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.
Compared to the ethnic mix of Chicago, where every race and ethnic group is visible in any crowd of any size, it is always weird to go to Wisconsin and see thousands of people who are all white on both sides of an issue. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
(Further observations and assessments of the protest / counter-protest in Madison below the fold.)
The Canadian government spent a great deal of effort and money in touting their alternative energy initiatives, particularly electricity generating through wind turbines. Lots and lots of tax dollars have been spent on various projects. These weren’t depicted as public work projects, but as “investments”.
The day before yesterday, they quietly reversed that policy.
Gee, I wonder why!
Looks like the “investments” didn’t pay off.
—- UPDATE —-
I was just informed that it was the Ontario government, controlled by the Liberals, who are the culprits behind funding for the wind power projects that are being dropped. Not the entire Canadian government!
My bad about that, and a thanks to the reader who took the time to let me know that I was off base!
MY GUESS IS, THEY MISSED THE WINDOW FOR THIS: Aptera: We need government money to bring vehicle to market.
I don’t like to say I told you so…
Hell, who am I kidding! I love to say I told you so.
(or at least “less”)
…to rare earths
There has been much concern, and rightly so, about the increasing dependence of the U.S. and other economies on the elements known as rare earths, for which the primary current supplier is China. These concerns have been further increased by the rather high-handed manner in which the Chinese government has conducted itself in this matter. As a result, stocks of companies with access to rare-earth mineral deposits outside of China have been doing pretty well.
A couple of weeks ago, General Electric posted about their efforts to reduce the need for rhenium in jet engines. Although it is not technically a rare earth, rhenium is indeed rare–world production about 50 tons per year–and expensive. GE’s rhenium-reduction project has three elements: recycling metal grindings from the manufacturing process, developing alloys that require less or no rhenium, and reclaiming rhenium from used engine parts.
When reading the GE post, it struck me that just about every company that is highly dependent on rare earths probably has similar projects underway. Comes now Toyota, with an announcement that it’s making good progress in developing an electric motor (for hybrids) which has no need of neodymium, a mainly-Chinese-source element that is a key component in today’s hybrid motors. (Toyota’s new motor is based on the induction-motor principle–scarcely a new technology, but one that has required considerable reengineering to meet the weight and efficiency needs of the hybrid application.)
