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Weather: Partly cloudy. Showers and thunderstorms likely. Highs in the lower 90s. Lows in the lower 70s. Chance of rain 70 percent.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
- Drought conditions here. (What is the Keetch-Byram drought index?).
- Check today’s tides in Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- Tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
Free For All Fridays with Host David Ayres, an hour-long public affairs radio show featuring local newsmakers, personalities, public health updates and the occasional surprise guest, starts a little after 9 a.m. after FlaglerLive Editor Pierre Tristam’s Reality Check. Today, Flagler Beach Mayor Patti King, Flagler County Commissioner Greg Hansen on saving the beach, Elaine Studnicki on Bunnell History Day, and more. See previous podcasts here. On WNZF at 94.9 FM, 1550 AM, and live at Flagler Broadcasting’s YouTube channel.
First Friday Garden Walks at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park, 6400 North Oceanshore Blvd., Palm Coast, 10 a.m. Join a Ranger the First Friday of every month for a garden walk. Learn about the history of Washington Oaks while exploring the formal gardens. The walk is approximately one hour. No registration required. Walk included with park entry fee. Participants meet in the Garden parking lot. The event is free with paid admission fee to the state park: $5 per vehicle. (Limit 2-8 people per vehicle) $4 per single-occupant vehicle. Call (386) 446-6783 for more information or by email: [email protected].
The Friday Blue Forum, a discussion group organized by local Democrats, meets at 12:15 p.m. at the Flagler Democratic Office at 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite C214 (above Cue Note) at City Marketplace. Come and add your voice to local, state and national political issues.
First Friday in Flagler Beach, the monthly festival of music, food and leisure, is scheduled for this evening at Downtown’s Veterans Park, 105 South 2nd Street, from 5 to 9 p.m. The event is overseen by the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency and run by Laverne M. Shank Jr. and Surf 97.3
Notably: I don’t know what Le Havre has to do with it. Le Havre is a port city of 166,000 east of Normandy on the English Channel (la Manche, if you’re in France), founded in 1571 by Francois 1er, remaining an important port in France’s slave-trading days (Le Havre, like Liverpool, depended on the trade, which I’m sure was called “economic development” at the time), then as a beachhead after the Normandy invasion whose 81st anniversary anniversary it is today, after one of the most devastating battles following the landing: 5,000 killed, a town razed in what was called Operation Astonia, but not until September 12, when the town finally fell. Many, many years earlier, in the last year or so of the 19th century, André Gide was vacationing there and had this reflection, recorded in his journal: “In Le Havre. I enter the correctional police station. It’s there, after reading Dostoevsky, that one gets the most suffocating view of humanity one can have.” (“Au Havre. J’entre à la salle de police correctionnelle. C’est là après la lecture de Dostoevski, la plus pantelante vue de l’humanite que l’on puisse avoir.”) I use the word suffocating for pantelante, but I’m not sure it’s the right translation. Pantelante doesn’t have an exact English equivalent. It has something to do with taking your breath away, with panting, with shock, a combination of it all. I like the line, and the allusion to Dostoevsky. He was reading Notes from Underground at the time, which would leave anyone pantelant.
—P.T.
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The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
June 2025
Palm Coast City Council Meeting
Food Truck Tuesday
Flagler Beach Library Writers’ Club
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
Contractor Review Board Meeting
Flagler County’s Technical Review Committee Meeting
Separation Chat: Open Discussion
The Circle of Light A Course in Miracles Study Group
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 9-18, at the Flagler County Public Library
Palm Coast Planning and Land Development Board
For the full calendar, go here.
At nightfall I go alone to the menhirs: the last harvesters returned on carts full of hay, with songs that were lost in the distance, songs that answered each other, the wheat rustled with the cries of crickets. In a bend in the path, indistinct by the darkness, the gray mass of the menhir, lying on the ground in a collapse of four enormous rocks, broken from the same monolith: the impression of a titan knocked down by lightning, fierce and still proud despite its fall. Climbing to the highest point, for a long time I saw the headlights light up one by one in the night, then the stars clearer.
–From André Gide’s Journal, 1887-1925 .
Samuel L. Bronkowitz says
And of course, credit to K.C. Green for the unauthorized use of the this is fine dog by Pat Bagley,
https://gunshowcomic.com/648
Ray W, says
According to The Mirror US, Panama, home to one of the biggest banana-producing provinces in the world, is experiencing labor unrest after its national legislature passed an act reducing pensions benefits for retirees and limiting access to healthcare.
Chiquita, described as a “major American fruit company”, then announced its intent to lay off its entire Panamanian subsidiary’s workforce. As of now, Panama’s banana fields “are at a standstill.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I can only express hope that some sort of labor equilibrium can soon be negotiated. Untended fields lead to shortages of crops, which leads to higher prices, everything else being equal. To my understanding, the only U.S. state with any banana industry, albeit a very small industry, is Hawaii. Bananas are home favorites, being the biggest seller, by volume, in Walmart produce departments.
Ray W, says
The L.A. Times recently published an opinion piece written by Veronique de Rugy, a George Mason research fellow.
The underpinning of the article was the fact that in 2016, President Trump had campaigned on an international trade theory that the admission of China into the World Trade Organization in 2001 had resulted in a gutting of American manufacturing now called “China Shock.” President Trump used the China Shock narrative to significantly resurge tariff protectionism.
The “China Shock” theory originated, according to the author, with research by three economists, David Autor, David Dorn and Gordon Hanson. Their idea came to be that certain American regions incurred “significantly greater job losses than did less-exposed areas” after China joined the WTO, with a total of millions of American manufacturing jobs lost and associated social disintegration.
In time, an American Enterprise Institute scholar, Scott Winship, determined to prove whether or not the China Shock economic theory was accurate.
According to the author, “[b]y examining alternative studies and methodological adjustments, Winship contends that the negative effects of trade with China have been significantly exaggerated and that populist narratives blaming this trade for U.S. economic decline aren’t supported by rigorous evidence.”
Winship’s research points out that even if one presupposes that the China Shock premise is accurate, in that Chinese imports affected some U.S. regions compared to other regions, the long-term findings “suggest only relatively modest employment effects”, with the China Shock effect on manufacturing employment being 50% smaller than the three economists claimed.
Why?
In part, because “the steady decline in U.S. manufacturing employment began decades before China’s WTO entry. Between the late 1970s and 2000, factory employment had already decreased substantially, mostly because of technological advances and shifting consumer demand.
“Notably, there was no sudden acceleration of this decline after China joined the WTO. The rate of manufacturing job losses remained consistent with earlier trends, undermining claims that Chinese trade uniquely devastated American manufacturing.”
And a “detailed Census Bureau report found that firms with greater Chinese export exposure increased manufacturing employment, reallocating jobs to more efficient domestic production lines enabled by cheaper imports.”
The research scholar concludes her opinion:
“Winship’s critical assessment of the China shock clarifies the actual, limited role Chinese import have played in manufacturing-employment trends. The real ‘shock’ America faces in 2025 is not from Chinese imports, but from a resurgence of misguided protectionism based on a misdiagnosed problem. The path forward harnesses trade’s real benefits rather than chasing economic illusions.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
First, as an aside, I have commented several times about a story I read some 10 or 15 years ago.
A foreign-owned and long-established South Carolina-based lawn care manufacturing company had increased its hiring of highly trained and skilled final robotics assembly personnel after sourcing parts and components from locations all over the world.
A reporter asked why.
While the company could not find an American spring manufacturer that could make valve springs at a competitive price, the company could robotically assemble its final products in America at a lower cost, which resulted in increased overall sales, because the robotics used in final assembly required supervision by highly trained and skilled employees.
Each of the company’s gas engines needed two valve springs and purchasing the springs from a Chinese valve spring manufacturer at lower cost allowed it to build lawn equipment at a lower cost. China had ample numbers of unskilled and semi-skilled laborers, but there was a dearth of highly skilled robotics operators.
Sourcing carburetors from Japan did the same, but Japan, with a shrinking population base, lacked the workers to do final assembly. Sourcing electronics components from abroad lowered costs, too, but the American robotic assembly of the finished equipment from components sourced from many countries also lowered costs, because the better trained and more competent American employees could beat foreign assemblers who lacked access to that type of well-trained employee base. A mistake in producing a valve spring to specification, wrote the reporter, cost pennies per spring. Any mistake in robotic final assembly might cost the company an entire unit, which might have to be disassembled, before it could be sold.
According to the article, American workers supervising the robotic assembly on average made fewer mistakes than did foreign workers at the final assembly stage, so Ryobi, a Japanese company, continued to assemble lawn equipment in South Carolina instead of in Japan or China or elsewhere.
Second, it should seem obvious to all FlaglerLive readers that scientific thought, based on skepticism, requires periodic review of economic conclusions, particularly when new or better data becomes available.
Three economists theorized the existence of a China Shock syndrome, stating that American manufacturing had declined after China entered into the WTO. But their study did not compare their findings to the more than 20 years of American manufacturing decline that had taken place prior to China’s entry. Since an economist found that the continuing decline was not that much different than the prior decline, the new economist downgraded the findings of the original three economists.
I agree with the additional economic theory that sourcing less expensive parts from abroad but assembling a final product at home can lower overall manufacturing costs. According to Ford’s CEO, watching the finely tuned art of robotically assembling an internal combustion engine in an American engine plant is a wonder to behold. Highly skilled American workers can make Ford money. Finding such highly skilled workers elsewhere to robotically assemble engines and transmissions in foreign factories may be prohibitively expensive to Ford due to a higher assembly error rate.
Ray W, says
Russia’s state-owned railroad company is known as RZD.
According to RZD freight documents for May 2025, total freight volume is down 9.4% over last May’s figures.
In a story published by The New Voice of Ukraine, a story that should be taken with a grain of salt, the reporter wrote:
“Nearly every cargo category saw a downturn, with some recording double-digit declines. Coal shipments dropped 3.4%, oil and oil products 5.8%, and container traffic 6.2%. Transport of raw materials fell 20.7%, ferrous metals 16%, industrial raw materials 19.2% and grain shipments plunged 34.8%.”
According to a “source” within GUDOK, a Russian industry publication linked to RZD, drone attacks rose to unprecedented levels thus far in 2025. The source said:
“Drone strikes directly affect rail operations; RZD doesn’t discuss it, but it clearly hampers the transport process: when a strike happens, rail traffic stops.”
A different source told the reporter:
“The system was working normally, but then everything changed — [commercial] cargo is headed east [to China and India instead of to Europe], defense shipments now have priority, and the railways simply can’t cope.”
The reporter added that sanctions have caused a shortage of planned investment (up to 40%) in rail transport parts and that the war effort has created a severe labor shortage.
“Train drivers either left for what Russia calls its ‘special military operation’ or moved to the defense industry, nobody is left to drive the trains.”
Finally, RZD budget cuts have resulted in less spending on existing track, locomotives and rail cars, as well as reduced levels of investment of up to 40% in new projects.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
It is no secret that Russia has a manpower shortage. The country’s birth rate is well below replacement level, dating back to the dissolution of the Soviet Union 35 years or so ago, so young worker levels are dropping.
The unemployment rate is consistently reported as being in the 2% range.
The Wall Street Journal reported late last year that manpower shortages exist all over the country. In that story, the Journal reported that milkmaids were commanding salaries comparable to entry-level IT workers, due to the severe shortage. Up to a million Russian males were reported to have left the country to avoid being conscripted into the army. Another million have been either killed or wounded, according to recent Western sources.
I am also aware from other stories that overall rail traffic in Russia has been dropping for more than a year. The stories consistently focus on track degradation due to rail companies skipping regular maintenance and repair. Several months ago, I commented on a report that overall average speed of Russian trains had begun dropping, which is an important standard in that type of industry.
From conversations with my younger son, once a long-time employee of BNSF, one of the big four national train companies, BNSF was investing up to $5 billion per year in upgrading its tracks, so as to increase the overall average speed of its trains. Faster average train speed means more money for the company during strong business times. With rail freight rates being significantly lower per mile per ton than that for long-haul trucking, freight distributors will choose rail over trucking, if possible, but if rail traffic capacity is maxed out, then the money for freight transport will flow to truckers.
Ray W, says
CNN reports that federal Energy Secretary Chris Wright, at the last minute, ordered on May 23rd a delay through the summer months of the long-planned (since 2022) shuttering of a Michigan-based coal-fired electricity generating plant owned by Consumers Energy, on the theory that its owner might need additional energy production during peak summer demand.
An Energy Department spokesperson explained the move:
“For years, American grid operators have warned decommissioning baseload power sources such as coal plants would jeopardize the reliability of our grid systems, which has raised alarm bells.”
When contacted by the reporter, a Consumers Energy spokesperson told the reporter that the company had already purchased a gas-turbine electricity generating plant to replace the power that would be lost when the coal-fired plant was shuttered. The coal-fired plant was to be shut down because it was 63-years old and inefficient.
Michigan Public Service Commission Chair Dan Scripps told the reporter:
“The grid operator hadn’t asked for this, the utility hadn’t asked for this, we as the state hadn’t asked for this. … We certainly didn’t have any conversations with the (Energy Department) in advance of the order, or since.”
So, what is the problem triggered by the emergency order?
The problem is the extra cost to consumers caused by keeping in operation the aged and inefficient coal-fired plant through the summer that may be as high as an estimated nearly $100 million dollars, though it could be as low as tens of millions of dollars, according to Chair Scripps. The whole point of shuttering the plant instead of refurbishing it was to save money for consumers serviced by the utility spread over a grid encompassing 15 states.
An energy expert told the reporter that such aged coal-fired plants have to be continuously kept under power, even if its power is not needed for the grid, because no one knows whether such plants will restart if they were ever to be shut down. Natural gas-powered plants can be shut down when not needed and easily restarted.
As for cost efficiency, “[e]ven existing coal where it has fully depreciated and been paid off, the cost of coal is more than solar and storage at this point”, said Texas-based energy expert Doug Lewin.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Some four years ago I commented that Florida Power & Light had long-term contracts with two energy companies that owned coal-fired plants. Natural gas-fired plants had become so cost-efficient at the time that FP&L bought the coal-fired plants outright and shuttered them rather than continuing with its obligation to pay the long-ago contracted rate for their electricity production.
It is widely reported in the utility journals that there is a long list of cheaper sources of electricity already constructed and waiting to be hooked into the grid. The problem is in the nation’s aging electricity transmission infrastructure.
One of the reasons that Duke Power bought the decommissioned Crystal River nuclear power plant site was because the infrastructure needed to plug into the grid already existed. Duke Power built two combined-cycle gas turbine generating plants and hooked them immediately into the grid. Duke Power has permits to build more gas turbine facilities on the site, should it decide to do so.
Right now, gas turbine manufacturers have contracts to build dozens of new combined-cycle gas-generating plants that are in the permitting or financing or construction stages. The most efficient coal-fired plant in the world, when I last checked, converted 44% of the energy stored in a unit of coal into electrical power. Mitsubishi’s latest model of gas turbines, under ideal conditions, converts 66% of the energy stored in an equal unit of natural gas into electrical power. Natural gas costs less per unit of power than does coal for the same unit of power. Natural gas emits some 30% less pollutants than does coal.
The federal government should not necessarily be ordering the costly extension of coal-fired plant life spans; it should be focusing on solving bottlenecks in our national grid so that less-expensive already constructed forms of energy production can be hooked into the grid.
Somehow, the current administration has internalized the idea that coal is an economically viable answer to demands on our energy grid; it isn’t. It is the most expensive form of energy production we have at our disposal.
Ray W, says
In January 2024, the EIA published its “Capital Cost and Performance Characteristics for Utility-Scale Electric Power Generating Technologies” comparison study.
While there are many more methods of electricity production, what follows below focuses on the differences in costs for constructing, and then maintaining and operating, a new net 650-MW coal-fired electricity generating plant and costs for constructing, and then maintaining, a new 150-MWac single-axis solar farm.
At the outset of this comment, it needs to be noted that in order to run a coal plant, one has to continually purchase coal, whereas there is never a fuel cost to run a solar farm.
The estimated capital cost in 2023 dollars to build a new 650-megawatt coal plant is $4,103 per kilowatt, with a lifespan of the plant measured over the 50-to-60 years that welded steel lasts before metal fatigue sets in. Metal fatigue in high pressure pipes is the main reason coal plants are shut down today; it costs too much to rebuild all of the steam pipes in the plant. Fixed operating and maintenance costs come to $61.60 per kilowatt per year. Variable operating and maintenance costs come to an additional $6.40 per kilowatt per year. Fuel costs for the coal needed to fire the plant are not included in the cost and performance summary.
Capital cost in 2023 dollars to construct a 150-megawatt solar farm is $1,502 per kilowatt, with a 35-year lifespan for the solar panels. Fixed operating and maintenance costs are $20.23 per kilowatt hour per year. There are no variable operating and maintenance costs and there are no fuel costs.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
No utility company would ever consider constructing and then operating and maintaining a new coal-fired electricity generating plant given the cost.
Solar farm construction costs come in at just over one-third the cost of coal and annual maintenance and operating costs for the farm are just under one-third the cost of a coal plant. Neither of these factors includes fuel costs, which for solar is zero and for coal fluctuates but never ends so long as the plant operates.
There is a mass delusion that has achieved mythic status in a significant portion of the American mind, in which coal has a future in generating electricity. The last new American coal plant began operating in 2012. Hillary’s problem in 2016 was that she tried and failed to pierce the mass delusion. Trump successfully fed into the mass delusion, and it metastasized into a movement.
The EIA estimates that it takes some seven years from application for permits to completion of construction, so the last new coal plant was likely proposed in or around 2005. Right now, no company is in the permitting or financing or construction phases to build a coal plant, which means that no utility company has even started the process of trying to build a new American coal plant for some 20 years.