A letter to Nissan

To the Nissan Leaf designers.

 

We purchased a second hand Nissan Leaf a few months ago and it is a beauty.  It has all the features we could ask for and more.  You have a touch screen but have also made pretty well all the controls tactile.  I don't have to take my eyes off the road to operate them.  This is a great plus.  Touch screens in cars are more dangerous than cell phones.  As for the phone app, it is great to be able to do it all verbally and the quality of the sound is really great.  So what else have you done that I really  like.

The battery in the leaf we bought was a 24kWh with 60% left in it.  In other words, we had a 14.4kWh battery.  We got it changed for a 30kWh, 90% battery from a wrecked Leaf resulting in an effective 27kWh battery. This is the first thing that I really like about the Leaf.  The initial model has stayed the same for the first 10 years meaning that I could have even swapped out the old battery for a 40kWh battery.  The whole exchange takes a mechanic one hour.  Keeping the model the same and eliminating this built in obsolescence that is so common in other equipment these days is a really strong selling point. 

 

You have no self driving and this is very much a plus in my opinion.  I don't want it and won't have it.  I like driving and would rather drive myself.  Besides it increased the price of the car and one of your most important selling points is the price range of Leafs

 

You also don't have any connection with the internet.  I really don't want someone hacking my car some time in the future and interfering with my driving.  If you do have to upgrade some soft ware, let me download it from my computer onto a flash drive, insert it into the car and presto, upgrade sorted.

 

But where do you fall short.

You are operating on an old business model that quite frankly has no place and no sympathy with modern customers.  You should be providing new replacement batteries at a reasonable mark up so that Leaf owners can extend the life of their Leaf with a simple battery exchange.  Instead you are making it almost impossible to buy a replacement and it costs far far more than it should (if you can even buy one).  The car is great.  It should go through at least 5 battery changes before the car is worn out.  And, each battery change will give the car greater range and slower battery fade as battery technology advances.  At present you are trying to force the customer to buy a new Leaf.  

While you are at it, you could supply a conversion kit that would allow the customer to use the old battery to power his home.  That would be a great service.  We could effectively deduct the price of a Tesla Power Wall from the cost of the battery exchange (and probably have even more storage capacity than the Power Wall).  This would make the purchase of a new battery for my Leaf very attractive financially.

The Leaf fills a market/price position that Tesla has not yet arrived at but they are approaching it rapidly.  You have a solid base of satisfied customers and a great car.  Think of your customers and your bottom line will take care of itself.  Publicize the fact that you will keep the new model the same for at least a decade as you did with the first model and that you will provide new batteries with the latest technology and that they will fit into previous leafs with a minimum of labor.

One other thing to consider.  Your battery management is not up to scratch.  As I understand the situation, it is detrimental to battery life to allow the battery to go above or below a certain temperature range.  Tesla manages this with a liquid cooled manifold that touches each battery and the liquid is fed to a radiator.  You really must upgrade your cooling system.  Is this also done to force people to buy a new Leaf as the battery degrades faster than it should?  Again, think of your customers.  A long lasting battery is a great selling point.

The Leaf could be well on the way to becoming the peoples iconic car of the electric era.  The first such car was the Model T Ford.  Later came the Volkswagen Beatle and the Deaux Cheveaux (2CV).  The leaf could be the iconic peoples car on into the future.  But the main feature for the modern buyer and especially the younger generation that will be buying your car is for you to abandon built in obsolescence.

 By the Way, your Auria looks amazing but the Leaf is all the car that I need or want.  Don't abandon it, now that you are making this new car.

I love my Leaf.  Let me keep it running long into the future and to tell everyone I meet how great it is in all respects.

Joe's first fire side talk

Hi Joe

The FireSideTalk is a great American tradition, started by FDR.  It is the way the president can get the American People working with him to pass legislation, especially if another branch of the government is obstructing what is needed to be done.  So here is a suggestion for your first FireSideTalk.

Good Evening my fellow Americans

I will be doing Fire Side Talks each Friday and they will be aired on youtube.  They will deal, primarily with Bills I send to the Congress.  These bills will be simple, easily understood and dealing with one subject at a time.  Great complex, long bills are often hard to understand.  In Fact they are often purposefully made difficult to understand to obscure their hidden agendas and this is simply not democratic.  In future Fire Side Talks, I will tell you who has opposed these bills and what their arguments are.  So here goes.  Here is the first bill I will send to the Senate and the House of Representatives; The Congress of the United States.

Our election system is highly corrupt at a basic level and many many reforms are needed.  The primary reform; the one that is most anti-democratic is the delegate system.  It was originally put in place to ensure that rich land owners, mostly rich white men at the time, could control the election of the president if the popular vote went against who they wanted for president.  This has to stop.

My first bill to the Congress will propose that the president of the United States will henceforth be elected by the popular vote of the People of the United States.

Can you imagine how many vested interests will oppose this proposition.  Here is where you come in.  In future Fire Side Talks, I will tell you who is against this bill in the House of Representatives and in the Senate and you must help me get through to these people.

Many more reforms will be necessary.  For instance, we need far more polling stations.  It is a scandal that you have to travel great distances to find a polling station and then wait for hours to vote.  Gerrymandering is a stain on our democracy.  Denial of registration is a scam.  But these, and other blots on the operation of our democracy will be the subject of a future bill.  One thing at a time.  I'm Asking you, the America People to help me.  I can't do it alone.  Good by until next Friday.

Innovation

This blog was triggered by an article in New Scientist, 7, November, 2020 p16 Titled Innovation.  It was all about bringing the UK back into the lead in the world in Advanced Research Projects.

 

Not all innovation has to be research based, ground breaking and expensive.  There are many simple, well known measures that would make a huge difference.

 

*Introduce beavers into the headwaters of every catchment and you mitigate floods, increase low water flows, clean the water, increase biodiversity recharge ground water, trap the nutrients coming upstream with salmon migrations into the surrounding ecosystem and create a great tourist attraction.

*Finance election campaigns from the exchequer instead of from vested interest contributions and you eliminate a large block of political corruption.  This is the prime reason that politician do the bidding of vested interests instead of the bidding of the people who elected them.  Solve this one and we would stop having to push the brown stuff uphill with a spoon. Do this and most of the rest will be simplicity itself to achieve.

*Remove all subsidies on fossil fuel and a big chunk of climate change mitigation will occur automatically. Renewable energy can stand on it's own feet economically, especially since the advent of mega batteries.  Do you realize that the 100mWh battery at Hornsdale in Southern Australia is on track to earn the total $66m Aus that it cost, within three years.  They have added another 50kWh of storage and I bet they add more.

*Eliminate Cap and Trade and legislate Tax and Dividend and money will be put into the hands of the poorest instead of the richest, stimulating the economy.  The rich simply squirrel it away and it doesn't power the economy.

*Outlaw foreign fishing boats in your EEZ and set large areas aside as no fishing areas and your catches in the fishing-permitted areas will return to what they were two centuries ago.

 

*Compensate victims of floods from the land or from the sea, generously - once - and that is it.  If they insist on remaining in the flood prone area, they will never be compensated again. Hire a small group of insurance experts to hold the feet of the insurance companies to the fire and make sure they compensate the clients fully for what they deserve according to their policy.

There are plenty more but you get the idea.  The function of government is to set the playing field so that things happen automatically.  They are supposed to take the wider view and enable actions that will benefit her constituents far into the future. 

Letter to Joe

 Hi Joe

You are in a battle but you can win it.  Despite being on the wrong side of almost every vote for virtually all of your political career, you have shown your human side on a number of occasions.  I have the feeling (and the hope) that this human side is not just a coat you put on when convenient but is actually part of your character.

 

You have shown how you can work with Republicans - by voting with them as if you were a Republican yourself.

 

Your battle is with the Senate and specifically with Mitch.  He is anti-democratic, anti-constitution, a hypocrite (just look at the appointment of the most recent member of the supreme court) and could care less about the American people.  You can outsmart him.

 

Your main ally is the American people and they will rally to your support if you show them that you have their backs.  Your legacy could outshine virtually all other presidents and be right up there with FDR. Obama could be left eating your dust.  So what is the strategy here. 

 

Firstly you must have fire side chats.  Don't do them via any news media but post them on Youtube.  You don't want them edited by your corrupt media.  Post them at the same time each week.  In your fire side talks you tell the people what bills you are going to send, or have sent to the other branches of the government and explain why you are doing it.  As time goes on, you explain where these bills got stopped by the house of representatives or Senate and who, specifically, opposed them.  Keep your bills simple.  No complex bills.  Let's take an example.

 

Your presidential election system and in fact your total election system is a joke in the eyes of the world.  We find it hard to believe that a country that blathers on about their great democracy and how they spread democracy around the world* (Yeah Right!!!) has such a system.  So here is your first bill.

* Read Classified Woman by Edmons, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by Perkins, The Untold History of the United States by Stone and so forth. 

 

Propose that the president will be chosen by popular vote.  Whoever gets the most votes by the people wins.  Scrap the present system completely.  Don't include any other reforms in this bill and don't accept any compromises.  Keep each bill really really simple.  You are dealing with a population, 40% of which believe that the world was created some 6000 years ago.  If they send the bill back to you in a modified form veto it and send it back as originally proposed.  Do one easily understood step at a time.  You can tell the people in your fire side talk that following the passing of this bill, you will send other reforms to the House and Senate but one step at a time.  And no pork fat allowed.

Of course Mitch will scream bloody blue murder as will a whole bunch of other vested interests.  The people will love it and they will come out in droves to support you.  You can include clips of Mitch opposing the bill in the Senate in your fire side talks.  Keep hammering on at Mitch.  Continue in this style, step by inevitable step.  When Mitch opposes the bill, and you have explained to the people what is happening, send it to congress again.  Mitch will feel like he has walked into a buzz saw. Go get'im.  You can do it.

So, You Want My Vote

 You want my vote.  Well here is what you have to do.  In fact, if you  promised any one of the following I would probably vote for you.  Promise two or more and I am yours for ever (if you followed through).  I realize that if you are in a coalition all you can do is submit the bill for passing but even that would be enough to keep me voting for you. You have shown "good faith"  If you have an absolute majority, thought, you must submit it and pass it.

 

Campaign Contributions  

Outlaw them.  

They are the core problem of all 'western' democracies and campaign contributions are why they aren't (democracies).  Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune.  Why are you surprised that politicians do the bidding of vested interests. It is the only way they can be assured of enough money to run their next election campaign. You know,,,, If you only passed this item, all the following items would fall into place almost automatically.

Encourage the Uptake of Electric Vehicles

Simply remove all taxes associated with the purchase and running of an electric vehicle.  This includes any and all stamp taxes, import taxes, purchase taxes Fringe Benefit Taxes and so forth.......  and all road taxes associated with the running of an electric car.  If you can't bear to not make some government revenue from the electric fleet then wave all road taxes for the first 20 years of the operation of the car. 

 

Remove all subsidies on fossil fuel

I mean everything right down to amortization.  Let the fossil fuel Industries stand on their own economic merits.  And note that renewable energy doesn't need any government subsidies.  It can stand on its own, economically, thank you very much. Leave the exchequer alone.

Institute Tax and Dividend

Put a very small tax on fossil fuel when it comes out of the ground in your country or across your boarder from some other country.  Every cent of the money collected is sent, at virtually zero cost, by electronic transfer in equal portion to every registered tax payer. (no sending cheques.  No one uses them now and they cost money to make, to send and to process).  This is the system called Tax and Dividend and was proposed by Jim Hansen.  For once put money into the hands of the people instead of into the hands of the rich. 

People low on the economic scale will use every cent just to feed their family, people in the middle will save up to put solar panels on the roof, people high on the hog will have a meal at an expensive restaurant.  Win win win all around.  

Oh! and by the by, the small tax rate on fossil fuel increases by a legislated amount each year.  Any idea what investors in fossil fuel are going to do.  

Cap and trade is a scam designed to make the rich even richer. Economies are not powered by making the rich, richer.  They are powered by putting money into the hands of people that will use the money to buy goods and services.

Bottled water

To stop bottling our water and selling it overseas is just plain crazy.  Water bottling is a license to print money and is three orders of magnitude more profitable per quantity of water than other uses.  For instance it takes less than 1.5l of water to produce a liter of bottled water.  It takes over 1000l of water to produce a liter of milk.   Other agricultural products are in the same ball park; some using less water, most using more. 

It is equally crazy to put this lucrative business into the hands of Coca Cola, Cloud water or any other outside concern.  The reason we do this, probably has something to do with our much vaunted trade agreements with other countries.  This would be a good test case to examine and find out why our trade agreements are shafting us.

Trade agreements might actually fall into the same category as agricultural subsidies (which New Zealand canceled some decades ago).  We might  find that we would actually be better off without them.  We produce great products.  If you want to buy them and we can agree on a price,, great.  If not the rest of the world will come knocking at our door.  Read chapter 2 of Naomi Klein's book, This Changes Everything.  She describes how trade agreements get in the way, would you believe, of solving Climate Change.

 

Fisheries

Outlaw fishing in our EEZ (Economic Exclusion Zone) by foreign fishing boats and make sure that the local fishing companies are not rorting the system. 

People working on the fishing boats must be permanent residents or citizens of our country.  

Then make at least a third of our EEZ a no fishing zone.  

Outlaw drift nets, bottom trawls and insist that the  long line methods that are used are designed to protect our birds.  The methods have already been developed.

Ensure that all fish are landed  and processed in our country.  Sell value added products overseas, not raw whole fish.

Make sure that every part of the fish is used.  After filleting, for instance, the remaining flesh can be centrifuged off the carcasses, mixed with soya to make fish balls and marketed with a package of powdered sauce ingredients.  making a really nutritious, inexpensive, tasty food.  

The remaining part of the carcasses can be dried and ground to make a great fertilizer.  

Lastly, give permits to fishing boats for a given tonnage of fish.  Ensure that no fish are thrown back into the sea. 

 

Flood policy 

Put in place a rational flood policy.   Floods come from the land and from the sea.

Here is a suggestion.

*Recognize that if an area is flooded, nature is telling you something in the clearest terms.  Namely, that if this area has been flooded once, it will be flooded again.  Unless you have some bomb proof system of stopping future floods, then heed the message.  And contain your hubris.  Do a little research to see if the solution you have in mind has worked elsewhere.

* Have  a small cadre of  government employees that are insurance experts and who's job is to hold the feet of the insurance companies to the fire and ensure that they give the effected people the full benefit of their policies.

 

*Add government compensation as necessary and make it generous.  ONCE.

*The owners of the property are welcome to stay there if they want but they have received all the compensation that they will ever get.  On the LIM, mark the property as uninsurable.  With the money they have received, the owners can move to higher ground or can stay.  The decision is theirs.  But when the next flood comes, they are on their own.   

 

*Demolish any houses that have been abandoned and turn the area into a park or wilderness area.  Anything except property with flood prone assets on it. 

Banking

Start to shift government business to Kiwi banks.  Allowing Ausi banks to take approximately a billion dollars out of our economy every 6 months is simple stupid.  Let me tell you a little apocryphal story.

Twin brothers marry twin girls.  One of the girls is a little princess.  She wants everything and she wants it now so her husband buys their kitchen equipment, furniture and every convenience.....on time.

The other girl says to her husband, no, we will sit on apple boxes and eat off our knees until we have money to buy our first big ticket item and we will continue this way, month by month, only buying what we have money for.

Now flash forward 5 years.  The little princess and her husband have everything in the house they need but are paying off a big part of their salary in interest.

The other couple have just as much, and it is a little newer than the other couple but the main point is that they own it all.  From then on all their money is theirs to do with what they want.  Best of all they are not vulnerable to a down turn in the economy or some other disaster.  Which couple do we want New Zealand to emulate. Unfortunately we have already behaved like little princesses.

 

 

How and why to increase the uptake of electric cars in New Zealand

Greatly increasing the uptake of electric vehicles in New Zealand would have many benefits. Presumably, this is not news to any New Zealand MP. Below is a catalogue of at least some of these benefits.

I understand from talking to people in the electric car industry that the government is willing to spend quite a few millions to work out the best way to encourage EV uptake. Save the money. It’s not rocket science.

The main barrier to electric car uptake is cost. The government is in control of a significant portion of the cost of an electric vehicle. 

 

What to do

 

First make sure that there are no import taxes, stamp taxes or any other taxes related to the import of electric vehicles. 

 

Remove GST from the purchase of electric cars. This move, at one stroke of the pen, with no cost to the exchequer, reduces the price of a vehicle by 15%.

 

Then announce that there will be no road taxes for 20 years from the first purchase of a vehicle in New Zealand.  

 

And yes, an electric car can last for 20 years.  I have just learned that the battery of a Leaf, for instance, can be swapped out in an hour and the 24kWh batteries in earlier models can be swapped for a 30 or 40kWh battery.  Apparently, with a couple of simple modifications even the new 60kWh battery can be fitted into older cars.  Add to that, that batteries are continually coming down in price and an electric car becomes a very attractive proposition.

 

Eliminate the FBT (Fringe Benefit Tax) for electric vehicles.  This is the tax that companies and the employee pay for the ability to use the company vehicle, privately.  Not only does this tax cost the users of the car money but it is a real pain to administer for both employee and employer.

 

With no FBC, a lot more people would experience their first use of an electric vehicle.  In addition a lot more second hand electric vehicles would come on the market.  

 

And, Yes, I'm sorry but you can't be fair to everyone.  ICE car dealers will scream bloody blue murder but you have to decide if we are really serious about accelerating the transition here in New Zealand. Every serious move we make to reduce our emissions will have some negative effects for some sector of the economy.

Benefits of Electric Car Uptake for New Zealand.

*Reduction of the health costs, caused at present, by ICE vehicle air pollution.

 

*Reduced road repair costs. Oil leaks degrade asphalt.

 

*Reduced costs under Koyota to New Zealand as our C output declines

 

*Added revenue to producers of renewable energy with the increased market for their electricity. Since charging, logically,  will be on a demand basis, much of the car charging will be done when excess power is available.  In other words, less need to feather wind turbines when power is in excess of demand. There will be a market for the full capacity of our renewable energy.

 

*Improved balance of payments as we reduce our import of petroleum products.

 

*An addition to our green reputation which impacts on our exports.

 

*A large benefit to individual Kiwis. (which is the primary responsibility of any democratically elected government)

 

ICE car dealers will not be pleased if we tilt the playing field in favor of electric cars but we have to decide whether we are serious about reducing our carbon foot print and making New Zealand an even better place to live.  Every disruptive move we make will disadvantage some sector of the economy.  I suppose it is good that we don't have an ICE car manufacturing sector to protect.  That would make the government decision even more fraught.  ICE car dealers will soon pivot to selling electric cars. 

           Then we can think further outside of the box

New Zealand has achieved quite an enviable reputation in the world because of the way our Prime Minister and her party have handled two very difficult situations; namely the mosque shooting and Covid 19. Labor has also initiated many green pieces of legislation which will appeal to Elon Musk. Let’s parley that reputation into benefits for New Zealand.

Invite Tesla to set up a factory in New Zealand. The fact that we have made the uptake of electric cars more affordable will be another factor in our favor. Elon Musk is a visionary. He thinks outside the box. Present the case in the right way and he might just consider the proposal. So what are the arguments to present to him.

Positive Factors for Tesla

*New Zealand already has a high percent of it’s electricity produced renewably. Cars produced here would have a particularly low carbon foot print.

 

*TY point is going to close down leaving a great surplus of electricity.

 

*As seen at 'battery day', Elon is all for vertical integration. A lot of Aluminum is used in his cars. He could even take over the Al plant and enough of the Al smelter employees to run the factory and produce Al for his cars. The personnel is already in place and really don’t want to leave Invercargill.

 

*In the same way that we have handled this pandemic, we will handle the next one (and there will be a next one). This is especially so if Labor is in power. Disruption to production, caused by any future pandemic, will be minimal.

 

*TY point already has a dedicated deep water port for shipping in parts and materials and shipping out cars. Marine shipping is a very economical way of moving materials and goods around the globe.

 

*New Zealand is a very attractive place for anyone to work and play. His best people will jump at the chance to live and work in New Zealand: especially after the dismal situation we see in the US of A and to a lesser extent in the rest of the world.

 

*Cars produced here can have a “Made In New Zealand” label.

 

Positive Factors for Us

 

*No need to decrease the economic activity in Invercargill. In fact we would greatly increase it.

 

*Introduction of top level technical people into New Zealand. No knowing what spin offs will result as some of these folks become New Zealand citizens and take their talent to other sectors.

 

*Most likely, good car prices for the public for cars produced right here in New Zealand

 

*It is likely that Tesla will install a mega battery to smooth out her power supply. This would have a very positive effect on the frequency and voltage stability of the grid in Invercargill as has happened in the grid supplied by the Hornsdale Wind Farm in southern Australia.

 

*Tax revenue from workers in the factory and from all the secondary industries which are enabled.  It has been estimated often as reported on Radio New Zealand that for every primary job, 4 or more secondary jobs are created.  It is probably worth while to give a very favorable company tax regime to Tesla.  The ancillary benefits are great.

 

New Zealand has many advantages over other countries. We have seen what we can do in the food industry and film industry. Let’s show a little confidence in ourselves and ‘go for it’.

Inviting Tesla to New Zealand

It is time to make contact with Elon Musk and invite him to consider building a mega factory in New Zealand.  There has been talk about a new mega factory in Australia but look at the advantages in New Zealand.  In no particular order:::

1/  With the closing of TY Point, a huge amount of green electricity becomes available.  Right from the first cars produced, their manufacture will be  carbon free. 

2/  Due to our almost unique success, worldwide, with Covid 19, New Zealand has become hugely attractive to top people all over the world who see us, not only as a safe haven but also as a country with an effective, caring government.  The message was made even stronger with our government's response to the mosque shooting. Contrast this with the USA, the UK or Aus.

3/  Invercargle already has port facilities which were used for shipping in bauxite and shipping out Aluminum.  Shipping by sea is cheap so our distance from potential markets for Tesla vehicles is of very little importance.

4/  Invercargle needs an industry to replace the jobs lost by the closure of TY point. The local administration will be very open to the establishment of a new industry.

5/  Tesla is uniquely capable of storing energy as demonstrated by the Hornsdale mega battery.  Not only has this mega battery had an amazing pay off period of 3 years but it has stabilized the local grid with respect to voltage and frequency fluctuation.  Having Tesla in Invercargle with a large electrical storage capacity would have the same effect for the local grid. 

6/ Having Tesla in Invercargle with battery storage would make any wind farms, existing or new and any solar electric facilities  more financially viable since it would no longer be necessary to feather the turbines when more power is being produced than needed or waste power produced by photo-voltaics.

Nothing ventured - nothing gained.  Worth a try.  I think the idea might just ring a bell with Elon.

Composting manure

 This blog was triggered by a Youtube item I saw in which the lass was covering her garden with cardboard and then wood chips in the fall to retard weeds in the following growing season.  A great idea and very effective.  It worked and her weeding was greatly reduced in the half of the garden she treated this way.  She showed how rich it made the soil, pointing out how black it was after this treatment.  She also mentioned that she spread composted manure before putting down the cardboard.  I put a comment on the bottom "Try raw manure in the fall instead of composted manure" but with no further explanation.  I thought I'd better justify the comment.  So why compost manure at all.

There are a couple of reasons to compost manure.  When an animal eats plants or animals, it poops out a portion of it's feces as mineralized chemicals.  That is to say, soluble mineral salts.  If the concentration of these salts are greater than the concentration of salts and sugars (solutes) in the root sap, water will be pulled out of the roots and cause what is called 'burning' of the plant.  Of course no burning occurs.  It is simply that the plant dries out and wilts, withers and looks burnt.  In addition, if it rains or if excessive watering is done, these soluble mineral compounds can be washed down beyond the root zone, making the unavailable to the crop and contaminating ground water and nearby water ways.

Think of chicken manure.  It is the 'hottest' of the manures.  That white material on the poop is uric acid which dissolves pretty completely in the soil water and makes a very concentrated solution.  If you ever use raw chicken manure, side dress with it so that it is incorporated, little by little into the soil.

What composting does, especially if the manure is bedding and therefore contains a quantity of saw dust or straw, is to let the microfauna in the manure use the bedding as an energy source and to take up the mineralized nutrients and build these nutrients into their bodies.  These are the primary producers in the soil.

We are all familiar with primary producers on land.  These are the plants that absorb sun energy and use it to build water, carbon dioxide and mineral compounds into proteins, carbohydrates and other high energy materials.

The soil also has primary producers but their source of energy is long chain molecules and especially the cellulose in wood chips, cardboard or straw.  Other wee beasties in the soil eat these primary producers and poop  mineralized compounds.  As long as there is enough cellulose in the soil, the primary producers will take them right back up and the cycle continues. 

As long as there is an excess of cellulose the plants will be starved of nutrients.  The soil primary producers are much better at grabbing the nutrients than the plants.  However as the cellulose runs out, some mineralized nutrients become available for the plants.  You have created a slow release fertilizer, ideal for growing plants.

You can see another reason to compost.  If there is lots of bedding, soon all the nutrients will be taken up and will not be available to the plants.  Either you 'burn' the plants with too much soluble material in the soil or starve them of nutrients because the primary producers in the soil are taking them all up.

However if the whole compost goes anaerobic or if even zones in the compost become anaerobic, two gasses are produced.  These are Ammonia NH₄ and Hydrogen sulphide H₂S.  The first takes away Nitrogen, the most  nutrient which is needed in the greatest quantities in plant growth and the second, Sulfur, a minor, but much needed nutrient,  These gases are what gives a compost pile the unpleasant smell and wastes nutrients that the plants could have used, come the spring.

It is very hard to keep a compost pile aerobic without constant stirring and who wants to spend their time turning over a compost pile. 

If, however you spread raw manure on the garden and especially if it is under a layer of cardboard and wood chips, It is almost impossible for it to go anaerobic in such a thin layer, and it has lots of cellulose material to use as an energy source for the primary producers.  It is much more likely that the nutrients will remain in the soil as the bodies of the wee beasties and be available to the plants as the growing season goes on.  You are not wasting these nutrients in a compost pile.

This is why I suggest using raw manure in the fall and best of all under a good layer of cellulose rich mulch.

 

My Tesla

Do I want an electric car.  Absolutely.  Would I like a Tesla.  Yes yes yes.  Magnificent cars.  Do I want one of the existing Teslas.  Well, not exactly.  The Tesla I want won't be for everyone but I believe there is a very large market out there for a variation on the basic Tesla theme.

I suppose what I should have titled this blog is "My Electric Car".  Other companies are coming up with electric cars and trying to challenge Tesla at the top of the market.  Tesla started at the very top and is working it's way down.  The only chance other manufacturers have is to start at the bottom end and work their way up.  You have to find an unfilled gap in the market if you want to succeed.

So what would my electric car have (and not have).

Body
I'd be thoroughly chuffed if it was made of stainless steel like the cyber truck. Of course it would have distinctive styling.  The nature of stainless steel makes this necessary as it is a more difficult material to form.  This distinctive styling would be a very positive feature.  To become iconic like the VW beatle and combi, the Mini, the Ciroen 2CV and others iconic cars, distinctive styling is a great help  in marketing. Not that Teslas need any help with it's marketing.  None of these 'people's cars' were things of beauty but all became iconic.

If I understand correctly, when using stainless steel, the shell is the frame.  To date, cars have had a frame on to which the outside panels are attached.  In the cyber truck, I understand that the shell is the frame; basically an exoskeleton.  I suspect that the total cost of the body with this more expensive material but simpler construction  would not be more expensive than the frame plus panels on today's cars.  Whatever the case, stainless steel* is going to last so-so-so much longer.

Incidentally, I understand that the Rivian is made of a composite that needs no painting.  If so, this is another great innovation.  Painting costs money and no painting will help bring down the cost.  When Electric Cars are comparable in price with ICE cars. the writing is on the wall.  ICE cars are toast.

* Some experience I have had with Stainless steel in a wet, salty environment showed that when part of the material is exposed to the air and part not, the two parts acted as if they were different metals and localized corrosion occurred.  I have no idea if this would be a problem with a car exoskeleton. 

Features it will have.

1/  The new, so called, million mile battery, of course and the ability to upgrade the battery if new innovations come out.

2/ V2G* , VPP* and Autobidder, enabled, allowing me to be taking-from and supplying-to the grid (and earning a bit of money in the process).  Great innovation.

*Vehicle to Grid and Virtual Power Plant.  Autobidder is the program that allows an electric car owner to participate in the grid and have the charge needed in the morning to do what the car owner wants.

3/ A tow bar.  I have a small holding and need to be able to tow a trailer full of wood, fence posts, manure and so forth.  And think about the psychology of a tow bar.  Think of all the people living in the city who  drive a pick up truck or SUV even though they don't need one.  A tow bar signals the sort of image that they have of themselves. Good marketing.

4/ A quality, manual wind up window on the drivers side.  I have a horror of going into a lake and not being able to open a window or door that has shorted out.  The rest can be electric. (OK, this may be going to far but perhaps make it optional and see what the uptake is).

5/  A 220 Volt (110V in America) AC plug so I can run a welder, electric chain saw or whatever, wherever I want.  You have it in the Cyber Truck.  Make it optional if you like.  If it is an optional extra, make the car so that if someone wants to retrofit the AC plug, it is a 15 minute job at the most.  I think you will find that when this feature is in the car, a lot of people who didn't know they needed one will find uses for it. 

6/  If you want to put in a bit of 'fancy' then when it becomes technically and economically feasible, cover the car with solar cells.  No one expects to be able to drive  on solar alone but it would be a nice little bonus and might get you out of a tight spot.  This could also be an optional extra.

7/ The usual  glove compartments, cup holders, radio and so forth that all cars have and as much usable space as possible inside.

8/ As many fittings as possible from other Teslas.  Door latches, wheel rims, tires, radio, steering wheel, head lights and so forth.  Use as much as possible off the shelf from your own facility.  And don't change these feature or the styling from year to year.  Parts from this year's car should fit a car  made in 10 years and vice versa. Innovating those simple parts for this car and changing the styling each year simply increases the price of the car. Besides, you don't want to change the styling of an iconic car.  Make it right in the first place and keep it that way.

9/  Another bit of fancy, that would be a useful option, is to be able to raise the clearance of the car when needed.  Not a game changer though.  Best to keep it as simple as possible.

Repairability 

As much as possible should be repairable by a half way capable home mechanic.  And make anything I have to take to the professional mechanic, easy access.  A mechanic will still be charging $100/hr and he shouldn't have to spend time accessing what he is repairing or replacing.  Modern ICE cars are ridiculous.  You often have to disassemble half the car to get at the water pump and even at the spark plugs.


 Features it won't have

1/  No connection to the internet.  None, zippo, zilch.  Have you ever seen a program come out, even from Microsoft, that didn't need patches.  Have you ever seen a program that couldn't be hacked.  For heaven sake, the UK health system was just recently hacked and banks, the military and other high profile facilities are being hacked all the time*.  You would expect them to be bullet proof.  They aren't.   If I want an upgrade, first I will let the early adopters test it out.  Then if I really want it, I will go to my computer, plug in a flash drive, download the program and take the flash drive to the car to download the new innovation.  Teslas are great as they are.  I would need some serious convincing to do an upgrade.

*As of July 2020, Elon Musk and other prominent people were hacked.  If anyone would be expected to have a secure system it would be these people.  I rest my case.

Besides, have you being paying attention to the revelations by Snowdon and Manning.  Do I really want the thousands of spooks in the dozens of  secret services in America and other countries to have access my car.  Do I want some autistic genius 14 year old in his mom's basement  bringing a whole city to a grinding halt just for the fun of it.  When this happens in the future, I want my Tesla to still be mobile.
 
2/  No touch screens.  If it is dangerous to use your cell phone which you can hold up so you hardly have to take your eyes off of the road, how much more dangerous is it to be going through a 5 step app on your touch screen while driving.  Make all controls tactile so I can do them by touch without taking my eyes off the road.

3/ No self driving.  I don't care if it is safer than me driving.  I like driving and I even feel nervous when I use cruise control in my present ICE car.  Besides, I don't want my daughter snogging in the back seat with her boyfriend on the way to a movie in the next town.

4/ No navigation facility.  It just costs more money and everyone today has a smart phone.  If I want navigation (and I do) I will velcro my smart phone to the dash board or mount it magnetically on to one of those windscreen mounted pedicils.  

One of the main aim's of Tesla is to manufacture cars that not only make a profit but that a much wider segment of the population can afford.  Take out some of the bling and make the car simpler, use the same parts where possible that are in other Teslas and keep the same styling year after year and it will be easier to build an affordable car.

I have been in research much of my life and I know the temptation of a new gadget; a new innovation.  A lot of people these days would rather open a can with a wall mounted electric can opener rather than using one of those wee hand can openers that you find in K rations.  I am the opposite.  I want simplicity, utility, a low impact on the environment  and self sufficiency and I suspect that I am not alone.  And for heaven sake, stop this race for a zero to 60 faster time (at least for this car).   I'm not some frustrated teenager who has doubts that his winki is large enough. 

Economy after C19

There is much talk in various countries of sorting out the economy post-C19.  You might ask, why.  What has changed since before the pandemic.  Well hopefully there has been one change.  It should be apparent now to the most blinkered person that world wide disasters can happen.  You would think that with a species as smart as us and with our methods of remembering past occurrences that we wouldn't have to be taught this lesson yet again.  After all, we still commemorate world war one and two and since WW2 there have been enough genocides and wars to keep the message front and center in our minds.

And going back further, we had the plague which wiped out tens of percentages of the population in each of a number of subsequent waves.

Just taking diseases, C19 was far from the worst that could happen.  It was bad enough, to a large extent because of the delay period between infection and the appearance of symptoms of one to two weeks.  Also it's mortality is moderately serious at about 5% of the people who contract the disease.  Imagine a disease even more deadly that C19 but one that, like AIDS, doesn't show symptoms for, say, a year.  In fact, a disease that didn't show symptoms even for a month would likely have got away from us all over the world instead of just in countries with poor governments and limping health systems like the USA and UK.

But here we have to make a wee mental leap.  Scientists have been telling us for a number of years that they see in the ice record of the major ice sheets and in the sediment samples from the bottom of the sea, that climate can change rather rapidly*.  They call these events tipping points.  And they make pretty convincing cases for the likelihood that the way we are altering our atmosphere, with no sign of slowing down, that we could experience another tipping point.  Why would that be so serious.

*A major reason that New Zealand and some other countries defeated C19 besides having good government and good health systems is that the leader of the country, Jacinda Ardern listened to the experts and acted on their advice.  How many leaders of major countries are listening to the experts on Climate Change.

If we had evolved our present way of life in a different climate, it wouldn't have been a problem.  We would have put our cities where the shore of the ocean met rivers at the existing higher or lower sea level.  We would have developed cures for the new diseases and the new distribution of present diseases.  We wouldn't have settled either in areas where the wet bulb temperature was above 33 degrees C or we would have  build in such a way to neutralize the extreme temperatures.  We also would have developed agriculture that fit in the existing climate zones.

But we haven't.  We have developed our present way of life during the present climate regime and in a period of unprecedented climate stability.  It may not seem so when you are the victim of a flood, drought, tornado or hurricane but just look at the climate from previous interglacial periods including the next one back, the Eemian.  The Milankovitch cycles should already have us slowly sliding into the next glacial period but it is not happening.  It would appear that we have had a strong influence on the world's climate since we started growing rice in ponds, clear felling or burning forests, using the plow and burning coal*.  Our output of Carbon dioxide and other green house gasses has been just about enough to counter the effect of  the Milankovitch cycle.

*Read the book Plows Plagues and Petroleum by 

Now we are going too far.

So what Covid 19 should have taught us is that world spanning disasters are possible.  We have another lesson.  Look at the way New Zealand and to a lesser extent a few other countries handled C19 compared to the response of the UK and the USA.  America in particular always blames someone else to explain the abysmal failures of their government.  Their recent boogy man is Communism.  They don't seem to realize that Communism or Capitalism or any other 'ism' is not the problem.  The problem is the lack of democracy.  The Republican party and now the Democratic party have done and are doing everything they can to erode democracy in their country, (if they ever had democracy) and they have succeeded.

Look at their abysmal response to this crisis.  One of the messages of the neo-liberalism is that government isn't really necessary and we can get along just fine without it.  Well America, how did that work out for you. Bernie Sanders in a recent speech in the Senate has called the present government the most 'do nothing' government in recent history.  They are sitting there arguing about unimportant nonsense while Americans loose their jobs and can't feed their children.

At any rate, here in New Zealand, what could we do to improve out economy following C19.  Hopefully we will take into consideration the possibility of future crises and not just make our decisions based on the immediate bottom line during times of plenty.  Here are some things we weren't doing so well before the shut down.  We didn't:

*Fish our own waters.
https://mtkass.blogspot.com/2010/12/fisheries-policy-lets-change-tacks.html

*Process our own fish. ditto

*Value add our own wood. The Christchurch earthquake would have been a golden opportunity to rebuild with engineered wood, giving us experience, expertise, a product to sell to other quake prone areas and a story to tell.  We grow a lot of wood.  Here is a conspiracy theory for you.  With a tweak or two, you could apply the same scenario to milk processing, steel production, water bottling and a raft of other industrial sectors.

In the west we think in terms of quarterly (3month) reporting cycles or at the most in 3 to 5 year election cycles.  In China, with their long history, they think in decades, centuries and even millennia.

China has huge surpluses of cash from their positive trade balance from the stuff they sell to America and other western countries.  What do they do.  They weaponize this money.  They buy up our logs at a great price - so great that our own mills can not compete  Our mills have closed in droves.  Then China offers us, very generously, to build us a modern lumber mill. You can see where this is going.

*Bottle our own water. I wonder if the WTO and our trade agreements have something to do with this. If you read Naomi Klein’s book, This Changes Everything, especially chapter 2, there is a clear exposition on the down sides of our much vaunted globalization, the WTO and trade agreements. It is forcing us to not buy locally or produce locally.  We really must bring peripheral benefits  into our calculations such as the number of secondary jobs created for each primary job and include externalities such as the cost of not cleaning up our own mountain of used tires.

*Sell our own land to our own people. Often the very people that buy our best and most beautiful land are the same ones who, overseas, have trashed their own environment and our shared atmosphere as well.  Having seen how superior New Zeland is to their own countries they are looking for a bolt hole to run to when the going, back home, really gets tough.  These are the last people we need in New Zealand.

*Do our own banking. It has been reported that the Ausi banks take about a billion dollars out of our economy every 6 months. Are we nuts.

*Build or own rail rolling stock. A BERL report calculated that we would have to be able to obtain our rail stock overseas for 38% of the local price for it to be worthwhile, considering all the spin offs for our economy of building them ourselves  A later report said that in fact we paid 75% of the local cost and subsequently there were reports of many faults with the equipment. How many spin off industries would have resulted from having to upgrade our capacity in order to build modern rail stock.

*Produce our own steel reinforcing. Look at the junk we got from China and put into our buildings which are now less earthquake-proof than was planned for.

*Run our own Aluminum smelter. Our electrical energy mix is so ‘low carbon’ that in addition to being able to sell very high quality Aluminum, we could also sell it on the basis of it’s green credentials. Why do we allow an Ausi company to do this. Vertical integration guys. Take a leaf out of the Tesla play book.

Take care of our own waste.  We have mountains of plastic, both clean and contaminated and up until recently we shipped it to Asian countries.  They have now decided that they don't want any more western garbage.  What must that have been costing us to collect and ship all this stuff to Asia.

Some of this plastic can be gainfully recycled but the rest is a problem.  There is a solution.  Plastic of every type whether it is clean or contaminated can be pyrolized and turned back into cooking gas, petrol (gasoline), diesel, air craft fuel and roading tar.  When making the decision whether to set up a pyrolysis unit (clearly, within the property of an existing oil refinery where the output of the pyrolysis unit can be fed directly into the fractionation columns) we must take externalities into consideration.  ie. What is the price of not taking care of this waste both economically and ecologically.
 
Better still, a whole range of other waste products can be pyrolized including used rubber tires, wood waste, paper, electronic equipment and in fact anything made of compounds of  C and H.  Different, valuable by products in addition to the ones mentioned come out of these different waste streams.

Before we think of new ways to run our economy, let's sort out the lacks in our former economy.

America Going Under

If you needed to be convinced that Democracy in America is completely dysfunctional; that big corporations take precedent over the citizens, this ban on the purchase of seeds in many parts of America should convince you.

Here in New Zealand, when it was announced that we were heading into a level 4 shutdown to combat C19, all the seeds in our outlets were snapped up as people realized that they might just have to grow their own food if this pandemic continued for any length of time.  Did New Zealand declare seeds and gardening equipment non essential.  Of course not.  We have a functioning democracy.  America has an Oligarchy.

This is clearly an attempt by the big corporations through their influence on politicians to grab even more of the seed production market of America and to promote their GM and Round Up Ready seeds, many of them with a lethal gene that means that you can not save seeds.  And if that is not enough, they, in the past have taken legal action against people who have tried to save GM seeds that don't have the lethal gene.

All sorts of vested interests gain by this ban while the citizens suffer as food becomes scarce and expensive. Meat packing has also been declared non essential (unlike here in New Zealand where we are very close to eradicating C19)

Twice now, America has been given the chance to have the best president since FDR, once in 2016 and again in 2020.  He would have actually drained the swamp.  Now, regardless of who wins, they will have either a psychopathic lair or a bumbling yes man who will do what he is told. This stupidity would never have happened in a Sanders presidency.

In case you think that the GOP is the villain, well yes she is but that is what we would expect of a party of the rich and the corporations.  No surprise there.  But hopefully, America is waking up to the fact that the DNC is no better.  In fact they are worse because they give lip service to being the party of the people.

There was another small but very revealing incident fairly recently that illustrates the dysfunction of the American system.  You might remember that a free press is an important part of a democracy. (I apologize for the sarcasm).  And part of a free press is a free broadcasting system.  Radio and Television are as much part of the press as news papers and magazines.

Do you remember in 2003 one of the Dixy Chicks insulted President bush (the younger).  In the spirit of Woodstock, of course this brought them to the attention of every DJ in the country and their music was played more and more.  Great songs like the Vietnam blues.  Sing it with me.

Well it's one two three what are we fighting for
Don't ask me I don't give a dam
Next stop it's Vietnam
And it's five, six seven open up the pearly gates
Oh Lord it ain't no use in wondering why
Wopee we're all going to die.

I wish.  Not a bit of it.  The were banned across the USA and it nearly derailed their  career.  Clearly the word came down from above from the corporate bosses who are beholden to the system for their largess from the government.  What happened.  Did the government threaten them with a withholding of funds or was it just the old boys club.  Whatever the mechanism, this illustrates how much freedom of the press exists in the US of A.


 Of course the most egregious, most damaging example of a lack of press freedom in America was the almost complete shut out of Bernie Sanders from the news.  Finally America had the possibility of having the best president since FDR.  Instead they got the worse one since Bush, the younger.  America had a second chance in 2020 and she blew it again.

Let me give you one more. I know someone who worked for a major American news outlet.  He/she was not allowed to write what he/she had investigated. This reporter was told that only articles which were favorable to Trump would be published (this was early in his presidency).  This reporter quit.

Why test for Covid19 antibodies

At present we are testing for the Covid-19 virus.  Swabs of the upper respiratory track are taken and a test is done which involves multiplying up the RNA in the sample.  There are many false negatives since the virus tends to reside deeper down in the lungs so you may have the virus without it being detected.  If the virus is detected, you and your contacts can be isolated, reducing the chance of transmission to others.  But that is another story.

Here I want to examine the implications of testing for the antibodies to Covid-19.  These are the substances that the body creates to neutralize any further incursions of the virus into your body.  In other words, you are immune to at least this strain of C19 and possibly have some partial immunity to other closely related strains which may be produced by mutation of the virus.  The tests for the Antibodies are being rolled out and hopefully they will soon be widespread and affordable.  At present it is not known how long immunity will last in people who have contracted the disease.  Contracting some diseases give you immunity for life, some for a lesser period.

So what is the value of being able to test for antibodies for this disease.  In no particular order:

1.  We will now be able to get a good estimate of how many people have had the virus but were a-symptomatic.  Some present estimates are 4 to 5 a-symptomatic people for every one who gets sick.  This will allow us to determine:
  a) The true death rate from this disease
  b) Why some people are a-symptomatic.  Is it genetic, related to gut bacteria, connected with age, race, previous or present  disease profile and so forth.
  c) What the true rate of immunity in in the population.
  d) At what rate of immunity does herd immunity become effective.
  e) Who to give the vaccine to when it is available.  No use wasting it on people who have had the disease (symptomatically or a-symptomatically) and hence are already immune to it.

2.  Which people can now go back to work, look after people with the disease, be out and about rather than in lock down, shop in the super markets and so forth with no danger to themselves or to others.  Here I would make a suggestion.
     Give anyone who has tested positive for antibodies a photo ID card that they can show to the police or 'to whom it may concern' stating that they are immune.
These people can still transmit the disease just as any surface can but they are not factories spewing out massive numbers of viruses into their environment.  They can start to get us up and running as early as possible.  Even before the test for antibodies becomes readily available, people that have had the disease and are not OK can be issued such a photo ID card.


3.  When a vaccine is rolled out, over time we will be able to see the relative effectiveness of having had the vaccine or having had the disease. For some diseases a better, longer lasting immunity comes from having had the disease.


Sadly the countries that have been slackest in controlling  the spread of the virus will be the countries that can get up and running first.  They will develop herd immunity earlier and the virus will die out in their countries.  On the negative side, the cost of their poor response to the virus will be the death of many of their citizens who didn't have to die.

Cheap Tree Planting

We are all a flutter these days over planting trees to take up carbon dioxide from the air.  Great.  It is not the whole solution but nothing is.  Planting trees is one useful arrow in our quiver.

However, don't produce seedlings for planting.  Simply Truncheon.  Most Deciduous trees in the Northern Hemisphere truncheon beautifully* and it is orders of magnitude cheaper than using seedling.

*Very possibly an adaptation to eons of living with beavers.

Of course if you are the politician who is making the decisions and a nursery company is financing your election campaigns, you will probably go for seedlings.  Likewise if your brother in law runs a nursery.  But,,,,If you truly want the maximum bang for the taxpayers buck, go for Truncheoning

So how do you Truncheon.

First, you truncheon in the wet season or at least when there is a reasonable amount of moisture in the soil where you want to establish a grove, riparian zone or forest.

Given a choice, spring is best when the sap is rising and there is a whole summer ahead for good growth.

Decide which tree you want to plant; say a willow.  Cut  down a willow tree at about waist height.  You want it to coppice (grow out from the stump you have left) since it will  be a source for more truncheons in the future.

Cut the whole tree into forearm length pieces from the trunk to the smallest branches.  Pile the pieces into your pick up truck, cover with some wet sacks and head to the area you want to plant.

You will need a sledge hammer, a straight steel bar about a meter and a half long, sharpened at one end, a sharp axe or hatchet and a sharp knife.  You might want to take along a balk of wood to use as a chopping block.when you are sharpening the bottom of the larger pieces with your axe.  Optional is a can of PVC paint that you have lying around from your latest DIY project.

When you get to the site, put out your chopping block and start to sharpen the lower end of all the large pieces with your axe.  Use your knife or axe to strip one thin strip of bark from one side of the truncheon along the lower third of the truncheon.  Where this is in contact with the soil, roots will form.

Your friends who have come along for the experience can pound these pieces into the ground.  If the ground is unyielding, drive the steel bar repeatedly into the same hole. rotating it around to open up the hole and facilitate pulling the bar out of the hole.  Then pound  the truncheon into the hole.

For the smaller fore arm length pieces, no need to sharpen them.  Just strip a thin strip of bark from the lower third of the truncheon.  Drive the Steel bar into the ground until you have made a hole as deep as a third of your thinner truncheons and drop in the truncheon.  Heel it in.

Presto chango, you have created a grove of trees.  You may have to protect them if you have deer or rabbits in the area but you have local knowledge and will know of any special problems in your neck of the woods.  Here in New Zealand where rabbits are a serious problem, they put little plastic shields about 40cm high around each grape vine they plant.

Oh, and if you want, you can paint the  top of any  truncheons that have a cut top with the PVC paint.  This reduces evaporation and may help the growth of the truncheon in dryer areas.  Paint half and leave half and see if there is any difference.  It is worthwhile applying a couple of coats of paint.

Democrats throwing Presidential Election

That is the question.  Are the Democrats knowingly throwing the coming presidential election. How bloody ridiculous, you say.  Why would any political party throw the presidential election on purpose.  Why indeed!

Let's look first at another item in our recent past.  Before the great depression of the 30's, the economy cycled between boom and bust about every 11 years.  The great depression was so severe that FDR (Franklin Delanor Roosevelt) was able to put in measures such as  Glass Steagall, that stopped the banks gambling with our money.  This stoped the boom and bust cycle for about 50 years until the banks came to the government and pleaded to have the regulations relaxed.  Their argument.  "Why would we do anything to wreck our businesses.  It is perfectly safe for you to remove the regulations" and the government fell for it. Later, after the 2008 crash, Obama succeeded in getting Dodd-Frank passed which returned some small measure of sanity into banking.

Actually, I don't think they fell for it.  I think they knew what would happen but were probably getting financial support for their elections from the banks and who knows what other 'perks'.

Now with this Covid19 crash, the banks are once more going to get a big bail out.  It would be far better to give it only to the people who would spend it just to keep their heads above water and thus feed it that way to the banks.  What will banks and other big businesses do with the money.  I bet they will buy back their shares at bargain basement prices so that they have less dividends to pay in the future and more money to give each other as bonuses.

So you have to ask yourself, why in the lead up to 2008 did the banks bundle up junk mortgages and sell them at a premium as if they were double A, knowing perfectly well that they were endangering the whole economic structure.  The answer is commissions.  With every transaction, the bank earns some money and part of that money goes to the employee who did the transaction.  Individual bankers could care less about the viability of their business as long as they can accumulate their commissions; as long as they can feather their nests. The viability of their companies is far down their list of priorities.

We come now to the question at hand.  Why would the Democrats knowingly throw the presidential election by choosing an incompetent man who is clearly 'loosing it' like Joe Biden*.  To answer that question it is instructive to paraphrase a comment by that great highly articulate politician, Sarah Palin.  I can still remember the one sensible comment she made in her career.  To paraphrase, she said, How come congressmen and senators who come into office with modest means, leave office rich.

 

*Three years later

That so called Senile old man has proven to be about the most effective president since FDR.  What a totally unexpected surprise.  And when he talks he reminds me of Will Rogers.  Subtle, understated and like a rapier.  Go figure.  Has he just chosen a plethora of great advisors or is he some sort of genius.  We should look in the old folks homes for our politicians if this is an example of what to expect. 

It certainly is not due to their salaries, which are quite adequate but not enough to make them rich.  Clearly there are various 'benefits' to be had if you are on the inside.

Do you see a parallel with the bankers.

So to answer the question, it is not so much that they want to throw the election.  The truth, though,  is that they would much rather throw the election and leave Trump in office so that the various systems that allow them to feather their nest remain, than to have Bernie in office.  They know for a dead certainty that Bernie will whittle away at the corrupt practices in government and that this will make it harder and harder for them to enrich themselves.

They would be quite happy if Joe was elected.  The Democrats are becoming more and more like Republicans.  In fact you could argue that they are outdoing the republicans in UN-democratic practices.  The Republicans always choose puppets for their presidential candidates who will do what they are told but who have zilch minds of their own.  The last thing they want is a leader that will look after the people rather than the insiders. The last thing they want is an honest president in the White House.  They need someone that will play the game. Look at those great presidents, Bush and Regan.  WTF.  If Joe is in office* the whole system will remain just as favorable for the insiders as it is today and sod the people.

*Three years later

OK, I admit it.  Biden has done more for the American people than any president I can remember.  

So what is the final answer to the question.

No the Democrats don't want to throw the presidential election but they would much rather loose than allow Bernie anywhere near the leavers of power.  Bernie would  drain the swamp as Trump promised to do with no intention of carrying through. 

Covid19 unexpected results

As this pandemic spreads through the world there will be some somewhat contrary, unexpected consequences.  Once a vaccine is developed and widely available, the whole situation changes but just now we see a situation in which some countries, notably, New Zealand, have put measures in place that may well stop the virus in it's tracks while others, notably Italy, have not.  In Italy, the virus has got away from them.

You may remember reports on a previous pandemic.  I refer to the black death in Europe.  Before it killed massive numbers of the population, the serfs were completely under the thumb of their feudal lords.  They had no where else to go.  Following the multiple waves of this disease through the population, the remaining serfs could sell their labor to the highest bidder and it was the beginning of the end for feudalism and the beginning of the rise of the 'common man'.

So what can we expect in countries like Italy where the virus has got away from them  First there will be a lot of death, skewed heavily toward the elderly and to people with existing medical conditions, and especially, but not confined to people with respiratory problems.  So what will this do to the health service.  Initially it will be overwhelmed.  There will never be enough beds or equipment to take care of the huge pulse of sick people and many will die.  Those that survive will most likely be immune to this virus and likely for a considerable time, perhaps for the rest of their life.  They will likely also have some degree of cross immunity for any mutations of this same virus.  Two results seem obvious.

First you are creating a large number of people rather rapidly who can go back to work, can take care of sick family members and can even work in isolation facilities with no danger to themselves or to others*.  There will be a lot of deaths, although not at any where near the rate of the black death and mainly among the elderly and otherwise medically compromised people.  This brings us to the second consequence

*It would be useful to issue a plastic card like a credit card or drivers license to people who have tested positive for antibodies and negative for the virus.  In other words, people who are now immune to the virus. They can be allowed to circulate and associate with the healthy and the sick with no danger to themselves or to others.

At the end of the spread of the disease, the government will have decreased health and pension costs.  Many sick people who needed more care than members of the general public are gone as are many pensioners.  It is a hard reality that the exchequer will be in better shape.  And this brings us to the third consequence.

Countries that reacted poorly to the virus and didn't stop it spreading will recover far more quickly than countries that stopped it in it's tracks.  Their businesses and especially tourist businesses and others in which the workers come in contact with large numbers of people can be up and running very quickly Of course all this changes when an effective vaccine is widely available.  With an effective vaccine the whole country can rapidly return to business as usual.  This brings us to the fourth consequence.

A country which has been slack in it's treatment of the disease will start to develop herd immunity which will slow down the further spread of the disease. A country that has stopped the spread of the virus will be vulnerable to new explosions of the virus until a vaccine is available and widely rolled out.

In addition, with all the death, not all of it confined to the sick and elderly, there will be upward mobility for the survivors.  The whole dynamics in businesses, governments and other organizations may change, sometimes for the better as some dead wood is got rid of and sometime for the worse as critical people die.

But, in all this, what is a government to do.  It can't present the above scenario to the people and say as a country we will be better off if we simply let the disease take it's course but a lot of you will die.  No government could, in good conscience do such a thing .  And besides, once a vaccine is readily available, the whole situation changes --- Until the next pandemic appears.

And, the more we can slow down the spread of the virus, the less people will be sick at any one time.  This is what they mean when they talk about flattening the curve.  This means that it will be possible to care for the sick more intensively and  save lives.

But, sadly, it is still very likely that countries that have allowed the virus to spread will be up and running sooner than countries that have looked after their citizens.

Renewable Energy - The breakthrough

There has finally been the breakthrough in renewable energy we have all been waiting for.  Many small incremental advances have been happening all along which has make this final, vital, critical breakthrough possible and many more will be made which will fine tune the system but we are over the hump.

Reduction of the cost of wind power over time

The price of solar and wind have become less expensive to install and operate, kW for kW than a coal fired power station.  In fact, it is now less expensive to build and operate a mega wind or solar farm than to operate an existing coal fired power station.  To put the cherry on the top, when you start to build a wind farm or solar  farm, each unit you install starts to generate electricity and produce revenue.  A new coal fired power station has to be complete before you see your first return.

Reduction in the price of solar panels over the years

And the chocolate sauce on the bottom is that if you have to do maintenance or repair, you do one turbine at a time while the rest continue to generate power (money).  A coal fired power station has to be taken out of production for maintenance.

But the weak point of renewable energy has always been that you are generating power when you don't need it and need it when you are not generating.  This  has now been solved.

Of course you always could have installed a huge battery bank of, say, Lead acid batteries.  You could have used those large units that the phone companies use to keep the power running no matter what the power generation companies are doing. These were the batteries that were much beloved by early adopters of renewable energy.  The phone companies would sell off the used ones that still had quite a bit of life in them.

The problem was that they degrade, need quite a bit of maintenance and are expensive.  They are also heavy although weight is not much of a problem in a static application.  The total life cycle cost of lead acid batteries made them a non starter for a commercial unit.  No other battery came out to be financially feasible either.

There was and is one sort of energy storage system that is economically feasible despite a cycle efficiency of about 75%.  That is Pumped Storage.  You pump water into a high reservoir when power is in excess of demand and run it back down through a generator when you need more than you are generating in other power plants.  However, most of the possible sites have been taken up and we need still more peak shaving plants (peaker plants) to take care of short and longer term peak demand.

The classic short term peak demand story that everyone quotes is in the UK in the intermission in a live broadcast of a foot ball game.  Everyone heads for the kitchen to put on the jug (turn on the electric kettle). Demand spikes and the power distribution company must be ready to cope with this demand.  Otherwise you would have brown outs all over the UK.  If your electricity model is a commercial one, you must then pay whatever the peaker plant demands for this excess electricity.  Even if you are a totally government run operation, you will have had to build peaker plants that most of the time are not earning their keep.  You have tied up a lot of tax money in a facility that runs intermittently.

So what is this breakthrough and why is it a breakthrough.  I am talking about the Australian Lithium ion mega-battery. It has a capacity of 100 mWh (mega Watt hours) and is owned by a wind farm in South Australia.  But why is it a breakthrough.

It Is On Line To Return Revenue Equal To It's Full Capital Cost In A Tad Over Three Years!!!!!

Economics trump all other considerations.  Economics is more powerful than all of our articles and placard waving demonstrations.  It even trumps venal politicians who are in the pocket of 'Big-Coal' and will try anything to scupper anything that interferes with their ill gotten gains.  If it is economic (makes bags of money for the owner) it will be adopted.

You might ask, how does a battery that doesn't produce any electricity; that only stores electricity, earn money.  Well there are a number of ways.  Here is one just related to the way the electrical grid operates and one related to the fact that it is owned by a wind farm.

First we have peak shaving.  When the demand comes in, the power distribution company has to supply more electricity.  Either it has to build a peaker power station or has to buy electricity from an existing peaker power station.  If you are a supplier of power to other companies, If you own a mega battery, you have the perfect solution for supplying peak power to other companies.  If you are a distribution company that owns a mega battery, you no longer have to pay these high prices to other companies.  You have power stored in in-house.

All this would hold true even for a company that  just owned a mega battery but no renewable energy generation capacity at all.  They would buy power when it was cheap and sell it when it is expensive.

For a renewable energy company with a solar or wind farm, it is even better.  You have built this expensive unit but have to feather your wind turbines or simply not send the power to the grid when the wind turbines or solar panels are generating.  With a mega-battery, you can store the excess power, making best use of the generating capacity of the farm and sell it when there is a demand.

All this points to an interesting economic fact.  The early adopters of mega-batteries will get huge returns.  Who has ever heard of an investment that returns almost a third of it's capital cost in a year.  When everyone has mega batteries, this advantage will disappear.  The batteries will still be great money earners but not at this stupendously, ridiculously high level.

I love the cherry on the top and there is one in this story too.  When you start up a peaker plant, it takes time to come up to capacity.  In the mean time the voltage and phase fidelity in the grid suffers.  With a mega battery, the response is in terms of milliseconds so both the phase and the voltage remain true.  This is a huge advantage for electronic devices which do not respond well to fluctuation in voltage or in the sine wave of the electricity.

So what is the story behind this mega battery.  Elon Musk of Tesla made a twitter comment regarding Australian power generation and was taken up by an Australian millionaire to put his money where his mouth was.  He took up the challenge.

He said that he could supply a mega battery to this Australian wind farm in 100 days.  If he could not, he would give them the battery for free.  Of course, he met the deadline and the rest is history in the making.  The thing is massively profitable.  Incidentally, do you think that Scott Morrison or any others of the silly Australian politicians will recant their foolish words about a mega prawn, mega banana and mega battery and admit they were wrong.  I don't think so.  They are complete dinosaurs and should be voted out by the Australian people.