Debt Debate in Congress

[Red Arrow]

I believe that went along okay for about a year until they realized there was really nowhere to go with the glycerine which was a by-product of the refining process,

Great, another by-product that no one talks about to deal with.

[dbacks fan]

Great, another by-product that no one talks about to deal with.

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_glycerin.html

[Conan71]

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_glycerin.html

Methanol is also commonly found in the glycerine by-product.

[Red Arrow]

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_glycerin.html

Great, now we will have nitroglycerine labs in addition to the Meth labs.   

Actually, it looks like there are plenty of options.  It just depends on whether those options are used.

[nathanm]

I have no doubt that subsidy, and regulation though taxation have completely corrupted the fossil fuel market.  We may not agree on the exact direction of that corruption, but none the less, the outcome is the same.  Artificial manipulation creates artificial levels of demand ALWAYS, and eventually leads to either collapse or additional subsidization. 

The disconnect here is that you don't see a coal plant emitting tons of methylmercury each year without paying a dime as an implicit subsidy from the rest of us. If the health, behavior, and other effects of that on humans alone were priced in, it wouldn't be cost competitive with renewables and wouldn't have been since the 1970s. The fossil fuel subsidies are a large part of why there had been so little work on batteries and other forms of storage before the mid 90s.

As I've said, I'm a big believer in using people's greed to produce the best outcomes. Unfortunately, when the price doesn't reflect the whole cost of a good, people will usually make the wrong economic choice, even if you believe in the rational actor model.

RA, I don't know the specific numbers regarding huge honkin' inverters, but given the increasing use of HVDC transmission, it's clearly possible to do at multi-megawatt scale with efficiency high enough to have an overall loss less than long distance AC transmission.

[Red Arrow]

RA, I don't know the specific numbers regarding huge honkin' inverters, but given the increasing use of HVDC transmission, it's clearly possible to do at multi-megawatt scale with efficiency high enough to have an overall loss less than long distance AC transmission.

Long distance HVDC appears to have some advantages but the electric still has to be distributed as AC at the local level.  Local distribution at lower voltage levels is also a point of inefficiency for AC.

I read about 1/2 of the link below.  I actually have something to do today besides sit on TNF so I'll have to read the rest of it later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current

[Gaspar]

Hey look. . .as of today the national debt is now over 100% of the GDP and climbing fast!

Yey for us!  Yes we can!

[Townsend]

Hey look. . .as of today the national debt is now over 100% of the GDP and climbing fast!

Yey for us!  Yes we can!

So the debt is who's fault now?

[guido911]

So the debt is who's fault now?

Come on, you know it's Bush's fault. We all do.

[Townsend]

Come on, you know it's Bush's fault. We all do.

I blame lobbyists and the people that allow them.

[nathanm]

Hey look. . .as of today the national debt is now over 100% of the GDP and climbing fast!

How much of that do we owe to ourselves again? I can't get very worked up about money my left pocket owes my right pocket.

[Red Arrow]

I can't get very worked up about money my left pocket owes my right pocket.

Then it must be your fault.   

[Conan71]

How much of that do we owe to ourselves again? I can't get very worked up about money my left pocket owes my right pocket.

Would you honestly approach it from that viewpoint if John McCain were president and we had majorities in the House and Senate?

[nathanm]

Would you honestly approach it from that viewpoint if John McCain were president and we had majorities in the House and Senate?

Yeah. I simply don't think it matters much if we owe 40% of GDP to foreigners and 60% to ourselves. Beyond that, I don't think our present debt level is by any means unsustainable and I don't think the rate of growth is an enormous problem so long as we continue to mostly borrow from ourselves. At worst we're using excess reserves in a more productive manner.

The dire predictions of the doomsayers as far as interest rates will come true if we go stupid and keep borrowing at this rate even after private sector investment and reserves return to normal. As long as we're in a recession, it doesn't really matter unless we can find a way to borrow every excess dollar that would otherwise be idle, which is not something we're in any danger of doing at present.

The irony is that if the doomsayers get their way and get the Fed to stop with the expansionary monetary policy and get their way on budget cuts, it will only serve to increase the chance of their dire predictions being realized. Just like cutting taxes can sometimes decrease revenue less than the face value amount, decreasing spending can sometimes improve the fiscal condition by less than the face value amount. You can't have it one way and not the other, as they are two sides to the same coin.

There is both a revenue maximizing tax rate and a revenue maximizing outlay amount.

[heironymouspasparagus]

RA, I don't know the specific numbers regarding huge honkin' inverters, but given the increasing use of HVDC transmission, it's clearly possible to do at multi-megawatt scale with efficiency high enough to have an overall loss less than long distance AC transmission.

All the discussion in the link RA provided is geared to some pretty specific "special cases" - like the undersea transmission.  For the big cross country grid we have here - the big towers with bare lines, sometimes doubled and tripled - that does not apply.  There is no insulation on those - all capacitive effects are just to the air with nowhere near the charging/discharging effects they are talking about for insulated conductors. 

The best, most cost effective method to reduce losses for the conventional grid powered by nukes, coal, hydro, and gas plants is to add conductors - cut the heating losses in the wire itself. 

Wind power from a large farm may benefit slightly from HVDC (probably not), but the equipment being installed is all AC now, so would kill the 'efficiency' to do a retrofit. 

If you put in a system at home, you definitely want to work in DC right up to the point of use, then put a VFD (variable frequency drive) on the device to power.  Will ALWAYS benefit from that configuration. 

You could achieve a significant improvement in efficiency and reduction in power usage right now by putting VFD's on your air conditioning equipment - on the compressor.  Commercial buildings typically use larger air conditioning equipment and can benefit even more.  Just a VFD on the blower motor in a 5, 10 or 20 ton (or bigger) unit would pay for itself in months and save money for years.  And it would be even more dramatic with a VFD on the compressor(s), especially in a multi-stage system (2 or more compressors).  And given the choice, 4 smaller compressors in a system will ALWAYS be more efficient and save much money in operating costs over the same size system with only 1 or 2 larger compressors.  Yeah, a little bit higher in initial equipment cost, but saves it quickly - you only have to run just enough compression for the load at that time.  Wish I could get one for the house!!

And no matter what - the transformers and wires putting the juice on the line and taking it back off at the other end will always be less susceptible to EMP than ANY inverter equipment.

Lots of stuff we could do today, and mostly don't.