Heatwave energy surges
The EIA has this graph (7/25/2024) of electricity generation by natural gas during the July heatwave.
U.S. power plant operators generated 6.9 million megawatthours (MWh) of electricity from natural gas on a daily basis in the Lower 48 states on July 9, 2024, probably the most in history and certainly since at least January 1, 2019, when we began to collect hourly data about natural gas generation.
Part of the electricity generation spike was due to the heat but not all. Wind power failed us.
Wind generation in the Lower 48 states totaled 0.3 million MWh on July 9, 2024, much lower than the 1.3 million MWh daily average in June 2024.
Now, one might say that if we just had batteries to back up low solar and wind production, we’d be fine. How much would that cost? In other words, let’s say we need to generate 1 million MWh for four hours. This would cover the spike from 6 to 7 MWh for an afternoon. The National Renewable Energy Labs (NREL) has a June 2023 report with price projections for battery storage.
To make calculations easy, we’ll use the 2035 mid-estimation of $300 per kWh. We first convert this to MWh by multiplying by 1000 to get $300,000 per MWh. We now need 1,000,000 of these to generate 1,000,000 MWh, and we are at $300,000,000,000. The capital costs to cover the 1 million MWh spike for four hours are about $300 billion. If you want to be optimistic, maybe the costs will drop to the low trend and we can do it for $200 billion. The batteries still need to be charged and recharged overnight to handle the next days spike.
On the grand scheme of a government budget of $6 trillion, $300 billion really isn’t that much (see my million, billion, trillion animated graphic to see the relationship). I must say, in the end, maybe this is doable. Although I would expect the costs to be higher and note that this is a one-time cost for the life of the batteries. Then you do have to do more than just buy the batteries. You need facilities and people to manage the facilities. You need connections to the grid and all this for something that is a backup. I also wonder how these batteries get charged overnight since the sun isn’t shining and the wind might not be blowing. In the end, we may just be using natural gas anyway.
Ford EV losses
This comes from Electrek (7/24/2024)
After EV sales surged 61% year-over-year in Q2 2024, Ford remained the second best-selling EV maker in the US behind Tesla.
With nearly 23,957 EVs sold in the second quarter, Ford topped rival GM, which sold 21,930 electric models. All Ford EV models had double-digit YOY growth.
Excellent, EVs are selling.
F-150 Lightning sales rose 77%, with 7,902 sold. Ford sold 12,645 Mustang Mach-E’s, up 46.5%. Meanwhile, sales of Ford’s electric van, the E-Transit, surged 95.5%, with 3,410 models sold in Q2.
Despite the progress, Ford has pulled back on several EV initiatives. The American automaker has cut F-150 Lightning production, delayed around $12 billion in EV spending, and most recently announced plans to build more Super Duty trucks at its EV plant in Ontario.
Huh? Why, with all the "progress,” would Ford back off EVs. Keep reading the article.
Speaking of EVs, Ford’s model e unit lost another $1.1 billion in the second quarter. Ford Model e revenue fell to $1.3 billion, while volume was down 23% in Q2.
Ford’s EV losses are reached $2.5 billion through the first half of 2024. The higher losses are due to lower volume and “industry-wide pricing pressure.”
So, they sold 23,957 EVs in Q2 and lost $1.1 billion. Let’s do some math for Electric. Let’s see: 1,100,000,000 / 23,957 = $45,916. They lost, on average, $45,916 per electric vehicle sold. I suppose some vehicles were made that haven’t been sold to fix this? Maybe Ford just can’t make an affordable EV? Either way, the second-largest EV seller in the US is losing money like crazy. Of course, they would back off EVs. Meanwhile, this is one more point for EV hype over reality in my post on EV’s (7/16/2024).
From the gardens
These are from the same button bush with “flowers” in different states of blooming and one happy bee in the middle photo.
Those educated elites may not be so perfect
This is an older paper I came across, Answering Unresolved Questions About the Relationship Between Cognitive Ability and Prejudice (7/29/2016) and it is behind a paywall, but maybe all we really need is the abstract anyway. (bold mine)
Previous research finds that lower cognitive ability predicts greater prejudice. We test two unresolved questions about this association using a heterogeneous set of target groups and data from a representative sample of the United States (N = 5,914). First, we test “who are the targets of prejudice?” We replicate prior negative associations between cognitive ability and prejudice for groups who are perceived as liberal, unconventional, and having lower levels of choice over group membership. We find the opposite (i.e., positive associations), however, for groups perceived as conservative, conventional, and having higher levels of choice over group membership. Second, we test “who shows intergroup bias?” and find that people with both relatively higher and lower levels of cognitive ability show approximately equal levels of intergroup bias but toward different sets of groups.
Osteoarthritis
On my post on Tuesday, The Secret Service's fitness standards, I made the point that the left has issues with men and women being different. I can usually count on someone unsubscribing when I say something like that, and one did. Here is an example of where sex differences really exist and really do matter. Unraveling sex-specific risks of knee osteoarthritis before menopause: Do sex differences start early in life? (5/1/2024)
Fig. 1Contribution of biological sex (XX vs XY) and sex hormones to the development of OA. Subtle but significant geometrical sexual dimorphisms in bone, meniscus, ACL, and articular cartilage have been found throughout the life span, starting as early as childhood. These factors, together with sex-specific metabolism, gait, and the body’s reaction to physical activity, could be key to understanding the unbalanced development of knee OA between the sexes. Sex hormones appear to be the largest contributing factor to the risk of knee OA, but understanding their differential effect on XX versus XY is crucial to develop targeted, preventive approaches. We propose that considering sex disparities in knee joint health starting from childhood can help reveal the biological components behind women being more prone to knee OA later in life. This is especially important in times when children are exposed to large ranges in activity from competitive sports at a very young age to frequent inactivity and high incidences of obesity. Created with BioRender.com.
The caption here says all that needs to be said.
Japan’s success
This come from a paper summarized at Marginal Revolutions (7/22/2024)
In a remarkable new paper, Juhász, Sakabe, and Weinstein show how the key to this transformation was a massive effort to translate and codify technical information in the Japanese language. This state-led initiative made cutting-edge industrial knowledge accessible to Japanese entrepreneurs and workers in a way that was unparalleled among non-Western countries at the time.
Here’s an amazing graph which tells much of the story. In both 1870 and 1910 most of the technical knowledge of the world is in French, English, Italian and German but look at what happens in Japan–basically no technical books in 1870 to on par with English in 1910. Moreover, no other country did this.
MR already summarized this well and it is worth reading.
Stagnation and inequality
The IMF post A Low-Growth World Is an Unequal, Unstable World Long periods of slow economic growth can cause a jump in inequality. But a balanced set of policies can stave off that outcome (7/23/2024) and make a few key points, starting with this graph.
New IMF analysis suggests periods of stagnation lasting four years or more tend to push up income inequality within countries by almost 20 percent—considerably higher than the increase due to outright recession.
During periods of stagnation, sluggish job creation and wage growth increase structural unemployment and reduce the share of a country’s income flowing to workers. Together with limited fiscal space, these forces tend to widen the gap between those at the top and bottom of the income ladder.
They then move in the direction of greater taxation to deal with inequality and stagnation.
There is much scope for developing countries to raise more revenue through tax reforms—as much as 9 percent of GDP, according to our research. Yet it is crucial to take a progressive approach, which means making sure those who can afford to pay more taxes contribute their fair share. Taxing capital income and property, for example, offer a relatively progressive way to raise more tax revenue.
The article doesn’t talk much about simply avoiding stagnation. The other thing completely missing from the article is the connection between energy and growth. This is something the left really wants to ignore. In general, less energy means a lower standard of living. If we can’t increase energy supply, one should expect stagnation, long stagnation and, according to the IMF, greater inequality. There is a tension here in that we can’t just stop oil and decrease income inequality; at least I haven’t seen anything to convince me that this can happen.
On the other hand, Our Finite World continues to make points related to this tension. In Gail’s recent post, How Does the Economy Really Work? (7/22/2024), she has this graph showing the relationship between GDP and energy:
She also make this point:
Unfortunately, the world economy can no more move away from fossil fuels than humans can move away from eating food. In fact, moving away from fossil fuels would likely lead to starvation for a large share of the world’s population.
The spinning CD
“Weird” Al is back with a polka (yeah, I’m a longtime fan).
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