In my first job, back in the roaring eighties, I was given a fairly light and not directly related duty supporting the purchasing department with coding the purchases for custom duties purposes. I was given a copy of the Brussels Universal Custom Coding and when needed I would find the correct code for this or that screw or specialty paper.
Those were the waning days of protectionism. The idea that every country should manufacture everything. Small differences in a screw tread would trigger duties of 20%, 100%, even 250%.
Then the world changed. By the year 2000, 10% duties were already uncommonly high (we still use a flat 10% duties assumption in my job for budgeting purposes, but that includes port and handling charges that can be as high as 5% in some places).
tl/dr. In the 1980 a free trade agreement like NAFTA was a huge deal for all parties involved because custom duties were a real trade barrier. By the time it was fully implemented, it was irrelevant. As far as I know, China only has Most Favoured Nation status, and it's all it needs (is not a party of the TPP either). Today, Trade Agreements are more about things like intellectual property protection and trade in services than about customs and industry.
Which means that there is also nothing for Trump to renegotiate with China. But we knew that already.
1.362 kW/m^2 (I rounded up to 1,4) is the average irradiation on an annual basis in the upper atmosphere. Variation is related to the variations in the earth/Sun distance. There must be a typo in the doc you were reading. Watts (Power) is an instantaneous reading, like HP, not a time based reading like Joules, kWh or BTU
You are off by a factor of 1,000. Solar irradiance in the upper atmosphere is 1.4 kW/m^2. At ground level is 1.0 kW/m^2 (a unit called a Sun :-) ). Current PV technology captures 10-15% of it depending on site/ tilting or not, etc. the membranes would produce 1,000 times more.
If it could be done at 500 times the cost of solar power it would be a revolution. The fact that it's not being talked about probably means that it is not scalable with current technology.
I would have to see the math, but I find the power claims very difficult to believe. Particularly because there is no mention of the rate at which ions traverse the membrane to understand the volumes of water involved in the process.
A one MW membrane means that every second you are harvesting from a one sq mt (10 sq ft) membrane one MegaJoule of energy, enough to lift one Kg (2.2 pounds) slighly over 100 km (62 miles). It's the energy contained in eight gallons of gasoline, EVERY SECOND, EVERY TEN SQUARE FEET (sorry, I'm excited).
Either the three molecules thick membrane manufacturing is extremely costly, no matter how abundant MoS2 is, or the process cannot be scaled up to the 1 m2 area, or limitless energy has arrived to the world.
Just like Obama's birth announcement in the Honolulu press was one of the first steps in the plan to have a Kenyan take over as president fifty years later, so he would then confiscate America's guns, cancel the 2016 election and surrender the country to the control of the U. N.
I agree, but you don't have to scale that much. There's not that much craft beer variety in Walmarts compared to Kroger (1:2 ratio more or less). But you can stock the local craft beers. Would I want to sell 20 beers cases to Walmart at 10$/case or would I try to sell 20 cases to 20 different small gastro pubs at 15 $/case each?
I think there's a market of rich people wanting cheap reach people stuff. Cheaper lobsters. Cheaper smoked salmon. Cut one dollar per lobster compared to Whole Foods and let the Audis roll in.
Jokes aside, is there a reason why Walmart cannot replicate its model in an upscale version, and squeeze the last penny out of organic kale growers and artisanal goat cheese makers? Or of goose down pillow manufacturers? It doesn't need to be as cheap as a 99cents store. It just needs to undercut Whole Foods. I bought my goose down pillows in Ross ("Dress for Less"). Six goose down pillows for less than 100 dollars. They are about $120 in Macy's. And once they are in my bed, I can't see the Ross price tag.
In Houston, Walmart has done one of the most devious things imaginable. They've opened a store in between some of the most expensive and fashionable neighbourhood (for those that know Houston, in Yale St. in the border between The Heights and Rice Military, five minutes drive from River Oaks). To me, it's a 15 minute drive, compared to less than five to my regular Kroger.
They have lobster, they have smoked salmon, they have organic berries, they have grass fed eggs, they have craft beers, they have gelato. And they have the regular stuff I used to buy at Krogers, but cheaper.
When Walmart applied to open the store, there was huge opposition from neighbours because they were concerned that Walmart would attract "those" people to "our" neighborhood (*).
Rest assured that "those" people have been driven out of that locale by "our" people, the people that park their Mercedes, Lexus, Range Rovers or Audis in front of Walmart. Those, and my slightly battered CR-V.
Next door to Walmart is a specialty foodie and farmer market store. They have now to compete with the giant. Their avocados now are cheaper than Walmart's (which are cheaper than Kroger's)
Kidding aside, upscale Walmart have the potential to disturb the market in the same way as downscale Walmart did. When I first walked in, I sensed big trouble for the area retailers.
(*) the Walmart closest to me after this one is indeed a scary place, I was confronted by a guy in the cashiers queue because he thought I was ogling his girlfriend. I went there because there was a table game my mum wanted that, according to the Internet, only Walmart carried in-store.
I agree with you that the Trumpist voter is there.
I have more problems imagining a Trumpist candidate that can be successful without the backing of at least some heavy donors. The cost of a USA campaign is orders of magnitude the cost in Europe.
Trump is a special case, because he started the campaign already as a household name, saving him millions. Plus he had the (alleged) ability to self finance his primary campaign. He did let the press run and BE his campaign, but the only reason the press played along is that the public already knew who Trump was and wanted more of him. Candidates like Huckabe, Carson, Gingrich, Buchanan, that have gone for slightly similar demographics, have not succeeded anywhere like Trump because no one in Real 'Mureeca knew who they were, and they could not buy their way into the spotlight.
Literally, there are very few people in the position Trump was the day he went down the escalator, on both name recognition and resources. Oprah comes to mind. Bill Gates. Not many more.
Any other Trumpist candidate will have to jump for the donors for his money. And the donors will limit him. Citizens United's Silver Lining.
When I was younger, or so much younger than today, but already a power engineer, how to supply water to the Netherlands Antilles and other Caribbean islands was a massive challenge. How could you support a tourist industry if tourists could not get a shower? (*). There was no certainty it could be solved. Bringing icebergs from the Antarctica was deemed a possible solution
Last year, I was one-on-one discussing power requirements in Aruba with the Energy and Infrastructure Minister. The power requirements for the desal plants were not deemed to be relevant compared to those of air conditioning new hotels
(*) Up to the early XX century, the only water available was rain water collected in cisterns. In dry years, women and children would decamp to the mainland leaving only the men in the islands, so as to save water.
They are still recovering from the hangover celebrating the drying up of the Aral Sea, and were busy preparing the party to celebrate the permanent salinization of the Sea of Galilee (bummer about that being cancelled). They'll get onto it eventually.
The best thing about being a purist is that, if perfection is not immediately achievable, you don't have to do a fishing thing to improve things a bit. Why bother with stopping desertification and depleting aquifers (hello, American Prairie) if there will be CO2 emissions associated? I might as well just keep pumping the wells until they are completely dry.
You wont find any stronger opponent of gerrymandering than myself, living among old oaks and swanky coffee shops and gastro pubs, at the tip of a crescent shaped congressional district whose other tip is the fishing Port of Houston.
As much as I am a fan of the Port of Houston as an economic engine, its interests are not those of wine sipping arugula eating gastro pub customers who dwell under the shadow of 50 year old oaks.
Apparently the only commonality is that arugula eating gastro pub customers and poor people forced to live next door to ports and oil and chemical plants have is we all vote Democrat
Totally - There is literally no difference for Rod Dreher between his inability to discriminate against gays without any social costs whatsoever, and being inside the Angola prison. Literally none. He keeps telling us that every single day.
Plastic bags. The consumers pay the cost of disposal in landfills, and the environmental cost of the bags floating everywhere, Sam Mendes movie-like. There no such thing as a free plastic bag.
Starbucks cups. I hate those. They taste horribly and can't be recycled. I ask for ceramic cups, and get a 10 cents discount
The power cost of desalinization has dropped dramatically in the last two decades. It used to be extremely high. Not anymore. The article gives you some numbers. Israel uses mostly natural gas for power generation.
Today, it's cheaper for a seaside steam power plant to take seawater to make up the steam (*) than to dig up wells for it.
(*) which requires pure demineralized water, not just fresh drinking quality water - remember battery water bottles?
The USA produces more gas that what it can consume, yet, every winter, the N.E. Has to burn massive amounts of heating oil and LPG because there are not enough pipelines to bring the needed gas into the region. While all dusting LNG importing terminals in the USA are being retrofitted as export terminals, an LNG winter only import facility has been developed in New England,
The excess cost for the consumer, as well as the environmental impact, is mind boggling. Pipelines Rule!!!
With respect to the UK and plastic bags, bear in mid that Europeans mostly shop daily or almost daily for food (*). Therefore the amount of shopping you would carry with you is quite small. The amounts a USA family buys in a grocery trip are unheard of. Keeping a bag in the car, or stuffing your coat pockets (everyone carries coats 10 months a year) takes care of most of your food shopping.
(*) It's quite normal that a house regular's fridge would be the size of a USA minibar. A similar sized freezer would be normal.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Matt Taibbi: A Republican Workers’ Party?”
In my first job, back in the roaring eighties, I was given a fairly light and not directly related duty supporting the purchasing department with coding the purchases for custom duties purposes. I was given a copy of the Brussels Universal Custom Coding and when needed I would find the correct code for this or that screw or specialty paper.
Those were the waning days of protectionism. The idea that every country should manufacture everything. Small differences in a screw tread would trigger duties of 20%, 100%, even 250%.
Then the world changed. By the year 2000, 10% duties were already uncommonly high (we still use a flat 10% duties assumption in my job for budgeting purposes, but that includes port and handling charges that can be as high as 5% in some places).
tl/dr. In the 1980 a free trade agreement like NAFTA was a huge deal for all parties involved because custom duties were a real trade barrier. By the time it was fully implemented, it was irrelevant. As far as I know, China only has Most Favoured Nation status, and it's all it needs (is not a party of the TPP either). Today, Trade Agreements are more about things like intellectual property protection and trade in services than about customs and industry.
Which means that there is also nothing for Trump to renegotiate with China. But we knew that already.
On “Morning Ed: Society {2016.08.10.W}”
The Olympic logos analysis is worth the time if at some point you have to get involved in corporate logos and similar.
Plus my city is tied in second best, So what's not to like? (fishing Athens, go jump off a cliff)
On “Tuesday Tech Links”
1.362 kW/m^2 (I rounded up to 1,4) is the average irradiation on an annual basis in the upper atmosphere. Variation is related to the variations in the earth/Sun distance. There must be a typo in the doc you were reading. Watts (Power) is an instantaneous reading, like HP, not a time based reading like Joules, kWh or BTU
"
@oscar-gordon
You are off by a factor of 1,000. Solar irradiance in the upper atmosphere is 1.4 kW/m^2. At ground level is 1.0 kW/m^2 (a unit called a Sun :-) ). Current PV technology captures 10-15% of it depending on site/ tilting or not, etc. the membranes would produce 1,000 times more.
If it could be done at 500 times the cost of solar power it would be a revolution. The fact that it's not being talked about probably means that it is not scalable with current technology.
"
That's a good reason to believe it's not scalable.
As a reference, solar (rule of thumb) requires 10,000 sq mts (one hectare) per MW. This technology would be 10,000 times more effective area wise.
"
The MoS2 membrane
I would have to see the math, but I find the power claims very difficult to believe. Particularly because there is no mention of the rate at which ions traverse the membrane to understand the volumes of water involved in the process.
A one MW membrane means that every second you are harvesting from a one sq mt (10 sq ft) membrane one MegaJoule of energy, enough to lift one Kg (2.2 pounds) slighly over 100 km (62 miles). It's the energy contained in eight gallons of gasoline, EVERY SECOND, EVERY TEN SQUARE FEET (sorry, I'm excited).
Either the three molecules thick membrane manufacturing is extremely costly, no matter how abundant MoS2 is, or the process cannot be scaled up to the 1 m2 area, or limitless energy has arrived to the world.
On “Does It Really Matter That Trump Won’t Release His Tax Returns?”
Just like Obama's birth announcement in the Honolulu press was one of the first steps in the plan to have a Kenyan take over as president fifty years later, so he would then confiscate America's guns, cancel the 2016 election and surrender the country to the control of the U. N.
It's Deep State all down
On “Linky Friday #178: Crime, Death, & Urban Living”
I agree, but you don't have to scale that much. There's not that much craft beer variety in Walmarts compared to Kroger (1:2 ratio more or less). But you can stock the local craft beers. Would I want to sell 20 beers cases to Walmart at 10$/case or would I try to sell 20 cases to 20 different small gastro pubs at 15 $/case each?
I think there's a market of rich people wanting cheap reach people stuff. Cheaper lobsters. Cheaper smoked salmon. Cut one dollar per lobster compared to Whole Foods and let the Audis roll in.
"
I wasn't. I should start one: "Cars of Walmart"
Jokes aside, is there a reason why Walmart cannot replicate its model in an upscale version, and squeeze the last penny out of organic kale growers and artisanal goat cheese makers? Or of goose down pillow manufacturers? It doesn't need to be as cheap as a 99cents store. It just needs to undercut Whole Foods. I bought my goose down pillows in Ross ("Dress for Less"). Six goose down pillows for less than 100 dollars. They are about $120 in Macy's. And once they are in my bed, I can't see the Ross price tag.
"
Ec1
In Houston, Walmart has done one of the most devious things imaginable. They've opened a store in between some of the most expensive and fashionable neighbourhood (for those that know Houston, in Yale St. in the border between The Heights and Rice Military, five minutes drive from River Oaks). To me, it's a 15 minute drive, compared to less than five to my regular Kroger.
They have lobster, they have smoked salmon, they have organic berries, they have grass fed eggs, they have craft beers, they have gelato. And they have the regular stuff I used to buy at Krogers, but cheaper.
When Walmart applied to open the store, there was huge opposition from neighbours because they were concerned that Walmart would attract "those" people to "our" neighborhood (*).
Rest assured that "those" people have been driven out of that locale by "our" people, the people that park their Mercedes, Lexus, Range Rovers or Audis in front of Walmart. Those, and my slightly battered CR-V.
Next door to Walmart is a specialty foodie and farmer market store. They have now to compete with the giant. Their avocados now are cheaper than Walmart's (which are cheaper than Kroger's)
Kidding aside, upscale Walmart have the potential to disturb the market in the same way as downscale Walmart did. When I first walked in, I sensed big trouble for the area retailers.
(*) the Walmart closest to me after this one is indeed a scary place, I was confronted by a guy in the cashiers queue because he thought I was ogling his girlfriend. I went there because there was a table game my mum wanted that, according to the Internet, only Walmart carried in-store.
On “This Party Cannot Be Saved”
He needs to learn how to deliver babies, because society expects that if he is stuck in a plane with a woman in labour, he can help.
It's part of the price he has to pay for his license to be an orthopedic surgeon
On “Morning Ed: Resources {2016.08.04.Th}”
@Will-Truman
I agree with you that the Trumpist voter is there.
I have more problems imagining a Trumpist candidate that can be successful without the backing of at least some heavy donors. The cost of a USA campaign is orders of magnitude the cost in Europe.
Trump is a special case, because he started the campaign already as a household name, saving him millions. Plus he had the (alleged) ability to self finance his primary campaign. He did let the press run and BE his campaign, but the only reason the press played along is that the public already knew who Trump was and wanted more of him. Candidates like Huckabe, Carson, Gingrich, Buchanan, that have gone for slightly similar demographics, have not succeeded anywhere like Trump because no one in Real 'Mureeca knew who they were, and they could not buy their way into the spotlight.
Literally, there are very few people in the position Trump was the day he went down the escalator, on both name recognition and resources. Oprah comes to mind. Bill Gates. Not many more.
Any other Trumpist candidate will have to jump for the donors for his money. And the donors will limit him. Citizens United's Silver Lining.
"
When I was younger, or so much younger than today, but already a power engineer, how to supply water to the Netherlands Antilles and other Caribbean islands was a massive challenge. How could you support a tourist industry if tourists could not get a shower? (*). There was no certainty it could be solved. Bringing icebergs from the Antarctica was deemed a possible solution
Last year, I was one-on-one discussing power requirements in Aruba with the Energy and Infrastructure Minister. The power requirements for the desal plants were not deemed to be relevant compared to those of air conditioning new hotels
(*) Up to the early XX century, the only water available was rain water collected in cisterns. In dry years, women and children would decamp to the mainland leaving only the men in the islands, so as to save water.
"
Tragedy of the commons, thy name is Libertarian (but we'll call you Damon as pet name, you ok?)
"
They are still recovering from the hangover celebrating the drying up of the Aral Sea, and were busy preparing the party to celebrate the permanent salinization of the Sea of Galilee (bummer about that being cancelled). They'll get onto it eventually.
The best thing about being a purist is that, if perfection is not immediately achievable, you don't have to do a fishing thing to improve things a bit. Why bother with stopping desertification and depleting aquifers (hello, American Prairie) if there will be CO2 emissions associated? I might as well just keep pumping the wells until they are completely dry.
#BernieorBust
On “What Would a Parliamentary System Look Like in the US?”
You wont find any stronger opponent of gerrymandering than myself, living among old oaks and swanky coffee shops and gastro pubs, at the tip of a crescent shaped congressional district whose other tip is the fishing Port of Houston.
As much as I am a fan of the Port of Houston as an economic engine, its interests are not those of wine sipping arugula eating gastro pub customers who dwell under the shadow of 50 year old oaks.
Apparently the only commonality is that arugula eating gastro pub customers and poor people forced to live next door to ports and oil and chemical plants have is we all vote Democrat
"
Totally - There is literally no difference for Rod Dreher between his inability to discriminate against gays without any social costs whatsoever, and being inside the Angola prison. Literally none. He keeps telling us that every single day.
On “Morning Ed: Resources {2016.08.04.Th}”
What can go wrong with evacuating a 5.5 MM metropolitan area that has only four roads going out?
"
Not sure what your beef with Miami is, besides the fact of it being very pretty to look a, and that it shouldn't be there at all for various reasons.
"
Plastic bags. The consumers pay the cost of disposal in landfills, and the environmental cost of the bags floating everywhere, Sam Mendes movie-like. There no such thing as a free plastic bag.
Starbucks cups. I hate those. They taste horribly and can't be recycled. I ask for ceramic cups, and get a 10 cents discount
"
The power cost of desalinization has dropped dramatically in the last two decades. It used to be extremely high. Not anymore. The article gives you some numbers. Israel uses mostly natural gas for power generation.
Today, it's cheaper for a seaside steam power plant to take seawater to make up the steam (*) than to dig up wells for it.
(*) which requires pure demineralized water, not just fresh drinking quality water - remember battery water bottles?
"
*cough* "bloody fumes and smog" *cough*
The *cough* is literally cough
"
The ones my family uses are very small. They have big pantries though, and more freezer than fridge space
"
Tangential to the Tim Kaine article
The USA produces more gas that what it can consume, yet, every winter, the N.E. Has to burn massive amounts of heating oil and LPG because there are not enough pipelines to bring the needed gas into the region. While all dusting LNG importing terminals in the USA are being retrofitted as export terminals, an LNG winter only import facility has been developed in New England,
The excess cost for the consumer, as well as the environmental impact, is mind boggling. Pipelines Rule!!!
"
With respect to the UK and plastic bags, bear in mid that Europeans mostly shop daily or almost daily for food (*). Therefore the amount of shopping you would carry with you is quite small. The amounts a USA family buys in a grocery trip are unheard of. Keeping a bag in the car, or stuffing your coat pockets (everyone carries coats 10 months a year) takes care of most of your food shopping.
(*) It's quite normal that a house regular's fridge would be the size of a USA minibar. A similar sized freezer would be normal.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.