Quick takes and random stuff, April 11, 2024
EV issues, renewable issues, Texas, baby chicks, a win for climate change, and more
More EV woes
Gallup surveyed people (4/8/2024) to see if they might buy an EV. There are no real surprises in that Republicans are less interested in an EV and younger people are more interested. But the Washington Post (4/9/2024) went further and compared Gallup’s 2024 data with 2023 data. The percentage of Democrats that said they wouldn’t buy an EV jumped 10 points, and Independents had a 9-point jump. Personally, I wouldn’t count on those who say they might consider buying an EV in the future, in which case the won’t and might sum for Democrats went from 71% to 73%. This isn’t a big change and likely not significant but I also wouldn’t invest in EVs. On the plus side, Republicans are down to 91% for won’t or might buy an EV.
More problems with renewables with some irony
The headline says it all: Environmentalism could stop the clean-energy transition (4/6/2024) but if you’d like a few details:
Two miles remain to be built of the 102-mile Cardinal-Hickory Creek high-voltage transmission line between Iowa and Wisconsin, expected to connect more than 160 renewable-energy facilities, producing nearly 25 gigawatts of green power, to the Midwestern grid. And yet this crucial project for the climate might not get finished — because of U.S. environmental laws.
At issue is the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, a habitat for bald eagles and other migratory birds, through which the power line would run. On March 21, three environmental groups persuaded a federal judge to stop construction temporarily. They hope to stop it for good.
There is also this paragraph demonstrating the tensions on the left.
Environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, have joined a roughly six-year effort to stop transmission lines that would bring hydropower from Quebec to New England. They have opposed the development of solar energy facilities in the Mojave Desert. Opposition to offshore wind power facilities off the Northeast coast involves a peculiar assortment of bedfellows, including local environmental groups, fisheries and seafood producers, a hotel association and former president Donald Trump.
Power lines are a big problem for renewable energy. They are expensive. We aren’t upgrading the grid fast enough. And even some environmental groups will oppose them. We simply aren’t running the U.S., let alone the world, on wind and solar anytime soon.
The “well-known” beauty premium
We all know that being attractive improves one’s job prospects and income. Recall the data rule: Doubt something everyone knows is true. The paper Beauty and Professional Success: A Meta-Analysis (4/5/2024) casts some doubt on this “fact.” Hat tip to Marginal Revolution. From the abstract:
Common wisdom suggests that beauty helps in the labor market. We show that two factors combine to explain away the mean beauty premium reported in the literature. First, correcting for publication bias reduces the premium by at least a third. Second, controlling for cognitive ability negates the premium for all occupations except sex workers, a point further underscored by the similarity of the beauty effect on earnings and productivity. The second factor implies a positive link, perhaps genetic, between beauty and intelligence.
A few points here. The first is the publication bias they speak of, which is often known as the file draw problem. In other words, studies that show no benefit in the labor market for being attractive don’t get published and are put in the authors file draw instead. The second point is another data rule: Always consider other factors and avoid making assumptions based on a single factor.
When controlling for cognitive ability, the attractiveness bias goes away. It turns out that maybe people aren’t biased in favor of better-looking people, but that better-looking people turn out to be smarter. The moral here is that the next time someone asserts discrimination based on a single attribute, ask what other factors have been considered.
The paper also has this nice graph that summarizes the results from the papers in their meta-study.
5GW data center
Microsoft & OpenAI consider $100bn, 5GW 'Stargate' AI data center - report (3/27/2024) This is enough to power 3,750,000 homes. Consider the tensions here. This additional energy has to come from somewhere. If it comes from fossil fuels, we get more warming. If it uses nuclear, as suggested in the article, isn’t that bad? If renewable energy were available, wouldn’t that energy be better spent running the almost 4 million homes? I ask the Democrats of Microsoft and OpenAI to tell me how this doesn’t add to climate change, or is this project one they like, so it is okay?
As an aside, AWS bought another 234 acres. (4/3/2024)
From the gardens
As a bonus, I’ve added pictures of the week-old chicks, Easter Eggers, that lay pale blue or green and sometimes pinkish eggs. Daffodils and crocuses are going strong. One of the pictures is of the front yard.
Hypocrisy at its best
The short story here is that Guyana has a bunch of oil to extract, and they will. Somehow, the BBC reported, is trying to scold the president of Guyana for doing this and making climate change worse. What doesn’t come out here is the economics. Why exactly should Guyana leave this resource in the ground when it is so valuable? Is England willing to pay them not to extract it? Why is it bad for Guyana to do this now when England continues to burn fossil fuels? I don’t know why anyone thinks that as long as fossil fuels have value, a country won’t extract them. Worth a two-minute listen because Irfaan Ali makes other good points.
The Texas grid
The eia (4/9/2024) has this chart about Texas electricity generation.
The increase in solar power generation in Texas has come as solar capacity has been rapidly added to the grid. In 2023, installed solar capacity in Texas totaled about 16 gigawatts (GW). Power plant developers are planning to add around 24 GW of solar power net summer capacity to the grid in 2024 and 2025, compared with only 3 GW of additional wind power nameplate capacity during the same period. In addition, developers are planning to add 13 GW of battery storage to the electricity grid between now and 2025. By contrast, we estimate 3 GW of added natural gas capacity over the next two years.
There are two points to make here. First, what I keep seeing is that renewables are being added as more capacity, not to cut back on fossil fuel use. In fact, Texas will add natural gas capacity. In other words, CO2 will still keep being emitted at or above past levels. Second, why is wind capacity slowing down? Could it be that the best locations have been used and the next place to add wind is not as good? Generally speaking, the best locations get used first.
A plus for climate change
From A global timekeeping problem postponed by global warming (3/27/2024):
The historical association of time with the rotation of Earth has meant that Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) closely follows this rotation1. Because the rotation rate is not constant, UTC contains discontinuities (leap seconds), which complicates its use in computer networks2. Since 1972, all UTC discontinuities have required that a leap second be added3. Here we show that increased melting of ice in Greenland and Antarctica, measured by satellite gravity4,5, has decreased the angular velocity of Earth more rapidly than before. Removing this effect from the observed angular velocity shows that since 1972, the angular velocity of the liquid core of Earth has been decreasing at a constant rate that has steadily increased the angular velocity of the rest of the Earth. Extrapolating the trends for the core and other relevant phenomena to predict future Earth orientation shows that UTC as now defined will require a negative discontinuity by 2029. This will pose an unprecedented problem for computer network timing and may require changes in UTC to be made earlier than is planned. If polar ice melting had not recently accelerated, this problem would occur 3 years earlier: global warming is already affecting global timekeeping.
The spinning CD
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