Nobrainer’s Think Tank

Yesterday the news out of New York City was that Mayor Bloomberg wanted to put wind turbines on the tops of all the skyscrapers. Who here thought, “that’ll never work?” If you thought that, give yourself a cookie.

Now that Bloomberg’s statements have been spread around the country, he has had to fess up.

“There are aesthetic considerations,” Bloomberg said. “No. 2, I have absolutely no idea whether that makes any sense from a scientific, from a practical point of view.”

Actually, Mayor, you do have an idea, and no, they don’t make any sense.

• My reading of Innumeracy [my review here] represents a pause in my reading of Free to Choose by Milton and Rose Friedman. My mid-book review is that Free to Choose is so good, important, and valuable that it is hardly worth reading because it is so widely read and regarded by economists that I’ve already absorbed most of the book through them. However, the amazing thing about this book, which was originally published in 1980, is how well it reads in 2008.
• Two huge solar plants are being built in California and something smells fishy.
  

  The plants… in the middle of a sunny day will generate about 800 megawatts of power, roughly equal to the size of a large coal-burning power plant or a small nuclear plant. A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart store.

  I’ve never seen power-consumption related on a per-Wal-Mart basis. It’s like the Times is trying to say something about Wal-Mart without saying something about Wal-Mart.

  Of course, skip a few paragraphs and we get to the first reality check:

  Though the California installations will generate 800 megawatts at times when the sun is shining brightly, they will operate for fewer hours of the year than a coal or nuclear plant would and so will produce a third or less as much total electricity.

  And then a WTF moment.

  The companies said they were forbidden by contract terms to talk about price, and a spokeswoman for Pacific Gas & Electric said her company was trying to obtain the best possible deal for ratepayers by not telling other suppliers of renewable energy what it was willing to pay.

  A huge utility building two big power plants and nobody is saying what the cost is? Yikes.

  We all love big deals where no one has any idea what the cost will be. Although when the deal is being made to conform to a government mandate, good deals are going to be off the table anyway. So good luck with that, California. If you want to (foolishly) subsidize the development of solar power for the rest of us, then who am I to complain?

In an effort to provide fair treatment to the candidates, I quote John McCain.

I’m going to lead our nation to energy independence.

No, you’re not, John. You are lying out your straight-talking ass. We’re not going to be energy independent any time soon. You and I both know that. The difference is that I’m not trying to sell my soul for political gain.

And, from the same article, how’s this for a stinky dump of ideas.

One goal is to put at least 1 million so-called plug-in hybrid vehicles that would get as much as 150 miles to a gallon of gasoline on the road by 2015. That effort would be spurred by a $7,000 tax credit for consumers who buy them. Automakers would get $4 billion in loans and tax credits to help them retool factories to build such cars and trucks, Obama said in Michigan, a battleground state that has been especially hard-hit by the slowdown in the U.S. auto industry.

He also proposes requiring that 10 percent of U.S. electricity come from renewable sources by the end of the next president’s first term and cutting U.S. demand for electricity 15 percent by the end of the next decade.

So Obama wants us to use the grid to power our cars, and he wants use to use less electricity overall — not the underlying fuel, even. But electricity overall. That doesn’t seem to add up.

As much fun as that sounds like, he’s audaciously hopeful and bold to attempt to require that 10% of our electricity come from renewable sources. Of course, I’m being audaciously sarcastic. As of 2006, we got 9.49% of our electricity from conventional hydroelectric and other renewables. Bold. BOLD I SAY!

I also love this proposal. As I mentioned yesterday, he reversed his position such that he is now in favor of releasing oil from the strategic reserve.

In what an adviser called a “refinement” of his stance on using the reserve, the Illinois senator proposed releasing light crude, which is easier to refine, and replacing it later with heavy crude oil in a swap intended to retain reserve levels.

Elgie Holstein (MoooOOOOO!), an energy adviser to Obama, said the swap wouldn’t reduce the size of the reserve “for any extended period of time,” and that it would still protect America’s ability to tap into the reserve in the event of a “real supply” disruption.

I may have added some commentary into that last quote.

Anyway, Obama’s official plan is basically “Lower prices now, higher prices later.” Whew boy!

In other energy related news… (more…)

In a reversal, Barack Obama…

With this reversal, he now favors releasing oil from the strategic reserve, a move I wholeheartedly disagree with. Nowadays whenever I hear Obama’s name I think of this guy.

That image may have been inspired by this that I read the other day:

In any case, Tom Maguire is sounding awfully cynical:

This may simply be another manifestation of an Obama campaign tactic - adopt every position held by McCain and then ask voters to choose their next President on the basis of youth, energy, and speaking skill. Could work!

Back to Barack’s new plan:

The Democratic presidential candidate said in a major energy speech that in the short-run the move could help drive down gasoline prices that now top $4 a gallon. Previously, Obama opposed tapping into the reserve, located in caverns in Texas and Louisiana.

Also, kudos the AP writer who is unaware that national gas prices are $3.88.

The Chinese have apparently had capped electricity prices for some time. Well, when the cost of coal went up, the generators started losing money and some of the generators shut down, leading to some electricity shortages. So the Chinese gov’t imposed price controls at the mines. So the price of coal arriving at the ports went up. And now the Chinese gov’t is imposing price caps at the ports. Talk about chasing your tail!

The world’s fastest-expanding major economy faces such acute power shortages that electricity-sapping industries including aluminum smelters have had to halt production.

Energy supply shortages have become a “key factor” in holding back the nation’s economic and social development, the Chinese government said in a statement yesterday.

To conserve energy and cut the nation’s demand for oil, Premier Wen Jiabao ordered the nation to cut back on summer air conditioning and drive less, according to yesterday’s statement. The nation will also shut more oil-fired power generators, it said.

Of course, more price controls will invariably lead to greater shortages. I really don’t see the benefit of low prices if there is nothing there to be bought.

It’s worth pointing out that the Chinese are facing actual shortages, whereas we are having to cope with ample supply @ higher prices. We tried the price control and shortages thing a few decades ago. Fortunately we still seem to have enough sense to try to avoid repeating that. Anyway, let’s welcome the Chinese to the 1970s. I hope they like disco.

You may have seen in the news recently that Iran tested a bunch of new missiles recently. In addition to having doctored some of the photographs of the test, there are now very public doubts that they launched as many missiles that they claimed to and whether any of the rockets actually contained any new technology.

From the Telegraph:

Analysis of Iranian television coverage has also indicated that one of the weapons actually remained on the ground but the video was doctored in an effort to cover up the failure.

Iran also issued misleading statements about the ranges and doctored videos to make the firings seem more numerous and fearsome than reality, The New York Times reported.

Coverage showing what appeared to be many missiles being fired was apparently just one device, filmed from different angles. “Deception was rampant,” said Charles Vick, an expert on the Iranian missile programme at Global Security, a prominent defence think tank.

Despite the deception, the Pentagon said it was taking the tests seriously, viewing them as an attempt further to destabilise the region.

“We don’t believe this exercise to have been an illusion,” said Geoff Morrell, a spokesman.

But he added: “They were not testing new technologies or capabilities, but rather firing off old equipment in an attempt to intimidate their neighbours and escalate tension in the region.”

Well there ya go.

Unfortunately the Telegraph completely botched the math in their last paragraph.

Last week’s missile tests sent oil prices soaring from $136 to $147 a barrel, delivering a windfall gain worth billions of dollars to Iran’s oil-based economy.

The windfall, I would have to presume is the $11 premium which showed up after the test. Since Iran exports about 2.5 million barrels a day, it would take them 36 days to receive a windfall of only a single billion dollars. It would be many months before they could receive several billions.

One might conclude that Iran will earn more from oil than they spent on the tests. If so, it sounds like a good investment on their part — probably not the best investment — but a good investment. However, if their display really does consist of a lot of fakery, that certainly does not make their defense services seem very credible: the test makes them seem less dangerous.

Therefore we must conclude that the test was not actually perpetrated by the Iranians. Instead the US clearly staged the whole thing both to help George Bush’s oil friends and to make a future invasion of Iran more likely and acceptable. It’s kind of like Spies Like Us. Good movie, by the way.

On side note, could the media try any harder to use some combination of the words “sky high” or “soaring” whenever they talk about oil or gas prices?