Category Archives: Economics

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Science And Society

An Upcoming Regulatory Disaster

41 Comments

This is insane. Here’s why:

Since EPA plans to find endangerment on both health and welfare grounds, the Agency could be compelled to establish “primary” (health-based) NAAQS for GHGs. Logically, the standard would be set below current atmospheric levels. Even very stringent emission limitations applied worldwide over a century would likely be insufficient to lower GHG concentrations. Yet the CAA requires EPA to ensure attainment of primary NAAQS within five or at most 10 years—and it forbids EPA to take costs into account. Regulate CO2 under the NAAQS program and there is, in principle, no economic hardship that could not be imposed on the American people.

It’s the new hair shirt in the new environmental religion. And all from unelected bureaucrats.

[Tuesday morning update]

Here’s a place to go to express your concerns.

[Bumped]

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

None Dare Call It…

4 Comments

…what it is:

Jonah Goldberg evaluates the Treasury Department’s efforts to control the banks without actually nationalizing them: “It’s not socialism. It’s corporatism.”

It is interesting that Harwood depicts the choice to discuss the use of the word fascist as a strategic choice to pump up the volume, which it may be for some. For other commentators, such as perhaps Larry Kudlow, they might be straining not to deem as “fascist” proposals that they would call fascist if that term were not so politically charged.

Me, I just call ’em like I see ’em. And I’m going to continue to attempt to recapture the language from the left. They’re not liberals. I’m a liberal. They’re fascists, even if they insist on remaining ignorant of their own intellectual history.

Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

A Hundred Whole Microbaracks

11 Comments

The administration is going to have a meeting to figure out how to cut <VOICE=”Dr. Evil” hand=”upside down” pinky_end=”in mouth”>…one hundred million dollars</VOICE> out of a multi-trillion dollar (multi-barack) budget.

And then, of course, after they do it (probably from defense) they’ll say that their opponents are lying about them when they accuse them of not cutting the budget. This would be funny if it weren’t so sad and pathetic.

[Update early afternoon]

Fooling the innumerate rubes:

…why bother? Because it may enhance the president’s “budget-cutter” image. Seriously. President Obama has reportedly been working closely with noted behavioral economists, and their studies have shown that most people are “insensitive to scope,” meaning they are not very good at putting large numbers in their proper context. People will react about the same to a policy proposal whether the cost/benefit is $10 million, $10 billion, or $10 trillion. Consequently, the $100 million cut may seem huge to many voters. (Note to conservative lawmakers: This is why the tiny 2005 reconciliation spending cuts were just as difficult to enact as the substantially larger 1990s reconciliation spending cuts. So if you are going to propose spending cuts, you may as well go big).

And based on the outcome of last year’s campaign, they may get away with it. Sigh…

I really wish that opponents would use more visual aids, like bar graphs. Here is the budget. Here are the president’s budget “cuts.”

[Tuesday morning update]

Speaking of visual aids…

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Business, Economics, Space, Technology and Society

How Do The Numbers Work?

40 Comments

Sorry, but I just can’t buy this:

PG&E is pledging to buy the power at an agreed-upon rate, comparable to the rate specified in other agreements for renewable-energy purchases, company spokesman Jonathan Marshall said. Neither PG&E nor Solaren would say what that rate was, due to the proprietary nature of the agreement. However, Marshall emphasized that PG&E would make no up-front investment in Solaren’s venture.

“We’ve been very careful not to bear risk in this,” Marshall told msnbc.com.

Smart move.

Solaren’s chief executive officer, Gary Spirnak, said the project would be the first real-world application of space solar power, a technology that has been talked about for decades but never turned into reality.

“While a system of this scale and exact configuration has not been built, the underlying technology is very mature and is based on communications satellite technology,” he said in a Q&A posted by PG&E. A study drawn up for the Pentagon came to a similar conclusion in 2007. However, that study also said the cost of satellite-beamed power would likely be significantly higher than market rates, at least at first.

In contrast, Spirnak said Solaren’s system would be “competitive both in terms of performance and cost with other sources of baseload power generation.”

I just can’t see how. Unless there are going to be many satellites, the system has to be in GEO to provide baseload power to any given region on earth. They talk about putting up a 200 MW system with “four or five” “heavy lift” launches (where this is apparently defined as 25 tons).

Suppose the conversion efficiency of the cells is a generous 30%, the DC-MW conversion is 90%, the transmission efficiency is 90% and the MW-AC conversion efficiency is 90% (generous numbers all, I think). That gives an overall efficiency of 22% from sunlight to the grid. The solar constant in space is 1.4kW/m2, so that means you need 650,000 square meters of panels to deliver 200 MW to the grid. Suppose you can build the cells (including necessary structure to maintain stiffness) for half a kilo per square meter. That means that just for the solar panels alone, you have a payload of 325 metric tons. Generously assuming that their payload of 25 tons is to GEO (if it’s to LEO, it’s probably less than ten tons in GEO), that would require over a dozen launches for the solar panels alone.

That doesn’t include the mass of the conversion electronics, basic satellite housekeeping systems (attitude control, etc.) and the transmitting antenna, which has to be huge to get that much power that distance at a safe power density.

So even ignoring the other issues (e.g. regulatory, safety studies, etc.) that Clark mentions, I think this is completely bogus until I see their numbers. And probably even then.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Apples And Oranges

5 Comments

One of my chronically unintelligent commenters posted his fantasies that government health care is much more “efficient” than private health service provision. Here’s an explanation of why that’s nonsensical.

…the comparison between public and private plans is a false comparison. Private insurance and public benefits are not the same business. For all its warts, private insurance tries to manage care. Medicare is mostly about paying the bills presented to it.

Many who favor a public plan as part of comprehensive health-care reform dismiss the administrative “overhead” of private plans as having little or no value. Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Pete Stark (D., Calif.), for example, insists that “most private plans are poorly managed.” Contrasting them with the supposedly sleek and efficient Medicare program, he labels commercial insurance “the General Motors of medical care.”

In fact, the administrative expenses of private insurance plans represent money well spent for their members. Here are four reasons…

Whenever you find yourself agreeing the Pete Stark on anything, it’s a pretty good sign that you should rethink your position.