patrick.net

HelloKitty Says:
If you put a windmill on the hood of a Prius... All that wind going to waste.

And a windmill in front of each Prius driver, no sense in wasting that wind either. :-)

Randy H,

Agreed. Don't worry, certainly not too much. When you've recently said good-bye to your 20-30% down payment, your house payment ate your lunch and your taxes are based on prices NO ONE is getting... then you've got real problems.

For this poor guy, debating should I... buy gold or...___ is a luxury he simply doesn't have. When it's 56-0 (and your players are being hauled off on stretchers) any spot on the sidelines is just fine.

I am a big fan of wind. In fact, I favor wind an order of magnitude over solar in its current state of development.

Little known fact: the country that produces the most absolute wind power is the US. It's just a very tiny percent of our total generation, because we're so big.

If I remember correctly, those turbines you probably saw in The Netherlands were likely 3rd generation. Those are the massive ones that turn very slowly. They are bird-friendly (the 1st generation mills were known to be literal meat-grinders), but they require higher fixed-costs to entry.

I'll see if I can find any of the capitalization/depreciation data I had when I was doing the green-tech thing. Wind is very attractive. The 3 things that trip up wind (in the US) are:

1. Solar-mania. Almost all subsidies in the US currently go to Solar and clean-coal. In the US no "alternative" generation sources are economical without subsidies, unless you count Hydro as alternative. (Hydro is the cheapest, by an order of magnitude, than everything else).

2. Location + land-use rights. You have to put them where they'll work, and be allowed to put them there. The US, unlike all those European states where you see windmills located in a designed plan, is a land of intense private property ownership. In Germany, the Netherlands, etc. the government can more easily "force" the windmills upon land owners. Here you'll have to pay top-dollar to anyone lucky enough to own a windy range of hills or farm plains. That's why you see most of them here on government-owned open space, or in a few entrepreneurial farmers' fields (and those are the small turbines).

3. The Grid. Most of the energy is lost in transmission, and we don't have a grid capable of supporting decentralized power yet. So a lot of what a single turbine puts out gets lost beyond the immediately local consumers of that energy, which by nature of where they are located, is a couple of farm houses. Big arrays of mills are required to make any real impact on the local grid; best if they're within a few miles of a consuming mid-sized city.

A lot of the energy problems are due to "legacy" designs. An example is the use of 60 Hz power in the US. Aircraft systems decades ago changed to the more efficient 400 Hz standard aboard aircraft, which permits smaller and more efficent transformer designs. (Of course Europe with their 50 Hz systems are even more screwed than we are.) I often wonder what a conversion to higher-frequency power would entail - in a cost/benefit ratio.

empty-houses --- the new BK law allows you to walk away from everything, but you have to actually be poor. You have to make less than the median for your state. Fortunately, lots and lots of people are going to be in just that position. It also requires you to get credit counseling, big whoop, you sit through a class that's the financial version of traffic school. BK's actually cheaper now, because so many people are doing it, and the Feds actually hold seminars in places like out here, on how to file on your own.

As this thing crumbles, we'll see a huge wave of Chapter 7s and an even bigger underlying wave of those who've just walked away from it all and "gone Amish" or Freegan or whatever. Remember as Ran Prieur says, as Empire crumbles, all you have to do is basically stay out of its way.

I am a believer that transformation of the US grid will require half a century or longer to "complete". Such infrastructure is never really replaced, just upgraded. You can still find legacy from 100 years ago left in the telecom systems, for example.

Europe has no excuse. The one time when major, bedrock infrastructures do get replaced is after they've been destroyed. Was 50Hz a reasonable choice in the post war period of rebuilding? If so, then that's the excuse. My guess, though, is that it had more to do with politics than efficiency of design.

DennisN,

It's been awhile for me but the way I recall the 400HZ and even 800HZ inverters made an awful whine you could hear for hours even after you left the flight line. All you could think was, will that flight engineer PLEASE shut down the APU!?

Isn't part of the problem that main transmission lines are aluminum and not copper? I recall reading that some time back. Evidently while copper is a better conductor the sheer weight of it mandate the use of aluminum.

This is not exactly OT for this thread, but can anyone recommend a decent bank or CU in the East Bay (just for general checking & bill-paying)? Definitely want FDIC or FCUA insured, free online banking, and would prefer one with multiple branches. Not too keen on BofA these days, won't go with Wells-Fargo (bad prior experience), and WaMu might be suspect, due to massive exposure to HB.

I hold my nose and do the BofA thing. It's just too ubiquitous in the BA (and too big to fail). Even if I do hate those f-ers.

It would be interesting to consider hydrogen as an energy transportation media. (No matter what the idiot news media says, hydrogen is not an energy "source".) I wonder whether it would be more efficient to separate hydrogen at a spot electric generating plant and ship it via tanker truck to someplace like LA rather than incur the transmission line losses by shipping the electric power directly.

Transmission lines get jacked up to really high voltages so that the currents get greatly reduced.

Actually aluminum isn't that much worse than copper on a cross-sectional basis. The real problem is that aluminum oxide is a damned good insulator, which is the source of all the problems when some bird-brains tried using aluminum for house wiring back in the 1970s. This isn't a problem with the utilities as they are equipped to handle splicing aluminum.

I think there are a number of wonderful decentralized-grid design proposals. The trouble is all in the economics of fixed-costs. So long as fossil fuels exist at their current price point there is no economic justification for those expenditures. Of course we can all see the long-term need. But exactly how to address that need becomes the domain of politics, because the economics are not immediate.

@Randy H,

Thanks - yup, the feeling's mutual.

RE: NCAL blog party. I can host at my new place, but won't be fully moved in for another 2 weeks at least.

Savings in “too big to fail” banks and funds.

You meant "too big to let fail," right?

SP Says:

> As an inter-generational store of wealth, it (gold) has done
> pretty well. About 120 years ago, my great-grandfather’s
> father was rewarded in gold by some monarch. He left the
> gold in a safe-deposit that my dad and uncles inherited.
> Considering all the cr*p that went down in those hundred
> years, I can’t think of much else the old man could have
> saved that would have retained value, least of all some
> paper currency.

I don’t understand why anyone would “invest” in something that did not give them a regular return on the investment. If you were to compare the value of gold (less the cost of renting a safe deposit box for the past 120 years) to income producing real estate (adding in the after tax return from rents for the past 120 years) you would be much better off with the real estate…

"currents get greatly reduced"

That's what I thought. They don't "step-up" the current until it hits a local sub-station, right?

I don't know that 400HZ *wouldn't work? That's typically what your PC converts 60HZ to anyway? Much of the reason aircrap (I mean airCRAFT) run 400HZ is that your system (fuel quantity, auto-pilot etc.) update much more frequently and are much more accurate than using standard household current.

This is just a guess, but the government would let the small fry banks fail since the FDIC has enough resources to bail out the depositors. But the FDIC itself would be strapped to bail out the depositors if a really big bank (B0fA, Citi) failed. I think the government would come out with a prop-up-the-big-bank plan rather than see FDIC face insolvency.

Randy,

While you were on hiatus, there was another discussion that touched upon power transmission losses. I'll quite the pertinent passage from Wikipedia:

Transmission and distribution losses in the USA were estimated at 7.2% in 1995 [2], and in the UK at 7.4% in 1998. [3]

That's a far cry from 50% loss. I'd agree that there is reason to believe that the US electric is overdue for maintenance and general overhaul for reliability and other reasons.

On the other hand, what is up with Wall St recently adapting the mantra "infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure". I can hardly turn on PBS without some lame-ass third-rate Wall St analyst trying to sell me on some l"infrastructure" company (e.g. Jacobs Engineering in LA). What is going on? Is this just an attempt to create a new sector and add some momentum to it? I;d like to hear what people think. Fair enough, a bridge fell down in Minnesota last year, but is that going to be the poster child and excuse for lots of government spending? I have to say I'm a bit skeptical about the whole infrstructure thing, if nothing else because the marketing of it seems so well orchestrated.

DennisN,

I think 400Hz in airplanes is not for transmission efficiency but for conversion efficiency. That is, a 400Hz transformer can be made much smaller and lighter than a 50-60Hz one. And weight and volume is of course paramount in airplanes.

Another example of the same: PC switching power supplies chop up the current and transform it at multi-100KHz frequencies for the same reason.

However, don't expect 100kHz power transmission to become popular . The dielectric loss and radiation loss (analogy: longwave radio) will be much too high. The better way to go is DC (0Hz) transmission at high voltage, followed by electronics to chop (aka. invert) and transformers to step the voltage down locally.

There are beacons and low-frequency RF communications services down around 100kHz. WWV runs a service at 60kHz.

400Hz is a good option since it's been tested over time, since WWII if not back further. And yes it's for conversion efficiency. Tube radio stuff needed big heavy transformers to supply plate voltages as well as filament, heater etc voltages, and at 400Hz these transformers can be a lot smaller.

In cars, I keep hearing talk of going to a 48VDC system, not for conversion but to save on copper - at a higher voltage, you need less current to deliver the same power, and since wire thickness is determined by current, raise the voltage, decrease the current, you get the same wattage and less copper. Which is a good thing considering copper is actually worth something.

Infrastructure.... what a joke. New products and technologies were come up with in the 1920s that were essentially frozen through the first great Depression and not taken up again until the 1940s or 50s. Television is a good example. Types of radio modulation like FM are another. We're heading into the 2nd, or Greater, Great Depression and I doubt that in our tent cities we're going to be worried about the latest kind of cell phone that isn't made here anyway. We're also headed for a large population dieoff either through good old war and pestilence, or simply through high child mortality and greatly shortened life expectancy like in the ex-USSR. We're up to our ears in infrastructure and goods, really.

DennisN,

I'd bet big bucks that just transmitting High Voltage DC to LA will beat hydrogen as a transportation medium any day, in terms of overall energy efficiency . Hydrogen is a bitch to deal with.

The main advantage of hydrogen is that it has great public appeal, especially in the "soccer-mom" demographic, who is easily enamored with the image of water coming out the tail pipe.

Hydrogen is simply a ruse to sell the public on nuclear power, which is what it is going to take to produce any practically usable amount of hydrogen. Then, once the nukes are built, hydrogen will be toned down and phased out. What stings is that our government is spending billions on hydrogen research that has no practical application except as a marketing tool for nuclear power.

ex-sunnyvale-renter,

Perhaps that's why Wall St is pushing infrastructure. If the depressions hits, it's nice to be invested in "public works".

Without a major public sentiment shift nuclear is nearly politically impossible in the US. The two ways to counter this are (a) education, (b) slick marketing. Huzzah to anyone who can guess which one is more likely to work in the current US cultural environment.

I just read an interesting bit on the "stealth reintroduction of nuclear" into the US vis-a-vis desalinization plants. In the US West especially, water is quickly becoming a real serious near-term problem. Of course the southeast has shown our water infrastructure is precarious almost everywhere.

The current best solution is desalinization, which at scale requires massive amounts of electricity, which you get from...

There's also some cool desert-water-table desalinization project to pull water from under the deserts. Of course the byproduct is lots of nasty sludge, but it's not like the desert flats are being used for much anyway.

Justme - the Depression is hitting, and guns and ammo are the places to be invested.

RE: wind power, there will always be NIMBYists, as always:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/04/27/kennedy_faces_fight_on_cape_wind/

Sometimes, the NIMBYists happen to be very rich and powerful...

Without a major public sentiment shift nuclear is nearly politically impossible in the US. The two ways to counter this are (a) education, (b) slick marketing. Huzzah to anyone who can guess which one is more likely to work in the current US cultural environment.

Or we can just completely deregulate electricity prices and let utility companies gouge consumers at will. People will be saying yes to nuclear power in a second.

Danville Woman,

go to the following website for buying directly from Oz Treasury, it is very easy. Oz Treasury has excellent customer service, because I got to talk to / write to real people who took the trouble to explain to me my transactions in great detail.

http://www.rba.gov.au/FinancialServices/CGBondFacility/index.html

Sometimes, the NIMBYists happen to be very rich and powerful…

NIMBYists are the enemy. We should unite oil companies and corporate America to defeat this enemy.

I believe people should have no rights outside of their property limits.

Randy,

do you know of any real life examples of brokerage failure? How long will it takes SPIC to resolve?

What about bank failure? How long was the FDIC processing time during the early 90s?

There are brokerages that are "too big to let fail." Why not put your money there instead?

OK, let's define the too big to fail here.

Is WaMu one of them? Wells Fargo? US Bank?

Only Citi and BoA will fit the bill?

Which ones are the too-big-to-fail brokerages? Merill or Goldman? Does Goldman even handle retail customers?

Salomon Bros under Citi is a piece of crap, I used to use them before, horrible service to the extent of messing up order. Thank you very much.

Sometimes, the NIMBYists happen to be very rich and powerful…

NIMBYists typically tend to be rich and powerful. Who tends to live near dumps, oil refineries, RRs and power plants: rich or poor people? Who has lots of free time on their hands for pet "causes", can afford expensive lawyers, and have the ears of Congressmen, Senators and state legislators: rich or poor people?

Fidelity has a lot of retirement accounts. I assume their owners will be very upset (politically) if anything is to happen.

NIMBYists typically tend to be rich and powerful.

I do not see truly rich people being NIMBYists. Look at Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Not NIMBYists.

If you want to protect your backyard just buy up the surrounding 10000 acres!

I don't know about multi-generational wealth, but gold was the ONLY thing that got my grandparents out of China before the change of regime.

Back then, only people with enough gold could get a ticket, because that was what the train tickets / liner tickets were priced in. You have plenty of real estate, stocks in factories, sorry, that didn't count. How many gold bars do you have to exchange for a ticket?

Then the fall of Saigon. Gold was the only currency that could get you out of the mess. I know of a couple of real "boat people", each paying one gold bar (12 ounces) for a chance to sail across the ocean to head for America.

I am not saying that the US will degrade to that extent, but if I were to leave this country, USD would not be my choice of currency to carry.

The SIPC has been invoked quite a bit. They have some good historical examples themselves:

http://www.sipc.org/media/release4.cfm

You should assume that your money will be illiquid for many months if SIPC is invoked. The same with FDIC, though since that's directly government controlled, they could move to expedite the process if any failures are widespread enough. For example, if every depositor in BofA suddenly found themselves collecting FDIC (which would never happen under my theory), you can bet that any politician blocking an emergency relief bill would be one wishing to end his/her term in a blaze of glory.

Gold is a currency.

So long as the next greater fool is willing to pay more for it who cares if it does not product an income! :)