Wind Generators: Department of Defense Data

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Wind Energy And Cherry Point

Two weeks ago the Pamlico County Board of Commissioners and the Pamlico County Planning Board had a joint meeting at the court house to receive a briefing by Cherry Point on wind generation systems. Specifically, Cherry Point briefed on problems for their air operations that are anticipated from wind turbines.

The briefing acknowledged that it is national policy and the policy of the Department of Defense to encourage alternative energy sources. The briefing did not emphasize, as it might have, that Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus has been a leading proponent of alternative energy. 

The main focus of the briefing was how wind turbines adversely affect Marine radar systems and how important radar is to their air operations. The main challenge was how to mitigate those effects.

Unfortunately, Cherry Point officials offered no hope and no prospects of hope for mitigation. "To date," one presentation slide asserts, "no study data is published indicating technology exists to eliminate wind turbine adverse effects on radar."

Not so. There are studies.

A 2008 study by MITRE Corporation, one of DOD's most experienced electronics contractors observed. "There is no fundamental physical constraint that prohibits the accurate detection of aircraft and weather patterns around wind farms. On the other hand, the nation’s aging long range radar infrastructure significantly increases the challenge of distinguishing wind farm signatures from airplanes or weather.

"Progress forward requires the development of mitigation measures, and
quantitative evaluation tools and metrics to determine when a wind farm
poses a sufficient threat to a radar installation for corrective action to be
taken. Mitigation measures may include modifications to wind farms (such
as methods to reduce radar cross section; and telemetry from wind farms to
radar), as well as modifications to radar (such as improvements in processing;
radar design modifications; radar replacement; and the use of gap fillers in
radar coverage).

"There is great potential for the mitigation procedures, though there
is currently no source of funding to test how proposed mitigations work in
practice. In general, the government and industry should cooperate to find
methods for funding studies of technical mitigations. NOAA has an excellent
research plan, but no adequate funding to carry it out.

"Once the potential for different mitigations are understood, we see no
scientific hurdle for constructing regulations that are technically based and
simple to understand and implement, with a single government entity tak-
ing responsibility for overseeing the process. In individual cases, the best
solution might be to replace the aging radar station with modern and flexi-
ble equipment that is more able to separate wind farm clutter from aircraft."
Mitre's conclusion: "This is a win-win situation for national security, both improving our radar
infrastructure and promoting the growth of sustainable energy."


So the problem isn't technology, it is budgets for what may prove to be fairly minor improvements to radars, new procedures, and possibly coatings for turbine blades to reduce their radar cross-sections. I got the distinct impression that the Marine Corps isn't sufficiently concerned to spend any R&D funds fixing their radars. Why should they, if they can achieve the same end at no cost by intimidating state and local government? The only cost would be to retard economic development in Pamlico County and that doesn't cost the Marine Corps a dime.


In her introductory remarks to the meeting, Commissioner Holton emphasized the potential economic development benefits of wind energy to Pamlico County.

Speaking of mitigation, any measure to replace fossil fuel energy sources with non-carbon alternatives such as wind, solar or nuclear, will delay anticipated sea level rise from global warming. That should matter to every resident of Pamlico County and elsewhere in Eastern North Carolina. In my case, I just raised my house three feet to mitigate the effect of storm surge after Irene. But predictions are that the sea level will rise one meter (39 inches) this century. If so, my house is back in the flood waters.

So I am in favor of wind, solar and nuclear power. No single solution - all of the above.

This discussion has been going on for awhile here and here and here and here and here and here.

Not certain I have the whole story, I did more research on the wind farm/radar issues. What I have found is:

1. There is data. Some was reported to the Congress in 2006: www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/WindFarmReport.pdf

2. There is information on what mitigation works.

3. The problems concern two types of radar: Air Defense systems (AD) and weather radar.

4. My reading of the report to Congress is that there is no problem with Air Traffic Control (ATC) radar. The reason for this is that ATC relies not only on direct radar return ("skin paint") but also on transponder beacon returns like IFF. The briefing did not mention this distinction, but the bulk of the briefing was by Cherry Point's ATC expert. I don't know if Marine ATC controllers have the aircraft turn off their IFF or other beacons while training at high speed and low altitude in this region. Maybe they do, but if so, we should be told. Whether to turn it on or off during training ops is a procedural issue.

5. Distance from the affected radar can itself provide the necessary mitigation. The key factor is distance from the radar to the radar horizon - which is a bit further than the unobstructed visible horizon would be. Bottom line is, that for a normal radar height, and a blade tip height of 300 feet, there would be no interference beyond a distance of 30 miles, even without special mitigation. For a blade tip height of 500 feet, the safe distance would be 35 miles. Trouble is, Pamlico County is within either distance. But that only applies to AD radars. For ATC radars, there should be no problem.

So what kind of radar are they talking about? The briefing did not provide enough information for Pamlico County planners and commissioners to develop suitable regulations for wind farms.

Weather radar is a different matter. Here is a pretty good illustration and discussion of the problem: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/mkx/?n=windfarm There is also some discussion of weather radar in the report to Congress. I did not get the impression from the Cherry Point briefing that they are worried about the weather radar.

I'm not sure what to make of it.

I think the county needs more information.

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Minimum Wage

I have been reading a lot of scholarly articles on the minimum wage. Most of them pooh-pooh the idea that raising the minimum wage will cost jobs. There's a lot of research showing that no job loss will occur, especially when we are at the zero lower bound and caught in a liquidity trap.

I thought about posting links to some of the articles. Here's one blog post among many. Be sure to click on John Schmitt's (pdf) document. Instead of posting many links to scholarly posts, I decided to post a link to a cartoon in today's New York Times. Here is the link to the Strip.

US Federal Debt TO GDP Ratio Recent History

Recent US Debt To GDP Ratio

As you can see from this chart, the ratio of debt to GDP declined in the Johnson administration, continuing through Nixon/Ford and Carter. Then the ratio skyrockets from 1981 through 1992 (Reagan, Bush I) begins to level off in 1993 and declines sharply during the Clinton administration. Skyrockets again under Bush II, who ran the economy into the ditch. Subsequent increase in debt is what automatically happens with high unemployment and economic collapse. To get out of the ditch, we need to expand employment.

Growth In Spending - Recent Presidents

Economist Mark Thoma has posted a bar chart showing per capita changes in government spending under recent presidents (Nixon to present). You may find it interesting.



Had there been growth instead of contraction during Obama's presidency, it seems fair to suggest that unemployment would have already returned to a normal range.

We have Republicans in both houses of Congress to thank for where we stand.

Too Many Choices?

My wife is from Texas. When I was stationed in a distant location, she would write home and ask for a "care package" of essentials, including Ro-Tel tomatoes, an essential ingredient in chili con queso. There was never any confusion. Go to the store, find the canned tomato section and pick out one or more cans of Ro-Tel tomatoes.

No more. Now we have choices. There are at least four recipes of Ro-Tel tomatoes. Plus Ro-Tel tomato sauces. I have to read the labels. Before, if we wanted to spice up the con queso, we could add stuff to the tomatoes: a bit of lime juice, some chopped up cilantro, maybe some more jalapenos.

What if none of the four recipes is exactly what I want? Then I can add spices, just like I used to.

Am I happier? Not necessarily. Has life improved now that the various recipes are canned by Nebraska food conglomerate ConAgra instead of some small outfit in Texas?

Is it possible to have too many choices?

Take a look at the rest of the cans in the tomato section. Several different brands. All offer canned, peeled, whole tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes (with and without peppers), reduced sodium tomatoes, tomatoes with and without basil, plum tomatoes, round tomatoes. More labels to read.

How many years has it been since the US Supreme Court decided I need more choices in my telephone service? I stubbornly stayed with AT&T. I can't have them for land line, but my wireless and e-mail service are with AT&T.

I know people who change their wireless service at the slightest whiff of a possibly better deal. I prefer stability. I still get occasional e-mails from people I haven't heard from in decades.

Works for me.

The problem is, I feel afflicted, not freed, by the multiplicity of choices I have to make. All these choices appear to have been inflicted upon us by the children of Tom Brokaw's "greatest generation." I have a hard time accepting that characterization. I think the baby boomers are arguably the worst generation. Self-centered. Not all of them. Some of our children fall in that cohort. They aren't self centered. But many are and they have dominated markets and dominated intellectual and political discourse for too long.

We hear a lot of assertion of rights. Currently it's about "our second amendment rights." We hear very little discussion about obligations.

Society is the poorer for the absence of such discourse.

All is not lost. At least one author has undertaken a thoughtful examination of choices and markets. He is a Canadian scientist, and I just came across a link to the first chapter of his new book, No One Makes You Shop At Wal-Mart. Check it out.

Pat McRory: "Philosophy Is Bunk"

OK, that isn't exactly what Governor McRory said to a national audience yesterday, but it isn't far off. Gender Studies (one might say that is a subdivision of history with an admixture of other disciplines) is also, apparently bunk.

What is education for, anyhow? Governor McRory has a simple answer. It is about getting a job. So if a graduate doesn't find a job, education has failed, right? So we must revamp our system of higher education to make it into an elaborate vocational school.

Balderdash!

The purpose of education in all places and all times has been to transmit our best understanding of the universe and how it works to the next generation. It is how society perpetuates itself. And how we expand our understanding of the cosmos, bit by bit and generation by generation.

Not everything we learn must lead to a job. Some knowledge is not primarily utilitarian. For example, all of our great universities began as places to study theology. Not directly utilitarian except for those seeking positions as clerics.

Take philosophy, which apparently arouses the governor's contempt. I took a look at UNC's description of the graduate curriculum in philosophy. It turns out that there are a number of sub disciplines. But all students must take courses in symbolic logic.

What is that good for?

Pretty much everything. Symbolic logic occupies the boundary between mathematics, science and computer technology.

How many jobs are there in the field? No one knows.

But great universities are research centers exploring and expanding the boundaries of knowledge.

Another way to think about universities is to think of them as agglomerations of knowledge and agglomerations of people who can expand our frontiers of knowledge.

North Carolina once was led by visionaries who saw the benefits of such an agglomeration as the Research Triangle.

That's a better foundation for economic growth and the future of our citizens than building a new factory.

The Specter Of Greed

There is a specter haunting America. Like many apparitions, it is also sometimes an object of religious devotion.

It is the specter of greed.

This specter is said by some to be in our own self interest. The reason why we are in the best of all possible worlds. It is why, we are told, we must exalt the "makers" (and facilitate their greed) and demean the "takers."

More than a century ago, the wealthy justified their greed by the authority of Darwinian evolution - the survival of the fittest. Now it is often justified by the revelations of Ayn Rand and her acolytes. But always there is a genuflection in the direction of Adam Smith and the "invisible hand," where "self interest" results in the greatest good for the greatest number.

What could be better than that?

But that isn't what Smith means, at all. What he really means is that the bargains that put dinner on the table, clothes on our backs and roofs over our heads, must be in the interest of everyone involved. Not a one-way bargain, "red in tooth and claw," but mutual bargains. Smith explains: “Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer, and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of” (WN I.ii.2: p 26)

Gavin Kennedy provides a fuller explanation here.

Bottom line: cooperation works better than compulsion.

Gnomes Of Frankfurt

The Deutsche Bundesbank wants its gold back. At least they want back half of their gold reserves presently held by the New York Fed.

Will we soon be talking about the "gnomes of Frankfurt" instead of the "gnomes of Zurich?"

Do I hear echos of The Hobbit? "My precioussss!"

What is the Bundesbank up to? Economist Antonio Fatas wonders.

"I am really curious," Fatas writes,  "about what (doomsday) scenarios [Bundesbank Board member Thiele]...has in mind"  when he explains:"to hold gold as a central bank creates confidence. We build trust at home and have the possibility to exchange gold at short notice into foreign currency abroad."  Fatas asks what circumstances the Germans fear "where the gold reserves of the Bundesbank would become crucial to restore confidence. By the way, the gold reserves of the Bundesbank which at 130 Billion Euros are large compared to other central banks seem small compared to many other magnitudes that matter in financial markets, more so during crisis time. And I am assuming that these scenarios are catastrophic, otherwise why would gold be needed to buy foreign currency. And given that they are thinking that those scenarios are likely, is there anything that they are planning to deal with them?"

John Maynard Keynes is supposed to have observed ninety or so years ago, that "gold is a barbarous relic."

The "gold bugs" of his day and of our own have never forgiven him.

The Washington Post offers one possible explanation for the Bundesbank's action. The Post article also explains why such a move is quite rare. It turns out to be much easier to move some gold bars from one nation's cage to another cage to keep track of transactions than to ship the bars across oceans.

So the actual gold bars are used much like poker chips or other tokens.

The natives of Yap figured out a similar scheme long ago:

 

It turns out that stone tokens work just as well as gold bars.

How To Return To Full Employment (And Why It Matters)

I've been blogging on the subject of austerity and why it is a bad idea right now for a long time. It's hard to explain in ten words or less.

Now economist Robert Pollin has provided a pretty digestible explanation. Complete with illuminating graphs.

Worth a read.

Everyone in the political class, both US and European, should read it.

And act on it.

Now, now, now!

Debt Ceiling: Economic Experts View

What do economic experts say about the debt ceiling? IGM recently polled a panel of economists.

The question:  "Because all federal spending and taxes must be approved by both houses of Congress and the executive branch, a separate debt ceiling that has to be increased periodically creates unneeded uncertainty and can potentially lead to worse fiscal outcomes."

Eighty-four percent of the panel either agreed or strongly agreed. When the responses were weighted by economists' confidence in their responses, the outcome was ninety-seven percent.

In other words, economists overwhelmingly believe the debt ceiling makes no sense.

I agree.

Scratch The Platinum Coin Idea

“Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit,” a spokesman for the US Treasury said today.

No detailed explanation was provided.

Economist Tim Duy explains, in essence, that the reason is not that the scheme wouldn't work - the reason not to do it is that it would.

Duy explains: "Bottom Line: The platinum coin idea was ultimately doomed to failure because neither the Federal Reserve nor the Treasury could allow for even the remote possibility it might be successful. Its success would not just alter the political dynamic by removing the the debt ceiling as a threat. The success of a platinum coin would fundamentally alter the conventional wisdom about the proper separation of fiscal and monetary policy and the need to control the debt immediately."

The explanation is a little complicated, but Duy spells it out here. In essence, when interest rates are at zero and the monetary authority can't make them any lower and the economy persistently stagnates, there is NO DIFFERENCE between money and debt. And there is no reason to feel any urgency about reducing debt right NOW, NOW, NOW.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Debt Ceiling Blather

We got by the "fiscal cliff" without too much damage, though I think the agreement between the administration and the Republicans is damaging enough under the circumstances. The recovery is not yet self sustaining and any reduction in aggregate demand will not help. Right now we need more, not less government spending.

But cheer up - things could be worse. (As the old joke says, "so I cheered up and sure enough, things got worse!") Some Republicans are gearing up for another drive toward the cliff of default, the debt limit.

Let's be clear. The debt limit has nothing to do with controlling spending. That is done by Congressional action on taxes and appropriations. When the Treasury borrows, it only does so to pay the nation's bills already authorized by Congress. The debt limit makes no sense, and should be abolished.

Here are some thoughts by eminent economists the last time this reached crisis proportions. I share those thoughts.

But there is a new idea: the platinum coin. The Treasury would mint one or more platinum coins in very large denominations and deposit them with the Fed. It would then draw on those deposits to pay its bills. Paul Krugman explains the scheme.

Sound crazy? No more crazy than Congress telling the administration how much money to spend and what to spend it on; how much tax to raise and how to raise it, and then erect a barrier to actually paying the resulting bills. Now THAT's crazy!

It also violates a key provision of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, included with the precise reason of preventing Congressmen representing states of the former Confederacy from preventing the federal government from repaying loans that financed the Civil War. Now it is mainly the descendants of those former Confederates who are pushing the debt ceiling ploy.

I prefer the Constitutional route of telling these economic terrorists to go fly a kite. End this debt ceiling nonsense forever. My second choice is the platinum coin route.  The problem I see with that is, the Treasury's authority to strike platinum coins can be removed by legislative action.

Constitutional amendments are harder.

Just do it!

Another Look At Fiscal Cliff

Several sources have taken a closer look at the "fiscal cliff" deal. It sure looks like it included a few "bridges to nowhere."

Here's a good rundown by Jim Hightower of Texas.

My own assessment of the "American Taxpayer Relief Act" is that it could easily have been worse. But what we really need to worry about is jobs, not the deficit.

Unemployment caused the deficit, not the other way round. The deficit increase is mostly a result of unemployment, and the resulting activation of safety net programs, otherwise known as "counter cyclical" measures.

In other words, at the present time, the deficits are a feature, not a bug.

Here are some links to other articles:


"From NASCAR to rum, the 10 weirdest parts of the 'fiscal cliff' bill," www.washingtonpost.com, January 2, 2013.
"Eight Corporate Subsidies in the Fiscal Cliff Bill, From Goldman Sachs to Disney to NASCAR," www.truth-out.org, January 2, 2013.
"Fiscal Cliff Deal Extends Measure Making It Easy For Wall Street To Avoid Taxes," www.thinkprogress.org, January 3, 2013.

On Cabals

Some years ago, then-First Lady Hillary Clinton asserted that a "vast, right-wing conspiracy" had targeted her husband, President Bill Clinton.

In today's New York Times, columnist Timothy Egan stimulated a better word: "Cabal." I like "cabal" for the purpose. Cabals don't have to be vast in order to be effective.

Wikipedia explains: "A cabal is a group of people united in some close design together, usually to promote their private views or interests in a church, state, or other community, often by intrigue." Wikipedia elaborates: "The term can also be used to refer to the designs of such persons or to the practical consequences of their emergent behavior, and also holds a general meaning of intrigue and conspiracy. The use of this term usually carries strong connotations of shadowy corners, back rooms and insidious influence; a cabal is more evil and selective than, say, a faction, which is simply selfish; because of this negative connotation, few organizations use the term to refer to themselves or their internal subdivisions."

Egan didn't use the word "cabal" in his column. Instead, he referred to "a knot of Tea Party extremists who will never consider a fresh idea and a House Speaker whose notion of compromise is to tell his Democratic counterpart in the Senate to commit an unprintable act. For John Boehner, his profane shout-out to Harry Reid passed for a New Year’s toast." It was one of Egan's readers who suggested that "cabal" is a better word than "knot" for the phenomenon.

I agree with the reader. For many years now, a small group of extremely wealthy individuals, most of whom got their money the old-fashioned way  (they inherited it) and who don't actually make anything but deals, have put their extreme wealth on the scales to change the rules that served the country well until the early seventies.

These are people who show nothing but disdain for Americans who actually work for a living. And they have proven adept at using intrigue to take resources from workers to line their own pockets.

That's the real story behind the "giant sucking sound" candidate Ross Perot talked about twenty years ago. Not the giant sucking sound of jobs fleeing to Mexico but of capital and jobs fleeing to China and India.

How can American workers (of all different-colored collars) counter  this trend?

Get smart! Vote for jobs.

When everyone is back to work, get control over the banks and other financial institutions.

Uncloak the cabal.

Who Benefits

Income Gains

Rising Tide Used To Lift All Boats - Now It Lifts All Yachts

Who Pays?

Nice Chart From Ezra Klein's WonkBlog. I think there is an error in the legend: "20-60 percentile" should be "20-40 percentile."

Cui Bono?

I may yet comment on the good news/bad news about the "fiscal cliff."

Sometimes a Latin phrase delivered with a lifted eyebrow can suffice:

"Cui Bono"

Reforms And Other Illusions

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
- Pudd'nhead Wilson (Mark Twain)


There is talk of reform in the air.

Hang onto your wallets.

Based on experience of the last couple of decades, there's nothing so harmful to ordinary working people as "reform."

Remember the song about the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer?" That was about reform.

Examples:

Tax reform. Translation: Rich people pay less tax. Workers pay more.

Welfare reform. Translation: Mothers go to work. Who raises the children? TBD.

School reform. Translation 1: Take money and resources from public schools, divert them to charter or private schools. Translation 2: Blame problems on teachers.

Entitlement reform. Translation: Reduce entitlement programs.

Social Security reform. Translation: Reduce benefits.

Election reform. Translation: Make it harder for poor people to vote.

You get the drift.

Happy New Year!

Bad Bargains

It can be well nigh impossible to undo a bad bargain.

Slavery was a bad bargain in 1787/1789. It took three quarters of a century and the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives to undo that bad bargain.

Would it have been better to let the slave states go their own way? Possibly.

The settlement of the disputed election of 1876 (Hayes/Tilden) was a bad bargain. It ended reconstruction prematurely and left the former slave states free for nearly another century to do as they wished with their own citizens. It took the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's and the loss of yet more lives to undo that bad bargain.

The Second Amendment was a bad bargain. It sought to limit the coercive power of the federal government by depriving it of a standing army in lieu of state militias. In the end, we got both.

Unification of the armed forces was a bad bargain. A classic case of a solution in search of a problem. Coordination between the Army and the Navy was quite good throughout World War II. Coordination between the Army and the US Army Air Forces was not so good. USAAF wanted to go off and fight wars on their own. That was not ever a really good idea. It is even less so now. But we'll never be able to undo having a separate independent Air Force. Even if no one any longer remembers who Douhet was.

Deregulation was a bad bargain.

The Bush tax cuts were a bad bargain.

Deregulation and tax cuts together have enabled the super rich to redistribute wealth upward from working people to wealthy plutocrats.

Pardon me if I fail to salute the idea of a grand fiscal bargain.

Fiscal Cliff Hanger

I say, again: we have a persistent economic crisis, but right now that crisis is jobs, not deficit. The deficit is a consequence, not a cause of job loss.

The looming 'fiscal cliff" is itself a consequence of a disastrous agreement last year to persuade Republicans not to throw the country into renewed, deep recession by refusing to raise the debt limit - essentially refusing to pay our bills.

No one disputes that, in the long run, we must reduce deficits. Reduce them back to the levels of the last two years of the Clinton administration.

But first we have to put people back to work. But Republican obstructionists don't want the economy to succeed. They will continue to obstruct economic progress.

At the state level, further obstruction will proceed apace in every state whose government is dominated by Republicans. We are about to enter that category here in North Carolina.

I don't make this stuff up, but I do read a lot of what is said by the best economists.

One of the economists I follow is Jared Bernstein. He's a very clear writer and thinker. Today he examines the question of what the last year has taught us about economic beliefs that have not served us well. Here's his summary.