YouTube - AC/DC - Problem Child

Problems problems

"For next week’s list, we anticipate the FDIC will finally release its enforcement actions issued during September; thus, look for the list to grow by at least ten institutions."

I will take the over - they have been averaging 20+ new C&Ds a month for the past 6 months.

I will not be with: YouTube - Klaatu - Calling Occupants

German?

Amerika bei Rammstein

YouTube - Rammstein-Amerika

"Six of seven of the failed banks today were on the list "

But 4 of the 7 were not under a public enforcement order three months ago - that is the disturbing fact.

The mountain states were disappointing tonight - let's hope the west coast doesn't lay an egg, too.

Dunno...like this

YouTube -

nova wrote:

SFF

Maybe even a Systemic Bank Failure Holiday?

Just catching up... And it seems like you guys missed the obvious thread music:

YouTube - when the levee breaks/led zeppelin

Comrade Misean is Dope wrote:

Dunno...like this

Nah.. Best Megadeath song is

YouTube - Megadeth - Peace Sells 

Oh, by the way... I think this was invented by Misean

... patiently awaiting Nation Failure Friday

Additional Thread tunes:

YouTube - Grateful Dead Bob Dylan - Wicked Messenger/rainy day women

For scone from the last thread

Splitter!
YouTube - The People's Front

and my musical contribution
YouTube - Time Zone - World Destruction

Mike,

Nas, Symphony

YouTube - Megadeth-Symphony of Destruction

There's a glitch in the list of problem banks -- the Bank of Wyoming (Thermopolis WY) failed on July 10, but it still appears here.

yesterday, there was talk about the possible walmartization banking. well, sir richard branson is applying for a banking charter for "Virgin Bank"

Sir Richard Branson to launch 'Virgin Bank' - Telegraph

@ Deflationary Jane-- thanks! so fun!

+12 one of the best evenings I ever had was at a WZ concert. Of course I went hoping to spot Thompson in the wings.

And thanks for the GD linkage.... must go find some old shows to crank up.

Thanks for the great music. I'm off to walk the cats. Don't ask. Yes.

Almost 7pm west coast time. think BFF is over for this week.

Last week the Cali failure was not released until after 8 PT

Group Holds Medical Marijuana Sign Up Clinic in Great Falls |
News, Sports, Weather for Great Falls, Helena, and all of Montana
| Local Top Stories

Here in Great Falls, a Montana group is working to help hundreds of potential patients acquire the drug.

You all may note the number of bank failures in Montana....... (for BFF)

"I'm off to walk the cats. Don't ask. Yes. "

Do cats WANT to be walked?

If we're talkin' Megadeth and failed banks, this is the quintessential Mustaine work:

Foreclosure of a dream

Virgin bank, how many loans do you expect to give out in 2010? Nun.

Ok, I'm done.

@ Peterr.FDL (profile) wrote on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 6:53 pm
There's a glitch in the list of problem banks -- the Bank of Wyoming (Thermopolis WY) failed on July 10, but it still appears here.

Bank of Wyoming (Thermopolis WY) must be in limbo relaxing in the hot springs

"Is Citibank really raising the rate on it's credit cards to 30%? "

Yep - the bank that is majority owned by the US Treasury announced the day before the House was voting on the Expedited CARD Act that it was raising rates to 29.9% - I was on the Hill yesterday for the CFPA debate and the Expedited CARD Act vote, and the staffers were saying the phone lines were smoking from cardholders calling to bitch about this - not smart raising the rates on a staffer for the Congressman on the day before he or she is voting on your future. Bet Timmy was on the phone with Vikram about that bonehead decision.

**I don't need to ask. You are obviously a very talented manager of software engineers.
*
*

Wow. Unbelievable. You are intuitive. Do you want to come work for my IT consulting firm?
I'm dead serious.

the idea of the FDIC is starting to piss me off.

Hey Doc do you know if that Old crow and Gillian Welsh version of the weight made it onto a CD at some point? I so want a copy.

CR, I gave you a good plug over at huffpo, never been to the other sites they had. keep up the good work.

Oddly enough, Oz seems to be collecting a lot of rich kids from all over the planet, dumped off by jet-set parents, and driving up the price of housing.

frankly, this speech pisses me off. i don't know why. maybe it's time implied: "we'll steal money from the taxpayer to make you whole" theme.

FDIC: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

CR-These banks are just misunderstood.

YouTube - Animals Please Don't let me be Misunderstood.

our cats run away and come back to be feeded and to get attention.. can you really walk a cat like a dog??

and humans are just like that..
YouTube - Nine Inch Nails - Mr. Self Destruct

The world's most efficient logging and mills have almost stopped losing money, which is a good thing. But also a sign of how low current levels of business are, even with a pickup in exports to Asia
B.C. forest companies expect better days ahead in 2010

The "developed" World needs that:

Fuzzy Signals: Gross Domestic Happiness

i think it will come after the real crash..

Please refrain from smoking...

YouTube - the heart of bangladesh

I noticed International Paper are shutting down 13% of capacity that they don't expect to come back in 2010.

Residents consider retirement community in IOW

This is a hell of a hit to he counties concerned. We've been seeing that 15% number a lot. If we see growth in Q3, it'll just be on the back of the stimulus, surely.

guess we end there for the sake of "Growth"

Amazon.com: The Caves of Steel (Robot) (9781400104215): Isaac Asimov, William Dufris

some of the Artificial Food from there is allready underway...

well Artificial is harsh , the PR Dude advices on "nature identical flavor" these in the known will recognise the bitter aftertaste from cheated neurons....

Your dreamworld is just about to end:

YouTube - Midnight Oil - Dreamworld

Hollywood Hack, if you're still out there:
YouTube - Steve Hackett - Firth of Fifth Solo (live)

Sustain.

Maybe it would easier to make a list of banks that are doing okay.

If you are going to post Midnight Oil you have to post thier best
Midnight Oil - Blue Sky Mine

Mass layoffs announced in the last week:

Sun Microsystems - 3,000
Sun Announces 3,000 Layoffs, 10 Percent of Workforce | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

NCR - 2,200
NCR Corp. Q3 profit dives, will cut 2,200 jobs - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

International Paper - 1,600 (linked in parent)

Oak Forest Hospital - 200
Error

Georgia Pacific - 300
Georgia-Pacific Mill In Fordyce Laying Off Workforce|Channel 7 News

Obama better start saving or creating some jobs soon. I am also starting to smell whiffs of credit stress in some other blog posts, but not seeing it in any credit indicators yet. Could be one hell of a winter.

Mr Slippery wrote:

Could be one hell of a winter.

Sounds like a long, cold winter to me especially since some places are already cooler than the trends of the past 3-5 years.

sporkfed wrote:

Just kidding of course.

Of course, you wouldn't be throwing an easy piece of meat at the carnivore in the corner of the interweb, now would you?

No squrriel here, have squab available.

not a good sign of things to come.

on the other hand the crisis isnt mentioned here...

Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth | LiveScience

well we got for the winter

lawyerliz wrote:

And I voted for CR, did you?

I did!

Looks like Mexico solved their budget shortfall for a while.
Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found

Peak Stupidity could be for real, well some Growth is still possible i guess...

The failures today will be removed next week.

Does this mean the list will empty next week?

based on what I know about you and myself, we may disagree on Nevada Geothermal applications WRT natgas urban transhipments.

Living in Az makes me wonder why we don't have miles of solar in the desert.

Trust me, the rabbits and cyotes will go around the structures.

well, smart guy...have any thoughts on the upside of urban natgas transhipments?

lawyerliz -
Alas, stupidity never peaks.

Altho you may not be as stupid as you think.

Who knows, there may be hope for me yet.

lawyerliz wrote:

The did a math test without the white coats and ripping plastic off the tests
and told the women--well I forget--but the women did just as well as them.

Anecdotal from MIT undergrad (circa 1990): Survey done at midterm-
75% of the men think they're performing in the upper half of the class.
25% of the women think they're performing in the upper half of the class.

Hmm.. I'm listening to the Heep and Salisbury (don't forget the guitar solo in part2).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8O2nngv7IY

Also, to poke a stick down in the global warming debate.

My closing was a condo and the buyer a director of the condo.

He said there was a river under the condo. I said what do you mean?

He said well, there is water accumulated under there and we have to
poke holes in the slab and then pump it out and that's why the streets
are so flooded when it rains, 'cause all the other condos are having
to do the same thing.

Oh, did I not say? The condos are in a row on the ocean. On Miami
Beach. been there more than 40 years.

Global warming I ask? He laughs and shrugs.

sleep, obey, conform.....
YouTube - They Live Fight Scene

i heard geothermal power can cause earthquakes.. thats what they try to find out in Germany after some weak quakes.. is it wise to do that in California or Nevada??
There were 267 quakes of magnitude 3 or greater in 2008, up from 125 in 2007. Seismologists say such clusters could indicate a bigger temblor to come -- but then again, maybe not.

2008 saw notable increase in moderate Southern California earthquakes - Los Angeles Times

Ehhh, what's one more?

Cogeneration and Smart grid management, go go go.. USA is quite behind on that...

could be the bodyfat/ brain shrinkage?? see above link somewhere...

Lower house prices continues to solve problems.

bANK fAILURE wrote:

Lower house prices continues to solve problems.

Tell the idiots in DC; they don't seem to realize that every dollar not sunk into overpriced housing can go into consumption.

Yoringe wrote:

doing it on a faultline may have bigger consequences...

Geological Jenga?

https://self-evident.org/

I am the same voz
last commenter I remember
Shorts Slaughtered Trying To Front-Run Galleon

txchick57 long DRYS

Hoz, think about it.

seems to be.. here is just one article...

Geothermal Power Plant Triggers Earthquake in Switzerland : TreeHugger

if it can cause a 3.4 quake in save swizerland what can it do in california??? we are basicaly just a thin crust floating on magma...

• doing it on a faultline may have bigger consequences...*

We're due for a major quake sometime between the last 50 years and the next 200,...and it's not a question of "if", only when.It's not like doing geothermal is going to matter in relationship to the entire Pacific plate moving northward. You could argue that since we get more developed and more densely populated, sooner, rather han later would be good; or alternatively, little quakes relive the strain. Either way, it's like worrying about another inch of snow in Minnesota.

Disney is offering a recall/refund of its Baby Einstein videos

No one seems to remember that until age six, they thought Albert might be retarded.

sdtfs wrote:

No one seems to remember that until age six, they thought Albert might be retarded.

the fond memories of childhood eh

so Baby Einstein Video can cause retardiation... i smell a Lawsuit..

I looked at some of the Baby Einstein stuff,...it was obviously designed by persons of average intelligence at best. No thinking involved, just exposure to a wide range of miscellany.

RockyR wrote:

a c&d from the fdic and how is it that they can issue one 18 months ago and the bank is still in operation?

c&d = cease and desist

politics

btw still no comment on that..i am itching for it.. sounds too good to be true..

BBC NEWS | Europe | Rich Germans demand higher taxes 

nevermind.

Spain will be very interesting... not really unified and full crisis...
lucky i got and filling for it..

Rocky

I think it translates into "Stop the crap and get your act together."

Not sure what it states in the regulations etc.

Somehow I have my doubts as well... though give Buffet and daddy Gates some credit:

Dozens of the Wealthy Join to Fight Estate Tax Repeal

Florida is making some good moves...
Florida Utility Kicks Off Solar Feed-in Tariff, a First for the U.S.
By Josie Garthwaite 12 CommentsTweet This (3) Posted March 2nd, 2009 at 2:00 pm in Energy, Policy
Utilities and policymakers have started to warm up to feed-in tariffs for residential and commercial solar systems over the last few years — proposing programs to buy surplus power from customers’ photovoltaic systems as a way to encourage installations. Now there’s something to show for all the buzz: Gainesville Regional Utilities, or GRU, of Florida officially launched yesterday a feed-in tariff program modeled after those in Europe, the first U.S. city to implement such an incentive for clean energy.
Florida Utility Kicks Off Solar Feed-in Tariff, a First for the U.S.

ok, here's my thread music toss:
Chinese Rocks sung by the late Johnny Thunders
YouTube - Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers - "Chinese Rocks"
......
I'm livin' on a Chinese rock
All my best things are in hock
I'm livin' on a Chinese rock
Everything is in the pawn shop

The plaster fallin' off the wall
My girlfriend cryin' in the shower stall
It's hot as a bitch
I should've been rich
But I'm just diggin' a Chinese ditch
.....
.....
finally, one last look for the overnight shift at CR at my last Jim TV send-up, admittedly kind of crappy: YouTube - Alt-A Got You Down? ARM around throat? Arson on your mind? ask Jim the Realtor or Mickey Rourke! (the 3rd sequel rule)

Largest solar fields list.

http://www.pvresources.com/en/top50pv.php

And
First Solar just signed an agreement with China to build the biggest solar power plant yet, according to a statement released today by the company. The 2-gigawatt plant in the Mongolian desert will generate enough electricity to power three million homes.

China Plans World's Largest Solar Power Plant | Popular Science

My point is "Why are we, in the US, not doing this?"

I really am not sure why. Coal lobby? Natural gas opposition? Don't hurt the life styles of the rabbits?

We have 100s of miles of desert, sun 360 days a year. Solar seems like a very viable answer to me.

I Currency... you there?
did Bloomberg switch back to a Republican is he still an Indie? I see that by the end of the election he will have spent
about 120 mil on it to get re-elected.
He's got to be thinking a shot at the Presidency in 2012, no? If you are worth 16 billion, hey it's worth a billion isn't it?

josap wrote:

We have 100s of miles of desert, sun 360 days a year.

Desert heat + sand is vicious for mechanical and electric parts (See Iraq). Dust storms cut down on the cells' ability to absorb light and need constant cleaning--which is why the Mars rovers had automatic wipers. The variance of temperatures is also something that would need to be handled. Too much insulation for cold desert nights turn into infernos in hot desert sunlight. Any computer technician will tell you that heat kills computer/electronic parts. Also as Yoringe wrote, any need for water is a cost that cannot be avoided. Water for equipment. Water for humans.

I did not know that our temps would be that much of a problem. The sand, yes.

Thanks for the info.

We use solar roof panels for home systems, but not as many as you would think due to cost.

Don't know if he's an independent but he made some retarded remark the other day that Wall Street bonuses are good for the City.
I sincerely hope he loses, but the next guy will get the blame, so...

Nice Johnny Thunders clip. Saw him a few times in the 80's but he was not in the best condition.

josap wrote:

I did not know that our temps would be that much of a problem.

Depends, but using Death Valley as an example, its average high is 91F and average low is 64F. Lows of 40F in January and lows of 88F in July. Highs in July can average 116F. If you needed anything that resembled a CPU, you then need energy to cool it off, and it can be hard to cool anything in 116F weather while trying to keep it warm in 40F weather. (Caveat: Protecting electronic/computer parts from cool temperatures is more about condensation forming on the parts then protection from the cold per se--which may not be a problem in mostly arid environments.)
.
If anything, I would imagine that desalination like the Saudis are doing would be more feasible in dry desert condition than basic energy collection. Again with the sand, anything remotely mechanical would be toast as a capital expenditure.

So you use some of the energy to turn a fan. For collecting rays of sun you don't need much of a CPU. Ask a leaf.

1 currency now -yogi wrote:

For collecting rays of sun you don't need much of a CPU.

You need the CPUs for directing the circuits and positioning the solar arrays/mirrors. It isn't like high school science where you have wiring all flowing in a DC path, but this stuff isn't my specialty and could be totally wrong.
.
I know that the idea was floated to use tons of mirrors to shine light on a single pillar of cells that would make the solar collection part more efficient (positioning the mirrors depending on the time of the year to maximize solar collection), but I don't know of any rollout that has made a dent in regional energy use.

algae biofuels are interesting too.

15 Algae Startups Bringing Pond Scum to Fuel Tanks

The giant solar field in China is in the desert.
I will need to research the temps.

I believe that is wrong. I'm pretty sure I read about a simple mechanism that automatically maximized the efficiency with positioning. Solar paint, solar road surfaces, and home "printers" of solar panels are all in the works.

this china thing may be political motivated.. read the comments at the link.. so it doesnt have to make sense

Solar tower in China.

Design competition launched for solar power plant tower

-- china.org.cn

nite Yoringe

Yoringe wrote:

the Tower with mirrors are in the side pic..

This method is just the basic heat of something to move vapors, turn turbines, and produce energy that way. Different approach than using solar cells, but that article says it powers 14,000 homes so it is definitely a start!

I just think we should start trying stuff in real usable enviroments. There are some very smart people out there and given the time, tools and funds I do think they could figure this out.

I saw the movie in Miami (before I'd read the book) and I was the only one laughing. Richard Belzer and Alan King's cameos killed me; Kim Cattrall was a spectacular wasp.

Tom Wolfe thought they changed too much, though. Although fairly conservative, Wolfe agrees that Wall Street doesn't grow the pie and trickle-down is BS.

energyecon wrote:

Distributed solar power generation is the way to go rather than the centralized utility model

I agree here. Having cells at the place that will use the energy like houses or high-rises will make much more sense for solar cells than trying to have acres of fields of the stuff. If you could get each house to handle just 10-25% of its energy requirements, then you would already be helping a ton. No need for massive capital expenditures with 5-10 year horizons. You lose the economy of scale aspect, but making more people self-sufficient (or more so) would be a great first step.

That's great - how were they purchased and installed?

jlr wrote:

If you would like actual further detail, just ask.

Odd situation. We could all move to the desert and remove the transmission problem, but then we would have an even more basic problem: water.

Drove last week past a church in PA that had half it's roof covered in panels. Very attractive, and a great message.

jlr wrote:

Without storage, no problems are actually solved.

I didn't say that there weren't other engineering/logistical problems to be fixed. Battery/storage is the kink in the entire work, I know. Hydrocarbons are a great store of energy, and one we haven't figured out how to duplicate in a more eco-friendly manner. Its cheap. It stores energy well. It works in the existing infrastructure. Sadly, the human body is a sad storage mechanism and rather inefficient or we could all do shifts of biking up the generator ala Soylent Green.

Solar thermal water heaters have been in use in Israel for many years. Do not confuse these with distributed generation solar pv.

jlr wrote:

2 Problem with solar thermal in the desert: environmentalists

It's not just environmentalists -- as a landowner in the high desert, I'm fed up with all the damn "green power line" projects that the damn energy companies want to blast through near-pristine desert landscapes to feed nice "green power" from the desert to the cities. They get themselves exempted from all environmental laws, use eminent domain to seize land, build ugly towers that ruin the views for miles, and want to construct towers that will threaten to drop high-voltage lines and start raging wildfires and burn out my land everytime there is a high wind. All for "green energy" -- or maybe dirty Mexican energy across the border where it's cheaper to produce with fewer environmental laws, they're not really promising.

What a scam.

Past my bed time.
Great conversation.

Well, we're tackling an energy junkie with a 102 quad annual habit (2007 stat), a job that should have started over a decade ago - we will end up needing it all and more...

Physicists Calculate Number of Universes in the Multiverse

Technology Review, Oct. 15, 2009
The number of universes in the multiverse* is at least 10^10^10^7, based on quantum fluctuations in the state of the early universe being "frozen" during inflation, say Andrei Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin at Stanford University.

But the total amount of information that can be absorbed by one individual during a lifetime is about 10^16 bits, so a typical human brain can have 10^10^16 configurations and could never distinguish more than that number of different universes, they add.

• The hypothetical set of possible multiple universes

Hey, we just need to figure out how to transport the earth into an alternate universe where all the debt is gone

rosethorn wrote:

to transport the earth into an alternate universe where all the debt is gone

It may be gone because we are gone or were never there.

TJ and The Bear wrote:

Tell the idiots in DC; they don't seem to realize that every dollar not sunk into overpriced housing can go into consumption.

How would hat help the banksters that fund elections?

True...alternatively, in an alternative universe these Stanford guys figured out how to pay the debts all off and let us keep all the goodies bought during the debt binge. Hey, both possibilities are equally likely

According to CSI (California Solar Initiative) data, a typical residential pv installation should cost about $8.00/Watt and a typical commercial should cost about $6.00/Watt. The federal and state incentives will give you (residential owners) an immediate 35-45% refund upon commissioning.

The ghost of Hubbert rattles his chains...

and at least in '82 Israel was receiving 6,800 per capita in American aid besides all the private aid from American Jews,
this was one of Zbig's complaints at the time... w/o that aid that state wouldn't exist in its present form. Israel is a lot like
Italy after WW2, as late as '51 there GDP matched that of 1906... an economic basket case kept alive by the US. I've travelled
there extensively and after the war you could buy a castle for peanuts, friend's grandad bought one in Lucca

EEngineer wrote:

technical statement you've made tonight has been WRONG.

I assume you don't want my financial models and translation of ancient Mayan writings either?

Maybe you mean Egypt. Israel is far from an economic basket case. That US "aid" usually meant being forced to buy things like jet fighters from the US, which Israel used to completely overhaul before use.

I currency
let me re-phrase, I didn't mean Israel is a basket case but they have been the recipient of massive amounts of aid
for decades now and when I read say Tom Friedman in the Lexus and Olive Tree I don't remember him mentioning
those subsidies without which that country could never have the standard of living they have today...
personally I don't see much of a difference between Israeli designs on land not theirs and the Afkicanner in S. Africa

This justs seems to suggest that the near term national strategy should consist of fuel switching to natural gas wherever possible (including as a transportation fuel) and maximizing the installed base of solar - distributed solar (or centralized solar) just isn't going to replace central utility power without huge capital investments, with the first investments occuring in the manufacturing capacity for the solar generation and also energy storage...

It seems like switching to NG as a transportation fuel could work fairly well, as homes in large swaths of the country have natural gas connections to power heating and water heating. A duct to the garage could allow you to fill your vehicle tank at home and pay as part of the monthly bill. Of course, NG engines already exist.

rosethorn wrote:

Yeah, that would be a good solution Oh, and pipe the extra CO2 back the other direction.

The Gods Themselves - Asimov 1972

Fascinating to hear everyone's banter.

What's so alien about three sexes that merge to become superintelligent rocks that can open interdimensional portals to other universes with their minds?

They'd be totally flummoxed by the simplest tranche swap.

energyecon, should is the operative word.

I've been waiting to see if distributed solar will be used as a stimulus program. It's all well and good to say you're going to put 1KW of solar on every roof (just a round number that is about 5 panels), but it would take a decade to make all the panels. But if you mandated standard brackets and interconnects you could get the dryfly types to organize small metal shops to bang them out locally in weeks. That would have every Joe Contractor installing the wires, breakers, conduit, and brackets within months. And it would keep them busy for years. But it'll never happen...

yogi, Duke
Can we agree that much of what Israel has done is not replicable by other countries in general?

energyecon, jlr
Can we agree that we need to focus on a variety of solutions to energy needs in the future, and that it is worthwhile to subsidize these efforts in the short term in order to provide the most opportunity, minimize the most risk, and expedite our position on the exponentially decaying unit cost? The rest is just details ; )

it's my understanding that until say the 1920s the number of Jewish 'pioneers' was rather small in that region. anecdotally, I've never met an Israeli who can trace their lineage before 1918 in that area... just sayin', that always trips up the Zionists.
yeah, I know my old prof. Brezinski has been accused now and then as a closet anti-semite but he had legitimate policy concerns
how that country has been a mill stone around USA's foreign policy neck since '67. hard to play the 'honest broker' when we are seen as the beard for that country by all other regional players...
...
at least from a demographic perspective I don't see how they survive in the long term since your average Palestinian family is usually 4-6 kids larger...
anyway, I'm not all that interested in this debate, let someone else get their head taken off by AIPAC for all I care (I hope you don't think that the deal offered to Arafat was a deal he should have taken... wow, 90% of the land returned spider webbed by security zones and no right of return for the Pal diaspora

The interesting thing about solar is the increasing fungibility of energy. Distributed solar can take lots of peak load in the Sun Belt and lots of baseline heating in the north. The demand substitution makes natgas so irresistible that it takes a chunk out of transport fuel demand crushing the oil imports balance dropping the price permanently. Problem: you can't control distributed solar. The "energy" companies and the eco-nannies want to direct.

I don't know enough of the details to say with conviction that solar energy in the US has been hampered more than helped by a tendency to view projects in terms of private profit rather than public good, but it's my suspicion.

I'll bet my entire stack that the true long-term costs of burning oil are not accounted for by current and past pricing.

Agreed. Conversion would be a long term process and of course industry sectors based on the current system would fight this. But in any case moving away from the current system would be long term. A sensible national energy policy would focus on both maximum efficiency of consumption devices and maximizing the percentage of domestic energy sources.

on a side note I visited the new embassy here in Phnom Penh the other day. glad to see the US gov. sparing no expense,
for example, all the Cambodian workers inc. the guards at the metal/bomb detector station sat around in Herman Miller Aeron chairs...
strangely, the huge security fence outside is already peeling its black latex like paint off ...
I'll give a shout out to the PP embassy crew, far far more helpful than the consulate in Ho Chi Minh City which seems to be
staffed with the world's greatest losers... (still pissed that my financee couldn't get a damn travel visa to the States on 2 attempts... )

except OECD demand ain't where the growth is at, so your price forecast might be considered the stretch scenario with respect to the impact of the projected fall in USA demand...and the timing of that could be a bit slower to evolve as there were something like 62 million registered cars in the USA and 150,000 or so NGV's (2006ish numbers IIRC) - though that could be another stimulus program there!

Well, the conversation started off with a lot uninformed conjecture which tends to get people who actually work in those industries foaming at the mouth (see YTL)

I work on those solutions everyday and it is tough. All answers are partial and ALL parties have vested interests. One of the most difficult things about DG, regardless of technology, is that it requires the distribution grid (lower voltage stuff) to be used differently and nobody is quite sure of what will happen as DG penetration increases. For example, transformers are designed to take advantage of low load in the nights in order to cool down but a fair amount baseload DG on a circuit (>50% of circuit design) could require those transformers to put a lot work in at night. Transformers that don't cool down, tend to explode. Good times for that neighborhood.

Yes, but all must sacrificed at the altar of competition.

I don't mean to patronize anyone here, just thought I could bring people together a bit for once.
As for me and my solutions, I think the trick is knowing what you want less of rather than specifying what you want and how much you'll pay for it. So tax energy imports that are unstable/insecure, tax pollution, transmission is already expensive enough on its own to be a disincentive. That way you don't block anything that does work, because there are too many contexts to consider at such a high level.
Invest in the research & development of power storage or smart grid demand scheduling.
Shepherd the success that develops. Organize the industry associations to make standardized parts to simplify adoption/upgrades.

Except the solar bit is affecting power generation, no? Which would affect primarily coal and natural gas consumption, since oil is used for about ~6% of power generation...the fuel switching is all about natural gas so while I believe we need to start doing solar on the scale you describe, your described impacts are or

Rob Dawg wrote:

And with solar roofs across the Sun Belt natgas and oil markets become glutted.

Time to installed base? The connection to the oil markets is tenous at best...as electricity generation is not material to oil demand, it is as a transportation fuel (and space heating in the northeast).

for home heating in the colder parts, the problem first and foremost is poor construction.
would love to see zero energy houses take off in north america (concept is that they are so well insulated, that you only need power to actively change the temperature, see Austria Passive House Whistler 2010 )
in the northeast, a lot of old drafty homes powered by heating oil. They'll probably be a pressure point sooner rather than later because they haven't been cheap to heat in a long time. everyone should have to cut, chop, and stack a winter's worth of firewood so they can appreciate what wasted energy is

been there done that in Fairbanks, AK - some issues with the people:trees ratio in other locales...

sdtfs
That's one reason why I eventually want to design my own house, or at least retrofit one. It's stupid not to build a house with cable guides/panels throughout. That way you could run surround sound in a room you never planned to, or move an electric outlet to fit where you want to put your bed/nightstand, etc.
One other reason would be so that I could control almost everything by computer, and have a HVAC system that is just over the top.
Short answer, you could put them wherever you could install an AC outlet today.

energyecon,
Yeah, probably need to solve the pesky 'people' problem too

energyecon wrote:

Time to installed base? The connection to the oil markets is tenous at best...as electricity generation is not material to oil demand, it is as a transportation fuel (and space heating in the northeast).

Let's see. Since we started this in 2004 when I really started pushing it we are between a third and half done now. Seriously, 40m solar would be the rough equivalent of the combined homebuilding yearly output so with 25% currently idle call it 6 years.

The thing is the northeast home heating oil issue is diesel and the sun belt peak demand generation is natgas so the connections seem to me to quite clear.

Hey, let's convert California's roads to all electric:
Californians use 414.4 gallons of gas per capita per year (8th lowest in the US). 14.5 billion gallons. How much electricty is that? 530,982,417,478.593 kW-Hours. California can generate at present 46,000 Megawatts. We'd need and additional 61,000 Megawatts of energy to make it into the battery. Let's not mince words, we'd need 3 times as many power plants as we have now. Too hard to grasp? How about 28 new Diablo nuclear power plants (2x9.5 million mW-H reactors). Actually more like 40 Diabos. [insert lame ; "better the Diablo you know" joke here] And what would that cost? Nukes cost about $2000 per kilowatt to build. $122 Billion dollars. How much does that gas we Californians guzzle cost? $47 billion. Surprised? Gets better. Anyone here doubt that an order for 40 nukes could garner a volume discount? Yeah, like half price. A 50 cent per gallon surtax would pay the capital construction costs in 7 years. And what would the electricity cost? Remember we don't have any capital costs to amortize. 1.5-3 cents likely. We pay 14 cents now.
We could do it and it would make sense but we won't do it because of a combination of boiled frog syndrome and the cognitive dissonance of the eco-warriors.
Nota bene; the above was calculated using 2006 data.

Ok so a 6 year estimate is what, 10 on execution? kidding, kidding...though when big projects slip, they don't slip by a quarter...
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Seriously, how does the increase of electricity generation impact oil use with the sun belt - connect the dots for me, please - I'm having a tough time seeing that reduce USA oil demand, and a tougher time seeing that bring OPEC to it's knees as demand growth in the non-OECD (BRIC et al) has been a multiple of demand growth in the OECD for over a decade and it is accelerating...

Volume discounts are less than unlikely under that scenario, how about bottlenecks and bidding wars...how much EPC (Engineering, Procurement & Construction) capacity currently exists on the planet for any large projects then lets see how much more of that we need - a serious capability assessment will reveal that the capacity to execute this scenario would first need to be created...