There’s a story behind the piece below, Chopin’s “Heroic” Polonaise, performed by Vladimir Horowitz, the pianist most people deem to be the world’s top interpreter of Chopin.
Frederic Chopin was born in 1810 near Warsaw, Poland, and was known as a child prodigy as a pianist and composer by the time he was six or seven.
Russia had long ruled Poland, but in the 1820s, Russian rule grew more arbitrary, and secret societies were formed by Polish intellectuals in several cities to plot an insurrection. In November 1830, Polish troops in Warsaw rose in revolt.
Chopin moved to Paris shortly after his 22nd birthday, where he would spend the rest of his life composing, teaching, and concertizing, but his love for his native land remained fierce.
But what could he do? Chopin was a small and sickly person, barely five feet tall, perhaps 90 pounds in weight. He certainly couldn’t be a physical part of an uprising, but he could inspire his native Poles with his compositions.
There are a few good examples of his works along these lines, but the Heroic polonaise stands by itself. When I hear it, a single word comes to fore: bravery.
Enjoy, and don’t be embarrassed if you have goosebumps.
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Handing the Keys to the Kingdom over to the Chinese
When I argue for environmental responsibility and the decarbonization of the grid, I often say:
I know there are people who believe, perhaps because this is what they’re told by Donald Trump, that climate change is a hoax. But are there people who don’t believe in cancer? In the importance of our country’s investing in the industry that is destined the dominate the 21st Century?
Trump will be gone soon. Maybe you and I will be gone (in a different sense) before the effects of this administration’s folly in the EV and cleantech industry are fully felt.
But it’s inevitable, unless we turn this around, and soon.
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In preparation for my first book, “Renewable Energy – Facts and Fantasies,” I interviewed Ray Lane, then managing partner of Kleiner Perkins, one of the world’s great venture capital firms, who told me about his stance with his prospects, “You build the first one. I’ll invest in the next 20. Then we’ll take the thing public and use that cash to build the next 5000.”
I’m 99+% sure that the “first one” of these will never be built, i,e., installing these VAWTs at the base of functioning wind farms. The concept is asinine, as it defies the laws of fluid dynamics.

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