Category Archives: Energy Economics

Energy Portfolios, 2 1/2 years Sustainable Energy Up 128%, Fossil Fuel DOWN 18.2%

PLPort.2015.6.21On Dec. 21, 2012, I put $16 Million imaginary dollars in equal imaginary investments in 16 real energy companies; $8.0 in the Sustainable Energy space and $8.0 in the fossil fuel space. Excluding the value of dividends and transaction costs, but including the bankruptcy or crash of three companies in the sustainable energy space,

  • The Fossil Fuel portfolio is now worth $6.54 Million, down 18.24%.
  • The Sustainable Energy portfolio is now worth $18.259 Million, up 128.24%.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 37.6%, from 13,091 on 12/21/12 to 18,061 on 6/20/15.
  • The S&P 500 is up 47.55%, from 1,430 to 2,110.
  • The Energy Portfolios and the Indices are down in the last month.

Continue reading →

Energy Portfolios, 2 years 4 Months: Sustainable Energy up 138%, Fossil Fuel DOWN 12%

PLPort.2015.4.21

On Dec. 21, 2012, I put $16 Million imaginary dollars in equal imaginary investments in 16 real energy companies; $8.0 in the Sustainable Energy space and $8.0 in the fossil fuel space. Excluding the value of dividends and transaction costs, but including the bankruptcy or crash of three companies in the sustainable energy space,

  • The Fossil Fuel portfolio is now worth $7.0 Million, down 12.1%.
  • The Sustainable Energy portfolio is now worth $19.0 Million, up 138.1%.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 37.1%, from 13,091 to 17,950.
  • The S&P 500 is up 46.6%, from 1,430 to 2,097.

The conclusion appears to be that sustainable energy is as good for the portfolio as it is for the planet.

Continue reading →

Energy Portfolios, 2 years 2 Months: Sustainable Energy up 109%, Fossil Fuel DOWN 11.8%

PopLogPort.150221
On Dec. 21, 2012, I put $16 Million imaginary dollars in equal imaginary investments in 16 real energy companies; $8.0 in the Sustainable Energy space and $8.0 in the fossil fuel space. Excluding the value of dividends and transaction costs,

  • Fossil Fuel portfolio: from $8.0 M to $7.06 Million, down 11.76%.
  • Sustainable Energy portfolio: from $8.0 M to $16.73 Million, up 109.18%.
  • Dow Jones Industrial Average: from 13,091 to 18,140, up 34.15 %,
  • The S&P 500: from 1,430 to 2,110,  up 42.10%.

Continue reading →

Energy Portfolios, 2 years 1 Month: Sustainable Energy up 85%, Fossil Fuel DOWN 14.6%

PLPort.2015.1.21

On Dec. 21, 2012, drying off from Hurricane Sandy, I put $16 Million imaginary dollars in equal imaginary investments in 16 real energy companies; Eight in the Sustainable Energy space and eight in the fossil fuel space.

  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 34.15 % from 12/21/12 to 1/21/15
  • The S&P 500 is up 42.10%.
  • The Fossil Fuel Portfolio has dropped 14.55%.
  • The Sustainable Energy portfolio is up 85.09%.

Continue reading →

Popular Logistics Energy Portfolios. Sustainable Energy Doubles. Fossil Fuels increase by 5.4%

PLEP_13.7.22

In December, 2012 I created two portfolios, a “Sustainable Energy” portfolio comprised of 8 stocks in the solar, LED lighting, wind and biofuel sectors, and a “Fossil Fuel” portfolio, comprised of 8 stocks in the coal, oil, and fracking sectors. The results, after seven months, as illustrated above:

The Sustainable Energy portfolio more than doubled: it is up 101.77%
The Reference Fossil Fuel portfolio is up 5.4%
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 18.75%
The S&P 500 is up 18.6%.

The Sustainable Energy portfolio has significantly outperformed the Dow Jones Industrials and the S&P 500 and the Fossil Fuel portfolio.

These data are summarized in table 1 and below. Continue reading →

Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant, Update.

Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant

Back in April, 2011, the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant, on the banks of the Missouri River about 19 miles north of Omaha, was shut down for refueling. The timing was perfect because in June, 2011, the Missouri River flooded. As pictured above, the plant that had been on the shore of the river was suddenly in the middle of the river.

THE PLANT IS STILL SHUT-DOWN – 20 Months after the incident.

Erin Golden, of the Omaha World News, told me on Dec. 19, 2012,

The plant is expected to be $129 million over budget in 2012. The OPPD [Omaha Public Power District] has set a target for the First Quarter of 2013 to bring the plant back on line. And the people at OPPD are optimistic that they will get the plant back on-line. The NRC, however, is not optimistic.

Continue reading →

Historical peak for gasoline prices occurred in 2008

Politico, fact-checking a claim made by Lousiana Governor Bobby Jindal that gasoline prices under the current administration are higher than they’ve ever been, contradicts Governor Jindal:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Wednesday ripped President Barack Obama over rising gas prices and said any of the Republican 2012 candidates will do “so much better” if elected to the White House. “The reality is, gasoline prices have doubled under this president, highest prices for oil and gasoline in a 150 years. People used to think it was because of incompetence from Obama administration on energy – I think it’s because of ideology. They’re pursuing a radical environmental ideology,” Jindal said on “Fox & Friends.” In fact, the monthly average retail price of gasoline peaked at $4.26 a gallon in inflation-adjusted dollars less than four years ago, in June 2008. It then plummeted to $1.80 a gallon in the next six months during the global financial collapse. Oil isn’t near historic highs either.

Jindal scorches Obama on gas prices  xxx Bobby Jindal scorches Obama on gas prices – MJ Lee – POLITICO.com

AmericaBlog, going further, finds  that gasoline peak prices under President George W. Bush (the 43rd President, 2001 – 2008) tied the peak price under President Jimmy Carter (1977 – 1980), whose administration included the Iranian hostage situation and an OPEC-sponsored petroleum shortage. And more: here’s an infographic noting major events and gasoline prices:

Under what party did gasoline and oil prices reach their peak? Republican, of course.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the original  claim, implying that the Obama Administration’s policies caused high gasoline prices, is its oversimplification. Higher prices matter less – or not at all – if we’re using more efficient devices. A clear example might be traffic lights. Assume for simplicity’s sake that our only use of electricity is for traffic lights: when incandescent bulbs are replaced by LEDs, the energy savings are reported to be in the range of 90%. Once that shift has been made, it would take an increase in cost of 1,000% (that is, a ten-fold increase) in the cost of electricity in order to bring the cost to its original cost – not counting the savings in the labor cost of regularly changing the bulbs. Further, as every traffic light system makes the change, aggregate demand will drop, driving prices down, rather than up.

Similar dynamics – with good and bad outcomes – operate with respect to gasoline and other petroleum products:

  • When an economy declines (painful for most), economic activity – and gasoline consumption – decline, which tends to cause gasoline prices to go down;
  • when prices go up, or regulatory rules require it, we use less gasoline, by making and buying more efficient vehicles, using them more efficiently, or by using them less often; an extreme example would be the United States during WW II, during which the civilian economy had gasoline rationing, use of mass transit and other conservation measures were seen as patriotic actions, resulting, according to the British historian Richard Overy, in a reduction in civilian gasoline use of over 90% during the war years (Richard Overy, Why The Allies Won, citation and page reference to be supplied in an update of this post).

Governor Jindal is thus wrong twice:

  1. First, on the basic facts – the claim that gasoline prices have peaked under President Obama;
  2. That oil prices are something over which a president can exert control, particularly in the face of a hostile Congress;
  3. That high gasoline prices can be looked at in isolation: if we had full employment, more energy-efficiency in the use of gasoline, we’d probably be pretty content as a nation; in fact, it’s not the price per gallon that matters. It’s the price per mile.  we recently wrote about  hybrid electric Lincoln Town Cars. If your Lincoln Town Car doubles in efficiency, operating costs for fuel go down unless the price of gasoline  doubles to follow it, even if the mileage is the same.

We’re surprised that Governor Jindal, from a state with a lot of petroleum production and refining capacity, would oversimplify this issue; and we hope this isn’t a case of partisanship over accuracy.

See also:

Ford selling Lincoln hybrids

 

No More Fukushimas: From Coal, Oil, and Nuclear to Sustainable Energy

Smoke from three meltdowns and other fires

Fukushima reactors, after tsunami

On March 11, 2011, the Fukushima nuclear disaster shocked the world. Sadly, the thinkers in the anti-nuclear world were not complete surprised. We were startled, but we know that disasters, while unpredictable, are inevitable. Disasters are built into the nuclear power system. The best engineers are fallible. (Anyone who drives a car or uses a personal computer knows this.) We can engineer nuclear reactors to be “reasonably” safe – but that costs a lot of money. That’s why ALL nuclear reactors leak “acceptable” levels of tritium – it is too expensive to capture all the tritium.

We also know

  • While the probability of an accident may be low, the probability is very high that an accident, if it occurs, will be
  • In Three Mile Island, in 1979, Chernobyl, in 1968, and Fukushima, in 2011, we have four melt-downs and one partial melt-down since the Price Anderson Act was first signed into law in 1956. That’s four melt-downs in 56 years. While it’s a too small to give a precise statistical measure, it offers empirical data to suggest a high probability of a catastrophic accident every 14 years.

In command economies, such as existed in the Soviet Union, or exists in Iran and North Korea, it is illegal – and dangerous – to question the government. In market economies, such as exist in the United States, Europe, and Japan, there are strong incentives to cut corners.

But back to Fukushima – following the disaster, nearly all of Japan’s 54 Nuclear Plants have been shut down due to pressure by the Japanese people.

The disaster deposited radioactive fallout on a semicircular area of Japan with a radius of 50 miles. It caused the permanent displacement of 160,000 people. An unknown amount of radioactive materials have been flushed into the Pacific Ocean.  TEPCO, the owners of the reactors, have a $100 Billion liability (that will probably be absorbed by Japanese citizens over the next 20 or 50 years).

So after Fukushima, the question that we ought to be asking is not: “Can solar, wind, geothermal, marine current and other sustainable technologies meet our energy needs?”

The question is: “HOW can solar, wind, geothermal, marine current and other sustainable technologies meet our energy needs?”

I will be speaking on Monday, March 5th, at 6:00pm, at the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House on West Front Street in Lincroft, NJ. This will be part of a series of discussions along a 250 mile walk from Oyster Creek, in Ocean County, NJ to Vermont, Yankee, in Vernon, Vermont.  I will make a statement similar to the talk at the Space Coast Green Living Festival, reported here.

A group of Japanese Buddhists, Fukushima eye-witnesses and US citizens will be walking over 250 miles from Oyster Creek to Indian Point to the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plants to bring awareness of the terrible risks of nuclear power. The “No More Fukushimas Peace Walk” is being led by Jun Yasuda.

Scheduled events open to the public:

Friday March 2nd, 7pm, “Implications of the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster for the U.S and continuing Japanese crisis”
Little Theatre, Georgian Court University, 900 Lakewood Ave, Lakewood N.J.

Speakers:

  • Sachiko Komagata, P.T., Ph.D, and Associate Professor & Chair, Department of Holistic Health & Exercise Science
  • Rachel Dawn Fudim-Davis, New Jersey Organizer, Food & Water Watch
  • Jeff Tittel, Director of Sierra Club, NJ Chapter
  • Sister Mary-Paula Cancienne, RSM, PhD.

Hosts:  Sister Mary Bilderback, Mary Paula Cancienne
For information Kasturi DasGupta, PhD 732-987-2336

Saturday, March 3, 6:00 pm,
Sky Walk Cafeteria, 2nd Floor, 129 Hooper Ave, Toms River, NJ (Connected to parking garage)
Speakers:

  • Sky Sims, Sustainable energy specialist;
  • Joseph Mangano, Executive Director of Radiation and Public Health Project;
  • Ed M. Koziarski and Junko Kajino, Filmakers

For information Burt Gbur, 732-240-5107

Sunday, March 4th, 6:00 pm,
Murray Grove Retreat Conference Center, Lanoka-Harbor, NJ Church Lane and US Highway 9
Speakers:

  • Willie DeCamp, Save Barnegat Bay,
  • Greg Auriemma, Esq., Chair, Ocean County Sierra Club,
  • Peter Weeks.

For information Matt Reid, 609-312-6798

Monday, March 5th, 6:00pm,
Unitarian Universalist Meeting House, West Front Street, Lincroft, NJ

Speakers:

  • Larry Furman, “Beyond Fuel: The Transition from Fossil Fuel and Nuclear Power to Sustainable Energy.”
  • Japanese walkers share their post-Fukushima experiences in Japan

For Information:.  Elaine Held (732-774-3492).

Thursday, March 8, 6:00 pm
Puffin Foundation, 20 Puffin Way, Teaneck, N.J.

Speaker:

  • Sidney Goodman, Author ‘Asleep At the Geiger Counter: Nuclear Destruction of the Planet and How to Stop It’, ISBN: 978-1-57733-107-0, available from Blue Dolphin Publishing, and elsewhere.

For information Jules Orkin, 201-566-8403

The walk will start at 10am on Saturday, March 3rd near the Oyster Creek area, and end at 129 Hooper Ave, Toms River. Starting times and places for March 4th and 5thwill also be announced on February 27th.
————————————————–
The mission of the Walk:  

A plea for the people of New Jersey, New York and New England to recognize the grave dangers that nuclear energy poses to our lives, property, and all life on the planet.

We walk together in love and solidarity for a nuclear free future, and a more just, sustainable, and compassionate world built on respect for all living beings.

JOIN THE WALK FOR AN HOUR OR A DAY.

Edith Gbur   732-240-5107
Christian Collins 413-320- 2856
Cathy Sims  732-280-2244

Nuclear Power – or Un Clear Power

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC, has voted to allow Georgia Power to spend $14 Billion of ratepayer monies to build two reactors, Vogtle 3 and 4 near Waynesboro, Georgia. These would be the first new nuclear plants in the US in 35 years. Opponents say “we don’t need the power, but the utility wants the revenue stream.” Supporting this allegation Georgia Power plans to charge ratepayers – customers – for the costs of construction WHILE BUILDING THE PLANTS – BEFORE THE ARE ONLINE. see Georgia Power – Nuclear – Recovering Financing Costs.

Scott Peterson, of the Nuclear Energy Institute, was quoted on Morning Edition on Friday, 2/10/12, here, ” saying,

Nuclear plants, because they are very large, 24/7 power producers, really anchor the entire U.S. grid for electricity,”

He also said,

“Gas prices are unpredictable, and so is energy from wind and solar.”

He’s wrong on all three counts.

  1. Gas prices are rising. They may be difficult to predict on a day to day basis, but the trend is upward.
  2. Similarly, solar and wind are also predictable. The Department of Energy, DoE, knows precisely how much wind and sun passes over every square inch of the United States, and how much sunlight hits every square inch of the United States over the course of a year. And how much electricty a wind turbine or a photovoltaic solar energy system will produce anywhere in the US. The PVWatts solar calculator, for example,here, http://www.nrel.gov/rredc/pvwatts/,  tells you how much power a solar array will produce over the course of a year.
  3. And nuclear is not 24 x 7. While the waste is 24 hours by 7 days per week by 365 days per year by ten thousand years, nuclear plants are not 24 by 7 days by 365.  They are more like 24 by 7 by 350; they are shut down for about a month for refueling every 18 months. Nuclear plants are also shut down unexpectedly due to events like hurricanes, earthquakes, floods.

The Fort Calhoun reactor, on the Missouri River in Nebraska was shut down for refueling in May, 2011 . It stayed shut down due to flooding. It was offline throughout the summer and fall, (my coverage here and here) and as far as I know it is still offline.  According to David Lochbaum, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the shutdown cost the plant’s owners $1 million per day – $100 million if it was brought back online in September, $250 million if it is still offline. And I would hazard a guess that the owners asked for and received permission to charge the ratepayers those $1.0 million per day. (As far as I know the plant is still offline. I will update this post when I have more information.)

Regarding the Vogtle plants … the plan is to build two Westinghouse AP 1000 pressurized water reactors, here. Theses are 1154 MWe plant, that, according to Westinghouse,

“use the forces of nature and simplicity of design to enhance plant safety and operations and reduce construction costs.”

They are forecast to cost $14 Billion. $14 Billion divided by 2,308 MWe is $6.065 per MWe. That does not include the costs of security, fuel or waste management

Solar and wind costs less, takes a lot less time to deploy, do not require fuel, do not produce dangerous toxic wastes, do not present a target to terrorists and do not require special security infrastructures.

Worldly Philosophers for Hire

| |Follow LJF97 on Twitter Tweet | In “Wanted: Worldly Philosophers,” Roger Backhouse and Bradley Bateman say:|”IT’S become commonplace to criticize the “Occupy” movement for failing to offer an alternative vision. But the thousands of activists in the streets of New York and London aren’t the only ones lacking perspective: economists, to whom we might expect to turn for such vision, have long since given up thinking in terms of economic systems — and we are all the worse for it. ”

 As these pictures, from here, and here, show, the “Occupy” movement supports labor rights and environmental protection. The “Occupiers” do not, therefore, lack perspective.

Image shows union support at Occupy Wall St.They – we – see my work here at Popular Logistics, here at XBColdFingers, or meet me at Zuccotti – lack influence.

Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz are the most famous economists whom Backhouse and Bateman might describe as “Worldly Philosophers with perspective.” Tom Friedman may not have have studied economics; but he too fits the bill of “Worldly Philosopher with Perspective.” There are others.

Sadly, Obama, Biden, Sommers, Geithner, and Chu, like Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rove and Rumsfeld, like Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, Huntsman, Paul, Perry, Romney, and Santorum, don’t know the answers – and what is worse, they don’t even seem to know which questions to ask.

As noted above, “the ‘Occupiers’ do not lack perspective.  They – we – lack influence.” To correct that I would like to personally extend an invitation to President Obama, Vice President Biden, any members of the cabinet, or the White House or campaign staff and any of the current candidates for the Republican nomination to meet me at Zuccotti Park, or at the time and place of their choosing, for a discussion on the issues.

Connecticut Power – Failure

Snow on tree on car  Follow LJF97 on Twitter Tweet The few inches of heavy wet snow that fell in October took out power in parts of New Jersey and Connecticut. Millions lost power in the storm. Nine days later 50,000 remain without power in Connecticut. Hundreds are without power New Jersey and Massachusetts. Connecticut Outage map here.  News coverage here: Business Week / NPR / NY Times.

People in New Jersey have installed over 400 MW of nameplate capacity solar. While this is a fraction of the 7.0 GW, or 7,000 MW, of generating capacity needed by the 8 million or so people who reside in New Jersey, and these systems don’t feed the grid when the power is out, let’s do a thought experiment.

Ground mounted solar array in snowLet’s imagine each of the 50,000 in Connecticut who remains without power had a PV solar array. They’d have power during the day. Lets also imagine that microhydro turbines along the Connecticut River, in other rivers, off the shores, and a set of utility scale wind turbines. The result? Power, day and night, without pollution.  Power without the need to mine coal, drill for oil, fracture the ground for methane, or generate tons of radioactive waste.

Lets further postulate 50 MW on each of the public schools, and 1.5 to 5.0 MW on each of the colleges and universities in the state.

In the event of a major outage from a storm like the October Surprise of 2011, or Irene, the schools could be used as emergency shelters with power, during the day when the sun is shining – as it has been since the storm.

And these systems generate power in predictable amounts, with no fuel and no pollution.

An emergency backup power system is only used during an emergency. Solar energy systems are used every day – and so are a more efficient use of capital.

And as the picture above suggests – there’s an interesting feedback pattern when snow falls on a solar array. Solar arrays are pitched to face the sun. Snow is translucent – allows light to pass thru.  The snow covered solar array generates power, which generates heat, which melts the snow, exposing the array to more sunlight – which generates more power.

Can Anyone Really Create Jobs? Yes We Can!

FDR Follow LJF97 on Twitter Tweet Writing in the NY Times, Adam Davidson of Planet Money, asks “Can Politicians Really Create Jobs? Davidson says “No.”

But with all due respect to Mr. Davidson, as Barack – The Candidate – Obama said, “Yes, We Can!”

And yes, Presidential candidates can create jobs – presidential campaigns are staffed by people. So obviously, the President can create jobs. Anyone can. All it takes is a need for something to get done. Whether you do it yourself or you pay someone else to do it, it’s a job. So the real question for the President, the Presidential Candidates, our elected Representatives in Washington and in State and Local Government, and for us ourselves, is not “Can we create jobs?” The real question is “How do we create 10 or 15 million good new jobs?”

Davidson talks about Keynes and the Chicagoans.

Chicagoans believe that economies can only truly recover on their own and that policy interventions only slow the recovery. It’s a puzzle of modern politics that Republicans have had electoral success with a policy that fundamentally asserts there is nothing the government can do to create jobs any time soon…. Romney, Perry, Herman Cain and the rest won’t come out and say, “If elected, I will tell you to wait this thing out.”

This is what Herbert Hoover said and why Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the election in 1932.

Instead, Republican candidates fill their jobs plans with Chicagoan ideas that have nothing to do with the current crisis, like permanent cuts in taxes and regulation. These policies may (or may not) make the economy healthier in 5 years or 10, but the immediate impact would require firing a large number of America’s roughly 23 million government workers.

What John Maynard Keynes said is less that “government can create jobs” but is more along the lines of

“in economic times such as these, when there is high unemployment because business will not hire people to create inventory that is likely to remain unsold, government is the only entity that has both the means and the will to create jobs.”

Less “government can” and more “Government Must!”

What is our government, after all? Lincoln said it best:

– “Government of the people, by the people and for the people.”

And there is much work to be done. We need to rebuild our infrastructure. This includes our crumbling current infrastructure of schools, roads, mass transit, etc. This will create jobs. We also know that domestic energy production peaked in 1971. International oil production seems to be peaking now, altho given the state of the world economy, and the state of infrastructure in Iran, Iraq, and Libya, the international peak may be a few years off. However, we should build a sustainable energy infrastructure. We will need it eventually. It is good for the environment, it will strengthen our economy and our state of national security. But rather than by using a simple program to provide loan guarantees to various corporations; the government should mandate that all government buildings should be well insulated, efficient, heated and cooled with geothermal, and powered with a mix of solar, wind, local hydro, biofuel (from waste, sewage, manure, etc., not food crops).

Just as police and courts exist to protect people from those who would point a gun at their heads and say “Your money or your life,” enforcement agencies must protect people from those who would discard toxic substances into the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, and the ground from which we farm.  We need to regulate banks and other financial firms. This too will create jobs. We need to provide health care to all our citizens, not just 5 out of 6, or 265 million out of 307 million, leaving 1 out of 6, or 45 out of 307 million without access to health care.

Davidson is wrong about one other thing. It’s not either go into debt to create jobs or fire people to cut taxes. Government has two sources of revenue: debt and taxes. It seems fair to me that a progressive tax policy, can be used to generate the revenues needed to pay for the jobs society needs to be done.  Wealth, after all, is not created in a vacuum. Wealth is created by people buying things that other people are selling. People want to buy Apple computers, music players, cell phones.  The people who design and build them get wealthy. The wealthy benefit by living in society; therefore demanding that all, including the wealthy, pay a fair share, as illustrated here, in my post on Progressive Tax Policy is fair, balanced, reasonable, and smart.

  • Over $100 Million, 57.5%. Plus 5.0% Social Security Insurance & Medicare.
  • Between $10 Million and $100 Million: 52.5%. Plus 5.0% SSI & M.
  • Between $5 Million and $10 Million: 42.5%. Plus 5.0% SSI & M.
  • Between $1 Million and $5 Million: 32.5%. Plus 5.0% SSI & M.
  • Between $100,000 and $1 Million: 22.5%. Plus 5.0% SSI & M.
  • Below $100,000: 17.5%. Plus 4.0% SSI & M.
  • Royalty income should be taxed at the same rates as wages and salary.
  • Income in the form of unsold stock options is tax-deferred and taxed when sold.
  • Inheritances of $1.0 million and under from a grandparent, parent, partner, or child should not be taxed. Inheritances from distant relatives, or that portion above $1.0 million should be taxed as indicated above.

So can anyone create jobs? The answer is a resounding ‘Yes, We Can!’

Progressive Tax Policy

“Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Progressive tax structures are not about punishing the rich. They are a recognition that wealthy people derive benefits from being in society. Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Michael Jordan, Oprah, for example, got rich because people buy their products or watched them play basketball or on TV.  Paris Hilton is wealthy because her great-grandfather built a successful business. Their successes are wonderful. But their success should not require me to subsidize their lifestyles.

This tax structure can be implemented by October 31, 2012, and effective January 1, 2013, if not by Congress, then by Executive Order.

| Follow LJF97 on Twitter / Tweet  / Zuccotti  / mp3 | Continue reading →

Nuclear Power: Present Tense

Follow LJF97 on Twitter — Tweet — Nuclear Power: Accident in France Kills 1, Injures 4 — NPR, and the Associated Press report “An explosion at a nuclear waste facility in southern France killed one person and injured four on Monday… The Nuclear Safety Authority declared the accident “terminated” soon after the blast at a furnace in the Centraco site, in the southern Languedoc-Roussillon region, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the city of Avignon. One of the injured suffered severe burns.”

The DC Bureau reported “The workers were operating a high temperature industrial oven that burns low-level nuclear waste in a sealed building when the unit blew up. The worker who was killed was burned so badly his body was carbonized, according to officials.”

The French Nuclear Safety Authority, analogous to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or maybe Vichy, designated the accident as a 1 on a scale from 0 to 9.

While a death in an industrial accident is tragic, and while a worker could die as a result of injuries sustained falling off the nacelle of a wind turbine or a roof while installing or working on a solar array, it is probably impossible for a worker to get ‘Carbonized’ working on a wind turbine or solar farm. Continue reading →

Saving the Economy, Part Deux

Copyright, L. J. Furman, 2011, All Rights Reserved.

Follow LJF97 on Twitter Tweet   In Part 1,  I criticized “How to Really Save the Economy“, an op-ed in the New York Times, published Sept. 10, 2011. So how do we really save the economy?

“One of the best kept secrets in New York City,” I wrote, “is the existence of a 40 kilowatt (KW) photovoltaic solar array on the Whitehall Street terminal of the Staten Island Ferry,” pictured above, and first covered in Popular Logistics  in 2007, here.

There are 90,000 public schools in the United States. Suppose we were to install a 40 KW solar energy system on each of them. PV solar modules require very little maintenance over their 35 to 45 year life expectancy. My initial thought was $5 per watt or $5,000 per kilowatt, but $4,000 per kilowatt is more realistic for the near term price of solar, particularly at the utility scale. This is where we expect the cost of solar in the Q4 2012 timeframe, without subsidies.

At $4,000 per KW of nameplate capacity, each of these 90,000 systems would cost $160,000. This 3.6 gigawatts of distributed daylight-only capacity would cost about $14.4 billion.

1.5 MW solar array at Rutgers University, Livingston campusIt seems to make sense to use taxpayer monies to finance these systems; taxpayers pay the electric bills for public schools and other public infrastructure, so rather than pay a utility to burn coal, oil, or gas, or harness nuclear fission, we could buy solar modules, put them on the roof and transform sunlight into electricity.  But what are the other implications? What would it give us? And what do we do at night? How much juice do we get?

The US Dept. of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Lab’s (NREL) PV Watts solar energy calculator tells you the power you can expect from a given solar system anywhere in the US. Regarding night-time; solar is effective in conjunction with other sources of energy, and other clean, renewable, sustainable sources include wind, geothermal, micro-hydro, biofuel.

Every public school in the country would have a power plant that generates power, during the day, with no fuel cost and no waste., and no associated mining, processing, transportation, fuel costs and no waste management costs. At $5.00 per watt, or $5 billion per gigawatt, the capital costs are lower than the costs of new nuclear and significantly lower than the costs of coal with carbon sequestration, with none of the risks or hazards associated with the systems: no arsenic, mercury, lead, thorium, uranium, zinc, or carbon.

The systems would be tied to the electric grid, after all, while most of their operations are during the day, schools need power at night. If these systems could be disconnected from the electric grid, then we would have 90,000 structures distributed all over the United States, with power during the day in the event of power outages from storms, earthquakes, accidents, etc. Even if we lost 10% of them in a disaster like Katrina, or an event like Irene or the recent earthquake, we would still have 81,000 all over the country. Coupled with efficient refrigeration systems, we would have shelters with power to keep food and medications cold during emergencies; and these would be distributed across the country.

The solar systems would obviously have to be installed here, which would stimulate the economy, and we could even require the components to be manufactured here, further stimulating the economy.

Why not business as usual?

As reported here the North Anna nuclear plants in Virginia were shut down during the earthquake a few days before hurricane Irene. The Dominion plants in Virginia, and the Oyster Creek plant in New Jersey were shut down and the Millstone 2 & 3 plants in Connecticut and the Brunswick plants in North Carolina were brought to reduced capacity during Irene, and the Fort Calhoun plant in Nebraska has been shut down due to flooding, and losing $1 million per day, since June 6, 2011.

In Part 1, I criticized “How to Really Save the Economy, “an op-ed in the New York Times, published Sept. 10, 2011. “The United States,” according to Robert Barro, who teaches economics at Harvard and is a “fellow” at the Hoover Institution, “is in the third year of a grand experiment by the Obama administration.”

“This is inaccurate,” I wrote, Obama is the President, but the US Constitution provides a framework in which power is divided into three branches of the Federal government, and the power of the each of the branches is checked and balanced by the others, and “all power not expressly granted to the federal government is held by the states and the citizens.” It would be more accurate, therefore, to say,

“The United States is in the third year of an experiment in governance between the Obama administration, the Congress, the Judiciary, the Republican Party, various special interests, and the citizens. This appears to be an experiment in governance by not-governing. Due to significant differences of opinion with regards to the direction in which to drive the ship of state, the ship of state appears to be floundering. Governance by not-governing doesn’t work!”

In parts 3 and 4 I hope to present feedback from the telecommunications and wind industries. Meanwhile, another radioactive nail in the nuclear coffin – an explosion in a low-level waste management facility in France killed one person and injured four. DC Bureau, Associated Press reports “An explosion at a nuclear waste facility in southern France killed one person and injured four on Monday. Authorities said there was no radioactive leak, but critics urged France to rethink its nuclear power in the wake of the catastrophe at Japan’s Fukushima plant.The Nuclear Safety Authority declared the accident “terminated” soon after the blast at a furnace in the Centraco site, in the southern Languedoc-Roussillon region, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the city of Avignon. One of the injured suffered severe burns…. the body was burned so badly it was carbonized”