Glenn Beck was all upset about dumping the GM president, Mr. Waggoner. Unconstitutional, power grab, socialism, exceeding the authority of the office, and more.
I don't buy that. Obama merely said that he wasn't going to pump any more taxpayer money into GM unless there was new management. Waggoner took the hint. He is no loss. He has been running GM since 2000. During Waggoner's time at the helm, GM's stock has dropped to worthless, market share has dropped, and they have lost money every year since 2004. Waggoner is not a car guy, he could not tell a good car from a bad one. Not like old Lee Iacocca who invented the Mustang, the K-car and the minivan. Which is why GM has few to no good cars to sell. He hasn't been able to get GM's lenders to take a haircut, and hasn't been able to get UAW to concede enough to bring GM's costs in line with Toyota's. Who needs a car company president who knows little about cars, can't negotiate with the union, can't get his quality control up, lets the corporate bureaucracy run amuck, and is ineffective dealing with lenders?
GM's board has been totally ineffective for decades, if Obama didn't give Waggoner the heave ho, who would?
Monday, March 30, 2009
Can electricity be transmitted from Iowa to New England?
The windmill enthusiasts have been talking about America, the Saudi of wind power. Install windmills in the breezy midwest and transmit the juice to the coasts. That's quite a haul. The old rule of thumb was electric power transmission worked for 400 miles, losses become excessive for anything more. From the midwest to the coasts is a helova lot more than 400 miles.
Question, has the state of the art improved enough to ignore the 400 mile rule of thumb?
Losses in wire are equal to current squared times resistance of the line. Power transmitted is volts times amps, and so power is transmitted at the highest possible voltage, to reduce the current. Since the losses are caused by current, the lower current means lower losses.
Wire is aluminum, cause it is much lighter weight and lower cost than copper. Some fiddling with Excel gives the resistance of 400 miles of American Wire Gauge 0000 aluminum wire (0.43 inch diameter), the largest size in the wire table, as 170 ohms.
Consider transmitting 1000 megawatts (output of just ONE nuclear plant) over 400 miles. Use the highest voltage you dare, 750000 volts. That requires a current of 1333 amps.
Not good. Of the 1000 megawatts put into the line, fully 300 megawatts, 30% is lost as heat. That's gonna run up the cost of power. And we have only gone 400 miles.
Use thicker wire you say? Lets try that. Double the wire diameter, which increases the cross section, (and reduces the resistance) by four times. That helps some. At 400 miles the loss drops to 7.5% (tolerable) but it's still 30% at 1600 miles, the distance from Iowa to New England.
So, before signing on to a glorious green future based on mid west windmills, the T. Boone Pickens solution, better get some quotations on transmission lines, and line losses.
Question, has the state of the art improved enough to ignore the 400 mile rule of thumb?
Losses in wire are equal to current squared times resistance of the line. Power transmitted is volts times amps, and so power is transmitted at the highest possible voltage, to reduce the current. Since the losses are caused by current, the lower current means lower losses.
Wire is aluminum, cause it is much lighter weight and lower cost than copper. Some fiddling with Excel gives the resistance of 400 miles of American Wire Gauge 0000 aluminum wire (0.43 inch diameter), the largest size in the wire table, as 170 ohms.
Consider transmitting 1000 megawatts (output of just ONE nuclear plant) over 400 miles. Use the highest voltage you dare, 750000 volts. That requires a current of 1333 amps.
Not good. Of the 1000 megawatts put into the line, fully 300 megawatts, 30% is lost as heat. That's gonna run up the cost of power. And we have only gone 400 miles.
Use thicker wire you say? Lets try that. Double the wire diameter, which increases the cross section, (and reduces the resistance) by four times. That helps some. At 400 miles the loss drops to 7.5% (tolerable) but it's still 30% at 1600 miles, the distance from Iowa to New England.
So, before signing on to a glorious green future based on mid west windmills, the T. Boone Pickens solution, better get some quotations on transmission lines, and line losses.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Hedging, a value destroying strategy
Wall St is in love with "hedges". As in hedging your bets. At Vegas, the hedger at roulette bets half his money on black, the other half on red. Spin the wheel, and doesn't matter which color comes up. You win one, you loose one, and you don't loose all your money. Of course you don't win much, but it's "safe".
On Wall St, they like to speak of credit default swaps, and puts and shorts and such as "legitimate hedges" as opposed to outright gambling. Clever brokers invent complex plays which preserve value no matter which way the market moves. They buy credit default swaps on shaky bond issues. The small cost of buying the swap guarantees the bond buyer against loss, if the bond defaults, the credit default swap pays off and makes the bond buyer whole.
This isn't what the market is supposed to do. The market is supposed to route investment money into winning enterprises and shut off credit to loosing ones. Economic growth, and jobs come from funding winners, not pouring money into losers. The bond buyers should be buying bonds from companies that will make enough money to pay off the bond. But with a hedge, a credit default swap, the buyer can buy high yielding bonds issued by losers and buy a credit default swap to cover the risk of the bond defaulting, which it is likely to do as soon as the loser loses big enough.
This is diverting valuable investment capital into losers. Is there any rational reason left to permit the sale and purchase of credit default swaps?
On Wall St, they like to speak of credit default swaps, and puts and shorts and such as "legitimate hedges" as opposed to outright gambling. Clever brokers invent complex plays which preserve value no matter which way the market moves. They buy credit default swaps on shaky bond issues. The small cost of buying the swap guarantees the bond buyer against loss, if the bond defaults, the credit default swap pays off and makes the bond buyer whole.
This isn't what the market is supposed to do. The market is supposed to route investment money into winning enterprises and shut off credit to loosing ones. Economic growth, and jobs come from funding winners, not pouring money into losers. The bond buyers should be buying bonds from companies that will make enough money to pay off the bond. But with a hedge, a credit default swap, the buyer can buy high yielding bonds issued by losers and buy a credit default swap to cover the risk of the bond defaulting, which it is likely to do as soon as the loser loses big enough.
This is diverting valuable investment capital into losers. Is there any rational reason left to permit the sale and purchase of credit default swaps?
What good is a ten year budget forcast?
I notice the Obamanauts have suddenly started talking about the ten year budget, and crowing about the wonderful deficit reductions to come ten years from now. Does any one really believe that predictions for ten years from now mean anything? Or is the ten year talk merely a way to obscure how bad the numbers for this year are? Like predicting the budget deficit in ten years will be less than next year and claiming that is a "reduction".
Honesty requires us to talk about this year's budget, not the imaginary future budget.
Honesty requires us to talk about this year's budget, not the imaginary future budget.
Tim Geithner, Master of evasion
Geithner was on the Stephanopolis talk show this morning. He talked and talked but didn't say much. He only mentioned a number once (he thinks he has $130 billion of TARP money left to spend). The rest was the vague motherhood and apple pie stuff that doesn't tell us taxpayers what Treasury is going to do to fix Great Depression II. He didn't offer any real reasons for pouring money down the AIG rathole. He appears to think bank failures are bad, and even the most brain dead zombie bank should be given more taxpayer bailout to continue operations. He still believes in the extremely rosy Obama predictions of 4% economic growth in a year. He made no mention of anti trust action to break up or prevent the formation of banks too large to fail. He hopes the toxic asset program will work, even after the mau-mauing of AIG. Lots of hope and change, not much concrete planning.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Laser hits 100Kw mark.
Northrup Grumman's Joint High Power Solid State Laser demo hit 105.5 Kw using seven slab laser amplifier chains to produce a single beam. In tests the laser operated at full power for 5 minutes. It's electrically powered and has a 20% conversion efficiency. That means it needs 500Kw of electricity input to make 100Kw of laser beam. Although 500Kw sounds like a lot, especially for a truck borne system, such a generator could be driven by a 700 hp diesel engine.
By the way, has anyone else noticed that every DoD project is named "Joint" this or that. Joint Strike Fighter, Joint Combat Pistol, Joint Belt Buckle, etc. Can interservice rivalry still live?
By the way, has anyone else noticed that every DoD project is named "Joint" this or that. Joint Strike Fighter, Joint Combat Pistol, Joint Belt Buckle, etc. Can interservice rivalry still live?
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