"My conclusion is that Texas utility bills are going higher."
T. Boone Pickens' * real investments are in candle futures;
E.on is Germany's largest utility company. Here is their 2005 Wind Report in pdf. I would recommend to everyone to read it. Sometimes they can use the wind power and sometimes they can't, and because their effective usage is so low, they have to keep building traditional power plants. In 2004 the average feed-in to the grid varied between about one third and zero percent of the load. Obviously that sort of performance places upper limits on usage. I quote:
As wind power capacity rises, the lower availability of the wind farms determines the reliability of the system as a whole to an ever increasing extent. Consequently the greater reliability of traditional power stations becomes increasingly eclipsed.As a result, the relative contribution of wind power to the guaranteed capacity of our supply system up to the year 2020 will fall continuously to around 4% (FIGURE 7). In concrete terms, this means that in 2020, with a forecast wind power capacity of over 48,000MW (Source: dena grid study), 2,000MW of traditional power production can be replaced by these wind farms.
The rest of the report comments on the grid problems and the need for specialized control of wind turbines, plus upgrade of the transmission lines and grid to deal with the pulsing of wind power. They have invested in programs to predict and control it, but they haven't produced much effect. Now they are looking to replace the older turbines with newer, taller ones and to move offshore for more reliable winds. At the end of the report they discuss the potential for grid instability, and cheerfully note that if they are not careful, they may blow up pieces of the Polish, Netherlands and Czech power supply.
Apparently, all those pesky engineers who hang out* around here are right!
On June 1st, I asked our readers the question - "What is your primary occupation?"
(Physicist and engineer) Ed Minchau collated the 633 responses as of 1:46 am, June 3rd. Do read the whole thread - many of our readers have multiple or specialized fields of expertise that general categories don't quite do justice to.
engineers: 61
computer programmers/consultants/systems analysts: 47
management: 46
military: 36
educators: 31
scientists: 28
small business: 28
technicians/technologists: 27
accountants/bookkeepers/economists/taxation/insurance: 24
construction/electricians/plumbers/carpenters/contractors: 23
financiers/brokers/bankers: 21
farmer/rancher/cowboy/agriculture/veterinary: 19
stay-at-home parents: 18
consultants: 18
sales: 16
pilots/air traffic control: 15
lawyers/legal assistants/advocates: 14
doctors/nurses/healthcare: 14
pastors/priests/missionaries/social workers/psychologists/counselors: 13
civil servants: 12
artists/musicians/photographers: 12
manufacturing/machinists: 10
writers/journalists/reporters: 10
police/corrections/security/investigation: 8
students: 8
truckers/railroad workers: 8
statisticians/actuaries/data analysts/librarians: 8
architects/draftsmen/urban planners: 8
radio/television/telecom: 7
mechanics/heavy equipment operators: 6
oil workers: 6
real estate: 4
forestry: 3
purchasing/logistics/warehousing: 3
secretary/administrative assistant:3
quality assurance: 2
map maker/surveyor: 2
human resources: 2
other: 12total: 633
(Lots more at the link.)
It really drives me crazy that our politicians are pandering to these people as well. Give them the reality and facts, if they can't deal with it, too bad. We need to stop treating ignorant people with kid gloves because we are being polite."
In a move that has apparently stirred up some internal discontent, the Los Angeles Times has banned its bloggers, including political bloggers, from mentioning the Edwards/Rielle Hunter story. Even bloggers who want to mention the story in order to make a skeptical we-don't-trust-the-Enquirer point are forbidden from doing so. . . . That will certainly calm paranoia about the Mainstream Media (MSM) suppressing the Edwards scandal!
Much more at the link. Seems to be slipping out elsewhere, though.
PETER KIRSANOW: "Judging from the local drive time radio shows, we bitter, religious pistol-packers here in flyover country remembered only two things from Obama's Berlin visit: the phrase 'citizen of the world' and Obama's failure to visit wounded troops at Landstuhl and Ramstein."
UPDATE: Jennifer Rubin says the media missed the big story on Obama's trip...finally, Obama’s mega-gaffe in snubbing the wounded troops in Germany (with the excuse he wouldn’t want to use campaign funds for such a visit) left even the MSM scratching their heads. There could be no perfect example of the argument McCain has been making: this is a callow man whose ego blinds him to the sacrifice of military service. Coming on the heels of news that Obama is already planning his White House transition, it seemed to put new emphasis on the question the McCain camp has been implicitly asking, “Who does he think he is?”
The text of Barack Obama’s sermon to the Germans in Berlin yesterday is an incredibly rich and revealing document. Prerhaps more than anything else, it was almost perfectly calibrated to tell the Germans what they want to hear. The fecklessness of the UN shows how little it means to be a "citizen of the world." It means something, though, to be a citizen of the EU, and Obama espoused distinctly European views, pledging to move American policy in a European direction—and to make the United States more European—under a President Obama.
After giving the Obama version of Cold War history, where humanitarian aid rolled back communism, Obama devoted a sentence to discussing the terrorist threat. He moved on to the heart of his speech, stating, implicitly or explicitly:
• That the Europeans are right to consider global warming the primary threat we face: “As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya” and “This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands.”
• That the US will not act independently of the Europeans: “That is why we cannot afford to be divided. No one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone.” Especially not the Iranian nuclear threat: “My country must stand with yours and with Europe in sending a direct message to Iran that it must abandon its nuclear ambitions.”
• But that the goal of abolishing nuclear weapons supersedes the goal of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon: “This is the moment when we must renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons…It is time to secure all loose nuclear materials; to stop the spread of nuclear weapons; and to reduce the arsenals from another era. This is the moment to begin the work of seeking the peace of a world without nuclear weapons.”
• That trade policy under an Obama administration won't be for free trade, but for trade conditioned upon union, environmentalist demands. Trade will facilitate wealth redistribution rather than a free market: “Together, we must forge trade that truly rewards the work that creates wealth, with meaningful protections for our people and our planet.”
• That the European Union is the model of the future and that we have transcended the era in which America should assert itself on the world stage: “…we need a strong European Union that deepens the security and prosperity of this continent, while extending a hand abroad. In this century - in this city of all cities - we must reject the Cold War mind-set of the past, and resolve to work with Russia when we can, to stand up for our values when we must, and to seek a partnership that extends across this entire continent.”
• That we should emulate the Germans on carbon reduction ("Let us resolve that all nations - including my own - will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation, and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere.")
• Finally, Obama apologized for America's wrongdoing, promised to stop the use of torture, and asked for Germany's (and Europe's) help in extending European policy across the Atlantic: “Will we reject torture and stand for the rule of law?” and “Let us build on our common history, and seize our common destiny, and once again engage in that noble struggle to bring justice and peace to our world.”
Josef Joffe noted in The New Republic, “If he ran in Germany, Obama would carry the country by a landslide, with 67 percent of the vote.” This comes as no surprise, as this is a speech about turning America into the European Union more than anything else.
On his show yesterday, Rush Limbaugh provided his take on Obama's sermon to the Germans as it was delivered. At one point Rush explicated this key portion of the text:
People of Berlin, people of the world, this is our moment. This is our time. I know my country has not perfected itself. (cheers) At times we struggle to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people, we've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.Rush's sense of "the moment" fleshes out what I tried to say briefly yesterday:
So now he has to go apologize for the United States of America. What is it? He's black, he's running for President of the United States, "We haven't perfected ourselves." You know, that's a key phrase, by the way, is one of the things that drives liberalism is the fact that they think people and institutions can be perfected. They think they can be perfect. And when nothing is perfect, then everything's wrong. But this is just beyond the pale. He's talking to Germans and making excuses for the United States of America, which to this day defends and protects Germany? (interruption) Exactly right. This is insulting. It is demeaning. "We have made our share of mistakes. There are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions." This is Iraq. But he's not a candidate, folks. He's just a guy strolling through the forest there who happened to see a microphone and a podium.Suffice it to say that Rush knows exactly what "moment" it is.He says, "Oh, there's about 100,000 people out there. I think I'll go make a speech." This is change. But ladies and gentlemen, if you are wondering when you hear Obama talk about change, this is it. The change is: America sucks, America's deficient, America's guilty, but America is now willing to pay the price because we have a Messiah who understands the faults, the egregious errors made by the United States and her people. We are racists, sexists, bigots, homophobes. We discriminate against people who worship differently than we do, have skin color different from ours, and we have not always behaved properly in the world. And we torture. And we, of course, are biased against people who want to get into our country illegally. We have a lot to pay for. Not to mention that we are primarily the country responsible for climate change, shrinking the Atlantic coastline, melting the Arctic ice. This is the change. You want change? This is the change.
