Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
GE is advertising to build political support for Obama’s plan to purchase billions of dollars of GE tech in order to make the power grid “smart”. After all, who would want a “dumb” anything when they could have a “smart” something?
The reason we should keep things dumb is that in engineering the word “dumb” has a different connotation. In engineering, “dumb” means simple and reliable.
Under the heading of, “Why the heck didn’t I think of that?” A plan to convert existing coal and natural gas fired plants into nuclear plants using mini-nukes. [via Next Big Future via Instapundit]
It’s a brilliant idea! You get to use everything in the existing infrastructure of the plant except the carbon-fueled furnace. Steam pipes, generators, transformers, connections to the grid etc are already in place. Just bury a mini-nuke out in the area originally used to store coal or natural gas and presto, carbon free, reliable, emergency-resistant energy!
Like all robust and successful technological improvements, this idea is an evolutionary instead of revolutionary change. It modifies existing technology with one minor step instead forcing a rebuilding/replacing of the existing system as do most “alternative” proposals.
Too bad we almost certainly won’t be using such a system. I hope the Chinese and other less spoiled societies have good luck with it. I’m going to need someplace to emigrate to when the lights here go out.
Earth Hour was a world-wide event which let conscientious environmentalists symbolically vote for preserving the environment by turning off their lights for an entire hour. No one, however, went to the heroic lengths of North Korea. Just look at this satellite picture comparing the indifferent, environment-wrecking people of South Korea versus the caring, Gaia-nurturing people of North Korea.
Wait, it gets even better…
Honestly, could you get a better distillation of the essence of leftist environmentalism than a bunch of leftists filming themselves enthusiastically switching off lights to plunge the world into darkness?
Instapundit links to a New Scientist article on a report from NASA and the National Academy of Sciences that warns of the danger that large solar storms present to the world’s power grid. The report summarizes the core problem as:
The first is the modern electricity grid, which is designed to operate at ever higher voltages over ever larger areas. Though this provides a more efficient way to run the electricity networks, minimising power losses and wastage through overproduction, it has made them much more vulnerable to space weather. The high-power grids act as particularly efficient antennas, channelling enormous direct currents into the power transformers.
Obviously, increased use of solar and wind power will increase this sensitivity to solar disruption.