine American democratic institutions, viewed through the lens of Karl Popper’s paradox of tolerance. The evidence suggests concerning parallels between historical authoritarian technological messaging and current corporate practices that may pose significant national security risks.

Tesla’s deployment of technological theater—particularly in its Robovan and autonomous vehicle programs—bears striking similarities to Cold War-era psychological operations designed to project technological superiority. Consider the historical precedent of robotic transit technology projected by America during the Cold War:

A 1950s demo of a “Robovan” concept that has since been delivered worldwide, known instead as an electric “Tram” service of major cities. Anyone who has flown into Dallas, Atlanta or Newark may recognize this particular “Robovan” design.

The historical context is crucial. Silicon Valley emerged from Department of Defense initiatives, particularly following the devastating losses during operations like the 1943 Schweinfurt raid. Transportation systems became a key ideological battleground, as documented in Berlin’s tram network history:

When Berlin was divided, the tramway was also split in twain. The West side was managed by BVG-West and the East side by BVG-Ost, later renamed the VEB Kombinat Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVB). The ideological differences between the two regimes were soon manifested on the tramway: before the city was split, women had been allowed to drive trams, albeit mostly during World War I and World War II during labor shortages. But in Fighting the Cold War in Post-Blockade, Pre-Wall Berlin, Mark Fenemore notes that women in West Berlin were banned from driving trams, as well as trains and buses, due to “medical rules.” As a result, authorities on the western side refused to allow a tram driven by a woman to cross into their sectors, and would “[make] the tram wait until a man replacement driver arrived.” In January 1953, large-scale prohibition of women tram drivers coming into West Berlin went into effect. As a result, one woman who was driving a tram was stopped at gun point and told to go back to the east.

This historical precedent of using transportation technology as an ideological battleground finds modern echoes in Tesla’s operations. Consider the 1959 RCA demonstrations, where technological promises served as anti-Soviet propaganda:

Source: November 1959 Mechanix Illustrated, “HOW RCA IS PLANNING YOUR WORLD OF TOMORROW” By James C. G. Conniff

All of these electronic miracles are in existence. They are products of the David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, N. J., and scientists of the Radio Corporation of America are working today to make them available to you tomorrow. Let’s examine the automated house and its amazing Home Electronic Center, which consists of a miniaturized system of all-electronic mechanisms already lab-tested at Princeton. […] RCA engineers call this wonder system the Home Electronic Center Kid, or HECK. […] These are just some of the electronic miracles that you will live to see. They are in the labs today. They will be in your home tomorrow.

Parallels between this historical propaganda and Tesla’s current practices are alarming. Both use grandiose promises of future technology to manipulate public perception and potentially mask deeper political agendas. Moreover, the underlying misogyny present in a 1959 demonstration finds clear echoes in Tesla culture, where women are often marginalized or objectified by a CEO who repeatedly refers to them as “birthing” systems to replenish the white race (e.g. 1943 beheading of Sophie Scholl). This 1959 “Robovac” promotional video literally ends by saying women don’t want to work.

Tesla’s modern incarnation of this strategy is particularly evident in its Robovan concept:

The odd concept for a Tesla electric tram, this militant-styled “cattle car” seems more aligned to becoming a VBIED or troop transport (no exposure, no windows) for assault/extraction than something deserving of the term “van”.

The design’s striking similarity to historical authoritarian transport concepts raises serious security concerns, especially when viewed alongside Tesla’s pattern of unfulfilled technological promises. Since 2016, CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly promised coast-to-coast autonomous driving capabilities, as evidenced in this statement to TechCrunch:

Our goal is, and I feel pretty good about this goal, that we’ll be able to do a demonstration drive of full autonomy all the way from LA to New York, from home in LA to dropping you off in Times Square in New York, and then having the car go park itself, by the end of next year [in 2017]. Without the need for a single touch, including the charger.

The security implications become more acute when considering potential foreign influence. The Robovan’s design bears concerning similarities to the Nazi Breitspurbahn initiative of 1942:

Of particular concern is the possibility that extremist elements within the government may be using Tesla as a vehicle for advancing anti-democratic agendas while evading traditional oversight mechanisms. SpaceX, like Tesla, allegedly may have had Musk as a cover story under a federally funded strategy beneath his antics and outside the accountability of government agencies. The company’s extensive track record of delivering the least safe vehicles while promising the safest, combined with its CEO’s troubling pattern of promoting extremist symbolism, raises serious questions about underlying motivations and potential threats to national security.

Recommendations

1. Implement enhanced oversight mechanisms for technology companies with significant government contracts, particularly those involved in transportation infrastructure.

2. Develop new frameworks for evaluating technological claims against historical propaganda patterns.

3. Strengthen counterintelligence capabilities focused on identifying and mitigating corporate technological theatre that may mask national security threats.

4. Establish robust accountability measures for companies receiving government funds while engaging in public deception campaigns.

The synthesis of historical Cold War propaganda techniques with modern corporate practices presents a unique challenge to national security infrastructure. As technology companies increasingly influence critical systems and public perception, understanding these historical parallels becomes crucial for maintaining democratic institutions and national security integrity.

Delaware Surges to Top of 2024 EV Index for Charging Infrastructure

HERE Technologies and SBD have released their 2024 EV Index, which ranks readiness based on infrastructure development. For example, it explores the distance between chargers and how quick the charging can be, as well as the likelihood of an open charger being available. That said, here’s a snapshot of Delaware with a score of 79.4 absolutely crushing the other states.

For perspective, that’s even higher than Norway (73.3), which often is considered the world leader. The index notes point out Denmark leapt from 6th to 1st place in a year, underscoring how easy it still is for simple legislative work to radically transform national infrastructure and security.

Texas is so far down the list it doesn’t even make the US cut above 50, and the UK (ranked in the EU) fares even worse.