Sweden – Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment.

Why Thorium? 38. Sweden has a great opportunity to help solve the sustainable energy problem and reduce mining through Small Modular molten salt Thorium and Plutonium reactors.

Sweden is perhaps the “greenest” country on earth. Their electric supply is a healthy mix of hydropower, wind, solar and biomass to make things go when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. Many cities are well planned where nearly all residential heat comes from spillheat from power plants. In Linköping the year 1967 the whole town was heated with surplus electricity during the spring flood. No house was allowed to have a fireplace in the regulated zone (except the city Architect’s and 3 other townhouses that somehow escaped the ordinance.) The energy use looks like this for Sweden:

Sweden once supplied nearly 40% of its energy needs via nuclear (electricity and heat) About half of the nuclear installations are retired and the last 6 are to be decommissioned before the end of the decade. To end nuclear energy was decided by a previous government in 1980 and the phase-out was to be completed in the mid 2020s. The goal was to generate 100% electric energy from renewable sources by 2040. (later changed to 2045).

Then Sweden had an election in 2022 and the Social Democrat, Green and Socialist coalition got replaced with a moderate, Christian Democrat and Liberal coalition with support of the nationalistic Sweden Democrat party. On June 20 they changed the slogan to 100% fossil-free electric energy by 2045.

This goal is impossible to meet without expanding nuclear power, especially since Sweden has specified that all new cars must be electric by 2035.

Then in January 2023 Sweden announced the largest Rare earth metals find in Europe. Europe is right now importing 98% of its rare earth metals from China. The find is called the Per Geijer deposit right next to the World’s largest underground Iron ore mine, the LKAB Kiruna mine located 120 miles north of the polar circle.

The new find is still basically a magnetite and hematite ore of excellent quality that also contains a significant amount of P2O5, which is premium fertilizer feed-stock. In addition It contains the largest find of rare earth metals in Europe. So far it is proven to contain the following Rare earth Metals:

Heavy Rare Earth Oxides (HREO) include: Eu₂O₃, Gd₂O₃, Tb₂O₃, Dy₂O₃, Ho₂O₃, Er₂O₃, Tm₂O₃, Yb₂O₃, Lu₂O₃, Y₂O₃.

Light Rare Earth Oxides (LREO) include: La₂O₃, Ce₂O₃, Pr₂O₃, Nd₂O₃, Sm₂O₃.

HREO constitutes 17% within the tested apatite concentrate samples and 19% in the overall exploration samples.

LREO constitutes 83% within the tested apatite concentrate samples and 81% in the overall exploration samples.

Just take a look at all the uses for rare earth metals. The most sought after pays all the cost of mining and refining, and the rest are readily available at nominal cost.

What is not mentioned is the content of Thorium and Uranium, but Thorium is always found in small amounts where ever Rare earths are found and very often some Uranium is also found in the ore.

In order to meet the need for both extraction of raw materials and at the same time increase Europe’s processing capacity LKAB has recently become the main owner of and entered into a cooperation with Norwegian REEtec. They have developed an innovative and sustainable technology for the separation of rare earth elements that can compete with the dominant Chinese production. The planned extraction site is proposed to be in the Luleå area.

Rare earth ore nearly always contains measurable amounts of Thorium and/or Uranium.The Thorium is nearly always returned to the slag heap, and sometimes the Uranium too if the concentration is low. No information has been given yet how much of anything the ore contains, but it is safe to assume that it is the largest ore find in Europe.

Sweden has a long history of mining. Before 1288 A.D. the local farmers of Falun found copper in what was called Kopparberget and the first documentary evidence of the mine appears in a letter from 1288 giving the Bishop of Västerås a one-eighth share in the mine in exchange for landholdings. The document shows that a cooperative organization by this time was managing the mine, with shares being bought and sold. The mine grew, and was once the largest copper mine in the world. This is also the reason the traditional color of Swedish farms is red, thanks to subsidies from the government if they painted their gray wooden farms and barns with Falu red paint.

Later Sweden became the producer of the best ball bearings in the world, and produced specialty steel for a variety of uses, such as the Sandviken Stradivarius musical saw.

For a while the mines in Sweden were many, but through environmental regulation and cost consideration Sweden now has only 12 mines left in operation. Many of the discontinued mines were started before there was any real environmental regulations, so the cleanup of abandoned mines is still ongoing. Sweden has no coal mines and no natural gas fields.

Sweden is the world leader in recycling everything that is economically defensible to recycle, and the rest of the waste products are, if possible incinerated, producing heat and some electricity. Very little, about one percent is returned to landfills. However, incineration is not recycling, Sweden is burning their only source of coal.

What I am proposing is somewhat akin to the old charcoal kiln; but instead of using wood, the source is trash sonverting trash to coal and gasses.

This is an opportunity for Sweden to be the world leader in recycling nearly everything, including CO2. It just takes energy.

This is my proposal:

Build small modular molten salt thorium reactors, U233 or U 233 and and Plutonium two fuel reactors, an inner shell of U233 or Plutonium as fissile source, and an outer blanket of Thorium, which is the fertile source to generate more U 233 than is consumed. It can be gas cooled, using Helium or molten lead, both work well. Power output will be 100 to 200 MW, and the output temperature will be around 600C.

Municipal, industrial and construction waste will in the first stage be dried, removing nearly all water from the trash. The trash will then be fed into an outgasser, which is fed by 600 C Nitrogen generated from the nuclear heat source, preventing combustion. This will act as a charcoal kiln leaving high quality charcoal to be separately treated and refined, separating out metals and other contaminants. The gasses will run through a turbine generating electricity and scrubbed, separating the hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, chlorine and whatever was in the gasses.

By reducing waste to coal, graphite, graphene and separate hydrogen, oxygen, other gasses and metals it will be true recycling rather than a common waste to power and heat incinerator that produces CO2 and water from H2 and O2, truly wasting energy.

What will Sweden do instead?

SMRs. In Sweden, Kärnfull Next, a subsidiary of Kärnfull Future AB, became the first company in Scandinavia in March 2022 to develop SMR (Small Modular Reactors) projects. Kärnfull Next will work together with GE Hitachi (GEH) towards the deployment of the GEH’s BWRX-300 SMR. A memorandum of understanding was signed between the two companies for this purpose. A letter of intent was also signed with the Finnish utility Fortum at the end of 2022 to explore opportunities for SMR development in Sweden.

In February 2021, the Swedish subsidiary of the energy company Uniper signed an agreement with the developer of the LeadCold SMR and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) with the aim of building a demonstration plant at the Oskarshamn site by 2030. It is envisaged that the LeadCold SEALER SMR will generate between 3 to 10 MW over a period of 10 to 30 years without the need for refueling.

In June 2020, Vattenfall announced that it was conducting a pilot study to examine the construction of at least two SMRs adjacent to the Ringhals nuclear power plant. If the outcome is positive, the first SMR in Sweden could be commissioned in the early 2030s to replace the Ringhals 1 and 2 units, which have been shut down.
In December 2022, the French utility EdF and the Finnish company Fortum signed a framework cooperation agreement to jointly explore opportunities for collaboration on the use of SMRs and large nuclear reactors.

Why Thorium? 9. Thorium based nuclear power is not suited for making nuclear bombs.

Thorium based Nuclear Power does not produce much Plutonium-239, which is the preferred material used in nuclear bombs. The higher Plutonium isotopes and other TRansUraniums are about as nasty as they get, need expensive protection against terror attacks, and need to be stored for a very long time.

One anecdote from my youth. The time had come to apply to University, and to my delight I was accepted to Chalmers’ University in Sweden as a Technical Physics major. I felt, maybe I can do my part by becoming a Nuclear Engineer and help solve the energy needs of the future. The Swedes at that time championed the heavy water – natural Uranium program together with the Canadians and to some extent with the Indians. Sweden was and to some extent still is a non-aligned country, so it was not privy to any nuclear secrets, it had to go it alone. They settled on the heavy water moderated natural Uranium process because Sweden had an ambition to produce its own nuclear bomb. Officially this was never talked about, and I was not aware of it at that time. They could have gone with Thorium instead, but a Thorium based nuclear reactor produces very little Plutonium, and what it produces is nearly all Pplutonium-238, not fissile and as such not suitable for bomb making.

I was excited to learn about all the possibilities and signed up for a couple of nuclear classes. One lab was to design a safety circuit, then run the heavy water research reactor critical and hopefully watch the reactor shut down from the safety circuit before the system safety circuit shutdown. About that time the word came that U.S. will sell partially enriched uranium at bargain basement prices if Sweden agreed to abandon the heavy water project and sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, a treaty being formulated by U.N.

Sweden was in awe about U.N, all the problems of the world were to be solved through it, and it had such a capable General Secretary in Dag Hammarskjöld, a Swede. I looked at the light water, partially enriched Uranium nuclear power plants being developed and decided to have no part with it, not due to safety concerns but it was the design that produced the most nuclear waste of any of the available designs. At that time there was still optimism that fusion would be ready by about the year 2010 or so. The cost of maintaining spent fuel in perpetuity was never considered, so light water reactors became the low cost solution.

India on the other hand refused to join the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, kept their heavy water program going and had by 1974 produced enough plutonium for one nuclear bomb, which they promptly detonated. They still use heavy water moderated reactors, but since India is low on Uranium but rich in Thorium they have now converted one heavy water reactor to Thorium with a Plutonium glow plug. It went on-line in 2011.

They are also developing molten salt Thorium reactors, but full production is still a few years off.

There we have it. We could have gone with Thorium from the beginning, but the cold war was on, and the civilian peaceful use of nuclear energy was still all paid for by nuclear weapons research and development. Once all the bombs we could ever wish for were developed the greatest asset of nuclear power became its greatest liability.

Russia has cut off electricity to Finland, natural gas to follow 5/25.

Finland has received 10% of its electricity from Russia. Because Finland refused to pay in Rubles Russia refuses to deliver any more. Big deal. This is spring season in northern Sweden and Finland. As they say: Spring is not a season, it is a natural disaster. The spring floods rush down the rivers and hydro-power is maxed out for up to two months. Sweden can easily replace the needed electricity. Finland relies on Russian natural gas is near 100%, and May 25 is the deadline to pay in Rubles, or it will be cut off too. In addition Russia has threatened Finland to not even think of joining NATO, or there will be unspecified military action.

This has led to unprecedented diplomatic communication between Finland, Sweden and NATO, and not only are they conducting joint Baltic military exercises right now, but both Sweden and Finland may apply for full membership in NATO as early as Monday. Finland is fully on board, and in Sweden only the true Socialists, “Vänsterpartiet” is against it, but they are only a small minority. With this, the Baltic Sea will be fully in NATO hands, fully encircling the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

For Finland this is the end of the Russian dependence and for Sweden this is the final death blow to the Olof Palme doctrine, alliance free at all cost.

When I emigrated from Sweden in 1968 Sweden had three major recipients for their foreign aid: North Vietnam, Cuba and for some reason Tanzania, one country on each continent.

As pandemic plagues go, Covid-19 was but a blip, seen from history.

Ring around the roses. pocket full of poses, ashes ashes. Everybody fall down.

When my Wife and I immigrated to America from Sweden and Denmark in the late 60’s we noticed that the girls seemed to sing and play “ring around the roses” everywhere. Being curious I asked them what it meant, but of course nobody knew, they just liked to sing it. Those were innocent times.

How was this pandemic compared to earlier times?

The song refers to the black plague, happening in the mid 14th century A.D., when around 30 percent of the Swedish population died. It was so bad that some villages died out completely, and I know of one such village that did not get resettled until the end of the Little Ice Age. The movie “The Seventh Seal”, one of the best movies of all time has a scene where an exhausted knight plays chess with Death, and is convinced he is winning, upon which Death simply explains “I cheat”.

So, is there cheating going on with the statistics?

It so happens that Sweden, which used to include Finland, and Denmark, which used to include Norway and Iceland, have nearly complete church record since the reformation, and in many cases even since Catholic times. Everybody belonged to the church, and the pastors were very jealous that no one was missed, they were concerned for the soul of everyone in the congregation, and as a side note, that was how they collected taxes. Here a historical view of the the pandemic statistics for Sweden.

So, how did the world react to this statistical blip?

Most countries reacted with a lockdown of one form or another, Sweden alone decided to stick it out, keep production and transport as usual, only limit large gatherings. The result seemed horrendous at first. Then President Trump tweeted this:

Notice the date. The pandemic had barely started.

What President Trump did was to let the States decide how to implement the lockdown, if at all. Most states did a lockdown, Florida decided to protect the vulnerable and elderly first, New York, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and California decided to send elderly Covid patients to their nursing homes and South Dakota did not do a lockdown. After all, health care is a State matter according to the 10th amendment.

We now have the statistics from 5 countries and 7 States:

Sweden, no lockdown: Cases per million: 244,634. Deaths per million 1,827

The other four Nordic countries had lockdowns:

Denmark: Cases per million: 507,644. Deaths per million 1,042

Norway: Cases per million: 258,878. Deaths per million 522

Finland: Cases per million: 180,063. Deaths per million 655

Iceland: Cases per million: 532,895. Deaths per million 324

While not technically an independent country, but still Nordic:

Faroe Islands: Cases per million: 704,460. Deaths per million 569

And now for the seven States:

South Dakota, no lockdown: Cases per million: 268,505. Deaths per million 3,279 Florida, limited lockdown: Cases per million: 276,713. Deaths per million 3,437

And now the 5 states that sent COVID patients to nursing homes:

Pennsylvania: Cases per million: 219,096. Deaths per million 3,483 California: Cases per million: 232,625. Deaths per million 2,281 New York: Cases per million: 270,904. Deaths per million 3,533 Michigan: Cases per million: 241,464. Deaths per million 3,598 New Jersey: Cases per million: 252,269. Deaths per million 3,757

The conclusion I can draw from this is that the COVID pandemic will run its course until herd immunity is achieved. Sweden has achieved it, and the other Nordic countries probably have too. As for U.S.A., it seems that it really doesn’t matter much how it was fought, except in the states with the strictest lockdown the children, especially the disadvantaged, lost two years of education, which cannot be regained.

Is there a better way? Look at the experiences of sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world here

But God. Why evangelicals have hope. The story of the song “How great thou art” and its journey around the world.

In 1995 a girl was born with undeveloped optical nerves and mild cerebral palsy. She was not expected to live more than at most one year. But God had other plans for her. At age two she began to sing. Her love for singing praises to God has never ceased. And so, in God’s providence she was chosen to sing at the 2017 inauguration interfaith prayer service. And sing she did! Her name is Marlana VanHoose, a little girl, but with a voice.

Image result for the 2017 inauguration prayer breakfast how great thou art

Meanwhile, the media was busy tracking the protest rallies all around Washington that day. I watched all day and never saw it.

How did the audience that was privileged to watch react? It is worth to listen to it a second time, this time around watching the reaction of the public in attendance, notably Melania Trumps reaction.

After the song Melania led the standing ovation to acknowledge God’s grace, not only for the song, but for the whole day and for the whole presidency.

This is what give us evangelicals hope. She not only sang it, she also sang the third and fourth verses, so often omitted in public settings, especially in interfaith services. Why is that so important?

Let us look at the history of “O store Gud”, and how it came to be the most favored Hymn of at least three presidents before Donald Trump!

Clouds have always been my fascination. They come and go, form and disappear, cool by day and warm by night. But most impressive of all are thunderstorms, forming when the temperature and humidity are high, transport a lot of water vapor to higher elevations, there condensing as rain or ice, coming down, cooling and watering the earth. Clouds and thunderstorms are the thermostat of the earth. Without it the earth would respond like climate models, predicting a sharp temperature rise as carbon dioxide levels increase. The models are all flawed, since they predict a hot spot in the troposphere over the equator, but there is none. The thunderstorms in the tropical doldrums take care of that. “Settled science” instead has settled on ignoring the lack of the hot spot, for to acknowledge it would make the global warming claim invalid.

I thank God for providing us with a thermostat that protects the earth from overheating, and especially for thunderstorms!

Such was the case in July 1885, when Carl Boberg, a 26 year young pastor of a small congregation of the Swedish Missionary society was the honored guest of the ladies’ auxiliary annual picnic, held in a meadow near Mönsteråsviken, (a bay of the Baltic Sea in southeastern Sweden). The day was perfect, the sky was clear, pleasant temperatures, the cows were grazing on the meadow, the birds were singing, in short, a pastoral idyll. Then it happened. In a few short minutes thunderclouds appeared out of nothing. There was no time to go home, so they all sought shelter in a barn close by. The rain came down hard, and lightning struck a nearby tree. Then as suddenly as it started the rain stopped and all was calm. In Sweden it turns much cooler after a thunderstorm, and the birds sing like they got a new lease on life.

They all went home, and the young pastor pondered the events of the day. He

080419-11, digital 28,8 mb RAW, 12-00 Koltrast, Turdus merula Uppland — 080419-11, digital 28,8 mb RAW, 12-00
Koltrast, Turdus merula
Uppland

heard the Koltrast singing its melodic, beautiful drill

and in a distance he heard the church bells ringing from Kronobäck’s church. The bay was calm like a mirror, and inspired he started penning the song “O store Gud”. Here are the first four verses in Swedish:

O store Gud, när jag den värld beskådar
Som du har skapat med ditt allmaktsord
Hur där din visdom väver livets trådar
Och alla väsen mättas vid ditt bord
/: då brister själen ut i lovsångs ljud:
O store Gud, o store Gud!

När jag hör åskans röst och stormar brusa
Och blixtens klingor springa fram ur skyn
När regnets kalla, friska skurar susa
Och löftets båge glänser för min syn –
/: då brister själen ut i lovsångs ljud:
O store Gud, o store Gud!

När sommarvinden susar över fälten
När blommor dofta invid källans strand
När trastar drilla i de gröna tälten
Vid furuskogens tysta, dunkla rand
/: då brister själen ut i lovsångs ljud:
O store Gud, o store Gud!

När jag i Bibeln skådar alla under
Som Herren gjort sen förste Adams tid
Hur nådefull han varit alla stunder
Och hjälpt sitt folk ur livets synd och strid
/: då brister själen ut i lovsångs ljud:
O store Gud, o store Gud!

He continued to write and write of all the mighty works that God has made and what He has given us through His word, and continued long into the night. Before going to bed he had penned over twenty verses. The next Sunday he wove the poem into his sermon. The congregation loved it, but that was about it. Slowly the word got around that the poem was pretty good, and after much editing 9 verses were published in the local newspaper Mönsteråstidningen in 1886. Carl Boberg didn’t make any efforts to publish it further, and was surprised when he heard it sung a few years later to a Swedish folk melody (in 3/4 tempo). This was then published in the periodical “Sanningsvittnet” (witness of the truth) in 1891.

It was translated into German by an Estonian, Manfred von Glehn. Five years later it was translated into Russian by Ivan S. Prokanoff, the Martin Luther of modern Russia. It was published in a book with the title “Cymbals”.

Later, while in the Carpathian Mountains of what is now Western Ukraine the English Missionary couple Mercy and Stuart Hine heard the song sung in Russian, this time as a wandering song in march tempo. He got impressed by God’s great works in the Polish mountains, and as Stuart Hine heard the people singing it on their way to church he penned a translation. This became the first and second verse:

O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the works Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Refrain:
Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

Refrain:

From now on the English version is different from the Swedish original, and it is time to step back and look at a very brief history of Eastern Europe. Before World War I Eastern Europe was basically under the Russian Tsar. Finland was a grand Duchy under Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were separate entities but under Russia. Poland was under Russian rule. Belarus didn’t exist and what is now Ukraine was part Russian and part of the Austrian/Hungary empire. The Russians tried to stamp out the Ukraine language but were only partly successful. Then came the Great War and the world changed. Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland and some more became independent states . During the Great War the Russian Revolution started and civil wars broke out. Nowhere was the fighting worse than in what was to become independent Ukraine. Up to six armies were fighting for control, and the corruption was unimaginable. Finally the Bolsheviks took control of Ukraine and Joseph Stalin “restored order”. One of the Bolshevik ideals was to control all production and that included all farming. Ukraine was then known as “the bread basket of Europe”. It was during this time the Hines started their ministry in Ukraine. The collectivization of the farms was disastrous to say the least. Farmers know the right time to sow and harvest, they look at the clouds in the sky, pray and go ahead. This is far more efficient than centrally planning when to sow and harvest by order from bureaucrats in a city far, far away, and so there was famine in both Russia proper and Ukraine. But the Ukrainians had put up a lot of resistance, so Joseph Stalin decided to punish the Ukrainians by taking away all their harvest and dole it out to the starving Russians. This resulted in the Holodomor (death by hunger) and at least 3.9 million Ukrainians died. This was in 1932-33 and the Hines were forced to evacuate to Poland, in what is now South West Ukraine.

This is the origin of the third verse: It was typical of the Hines to ask if there were any Christians in the villages they visited. In one case, they found out that the only Christians that their host knew about were a man named Dmitri and his wife Lyudmila. Dmitri’s wife knew how to read — evidently a fairly rare thing at that time and in that place. She taught herself how to read because a Russian soldier had left a Bible behind several years earlier, and she started slowly learning by reading that Bible. When the Hines arrived in the village and approached Dmitri’s house, they heard a strange and wonderful sound: Dmitri’s wife was reading from the gospel of John about the crucifixion of Christ to a houseful of guests, and those visitors were in the very act of repenting. In Ukraine (as I know first hand!), this act of repenting is done very much out loud. So the Hines heard people calling out to God, saying how unbelievable it was that Christ would die for their own sins, and praising Him for His love and mercy. They just couldn’t barge in and disrupt this obvious work of the Holy Spirit, so they stayed outside and listened. Stuart wrote down the phrases he heard the Repenters use, and (even though this was all in Russian), it became the third verse that we know today:
And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing;
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.

Refrain:

The second world war broke out, and the Hines were forced to return back to England, but they continued their ministry. The fourth verse was was added by Stuart Hine after the Second World War had ended. His concern for the exiled Polish community in Britain, who were anxious to return home, provided part of the inspiration for Hine’s final verse. Hine and David Griffiths visited a camp in Sussex, England, in 1948 where displaced Russians were being held, but where only two were professing Christians. The testimony of one of these refugees and his anticipation of the second coming of Christ inspired Hine to write the fourth stanza of his English version of the hymn. According to Ireland: One man to whom they were ministering told them an amazing story: he had been separated from his wife at the very end of the war, and had not seen her since. At the time they were separated, his wife was a Christian, but he was not, but he had since been converted. His deep desire was to find his wife so they could at last share their faith together. But he told the Hines that he did not think he would ever see his wife on earth again. Instead he was longing for the day when they would meet in heaven, and could share in the Life Eternal there. These words again inspired Hine, and they became the basis for his fourth and final verse to ‘How Great Thou Art’:

When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow, in humble adoration,
And then proclaim: “My God, how great Thou art!”

Refrain

The complete song was soon published, not in England but in the Soviet Union (in English). The famous Gospel singer George Beverly Shea got hold of it, liked it a lot, but he wanted to change two words in the first verse: Instead of works, he wanted to use worlds, and instead of mighty he wanted to use rolling. Very reluctantly Stuart Hine agreed, but only for use in the Billy Graham Crusades. It was first sung in Canada in 1955.

It became so popular that in Billy Graham’s 1956 New York Crusade it was sung at all 99 events, and from there the song spread throughout all the world, even back in Sweden where the new version became the popular one. One of the visitors to this Crusade was the little boy Donald Trump, who went with his Father and Mother and Brother (and Sisters?) to listen. God’s word never returns void.

Years have passed since Donald Trump was inaugurated. This is one exchange of views he had with Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of NATO:

The main stream media interpreted this as President Trump wanted to weaken NATO

Joe Biden is now President. Again Ukraine is the center of events, and Putin has decided to invade and subdue Ukraine because they decided to direct their corruption to the West rather than go along with the corruption of Russia. The battle of Kyiv is in its third day, and the people of Kyiv has decided to battle it out rather than surrender. It is beginning to look more like the battle of Stalingrad in WW II where the citizens fought and prevailed, so Germany could not get at the Russian oil in Baku. The Ukrainians hatred for Russia is that great. They remember the Holodomor as told them by their grandparents.

Putin seems to have miscalculated badly. He had his eyes on quickly absorbing Ukraine, then taking the Baltic countries, and maybe even Poland. He is getting more and more desperate and has begun to threaten Finland, and even Sweden to not even think of joining NATO.

The people of Ukraine are joining the military, all males 18 to 60 are forbidden to leave the country, forced to join the defense forces in one form or another, and even many women are joining. They are issued a gun, mostly AR 15 or equivalent and some ammunition. What they lack is military training, so the major purpose is to prevent an easy takeover of the cities. There will be many lives shed. When I saw on the TV the heart rendering farewells of the men separating from their loved ones, knowing full well they may never see each other again in this life, the fourth verse of “how great thou art” flashed back in my mind, and when Putin threatened even neutral Sweden, I realized the song had made its journey around the world, and I realized that after the thunder, the still small voice of the Koltrast singing: God is still in charge, but we must still do what we can, and above all, pray for a revival and a great awakening. As the song was sung in Billy Graham’s Crusades to about two billions all around the world, so will our prayers be a part of the greatest revival and awakening the world has ever seen.

God works in all and through all.

God is.

In the COVID-19 fight: Who is the winner in Europe? Is it Sweden with herd immunity, or is it Portugal with nearly all people vaccinated? For now, Sweden is the winner.

When the COVID-19 menace entered Europe, Sweden was the only country that didn’t do a complete lock-down, they took the approach to let the pandemic rage and so achieve herd immunity; only protect the most vulnerable as best they could. The initial result seemed catastrophic, but herd immunity was more or less achieved, and current results are impressive:

As we can see, for Sweden daily deaths are down 98% from.previous maximum before vaccines began, and daily cases were down 83%. The total death rate per million people is 1,480 and the Swedish vaccination rate is 72%

How are the other European nations doing on the same score. They are listed in order of Increase/decrease in death rate from pre-vaccine peak, from worst to best.

A= ratio of highest case rate before vaccines to current case rate

B= ratio of highest death rate before vaccines to current death rate

C= total deaths per million people this far

D= vaccination rate, at least one dose

Country A B C D

Ukraine 155% 299% 2,036 29%

Russia 114% 218% 1,926 43%

Belarus 90% 167% 548 33%

Georgia 93% 142% 3,119 28%

Finland 314% 140% 249 77%

Hungary 176% 102% 3,649 62%

Greece 223% 90% 1,797 66%

Croatia 112% 82% 2,769 51%

Moldova 37% 81% 2,292 14%

Serbia 26% 81% 1,372 47%

Slovakia 346% 78% 2,727 47%

Latvia 80% 76% 2,304 67%

Bulgaria 58% 76% 4,197 16%

Poland 90% 76% 2,267 54%

Bosnia & H. 53% 71% 3,930 26%

Montenegro 38% 63% 3,708 42%

Chechia 150% 52% 3.135 60%

Norway 528% 50% 199 77%

Romania 16% 50% 2,997 29%

Netherlands 193% 49% 1,144 77%

Lithuania 56% 47% 2,572 69%

Austria 121% 46% 1,409 68%

N. Macedonia 31% 45% 3,668 42%

Estonia 80% 43% 1,374 62%

Slovenia 89% 30% 2,557 58%

Germany 229% 34% 1,231 70%

Denmark 122% 34% 508 78%

Slovenia 89% 30% 2,557 58%

Albania 40% 25% 1,082 32%

Belgium 104% 24% 2,330 75%

Switzerland 98% 15% 1,328 67%

France 80% 14% 1,826 76%

Ireland 80% 13% 1,138 77%

Italy 41% 10% 2,224 78%

U.K. 77% 9% 2,129 74%

Spain 34% 6% 1,885 82% .

Portugal 21% 6% 1,800 89%

Conclusion: All countries will eventually reach herd immunity, the vaccinations only delay the inevitable: The pandemic will be with us like the common cold or the flu.

In the COVID-19 fight: Who is the winner? Is it Sweden with herd immunity, or is it Portugal with nearly all people vaccinated? Time will tell.

As we can see, for Sweden daily cases are down 87% from.previous maximum before vaccines began, and daily deaths did even better, down 96%. The total death rate per million people is 1,480 and the Swedish vaccination rate is 72%

How are the other European nations doing on the same score. They are listed in order of Increase/decrease in case rate, from worst to best

A= ratio of highest case rate before vaccines to current case rate

B= ratio of highest death rate before vaccines to current death rate

C= total deaths per million people this far

D= vaccination rate, at least one dose

Country A B C D

Norway 269% 50% 182 77%

Latvia 243% 136% 2,086 67%

Slovakia 233% 47% 2,502 47%

Greece 224% 89% 1,643 66%

Finland 183% 83% 223 77%

Romania 176% 213% 2,834 29%

Slovenia 163% 27% 2,393 58%

Netherlands 161% 23% 1,096 77%

Austria 157% 28% 1,305 68%

Ukraine 155% 299% 1,816 29%

Germany 149% 19% 1,175 70%

Bulgaria 141% 119% 3,903 16%

Croatia 140% 68% 2,469 51%

Russia 139% 219% 1,774 43%

Estonia 124% 85% 1,286 62%

Moldova 118% 127% 2,154 14%

Georgia 110% 186% 2,818 28%

Belarus 106% 170% 518 33%

Montenegro 106% 100% 3,545 42%

Serbia 96% 112% 1,267 47%

Denmark 95% 20% 479 78%

Lithuania 92% 77% 2,399 69%

Chechia 90% 31% 2,953 60%

N. Macedonia 88% 45% 3,536 42%

Hungary 80% 44% 3,378 62%

Albania 72% 30% 1,049 32%

Ireland 67% 19% 1,119 77%

U.K. 64% 13% 2,097 74%

Belgium 60% 14% 2,268 75%

Poland 52% 29% 2,107 54%

Bosnia & H. 51% 65% 3,736 26%

Switzerland 45% 8% 1,301 67%

Italy 21% 8% 2,204 78%

France 17% 6% 1,807 76%

Spain 13% 5% 1,876 82%

Portugal 12% 3% 1,800 89%

Why are so many first responders and health care workers risking their careers rather than taking the vaccine?

The heroes of 2020, our health care workers and first responders, who were risking their lives, taking the threat from the coronavirus head on before there was any vaccine are now risking their very careers rather than taking the vaccine. Do they know something that the CDC, NIH and the media are withholding from us?

The world is full of conflicting information and it is difficult to separate facts from opinions and just plain rumors? Being an octogenarian, fully vaccinated with Pfizer, should I take a booster shot, or should I pin my hopes on NIH and CDC approving additional early therapeutics, such as Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine or monoclonal antibody therapy to fend it off should I get early symptoms? Here are early results from Israel in using a booster shot compared to Sweden, also a country with greater than 70% vaccination rate:

For health care workers in their reproductive years one question that is now readily available since they have all the data on adverse reactions from the vaccine, would be: What is the miscarriage rate? Is it larger than for the population in general? Until that, and many more questions are answered I will not even take a booster shot, even though I am for vaccination of people over 45, since the death rate from COVID increase by about 7% for every year you age.

For NIH and CDC, show us the data, we have some data on myocarditis, how it is highest in teenage boys and tamper of with age, but the data on miscarriages are still lacking. Future sterility takes some time to determine, but like with so many viruses, to have had the disease during pregnancy is usually worse than taking the vaccine.

The Nordic Countries show the way of COVID-19 treatment.

First, let us acknowledge that the Nordic Countries are not socialistic. They are welfare states, and as such have government controlled medical care paid for by taxpayer dollars. In Sweden the Value Added Tax is 22% and it is paid by everybody for all purchases. Of course gasoline and other luxury items such as cosmetics and spirits are taxed much higher, but you get the point. The important part is that all pay their fair share of taxes, so all contribute to the welfare state. But other than that, the Nordic countries are less socialistic than U.S.A. Even the railroads are privatized. It is true they all flirted with socialism in the 1970’s but found it was unsustainable (read Pomperipossa in Monismania), so they turned back from the brink and are now doing better than most countries. In fact, their 2021 economic freedom index is mostly higher than the U.S.A’s. They are as follows: Denmark is ranked 10th, Iceland 11th, Finland 17th, Sweden 21th and Norway 28th. By comparison U.S.A. is 20th out of 178 ranked countries.

Now to the Nordic countries and COVID-19. Almost alone in the western world Sweden decided to take the route of achieving herd immunity rather than using masking and shutdowns. Only sports and other large gatherings were prohibited. At first it looked like a catastrophe for Sweden, this was before any vaccines, but then some form of herd immunity started to form. More than a month ago Norway decided to treat Covid-19 just like a flu and abolished all Covid restrictions. Three weeks ago Sweden decided to “pause” the Moderna vaccine for people under the age of 31 years of age. Their reason was that there are more severe vaccine cases than cases in that age group. Denmark, Finland and Iceland followed.

What is the current COVID-19 situation in the Nordic countries?

. Fully Total since beginning of pandemic Last 7 days average per day

Country Vaccinated Cases/million Deaths/million Cases/million Deaths/million

Sweden 67% 114,137 2,465 58 0.40

Finland 66% 27,000 201 103 0.54

Denmark 78% 63,128 460 112 0.20

Norway 68% 35,760 161 73 0.36

Iceland 81% 36,197 96 122 0.00

(U.S.A) 56% 137,120 2,230 1,405 4.22

As we can see, Sweden, with a horrendous start is now near or at herd immunity having less than one tenth of the death rate of the U.S. The other Nordic countries are doing equally well, and this is without forced wearing of masks. Their vaccination rates are higher than In the U.S.A, but the difference in result is staggering. The masks will actually increase COVID cases.

With over 116 million COVID-19 cases in the world, how is USA doing compared to the rest of the world?

The table below shows that USA came in as number 28 of the 40 countries with the largest outbreak of the Wuhan virus. This table reflects the first 40 days of the new U.S. administration. Most countries have a declining death rate, with the notable exceptions of Mexico, South Africa, Germany, United Kingdom, Colombia, Poland, Romania, France, Spain, Pakistan, Russia, Portugal, Ukraine, Iraq, and the United States of America.

Country Cases Deaths Death Rate

Mar 5 Mar 5 Mar 5 Jan 24

World ,116,779,394 2,593,566 2.22% 2.15%

Mexico 2,119,305 189,578 8.95% 8.51%
China 89,962 4,636 5.15%
Iran 1,681,682 60.594 3.60% 4.16%
Peru 1,358,294 47,491 3.50% 3.62%
South Africa 1,518,979 50,566 3.33% 2.94%
Italy 3,023,129 99,271 3.28% 3.48%
Germany 2,493,887 72,297 2.90% 2,51%
UK 4.312,181 124,261 2.88% 2.71%
Belgium 783,010 22,215 2,84% 3.00%
Indonesia 1,373,836 37,154 2.70% 2.81%
Colombia 2,269,582 60,300 2.66% 2.55%
Poland 1,781,345 45,159 2.54% 2.41%
Romania 824,995 20,854 2.53% 2.51%
Canada 881,761 22,192 2.52% 2.56%
Chile 845,450 20,928 2.48% 2.55%
Argentina 2,141,854 52,784 2.46% 2.51%
Brazil 10,871,843 262,948 2.42% 2.45%
France 3.859,102 88,274 2.29% 2.01%
Spain 3,149,012 71,138 2.26% 2.08%
Pakistan 588,728 13,166 2.24% 2.12%
Philippines 591,138 12,465 2.11%
Russia 4,312,181 88,726 2.06% 1.88%
Portugal 808,405 16,486 2.04% 1.68%
Ukraine 1,394,061 26,919 1.93% 1.84%
Sweden 684,961 13,003 1.90% 2.02%
Iraq 723,189 13,548 1.87% 2.11%
Japan 436,728 8,119 1.86%
USA 29,594,742 535,566 1.81% 1.67%
Switzerland 562,290 10,041 1.79%
Morocco 485,567 8,673 1.79%
Austria 472,871 8,694 1.78%
Czechia 1,312,164 21,558 1.64% 1.65%
Bangladesh 549,724 8,451 1.54%
India 11,192,088 157,693 1.41% 1,44%
Netherlands 1,110,213 15,762 1.42% 1.43%
Jordan 417,934 4,862 1.16%
Turkey 2,757,460 28,901 1.05% 1.04%
Serbia 478,878 4,525 0.94%
Israel 796,465 5,834 0.73% 0.73%
UAE 408,236 1,310 0.32%

This is my proposal:

What will Sweden do instead?

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