Lifebuoy: B.O.

In recognition that it was a bit foggy this morning, Town Dock posted a link to the audio sound of a fog horn.

In all honesty, Town Dock's fog horn was a bit wimpy. But it called to mind a more robust fog horn that sounded on the radio during the 30's and 40's along with a public service announcement. Well, you could call it that, at least back in the days when people took baths at least once a week whether they needed it or not.

Here's the announcement.

If you prefer just a robust fog horn, here's a different link without the "public service."

Safe navigating!

How The Romans Handled Debt And Credit

Two researchers at the New York Fed have been looking into money and credit in ancient Rome. How did they use debt and credit to move money around?

Turns out they could move large amounts of money by paper transactions. Not unlike our modern "shadow" banking system.

Bookkeeping must have been a challenge without having zeroes to play with.

Even without zeroes, Romans managed to move a lot of money around without hauling physical gold and silver.

Here's how.

Seventy Years Ago: USS Iowa (BB-61)

 

New York, NY: February 22, 1943. USS Iowa (BB-61) was commissioned at New York Naval Shipyard. The lead ship of the most powerful US battleships ever built, Iowa was a 45,000 -ton ship armed with nine 16-inch/50 caliber guns with a range of up to 24 miles, firing a projectile weighing up to 2,750 pounds. She also carried twenty 40-mm quadruple barrel Bofors anti-aircraft guns and twenty 5-inch/38 caliber dual-purpose guns arranged in twin mounts with a range of about 9 miles against surface targets. In addition, she bristled with 20-mm antiaircraft guns that proved of limited use and were removed right after the war.

Class & type:	Iowa-class battleship
Displacement:	45,000 tons
Length:	887 ft 3 in (270.43 m)
Beam:	108 ft 2 in (32.97 m)
Draft:	37 ft 2 in (11.33 m)
Speed:	33 kn (38 mph; 61 km/h)
Complement:	151 officers, 2637 enlisted
Armament:	1943: 9 × 16 in (406 mm)/50 cal Mark 7 guns 20 × 5 in (127.0 mm)/38 cal Mark 12 guns 80 × 40 mm/56 cal anti-aircraft guns 49 × 20 mm/70 cal anti-aircraft cannons

USS Iowa is the first ship I ever went to sea in  during a midshipman training cruise to Europe during the summer of 1955.

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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Picasso's Secret

Now we know Picasso's secret. Thanks to Argonne National Laboratory and a study using high energy X-rays, we have learned that Picasso painted some of his masterpieces using house paint.

It isn't fair. We have always been told that a craftsman is known by his tools. A fine craftsman must use the best tools. And the best materials.

So how can Pablo Picasso, one of history's great artists, have made great art with ordinary house paint?

Maybe we need to alter conventional wisdom. Perhaps great craftsmen and artists are free to choose the tools and materials that work, not just the "best quality" tools.

Don't be snobbish.

Do what works.

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.

Duck And Cover!

Yulia Karbysheva, a fourth grade teacher in Chelyabinsk, Russia, saved 44 students in her class from injury by telling them to "duck and cover," the Cold War defensive maneuver from a half century ago. The teacher herself suffered an injury, but not her students. She didn't know what was happening when she saw the brilliant light from the meteorite that landed nearby, but she knew what to do.

Older residents of Chelyabinsk had likely been trained in such protective measures. Chelyabinsk has been a center of defense industry since Joseph Stalin moved huge factories East of the Ural Mountains in 1941 to get them beyond the reach of Hitler's invading armies.

A town of about 45,000 at the outset of World War I, Chelyabinsk experienced rapid growth during Soviet industrialization of the 1930s. Several industrial establishments, including a Tractor Plant and a Metallurgical Plant, were built at this time. Relocation of industries to the Urals in 1941 began a period of rapid expansion. There were several tank factories and plants to manufacture Katysha rockets. The town became known jokingly as "Tankograd" (Tank City). Chelyabinsk was essentially built from scratch during this time.

Later in the 1940's the area around Chelyabinsk (Chelyabinsk Oblast') became a center of nuclear weapons development. It is thought that much of the area has suffered environmental damage from plutonium pollution.

Perhaps the area will now become a center of the meteorite tourism industry.

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.