Liberland: The Insane “Country” Founded by Crypto-Billionaires Where There are No Taxes and Money Literally Buys Votes

     Just when you thought you couldn’t possibly be more disgusted by billionaires, there’s this. I think it hurts just to read about it. A new micro-nation dubbed the Free Republic of Liberland on disputed territory between Serbia and Croatia has a goal of being truly libertarian and is being designed to run entirely on cryptocurrencies. It is being bankrolled by crypto billionaires. Apparently, it is a country for rich people only.

“To Liberland's wealthy backers, helping the poor - or indeed any form of taxation or centralised redistribution of wealth - is an affront to their individual liberty.”

     Chinese crypto billionaire Justin Sun is the country’s prime minister.

“He has also been accused by US regulators of fraud and market manipulation. Sun denies the charges, and recently reached a $10m settlement to resolve them.”

     His company, Tron, is thought to be one of the biggest platforms for moving illicit crypto. Including terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah, drug cartels, and mafia networks. Sun, who looks a bit young to be a billionaire, famously bought an art installation consisting of a banana duct-taped to a wall for $6.2 million and ate the banana.

“Sun says Tron has innovated new collaborations with law enforcement to tackle illegal transactions on the blockchain, leading to huge declines in illicit volume on the platform.”

     He is also a lead investor in Trump’s crypto venture World Liberty Financial. Both have profited significantly from the venture. Last year, Sun paid $29 million to fly to space with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin company.

     Apparently, prototype micro-nations are a thing. Micro-nations are basically

“…areas claimed as independent nations but not legally recognised as such. Prospera in Honduras, Peter Thiel's Seasteading Institute, and Tim Draper's Draper Nation, a fully digital country with Bitcoin as its currency, are all chasing the same idea.”

     I think I’m getting nauseated. These people apparently believe that blockchain, the energy-wasting method used by cryptocurrencies to secure transactions, can replace governments.

     Curtis Yarwin, known as the founder of the Dark Enlightenment, believes that authoritarian government should replace democratic government and that blockchain technology can run it. His ideas have been praised by Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance. Apparently, he favors “an authoritarian structure that sits somewhere in between a corporation, a monarchy, and a blockchain-run micro-nation.” No, thank you. He believes that journalists and academics secretly run Western society. He thinks the countries of the world should be replaced by "corporate monarchies" ruled over by "CEO-kings".

     The BBC article noted the following, which, as in much of the article, I find disturbing:

“The crypto lobby has now surpassed the fossil fuel industry to become the most powerful lobby in the US, having contributed $238m in the most recent election cycle, according to Fox Business analysis. Yarvin, Sun, Draper, and Liberland all give a glimpse into the future some of them envision for us.”

     This is eccentric corporate oligarchy at its finest. All I can say is ewe! yucky!

    

 

References:

 

Meet the crypto billionaires building a world where money buys you a vote. Matt Shea. BBC. July 10, 2026. Meet the crypto billionaires building a world where money buys you a vote

Directly Monitoring Landfill Methane Emissions: Nova Scotia’s Flux Lab Measured Emissions at Landfills Across Canada and Found Emissions Were Less Than Models Predicted in Some Regions Due to Seasonal Climate Variations

    

      Most countries that estimate landfill gas emissions do it by modeling the emissions based on the parameters available rather than directly measuring them. However, as emissions monitoring technologies get better, become more available, and get cheaper, it is now possible to measure them directly. Research groups have done just that, initiating landfill gas emissions assessments. One such research group, Flux Lab, based at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, measured LF methane emissions across Canada, as shown in the map below. Flux Lab’s previous work was in oil & gas methane monitoring, where they honed their skills. In June, they published a peer-reviewed study in the journal Elementia: Science of the Anthropocene.

     The study includes 42 landfills. It was noted that predicted emissions often exceeded measured levels, particularly at sites in cold, arid environments. There were other discoveries as well that did not fit the models. A broad finding is that regional climate affects landfill methane generation.

     Waste Dive interviewed Flux Lab’s science lead, Dave Risk. Canada has variable climates and big seasonal climate differences. This gives LF gas emissions estimates a corresponding wide range. Canada has better data at the provincial level, but estimates more, resulting in wider ranges at the federal level.

     The measurements from the study are being used to develop federal LF methane policy. They previously did something similar for oil & gas methane emissions. He also said that estimations from modeling need to be updated.

     They utilized two truck-mounted detection and measurement systems in two parts of the country, and aircraft monitoring as well. They noted that one of their trucks was stolen, including the attachments. They found it later, abandoned, but with equipment stripped.

“Waste Dive: Carbon Mapper was also conducting its work using airborne measurements to identify fugitive landfill methane emissions around the time of this study. How should we think about your measurements and data in the context of those other attempts to calculate emissions?”

Risk: “I think that we’re seeing very much the same things, and that was very reassuring once we began comparing notes with Carbon Mapper.”

“That tells us there’s some basic things that are important. Like the work face is more important than we’ve been giving it credit for at most landfills. I think that’s a universal theme between our different studies. We do definitely see emissions across the gas-gathering system. Those emissions can sometimes even be higher, ironically, at sites that are actually producing RNG because they’re optimizing the landfill characteristics to produce gas. That’s creating issues, or it’s just not as fully captured as it could be.”

     Flux Lab’s study differed in its emphasis on climatic variations driving emissions variations. Their study also better explored landfills of different sizes.

“We found that some of those really small sites had quite low collection efficiencies, and it’s probably mostly down to the relative size of the work face versus the area with the waste stack and collection. They’re small, so they have a relatively large active face.”

     They tested their tools and did controlled emissions to validate their measurements. Truck-mounted measurements matched aircraft measurements. These things increased their confidence that their measurements were more accurate than the estimates of the IPCC model and other models.

     He notes that measurements were as estimated in much of the country, with the major exception of the cold, dry climates, where they were much lower than estimated. In those climates, he says, the models got the wrong decay constant. He also notes that Canada has a very high rate, about 95%, of what is known as ‘organics diversion,’ where organics like yard waste are diverted to compost facilities. That reduces measured emissions relative to estimates as well.

     The measurements were taken over a five-month period, mostly in the summer. That may offset the missing emissions in the cold, dry areas, which would be expected to be a little higher in winter.

“In Canada, where we have pretty severe winters in some areas, we really have the surface microbiological activity shutting off in the winter. We don’t have that oxidation potential that will remove methane in the winter time, so we can see that emissions can tick upward somewhat in the winter.”

     They hope to get a study going in the winter months in those areas to measure the seasonal variations.

     In the study, they note that challenges to measuring methane emissions include “changes in barometric pressure and wind speed, limited site accessibility, complex dispersion patterns caused by wind conditions, topography or obstacles, and the heterogeneous nature of landfill methane sources.”

     The following section from the paper’s conclusion explains the findings, their implications, and what the next steps should be.

“By integrating bias-corrected mobile survey measurements with inventory data, we demonstrated that Canada’s landfill methane inventory might be overstated—potentially by a factor of two. This suggests that methane mitigation targets could be more achievable than anticipated, especially if active work faces and other high-emitting sources were effectively managed. However, improving inventory accuracy requires measurement campaigns, not necessarily similar to the survey approach used in this exploratory study, at a selection of sites that reflect all the landscape and climatic conditions encountered in Canada, and better inventory data collection on landfill operations and waste composition to improve the input parameters of FOD models. Tracking emissions over an extended period at certain sites would provide valuable insights into how factors such as weather and operational changes affect emission variability. As Canada moves toward ambitious waste sector methane reduction targets, aligning mitigation strategies with measurement-informed inventories will be critical to success. Our study underscores how valuable empirical data can be for validating models and supporting the case for scaling up measurement-informed approaches—already pioneered in Canada’s oil and gas sector—to achieve similar transparency and effectiveness in waste management.”

 

 

References:

 

FluxLab’s ‘fast and furious’ campaign to measure Canada’s landfill emissions. Dave Risk discusses the research group’s latest study, which validated emerging understanding of the landfill conditions that lead to methane emissions. Jacob Wallace. Waste Dive. July 27, 2026. FluxLab’s ‘fast and furious’ campaign to measure Canada’s landfill emissions | Waste Dive

Canada’s landfill methane inventories: The challenge of accurate modeled and measurement-based emissions. Jordan Stuart, Evelise Bourlon, Rebecca Martino, Lindelwa Coyle, Susan Fraser, Emil Laurin, Felix Vogel, Nicholas Bishop, Sebastien Ars, and David Risk. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene (2026) 14 (1): 00115. June 26, 2026. Canada’s landfill methane inventories: The challenge of accurate modeled and measurement-based emissions | Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene | University of California Press

Waste Heat Recovery and Utilization: The Resource is Substantial: Absorption Chillers Use Waste Heat for Cooling, and Heat Pumps, Heat Exchangers, and Turbines Convert it to Electricity

      Kathleen "Katie" McGinty, Vice President and Chief Sustainability and External Relations Officer for Johnson Controls, argues that much more waste heat can be recovered from U.S. industries. She says the most effective waste heat recovery projects will be those that are deployed faster, more prices in operation, and those that are the most adaptive under pressure. These projects are enabled by “smaller, cheaper and more agile technologies are proving capable of outpacing far more complex, capital-intensive systems built for a previous era.”

     Her argument is basically one that prioritizes efficiency improvements by getting more from systems in place rather than building new, costly systems. She cites data that shows that 20-50% of the energy in some of our industrial systems is effectively wasted, most often as heat. She cites a McKinsey report from 2023 that concludes there is more than 3,000 terawatt-hours of usable waste heat that remains untapped globally each year, equivalent to three-quarters of total U.S. electricity consumption.

     The U.S. DOE notes that industrial waste heat consists of:

“…hot exhaust gases, cooling water, and heat lost from hot equipment surfaces and heated products.”

     They also note that there are many waste heat recovery technologies available, but they are not being utilized enough due to material constraints and higher maintenance costs.

     McGinty notes that AI systems are both increasing power demand with data center buildouts and being employed to make energy and heat recovery systems more efficient. The data center industry itself can be made more efficient.

“Industry-wide, average power usage effectiveness (PUE) remains around 1.5-1.6, meaning roughly one-third of total energy is wasted on non-compute work.”

     Cooling by far makes up the bulk of the “non-compute work” of data centers.

“Leading operators have demonstrated compliance with <1.3 annualized PUE targets while eliminating water evaporation from the cooling process. In other words, these data centers can cut non-compute related energy by 50%, while avoiding reliance on community resources such as water. At scale, that saved energy becomes immediately available capacity.”

     McGinty continues:

“Heat is the dominant form of energy in the global economy, accounting for nearly half of final energy consumption, yet it is rarely treated as a resource once generated.”

“That is a missed opportunity.”

“That is a missed opportunity.” Technologies like absorption chillers make it possible to use heat—not electricity—for cooling. When integrated into systems such as data centers, they can reduce chiller electricity by 90% while converting waste into a valuable workhorse.”

     Again, she emphasizes that both efficiency improvements and waste heat recovery have much faster deployment times, months, not years, which confers competitive advantages as well as reduced environmental impacts. Avoiding new buildouts of energy systems also leads to very significant cost-savings, which often keeps efficiency and waste heat recovery as low-hanging fruit.

“The winners in energy will not simply be those who only build the biggest systems. They will be those who combine scale with agility, delivering capacity more quickly, efficiently and intelligently.”

     Below, the chart estimates potential savings from the two classes of heat recovery: heat-to-heat and heat-to-power.

     McGinty also encourages those who keep statistics to keep better tabs on the amount of potentially recoverable energy through efficiency upgrades and thermal recovery.

     The McKinsey report from November 2023, the source of all the graphs in this post, is mainly focused on thermal recovery to reduce carbon emissions, but it gives some very good data and details on the size of the resource, types of thermal recovery, and possible ways to optimize it. Below, McKinsey gives the approaches and technologies of waste heat recovery. The three approaches are reuse, upgrade, and convert to electricity. Heat exchangers facilitate reuse. Upgrades include mechanical vapor recompression (MVR), heat pumps, and heat separation. Thermal energy is converted to electricity via steam turbines and Organic Rankine cycles (ORCs).

“Much of the reduction in the cost of waste heat recovery is due to the modularization of equipment and standardization of design, with further reductions when technologies scale up.”

     Those can be seen as scale-up features that lower costs.

     In buildings, better insulation and combining floor heating with heat pumps have resulted in better heat management and improved efficiency. They note that newer district heating systems can effectively harness much lower temperature heat sources than older systems. Thus, now industrial waste heat can power district heating as is being done increasingly in Europe.

     Below, they show the significant waste heat recovery potential of the refinery and cement sectors, emphasizing the economic factors. Both sectors generate a lot of waste heat, only some of which is directly reusable onsite.

     Some methods and strategies of thermal recovery are given below, but industries vary, so how each industry can best optimize recovery will vary as well. 

     Below, they illustrate that NPVs are positive for nearly all thermal recovery investments in all sectors. They also have very significant CO2 abatement potential, which is why they can overcome lower capex efficiency and poorer economics than competing projects. Different industries generate different CO2 stream compositions and purities and thus have different abatement costs.

     They recommend three strategic actions given below. Every industry that produces waste heat should evaluate and model its energy and heat management and seek to optimize recovery and efficiency.

 

References:

 

Katie McGinty: The energy economy’s biggest waste problem is already inside the system. Kathleen “Katie” McGinty. Fortune. July 6, 2026. Katie McGinty: The energy economy’s biggest waste problem is already inside the system

Waste not: Unlocking the potential of waste heat recovery. McKinsey Sustainability. Marcin Hajlasz, Stefan Helmcke, Friederike Liebach, Thorsten Schleyer, and Ken Somers. McKinsey Sustainability.  November 30, 2023. Unlocking the potential of waste heat recovery | McKinsey

Waste Heat Recovery Basics. U.S. Dept. of Energy. Waste Heat Recovery Basics | Department of Energy

Cyber Attacks Against U.S. Water Infrastructure Linked to Iran, Lack of CISA Oversight, and Lack of Small Utility Readiness

  

      Media outlet Tech Times published some detailed coverage over the past few days about the hacking of U.S. drinking water systems in Minnesota and six other states. The cyber-attacks are believed to have originated in Iran. Iran is one of the top countries in the world involved in cyberattacks. The other top hacking countries are China, North Korea, Russia, and India.

“The Chinese hacking group Volt Typhoon spent at least five years undetected inside a US critical infrastructure network before anyone noticed. A separate Chinese group, Salt Typhoon, burrowed into at least nine major American telecommunications carriers — including AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen — and accessed the government's own law enforcement wiretap systems. Senator Mark Warner called it the worst telecom hack in the nation's history. Neither attack was stopped by the isolation plans that power grids, water utilities, and telecoms had on paper.”

     I know an IT manager for a large law firm, and he says Chinese hacking is insidious.

     The Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS), citing Congressional testimony from Emily Harding, Vice President, Defense and Security Dept., Director, Intelligence, National Security, and Technology Program, concluded in January 2026:

“A dramatic change is needed in the cyber domain. Washington urgently needs to integrate cyber into its broader foreign policy toolkit and determine how cyber activity aligns with larger foreign policy actions, including deterrence, proportional response, and international norms. In other words, the United States needs a new playbook to respond to increasingly disruptive and aggressive cyberattacks.”

     Meanwhile, after the attacks on U.S. water systems, there have been some recommendations issued. Agencies such as the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), along with counterparts from Australia, the UK, and Canada, are seeking to address the issue of cyberattacks.   

“On July 28, 2026, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Australia's signals intelligence directorate, the UK's National Cyber Security Centre, and the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security published a joint framework titled CI Fortify — Advice for Isolating Vital Systems. Its core demand is simple and unambiguous: isolation must be pre-engineered and tested before an attack arrives, not improvised during one. But the guidance is voluntary. And experts named on record say cost barriers will prevent most operators from actually building what the agencies are asking for.”

     CISA found that isolation strategies are not working as designed and that inadequate preparation is leading to vulnerabilities. The CI Fortify strategy they recommend involves isolation and recovery of systems. Unfortunately, the urgency is real.

“Intelligence agencies have confirmed that state-sponsored actors from China, Russia, and Iran have pre-positioned inside US critical infrastructure networks with the specific purpose of enabling disruption during a future geopolitical crisis.”

     American aviation, rail, mass transit, highway, maritime, pipeline, water, and power infrastructure has been targeted by the Chinese state-sponsored group Volt Typhoon. Salt Typhoon, the group that compromised American telecommunications companies, is also a Chinese state-run hacking group.

“In April 2026, six federal agencies confirmed that Iranian state actors had actively exploited internet-facing OT devices at water, wastewater, energy, and government facilities, causing documented operational disruptions and financial losses.”

     Australia issued similar guidance in October 2025, explicitly warning that isolation will break automated business processes that cross the OT/IT boundary. OT stands for operational technology. CISA issued similar guidance in May 2026. Also in May:

“Senator Ron Wyden demanded that CISA, the Office of Management and Budget, and NIST impose a binding two-year deadline for federal agencies to remove legacy VPN appliances and require zero-trust compliance from vendors. The two initiatives address the same underlying problem — legacy network architectures that create lateral movement opportunities for adversaries — from different angles.”

     The guidance also suggests that companies be able "to operate, monitor, and update systems manually for an indefinite period — potentially months.”

     On July 29. Tech Times reported that Iranian hackers exploited an unpatchable PLC flaw to breach 30 Minnesota water systems. This happened on the nights of July 26 and 27. This resulted in a temporary shutdown of one city's water treatment plant and triggered emergency response at local, state, and federal levels. Cybersecurity experts at Tenable believe the attack was perpetrated by CyberAv3ngers, a hacker group associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The attack targeted Rockwell Automation controllers and included equipment from Siemens and Schneider Electric.

"CISA's updated reporting shows a worrying expansion in Iran-linked critical infrastructure targeting focused on the United States," the agencies warned, urging water systems, energy providers, and government facilities to remain on high alert, per CISA Advisory AA26-097A.”

     Small U.S. water utilities are more vulnerable to cyber attacks than they should be and need to invest more in cybersecurity. There are between 150,000 and 170,000 local water systems in the U.S. Tech Times notes that CyberAv3ngers has systematically targeted U.S. water infrastructure since 2020. Tenable believes the attacks are strongly consistent with CyberAv3ngers MO, although Trump has suggested the attacks are somehow the result of Minnesota’s government incompetence, even though six other states have also been attacked. Oddly, Trump suggested Iran was not involved, which is almost certainly incorrect. Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, suggested that budget cuts to CISA were a factor. CISA cut one-third of its workforce under the Trump administration cuts. CISA doesn’t currently have a Senate-confirmed director, but an acting director, like many of Trump administration department heads. The FBI is also probing whether another bad actor was simply making it look like Iran was the perpetrator in a false flag attack, but frankly, that does not seem likely to me, especially since Iran announced that it would do it just days earlier.

     More concerning is the FBI’s and EPA’s assessment that cites a Minnesota law enforcement memo revealing “the hackers' stated goal was not merely knocking systems offline — it was contaminating the drinking water supply.” The goal was not merely to cause a nuisance but to contaminate the water supply by manipulating control to drop pressure enough to create backflows of untreated groundwater and even sewage. This is known as back-siphonage. Water systems typically operate at 40-80psi. Lowering the pressure to 20psi or below can initiate backflow. They note that there is evidence that this was a goal. Iran even warned three days before the attacks that they were targeting U.S. water infrastructure.

"The likely desired impact of the intrusion at the water facilities was to cause loss of system pressure and subsequent potential contamination of water supply," said a memo distributed this week by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and obtained by CNN.

     The hackers did not succeed in contaminating the water supply, but it could happen if the utilities are not vigilant enough to notice and react quickly.

"CISA is currently observing a significant increase in cyber threat actors targeting programmable logic controllers at water utilities," said Nick Andersen, acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. "We urge critical infrastructure owners and operators to remove publicly exposed PLCs and other operational technology from the internet as soon as possible," he added.

     Below are recommendations from CISA and the FBI:

 

References:

 

FBI: Water hacks in seven states aimed at contaminating drinking supplies. Kyle Belmonte. Tech Times. July 31, 2026. FBI: Water hacks in seven states aimed at contaminating drinking supplies

China and Iran Are Already Inside US Grids: CISA Demands Tested Isolation Plans: Windows services embedded in OT networks will disable plant control when isolation cuts them off. Brandon Fisher. Tech Times. July 29, 2026. China and Iran Are Already Inside US Grids: CISA Demands Tested Isolation Plans

Iranian Hackers Exploited Unpatchable PLC Flaw to Breach 30 Minnesota Water Systems: Tenable suspects CyberAv3ngers; the CVE-2021-22681 flaw they exploited cannot be patched. Kyle Belmonte. Tech Times. July 29, 2026. Iranian Hackers Exploited Unpatchable PLC Flaw to Breach 30 Minnesota Water Systems

U.S. Cyber Capabilities to Deter and Disrupt Malign Foreign Activity Targeting the Homeland. V=Center for Strategic & International Studies. Emily Harding. U.S. Cyber Capabilities to Deter and Disrupt Malign Foreign Activity Targeting the Homeland

Adriatic Sea Floating LNG Terminal in Croatia is the Key to U.S. LNG Replacing Russian Gas in Eastern Europe

     The U.S. aims to replace most of the 12% of natural gas that Eastern Europe currently gets from Russia as it plans to end Russian gas imports by the end of 2027. The EU has spent billions on infrastructure to be able to handle the LNG volumes needed. This is expected to make the EU the largest LNG importer in the world and the largest importer of U.S. natural gas. AFP writes:

“One of the key sites is Croatia's floating LNG terminal off the island of Krk, which following a recent upgrade is now capable of handling around two percent of the EU's annual gas consumption at nearly 6.1 billion cubic metres.”

     That is equivalent to about 550MMCF/day. Existing pipelines will connect the supply to Hungary and Central Europe. The U.S is also poised to replace Norway as the EU's largest natural gas supplier in 2026.

“The US-backed pipeline between the Balkan nations plans to link Bosnia to Krk, and loop it into Europe's gas network.”

     A map of the proposed Southern Interconnection pipeline route through southern Croatia and then through Bosnia and Herzegovina is shown below. The pipeline has been agreed upon by the countries and is expected to be built with U.S. private sector investment.

     The U.S. also has a plan to create a major gas and oil transit hub in Croatia, part of which is a pipeline network dubbed “peace pipelines.” Croatia also hosts oil pipelines connecting to Bosnia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Serbia, with a capacity of nearly 500 million barrels per day.

     The terminal in Croatia was half-funded by the EU and became operational in 2021. Some options for storing the gas needed for winter, including in Ukraine’s high-capacity gas storage fields, are discussed below in the AFP article:

“Boasting one of Europe's largest underground gas storage networks, much of it dating back to the Soviet era, Ukraine could also solve a key problem of storing the large amounts of imported gas that could then also be sent elsewhere in Europe.”

“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic met earlier this year to discuss energy supply and storage, but there have been no official announcements.”

“With major investments, it could become a shorter and cheaper route to Ukraine than existing options via Greece or Poland.”

"But that does not mean anything if Croatia does not have the capacity," Fugas said, flagging the necessary pipeline upgrade for any new demand.”

 

References:

 

US eyes European gas dominance through Balkans. AFP. July 31, 2026. US eyes European gas dominance through Balkans

U.S. Poised to Lead Bosnia's Stalled Gas Pipeline Project. Institute of Energy for South-East Europe. November 24, 2025. U.S. Poised to Lead Bosnia's Stalled Gas Pipeline Project - Institute of Energy for South-East Europe

 

Low Water Level in the Lower Danube River May Result in Nuclear Plant Shutdowns in Hungary and Romania: River Traffic Halted and Several Boats Are Marooned, and One Ship Ran Aground

     Low water levels in the Lower Danube River have resulted in power cuts from Hungary’s only nuclear power plant near Paks. Three of the four reactors at the 2GW power plant have been shut down, and the plant is expected to be fully shut down as soon as this weekend. Downstream in Romania, another nuclear plant, the Cernavoda nuclear plant east of Bucharest, has shut down one of its two reactors. Hungarian leader Peter Magyar has called for people to conserve energy. Lower Danube water is required to cool the reactors at these plants.

“In Budapest, Hungary's national water authority measured the Danube's gauge level at 23 centimeters (9 inches) on Wednesday morning, well below the previous record low of 33 centimeters (13 inches) set in 2018.”

     River traffic has also been halted, including cargo ships and river cruises.

“In neighboring Romania, the water level along parts of the Danube is already one meter (three feet) below the navigable minimum.”

“In Bulgaria, where the Danube forms a border with Romania, police on Tuesday evacuated 186 tourists from a cruise ship that had run aground near the port city of Vidin.”

“And in Serbia, hundreds of small boats and dozens of cargo ships were marooned on the dried out river bank near the northern city of Novi Sad, where the water in the Danube had withdrawn up to 20 meters (65 feet) away from the river's usual shore.”

     In Budapest, parts of the riverbed have been exposed, and a World War II era bomb was even found. The prolonged drought has been exacerbated by a European heat wave that continues. Unfortunately, no significant rainfall is in the forecast. August is typically dry in the region, and there are estimates that the river level could drop up to 18 inches below the previous low-water level record set in 2018.  

“Hungary's government has requested that large companies that consume large quantities of energy voluntarily reduce their consumption to help stabilize the energy supply, particularly in peak demand hours between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m.”

“Magyar said Hungarian energy conglomerate MOL had committed to reducing its electricity needs by 65 megawatt-hours, a decrease of 40% from its normal consumption.”

“Magyar announced Friday that his party had recommended suspending parliamentary sessions planned for Monday and Tuesday in the interest of conserving energy. He also ordered that all state institutions turn off decorative lighting by Monday.” 

Addendum August 3, 2026

     Romania just blew up a rock outcrop to help redirect cooling water from the Danube to its last working nuclear reactor. Hungary is hoping to get two more days of power from its plant before it shuts down. The Romanian navy blew up the rocks, sending a large plume of water, debris, smoke, and dust into the air. They plan to dam off some of the water to keep some cooling water available. This is expected to be completed in a few days. Romania’s Renault auto plant has been taken offline. This, along with other voluntary cuts, has enabled a big reduction in demand. Both Romania and Hungary have been forced to import power to make up the shortfalls. 

References:

 

Danube water levels: Hungary, Romania cut nuclear output. Matt Ford AFP, AP, Reuters. DW. July 30, 2026. Danube water levels: Hungary, Romania cut nuclear output

Hungary braces for a full shutdown of the Paks nuclear plant as the Danube River hits record lows: Hungary's only nuclear power plant is shutting down for the first time due to record-low water levels on the Danube River. Justin Spike. Associated Press. July 31, 2026. Hungary braces for a full shutdown of the Paks nuclear plant as the Danube River hits record lows - ABC News

Romania blasts rocks to reroute Danube water to reactor, Hungary gets reprieve. Reuters. August 3, 2026. Romania blasts rocks to reroute Danube water to reactor, Hungary gets reprieve

Ocean Acidification Resulting from High Atmospheric CO2 Levels Via Volcanic Eruptions Implicated in the Early Cretaceous Aptian-Albian Boundary Extinction Event

     Calcium isotope ratios (44Ca/40Ca) in the calcium carbonate shells of planktic foraminifera, a single-celled microscopic organism common in coastal and deep-sea environments, were used to determine the amount of CO2 and carbonate saturation in seawater. It was determined that those levels were elevated during the early Cretaceous at the Aptian-Albian age boundary when there was a significant mass extinction event of planktic foraminifera.

     The results were reported in the journal Science. About three-quarters of these species went extinct during the event. This is thought to have occurred after volcanic eruptions emitted large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere. Much of the CO2 was absorbed by the oceans, which led to a lowering of the pH of seawater, meaning it became more acidic.

     According to Science Advisor:

“The acidity spurs chemical reactions that erode the calcium carbonate shells of marine organisms and reduce the amount of calcium available for repair. To test whether this sparked the planktic foraminifera mass extinction, a team of paleontologists analyzed the chemistry and structure of fossils recovered from a rock core drilled off the coast of Argentina. They found that the shells of affected foraminifera contained high concentrations of heavy calcium isotopes that marine organisms usually avoid. In addition, species that evolved after the extinction event had small, simple shells lacking the structural diversity found in older fossils. Both results suggest that calcium was at a premium, a hallmark of a more acidic ocean.”

     The study may have implications for studying modern-day ocean acidification.

     

 

References:

 

Calcium isotopes link ocean acidification to Aptian–Albian foraminiferal extinctions. Jonathan Chen, Andrew D. Jacobson, Brian T. Huber, Kenneth G. MacLeod, Chuyan Wan, Anna R. Waldeck, Barbara Balestra, and Bradley B. Sageman. Science. 30 Jul 2026. Vol 393, Issue 6810. pp. 527-531. Calcium isotopes link ocean acidification to Aptian–Albian foraminiferal extinctions | Science

Witness to ocean acidification: Calcareous marine plankton can indicate past and present ocean acidification. R. Mark Leckie. Science. 30 Jul 2026. Vol 393, Issue 6810. Witness to ocean acidification | Science

Acidic oceans doomed shelled microorganisms. Science Advisor. July 31, 2026.

 

 

Variations in Crude Oil Quality: RBN Energy’s Liz Dicken Gives a Primer

     All crude oil is not the same. In fact, each source is chemically variable and has different flow characteristics. RBN Energy’s Liz Dicken explains that the main variations distinguished are density and sulfur content. These are shown in the table below. Quality is typically expressed by these two factors. Light, medium, and heavy crude are distinguished by density, which is expressed in the API gravity number. Sulfur content below 0.5% is sweet crude, and sulfur content above 0.5% is sour crude. 

     She explains below why density matters.

“A crude’s density matters because it affects what refiners can make from each barrel. Lighter crudes produce higher yields of valuable refined products such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel with relatively less processing. Heavier crudes have larger hydrocarbon molecules that need more complex refining units, such as cokers and hydrocrackers, to produce high yields of gasoline, jet fuel and diesel. That extra processing adds cost.”

     Regarding sweet vs. sour, she notes that the standards have tightened in recent years.

“…the spec for Domestic Sweet, the standard grade deliverable against the NYMEX WTI futures contract, is less than or equal to 0.42% sulfur.”

    Other factors in determining crude oil quality are given below:

 

Distillation

     Density and sulfur are not the whole story, however. Other factors, like paraffin content or waxiness, are variable. These factors can be determined when the crude oil is distilled. Refiners use a distillation curve to determine how much oil is vaporized (recovered as liquid). Waxy crudes can yield more middle distillates than their API gravity number suggests.

 

Molecule Types

     These can determine how a crude will behave when refined. Paraffin, isoparaffin, naphthene, and aromatics content can determine what products the crude is best suited to make.

“The molecule types prevalent in crude oil (paraffins/isoparaffins, naphthenes and aromatics), play a big role in how that oil behaves in a refinery and how easy (or difficult) it is to turn into finished products. For example, in the jet/diesel range, aromatic and naphthenic crudes produce the material with the best cold-flow properties, but perform poorly in terms of cetane (a diesel fuel’s ignition quality) and smoke point (a measure of a jet fuel’s tendency to produce soot or smoke during combustion).”

 

Conradson carbon (Concarbon), or Micro Carbon Residue (MCR)

     This determines how a crude will behave in a coker unit and what the residue at the vacuum tower bottom will be like.

 

Total Acid Number (TAN)

     This is a measure of naphthenic acids in the crude. Crudes with higher TAN are more corrosive, especially at high temperatures.

 

Metals Content

     The presence of trace metals in the crude, such as nickel and vanadium, can affect the catalysts used in refining, effectively shortening their productive lifespan. The presence of iron particles can be abrasive and can contribute to plugging, equipment wear, and corrosion. This happens over time. Iron is also associated with increased sediment and contaminants in crude. The biggest problem with metals is catalyst poisoning in fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) units.

 

Mercaptans

     Mercaptans, or thiols, are sulfur-containing compounds that can present corrosion, safety, and operational challenges. They are highly reactive and can damage metal surfaces, "leading to sulfide stress cracking, hydrogen-induced cracking and accelerated corrosion in pipelines, storage tanks and refining equipment. They also pose serious health and safety risks due to their toxicity.”

 

West Texas Intermediate (WTI)

     Next, she explains the development of the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) grade of crude oil. This is the oil from the shale and tight rock plays of the Permian Basin, which is a major source of U.S. oil. WTI is a light, sweet crude, around 42° API, with sulfur levels near or below 0.2%. Before the advent of Permian Basin unconventional production, the oil quality from the region was about 39° API and 0.35% sulfur. Thus, WTI is a little heavier and significantly sweeter.

     The U.S. began exporting crude oil in 2015 and now exports quite a lot of it. She notes that beginning in June 2023, WTI Midland began being incorporated into Brent’s international designation. Brent is a North Sea grade. However, North Sea oil production has been declining in recent years, although new exploration is hoping to stave off that decline. She explains:

“The purpose of adding WTI was largely to add liquidity and physical volume to the Brent complex as North Sea production declined, and came with explicit quality standards. The move put a brighter spotlight on WTI, and Midland has set the Dated Brent benchmark more than half the time since late 2023, putting greater emphasis on potential quality issues with WTI.”

“Elevated iron, nickel, vanadium, sulfur, basic sediment and water (BS&W), or other contaminants can affect refinery operations, catalyst performance and crude-unit reliability — all of which affect the value of the crude relative to what the buyer expected. That makes terminal segregation, blending controls, pipeline-origin requirements, testing and documentation critically important.”

     The required specs for WTI Midland are given below:

“Midland WTI deliverable into the Brent complex, calls for crude oil with 0.2% max sulfur and 40°-44° API, along with limits of 10 mg/kg iron, 2 mg/kg nickel and 2 mg/kg vanadium.”

     She concludes with a question:

“A question that has become a hot topic recently still remains: Have quality concerns become more prevalent naturally, or are we only seeing more chinks in the armor due to added scrutiny caused by WTI’s inclusion in the Brent benchmark? As changing market dynamics, evolving blending practices and stricter quality standards reshape crude flows, the answer is more nuanced than it appears.”

  

References:

 

A Matter of Trust – Variations in Crude Oil Quality Make On-Spec Delivery Critical for Global Refiners. Liz Dicken. RBN Energy. July 30, 2026. A Matter of Trust – Variations in Crude Oil Quality Make On-Spec Delivery Critical for Global Refiners | RBN Energy