Peak VT

Asshole, now with Mendacity

2012-01-27T19:53:00.000-05:00

Larry Summers, ladies and gentlemen. Take it away, Felix.

Generation What?

2012-01-04T04:40:00.000-05:00

Note: this is an updated version of an older post.

Below is a quick rundown of most of the reactors being marketed as of early 2012. I'm using the term "marketed" somewhat loosely here, as not all reactors are being offered in all countries due to intellectual property rights, nationalism, or other considerations. I have ignored a number of small reactor designs that I feel are just vaporware at this point. The three small PWRs plus the ten of other types account for over half of the 24 models, but medium-large (for lack of a better term) PWRs such as the AP1000 have captured the overwhelming majority of the orders.

An oddity to note is that Westinghouse no longer markets a PWR derived from the ones it created in the 1960s due to a series of corporate mergers. But the basic Westinghouse design lives on in the EPR, APWR, Amtea1 and CPR-1000 designs. Westinghouse, which is 77% owned by Toshiba, now offers reactors derived from Combustion Engineering designs. A minor point to note is that both GE-Hitachi and Toshiba are both marketing the ABWR.

By neutron speed, there are:

21 thermal reactors (150 to 4590 MWt)
3 fast reactors (30 to 2100 MWt)

By major type, there are:

14 pressurized water reactors (PWR; 150 to 4590 MWt)
4 boiling water reactors (BWR; 3370 to 4500 MWt)
3 pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR; 2080 MWt)
2 sodium-cooled fast reactors (LMFR; 30 and 2100 MWt)
1 lead-bismuth-cooled fast reactor (LMFR; 75 MWt)

By design family, there are:

4 Westinghouse (WH) pressurized water reactors
4 Combustion Engineering (CE) pressurized water reactors
4 GE boiling water reactors
3 VVER pressurized water reactors (Russian PWRs evolved separately from western designs)
3 CANDU heavy water-moderated reactors
1 B&W small pressurized water reactor (probably derived from US Navy designs, may be new)
1 KLT-series small pressurized water reactor (evolution of Russian Navy designs)
1 BN-series sodium-cooled fast reactor (designed by a state-owned organization in Russia)
1 new small pressurized water reactor (stated as being derived from the AP1000, but so small that it's probably all new)
1 new small lead-bismuth-cooled fast reactor (probably a new design)
1 new small sodium-cooled fast reactor (probably a new design)

By generation, there are:

12 "Generation III" designs (designs from the 1990s and 2000s with some passive safety features)
8 "Generation II+" designs (slight improvements over 1960s designs)
2 "Generation II" designs (basically 1960s designs)
2 designs I haven't classified because I lack familiarity with them

The term "generation" was introduced by the DOE several years ago in order to simplify the presentation of its strategy. Right now it is pursing two goals: building evolved PWRs and BWRs (the Gen III models), and doing R&D on "Generation IV" reactors. The marketing types have hijacked the nomenclature a bit, and have labeled some reactors "III+" as well as backfitted the "II+" designation on others. I've ignored the III+ designation, but the II+ designation is not unreasonable because the designs have been worked on since they were first developed in the 1960s.

Reactor	Type	Gen.	MWt	MWe	Company	Family	Oper./ Const./ Frm. Pln.
4S	SCFR	?	30	10	Toshiba Power Systems	new SFR	0 / 0 / 0
Power Module	LBFR	?	75	25	Hyperion Power Generation	new LFR	0 / 0 / 0
BN-800	SCFR	II	2100	800	Atomstroyexport (Rosatom)	BN SFR	0 / 1 / 2
PHWR-700	PWHR	II	2170	640	NPCIL	CANDU	0 / 3 / 1
CANDU6	PWHR	II	2200	690	Candu Energy, Inc.	CANDU	11 / 0 / 0
EC6	PWHR	II+	2080	750	Candu Energy, Inc.	CANDU	0 / 0 / 0
CPR-1000	PWR	II+	3000	1000	China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group	ANP (WH) PWR	2 / 20 / 14
OPR-1000	PWR	II+	2825	990	Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction	DHIC (CE) PWR	7 / 3 / 0
System 80+	PWR	II+	3400	1120	Westinghouse (Toshiba)	CE PWR	0 / 0 / 0
VVER-1000	PWR	II+	3000	950	Atomenergoproekt / Atomstroyexport	VVER PWR	2 / 2 / 2
VVER-1200	PWR	II+	3200	1170	Atomenergoproekt / Atomstroyexport	VVER PWR	0 / 5 / 5
KLT-40S	PWR	II+	150	35	OKBM	SSSR PWR	0 / 2 / 0
ABWR	BWR	III	3900	1380	GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy	GE BWR	2 / 4 / 0
ABWR	BWR	III	3900	1350	Toshiba Power Systems	GE BWR	2 / 1 / 2
Atmea1	PWR	III	3150	1150	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries-Areva NP	MHI/ANP (WH) PWR	0 / 0 / 0
AP1000	PWR	III	3400	1150	Westinghouse (Toshiba)	CE PWR	0 / 5 / 17
APR-1400	PWR	III	4000	1350	Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction	DHIC (CE) PWR	0 / 2 / 10
APWR	PWR	III	4450	1700	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries	MHI (WH) PWR	0 / 0 / 0
EPR	PWR	III	4590	1630	Areva Nuclear Power	ANP (WH) PWR	0 / 4 / 1
ESBWR	BWR	III	4500	1600	GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy	GE BWR	0 / 0 / 0
Kerena	BWR	III	3370	1250	Areva Nuclear Power	KWU (GE) BWR	0 / 0 / 0
MIR-1200	PWR	III	3200	1170	Atomstroyexport/Skoda	VVER PWR	0 / 0 / 2
mPower	PWR	III	400	125	Babcock & Wilcox	USN PWR?	0 / 0 / 1
WSMR	PWR	III	800	225	Westinghouse (Toshiba)	CE PWR?	0 / 0 / 0

Note: the PHWR-700 is not being marketed per say, but it is the current standard domestic plant for India, and there are several examples under construction.

One Hundred Mini-Presidents: January 2012 Edition

2012-01-03T11:09:00.004-05:00

As is the case every two years, about one-third of the Senate is up for re-election in 2012. Below is what I think (as of now, January 3) the outcome in November will be. Among the tossups, Obama's coattails will be enough to pull along McCaskill in Missouri, which has an AA population of about 15%. In Wisconsin, a re-energized left will turn out well enough to give Baldwin a victory. In Montana, Obama hate will work to defeat Tester. The race in Nevada I know little about, so for now I'll go with what the polling says. If Obama really drives turnout up, Nevada might be a Dem pickup. OTOH, if Obama only wins narrowly, both Wisconsin and Missouri would fall to the Republicans, and possibly one or two others currently in the likely category.

Overall, the results below would be a lousy outcome for the left because there would be more than enough Conservadems to give Republicans effective control even if there are enough Democrats to retain nominal control (with the vote of the Veep). (Note: I'm not 100% certain how the Veep's vote works when assigning control, but AFAIK it would be like any other vote where there is a tie.) So, even if Obama wins (very likely) and the Democrats win back the House (unlikely but possible) the overall legislative environment will remain poor for most of the policies I'd like to see changed.

	Democratic	Republican
Carryovers	30	37
Contested	23	10
Certain holds	California (Feinstein)	Arizona (open R to any R)
	Connecticut (open D to Murphy)	Indiana (Lugar)
	Delaware (Carper)	Mississippi (Wicker)
	Hawaii (open D to Case/Hirono)	Tennessee (Corker)
	Maryland (Cardin)	Texas (open R to any R)
	Minnesota (Klobuchar)	Utah (Hatch)
	New Jersey (Menendez)	Wyoming (Barasso)
	New York (Gillibrand)
	Rhode Island (Whitehouse)
	Vermont (Sanders)
	Washington (Cantwell)
	West Virginia (Manchin)
Likely holds	Florida (Nelson)	Maine (Snowe)
	Michigan (Stabenow)
	New Mexico (open D to Heinrich)
	Ohio (Brown)
	Pennsylvania (Casey)
Tossups	Missouri (McCaskill)	Montana (Tester to Rehberg)
Tossups	Wisconsin (open D to Baldwin)	Nevada (Heller)
Likely flips	Massachusetts (Brown to Warren)	Nebraska (open D to any R)
		North Dakota (open D to any R)
		Virginia (open D to Allen)
2012 results	20	13
Swing	-3	3
2013-2014 seats	50	50

Predictions About the Future: 2012 Edition

2012-01-02T06:13:00.000-05:00

This year I'm being a little more specific, so I'll probably do worse than last year.

The unemployment rate will end between 8.0% and 8.5%. The employment situation will continue to improve, though not fast enough to lift large numbers of people out of misery and poverty. The employment-to-population ratio will once again do very little, staying between 58.5% and 59%.
Housing prices will continue to fall slowly. We'll see another 3-6% decline in existing home prices.
New homes and autos will not provide a major boost. Some people have been predicting a rebound in the two sectors, but I think we are going through some long-lasting changes in behavior that will keep both from being major drivers of growth in 2012.
The effective Fed Funds Rate will stay below 1%. There's no inflation and growth is still weak, so the Fed won't move much, if at all.
The US dollar will strengthen mildly. The US will be the strongest major developed economy this year, as the Eurozone (collectively) will not grow, the UK will contract, and Japan will grow only slightly. Thus the dollar will strengthen about 5% in the broad trade-weighted index. China will continue to try to export as many problems as possible, so the dollar will be essentially unchanged against the yuan again.
Oil will end the year at $95/bbl +/- $5. Increased US supply, changing driving habits, and slowing growth in Europe (on average) will balance out growing demand from the developing world. All bets are off if Iran or Israel does something stupid, however.
The Euro will survive. It will be horrible for people living in the GIPS (ex-Ireland, where everyone will just emigrate), but the Eurozone will muddle through for yet another year.
Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee. Since the only other candidate with a competent national organization is a kook, Romney will win by default.
President Barack Obama will be re-elected. See above.
Placeholder for House and Senate. I'm not up on the Congressional races, so I'll fill this in later.
The beginning of the end in Afghanistan will be downplayed. There will be some troop reductions, but for political reasons the administration will try to downplay it, and the media will be too busy calling the political horse race to cover it.

Some off-the-cuff speculations: North Korea will act crazy but the hot peace on the peninsula will continue; the Occupy movement will mostly fizzle, but the national debate will still be better for its efforts; the Arab Spring will be taken over by Islamic parties everywhere dictators have been overthrown, but no new tyrants will go down; reactionary developments on the eastern side of the EU will largely be ignored by western countries focused on their economies; the coalition government in the UK will continue to survive despite the recession because the LibDems would be clobbered in an election; Putin will win the presidency in Russia in a highly fraudulent election; the news about Global Warming will continue to be horrible; the drug war in Mexico will continue to be horrible, but will improve slightly; South America outside of Venezuela will continue to improve both economically and politically; and Generalissimo Francisco Franco will remain dead.

Predictions About the Future: 2011 Report Card

2012-01-02T04:55:00.001-05:00

So how did I do?

Close, but no banana. The final report in 2011 was for November, when the rate fell to 8.6%. I could try to wiggle out by pointing to a larger-than-average movement in the denominator for November, but the truth is that the employment situation is getting better, albeit very slowly. The E2P ratio did stay close to what I predicted, with 58.7% being reported in November.
Correct. There was a small blip upwards in the middle of the year, but prices fell overall.
Correct. Effective rates started the year at 0.13% and ended the year at 0.07%.
Correct. I didn't specify a range, but the 2.5% increase seen over the year isn't that significant. The change in the yuan dollar rate was about 1%, so I was right about that, too.
Close, but no banana. I forget which benchmark I was thinking of, but both the WTI Cushing and spot prices ended up below $100/bbl. Brent, which is for a light sweet crude, ended at $107, but it always commands a premium to WTI.
Correct. The euro still exists, and no country has left yet.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. US-Cuba relations are about the same as they've been since the end of the Cold War. No surprise, really, as I threw this prediction out just for the heck of it.
Correct. There really hasn't been much of a change in Afghanistan AFAIK, except that relations with Pakistan have gotten a lot worse.
Depends on your perspective. The Republicans relented, but they did extract some concessions. The most prominent of them, the "Super Committee" was a complete bust, but there are automatic spending cuts scheduled in the 2013 budget. They may very well not survive the budget process. I was hoping for a completely clean victory by the Democrats, but the Republicans were even crazier than I expected.

Final tally: 5/9 right, 2/9 close but wrong, and 2/9 completely wrong. Overall I'd rate my performance as a "meh" because I didn't tackle much that was hard to predict.

Ancora! Ancora! Ancora!

2011-11-14T16:44:00.000-05:00

While there seems to be a temporary lull in Eurozone action, I don't think the developments on Friday and over the weekend amount to a turning point. Installing "technocratic" elites doesn't make a lot of sense, because it was unaccountable technocrats who created the mess in the first place. That the specific technocrats have links to Goldman Sachs, which arranged the accounting fraud that allowed to Greece to enter the Eurozone in the first place, doesn't inspire confidence, either. Stergios Skaperdas has written another op-ed on Greece leaving the Euro. I wish Greek politicians would read it but, like national-level politicians everywhere, they seem to be tightly encased in their own little bubble. Even when they make noises about the austerity being imposed on the country, it is to position themselves in the next election, not because they have a better alternative.

The most immediate impact of the change of Prime Minister in Italy has done is given everyone a chance to write about how awful Silvio Berlusconi has been for Italy. It's not a new topic; people have been writing about Italy's Murdoch+Buffett for years. A lot of Italy's "structural" problems would have existed if he had stayed out of politics. And some of the uniquely Italian problems have been around for decades. But having as Prime Minister someone who was arguably in politics to keep himself exempt from prosecution as much as anything else has taken amoral familism to a new level.

So while having Silvio gone will improve Italy's long-term prospects, in the immediate future the problem is basically one of math. Unless bond rates come down, and the economy either grows or inflates (a.k.a. currency devaluation), Italy will probably join Greece in exiting the Eurozone. The problem is that the economy is unlikely to grow fast enough to convince bondholders to accept lower rates. And the ECB is still the ECB, so it's unlikely to help in one way or another. That has prompted more calls to end the common currency. Both a recession in Europe and a collapse of the Euro would affect the United States, something the country can't really afford on top of our own past and potential future stupidity.

Mio Dio, Cosa Hai Fatto, Silvio?

2011-11-09T18:58:00.004-05:00

The ever-wise markets seem to have skipped ahead in their script by a few countries, because today the world woke up to find Italy on the verge of financial ruin. Or at least that's what everybody is saying the markets are saying. Unfortunately, as long as everyone believes it to be true, it's likely to come true.

I find it suspicious that right after the Greek mess has been "resolved" that the Italian crisis would suddenly come to a head. Shouldn't the agreement of the Greek parties to unite to screw the Greek people give everyone else at least a few weeks of relief? Apparently not. Nothing else about Italy's underlying financial condition, which isn't that bad, has changed since last week. But sharply increasing yields means that whenever Italy has to roll some debt, which most indebted countries do on a regular basis, it will have to pay substantially more. Thus the problem in Italy has become self-fulfilling.

The failure to resolve the crisis is mostly the European Central Bank's fault. It has basically refused to do the job of a proper central bank, which is to regulate the macro economy for the greater good. The origins of the crisis are much more structural, which quite a few people still don't understand. But rather than do the right thing and forgive gobs of debt, or exit the Euro themselves, the core Eurozone countries may be to be planning to kick the GIPS countries out. I can't see how that would be a good solution economically or politically. Not only would it create immense amounts of ill will in the region, it would still leave the GIPS countries with their external debt denominated in a foreign currency. That class of debt is the only justifiable reason for Greece not leaving the Euro that I can see, and forcing the issue on multiple countries at once couldn't possibly help.

If things do really unravel in Europe, which they haven't done quite yet, I think US markets won't entirely collapse due to flight-to-safety inflows. I could easily be wrong about that, though. But obviously a breakdown overseas would fall through to front-line jobs within weeks, and that would exacerbate what is already a crisis.

Update 2011-11-09: Italy's problems may very well be Silvio's fault.

Update 2011-11-10: Italy's bond sale was successful but at a rate that is a good deal higher than last year.

More Χάος

2011-11-03T15:19:00.001-04:00

News is breaking on an hourly basis in Europe these days, with Greece still being the center of attention. The latest loop is the sudden appearance and disappearance of plans for a referendum on the bailout and austerity measures being put to the Greek people. It is quite likely that Papandreou was bluffing his fellow politicians into joining him in sharing the political pain, which he may have done successfully.

As I said over here, I just don't see how the situation can be sorted out while Greece still uses the Euro. I don't know how much adjustment of one kind or another is necessary to bring Greek labor costs down to where they are in line with the productivity* of its workers, but I suspect it is a lot. And by a lot, I mean 15-30%. Deflation by that amount implies that as long as Greece still uses the Euro, its citizens will, on average, have to take pay cuts of 15-30%. This would be painful but not devastating if individuals and businesses were basically debt-free. But that's not the case in Greece, though it must be said that they aren't close to being the most indebted. But debt doesn't automatically shrink when wages and prices deflate. In fact, the real burden goes up. And substantially greater real burdens means substantially more foreclosures, bankruptcies, and corporate bond defaults. That's why devaluation makes a lot more sense, and which would happen automatically in the markets if Greece still had its own currency - provided, of course, nobody is manipulating their currency.

So the mystery continues - why are Greek politicians pursuing such awful policies?

* - saying that Greeks are less productive doesn't mean they don't work long hours. It just means that for one or more reasons their output is less per hour.

Our Lousy Media

2011-10-30T01:11:00.001-04:00

Consider this series of screenshots (via Shawn in comments):

There was an interesting report released this week.

But if you watched Fox, you wouldn't know.

To be fair and balanced, NPR isn't doing any better.

Nothing new here, either.

Elsewhere, there's a fair amount of chatter.

Why is this important, you wonder?

Because the end of the controversy isn't being reported like the beginning.

The false accusations against the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit were widely reported, even in less biased news organizations, despite the evidence being thin.

But the final proof that they were false, and that the observational record that underlies the theory of anthropogenic climate change is solid, is absent from the airwaves so far.

Controversy sells.

Denouement doesn't .

But by not reporting both equally, our media creates false impressions.

And it's one of the reasons our media sucks.

No School like the New School

2011-10-25T23:13:00.006-04:00

One of the perennial issues politicians and the media like to take up is How Our Failing Schools Are Failing. Oh noes! The problem is, it's not true. America remains, in aggregate, a well-educated country. The actual problem is that a subset of public primary and secondary schools are failing miserably, mainly those in poor areas where parents fail their own kids in ways that schools can't entirely fix. But it's useful to the agenda of the far right for them to say that public schools writ large are failing, and our lousy media dutifully repeats the charge.

Now, of course and obviously, even the parts of the public school system that are doing well can be improved. One of the ways I believe American schools can be improved is by changing the curriculum to better reflect today's society. I'm not sure how the six subject curriculum that middle and high schools have traditionally offered began, but the fact that the school day lasted roughly six hours suggests that it happened largely by default. And it really wasn't six subjects; it was four plus two. The big four were primary language (English in the US), math, social studies, and science. The two were health and physical education (through 10th grade) along with one and then two electives of whatever else students or parents or local school board wants. Sometimes it was a foreign language, sometimes arts, sometimes a second science, and so on. But having only one or two slots available for all the other things a student might learn just wasn't enough. Because of this, most high schools have moved to a seven period day so students have more opportunities for electives.

Seven periods still isn't enough, however. I don't say that simply because I think "one lounder" would automatically be better. Instead, I believe that schools should teach a curriculum of eight subjects, all treated equally¹ (at least through 10th grade), because there are eight subject groups that students need to learn. Those would be the first four listed above, plus health and physical education, a second language, the arts, and technology. Briefly, here's why each is important.

Primary language - A student should be proficient in the primary language of the country in which they live. This may or may not be the same as a student's home language, and in some places in some countries may be different from the local or regional language.² Given the complexity of modern life, a person needs to be able to function in the language of most legal and economic transactions where they live, and anything less than proficiency puts them at a disadvantage. The literature of the primary languages is also a major component of a country's cultural heritage, and a student should be aware of it.
Mathematics - Basic math is very useful in everyday life, and higher math is a necessary skill for large number of disciplines.³
Physical sciences - The individual sciences and the scientific method in general are far better at describing the Earth we live on than anything else people have thought of before. They also provide the basis for many technologies and industries.
Social studies - It is not possible to understand a society without having at least some understanding of how it developed. History teaches that. Other classes in the category are more focused on how societies function and compare today. Taken together they enable a person to understand the governance and politics of their country.
Health and physical education - Children need to be active for the sake of their health, and because they usually have the urge to be. They also need to have a basic understanding of their own physiology in order to better maintain their health as they get older.
Second language - Globalization means that people in one country often interact with those in or from another, and knowing a second language enables a person to interact on more equal terms with people with at least one foreign country. Minor benefits of a second language shown by some studies are improvement in first language learning, and in general cognitive ability.
Technology - Humans use a variety of technologies, both low and high, in their everyday life. Everybody should have a basic understanding of things like how oil is refined, a house is constructed, electricity is generated, a computer is programmed, and so on. Having a general understanding enables a person to better interact with the technologies and make decisions about them.
Fine arts - The arts are usually neglected once a student is ready to do something more than paint with their fingers or play a triangle. But because visual arts and music are important parts of a country's culture, and many people derive a great amount of pleasure in taking part in them, they should be taught as much any other subject.

Moving to an eight subject curriculum would have a number of practical implication. The first is that the daily bell schedule would need to be adjusted. The simplest solution, which would be to jam more class periods into the same amount of time, isn't a good one because of the overhead imposed by class changes. It is a fact of life that students require a few minutes to settle down after the bell rings, and get restless a few minutes before. And the intermission, or break, can't be reduced below 5 minutes, or even 10 minutes in really big schools, simply because it takes a certain amount of time to walk from one classroom to another. Those two factors coupled with an eight-period day would mean that a significant portion of each day would consist of non-productive time. Instead of eight periods, schools would need to use either a 1+4 or an A/B system. The 1+4 system has one day of short classes combined with four days with four long periods periods each. Under the plan, a student would have one set of subjects on Tuesday and Thursday, and another on Wednesday and Friday, plus all subjects on Monday. An A/B system simply alternates four long periods periods, which results in a pattern that repeats every two weeks.⁴ The 1+4 arrangement does have one day that has more non-productive time, but some systems see that day as useful for tests and other tasks that would break up a longer day.

The second implication is that the school year would need to be extended. If the annual calendar was kept the same, dividing the day (virtually) into eight blocks instead of six would reduce the amount of time spent on each subject - unless the school day was made drastically longer. However, I don't see why the current standard of 9000 minutes (nominal) of instruction annually for each subject should be considered necessary or optimal. At the same time, if all other things are equal, less time spent on a subject means less learned about a subject. Increasing the school year by 20 days to 200 would keep the reduction in time to less than 10%, when combined with a slightly longer day. I think an expansion of the amount of real teaching time that would come from using a bell schedule with bigger blocks would make up for the rest.⁵

The third implication of moving to eight subjects, which follows from the previous two, is that more teachers would have to be hired. Assuming they get one free period per day, it would take about 11% more teachers for the same number of students. Teachers would also want a pay increase, because their annual classroom time would go up. Since teacher pay is their largest expense, school systems would see a big rise in costs. I think the extra spending would be worthwhile, because the changes leading to the increase would cause incomes to rise for everybody, especially at the lower end.

This is a graphical summary of the curriculum changes detailed above. (The specific class names aren't important for this post, so don't get hung up on them.) It also adds in two other issues not directly linked to expanding the curriculum. One is that the age where specific subject matter teaching starts should be decreased. I don't think there is any bright line on when that should happen, but I think it's definitely before 7th grade, which is the typical point in much of the US. Note that I'm not saying the eight subjects shouldn't be taught in lower primary, just that the point at which subjects are taught by subject-matter experts should be at a younger age than is now the case.

The other new issue is vocational education. Most of the time discussion of secondary education excludes everyone not on a college track, which amounted to 45% of the people who left high school in 2009. This includes dropouts, along with those who do graduate but don't attend either a two-year or four-year college right away.⁶ There are vocational programs for some students, but clearly it's not sufficient. And more vocational training is needed because a strictly academic model doesn't teach many skills that are immediately useful in the jobs that people with no experience and only a high-school education are likely to take.

However, increasing the number of students on a vocational track does have problems. The main one is the potential for both explicit and unintentional discrimination. I don't know of an easy, mechanical way of solving that issue, but it does exist and should be acknowledged. There are also logistical issues due to the need for specialized teaching facilities for most vocations. The exact solution to that depends on the nature of the school district and the economy in the surrounding region, and I'm not going to try to address all of the potential arrangements here.

Regardless of who is placed in each one, the split between the academic and vocational tracks should start in the 11th grade. I think making the decision sooner would yield more poor outcomes, because students would have not had enough time to develop their interests and academic abilities. On the other hand, while pushing it back a year would be less bad, that would force non-academically inclined students to spend a year in classes that they won't really benefit from. Academic classes wouldn't be completely eliminated from the vocational track in this model, however. Even after 10th grade, there are still some subjects that every student should take, and that can't be taught to younger students because of complexity.

None the changes I propose above are radical, though taken together they are significant. A truly revolutionary change would be to end secondary education at age 16, and move students into a system of "colleges" similar to what Québec has. The American junior colleges (aka community colleges) aren't quite the same, as many of the programs they offer replicate the first two years of a four-year degree. In Québec, attending a college is a prerequisite for entering a university, but baccalaureate programs are typically only three years long. The four-level system has some merits, but at this point I don't see them as being so great that they would be worth disrupting the current education system to the degree that would be necessary to implement the new third layer.

Unfortunately, my proposal won't be considered, and not only because I'm just some blogger on the internet that nobody reads. As in a lot of other policy areas, the current discussion about schools is just irrational. Not only is the very real problem of educating poor students not being addressed, we're instead talking about how teachers unions are supposedly ruining everything. Until we actually talk about the actual problems the country faces, things are only going to get worse.

1. Potentially schools could offer a curriculum of eight subjects with unequal treatment, but that would make scheduling much harder. It would also put the less emphasized subjects at greater risk of being cut completely for budgetary reasons.
2. Language instruction is a touchy issue in many countries, especially where there are long-established minority language regions. The political outcome is frequently to either teach the regional language as a second language, or to teach the full curriculum in the regional language. In the US, where there are a lot of students who are recent immigrants, bilingual education in all of the home languages would be a logistical problem. The solution has been to give extra English language instruction for a couple of years, which often isn't enough for older students.
3. Specific classes aren't too important for this post, but I firmly believe that both statistics and accounting should be taught in high school, and to non-technical students they would be much more useful than advanced abstract math such as calculus. Adding statistics and accounting means every student would have at least one math classes every year until they graduate.
4. An example of a four-class day would be: 4x85 minutes of classes, plus 3x5 minutes for breaks, plus 30 minutes for lunch, plus 5 minutes for home room, for a total of 390 minutes. An example of an eight-class day would be: 8x40 minutes of classes, plus 7x5 minutes for breaks, plus 30 minutes for lunch, plus 5 minutes for home room, for a total of 390 minutes. An example of a traditional day would be: 6x50 minutes of classes, plus 5x5 minutes for breaks, plus 30 minutes for lunch, plus 5 minutes for home room, for a total of 360 minutes.
5. The percentage depends which of the two schedules is used. The 1+4 system yields 210 minutes per week per class (40+85+85), and the A/B system yields (on average) 212.5 minutes per week per class (85+85+85/2). Multiplying those counts by 40, then dividing by 9000 returns 93.3% and 94.4% of the traditional arrangement of 5 periods of 50 minutes per week per class for 36 weeks.
6. Cumulative enrollment of each annual cohort goes up over time to about 60% because some people delay attending college for various reasons, and others change their mind about attending after being in the workforce.

Long, Long Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

2011-10-21T22:17:00.002-04:00

.. a star shone. Lots of them, in fact. And somewhat more recently, some people have made it their career to look at them. That's not a bad choice, if you can hack the math. However, as science has progressed, the number of sites where cutting-edge research can be done has shrunk, especially at the optical wavelength. Because the Earth's atmosphere is opaque to much of the electromagnetic spectrum, including light to some degree, telescopes are best located at high-elevation sites. A site should also be dry, have stable air, and be upwind from large land masses so that the amount of aerosols is lower. And finally, a site should not have a lot of light pollution. Those factors limit the number of premier sites for optical astronomy to three, which are northern Chile, the island of La Palma in the Atlantic, and the islands of Hawai'i and Maui in the Pacific. Southern California would be included in that list, but the megalopolis of LOSSAN gives off too much light pollution. So the best sites in the US are farther from the coast, in Arizona and New Mexico. Western Morocco, Namibia, and Baja California are being looked at for potential locations by more observatories as other good sites fill up, but for now they remain mostly undeveloped.

All that is by of way introducing my latest maps, which are of major astronomical observatories in North America and in South America. Both maps contain all of the "research-class" telescopes that I have found on the net. Included are all optical (which includes near-UV and infrared) telescopes over 1.0m (40"), many optical telescopes down to about 0.4m depending on location, a number of project-dedicated optical telescopes, most solar telescopes, and most radio telescopes. Not included are telescopes primarily used for teaching, historic telescopes, telescopes at science museums and planetariums, telescopes used by amateurs for minor planet discovery, and indirect observing projects such as neutrino and cosmic ray observatories. There's nothing wrong with those instruments, or their purposes. But either they aren't used for research that will contribute to the body of astronomical knowledge, or they can't image distinct sources. As always, I have tried to be as thorough as possible, but there are certainly a few inaccuracies. And since I don't speak Spanish or Portuguese, the South American map is undoubtedly incomplete.

Enjoy!

Galaxy-class Assholes

2011-10-18T16:11:00.003-04:00

This really takes the cake, a Nobel, several Olympic Gold medals, and as many Peabodys as O'Reilly thinks he has won:

“Who do you think pays the taxes?” said one longtime money manager. “Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country and do it well. Let’s embrace it. If you want to keep having jobs outsourced, keep attacking financial services. This is just disgruntled people."

He added that he was disappointed that members of Congress from New York, especially Senator Charles E. Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, had not come out swinging for an industry that donates heavily to their campaigns. “They need to understand who their constituency is,” he said.

Most of us who talk about pitchforks, tumbrels, guillotines, and the like are joking. There's not going to have another French Revolution, and the people who want something like to happen that are idiots. Besides, the government has too much firepower, and employees too many people who actually get off on kicking people while they're down. But assholes like the one quoted above prove that the Occupy Wall Street protesters have valid reasons to take on banksters. Not only does he brazenly assert that American legislators should respond to campaign donations, not the voters, which should be enough to get everyone out on the street by itself. But he also shows that Wall Street doesn't understand the American economy or the role of finance in it, and needs to be beaten down for that reason, too. A large, continent-spanning country of 310 million people can't survive on a financial sector concentrated in one city. Only very small countries (less than 1 million people) can. Even Switzerland, which is basically synonymous with banking secrecy and profiting from illicit wealth, has a large and healthy manufacturing sector (albeit with a higher portion of luxury goods makers than most). A big country like the United States has to be good at making stuff. And it is, in some sectors - airplanes and software most notably. The role of a financial sector in such a country should be to facilitate the rest of the economy. Instead, Wall Street has taken to profiting from the decline of other manufacturing sectors, and from increasing inequality. It has both fed and gotten wildly rich from the increasing amount of debt Americans have accumulated in order to maintain their way of life as their incomes have been squeezed. OWS is an entirely legitimate response to the problem the US financial system poses for the vast majority of the citizens of the US.

Picture This and That: Look at Dat Glass Edition

2011-10-15T17:13:00.001-04:00

Photographic lenses, or "glass" in photographer slang, are something a lot of first-time interchangeable lens camera buyers don't really think about when they make their purchase. But they should. In a previous post I said, "there is no point in buying a $1000 receiver and $400 pair of speakers" because bad speakers will degrade source material no matter how good the receiver is. A better analogy would have been, "there is no point in buying a $2000 mixing board and plugging in $15 microphones" because cameras and lenses are visual recording instruments. There may be times when a person would want to use a low-fidelity input device such as a cheap microphone or a plastic camera lens because of the effect it gives. But the same effect can usually be done in processing (mixing or editing), whereas upgrading to a clean picture or recording is difficult or impossible. Photographers usually aim to get the clearest image possible for that reason.

Below are my notes about lenses.

Basic terminology - these are some frequently used terms.

Extension tube - mounts between a body and lens to decrease the focal length
Fast - a lens with a large maximum aperture, generally considered to be f/1.4 to f/2.8 depending on the type of lens, but exotic (read: expensive) lenses can be faster
Filter - blocks a certain portion of incoming light from passing through it; generally screws onto the end of the lens, but some lenses have a filter tray near the middle of the lens barrel
Fisheye - a lens with a very wide field of view and exaggerated distortion
Fixed-focus - typically used only on very low-end cameras
Kit - a lens that comes with the camera, often a 28-85mm zoom
Macro - a lens that allows for close-up work, with minimal magnification
Macro filter - not a filter; mounts on the end of lens to allow close-up work
Portrait - a slightly long-focus lens, with a focal length of 85mm to 105mm
Prime - fixed focal-length lens
Standard or normal - a lens that gives a field of view similar to the human eye, typically 50mm for 35mm cameras, with a range from 40mm to 55mm
Teleconverter - mounts between a body and lens to increase the focal length
Telephoto - a long-focus lens that enlarges distant subjects, with a focal length of 105mm or greater
Teleside converter - mounts on the front of a lens to increase the focal length
Tilt-shift or perspective control - specialty lens used by professionals
Wide-angle - a lens that allows for a greater field of view, with a focal length of 35mm or less
Zoom - a variable focal length lens

OEM manufactures - Lenses from camera manufacturers are generally considered to be, on average, better than the third party manufacturers. None make lenses for any mount but their own, but the lenses can sometimes be re-used with an adapter.

Nikon - F mount lenses
Canon - EF mount and EF-S mount lenses
Sony - Alpha mount (formerly Minolta AF mount) and E mount lenses
Pentax - K mount and Q mount lenses
Olympus - FT mount and mFT mount lenses
Panasonic - FT mount and mFT mount lenses
Samsung - NX mount lenses
Ricoh - GXR integrated sensor/lens units
Pentax, Hasselblad, and Mamiya/Leaf/Phase One make medium format lenses for their own cameras

OEM/Third-party manufacturers - both of these companies make their own cameras and lenses, like the ones above. In the case of Leica, which is widely considered to be the best lens maker in the world, its lenses are often used on other cameras via an adapter. Sigma started out as a third-party manufacturer, and usually is considered the best. It recently created its own line of DSLRs with the unique Foveon sensor.

Leica - S mount and M mount lenses
Sigma - SA mount lenses, plus it is one of the "big three" third-party makers

Third-party manufacturers - these companies make lenses with a variety of mounts. The lenses are mostly manual focus because until recently the OEM companies did not released the electrical specifications for their lens mounts. Some companies have reverse-engineered electrical specifications, with mixed results.

Tokina - one of the "big three" third-party makers
Tamron - one of the "big three" third-party makers
Samyang - Korean manufacturer that makes lenses for a lot of rebranders
Zeiss - high-end lenses
Schneider - tilt-shift lenses
Hartblei - tilt-shift lenses
Arax - tilt-shift and fisheye lenses
Voigtländer - Cosina makes lenses under this name
LZOS - Russia company selling two fisheyes
KMZ - Russia company with several lenses, usually branded Zenitar
Belomo - Belorussian company with several lenses
Kowa - makes only one telephoto lens that can also be used as a sighting scope
Noktor - fast (large aperture) lens made for SLR Magic
Rodenstock, Schneider, Fujinon, and Nikon are the main large-format lens manufacturers
Congo, Osaka, Cooke Optics, and perhaps other very low volume manufacturers also make large format lenses

Third-party rebranders - these companies generally just re-badge lenses designed and built by other companies.

Vivitar - for a long time this was the largest rebrander in the US. It sometimes even had its own lens designs made by others. It seems to have stopped making lenses, though they are still available from some retailer
Rokinon - lenses mostly seem to be Samyang
Promaster - Wolf Camera "house" brand
Pro Optic - may be Adorama "house" brand; lenses mostly seem to be Samyang
Bower - may be B&H "house" brand; lenses mostly seem to be Samyang
Quantary - Ritz Camera "house" brand
Phoenix - Samyang captive brand
Opteka - may be 47th Street Photo "house" brand; lenses mostly seem to be Samyang
Kenko - Tokina lenses are sometimes sold under this captive brand
and probably others around the world; historically there have been hundreds of such brands
Sinar, Linhof, and Caltar apparently rebrand large-format lenses

Specialty and novelty manufacturers - several companies offer lenses that create certain retro or low-fidelity effects, or that have limited appeal for some reason.

Lensbaby - low-fi tilt-shift and fisheye lenses
Holga - low-fi lenses
Sunex - super fisheye lens
Wanderlust - pinhole lens
SLR Magic - low-fi lenses available on e-Bay
Subjektiv - 4-in-1 low-fi lens
Loreo - body cap lenses
Jenoptik - UV & IR lenses

MSC lenses - this is a chart of lenses available, or announced and likely to appear, for mirrorless system cameras as of October 2011. It contains all lenses with a native physical mount, though some are not electrically compatible and thus have to be manually controlled. The Micro Four-Thirds mount has the most lenses available, though a lot of them are rough duplicates because there are two companies making cameras for the mount. However, at any particular focal length, one of the lenses may be a better than the other, so it is worth looking at the reviews for both brands. I think it's unlikely that there will ever be any quality third-party lenses for the Q mount, and perhaps the CX mount as well, because of the small sensor size. On the other hand, the E mount will eventually attract several third-party makers because the NEX platform is likely to be moderately successful, and Sony has offered to license the electrical specification for the mount. Samsung seems to have realized that as a very minor player, one of the ways it could get more attention is to field a large array of lenses for the NX mount in short order, which it has. Focal distances are listed both at the native crop factor and as 35mm-equivalent.

Mount	Brand	Name	Type	AF	FD Min	FD Max	Eq. Min	Eq. Max
CX	Nikon	Nikkor 10mm f/2.8	Wide prime	Yes	10	10	27	27
CX	Nikon	Nikkor VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6	Standard zoom	Yes	10	30	27	81
CX	Nikon	Nikkor VR 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 PD-zoom	Super zoom	Yes	10	100	27	270
CX	Nikon	Nikkor VR 30-110mm f/3.8-5.6	Telephoto zoom	Yes	30	110	81	297
E	Rokinon	8mm Ultra wide Angle f/3.5 Fisheye Lens	Fisheye prime	No	8	8	12	12
E	Sony	16mm f/2.8 wide-Angle Lens	Wide prime	Yes	16	16	24	24
E	Sony	18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Zoom Lens	Standard zoom	Yes	18	55	27	83
E	Sony	18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 Zoom Lens	Super zoom	Yes	18	200	27	300
E	Sony	Carl Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 Lens	Wide prime	Yes	24	24	36	36
E	Sony	30mm f/3.5 Macro Lens	Normal prime	Yes	30	30	45	45
E	Sony	50mm f/1.8 Telephoto Lens	Telephoto prime	Yes	50	50	75	75
E	Sony	55-210mm Zoom Lens	Telephoto zoom	Yes	55	210	83	315
E	Noktor	HyperPrime 50mm f/0.95	Telephoto prime	No	50	50	75	75
mFT	Panasonic	Lumix G Vario 7-14mm F4.0 Asph.	Wide zoom	Yes	7	14	14	28
mFT	Samyang	7.5mm 1:3.5 UMC Fisheye MFT	Fisheye prime	No	8	8	15	15
mFT	Panasonic	Lumix G Fisheye 8mm F3.5	Fisheye prime	Yes	8	8	16	16
mFT	Olympus	M.Zuiko Digital ED 9-18mm F4.0-5.6	Wide zoom	Yes	9	18	18	36
mFT	Wanderlust	Pinwide	Specialty lens	No	11	11	22	22
mFT	Olympus	M.Zuiko Digital ED 12mm F2.0	Wide prime	Yes	12	12	24	24
mFT	Panasonic	Lumix G 14mm F2.5 Asph.	Wide prime	Yes	14	14	28	28
mFT	Olympus	M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-42mm F3.5-5.6	Standard zoom	Yes	14	42	28	84
mFT	Olympus	M.Zuiko Digital 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 II	Standard zoom	Yes	14	42	28	84
mFT	Olympus	M.Zuiko Digital 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 II R	Standard zoom	Yes	14	42	28	84
mFT	Panasonic	Lumix G Vario 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 Asph. Mega O.I.S.	Standard zoom	Yes	14	42	28	84
mFT	Panasonic	Lumix G X Vario PZ 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 Asph. Power O.I.S.	Standard zoom	Yes	14	42	28	84
mFT	Panasonic	Lumix G Vario 14-45mm F3.5-5.6 Asph. Mega O.I.S.	Standard zoom	Yes	14	45	28	90
mFT	Panasonic	Lumix G Vario HD 14-140mm F4.0-5.8 Asph. Mega O.I.S	Super zoom	Yes	14	140	28	280
mFT	Olympus	M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-150mm F4.0-5.6	Super zoom	Yes	14	150	28	300
mFT	Olympus	M.Zuiko Digital 17mm F2.8	Wide prime	Yes	17	17	34	34
mFT	Panasonic	Lumix G 20mm F1.7 Asph.	Wide prime	Yes	20	20	40	40
mFT	Panasonic	Leica DG Summilux 25mm F1.4 Asph.	Normal prime	Yes	25	25	50	50
mFT	Voigtlander	Nokton 25mm F0.95	Normal prime	No	25	25	50	50
mFT	Olympus	M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm F4.0-5.6	Telephoto zoom	Yes	40	150	80	300
mFT	Olympus	M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm F4.0-5.6 R	Telephoto zoom	Yes	40	150	80	300
mFT	Olympus	M.Zuiko Digital 45mm F1.8	Telephoto prime	Yes	45	45	90	90
mFT	Panasonic	Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45mm F2.8 Asph. Mega O.I.S.	Telephoto prime	Yes	45	45	90	90
mFT	Panasonic	Lumix G X Vario PZ 45-175mm F4.0-5.6 Asph. Power O.I.S.	Telephoto zoom	Yes	45	175	90	350
mFT	Panasonic	Lumix G Vario 45-200mm F4.0-5.6 Mega O.I.S	Telephoto zoom	Yes	45	200	90	400
mFT	Noktor	HyperPrime 50mm f/0.95	Telephoto prime	No	50	50	100	100
mFT	Olympus	M.Zuiko Digital ED 75-300mm F4.8-6.7	Telephoto zoom	Yes	75	300	150	600
mFT	Panasonic	Lumix G Vario 100-300mm F4.0-5.6 Mega O.I.S	Telephoto zoom	Yes	100	300	200	600
NX	Samyang	8mm F3.5 Fisheye	Fisheye prime	No	8	8	12	12
NX	Samyang	14mm F2.8 IF ED MC Aspherical	Wide prime	No	14	14	21	21
NX	Samsung	16mm F2.4 Pancake	Wide prime	Yes	16	16	24	24
NX	Samsung	16-80mm F3.5-4.5 OIS	Standard zoom	Yes	16	80	24	120
NX	Samsung	18-55mm Portrait Lens	Standard zoom	Yes	18	55	27	83
NX	Samsung	Compact 18-55mm Zoom Lens	Standard zoom	Yes	18	55	27	83
NX	Samsung	18-200mm Multi-Purpose Lens	Super zoom	Yes	18	200	27	300
NX	Samsung	20mm NX Pancake Lens	Wide prime	Yes	20	20	30	30
NX	Samsung	Ultra Compact 20-50mm Zoom Lens	Standard zoom	Yes	20	50	30	75
NX	Samyang	24mm f/1.4 ED AS UMC	Wide prime	No	24	24	36	36
NX	Samsung	30mm NX Pancake Lens	Normal prime	Yes	30	30	45	45
NX	Samyang	35mm F1.4 AS UMC	Normal prime	No	35	35	53	53
NX	Samsung	50-200mm Telephoto Zoom Lens	Telephoto zoom	Yes	50	200	75	300
NX	Samsung	50-200mm NX Telephoto OIS Lens	Telephoto zoom	Yes	50	200	75	300
NX	Samsung	60mm F2.8 Macro ED OIS SSA	Telephoto prime	Yes	60	60	90	90
NX	Samsung	85mm F1.4 ED SSA	Telephoto prime	Yes	85	85	128	128
NX	Samyang	85mm F1.4 Aspherical IF	Telephoto prime	No	85	85	128	128
Q	Pentax	Fish-Eye 3.2mm f/5.6	Fisheye prime	No	3	3	18	18
Q	Pentax	Standard zoom 5-15mm f/2.8-4.5	Standard zoom	Yes	5	15	28	84
Q	Pentax	Toy Lens wide 6.3mm f/7.1	Specialty lens	No	6	6	35	35
Q	Pentax	Standard Prime 8.5mm f/1.9 AL [IF]	Normal prime	Yes	9	9	48	48
Q	Pentax	Toy Lens Telephoto 18mm f/8	Specialty lens	No	18	18	101	101

Finally-ish

2011-10-15T15:39:00.001-04:00

Praise FSM and pass the stuffing. Okay, there may be as many as 150 directly-employed US troops left, along with 5,000 or more indirectly employed troops and 11,000 other people at the US "embassy" in Baghdad, but the US will officially stop occupying at least one country this year.

After over eight years and nine months, George Bush's entirely unnecessary war will finally end.

Picture This and That: October 2011 Comparison Chart

2011-09-30T11:34:00.003-04:00

There have been several new interchangeable lens digital cameras announced recently, so here's a chart of what's available today. The newcomers are the Nikon J1 and V1 mirrorless system cameras, the Sony A65 and A77 single lens translucent cameras, the Sony NEX-5N and NEX-7 MSCs, and the Samsung NX200 MSC. Sony, Olympus, and Pentax each put two DSLR models to bed. Sony still has two consumer DSLRs on the market, but I didn't show them because the SLT technology is clearly the future for Sony. There are no links this time; if you want more details you can click away in the previous post.

		Big 2		Upstart	Little 4
Camera category	Brand (2010 ILC market share)	Canon (45%)	Nikon (30%)	Sony (12%)	Pentax (?)	Olympus (5%)	Panasonic (?)	Samsung (?)
RF-style MSC price w/ zoom	Low-end	-	-	NEX-C3 16.2MP $550	-	E-PM1 12.3MP $500	-	NX100 14.6MP $425
	Mid-Range	-	J1 10.1MP $650	NEX-5n 16.1M $700	-	E-PL3 12.3MP $650	DMC-GF3 12.1MP $675	-
	High-end	-	V1 10.1MP $900	NEX-7 24.1MP $1350	Q 12.4MP $900	E-P3 12.3MP $900	-	NX200 20.3MP $900
Consumer DSLR / SLT / MSC price w/ zoom	Beginner	1100D/T3 12.2MP $550	D3100 14.2MP $600	SLT-A35 16.2MP $600	K-r 12.4MP $600	E-620 12.2MP $600	-	NX11 14.6MP $550
	Mid-Range	600D/T3i 18.0MP $850	D5100 16.2MP $800	SLT-A55 16.2MP $800	-	-	DMC-G3 15.8MP $700	-
	Enthusiast	60D 18.0MP $1200	D7000 16.2MP $1450	SLT-A65 24.3MP $1000	K-5 16.3MP $1350	-	DMC-GH2 16.1MP $1000	-
Professional DSLR / SLT price body only	Mid-size	7D 18.0MP $1600	D300s 12.3MP $1600	SLT-A77 24.3MP $1400	-	E-5 12.3MP $1500	-	-
	Mid-size full frame	5D Mk.II 21.0MP $2400	D700 12.1MP $2700	DSLR-A900 24.3MP $2700	-	-	-	-
	Flagship action	1D Mk.IV 16.1MP $5000	D3s 12.1MP $5200	-	-	-	-	-
	Flagship studio	1Ds Mk.III 21.1MP $7000	D3x 24.5MP $8000	-	-	-	-	-

Update 2011/10/03: All Sony DSLRs have been discontinued in Japan, and the same should happen in the US sometime soon.

Another Dismal (Social) Scientist

2011-09-26T19:38:00.001-04:00

Via Atrios comes this short column in the Guardian by Stergios Skaperdas that goes into a bit more detail about the mechanics of a Greek default and exit from the Eurozone. The shorter on the column is: default is better than massive deflation, and default will bankrupt Greek banks, and to recapitalize them Greece will need its own currency, and it will have to institute tight currency and capital controls for a while, and all of that requires planning, which hasn't been started as far as anyone knows. So, either the Greek government is executing masterfully, as evidenced by there being no indication whatsoever that it is about to default, or it is failing the Greek people. I'm going to say it's the latter, as governments are failing their citizens all over the place these days.

The Dismal (Social) Scientist

2011-09-26T13:55:00.004-04:00

I think Krugman is getting a bit frustrated. Well, more frustrated. So frustrated, in fact, he Godwined-in-all-but-name his own column. Today he also comes about as close to calling the Eurozone elites idiots as is possible within the NYT's civility rules. He's done so more-or-less explicitly on his blog, but that probably has a readership that is smaller by a factor of 10 or 20. Maybe a more prominently-place tongue-lashing will have an effect, though I wouldn't count on it.

One reason for Krugman to lash out is that The Big, Fat Greek Depression continues. The NYT has a good color article today on what the austerity is doing to the typical Greek family. Real household income for the Firigou family has fallen about 40% between pension cuts, salary cuts, and increased taxes. But at least they still have income. Lots of families are undoubtedly doing much worse.

I still haven't found a good explanation for why the Greek government, which is currently controlled by the nominally left-wing Panhellenic Socialist Movement, refuses to default. Is it national pride, or are they genuinely worried about private external debt problems? Those would remain, and get much worse, if Greece defaulted and switched to a new currency. I suspect most wealthy Greeks have transferred most of their liquid wealth to some other location, so that reason should not be holding the politicians up. It's a puzzle I can't crack from afar.

ETA: Some schnitzel from Germany expects Greece to suffer for a whole decade? That will certainly happen if it doesn't default. On the up side, the Italian Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti is pushing back on Germany's approach pretty hard, at least in that article.

Mini to the Max

2011-09-23T22:57:00.000-04:00

I just finished upgrading my iPod Mini Gen. 2, and it was a fairly straightforward procedure. I mangled the aluminum case slightly getting the top and bottom plates off. But I'm hardly a fashionista, and it never leaves the house, so I don't care. (I use it with various sub/sat systems positioned around the house.) I do care that even with the old 6GB microdrive still installed, the new battery boosted play time from 2-3 hours to at least 15. I haven't tested the play time with the flash card, but it should be even greater. You don't need a super-fast flash card when upgrading, as the specs on the microdrive weren't all that great. The battery and the flash card cost about $37 including shipping. There are instructions on how to do this all over the intertubes.

Default Already, Dammit

2011-09-22T18:15:00.005-04:00

This is fucking nuts. The Eurozone is experiencing a self-inflicted disaster, but the perpetrators won't be made to pay.

Update 2011/09/23: Krugman lists some of the perpetrators, and then wonders about the social dynamics inside those organizations. It's a good question. It seems to me that in the West, the financial industry has triumphed in several countries, most notably the US and the UK. And there have been conservative governments in many countries which have appointed conservative-leaning people to those institutions. Those countries include the US (2001-2009), Canada (2006-present), Germany (2005-present), France (1995-present), Australia (1996-2007), and Italy (2001-2005 and 2008-present). The UK also had a nominally left-wing but very finance-friendly government from 1997 to 2010, when the Conservatives took over. Ditto for the US from 1993 to 2001. The policies and opinions of the international financial institutions (BIS, IMF, ECB, and WB, plus the OECD which is a data and analysis operation) reflect those factors. The low-inflation, low-regulation leanings of the leaders have filtered down from the top, as well as in from the side, though lower-level channels, from the finance industry, which those organizations deal with on a regular basis.

Our Skies Are Bigger Than Our Wallet

2011-09-14T18:03:00.004-04:00

Today, NASA announced its plan to develop a heavy lift vehicle (aka rocket) called - rather uncreatively - the Space Launch System (SLS). It would use many parts and technologies from the Space Shuttle program in an effort to save money. But despite that, the cost is huge: $3 billion annually through the first test flight in 2017, for a total of $18B. That's too much, as far as I am concerned, especially in light of the fact there is no defined need for it. There's plenty of hoped-for missions amongst human spaceflight supporters, such as to the Moon and to Mars, but those are entirely unfunded at this point. If the cost was lower, then I would support the program despite its speculative nature. But at $3B per year, the funding will definitely eat into other programs. I have no idea if the $18B price tag is justified in terms of the manpower and materials needed to accomplish the task, or if that number is bloated due to too much contracting and sub-contracting. I do know that making the SLS man-rated will add to the cost, and as I explained before, there's no reason to do so given the parallel development of commercial capsules and the availability of the Russian Soyuz vehicle (though the Soyuz launch system had a small problem last month).

At this point the best option for a heavy lift vehicle is the Falcon Heavy, which has a test launch scheduled in early 2013. It will only have a maximum capacity of 50,000 kg to low-earth orbit, as compared to 70,000 kg for the first launch of the SLS, which is intended to have a maximum capacity of 130,000 kg. But the Falcon Heavy will be available much sooner, at a much lower cost, and, again, as of now there is no defined need to lob something that heavy into orbit. If for some reason a larger spacecraft is needed, it can be assembled in orbit, just like the Space Station has been. That would add costs to a mission, but probably not so much that the $18B SLS program would become justified.

Tenth Aniversary Pre-buttal

2011-09-11T00:12:00.001-04:00

I'm tuning out for the next 24+ hours, because it's been a shitty decade, and all the talk about service and sacrifice and heroism and hope and whatever can't erase the fact that it's been a shitty decade.

Thanks, President ~~Bush~~ Cheney.

Bestest Grafick Evah

2011-09-09T13:38:00.000-04:00

From this Robert Reich op-ed, which is good, comes the graphic below, which is great.

This is the best summary of the negative trends that have pinched the middle class over the last 35 years. The point about women working comes across as slightly sexist, but I don't think the equivalent data for both sexes (dads can stay at home, too) exists, at least for the time period involved. So the excellent NYT graphics department used the best available series.

We've been running the Republican experiment since the 1980s - cut taxes, cut social spending, cut public investment, increase war and security spending, and outsource much of the latter - and it hasn't produced good results for the majority of Americans. The underlying trends - globalization, computerization - would still exist if we had stuck with Democratic policies, but overlaying Republican policies on those trends has amplified them. Capital moves quicker and farther than labor, and giving more capital to the rich has only allowed them to shuffle it around with greater ease, dragging jobs with it.

All Good Things Must Pass

2011-09-05T22:22:00.002-04:00

Jus' sayin'.

From the Annals of the Entirely Unsurprising

2011-08-22T21:11:00.000-04:00

The NY Times reports today that the Japanese government is about to declare a significant area around the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant as uninhabitable for the foreseeable future. It's not going to buy the properties in the no-go zone, however. The Japanese government will rent them instead. That's a good way of putting off the day of reckoning, which would cost a pretty penny. (I'm likely off with all of these numbers but the scale is what is important here.) If we use a price of $200,000 per home, every 5,000 homes condemned would cost about $1 billion to buy. That's not much compared to Japan's GDP, but renting would only cost about $90 million per year if the monthly rent is $1500. That adds up quickly, of course, but in 11 or 13 years, when the rental costs surpass the cost of outright purchase plus interest, none of the politicians in charge will be around.

I think what is likely to happen in somewhat cramped Japan is that the worst affected areas will be bought in 5 or 10 years, partially cleaned, and then converted into large industrial districts. The population of Japan is already declining, so the housing units won't be missed that much (from an economic perspective). In the meantime, tens of thousands of people will be left in limbo, not able to sell and move on, or go home. And so the crisis will continue for years, even after the reactors are brought under control.

Smoke Two Joints

2011-08-17T22:54:00.001-04:00

phhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHtt.... wah? O hai.

Actually, I don't smoke anything, or even drink these days. But this writeup at Wired of some fascinating research makes me think I should start ... if it were legal. It turns out not only does using pot not make you permanently stupid, it actually makes you smarter in one particular way when you're high - word association. It's a little more complicated than that, of course. And there is some reduction in short-term verbal memory among current heavy users. But overall, this is another piece of evidence that supports the decriminalization of marijuana. The harm caused by criminalization continues to far outweigh the harm caused by the drug itself.

On a strictly anecdotal basis, I've always thought the dumb stoner/hippy affect was a sub-cultural artifact. The whole "oh, wow, man" attitude may be induced by getting high, but its carryover to the rest of people's waking lives was a learned trait. Fortunately the sub-culture has mostly gone away, especially now that The Dead are dead.

Is Our Central Bankers Learning?

2011-08-10T12:51:00.002-04:00

Twice in the past three days, important central banks have actually done something slightly positive. Sunday night it was the European Central Bank deciding to intervene in the Italian and Spanish sub-sovereign bond markets. Yesterday it was the Federal Reserve setting expectations on how long it plans to keep its current low-interest rate policy. The ECB's intervention has worked, at least temporarily, as the interest rate premiums for both countries vs. Germany have dropped sharply (divide the numbers by 100 to get real world units). The Fed's statement was aimed at general sentiment, not any specific index, so it's a little early to say if it worked.

In both cases, however, the gap between what is being done and what should be done is still far too wide. Hopefully, these two actions were just first steps towards more sensible policies.

Update: 2011.08.11: Yves Smith talks about the central bank actions.

What Goes Down Must Come Up?

2011-08-09T19:20:00.002-04:00

Thank goodness our markets are so eminently rational.

Here's an annotated chart of today's market movements. In 30 minutes, starting at 2:15 when the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee released its latest meeting statement, the DJI went up by 77 points, then down 227 points, then up 146 points, and finally down 285 points. In the 75 minutes from 2:45 to the close (the computers took about 7 minutes to spit out the final number) the DJI increased 624 points, or about 5.8% from the intra-day low.

Is there any possible justification for this kind of herd behavior?

CowabungAA+

2011-08-08T16:43:00.001-04:00

Ho-ly cow. Stocks down, bonds up (yields move opposite of prices). Thanks, S&P.

Up, Down, Turn Around

2011-08-05T21:54:00.004-04:00

I want to thank S&P for providing me with this evening's quota of humor. If you're going to do something as momentous as downgrading the U.S. Government's credit rating, at least get the numbers right first. And after embarrassing itself so thoroughly, I suspect S&P went through with the change mostly so it could distract everybody from its foolishness.

On the sober, serious side, Salmon has some good comments on the situation. The US remains the richest country in the world, with very low tax rates compared with other industrialized countries. But the political risk of default is ~~very, very~~ real. Heck, if "the deal" had been bad enough, I would have been willing to bring on the default. As it turned out, the deal is merely mildly counterproductive - at least until the new and improved Catfood Commission II reports in. But the entire crisis was purposely contrived to extract spending cuts that the Teahadists wouldn't have been able to negotiate with the Senate and White House. The best analogy I can come up with is a doctor holding a pneumonia patient hostage by threatening to shoot the patient unless the doctor is allowed to amputate a leg. The US is suffering through a huge jobs crisis, but the Teahadists want to cut government spending, and they were willing shut the US government down and ruin its credit rating in order to get what they wanted. Fortunately (or not), all they got was a promise to consider amputation in a few months.

BREAKING! MUST CREDIT... just about everyone. Okay, here's some text from S&P's release:

We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and will remain a contentious and fitful process.

Heh-indeedy. Unfortunately, the rest is worse. But that's not surprising, as the way S&P inserted itself in the debate to begin with showed that it was clearly on one side. The release as whole is basically a continuation of their pressure to act in a certain way.

Added: Krugman weighs in with a somewhat harsher view of S&P than Salmon.

Added: Drum thinks the risk of actual default was and is remote. I used to think that, but I no longer believe that the Teahadists are under anybody's control.

Added: Here's a good post on why the practical effects of a downgrade - even by all three agencies - are likely to be minimal. I largely agree, though I would qualify it with "in the short term" more explicitly. Another qualifier that I would add is "provided nothing bad happens elsewhere." A breakup of the Euro would send investors piling into any US asset, especially Treasuries, driving down yields sharply.

How's That Working For You: July 2011 Edition

2011-08-05T14:28:00.002-04:00

Here's the latest in another chart series that I abandoned for a while.

The recession is pretty obvious here.

I think the data speaks for itself.

And here.

The unemployment rate is staying high instead of declining from a peak as it did in 1981.

Next are zoomed versions of the previous two graphs

Population growth has slipped below 1%.

The labor force data has become very noisy since the beginning of the pre-recession in early 2007. That's when people started experiencing that Wile E. Coyote moment and growth slowed.

She's Got a Trichet to Ride

2011-08-04T15:08:00.002-04:00

Megadiving in the markets today. Nobody knows for sure what fears live in the hearts of market makers, but today it seems to be goings-on in Yurp, where the German-Italian bond spread continues to balloon. The ECB's policies have been disastrous, predictably.

The most interesting proposal to resolve the crisis is this one from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. Generally I find AE-P to be a bit of a breathless blowhard, but at first glance the idea that Germany should withdraw from the Euro is quite intriguing. Germany, along with a few others in concert, are more likely to be able to pull off a orderly withdrawal because they are more likely to be able to keep the whole thing secret. Discretion during any unplanned currency switchover is very important, because public knowledge is likely to trigger a bank run. (The situation is different if the changeover is announced years in advance, as happened with the formation of the Euro.) The new currency - lets call it the nordmark - would appreciate against the rump Euro, allowing the South European countries to regain competitiveness and grown their economies without suffering through years of deflation first..

As always, reality is likely to be a lot more complicated, so such a move may end up making everything worse compared to organizing bailouts and haircuts and other such things within the existing currency union. Or individual countries in the so-called PIIGS quintet may be better off going their own way. Dunno. But like the auto bankruptcies here in America, whatever happens should happen in an organized manner, because we know that chaotic failure will produce the worst outcome. And right now Germany and its proxy the ECB are steering the Eurobus towards a cliff.

Under the Hood: July 2011 Edition

2011-08-02T22:15:00.000-04:00

Sales are up from last month's dismal showing. I am going to wait until next month to see if the Japanese companies have recovered.

There's been several changes to the brands graph since the last time I posted one. Hummer, Mercury, Pontiac, and Saturn are dead. (Isuzu has been dead for a while but lives on in my data.) Ram has been broken out from Dodge as a separate brand. Toyota reported Scion as a separate brand for a few months, but seems to have gone back to combining the data for both brands. Jaguar and Land Rover are reporting sales again. And Fiat makes it's first appearance.

Shit Sandwich, or Just Plain Shit?

2011-08-01T03:14:00.001-04:00

There's very little positive to say about the deal reach today, except that it's better than default, and it's better than other possible deals. The details floating about earlier in the day were skimpy, but awful. The final deal seems to be better, though there are conflicting versions. It's not over yet, however, as one or both House caucuses might reject the deal.

Given a choice between shit or a shit sandwich, I think most people would take the latter. But it's not really something anyone would celebrate. Similarly, default is a worse option than the deal, but the deal is still bad in the absolute. We need more deficit spending now, not less. The economy is very weak, and the longer it stays weak, the bigger our long-term problems will become. We shouldn't be making big cuts to domestic discretionary programs, because they are already insufficient. We should be making more cuts the national security budget, and moving that money over to the domestic side. And so on.

It's crazy that we are even having this discussion.

Update 2011/08/01: Also, not a grand bargain, but no guarantees that the hostage-taking won't happen again with the 2012 and 2013 budgets. And some of the language in the spin from the White House is horrid.

Picture This and That

2011-07-27T14:12:00.025-04:00

At some point in the not-to-distant future, I plan to buy a new (or new to me) digital camera. This time I think I'm going to step up to a digital interchangeable lens camera (ILC). I have owned several digicams, but I've never been all that happy with the results. My Kodak in particular seems to make very bland JPEGs, and the mode/off dial is very frustrating.

The digital camera market has become even more confusing than it was the last time I embarked on a pre-purchase research project. Back then, "bridge cameras" were the Big New Thing. They are still around, as are digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras, but between those are two new categories - mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras (MILC, though for obvious reasons mirrorless system cameras (MSC) seems preferable) and single-lens translucent (SLT) cameras. Arguably, the categories could be combined into a single category called electronic viewfinder interchangeable lens (EVIL), as neither has an optical viewfinder. Cameras in the SLT category still have a mirror, but it is fixed and only the autofocus system uses the light coming off of it. Most passes through to the sensor, and a rear LCD screen or an electronic viewfinder is used for image composition. Cameras in the MSC category do away with the mirror altogether, and they don't incorporate a rangefinder-style optical viewfinder to replace it. There are a few high-end cameras made by Leica that operate like a classic rangefinder, but those have existed for a while, and aren't considered part of the new MSC category. They're also way too expensive for me. Digital medium format cameras all have interchangeable lenses, but they are very expensive and are used almost exclusively by professionals. Large format cameras have always been basically a kit of parts, and again are used almost exclusively by professionals.

I haven't made a final decision yet, but right now I'm leaning towards either a new Olympus PEN E-P3 or a used DSLR of some sort, preferably a Nikon D90 if I can find one cheap enough. I have a few Nikon/Nikkor lenses in the basement that I might be able to use with a Nikon body, but I marked that model because it has racked up the most sales in the segment. Below are some notes I made on the state of the ILC market right now.

Key acronyms - See the text above for details.

MSC - mirrorless system camera
SLT - single-lens transparent
SLR - single-lens reflex

Major manufacturers - The duopoly of Canikon/Nikanon dominates the digital ILC market. They were also the largest film SLR manufacturers before the switch to digital began. Sony entered the DSLR market first by essentially re-badging Konica Minolta products. It then purchased the product line, and has increased sales significantly since then. The items in parenthesis are the types of interchangeable lens cameras the companies make, and their 2010 ILC market shares.

Canon (SLR) (45%)
Nikon (SLR) (30%)
Sony (SLR, SLT, MSC) (12%)

Minor manufacturers - These companies offer smaller product ranges in the digital ILC market. Panasonic and Samsung make only MSCs at this point.

Olympus (SLR, MSC) (5%)
Panasonic (MSC) (?)
Pentax (SLR, MSC, medium format) (?)
Samsung (MSC) (?)

Specialty manufacturers - These companies offer digital ILCs, but for various reasons their cameras have limited appeal.

Leica (high-end, medium-format) (?)
Ricoh (specialty packaging) (?)
Sigma (specialty sensor) (?)
Hasselblad (medium format, backs) (n/a)
Leaf (medium format backs) (n/a)
Mamiya (medium format) (n/a)
Phase One (medium format backs) (n/a)
Sinar (medium format, large format, backs) (n/a)

Former manufacturers - A number of companies no longer make digital ILCs.

Contax
Kodak
Epson
Fuji/Fujifilm
Konica Minolta (absorbed by Sony)

Major market segments - The MSC segment is considered to be below the DSLR segment, which is broken down into several tiers. But increasingly there is overlap between MSCs and DLSRs

Mirrorless
Consumer DSLR (low-end/entry-level/beginner, mid-range, high-end/enthusiast)
Professional DSLR (mid-size, flagship)

Body styles and image composition methods - While there is no need for MSCs to have any particular form factor, nonetheless they basically fall into two categories - pseudo-rangefinders and pseudo-SLRs. The DSLR form-factor is still heavily defined by the mirror and eyepiece, even though there no longer is film behind the shutter.

Rangefinder-style MSC (display - optional electronic viewfinders on some models)
SLR-style MSC (display or electronic viewfinder)
SLT (display or electronic viewfinder)
Compact SLR (display or optical viewfinder - either pentaprism or pentamirror)
Midsize SLR (display or optical viewfinder - either pentaprism or pentamirror)
Large SLR (display or optical viewfinder - pentaprism only)

Sensor types - Most image sensors use an internal layout developed by Kodak in the 1970s, and use one of two technologies for actually detecting photons. The latter are charge-couple device (CCD) and active pixel sensor (which are usually referred to as CMOS). Each has advantages and disadvantages, but the most relevant one for high-end cameras is the higher speed of CMOS sensors. There are variations in implementation of CMOS sensors between companies and over time, but the details are not all that important. The exception to the layout pattern is the Foveon sensor used by Sigma. It arranges the detectors into three different layers, which yields better color rendition according to the company, but at the price of lower resolution.

Bayer filter (CCD or CMOS)
Foveon X3 (CMOS)

Sensor sizes - The sensor formats used in ILCs are much larger than in typical fixed-lens digital cameras, with one exception. As time goes on, the sensor vendors have been able to increase the pixel resolution for a given size, but the sizes in ILCs have remained fixed (roughly, there are small variations) because of the relationship between the sensor size and the lens.

1/2.3" (8.1mm x 6.1mm, 58mm2, 6.7%) (Pentax)
Four-Thirds (17.3mm x 13mm, 225mm2, 26%) (Panasonic, Olympus)
APS-C (~22.2mm x ~14.8mm, 328mm2, 38%) (Canon)
APS-C (~23.6 x ~15.6mm, 368mm2, 42%) (Nikon, Sony, Pentax, Samsung)
APS-H (28.7mm x 19mm, 519mm2, 60%) (Canon)
Full-frame (36mm x 24mm, 864mm2, 100%) (Nikon, Canon, Sony)

Lens mount type - Each camera company has developed its own lens mount, though adapters are available that allow for some reuse across types.

Alpha/AF (Sony/Konica Minolta)
E (Sony)
EF (Canon, fits on EF-S mount cameras)
EF-S (Canon, won't fit on EF mount cameras)
F (Nikon)
Four-Thirds (Olympus, Panasonic)
K (Pentax)
Micro Four-Thirds (Olympus, Panasonic)
NX (Samsung)
Q (Pentax)

Lenses - just like there is no point in buying a $1000 receiver and $400 pair of speakers, there's not much point in buying a $2000 body and nothing but one basic photographic lens. In both cases, the spending should be at least be balanced, if not tilted towards what might initially look like a less important item. Professional photographer and equipment reviewer Thom Hogan recommends a dedicated enthusiast have 5 lenses, (scroll down to July 22) with the most used one being of high quality. I think first-time DSLR purchaser would want two zooms - a 28-85mm and a 105-200mm - unless they already know that they have specific needs such as low-light or macro. Only after they find they are running up against the limits of their lens should they buy another. (Any focal lengths mentioned are 35mm-equivalent.)

Extension tube - mounts between a body and lens to decrease the focal length
Fast - a lens with a large maximum aperture, generally considered to be f/1.4 to f/2.8 depending on the type of lens, but exotic (read: expensive) lenses can be faster
Filter - allows only a certain portion of incoming light to pass through it; generally screws onto the end of the lens, but some lenses have a filter tray near the middle of the lens barrel
Fisheye - a lens with a very wide field of view and exaggerated distortion
Fixed-focus - typically used only on very low-end cameras
Kit - a lens that comes with the camera, often a 28-85mm zoom
Macro - a lens that allows for close-up work, with minimal magnification
Macro filter - not a filter; mounts on the end of lens to allow close-up work
Portrait - a slightly long-focus lens, with a focal length of 85mm to 105mm
Prime - fixed focal-length lens
Standard or normal - a lens that gives a field of view similar to the human eye, typically 50mm for 35mm cameras, with a range from 40mm to 55mm
Teleconverter - mounts between a body and lens to increase the focal length
Telephoto - a long-focus lens that enlarges distant subjects, with a focal length of 105mm or greater
Teleside converter - mounts on the front of a lens to increase the focal length
Tilt-shift or perspective control - specialty lens used by professionals
Wide-angle - a lens that allows for a greater field of view, with a focal length of 35mm or less
Zoom - a variable focal length lens

Camera controls - The two main controls on manual film SLR cameras were aperture and shutter speed. Combined with the film speed, or sensitivity (as defined by an ISO standard), they determined if a shot could be taken, and allowed it to be manipulated. Digital cameras have added many new twists to those controls, and offer far more automation than even the last generation of film cameras introduced in the 1990s.

Aperture (depends on the lens)
Bracketing (white balance, exposure, other)
Drive (speed, count, buffer size)
Exposure compensation
Flash (built-in, hot-shoe, wireless, other synchronization standard)
Flash mode (red-eye, rear-curtain, slow sync, etc.)
Focus (autofocus method, points, modes, motor location, manual focus)
ISO (auto, adjustable limit)
Metering (mode, locations)
Manual modes (full auto, program, aperture priority, shutter priority, other)
Scene modes (action, landscape, portrait, close-up, etc.)
Self-timer (mirror lock-up)
Shutter (speeds, type, location)
White balance (selectable)

Features - Over time, camera manufacturers have added many features beyond standard camera controls. The latest craze is adding video recording capabilities that match those on video cameras. Oddly, in my mind at least, built-in time-lapse capability is not yet universal.

Articulated LCD
Connectivity (USB, FireWire, WiFi, other)
Dust reduction
Face detection
GPS tagging
Image stabilization
Noise reduction
Remote control (wireless)
Storage (internal, SDxx, CF, slot count)
Time-lapse
Touchscreen interface
Video out (HDMI, other)
Video recording (high-definition, framerate, stereo audio)
Weather-resistant

Terminology - Here are a some terms that come up in reviews that don't fit elsewhere.

AVCHD/M-JPEG/H.264/MPEG-4 - a variety of video compression standards and file formats
Crop factor - too complicated to explain here
Noise - spurious information that can show up in images due to sensor design issues and other factors
JPEG - an image file format in widespread everyday use; the quality of in-camera processing from RAW varies between manufacturers somewhat
RAW - generic term for image file formats generated by cameras; saves more information than a JPEG, but at the price of file size, and must be processed into a JPEG with software

Comparisons - One of more time-consuming things to figure out is exactly what models are comparable to each other. I have made several mini-lists of models that are roughly equal in price and capability. The links lead to side-by-side comparisons at one of the better known camera review sites. The lists are not in any particular order.

MSC, low-end RF-style - Olympus E-PL3, Olympus E-PM1, Samsung NX100, Sony NEX-C3
MSC, high-end RF-style - Olympus E-P3, Panasonic DMC-GF3, Pentax Q, Sony NEX-5
Beginner SLR/MSC/SLT - Nikon D3100, Canon 1100D/T3, Pentax K-x, Olympus E-420, Sony SLT-A35, Sony DSLR-A560, Panasonic DMC-G10, Samsung NX11
Midrange SLR/MSC/SLT - Nikon D5100, Canon 600D/T3i, Olympus E-620, Sony SLT-A55, Sony DSLR-A580, Pentax K-r, Panasonic DMC-G3
Enthusiast SLR/MSC - Nikon D7000, Nikon D90, Canon 60D, Pentax K-7, Olympus E-30, Panasonic DMC-GH2
Professional SLR - Nikon D300s, Canon 7D, Sony DSLR-A850, Olympus E-5, Pentax K-5
Professional SLR, full frame - Nikon D700, Canon 5D Mk. II, Sony DSLR-A900
Professional SLR, flagship action - Nikon D3S, Canon 1D Mk.IV
Professional SLR, flagship studio - Nikon D3X, Canon 1Ds Mk.III
Other (for reference) - Pentax 645D, Leica M9-P, Leica S2, Sigma SD1, Sigma SD15, Ricoh GXR A12, Ricoh GR S10

And, finally, here is a list of cameras available as of July 2011. Naturally, there is a certain amount of conflicting information on the net. So some of the cameras in the list may no longer available from the manufacturer, and I've probably deleted a few that still are. Retailers will sometimes have products on their shelves long after the manufacturer has discontinued them. If you're desperate to buy a certain model as new, it still might be possible for months or even years after production has stopped. The list is sorted by the price with a basic zoom lens (if available) and then by the body only price (buyers in the higher price ranges will select their lenses separately). At the end are a few cameras that have been announced but don't have a "street" price yet. That will change within a couple of months, at most.

Brand	Model	Body style	Market segment	Sensor type	Pixels (MP)	Previous model	Body price	W/ kit zoom	Ann'ced
Samsung	NX100	MSC RF-style	Mirrorless	APS-C	14.6	n/a	n/a	450	09/14/10
Olympus	E-420	Compact SLR	Consumer, low-end	Four-Thirds	10.0	E-450, E-410, E-400, E-330, E-300	400	500	03/05/08
Pentax	K-x	Compact SLR	Consumer, low-end	APS-C	12.4	K-m/K2000	n/a	550	09/17/09
Nikon	D3100	Compact SLR	Consumer, low-end	APS-C	14.2	D3000, D40	530	600	08/19/10
Canon	1100D/T3	Compact SLR	Consumer, low-end	APS-C	12.2	1000D/XS	n/a	600	02/07/11
Pentax	K-r	Compact SLR	Consumer, low-end	APS-C	12.4	K-x	640	625	09/09/10
Sony	NEX-C3	MSC RF-style	Mirrorless	APS-C	16.2	NEX-3	n/a	650	06/08/11
Panasonic	DMC-G3	MSC SLR-style	Mirrorless	Four-Thirds	15.8	DMC-G2, DMC-G1	600	700	05/13/11
Sony	SLT-A35	Compact SLT	Mirrorless	APS-C	16.2	SLT-A33	600	700	06/08/11
Olympus	E-620	Compact SLR	Consumer, mid-range	Four-Thirds	12.3	n/a	700	700	02/24/09
Samsung	NX11	MSC SLR-style	Mirrorless	APS-C	14.6	NX10	n/a	700	12/28/10
Sony	NEX-5	MSC RF-style	Mirrorless	APS-C	14.2	n/a	n/a	700	05/11/10
Sony	DSLR-A560	Compact SLR	Consumer, high-end	APS-C	14.2	A500	650	750	08/24/10
Panasonic	DMC-G10	MSC SLR-style	Mirrorless	Four-Thirds	12.1	DMC-G2	600	800	03/07/10
Nikon	D5100	Compact SLR	Consumer, mid-range	APS-C	16.2	D5000, D60, D40x, D50	700	800	04/05/11
Sony	SLT-A55	Compact SLT	Mirrorless	APS-C	16.2	n/a	750	850	08/24/10
Canon	600D/T3i	Compact SLR	Consumer, low-end	APS-C	18.0	550D/T2i, 500D/T1i, 450D/XSi, 400D/XTi	700	900	02/07/11
Sony	DSLR-A580	Compact SLR	Consumer, high-end	APS-C	16.2	A550	800	900	08/24/10
Panasonic	DMC-GH2	MSC SLR-style	Mirrorless	Four-Thirds	16.1	DMC-GH1	n/a	1000	09/21/10
Nikon	D90	Midsize SLR	Consumer, high-end	APS-C	12.3	D80, D70s, D70	850	1100	08/27/08
Pentax	K-7	Midsize SLR	Consumer, high-end	APS-C	14.6	K-20D, K-10D	960	1200	05/18/09
Canon	60D	Midsize SLR	Consumer, high-end	APS-C	18.0	50D, 40D, 30D, 20D, 10D, D60, D30	900	1300	08/26/10
Nikon	D7000	Midsize SLR	Consumer, high-end	APS-C	16.2	D90	1200	1500	09/15/10
Pentax	K-5	Midsize SLR	Consumer, high-end	APS-C	16.3	K-7	1580	1500	09/20/10
Canon	7D	Midsize SLR	Consumer, high-end	APS-C	18.0	n/a	1600	1900	09/01/09
Olympus	E-30	Midsize SLR	Consumer, mid-range	Four-Thirds	12.3	n/a	1000	n/a	11/05/09
Nikon	D300s	Midsize SLR	Professional, high-end	APS-C	12.3	D300, D200, D100	1700	n/a	07/30/09
Olympus	E-5	Large SLR	Consumer, high-end	Four-Thirds	12.3	E-3, E-1	1700	n/a	09/14/10
Sony	DSLR-A850	Midsize SLR	Professional, high-end	Full-frame	24.6	n/a	1999	n/a	08/27/09
Canon	5D Mk.II	Midsize SLR	Consumer, high-end	Full-frame	21.0	5D	2560	n/a	09/27/09
Sony	DSLR-A900	Midsize SLR	Professional, high-end	Full-frame	24.6	n/a	2699	n/a	09/09/08
Nikon	D700	Midsize SLR	Professional, high-end	Full-frame	12.1	n/a	2700	n/a	07/01/08
Nikon	D3S	Large SLR	Professional, flagship	Full-frame	12.1	D3, D2Hs, D2H, D1H	5200	n/a	10/14/09
Canon	1D Mk.IV	Large SLR	Professional, high-end	APS-H	16.1	1D Mk. III, 1D Mk. II N, 1D Mk. II	5470	n/a	10/20/09
Canon	1Ds Mk.III	Large SLR	Professional, flagship	Full-frame	21.1	1Ds Mk.II, 1Ds	7410	n/a	08/20/07
Nikon	D3X	Large SLR	Professional, flagship	Full-frame	24.5	D2Xs, D2X, D1X, D1	8000	n/a	12/01/08
Olympus	PEN E-P3	MSC RF-style	Mirrorless	Four-Thirds	12.3	E-P2, E-P1	n/a	n/a	06/30/11
Olympus	PEN E-PL3	MSC RF-style	Mirrorless	Four-Thirds	12.3	E-PL2, E-PL1s, E-PL1	n/a	n/a	06/30/11
Olympus	PEN E-PM1	MSC RF-style	Mirrorless	Four-Thirds	12.3	n/a	n/a	n/a	06/30/11
Panasonic	DMC-GF3	MSC RF-style	Mirrorless	Four-Thirds	12.1	DMC-GF2, DMC-GF1	n/a	n/a	06/13/11
Pentax	Q	MSC RF-style	Mirrorless	1/2.3"	12.4	n/a	n/a	n/a	06/23/11

Note: this is another post that I'll probably edit a lot, at least for the next week or so.

Major update 2011/08/01: Added older cameras below.

2010 comparisons - the latest models available at the end of the year. I've fitted the available cameras into the 2011 market categories for continuity.

MSC, low-end RF-style - Olympus E-PL1s, Samsung NX100, Sony NEX-3
MSC, high-end RF-style - Olympus E-P2, Panasonic DMC-GF2, Sony NEX-5
Beginner SLR/MSC/SLT - Nikon D3100, Canon 1000D/XS, Panasonic DMC-G10, Pentax K-x, Olympus E-450, Samsung NX10, Sony DSLR-A290, Sony DSLR-A390, Sony SLT-A33, Sony DSLR-A560
Midrange SLR/MSC/SLT - Nikon D5000, Canon 550D/T2i, Olympus E-520, Olympus E-600, Olympus E-620, Panasonic DMC-G2, Pentax K-r, Sony SLT-A55, Sony DSLR-A580
Enthusiast SLR/MSC - Nikon D7000, Nikon D90, Canon 60D, Pentax K-7, Olympus E-30, Panasonic DMC-GH2
Professional SLR - Nikon D300s, Canon 7D, Sony DSLR-A850, Olympus E-5, Pentax K-5
Professional SLR, full frame - Nikon D700, Canon 5D Mk. II, Sony DSLR-A900
Professional SLR, flagship action - Nikon D3S, Canon 1D Mk. IV
Professional SLR, flagship studio - Nikon D3X, Canon 1Ds Mk. III

2009 comparisons - the latest models available at the end of the year. I've fitted the available cameras into the 2011 market categories for continuity.

MSC, low-end RF-style - none
MSC, high-end RF-style - Olympus E-P1, Panasonic DMC-GF1
Beginner SLR/MSC/SLT - Nikon D3000, Canon 1000D/XS, Olympus E-450, Panasonic DMC-G10, Pentax K-m/K2000, Sony DSLR-A230, Sony DSLR-A330, Sony DSLR-A380, Sony DSLR-A500
Midrange SLR/MSC/SLT - Nikon D5000, Canon 500D/T1i, Olympus E-520, Olympus E-600, Olympus E-620, Sony Sony DSLR-A550, Panasonic DMC-G1
Enthusiast SLR/MSC - Nikon D90, Canon 50D, Pentax K-7, Olympus E-30, Panasonic DMC-GH1
Professional SLR - Nikon D300s, Canon 7D, Sony DSLR-A850, Olympus E-3, Sony DSLR-A850
Professional SLR, full frame - Nikon D700, Canon 5D Mk. II, Sony DSLR-A900
Professional SLR, flagship action - Nikon D3S, Canon 1D Mk. IV
Professional SLR, flagship studio - Nikon D3X, Canon 1Ds Mk. III

2008 comparisons - the latest models available at the end of the year. I've fitted the available cameras into the 2011 market categories for continuity.

MSC, low-end RF-style - none
MSC, high-end RF-style - none
Beginner SLR/MSC/SLT - Canon 1000D/XS, Nikon D40, Olympus E-420, Pentax K-m/K2000, Sony DSLR-A200, Sony DSLR-A300, Sony DSLR-A350
Midrange SLR/MSC/SLT - Canon 450D/XSi, Nikon D60, Olympus E-520, Panasonic DMC-L10, Panasonic DMC-G1, Pentax K200D
Enthusiast SLR/MSC - Canon 50D, Nikon D90, Olympus E-30, Pentax K20D (Samsung GX-20), Sony DSLR-A700
Professional SLR - Nikon D300, Olympus E-3
Professional SLR, full frame - Canon 5D Mk. II, Nikon D700, Sony DSLR-A900
Professional SLR, flagship action - Canon 1D Mk. III, Nikon D3
Professional SLR, flagship studio - Canon 1Ds Mk. III, Nikon D3X

2007 comparisons - the latest models available at the end of the year. I've fitted the available cameras into the 2011 market categories for continuity.

MSC, low-end RF-style - none
MSC, high-end RF-style - none
Beginner SLR/MSC/SLT - Nikon D40, Olympus E-330, Olympus E-410
Midrange SLR/MSC/SLT - Canon 400D/XTi, Nikon D40X, Olympus E-510, Panasonic DMC-L1, Pentax K100D Super
Enthusiast SLR/MSC - Canon 40D, Nikon D80, Pentax K10D (Samsung GX-10), Sony DSLR-A100, Sony DSLR-A700
Professional SLR - Nikon D300, Olympus E-3
Professional SLR, full frame - Canon 5D
Professional SLR, flagship action - Canon 1D Mk. III, Nikon D3
Professional SLR, flagship studio - Canon 1Ds Mk. III

2006 comparisons - the latest models available at the end of the year. I've fitted the available cameras into the 2011 market categories for continuity.

MSC, low-end RF-style - none
MSC, high-end RF-style - none
Beginner SLR/MSC/SLT - Nikon D40, Olympus E-330, Olympus E-400, Pentax K110D, Samsung GX-1L
Midrange SLR/MSC/SLT - Canon 400D/XTi, Nikon D50, Olympus E-500, Pentax K100D, Samsung GX-1S
Enthusiast SLR/MSC - Canon 30D, Nikon D80, Pentax K10D, Sony DSLR-A100
Professional SLR - Nikon D200, Olympus E-1
Professional SLR, full frame - Canon 5D
Professional SLR, flagship action - Canon 1D Mk. IIN, Nikon D2Hs
Professional SLR, flagship studio - Canon 1Ds Mk. II, Nikon D2Xs,

Pre-2006 comparisons - Camera bodies built before 2006 are mostly historical artifacts by now, though they can still take better (though not higher resolution) photos than most current point-and-shoot cameras because they have better lenses attached. Pre-2006 lenses are still perfectly good, though there may be some instances where a new camera doesn't support the lens' electronic features even if the mount is compatible.

Under the Hood: June 2011 Extended Edition

2011-07-25T09:37:00.000-04:00

Here's a few more graphs on where the auto market is right now.

Sales are up from the crisis year of 2009, but still below 2008.

This graph shows market share by brand home country (as opposed to country of manufacture). The Japanese share fell in April and May, probably because of the effects of the tsunami on supply chains in Japan.

In this graph the decline of the Japanese brands can be seen again. Despite the impact of the recession on the industry, the same five brands still dominate sales.

Lasting Relief

2011-07-22T07:49:00.002-04:00

I had been planning to write a post on the end of the Space Transportation System (STS), a.k.a. the Space Shuttle once the Atlantis landed successfully. But mistermix beat me to it, hitting all the points I was going to make.

Thank FSM it's over. Ever since the Challenger disaster, and even more so after the Columbia disaster, I gritted my teeth during each flight. The STS program ended up being the most deadly manned program in history (not counting related on-the-ground accidents), killing 14 astronauts, vs. 4 during the entire course of the Soviet Union/Russian program.
It was a Frankenstein. I don't know the history of how the program evolved, so I don't know if the Shuttle could have been designed better. But the additional weight of a man-rated reusable vehicle made launches of satellites and robotic missions much more expensive. The Shuttle was approximately three times heavier than its payload capacity.
Ease up on the jingoism. The pride element of objecting to using a Russian rocket is silly. They have a reliable launch vehicle and space capsule, so it makes sense to use it now that there is no requirement to launch large ISS components.
Kill the ISS already. The International Space Station is the most expensive thing ~~on Earth~~ built by humans, and is unlikely to yield scientific or technological results that will come anywhere close to justifying its immense cost. It should be flown into the Pacific Ocean. But because it's an international program, doing the sensible thing won't happen until at least 2020.
Crowds are no fun. Money is always an issue, and the extraordinary expense of the STS and ISS probably crowded out a lot of more rewarding robotic missions. The caveat is necessary because there is no way of knowing if any of the money spent on the manned missions over the past three decades would have been spent otherwise, but I think it's likely that a good portion of it would have been.
It ain't over 'til its over. Space is still out there, and there are incredible things yet to discover. The gee-wiz factor of putting men into space is gone, at least for the time being. But robotic mission can yield fantastic results, as programs like Voyager, Hubble, and the Mars Rovers have shown. There's no reason to equate the end of the Shuttle program with the end of space exploration.

So what should NASA be doing in the near future? This is how I see it:

Minimal support of the ISS. Because it is an international program, keeping the ISS alive is necessary for political reasons. But the US should do no more that meet its obligations.
Minimal development of COTS capsules. Currently, three different unmanned supply vehicles are available to take cargo and fuel to the ISS: the European Automated Transfer Vehicle, the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle, and the Russian Progress vehicle. They have completed 2, 2, and 46 trips respectively. Since there is no immediate need, NASA should provide limited funding to American companies for developing similar capabilities, or manned capsules.
General spaceflight research and development. This would be NASA's slush fund for interesting but not immediately applicable technology development. One specific goal I would recommend is to find a way to capture and de-orbit space debris.
Aeronautics research and development. The first "A" in NASA is usually an afterthought. But given how important air travel and freight are, some effort should be put into research applicable to atmospheric vehicles. The emphasis should be on fuel efficiency.
Robotic exploration. This should be the main focus of NASA for the next decade. While there have been mishaps, the list of successful missions is much, much larger. The missions can be divided into three categories
1. Solar system exploration. This includes missions to planets or other bodies, and Sol observation. Dawn and SOHO are two such missions.
2. Earth observation. Any mission to observe the Earth not undertaken by NOAA or the military falls here. The Aqua/Terra satellites comprise one notable program.
3. Astronomy and physics. The Hubble is the most famous example of this type of mission, but there are many others. The James Webb Space Telescope is the next big one scheduled for launch, but it may be canceled due to budget cuts.
Heavy lift development. This is admittedly the most dubious item in the list. As of 2011, the Atlas V HLV is the largest available launch vehicle, with a claimed capacity to LEO of 29,000kg. In contrast, the Saturn V was able to launch 118,000kg into orbit. The STS was able to launch as much as 109,000kg to LEO, but most of that was the Shuttle itself. There has been talk for years about developing an unmanned launch vehicle from the STS components, and NASA appears to be on the verge of announcing they intend to do just that. But no one has identified a need to lob anything that weighs 70,000kg or more into orbit, either right now or in the foreseeable future. So there are reasons for putting the program on hold. To me, there are two arguments for the program. One is that nobody else is likely to do it. Other space agencies and various commercial organizations have slowly raised the capacity of their systems over the years. But a much bigger rocket would have to be designed from scratch, and I think it's unlikely that anyone but the Chinese government would be willing to make such a huge and largely speculative investment. The other is that most of the components are already available in the US from the existing Shuttle infrastructure. They would have to be re-integrated after a new fairing system is designed, and then tested. But if NASA plans and executes wisely, it should be able to have the new system ready in less than a decade and for a reasonable-ish cost (leaving aside the issue that it is pointless right now).

No discussion about NASA is really complete without noting that it still receives indirect support from the Department of Defense. The two programs are largely separate, but they often use the same contractors and the same launch vehicles, which reduces NASA's costs over being the sole customer government customer. Occasionally there is some direct cooperation, though its nothing like what took place in the 1960s. In addition, NOAA is in charge of a satellite fleet, but they are purchased, not built in-house, and are launched on commercial rockets.

Et vos, Italia?

2011-07-19T15:34:00.004-04:00

People have been talking about Italy's problems for years, but about two weeks ago they suddenly burst into the news for some reason - due to either a coordinated attack by speculators or squabbling within the governing coalition. And the by now predictable response: an austerity package, passed on Friday. Early in the week an important part of the bond mafia indicated that the markets would be reassured by such budget-cutting moves. But that wasn't the case in Ireland or Greece, so such declarations seem premature.

As in Greece, and Ireland, and the other countries in trouble, there are real problems in Italy. The net national debt is currently over 110% of GDP. The current Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, manages to combine all the negative aspects of Rupert Murdoch, George Bush, and Anthony Weiner in one human body. The country is easily the most corrupt major EU country; only Greece ranks lower out of the 27 countries in the union.

Of course, that's not the whole story. While the Italy has a high level of debt, it has been able to sustain it for over a decade now. Because the country has had a relatively high savings rate, the debt is mostly internally financed and its net foreign investment position is nearly neutral. Despite pervasive corruption and a political culture that is a complete mess, it has still managed to raise its citizens' (adjusted) per capita income to over 30,000 dollars, and it is a top 25 country in the Human Development Index.

I would say that like America, Italy's problems are mostly politi-cultural. But that doesn't mean that market forces can't force a crisis. Italy is a relatively populous country, and its bond float isn't trivial. But it doesn't necessarily take that much money to move markets. So the "crisis" is likely to continue as long as bond traders are able to exploit the market for personal gain at the expense of taxpayers.

Update 2011.07.22: Calculated Risk reproduces a Bloomberg chart that illustrates the futility of bailout packages (which included austerity measures) in other countries.

Update 2011.08.06: The Economist said it better. And it turns out that Italy has the third largest sovereign bond market (or sub-sovereign, because Italy doesn't issue its own currency). However, the amount that is likely to be traded could be much smaller.

Under the Hood: June 2011 Edition

2011-07-17T18:22:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've looked at auto sales. As should be expected for a number of reasons - a weak economy, the end of housing-bubble induced wealth effect, and perhaps even a slight trend away from driving - sales haven't recovered to their pre-recession levels. The spike caused by the Cash for Clunkers program is pretty obvious. But the falloff in the first months after the program ended was less than I expected.

The data for registration lags by over a year, so it's too soon to tell if the downtick in registered vehicles is actually a trend. But this article from a few months ago suggests that the number of cars on the road has continued to decline.

Fleet Street Cheatsheet

2011-07-13T18:15:00.010-04:00

Most Americans probably don't realize that the newspaper ecosystem in the United Kingdom is quite a bit different than in the US. Except for the specialist-oriented Wall Street Journal and the McPaper, US newspapers are tied to a city or metropolitan region. In much smaller England, the national newspapers (which are all based in London) dominate. These are divided into three separate groups according to their perceived level of journalistic standards: quality, mid-market, and tabloid. Something else for Americans to note is an odd tradition (to this American) of having a mostly separate staff for the Sunday edition of the papers, most of which also have different names. In Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, most of the English national papers run regional versions, and there are also a few regionally significant papers. Here's a rundown of the national titles ordered by circulation as of March 2011 (or Sunday circulation where appropriate).

Daily Title	Sunday Title	Format	Market segment	2010 election endorsement	Circulation daily / Sun.	Owner	Notes
The Sun	n/a	tabloid	tabloid	Conservative	2,817,857 / n/a	News Corp.	Murdoch; soon to launch a Sunday edition
n/a	News of the World	tabloid	tabloid	Conservative	n/a / 2,664,363	News Corp.	Murdoch; defunct as of July 9
Daily Mail	The Mail on Sunday	tabloid	mid-market	Conservative	2,039,731 / 1,888,040	Daily Mail and General Trust, PLC
Daily Mirror	Sunday Mirror	tabloid	tabloid	Labour	1,155,896 / 1,063,096	Trinity Mirror
Daily Star	Daily Star Sunday	tabloid	tabloid	Conservative	699,216 / 293,489	Northern & Shell
The Daily Telegraph	The Sunday Telegraph	broadsheet	quality	Conservative	626,416 / 481,941	Barclay brothers
Daily Express	Sunday Express	tabloid	mid-market	Conservative	620,616 / 533,192	Northern & Shell
n/a	The People	tabloid	tabloid	none	n/a / 477,185	Trinity Mirror
The Times	The Sunday Times	tabloid / broadsheet	quality	Conservative	446,109 / 1,031,727	News Corp.	Murdoch
Financial Times	n/a	broadsheet	quality	Conservative	381,658 / n/a	Pearson, PLC	Financial focus
The Guardian	The Observer	mid-size	quality	Liberal Democrats	261,934 / 296,023	Scott Trust	Not-for-profit
The Independent	Independent on Sunday	tabloid	quality	anti-Tory	181,934 / 153,183	Alexander Lebedev
“i”	n/a	tabloid	mid-market	anti-Tory	171,415 / n/a	Alexander Lebedev	downsized version of the Indy
Morning Star	n/a	tabloid	mid-market	none (tactical for Labour)	15,000 (?) / n/a	People's Press Printing Society	Voice of the Communist Party of Britain

Note 2011.07.15: A lot of people consider the now-defunct News of the World as the Sunday edition of The Sun. I've kept NotW separate because it is being wound up (or down), and the staff let go instead of being moved to The Sun.

Update 2011.07.15: Added the Morning Star, which is national but very small.

Predictable Expectations

2011-07-12T16:04:00.002-04:00

ATHENS (Reuters) - A deeper-than-expected recession caused Greece's central government deficit to widen by almost one third in the first half of the year, widely missing an interim budget target under the country's bailout plan, the finance ministry said on Monday.

...

Hurt by austerity, the Greek economy contracted at an annual pace of 5.5 percent in the first quarter. The Greek government revised downwards its 2011 growth forecast for this year to 3.9 percent.

Hoo-boy, another nobody-could-have-predicted moment. Of course , it's not. The Greek economy is going to contract until the cutting is stopped, or until it re-adopts its own currency.

Update 2011.07.12: As always, I'm hardly the first one to make the observation.

Hacktacular

2011-07-12T14:01:00.001-04:00

The ongoing phone-hacking scandal in the UK is just mind-blowing. Kudos to the Guardian and its staff, whose dogged investigative work has brought all of this to light.

Viewsonic VX910 Capacitor Replacment Update

2011-07-04T21:48:00.000-04:00

This little project didn't work out for me. After replacing all of the caps, the inverter board still wouldn't work. I could hear it clicking slowly (about once per second), but without a schematic I had no way of figuring out what was still wrong. So I ordered a replacement off of eBay. It has the same output specs but a different layout, so I couldn't compare the old one to it. The new board has been working just fine so far. The old one has gone off the great electronics recycling facility in the sky. Or is it in central China?

A Greek Tragedy

2011-06-29T11:57:00.001-04:00

It really didn't have to turn out like this. After a couple of years the internal discussions will leak out, and we'll get a better sense of why the current government led by (and consisting entirely of) the Greek Socialist Party pushed these draconian neoliberal reforms (liberal as in as in classical liberal, not American librulz) on the country. The only justifiable reason I see is that the leadership of the party thinks that they can't pull off a switch to a "new Drachma" because it would be impossible to keep it a secret long enough to implement the change successfully. But I don't believe that will turn out to be the real reason, or at least the main one.

Update 2011.06.30: An article from the BBC explains why Greece can't default as long as it continues to use the Euro. As long as the primary budget - the budget minus interest payments - is unbalanced, default is not possible because the Greek government is depending on more loans of Euros to pay its employees and vendors for the foreseeable future. The neoliberal economic organizations that are pushing the austerity package on Greece in exchange for the loans are projecting sufficient positive economic growth to bring the budget into surplus, when coupled with spending cutbacks. But as we've seen in the UK, cutting government spending (demand) when there is insufficient private demand to make up for the cuts leads to economic contraction. It's a vicious circle: cuts lead to slowdown which reduces revenue which increases the deficit which leads to more cuts. So the latest package just another kick at the can.

Take This Job And Add It To Your To-do List

2011-06-23T15:51:00.001-04:00

Via a plug post by Drum comes this article from Mother Jones, entitled The Great Speedup, on how employers are squeezing the employees they haven't fired to do more work. It covers two topics I've touched on before: the much greater number of hours Americans spend working, and the lack of worker protections that enables employers to put the screws to employees. Lots of people forget (and lots of people work to make them forget) that the point of economic activity is allow people to live their lives, which includes the non-economically productive portion. The point of economic activity is most definitely not to create impressive numbers on corporate reports, even though the business news channels say otherwise. It really doesn't matter if corporate America is setting record profits if there is chronically high unemployment and under-employment. That contrast means that something is amiss in how economic activity is structured right now in this country. Keep in mind that the differences between the US and other countries are due to conscious policy choices, even if few people are aware of when choices are being made for them.

Take This Debt and Shove It

2011-06-20T16:01:00.001-04:00

In response to this article about the crisis in Greece, recovering economist Atrios wonders why the Greeks don't default on the huge amount of government debt that the country will never be able to (entirely) repay. The answer is (probably, I can't read the minds of Greek politicians) that there are competing interests in every country. It's safe to say that Greek politicians and the Greek elites (whoever they are) haven't been acting in the people's interest over the past decade, given the bookkeeping fraud and tax evasion perpetrated by the two groups. So, for some reason the Greek politicians must not see it in their interest to default, or at least default right now. They may change their minds due to factors like being threatened by rioters, or finishing the transfer of their assets to Malta.

In general I remain a bit surprised at just how much the ECB is being run in the interests of Germany and the other core countries (NL, FR, and perhaps BE). That's been happening for months now. As bad as unemployment is here in the US, it is much worse in Spain and other countries at the periphery of the Eurozone.

Update 2011.06.23: Krugman summarizes the case for default in one handy graph. Greece is not Argentina, of course, and global economic conditions are quite different now compared to 2002. But the outcome for the Greek people is guaranteed to be better than suffering through years of austerity-induced economic contraction.

Could Small Be Beautiful?

2011-06-04T23:55:00.006-04:00

When I was compiling my list of reactors being marketed as of early 2011, I ignored a number of small designs that I felt were unlikely to be built. There are more than a few such proposals, with many of them coming from various state-owned design bureaus in Russia. During the early days of nuclear power, in the 1950s and 1960s, various national governments put money into building small reactors of interesting designs. Some of those include Hallam, Piqua, Fort St. Vrain, Niederaichbach, Jülich, and the Steam-Generating Heavy Water Reactor. None of these worked well enough to be cost-effective, and the nuclear power industry has come to be dominated by large light water reactors.

More recently, governments have been supporting research and development of small reactors, but only two examples of one model from Russia have been built. Some private corporations are also working on new reactor designs with their own funds, but none have completed licensing. Generically, these new designs are called SMRs, which stands either for small modular reactors or, less often, small and medium reactors. The International Atomic Energy Agency defines small reactors as less than 300 MWe, and medium reactors as 300-700 MWe. The word modular refers to how proponents see these reactors as being deployed, which would be at power plants with 4 to 20 units.

The main appeal of these reactors is the capital cost of any one of them. Large nuclear reactors have a long history of enormous cost overruns on the initial estimates, which are also enormous. The 1600 MWe European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) currently being built at Olkiluoto in Finland was sold as a turnkey contract for €3.3B, but cost overruns have pushed the price to over €6B - so far. SMR proponents are projecting costs of their reactors from $50M to $1B, depending on the design. But almost all of the designs haven't reached the final detailed design stage, so it is possible (and quite likely) that the estimates could turn out to be as wrong as ones for large reactors. However, even if the estimates are wrong, the smaller reactors would be less risky for utilities to build because an overrun with any one reactor wouldn't threaten to bankrupt the company.

According to proponents, there are several other positive aspects to SMRs, though they don't all have the same ones. For most, the smaller size would allow large sections to be mass manufactured off-site in controlled factory conditions, with only final assembly done on site. This has the potential (in theory) to improve quality assurance over large reactors, which are largely custom built on-site of essentially one-off parts. Some designs are small enough that they would be delivered as pre-fueled packages and then sent back to the factor when the fuel is exhausted. That could significantly reduce the amount of waste generated at the power plant site, eliminate complicated on-site refueling operations, and potentially reduce the chances of fuel theft or proliferation. It would not eliminate the chance of accidents or theft during transit, however, though the latter would be difficult. Most of the designs call for the reactors to be housed underground, which basically eliminates the chance of damage from missiles or airplanes. However, the crisis at Fukushima Dai-ichi has shown that backup systems can be critical. Some of the new designs still require active cooling by a backup system after shutdown, and most leave these systems exposed. Finally, depending on the size, some of the new reactors could be deployed in rural or remote locations where only a moderate amount of power is needed and a large reactor would overwhelm the local grid.

The main question about these designs is whether or not they would, when deployed en mass, end up being safer. Clearly, if there was an accident with any one reactor, it would make less of a mess than a larger reactor would. But I doubt whether 1000 reactors each of 100 MWe would be monitored and inspected as carefully as a set of 100 reactors of 1000 MWe. That means each small reactor deployed has to have a radically lower probability of having its containment breached to make up for poorer monitoring and greater numbers. Some of the designs may actually be that much safer, but until a plant goes through a rigorous licensing process, we have no way of knowing how good any of them are.

Most of the reactors listed below were pulled from two documents from the IAEA (1, 2), with others coming from Wikipedia or general web surfing. Because there are so many of them, I may have missed a few. I've classified some reactors as "abandoned" in the status field if I was unable to find them on the originating organization's website, though the lack of public information doesn't necessarily mean a project has been ended. The converse is true as well.

By neutron speed, there are:

38 thermal reactors
26 fast reactors

By major type, there are:

14 pressurized water reactors (PWR)
13 lead-cooled fast reactors (LMFR or LFR)
10 light water reactors (LWR - light water reactors that are not typical BWRs or PWRs)
8 sodium-cooled fast reactors (LMFR or SFR)
6 high temperature gas-cooled reactors (GCR or HTGR)
4 boiling water reactors (BWR)
2 molten salt-cooled reactors (? - no common acronym)
2 gas-cooled fast reactor (GFR)
2 lead-bismuth-cooled fast reactor (LMFR or LFR)
1 lithium-cooled fast reactor (? - no common acronym)
1 heavy water-moderated pressurized water reactor (HWBWR)
1 molten salt reactor (MSR)

Reactor	Type	MWt	MWe	Country	Company	Status	Refuelling
4S	Sodium-cooled fast reactor	30	10	Japan	Toshiba Power Systems	US pre-licensing	factory
4S-LMR	Sodium-cooled fast reactor	135	50	Japan	CRIEPI	concept	factory
ABV-6	Pressurized water reactor	60	12	Russia	OKBM	concept	on-site
ACACIA	High temperature gas-cooled reactor	60	23	Netherlands	NRG	abandoned	on-site
AFPR-100	Light water reactor	300	100	USA	PNNL	abandoned	factory
AFR-300	Sodium-cooled fast reactor	800	300	USA	ANL	concept	on-site
AHTR	Molten salt-cooled reactor	600	300	USA	ORNL / UCB	concept	on-site
AHWR	heavy water-moderated boiling water reactor	260	100	India	NPCIL	detailed design	on-site
ARC-100	Sodium-cooled fast reactor	920	300	USA	Advanced Reactor Concepts	concept	on-site
BGR-300	Gas-cooled fast reactor	300	130	Russia	RRC Kurchatov	concept	factory
BMN-170	Sodium-cooled fast reactor	400	170	Russia	OKBM	abandoned	on-site
BN GT-300	Sodium-cooled fast reactor	730	300	Russia	IPPE	concept	on-site
BREST	Lead-cooled fast reactor	?	300	Russia	NIKIET	concept	on-site
CAREM	Light water reactor	100	27	Argentina	INVAP / CNEA	Argentina pre-licensing	on-site
CCR	Boiling water reactor	900	300	Japan	Toshiba Power Systems	abandoned	on-site
CHTR	Lead-buismuth-cooled fast reactor	0.1	0.02	India	BARC	concept	factory
DRX	Pressurized water reactor	0.75	0.15	Japan	JAERI	abandoned	on-site
ELENA NTEP	Light water reactor	3.3	0.07	Russia	RRC Kurchatov	abandoned	factory
EM2	Gas-cooled fast reactor	500	240	USA	General Atomics	concept	factory
ENHS	Lead-cooled fast reactor	125	50	USA	LLNL / UCB	concept	factory
FBNR	Pressurized water reactor	134	40	Brazil	FURGS	concept	factory
GT-MHR	High temperature gas-cooled reactor	600	287	USA	General Atomics	concept	on-site
GTHTR-300	High temperature gas-cooled reactor	600	274	Japan	JAERI	abandoned	on-site
HTGR	High temperature gas-cooled reactor	220	100	Japan	First Atomic Power Industry Group	concept	on-site
HTR-PM	High temperature gas-cooled reactor	380	160	China	CNNC	prototype construction	on-site
IRIS	Pressurized water reactor	?	335	USA	Westinghouse (Toshiba)	US pre-licensing	on-site
ISIS	Pressurized water reactor	650	200	Italy	Ansaldo Nucleare	abandoned	on-site
KALIMER	Lead-cooled fast reactor	392	150	Korea	KAERI	concept	on-site
KAMADO	Light water reactor	1000	300	Japan	CRIEPI	abandoned	on-site
KLT-40S	Pressurized water reactor	150	35	Russia	OKBM/ Atomstroyexport	production	on-site
LSPR	Lead-cooled fast reactor	150	53	Japan	RLNR-TIT	abandoned	factory
MARS	Molten salt-cooled reactor	16	6	Russia	RRC Kurchatov	abandoned	factory
MARS	Pressurized water reactor	600	150	Italy	U. of Rome / ENEA	abandoned	on-site
MASLWR	Pressurized water reactor	150	45	USA	NuScale	US pre-licensing	factory
MBRU-12	Sodium-cooled fast reactor	48	12	Russia	OKBM	abandoned	factory
MDP	Sodium-cooled fast reactor	840	325	Japan	CRIEPI	abandoned	on-site
mPower	Pressurized water reactor	400	125	USA	Babcock & Wilcox	US pre-licensing	on-site
MRX	Pressurized water reactor	100		Japan	JAERI	abandoned	on-site
MSBWR	Boiling water reactor	?	50	USA	GE / Purdue	abandoned	on-site
MSR-FUJI	Molten salt reactor	450	200	Japan	ITHMSI	concept	continuous
NP-300	Pressurized water reactor	?	300	France	Areva NP	abandoned	on-site
Package Reactor	Light water reactor	25	?	Japan	Hitachi / Mitsubishi	abandoned	on-site
PBMR	High temperature gas-cooled reactor	400	165	South Africa	PBMR (ESKOM)	abandoned after starting US pre-licensing	on-site
PEACER-300	Lead-cooled fast reactor	850	300	Korea	Seoul Nat. U.	concept	on-site
PFPWR-50	Light water reactor	50	n/a	Japan	Hokkaido U.	concept	factory
Power Module	Lead-bismuth-cooled fast reactor	75	25	USA	Hyperion Power Generation	US pre-licensing	factory
PRISM	Lead-cooled fast reactor	840	311	USA	GE-Hitachi	US pre-licensing	on-site
PSRD	Light water reactor	100	31	Japan	JAEA	concept	factory
PWBWR	Lead-cooled fast reactor	450	150	Japan	RLNR-TIT	abandoned	on-site
RAPID	Lithium-cooled fast reactor	10	1.2	Japan	CRIEPI	abandoned	factory
RBEC-M	Lead-cooled fast reactor	900	340	Russia	RRC Kurchatov	abandoned	on-site
RMWR	Boiling water reactor	955	330	Japan	Hitachi / JAERI	concept	on-site
RUTA-70	Light water reactor	70	n/a	Russia	NIKIET / IPPE	concept	on-site
SMART	Pressurized water reactor	330	90	Korea	KAERI	Korea license	on-site
SPINNOR	Lead-cooled fast reactor	55	20	Indonesia	ITB	concept	factory
SSTAR	Lead-cooled fast reactor	45	20	USA	ANL / LLNL / LANL / INL / UCB	concept	factory
STAR-H2	Lead-cooled fast reactor	400	n/a	USA	ANL / OrSU / TA&M / OhSU	concept	factory
STAR-LM	Lead-bismuth-cooled fast reactor	400	178	USA	ANL	concept	factory
SVBR-75/100	Lead-cooled fast reactor	280	100	Russia	IPPE / OKB Gidropress	concept	factory
TPS	Light water reactor	64	16	USA	General Atomics	abandoned	on-site
UNITHERM	Pressurized water reactor	20	7	Russia	NIKIET	concept	factory
V-SPINNOR	Lead-cooled fast reactor	17	6	Indonesia	ITB	concept	factory
VBER-300	Pressurized water reactor	850	295	Russia	OKBM	concept	on-site
VK-300	Boiling water reactor	750	250	Russia	NIKIET	concept	on-site
VKR-MT	Light water reactor	890	300	Russia	RRC Kurchatov	abandoned	factory

Note: I'll probably edit this post frequently as I find more information.

Added 2011/06/08: The Union of Concerned Scientists has provided some testimony to Congress on SMRs.

Having A Nuclear Blast

2011-05-29T03:00:00.003-04:00

This is an entirely expected development. The current storm may well miss the Fukushima area, but at some point this hurricane season a part of a storm will move across it. TEPCO has been spraying the grounds of Fukushima Dai-ichi with a resin that should, if it operates as claimed, reduce the amount of radioactive material transported by the wind and rain. It probably works okay in a normal rain, but even cyclones that are only tropical storms can bring very heavy rainfall to an area. It won't matter if the surface is sealed when large sections of ground are washed away, as happened on Thursday night here in Vermont.

Another issue of concern is the structural integrity of the unit 4 containment building, which seems to be leaning to the right a bit. If it is seriously compromised, a big wind gust could create a crack in the spent fuel pool. TEPCO announced that it had started shoring up the structure on May 9, but I am unaware of further updates on that matter. Earlier speculation that the fuel pool had drained due damage was wrong, fortunately, but it could still happen.

On top of the existing technical problems at the site is this little incident (which will probably be resolved in a few hours, but still).

The most significant development in the Fukushima crisis over the past few weeks is the revelation from TEPCO that the fuel in units 1-3 melted down shortly after the quake and (and!) they knew it, at least for unit 1. Given that pattern of lying, and the Japanese government's servile attitude towards TEPCO, I think it's advisable to heavily discount anything they say.

Finally, this presentation by Arnie Gundersen for the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards is very important for everyone to see, despite a few technical annoyances. It wasn't until a few weeks ago when he first mentioned it that I realized that the NRC assumed that there was zero probability (0.0%) that the containment structure at a nuclear reactor could fail. Containment isn't the reactor pressure vessel; failure is assumed for that, even if the probability is low. Instead, it is the larger structure built around the reactor pressure vessel. For PWRs, it is usually the entire volume of a large, circular concrete building with a domed top. For BWRs, it is usually a substructure within a large, square building, just like the ones at Fukushima. (There are exceptions to each, of course, and other types of reactors, but not in the US.) Gundersen has documented several instances where there were cracks or other penetrations in the containment at US reactors. Now, in the first real-world tests of the GE BWR Mark I containment design, there has been 100% failure. Three out of the three units that were online at Fukushima immediately prior to the earthquake and tsunami are compromised. Those results should cause the NRC put any action such as license renewal or power up-rates for the 23 operating Mk.I reactors in the US on hold until what happened at Fukushima is fully analyzed and any lessons extracted. That is unlikely to happen, unfortunately. We seem to be living in a post-fact world, where only money and power can change people's minds. The ACRS is likely to blow off Gundersen, as they have before.

ETA: Just after posting I found a report saying cooling has been restored.

Added 2011/06/01: Shoring up the unit 4 spent fuel pool started on 05/23 according to this article.

Completed Insanity

2011-05-28T16:35:00.003-04:00

A while ago I started a project to redraw the counties of California. This morning, for no reason I can discern, I suddenly had the urge to complete the project. And I did, at least as far as I'm willing to take it. And here's the final result: new maps of Northern, Central, and Southern California. I also made a few exports from the GIS program I used to determine where to place the boundaries.

In these images, the old borders and county names are in black, the new borders are in red, and the new names are in blue. In the background are major roads in light purple, and national parks in olive.

Gone are all the arbitrary lines laid down when the surveyors divided up the land. The new boundaries mostly follow either watershed divides or major water bodies. There are exceptions, but I tried to limit them as much as possible. The straight lines that you can see here exist because the boundaries I drew are approximations. If this exercise were ever to be repeated for real, almost all of them would go away.

I ended up creating 13 new counties (McCloud, Whiskeytown, Tahoe, Hayward, Livermore, Shaver, Santa Maria, San Fernando, Antelope, Mojave, Palo Verde, Coacella, and Escondido), eliminating 14 (Shasta, Tehama, Glenn, Yuba, Nevada, Placer, Yolo, Amador, Calaveras, Alpine, Contra Costa, Madera, Kings, and Santa Barbara), and renaming 1 that had its signature feature removed (Eagle, from Lassen).

I significantly reshaped nearly every existing county. The two least changed were San Francisco and Orange.

This image shows some of the other layers I used for reference. Watershed outlines are in blue, and population density is represented by shading from light grey to black.

None of the resulting counties are ideal, and several have significant problems. Tulare County, for instance, is larger than I would like, but there is no non-arbitrary way to divide it. McCloud is probably underpopulated (though not any more so than neighboring Modoc). And so on. On the other had, the most problematic counties have been resolved in one way or another. The minimally populated Alpine County has been eliminated, with the area mostly absorbed by Tahoe. The ridiculously large San Bernardino has been divided between five different counties (though Mojave is still bigger nine states). And Los Angeles is now entirely south of the San Gabriel and Santa Monica Mountains.

If there's a takeaway from this effort, it's that it is a good example of how poorly governed America currently is. There's no reason for the counties of California to exist as they do. They are artifacts of a situation where a literate, industrial culture invaded the lands of a number of pre-literate cultures that had been decimated by disease and warfare. If we better governed, somebody would have identified obvious problems like the size of San Bernardino, and organized society to resolve them. But for many reasons, nobody has done so. That should cause us all to worry a bit.

This Time I Can Pronounce It

2011-05-23T22:37:00.001-04:00

Unlike the last one, I can pronounce Grímsvötn, which is the volcano currently erupting in Iceland.

We'll Shoot the Patient Unless You Let Us Amputate

2011-05-16T10:15:00.000-04:00

Shorter Republican leaders.

Generation Next

2011-05-13T14:45:00.004-04:00

A few posts back I mentioned that the United States Department of Energy had come up with the concept of "generations" of nuclear reactors in order to help explain its current strategy. The DOE is attempting to move forward on two different tracks: building Generation III reactors, which are supposedly improved designs of the light water reactors that were built in the 1970s and 1980s, and conducting research and development into what are hoped to be substantially better reactors to be built starting in the 2020s. The progress on new Gen-III reactors was slow even before the Fukushima Dai-ichi crisis, mostly due to rapid cost escalation. Reactor licensing by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is an independent agency (from the DoE, but perhaps not from the nuclear industry), has also been slower than expected. The crisis in Japan is likely to delay new Gen-III reactors further, and possibly derail the whole program.

Unlike the Gen-III effort, which is concerned mostly with domestic issues of implementation, the Generation IV program is an international effort. Right now it's too early to say whether or not the Gen-IV program is on track - despite having been around for over a decade by now - because a lot of what participants are doing is basic materials research. The effort is also somewhat diffuse, as countries are really coordinating work more than they are working together. That's probably natural, as funding for the research is still being provided by member countries. And finally, it's hard to talk about the status of the effort as the latest GIF annual report hasn't been issued, and the DoE's status page is simply out of date.

The most important achievement of the GIF so far has been to select six conceptual designs for further research. (Note: most of the early GIF documents are no longer available from government websites, but some have been mirrored here.) At least 94 different concepts were submitted for review in early 2001. A number of meetings were then held to classify and evaluate the concepts. The result was a report which laid out the rational for selecting six proposals to be investigated further. Those concepts are: the gas-cooled fast reactor (GFR), the lead-cooled fast reactor (LFR), the molten-salt reactor (MSR), the sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR), the super-critical water-cooled reactor (SCWR), and the very-high temperature reactor (VHTR). If some of those reactor types sound familiar, that's because they've been built before without much success. But the evaluation team evidently though they were worth a second look. Each of the concepts has a few options for implementation outlined in the report.

You may have noticed that three of the reactors have "fast" in their name, which is a reference to the energy of the neutrons that cause the self-sustaining nuclear reaction in a reactor core. The main advantage of fast neutron reactors is that they are able to "breed" large amounts of new fissionable elements during operation, which could potentially eliminate any uranium shortages for thousands or hundreds of thousands of years. With some configuration changes, fast reactors are also able to "burn" spent fuel from existing thermal neutron reactors. If successfully implemented on large scale, this feature would drastically reduced the amount of high-level waste that needs to be stored in expensive geological repositories. Of the other three, one is a standard thermal neutron reactor, one is a thermal neutron reactor capable of breeding at a low rate, and the other can be configured either to have either thermal or epithermal neutrons.

Below is my short summary of each concept. There are, of course, better summaries elsewhere, but I've added a bit of editorializing that (ahem) you just can't find elsewhere.

Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor - The SFR concept has been previously implemented the most number of times out of the six concepts. It is a fast neutron reactor that uses liquid sodium as the coolant in the primary and secondary cooling loops. In the past these reactors have been called liquid metal fast reactors (LMFR) or just fast breeder reactors (FBR). To date, a total of 20 SFRs have been built and operated, though only four are operating now. Of those still in use, only one produces electricity. The rest exist for research purposes. In addition to being able to breed more fissile material, the SFR has the advantage of providing high outlet temperature without requiring the high pressures found in LWRs. The main disadvantage is that sodium is flammable when exposed to air, and explosive when in contact with water. Most SFRs have used water in the tertiary coolant loop to generate steam for turbines, and water ingress into the secondary coolant loop has been a major problem. Some newer proposals use carbon dioxide in the tertiary loop to avoid the problem of sodium's volatility. My take on this concept is that it useful mainly for breeding in a nuclear power "ecosystem" that includes lots of non-breeder reactors. The difficulties encountered during implementation so far have made the SFR non-economic for electricity generation when compared to LWRs. I think that further research should be done on this concept, but focused on efficient breeding and ease of loading and unloading the fertile material.

Lead-cooled Fast Reactor - This concept is another liquid metal-cooled fast reactor, like the SFR. To date no LFRs have been built, but a closely related design using lead-bismuth eutectic as a coolant was built by the Soviet Union to power some of its submarines. It was not very successful, though that may have had more to do with the Soviet Union's military culture than the design itself. As with the SFR, the main advantage of this concept is high outlet temperatures at low primary loop pressures. Unlike sodium, liquid lead is not explosive when in contact with water, which eliminates the need for an intermediate loop. However, it is highly corrosive to most steels, and activation products (created when neutrons interact with elements in the coolant) remain radioactive for a long time. It also solidifies at a relatively high temperature, which makes handling difficult. And it is very heavy. The best application of this concept seems to be for very small nuclear reactors, on the order of 20-200 MWt, that can be shipped whole to a site and returned to a factory for processing. I think further research on this concept should be done only for small reactors.

Very-High Temperature Reactor - The VHTR is gas-cooled thermal neutron reactor that uses helium in the primary cooling circuit. It has previously been implemented a total of eight times, but only two examples are currently operating. There are also a number of carbon dioxide-cooled reactors operating, but that gas can't meet the requirements of the VHTR program. The main attraction of this type of reactor is a very high outlet temperature, which is useful for generating hydrogen from water and for supplying heat for other industrial processes. The main disadvantage is very high temperatures in the core, which many materials can withstand, but not in combination with high radiation. Another important disadvantage is a once-through fuel cycle, which would leave lots of hot fuel elements that would have to be dealt with for hundreds or thousands of years. Helium is also somewhat tricky to contain, and expensive. My take on this type of reactor is that it was selected when there was still a lot of buzz about using hydrogen to fuel motor vehicles. The reasoning behind the so-called hydrogen economy no longer makes sense, as batteries have improved significantly and people have come to recognize the difficulties of using hydrogen in that way. I think this concept should be dropped. Unfortunately, the DOE has made the VHTR the first Gen-IV reactor it plans to build. The Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) program will start soliciting design proposals from vendors late this year or in 2012.

Gas-cooled Fast Reactor - The GFR is a logical next step from the VHTR, combining both high temperatures and the ability to breed more fissile material. However, it is not as effective at breeding as either the SFR, and it has the same disadvantages as the VHTR. No examples have ever been built. I think this concept should be dropped.

Super-Critical Water Reactor - This concept is the next logical step from existing PWRs and BWRs. It would use light water at pressures above the critical point, beyond which water behaves like both a gas and a liquid. It would have only one coolant loop, like a BWR. The steam handling devices at the top of a BWR pressure vessel would be eliminated, allowing control rods to be inserted from the top as in a PWR. There are coal-fired power plants that use super-critical water already in operation, so the balance-of-plant (BOP) for the SCWR should almost be off-the-shelf. However, it is unknown if a reactor pressure vessel can safely operate at the extreme pressures needed. This concept can either operate as a thermal neutron reactor, or an epithermal neutron reactor. The later has allows for a low level of breeding, but makes loss of coolant accidents (LOCAs) potentially more dangerous. Canada is working on a subtype of this reactor that would leverage its experience with heavy water reactors. Because of its high degree of similarity to existing reactors, I think research on this concept should be continued, with a focus on answering questions about the safety of the pressure vessel as soon as possible. *

Molten Salt Reactor - The MSR is a concept quite unlike any of the others above in that it would not use solid fuel elements. Instead, the fissile material would be dissolved in the coolant, which is a mixture of fluoride salts (salt is used here in the technical sense, not in reference to standard table salt). The nuclear chain reaction would only take place in the reactor core, where the combination a large mass of the fuel-salt fluid and a graphite moderator would bring the mixture to criticality. The hot salt would then be cooled by a secondary loop of salt, which would in turn transfer the heat to a gas or water tertiary loop. The concept could operate as a thermal neutron breeder, producing enough new fissile material to fuel itself for years. The concept is another that would provide high outlet temperatures at low pressures. Despite it's exotic nature, an example of this reactor was built and operated briefly in the 1950s, and another was built and operated in the 1960s for several years. The biggest disadvantages of this concept are that the salts are corrosive, and processing the salt to remove certain fission byproducts currently is expensive. I think an increased pace of research into the MSR is warranted, as it has a number of positive aspects not found in any of the other reactor concepts.

There is one hybrid of these concepts to note, the molten salt-cooled reactor. This reactor would use a core similar to the VHTR but use a molten salt in the primary cooling circuit. I think the concept may be useful an intermediate step towards a fluid-fueled MSR, but only as a research reactor, not as a commercial design.

If resources were more plentiful, funding research into all of the six reactor concepts would be worthwhile. There are commonalities between them all, and scientific research is certainly more productive than blowing up wedding parties in Central Asia. But in the current budgetary environment, I think the focus should be on the SFR, SCWR, and MSR concepts, with a limited additional amount directed towards small LFRs.

* Added 2011/05/14: I should add that I think the answer to the question will be no, a safe RPV can't be created for a SCWR.

Don't Ever Believe the Hype

2011-05-10T09:13:00.000-04:00

Elsewhere at some point(s) since the start of the Fukushima Dai-ichi crisis, I have made statements indicating that the nuclear regulatory infrastructure of Japan and France were something this country should emulate. I was wrong, and very wrong in the case of Japan. Stoneleigh, one of the semi-pseudonymous proprietors of The Automatic Earth, a doomer-ish economy-oriented blog, has put together an excellent, detailed post on the culture of the Japanese nuclear industry. It is not flattering. And, in retrospect, it is not surprising, either. Japan's yin-yang of cohesiveness and crushing conformity are well know, as are the troubles at the MONJU experimental sodium-cooled fast reactor. Some of the other incidents I was not aware of, but I nonetheless should have been more cynical about Japan's nuclear industry.

As with Japan, the French nuclear industry doesn't look so wonderful when examined in detail. Mycle Schneider, an independent consultant on nuclear policy, has authored a report entitled Nuclear Power in France: Beyond the Myth. In it he details the opaque and undemocratic nature of the nuclear power establishment in France. Fortunately for France and its neighbors, this has not resulted in a catastrophic accident like Fukushima, perhaps because the flip side of the arrogance of the elites that run the French program is in internal culture of technocratic excellence. But the lack of clear information does make monitoring the program difficult. The information deficit also makes an accurate tally of subsidies and costs impossible. While I disagree with some of Schneider's energy accounting, he does make a good argument that EdF, the monopoly electricity generator, has overbuilt nuclear generating capacity. This has distorted electricity pricing in France and neighboring countries.

If forced to pick between the two, given the available information, I would definitely choose the French nuclear power program over the Japanese one. I would also choose the American program over the Japanese. In a comparison between the American program and the French one, I think I would favor the French one... slightly. The US is more open than France, but the profit motive drives the numerous operators to a far greater degree than in France, which has led to a number of close calls. Ominously, the US regulatory structure is looking more and more like the Japanese one, with private companies able to dominate the relevant government agencies. This is a disturbing development. Of course, no regulatory framework is perfect, just as no nuclear plant is foolproof. The technology requires constant vigilance. The open question in the US is whether the NRC can re-assert itself to make sure safety is put before profit.

Mo' Money, Mo' Money, Mo' Money

2011-05-08T10:53:00.003-04:00

The NYT has a good article on the NRC up. Here's a passage that I want to highlight:

In 2008, for example, workers at the Oconee plant in South Carolina discovered that a crucial line in the cooling system at Reactor Unit 1 was blocked by a broken gasket. The workers fixed it and the reactor was restarted.

But the two N.R.C. inspectors assigned full time to Oconee quickly began asking why Duke Energy, the operator, wasn’t also inspecting corresponding valves and lines at the plant’s other two reactors. Duke said the clogging was isolated and a blocked line could be bypassed in a pinch.

In February 2010, when the company finally agreed to look at the other two reactors, it discovered that the lines there had the same problem and that the bypass option would never have worked.

I think this is a good illustration of why the current ownership model of nuclear power plants is problematic. In this situation, the NRC identified a safety issue in one reactor that could have been generic to all three of the B&W L-loop PWRs at Oconee Nuclear Station. (It also could have been generic to all L-loop plants, of which there are seven operating. Were the other four inspected?) But the owner of the power plant successfully fought off inspection of the other two reactors for two years.

Why did Duke try to stop further inspections? Because shutdowns might have been required (and ultimately were). A reactor that is shut down doesn't make money, and making money is the sole purpose of private corporations in the US. The senior management of a profitable company gets rewarded on a yearly basis, which is a much shorter time scale from when corner-cutting might result in an accident large or small. But the impact of a large accident at a nuclear power plant is potentially very large, which means safety has to be pursued aggressively at all times. That sets up a conflict between the plant owner/operator and the regulatory agency, and in today's (legally) corrupt politics, the regulator ends up backing down.

Open Letter: Vermont Legislature

2011-04-15T17:15:00.000-04:00

Greetings Senators and Representatives,

I am writing you today in regard to a number of subjects. I apologize for the length of this letter, but I feel it is important to briefly explain why I stand where I do on the subjects below. If you aren't inclined to read the letter, please at least review the summary on the other side. Otherwise, read on.

I am disappointed in Governor Shumlin's sudden adoption of Republican language with regard to the budget now that he has been inaugurated. Concerns about "competitiveness" are usually a dishonest cover for more cuts aimed at the poor. There are states that are considered more "competitive" than Vermont that nonetheless have higher unemployment rates and/or lower median incomes than this state. And there is no evidence that business that are free to choose where operations are located do so on the basis of top marginal income tax rates. In addition, budget cuts are counterproductive when the economy is weak. In the United Kingdom, the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government is in the process of completing significant reductions in government spending, and as predicted, the changes have caused the previously weak economy to shrink at an annual rate of 2.4% during the 4th quarter of last year. Shumlin's proposed cuts are not as severe, but they will come on top of ones at the federal level. The effect of the two together will certainly reduce growth in this state, and thus employment. I feel that instead of cutting more, a temporary surtax should be implemented for high income residents. Revenues from other taxes has not recovered fully from the recession yet, but they should by early 2013. At that time the surtax should be removed.

I have heard several reports that the Legislature is considering some kind of tax on soda and other sugary drinks. Clearly, obesity is a major problem in this country. But an entirely new tax strikes me as overkill, because the drinks don't have the same direct deadliness as cigarettes or alcohol. I think that simply re-classifying soda and sugary drinks as not-food, and thus no longer exempt from state or local sales taxes, would be a better solution. That smaller step would do less to discourage people from buying soda, but it would be easier for retailers to implement. In addition, I think candy should also be classified as not-food. However, there may be so many borderline products that addressing that group of sugary items would result in endless battles with producers and retailers, and thus not be worthwhile.

I also heard a report that the "bottle bill" may either be expanded or removed soon. On occasion, I pick up trash from the street and from small bits of public land near my home. My admittedly anecdotal evidence is that I rarely find beer or soda cans and bottles. Instead, I find mostly small water bottles without a SKU (presumably from bulk packs), and sports drink bottles. Thus, in my neighborhood, at least, the bill certainly is working for what it covers. The program is probably inconvenient for companies that produce, distribute, or sell beverages (I have no idea where the burden falls on that side), but the deposit fee is good way to price in what is normally an externality for both the companies above, and for individuals - litter. In light of its apparent effectiveness, I think the bill should be renewed and expanded. (I also want it noted that bottle redemption has become a source of income for a number of socially marginal people, mostly middle-aged men with mental health or similar problems. Repeal of the bill should take into consideration the lost income, which may translate into higher government spending if those people seek services that they would not need with the bill in place.)

As you a probably aware, there are a number of efforts under way by newly elected Republican governors to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights. For the record, I do not want the same to happen in Vermont, and I will be very disappointed if any such change is proposed. On the other hand, I will admit that I find reports of public employees abusing final salary retirement schemes to be somewhat infuriating. By abusing, I mean employees suddenly working large amounts of overtime in their last few years because the extra pay makes their retirement payments substantially higher. I am not aware of this being possible in the private sector for the few people who still have defined benefit programs to look forward to. Of course, those who only have 401K programs can do nothing of the sort, and a large portion of the population has no retirement plan available at all. If such a practice is possible in Vermont, I would like Vermont's public employees to agree to remove the clauses from future contracts. Doing so would slightly trim Vermont's long-term obligations, but mainly it would make it harder for dishonest politicians to demonize government employees, which has been done to an alarming extent in recent years.

I feel it is time to ban tasers in the State of Vermont. Contrary to common belief, crime is not getting worse all of the time, and in fact has gone down steadily since its peak in 1992 (+/- 1 year depending on the category). Crime rates have fallen by over a third in every major category. Since the decline started before tasers came into use, there is no reason to think that tasers have much of an effect on crime rates. So there is no obvious need for them. The absence of need is important because, despite what the manufacturers claim, tasers are lethal weapons. They just happen to be lethal weapons with low and unpredictable chances of success. In addition, there is also a growing body of video evidence that tasers are being used not just to control suspects who are attempting flight or bodily harm. Instead, they are being used by officers to essentially punish people for what officers feel is insufficient deference. This can be seen most clearly when officers taser suspects already on the ground and under control. Being a police officer is a tremendously stressful job, and I don't envy them one bit. But it should be acknowledged that it is stressful job, and that not every officer is an angel. I think having the ability to inflict pain without doing bodily harm (at least according to the manufacturer) becomes too much of a temptation for some officers who do not find other ways to vent their frustration. I realize that officers want to have the latest and greatest equipment. But without a need, and with the risk of abuse and potential fatalities, I see no reason for law enforcement officials to have tasers.

A summary of my concerns:

Don't cut spending more; raise income taxes instead.
Apply the sales tax to sugary drinks, not a new tax.
Keep and expand the bottle bill.
Keep collective bargaining rights in Vermont.
Ban tasers because they are lethal weapons.
Decriminalize minor marijuana possession (no room for details on this one!)

Thank you for your time.

Generation What?

2011-04-05T02:28:00.010-04:00

Below is a quick rundown of most of the reactors being marketed as of early 2011. I'm using the term "marketed" somewhat loosely here, as not all reactors are being offered in all countries due to intellectual property rights, nationalism, or other considerations. I have ignored a number of small reactor designs that I feel are just vaporware at this point. The resulting list is dominated by large (2850 megawatts thermal) to very large (4590 MWt) pressurized water reactors. The two small PWRs plus the nine others account for exactly half of the 22 models.

An oddity to note is that Westinghouse no longer markets a PWR derived from the ones it created in the 1960s due to a series of corporate mergers. But the basic design lives on in the EPR, APWR, Amtea1 and CPR-1000 designs. Westinghouse, which is 77% owned by Toshiba, now offers reactors derived from Combustion Engineering designs. A minor point to note is that both GE-Hitachi and Toshiba are both marketing the ABWR.

By neutron speed, there are:

19 thermal reactors (150 to 4590 MWt)
3 fast reactors (30 to 2100 MWt)

By major type, there are:

13 pressurized water reactors (PWR; 150 to 4590 MWt)
4 boiling water reactors (BWR; 3370 to 4500 MWt)
2 sodium-cooled fast reactors (LMFR; 30 and 2100 MWt)
1 pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR; 2080 MWt)
1 heavy water-moderated pressurized water reactor (HWPWR; 3200 MWt) *
1 lead-bismuth-cooled fast reactor (LMFR; 75 MWt)

By design family, there are:

4 Westinghouse (WH) pressurized water reactors
4 Combustion Engineering (CE) pressurized water reactors
4 GE boiling water reactors
3 VVER pressurized water reactors (Soviet/Russian PWRs evolved separately)
2 CANDU heavy water-moderated reactors
1 B&W pressurized water reactor (probably derived from US Navy designs, may be new)
1 KLT-series pressurized water reactor (evolution of Russian Navy designs)
1 BN-series sodium-cooled fast reactor (designed by a state-owned organization in Russia)
1 new lead-bismuth-cooled fast reactor (probably a clean sheet design, but may be derived)
1 new sodium-cooled fast reactor (probably a new design)

By generation, there are:

12 "Generation III" designs (designs from the 1990s and 2000s with some passive safety features)
7 "Generation II+" designs (slight improvements over 1960s designs)
3 designs I haven't classified because I lack familiarity with them

The term "generation" was introduced by the DOE in order to simplify the presentation of its current strategy. Right now it is pursing two goals: building evolved PWRs and BWRs (the Gen III models), and doing R&D on "Generation IV" reactors. The marketing types have hijacked the nomenclature a bit, and have labeled some reactors "III+" as well as backfitted the "II+" designation on others. I've ignored the III+ designation, but the II+ designation is not unreasonable because the designs have been worked on since they were first developed in the 1960s.

Reactor	Type	Gen.	MWt	MWe	Company	Family	Oper./ Const.
4S	sodium-cooled fast reactor	?	30	10	Toshiba Power Systems	new SFR	0/0
Power Module	lead-bismuth-cooled fast reactor	?	75	25	Hyperion Power Generation	new LFR	0/0
BN-800	sodium-cooled fast reactor	?	2100	800	Atomstroyexport	BN SFR	0/1
EC6	pressurized heavy water reactor	II+	2080	690	Atomic Energy Canada, LTD	CANDU	0/0
CPR-1000	pressurized water reactor	II+	3000	1000	China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group	ANP (WH) PWR	1/11
OPR-1000	pressurized water reactor	II+	2825	990	Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction	DHIC (CE) PWR	8/5
System 80+	pressurized water reactor	II+	3400	1120	Westinghouse (Toshiba)	CE PWR	0/0
VVER-1000	pressurized water reactor	II+	3000	950	Atomstroyexport	VVER PWR	2/5
VVER-1200	pressurized water reactor	II+	3200	1170	Atomstroyexport	VVER PWR	0/5
KLT-40S	pressurized water reactor	II+	150	35	OKBM/Atomstroyexport	SSSR PWR	0/2
ABWR	boiling water reactor	III	3900	1380	GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy	GE BWR	3/2
ABWR	boiling water reactor	III	3900	1350	Toshiba Power Systems	GE BWR	2/0
ACR-1000	heavy water boiling water reactor	III	3200	1000	Atomic Energy Canada, LTD	CANDU	0/0
Atmea1	pressurized water reactor	III	3150	1150	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries-Areva NP	MHI/ANP (WH) PWR	0/0
AP1000	pressurized water reactor	III	3400	1120	Westinghouse (Toshiba)	CE PWR	0/5
APR1400	pressurized water reactor	III	4000	1350	Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction	DHIC (CE) PWR	0/4
APWR	pressurized water reactor	III	4450	1500	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries	MHI (WH) PWR	0/0
EPR	pressurized water reactor	III	4590	1630	Areva Nuclear Power	ANP (WH) PWR	0/4
ESBWR	boiling water reactor	III	4500	1600	GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy	GE BWR	0/0
Kerena	boiling water reactor	III	3370	1250	Areva Nuclear Power	KWU (GE) BWR	0/0
MIR-1200	pressurized water reactor	III	3200	1170	Atomstroyexport/Skoda	VVER PWR	0/0
mPower	pressurized water reactor	III	400	125	Babcock & Wilcox	USN PWR?	0/0

* Added 2011/04/6: There's not a commonly accepted accepted acronym for the ACR-1000. Unlike the EC6 and older CANDU designs, the ACR-1000 uses heavy water only in the calandria, which is the vessel where the nuclear reactions take place. In the primary cooling loop it uses regular water, which generates steam in the secondary loop. To be consistent, older CANDU reactors would be HWPHWR and the ACR-1000 would be a HWPLWR. There have been similar heavy water reactors that boil light water in the primary cooling loop built. They have been dubbed SGHWRs (steam generating heavy water reactors), which reverses the order of the coolant and moderator.

Lessons That Could Be Learned

2011-03-31T15:20:00.001-04:00

Almost immediately after problems began at the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant in Miyagi, Japan, the pro/anti nuke debate flared up. At the beginning, the two sides stuck to their long-held positions, Opponents said look, nuclear power plants are dangerous, just like we warned. Supporters said look, the plants shut down and everything is contained, just as we expected. But when crisis in Japan got worse, with significant damage to the buildings housing reactors 1-4 from a series of hydrogen explosions, the pro-nuke side retreated somewhat. Some will surely surge back with renewed vigor, because their support is more tribal than rational. Others may never be as enthused as they once were.

I've had some more general lessons running around my head than the ones I identified in the previous post, but I haven't found a way to make it a coherent post out of them. So below I have just listed them out, in order to capture them before some new crisis displaces them.

"Is" is the wrong verb. A lot of pro-nuke cranks are fond of saying, "Nuclear power is safe." This reveals a significant confusion on their part, because it is absolutely clear that nuclear power isn't inherently safe. Most large industrial objects are not. Cars, planes, trains, tanks, ore smelters, oil rigs, coal mines, oil refineries, combines, bulldozers - all of them are in fact quite risky when not taken seriously on a continuous basis. What the supporters should say instead is, "Nuclear power plants can be run safely." I believe that statement is true. I also believe that it is hard to make that sentence true.
Tail risk is incomprehensible. Our modern high-technology industrial civilization is a very recent occurrence in the history of our little blue planet. As a result, accurate records about various geophysical phenomenon are very short, and probably non-existent for some types of events. Scientists have become pretty good at teasing clues out of the geological record, but the risk to nuclear plants in many areas is still not quantified. But even if it could be quantified, humans aren't good at assessing the numbers. For instance, a flight on a first-world commercial airline is safer than driving, but many people still refuse to get on a plane. Similar problems arise when talking about nuclear power plants. But in that discussion the risk is often either wildly over-estimated or completely dismissed, and neither is correct.
Profit is corrosive to safety. As I've said before, here and elsewhere, I do not trust private, profit-driven corporations to run nuclear plants safely. The reason is that safety costs money. Resources spent on safety frequently won't translate into profits, in either the short term or the long term. But executives get rewarded for performance on a time scale that is relatively short. The massive mismatch between when cost-cutting might backfire and when an executive gets to drive new Porsche means that it will almost always be in a decision-maker's interest to go for short-term rewards.
Technology matters only somewhat. When a safety discussion becomes heated, often people will join in to say that one reactor type or another is better, and if only that reactor had been used, this or that problem wouldn't ever happen. But nothing can be made fool-proof, and the specifics of implementation and operation can render inoperable a safety feature in any design . The organizational culture that surrounds the low probability, high impact nature of nuclear power plants is just as important as the technology that is in use.

Open Letter: Vermont Yankee

2011-03-26T12:30:00.004-04:00

Greetings Senators and Representatives,

I am writing you today about the re-licensing of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in Vernon, Vermont. As things currently stand, I am opposed to extending the plant's lifetime.

While I am not opposed to nuclear power in principle, I do not trust a private corporation to run a plant safely. Entergy has not been honest, and given that the current corporate culture in the U.S. values profit and nothing else, there is no reason to assume Entergy will be honest in the future. If the company wants to turn Vermont Yankee over to a publicly-controlled not-for-profit entity, then I would not be opposed to having the plant run for an extended period - if it can be determined that it is safe to operate. By safe, I do not mean satisfying every reasonable and unreasonable fear of an anti-nuke zealot. Instead, a team of skeptical engineers and scientists should be given full access to the plant, and the latest inspection equipment to use. If, after conducting an analysis that is independently reviewed for quality, the team finds the plant to be safe, it could continue operating. I doubt my conditions will be met, or even considered, so I think the plant should be shut down.

Thank you for your time.

Postscript: I started writing this letter before the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, and the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant. I think the events there are relevant to Vermont Yankee, but do not automatically justify condemnation of the plant. Here is what I think we can take away from the crisis in Japan so far:

Vermont Yankee is unlikely to experience an earthquake with as great a magnitude during the next 20 years (or 2000, or 200,000) because there are no active subduction zones within thousands of miles. But the intensity assumptions used in Vernon could be wrong, as they were for the area offshore of northern Japan. If the plant was not designed to withstand to meet a sufficiently high level of shaking, the plant should not be considered safe.
While Vermont Yankee has absolutely no chance of suffering from a tsunami, a more extreme flood on the Connecticut River should be postulated, and the plant re-evaluated using higher water levels. The scenario I'm thinking of is a spring melt causing a breech of the Comerford Dam near St. Johnsbury. If safety systems would not stay operational with water at higher levels, the plant should not be considered safe.
Spent fuel rods stored inside the reactor building should be moved to dry cask storage and away from the reactor as soon as possible. Existing casks may also need to be moved uphill away from new flood level expectations. Re-licensing should be made conditional upon moving fuel rods that are sufficiently cool - on top of everything else.

A Program of Contrasts

2011-03-20T02:49:00.009-04:00

Almost immediately after the accident at Fukushima Daiichi, Chancellor Andrea Merkel announced a temporary shutdown of Germany's oldest nuclear plants. Counting one plant that had been shut down prior to the accident, the sixth of seven plants was shut down on Friday. The Chancellor was accused by some of playing politics in making the decision, as there are elections coming soon in several Länder. The current CDU-CSU-FDP government has previously stated support for keeping the currently operating reactors open longer, which is unpopular, and a reversal from the policy of phase-out that had previously been in place.

I think the shutdown was overly dramatic because of the relative geological stability of the region compared to Japan. The seven plants represent about 8% of Germany's total nameplate electricity generation capacity, so there is the potential for shortages. Only two plants with a total of two reactors are located on the coast: Brunsbüttel, which was already shut down, and Unterweser. The first is a boiling water reactor built by KWU, and from what I can gather, it has a design similar to a General Electric BWR/3 with Mark-1 containment. The other is a pressurized water reactor derived from a Westinghouse design. Of the other five reactors, two more are BWRs of the same design as Brunsbüttel, including one that has been in long-term shutdown due to technical and safety problems. The rest are PWRs similar to Unterweser. They are all located inland on rivers. Like all other coastlines, there is some risk of tsunamis on the shores of the North Sea. But without a subduction zone nearby, massive coast flooding would only come from underwater landslides.

The French nuclear power industry is in stark contrast to the German one. In the wake of the accident in Japan, no plants have been taken off line, despite four plants with fourteen reactors being situated on the coast. After an early foray into building gas-cooled reactors, France switched decisively in the late 1960s to PWRs derived from Westinghouse designs, and built large plants with up to six reactors of the same design. Germany built both BWRs and PWRs, and even mixed the types at two plants. However, only in the former East Germany was a plant with more than two identical reactors built. Germany experimented with more unconventional reactors types than France, though none of the plants were all that successful, and all have been shut down. France put a lot of effort into sodium-cooled fast reactors, but the first and only commercial-scale plant of that type was a failure. France only operates PWRs at this time.

The mostly likely explanation for the contrast between the two nuclear programs is the nature of the two countries' constitutions. France is a unitary state, which means local and regional governments only have powers that are granted by the central government. Germany is a federal state, and each Länder has the right to administer certain functions. France has had one monopoly power generation company since 1946, whereas Germany currently has several companies. (I have no insight into the history of the German power industry.) I think the scale and centralization of EDF, combined with the French love for grand projects like the TGV, has lead to the dominant role of nuclear power in the country. France also has two geographic advantages over Germany: it is much less densely populated, and it has a much longer coastline. That certainly allowed greater flexibility for siting plants. France was also never on the front line of the Cold War, so the prospect of war-damaged reactor was less likely (though I have no idea if the issue entered the minds of decision-makers in either country).

At first glance, nuclear power clearly "works" much better in France than in Germany. But entirely left out of this discussion so far is the issue of pollution. I have no idea how much nuclear waste exists in each country, how much has leaked into the environment, how well the high level waste is guarded, or anything else along those lines. Without analyzing that part of the nuclear complex, no evaluation can be complete. France has also been "lucky" in one regard, which is that the design it adopted appears to be safe at this point. No doubt a lot of study went into the issue before the choice was made, but that was done in the 1960s, when the industry was only 10-20 years old. The depth of knowledge was much, much less back then, and a wrong choice or a bad design could have ended up crippling the country if dozens of reactors had to be shut down at the same time.

Added 2011/03/20: Here's a list of Japan's reactors.

Added 2011/03/22: Here's an interview with the head of E.on, Germany's largest electric utility, talking about the problems the shutdown may create in the Germany grid. Of course, it's quite possible that he's exaggerating or even lying to boost his company's fortunes.

Added 2011/03/27: Former Chancellor Helmut Kohl lays into Merkel a bit.

Oh, We're at War Again?

2011-03-19T20:28:00.002-04:00

I suppose I should say something about this, since it's quite likely that more people will die in the attacks on Libya that started this afternoon than from the reactor accident at Fukushima Daiichi. But the insanity of getting involved in another conflict in a Muslim nation has left me a tad despondent.

I frequently make fun of people that don't care about politics or pay attention to the news, but that outlook makes a certain kind of sense. The news is damn depressing. Why is America involved in another military conflict, when there are still over 40,000 troops in Iraq and over 140,000 in Afghanistan? Why are we talking about deficit reduction when unemployment is over 9% and underemployment is over 16%? Why are we talking about cutting Social Security when it makes no contribution to the deficit? Why are we talking about cutting domestic discretionary spending when eliminating every single bit of it would only cut the budget deficit in half? And on and on and on. I keep saying I will pay less attention, but I can't make myself do that.

Compulsive behaviors - I hates them.

Will We Turn Japanese?

2011-03-17T17:18:00.005-04:00

I really don't think so. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't consider the possibility. The massive earthquake and terrible, devastating tsunami that struck Japan last week are unlikely to hit the US, except in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Those are the only places close to the US where there are subduction zones, which are a type of tectonic plate boundary that is responsible for the largest earthquakes, and most tsunamis. Coastlines are also vulnerable to tsunamis caused by underwater landslides, which may or may not be initiated by earthquakes. In the immediate region of a small slide, tsunamis can still be large. Very large slides can cause tsunamis that affect entire ocean basins. The frequency of landslide-induced tsunamis is unknown at this point, but the risk on the entire west coast is much higher than elsewhere, again because there are active plate boundries nearby.

Here are the nuclear power plants in the US close to a shoreline:

On the West Coast, there are two nuclear plants with four reactors adjacent to the ocean: Diablo Canyon Units 1 and 2, and San Onofre Units 2 and 3. Two additional reactors have been shut down and decommissioned: Humboldt Bay Unit 1, and San Onofre Unit 1.
On the Gulf of Mexico, there is one plant with one reactor situated on the coast: Crystal River Unit 3.
One Gulf region plant with one reactor is located in a low-lying inland region that may be affected by storm surges: Waterford Unit 3.
On the East Coast, only one plant with two reactors is situated directly on the Atlantic Ocean: Saint Lucie Units 1 and 2.
Six East Coast plants with nine reactors are located behind barrier islands: Seabrook Unit 1, Pilgrim Unit 1, Millstone Units 2 and 3, Oyster Creek Unit 1, Brunswick Units 1 and 2, and Turkey Point Units 3 and 4. The islands and shallow lagoons behind them may or may not be large enough to stop a tsunami from flooding the facilities. Millstone Unit 1 has been decommissioned. Shoreham Unit 1 never operated at commercial levels, and has been dismantled.
Five more East Coast plants with nine reactors are located on tidal rivers at varying distances from the ocean: Hope Creek Unit 1, Salem Units 1 and 2, Indian Point Units 2 and 3, Calvert Cliffs Units 1 and 2, and Surry Units 1 and 2. The locations may or may not be far enough upstream to be protected from tsunami-induced flooding. Two additional reactors have been shut down: Maine Yankee Unit 1, which has been decommissioned, and Indian Point Unit 1, which is still standing.

The only way to determine if these plants are actually at risk is to model a flood event and quantify the sea level rise. Simply looking at the height or distance from the shoreline isn't enough. The specifics of the coastline and bathymetry at each location can have significant effects on the run-up. After that task is done, the containment structure and safety systems can be analyzed to see if they would remain intact and operating. While this has certainly been done already for each plant, the question is whether it has been done with the right assumptions. For instance, the plants on the northeast coast of Japan assumed the subduction zone offshore would not produce anything greater than a 8.0 earthquake. That turns out to have been wrong, and the resulting tsunami was underestimated as a consequence.

Equally important as redoing analyses is actually verifying the safety systems work. TEPCO, the owner/operator of Fukushima Daiichi, has been accused of not verifying the functionality of some of the safety systems. Whether that is true will be worked out over the next few months. But there should be another round of testing of each plant in the US regardless of the outcome.

The District Lines

2011-03-01T22:51:00.005-05:00

One favorite pastime of transit nerds everywhere is making fantasy maps. The Washington, D.C., area transit and development bloggers are no exception. The four most prominent designs are those created by Greater Greater Washington, Beyond D.C., TrackTwentyNine, and The Transport Politic (a blog which isn't strictly about DC.) GGW's plan extends all the way to the far side of Baltimore, which is reasonable in light how much of the space between the two cities has been developed.

An idea common to most of the plans is to build a new tunnel for Metro's Blue Line through downtown. It and the Orange Line currently merge at Rosslyn, and the tunnel under the Potomac River is one of the busiest sections of the system. In order to relieve the "Orange Crush" - which will only get worse when the Silver Line is completed - the current Blue Line would stop at a new set of platforms in Rosslyn. It would then go under the river to the west of the existing tunnel, and turn east under M Street in Georgetown. Early proposals for Metro included stops in Georgetown, but they were dropped due to geography. The new tunnel would then proceed under M Street through downtown, and by various paths proceed to cross the Orange Line again near RFK Stadium.

The plans also attempt to deal with less immediate capacity crunch in the Yellow Line/Green Line joint tunnel between the junction under the Southwest Waterfront and Gallery Place, which is a transfer station for the Red Line. There's less agreement on what to do for this problem. Solutions include a constructing separate tunnel for the Yellow Line to the west of the existing tunnel, or constructing a entirely separate line from Alexandria into downtown.

All of the plans have a significant shortcoming: they don't address the capacity issues on the Red Line, which is currently the busiest in the system. Union Station sees the greatest number of riders entering or leaving in the system because of transfers from Amtrak or the MARC and VRE commuter rail systems. Passengers switch to westbound Red Line trains to complete their journeys in the morning, and reverse the pattern in the afternoon and evening. The line also receives heavy ridership from the northwest (timetable west), though that is moving in the opposite direction.

Below is my entry into the MetroRail expansion competition, which can also be seen in a slightly different form on GMaps. My plan includes the idea of having separate platforms in Rosslyn and a new tunnel into downtown, but differs from the others on where the tunnel should go on the other side. Instead of joining the existing path of the Blue Line east of the Anacostia, my proposed tunnel would split in two. One branch would join the Red Line north of Union Station, and the other would proceed south of Union Station, pass east of the Capitol, and join the Green Line just south of Navy Yard. This configuration would accomplish two things. One is it would free passenger capacity heading west from Union Station, and a lesser amount eastward from Dupont Circle. Most trains coming from the west end of the Red Line would terminate just north of Union Station, where ridership falls off significantly. The other is it would provide a path for north-south travel outside of downtown. Stations on the new line would be connected via tunnels to existing stations at Dupont Circle, Mt. Vernon Square, Union Station, Capital South, and Navy Yard. The currently proposed connection between Farragut West and Farragut North, and the one between the two major transfer stations at Metro Center and Gallery Place are also shown.

One problem with building a new tunnel from Rosslyn through downtown is that it would potentially create a train throughput issue from the Pentagon on south to King Street. My solution here would be to once again keep the lines separate. In the short(er) term, trains could be simply turned at the Pentagon station, with a couple of extras kept on pocket tracks southwest of the station. But in the longer run, I propose that a new line be built from the Pentagon south to join up with the existing Blue Line near Van Dorn Street. While the I-395 corridor is certainly not urban and walkable, there has been considerable development along it. Areas of increased density include Shirlington, the Skyline area north of the highway between King Street and Seminary Road, and the Landmark/Cameron Station area. The current Van Dorn Street station is near the southern end of the built-up corridor, but it isn't easily accessed except by residences and offices immediately adjacent to it. I propose stations at Shirlington, King Street, Seminary Road, Landmark Mall, and Edsall Road. The new line would be constructed with a mix of aerial structures and tunnels.

The last piece necessary for my overall plan is a new connection between the Green and Yellow Lines south of L'Enfant Plaza. Currently, trains of the Green and Yellow varieties can only travel north at the junction under the Southwest Waterfront. I propose adding a new connection so that trains could travel from east to west and west to east at that location. Connections could potentially added at a few other locations, though the added flexibility might not really be all that useful in those instances.

Close to downtown are two frequently discussed infill stations, one at Potomac Yards and another near the Jefferson Memorial. The former is already being planned. It potentially has great utility - if the NIMBYs in Alexandria allow enough density on their portion of the Potomac Yards site. Arlington County has already developed a high-density master plan for the area north of Four Mile Run, but that may not have good access to Metro if the new station is positioned too far south. The second new station would be a nice-to-have addition that would give tourists another point to access the system and give DC residents better access to East Potomac Park. A third infill station on Cameron Run between King Street and Van Dorn Street on the Blue Line is also shown, though I haven't studied it yet.

Around the edges are some less important expansions. The Metro was planned to be more like a commuter railroad than an urban transit system, with long suburban extensions and widely spaced stations outside of downtown. I see no reason for fighting that history, so what I propose just extends the lines a little further to places that already have some amount of density. Both ends of the Orange Line, the southern end of the Yellow Line, the southern end of the Blue line, and the eastern end of the Red Line each receive from one to four new stations, pushing the termini out as much as 10 miles. The west end of the Red Line could potentially be expanded, but the route of least resistance would just duplicate MARC service. On the north and south ends of the Green Line, there is no particular place to go that would generate many trips. At the eastern end of the Blue Line in there is a lot new construction, but it's not arranged in a way that could make use of an extension.

The diagram above shows one potential service configuration on the newly expanded system. Each different line represents about a third of any one track segment's train capacity. I can imagine a few other arrangements, but this one seems the best for the traffic demand as I understand it. The names of new stations are in red.

Contraction In Action

2011-02-25T13:26:00.001-05:00

Reports out of the UK last week indicating that the GDP had contracted in the 4th quarter surprised just about no one who understands economics. As promised during the campaign by the Conservatives (I'm not sure about the Liberal Democrats), the coalition's budget made significant cuts in government spending. And as predicted, cutting government spending (demand) when there is insufficient private spending (demand) to make up for it led to a significant slowdown. The Tories and their apologists in the UK financial press tried to blame it on the weather, but the only month affected by the unusual snows was December. Either the snows were so bad that the economy contracted by a drastic 3-4% (they weren't) or the economy was very, very weak before the weather hit. The latter seems much more likely, as the snows didn't result in widespread property damage or loss of life.

While it hasn't run its course, the spending cuts in the UK have created what is about as close to a single variable experiment as can be had in the field of macroeconomics. The country is not much of an oil importer and so it was relatively unaffected by the recent prices increases. The economies of the rest of Europe (overall, though not in some countries) and the US are growing, so export demand hasn't changed. And there were no internal shocks such as a bank run or stock market crash. The only major change was spending cuts. Not all of them have hit, and there may be some scrambling to lessen the amounts of the upcoming cuts. Still, the reduction in government spending will end up being significant. We will be able to be certain about the result of the experiment after the first quarter of 2011.

Update 2011/2/26 (originally posted 1/30): It turns out that the numbers were even worse than initially reported - the UK economy shrunk by 0.6% in the fourth quarter. That translates to an annualized rate of ~2.4%, which is how the numbers are reported in the US.

Isn't It Grand?

2011-02-19T20:36:00.029-05:00

The Villager rumor mill churned out a real humdinger last week, which was that a "grand bargain" is in the offing. Recovering economist Duncan Black provides the appropriate reaction in his usual pithy manner. A number of other people weighed in, including Black two more times, Digby, Drum, Klein, Benen, and Day again. I agree with the two basic reactions: it's unlikely to happen, and it would suck if it did happen.

The fact is, any such bargain would bad for the country and its citizens. At this point no amount of cutting alone can close the budget gap without basically eliminating a large number of government functions. A lot of conservatives argue that government shouldn't be doing much of what it currently does, but they are as wrong about that as they were about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. On the other hand, the budget can definitely be balanced in the short term without too much difficulty by cutting one area - defense - and raising revenue. And that revenue can be raised with minimal harm to the lower and middle classes.

Here's the current situation. As recently as 2008, the Federal Government collected 18.8% of GDP in taxes. Receipts have fallen to a projected 14.8% for the current budget year.

And here we are with a budget that leads to a constant debt ratio. How did we get here all of the sudden? Security spending (Department of Defense, Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, and about 2/3 of the Department of Energy) was cut by 1.4% of GDP. Revenue was increased via two new taxes (carbon and transaction), reforming of the corporate income tax, and hiking personal income taxes on the wealthy. The SS portion of F.I.C.A. also goes up once (if) the idiotic payroll tax holiday ends. The carbon tax is regressive, but in the long run the poor and middle classes would be better off paying it, and not having other programs cut or eliminated. And even after the tax increases, the total federal, state, and local tax burden in the US would be lower than just about every other industrialized country in the world.

Some things to note: I'm not saying that this would be popular. Nor am I saying it has any chance of passing Congress. Nor, finally, am I saying that the long-term budget problem - which is almost entirely due to out of control health care costs - would be solved. The point of these two graphics is simply to point out that the current budget discussion as it is presented in most of the media is entirely fraudulent.

A Hanging Curve

2011-02-17T11:15:00.004-05:00

Back during the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, most of the arguments presented in favor of the war weren't very persuasive to me. The evidence seemed flimsy, and the logic of Saddam Hussein giving Osama bin Laden weapons of mass terror or mass destruction was flawed. A flurry of articles in the Guardian this week sheds further light on how the country was deceived into supporting the war. Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, who was dubbed "Curveball" by his handlers in the German and then US intelligence agencies, has admitted to a Guardian reporter that he lied about his knowledge of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons programs. As it turned out, they didn't exist at all, except in the mind of Hussein. But the Bush Administration, despite knowing that there were very good reasons to doubt him, constructed a case for war based on al-Janabi's dubious story. Everything flowed from the assumption that his story was accurate, including the evidence shown during Colin Powell's "dramatic" presentation to the UN. (Powell has been engaged in an active campaign to rehabilitate his reputation ever since.)

None of al-Janabi's revelations are really new, though. Apart from the lack of hard evidence on the ground in Iraq for a weapons program, the internal doubts in the Bush Administration and Blair's Government have been reported before. And that leads to an unpleasant truth: the new report just does not matter. If the people who actively supported the Iraq War were willing to accept that the war was wrong and unnecessary, they would have done so by now. They haven't, and won't, because the implications are too hard to face. Their willful disregard for facts puts a burden of doing something on the people in the middle, who were passive supporters for one reason or another. But they declared their apathy on the matter in 2004, when Bush was re-elected. There are plenty on the left side of the political spectrum who would like to do something, such as prosecuting or at least exposing people who knew about al-Janabi's lies. But they are busy trying to prevent the dismantling of America's already very weak safety net. So the issue will be left to fester.

What is the fate of democracies that can't respond to internal, self-made crises? The few prior examples are not encouraging.

ETA: Powell's good reputation was always undeserved.

Thanks For Nothing, Guys

2011-02-16T17:13:00.001-05:00

There's No Map to Human Behaviour

2011-02-11T15:48:00.002-05:00

I've been working on several maps lately, but I don't really feel like making a full post about each.

Washington's soccer team, DC United, is looking for a site for a new stadium.
Amtrak has proposed a revival of the ARC tunnel which shares a lot of the canceled project's flaws.
I've made a major addition to my Southwest high speed rail proposal: a line between the suburbs of Las Vegas and a point on the the Los Angeles - Phoenix line east of Blythe.
I've more or less finalized the southern portion of my crazy idea to redraw California's counties, but the northern and central areas still need more work.

Enjoy!

Let's Hope This One Doesn't Come True

2011-02-02T23:58:00.000-05:00

As all good liberals know, The Onion has a proven record of being the best source of future news on the planet. So we should all hope this little article doesn't come true.

There's Not Just a River in Eygpt

2011-01-29T01:52:00.001-05:00

There are a whole lot of really upset people. And who can blame them? Mubarak stinks. And he's our - the United States of America's - stinker. And the Egyptian people know he's ours, and they know why he's been ours for almost 30 years now. They may, however, be willing to put that at the back of their minds for a while if America is not seen as meddling in the country at this critical juncture. I have thought from the outset of the riots that the best thing for the US government to do is to keep it's multiple yaps shut. So far, the Obama administration has been very careful with it language, as Rachel Maddow shows at the beginning of this segment. That's good. I hope they continue to resist the temptation to play the heavy here, because it would most likely backfire.

Ancient Coal Combustion Technology Discovered

2011-01-27T20:36:00.001-05:00

A new paper on the Permian-Triassic extinction event which was published this week is quite an interesting one. The P-Tr (peter?) event is considered to be the most severe in the geologic record, with a huge number of families being wiped out in short order. The new research is the first to provide clear support for the theory that the Siberian Traps flood basalt eruption contributed to the event, or might even have been the definitive cause. The formation of the large igneous province has been propsed as a cause for a while, but a more recent idea is that the magma came up through a large region of coal beds. The intense heat of the magma set the coal on fire, and the combination of eruption and combustion products led to a very large increase in carbon in the atmosphere. The paper argues that the burning coal also injected a large amount of toxic material into the global environment. (My guess is that the toxics are heavy metals, as the preview mentions coal fly ash. But I can't say for sure because, as of now, the full article is behind a pay wall.) The combination of rapid climate change and toxic materials caused the large number of extinctions.

While this paper is très intéressant, it also happens to be inconvenient for me. I have seven different books on extinction events in one of my wish lists, and parts or all of each one may have suddenly been rendered obsolete. I'll have to look at the contents now, instead of just selecting them on the basis of their ~~covers~~ titles. Le sigh.

Dashed Again

2011-01-27T19:19:00.004-05:00

By now I know that I should never get my hopes up. But I enjoy heady sensation of being optimistic about the fate of my country when I can, so against better knowledge I was looking forward to this day. Once again, I've been disappointed. This time it's because the esteemed members of the United States Senate have seen to it that the chamber will continue to be the worst legislative body in the developed world. The specifics of the negotiated rule changes are nice but essentially irrelevant. The most important goal, establishing that a majority of 51 can set the rules on the first day of the session, was taken off the table by Reid. To top it off the rule changes that were agreed to aren't really rule changes at all, just standing orders, which I guess are some kind of less potent Rule Lite for those times you want the power of a rule, but not the scary permanence of one. Or something. (I should look up what standing orders actually are, but fuck it.)

Anyway, the upshot of this is that nothing will be done during this Congress, and the Republicans will do in January of 2015 what the Democrats should have done today. Oh, well.

On to the next hopeless cause!

Update 2011/02/06: A good insider account of the reform effort is here. It also makes the argument that the reform effort did result in everyone agreeing that Senate rules could be changed by a simple majority. That's somewhat different than establishing a precedent, but point taken.

Breaking News Just In: Two-State Solution Still Dead

2011-01-24T17:41:00.002-05:00

The most important international news in a few weeks really isn't news, if you've been paying attention to such matters. Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based news organization that is probably the best source of information in the Middle East, has released a set of documents it claims are from parties to the negotiations between the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. I have no reason either doubt or believe their veracity based on the contents, but the ham-handed attack on Al Jazeera offices in the West Bank by a bunch of goons makes me think they are real. And the documents do not paint the Palestinian negotiators in a good light. They show how much the Palestinians were willing to give up in order to achieve peace relative to what international law indicates they should get. They offered Israel a heck a lot of strategically located land, all of East Jerusalem and most of the suburbs east of the 1967 borders, and reduced the number of refugees from the 1948 war returned to Israel proper to a bare minimum. And the Israelis rejected the offer.

That rejection just confirms that Israel has never been interested in peace. The proof has always been plain to see, in tangible form, in the Jewish "settlements" built all over the West Bank, and most densely around Jerusalem. Some have pointed to the forced removal of Jewish "settlers" from the Gaza Strip as evidence that the same might happen in the West Bank, and thus the Israeli government (which has always consisted of Jews and Druze at the ministerial level) had good intentions. But the situations are far from similar, mainly because Gaza is so far from the Jewish holy city of Jerusalem, and the land between the Jordan and the sea. (Gaza is at about the same latitude as the southern half of the Dead Sea.) The number of "settlers" removed was also a fraction of the number currently living in the West Bank (about 2%). Relocating the West Bank "settlers" would mean evicting and rehousing 6-7% of Israel's population. An equivalent number in the US would be almost 20 million, which is slightly more than the population of New York state. More evidence can be seen in the map contained in the documents, which resembles every map going back to 1967.

My main interest in all this is that America's unwavering support for Israel, even while claiming to be an honest broker, is just plain bad for America. The backing complicates this country's relations with the Muslim world, severely disrupts its relations with the Arab world, and US leaders look like fools whenever they get rolled by the Israeli government. The human rights aspects of the conflict - the displacement of Palestinians, the destruction of their property, the confiscation of their land, and the poverty the occupation causes - are also of concern to me. Lots of other countries treat their subjects like crap, but Israel is unique in that it is the largest recipient of US state-to-state aid, and has been for decades. Since Israel won't stop its reprehensible treatment of Palestinians while it is on the US dole, perhaps losing the subsidy would change its behavior. That certainly is an experiment worth making.

For its own sake, the sake of the Palestinians, and perhaps even the sake of the Jewish ethnocracy itself, the US should do whatever it can to put distance between itself and Israel, not just cut aid. Unfortunately, that's just not going to happen anytime soon because of domestic political considerations. For a variety of reasons, unquestioning - no, embarrassingly slavish - support for Israel is a bipartisan affair, no matter what it does. The reasons for the extreme level of support are hotly debated, so I'll just point out that (essentially) stating fealty to a foreign nation is not a prerequisite for a national political office in any country other than the US, as far as I know. It's a bizarre situation, especially since the relationship is so counterproductive for the US.

The Primary State

2011-01-22T19:40:00.002-05:00

One of the reasons I think that this country has become less and less governable is the perpetual campaign, and the coverage that goes with it. Because so little background research is required, it is just much cheaper to call the horse race than it is to do investigative reporting. Thus, in a era where newsroom budgets keep on falling, we get more and more election coverage and "analysis", while the actions of people actually running the government get less and less scrutiny.

The 2012 election cycle, it seems, has started. In what I would call a blatant ratings stunt, ABC News and a local New Hampshire affiliate are reporting on a "straw poll" of potential 2012 Republican presidential nomination candidates held last week, over 21 months away from the election. Twenty-one months. The results are meaningless, anyway, as no delegates were assigned and participation of Republican party operatives was below 50%. But nonetheless, some mid-level director at ABC thought up this pseudo-event, approved it, and budgeted for it. And then ABC covered the stunt like it was real news. To make matters worse, other news outlets have picked up the story, amplifying the total non-event and giving it credibility it doesn't deserve.

What a total waste of human intellect.

Two Are Better Than One

2011-01-21T11:21:00.000-05:00

It's been expected for a while, but nonetheless the publication of a study confirming the existence of two different species of elephant in Africa is good news. It's good because, as the linked article points out, the previous management strategy that treated all elephants in Africa as one species put the existence of African Forest Elephant at serious risk.

I just find this stuff fascinating, personally. The development of methods of genetic analysis for distinguishing species has led to substantial advances in taxonomy that would have taken decades using old methods. (That may have also had a negative effect on future taxonomic research, but I suspect the concern is overblown because post-docs will seize opportunities in relatively understaffed fields once they learn about them.) I think the next big question for taxonomists and geneticists to answer is how often are genes transferred between complex species. This question has immediate relevance in the age of genetic engineering.

We Had to Destroy the Village, Redux

2011-01-20T20:03:00.000-05:00

Obviously, I'm not on the ground so I don't know what exactly led the US forces in Afghanistan to blow up an entire village. But from here, without context but with some perspective, it sure does look like outright lunacy. If it were the first and last village where such a thing occurred, then I could just chalk it up to the general madness of war itself, and move on. But I think that the Pashtun nationalists, whether they call themselves the Taliban or something else, have inadvertently invented a significant new tactic. I don't see how the US doesn't get charged with the responsibility of clearing a village that the militants have booby-trapped. Typical villagers certainly don't have the ability to make a location safe. The Afghan central government doesn't have the ability, either, and training Afghans to do the job will take years. That leaves the US with the responsibility. But the US military certainly isn't going to risk soldiers' lives on manually disarming each and every device. So that leaves the mass destruction method, which works but tends to leave people homeless. And thus, I believe, the villagers will end up being mad at both sides, which won't help the US effort one bit.

We need to GTFO of central Asia.

Easing Raul

2011-01-17T18:55:00.006-05:00

One of my more outlandish predictions of a few weeks ago was that Obama would radically improve relations with Cuba this year. While so far there's no evidence indicating that specific prediction will happen, there has been some progress made in the policy area. Although the changes don't make the restrictions any looser than they were under Clinton, they are still improvements upon the Bush years (as so many of Obama's policies are).

As I've pointed out at a blog I post at anonymously (I don't want the cranks following me around the net), U.S. policy towards Cuba is stupid with a capital "S". Cuba poses no military threat to the U.S., nor does it harbor terrorists that threaten the U.S. Cuba has a higher level of democratic freedoms than Việt Nam, a country with which the U.S. has normal relations. In addition, Cuba has roughly the same amount of press freedom, but a much better corruption ranking than Việt Nam. Cuba's Peace Index score is much higher than that of the United States, though both are lower than Việt Nam. At the leadership level, Raul Castro seems pretty intent on moving the country towards a more market economy. Fidel, who was long a polarizing figure (or was long made into one) doesn't seem inclined to stop his brother even though he has mostly recovered from his illness of a few years ago. While I don't believe that a free market either equals or necessarily leads to democracy, I do think that in the case of Cuba that improvements in one will be hard to separate from improvements from the other. That is because the cultural similarities between Cuba and the capitalist democracies of the Americas are stronger than those between the East Asian mercantilists and the democracies of the Americas and Europe.

In other words, there is no justifiable reason for the US to continue its current policy of isolating the island nation. There is, as I noted before, the politics of Florida, but that's a very poor excuse for such a counterproductive policy. So, hopefully, my prediction will come true, and I will be asking my congresscritters to press the president to make it happen.

Beaver State Rails

2011-01-11T14:21:00.001-05:00

At the request of a fellow commenter at the (unofficial) California High Speed Rail Blog, I have created another railroad map, this time for Oregon. Comments:

The map is comprehensive but not complete.
I've included the interurban lines of several systems, but not their local streetcar lines. Additionally, no strictly urban streetcar systems are included. This might seem like an arbitrary division, but interurbans often hauled freight (in small amounts) whereas streetcar systems almost never did. Thus, the distinction.
No modern transit systems are included. Right-of-ways abandoned by their original operator and reused later by a transit system are shown as abandoned.
For some logging railroads, I have only found brief descriptions of their general location, and have not been able to figure out the exact alignments. These are drawn with simple, straight lines. I may remove them in the future if I cannot find more information about them.
Temporary logging spurs are not included.
A number of abandoned lines are submerged in various reservoirs around the state. I've drawn lines through the water, but they are not at all accurate.
Colors are as follows: green = BNSF; brown = UP; blue = everybody else; red = abandoned standard gauge; orange = abandoned narrow gauge.
Because of the limitations of GMaps, the content is split over several pages. I've arranged the lines from north to south, but I have no control over where the breaks occur. If an area you would like to look at is on two different pages, try flipping back and forth. The page breaks aren't fixed, so all of the lines you want to see may (or may not) end up on the same page.

Vermont Ski Areas Map

2011-01-10T11:13:00.003-05:00

Inspired by a recent episode of Vermont Edition, I have created this map of alpine ski areas in Vermont. Location data for defunct facilities was taken from the descriptions on the New England Lost Ski Areas Project website. I didn't include all of the areas on the list in my map, as a number of them were basically no more than backyard operations for friends and neighbors. However, in southern Vermont (south of Route 4) there are quite a few defunct facilities of significant size - more than one lift and at least 6 different trails. These are labeled with "defunct ski area" on the map, and their trails are usually visible in the satellite imagery.

Enjoy!

Viewsonic VX910 Capacitor Replacement

2011-01-06T19:45:00.002-05:00

My main monitor, a Viewsonic VX910 built in 2003, has succumbed to the capacitor plague. Below is a list of the aluminum electrolytic and polypropylene film capacitors on the inverter board. On my board in particular, only the 330uF 25V electrolytic capacitor and one of the 0.15uF 250V polypropylene capacitors appear to have failed. Nonetheless, I am going to replace all them, as all of the electrolytic caps are of the infamous CapXon brand. There are also three ceramic disk capacitors, eight multilayer ceramic capacitors, and one box-type polypropylene capacitor on the board. None of those are subject to the capacitor plague, and their lifetime is quite long according to the spec sheets I looked at. In addition to the inverter board, the monitor has a display board with fourteen capacitors. I see nothing on the net about replacing those caps, so I will leave them be.

2 - 470uF, 25V, aluminum electrolytic, radial, 10mm D x 16mm L, 5mm LS, 105 C, low impedance
1 - 330uF, 35V, aluminum electrolytic, radial, 10mm D x 16mm L, 5mm LS, 105 C, low impedance
1 - 330uF, 25V, aluminum electrolytic, radial, 8mm D x 15mm L, 3.5mm LS, 105 C, Low impedance
1 - 10uF, 50V, aluminum electrolytic, radial, 5mm D x 11mm L, 2mm LS, 105 C, low impedance
1 - 100uF, 400V, aluminum electrolytic, radial, 16mm D x 31.5mm L, 7.5mm LS, 105 C
2 - 0.15uF, 250V, metalized polypropylene film, radial, 5.6 mm W x 13 mm L x 14.7 mm H, 10mm LS, 105 C

The Perils of Excessive Modesty

2011-01-05T15:14:00.002-05:00

The Senate rules reform proposal has been released, and while it's a move in the right direction, it's also too unambitious for my tastes. On the super-majority itself, the 60 vote threshold to end debate would not be changed, but the burden of maintaining the filibuster would be put on the opponents. The reform team also added two new side proposals to the ones I mentioned below: one to guarantee a minimum number of amendments on each bill to the opposition, and one to reduce the post-cloture debate time to two hours on nominees. On balance, it would be a step in the right direction if passed, but a modest one. Though the opposition might have to work a bit harder, it would still be able to halt any particular bill without extraordinary effort.

The most important outcome of passage of the proposal would be establishment of the principle that rules can be changed by a simple majority on the first day of the session. That will happen because the Democratic reform leaders have chosen to use the so-called constitutional option (which is slightly different from the nuclear option which would have established the principle of rule changes at any time). The other choice would have been to negotiate a set of rule changes with the Republicans that could gather 67 votes, which is the current requirement due to the debatable assertion of the Senate as a continuing body. Of course, negotiation would have been pointless because the Republicans have no interest in altering rules that allowed them to obstruct Senate business at will. So the Democrats will have to proceed on their own.

To me, once the precedent is established that rules can be changed by a simple majority on day one of a Congress, there wouldn't be much point in keeping the 60 vote threshold for cloture. Eventually, it would be lowered to 50, so it might as well be done now. The Republicans would accuse the Democrats of a "power grab" if the threshold were to be changed this year, but they are going to do so anyway, so I think the Democrats might as well get something for the lumps they are inevitably going to take. But the Democrats are being typically fair-minded (or timid) about this, so the 60 vote threshold will remain in force. I said before that streamlining the nomination process would be the most important result of any rules reform (though now it would be the second most important), and I think the proposal as it stands will provide a significant amount of improvement in that aspect of the Senate's duties.