Sunstorms, sudden solar flares, jets of ions swirling past the earth at relativistic speeds. They pile into the earth's geomagnetic field and make it move. The resulting moving magnetic fields induce humungous currents into the the electric power grid, transformers melt, circuit breakers pop, and the lights go out and stay out. This horror story made today's Wall St Journal. Page three, not the front page.
Oh really? The power grid is harder and tougher than it used to be. Back when I was a child, lightning from ordinary summer thunder storms put the lights out on a regular basis. That doesn't happen anymore. Only thing that puts the lights out now-a-days is a tree falling on the wires and breaking them. The grid is hardened against lightning bolts (no mean feat). And, it is hardened against over-current, otherwise known as short circuits. It has to be. Plenty of ordinary accidents will short hot circuits to ground. The resulting currents can melt expensive and hard to replace equipment in milliseconds. To preserve such equipment, overcurrent protection devices sense excessive current and can switch expensive alternators and transformers off line faster than short circuit currents can melt them. This sort of equipment is composed of tons of solid iron and copper and it takes time to heat that much metal hot enough to endanger the electrical insulation, let alone melt metal.
Granted, there have been scary solar events in the past. The 1859 Carrington event caused the new fangled electric telegraph wires to shower sparks into telegraph offices across the world. Impressed the bejesus out of the operators. We have never seen a solar storm that strong since. In 1989 the province of Quebec suffered a blackout that was blamed upon a solar storm. However no important equipment was damaged and the lights came back on within 9 hours.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Trip to Harvard Square
Favorite Daughter and her boyfriend came up to Boston to attend her high school reunion. I drove down to spend a day in Harvard Square with them. Going south thru Franconia Notch we have a repaving project in full swing, spending money. That road was in fine condition, no potholes, before they started repaving it. It's nice to have spare money to give to road contractors. Then drove thru the road widening project on I93 south of Manchester. That bit of four lane highway has been a pain-in-the-tail bottleneck for at least 25 years. About a third of it is "widened" . Except that the "widened" portions are still only four lanes wide. Granted the lanes and shoulders are wider and the curves are gentler, but we really needed to get six lanes in return for spending all that money.
Picked up Daughter and boyfriend and did both the Museum of Science and Harvard Square, both old sentimental favorite places for Father and Daughter. Virginia bred boy friend was OK with them. Wound up drinking Ballentine Ale at Charlie's Kitchen (about the oldest joint left in Harvard Square) and telling stories. Good time was had by all.
Picked up Daughter and boyfriend and did both the Museum of Science and Harvard Square, both old sentimental favorite places for Father and Daughter. Virginia bred boy friend was OK with them. Wound up drinking Ballentine Ale at Charlie's Kitchen (about the oldest joint left in Harvard Square) and telling stories. Good time was had by all.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Congressmen need to "get things done"
This from John Hoeven (R-NorthDakota) on C-span. We have to get things done. The two things he wants to get done are the transportation bill and the farm bill. Both of these are pure pork. We could dump them both and save $30-50 billion, just this year. None of this ten year savings baloney, we could save $40-50 billion THIS YEAR.
The transportation bill sends maybe $15 billion a year of federal gasoline tax money to the 50 states for road building and commuter rail projects. Better to let the states fund just the projects they need. Let the federal gas tax expire. If the states need more money, let them raise the state gas tax. We would be better off with out a federal transportation bill.
And we would be better off without a farm bill. Maybe family farmers needed federal price supports back during the Great Depression, but not anymore. Farms are mostly run by corporations like Archer Daniel Midlands, and corporations don't need subsidies. Plus, why should farmers get federal payouts? Why not retailers and manufacturers and loggers and miners and telephone companies and airlines and truckers and everyone else in the country? Why should farmers get something that nobody else gets.
With luck, a bunch of new Congressmen will turn up in Washington and refuse to "get things done".
The transportation bill sends maybe $15 billion a year of federal gasoline tax money to the 50 states for road building and commuter rail projects. Better to let the states fund just the projects they need. Let the federal gas tax expire. If the states need more money, let them raise the state gas tax. We would be better off with out a federal transportation bill.
And we would be better off without a farm bill. Maybe family farmers needed federal price supports back during the Great Depression, but not anymore. Farms are mostly run by corporations like Archer Daniel Midlands, and corporations don't need subsidies. Plus, why should farmers get federal payouts? Why not retailers and manufacturers and loggers and miners and telephone companies and airlines and truckers and everyone else in the country? Why should farmers get something that nobody else gets.
With luck, a bunch of new Congressmen will turn up in Washington and refuse to "get things done".
AdvertisementFail 2
TV commercial now running. Woman comes into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator. Inside is solid ice. Solid ice fills the door trays, the shelves, everything. The woman, barefoot and dressed in a filmy nightgown, takes a broom handle and starts chipping ice out of the the middle refrigerator shelf. If the lighting had been a little better we could have seen thru the filmy nightgown.
Ah, this is an ad for frost free refrigerators.
Wrong, they are selling jugged ice tea.
Ah, this is an ad for frost free refrigerators.
Wrong, they are selling jugged ice tea.
Meet the Press does gay marriage
David Gregory assembled a fine panel of lefty newsies and they talked about gay marriage this morning, Obama and gay marriage, gays and gay marriage, never heard so much talk about gay marriage.
Does anyone (voters in particular) really care? Especially as marriage is a matter of state law anyhow? The president doesn't have much control. Unless he wanted to lead a crusade to amend the Constitution. Which probably would fail, cause Constitutional amendments need a super majority which just ain't there this year. States are split on it, some have recently legalized it, others (North Carolina!) have recently outlawed it.
This voter cares about jobs, the economy, and the deficit. Gay marriage is a distraction from the important issues.
Does anyone (voters in particular) really care? Especially as marriage is a matter of state law anyhow? The president doesn't have much control. Unless he wanted to lead a crusade to amend the Constitution. Which probably would fail, cause Constitutional amendments need a super majority which just ain't there this year. States are split on it, some have recently legalized it, others (North Carolina!) have recently outlawed it.
This voter cares about jobs, the economy, and the deficit. Gay marriage is a distraction from the important issues.
JP Morgan takes a hit
On Friday Jamie Dimon, honcho of JP Morgan Bank, admitted to taking a $2 billion dollar loss. That's quite a chunk of change. The Washington regulators, itching to take control of all banks, are howling for yet more regulation to go on top of Dodd-Frank.
Why? You would think loosing $2 billion would sting anyone hard enough to prevent them ever doing it again. Why turn our banks over to the tender mercies of federal bureaucrats? Anyone think bureaucrats are smarter or more honest than bankers?
Still secret, is just how Morgan lost all that money. Presumably they were buying and selling things, and the price moved against them. Either things they bought dropped in price, or things they sold short rose in price. But we don't know what those things were. Stocks? Bonds? Greek bonds? derivatives? credit default swaps? Mortgage backed securities? Sub prime mortgages? something else?
Jamie Dimon turned up on Meet the Press this morning talking about it. He admitted to still being a democrat, which made me wonder about his judgement. David Gregory was too clueless to ask Mr. Dimon just what things Morgan bank took that loss in.
Then Gregory turned the show over to some regulators who urged a total take over of banking "to prevent systemic risk".
By which, they probably mean the risk of a huge bank failing and tipping the economy into depression. That happened in 1929 and again in 2007. In 1929 Keynes had not published yet, and the Federal Reserve and the rest of the government let the stock market crash unhindered. In 2007 the government rushed in, spent $1 trillion to support the losing players, and the market still crashed and we haven't gotten out of Great Depression 2.0 yet.
If you really think this is a problem, the answer is simply to break up the biggest banks into smaller banks. Pass a law saying that the big banks have to pay extra taxes. Pretty soon all the big banks will spin off enough divisions to make themselves small enough to become virtuous small banks exempt from the extra tax.
Why? You would think loosing $2 billion would sting anyone hard enough to prevent them ever doing it again. Why turn our banks over to the tender mercies of federal bureaucrats? Anyone think bureaucrats are smarter or more honest than bankers?
Still secret, is just how Morgan lost all that money. Presumably they were buying and selling things, and the price moved against them. Either things they bought dropped in price, or things they sold short rose in price. But we don't know what those things were. Stocks? Bonds? Greek bonds? derivatives? credit default swaps? Mortgage backed securities? Sub prime mortgages? something else?
Jamie Dimon turned up on Meet the Press this morning talking about it. He admitted to still being a democrat, which made me wonder about his judgement. David Gregory was too clueless to ask Mr. Dimon just what things Morgan bank took that loss in.
Then Gregory turned the show over to some regulators who urged a total take over of banking "to prevent systemic risk".
By which, they probably mean the risk of a huge bank failing and tipping the economy into depression. That happened in 1929 and again in 2007. In 1929 Keynes had not published yet, and the Federal Reserve and the rest of the government let the stock market crash unhindered. In 2007 the government rushed in, spent $1 trillion to support the losing players, and the market still crashed and we haven't gotten out of Great Depression 2.0 yet.
If you really think this is a problem, the answer is simply to break up the biggest banks into smaller banks. Pass a law saying that the big banks have to pay extra taxes. Pretty soon all the big banks will spin off enough divisions to make themselves small enough to become virtuous small banks exempt from the extra tax.
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