California!! It's Another Country!!

[Haggis@wk]

Forbes magazine has completed a comprehensive look at "The Global Debt Bomb" and in the course of compiling the results found this very interesting tidbit:
"The five states in the worst financial condition--Illinois, New York, Connecticut, California and New Jersey--are all among the bluest of blue states. The five most fiscally fit states are more of a mix. Three--Utah, Nebraska and Texas--boast Republican majorities and two--New Hampshire and Virginia--skew Democratic."

It's actually more serious than that when you look at the 10 states in the worst financial condition, according to Forbes:

"Of the 10 states in the worst financial condition, eight are among a total of 23 defined by Gallup as "solidly Democratic," meaning the Democrats enjoy an advantage of 10 percentage points or greater in party affiliation. These states include the ones listed above as making up the bottom five, plus Massachusetts, Ohio and Wisconsin.

"Of the three other basement-dwellers, Kentucky is defined as "leaning Democratic" (a five- to 10-percentage-point Democratic advantage) and the remaining two--Louisiana and Mississippi--are termed politically "Competitive" (less than a five-percentage-point advantage for either party). Louisiana tilts slightly Democratic and Mississippi slightly Republican."

Forbes quotes an Illinois political science professor who explains why these rankings turn out as they do:

"Why do Democratic states appear to be struggling more than Republican ones? It comes down to stronger unions and a larger appetite for public programs, according to Kent Redfield, professor emeritus of political studies and public affairs at the University of Illinois' Center for State Policy and Leadership.

"'Unions in general have more influence in Democratic-controlled states,' he says. 'This isn't to say that unions are bad, but where they're strong you have bigger demands for social services and coalitions with construction companies, road builders and others that push up debt.'"

There is more to the Forbes piece, which you can read here.

[Haggis@wk]

In-state tuition for illegal immigrants is preserved with California Supreme Court ruling

You really couldn't make this stuff up. Elections have consequences soI presume, based on the recent elections, that CA taxpayers/electorate are okay with paying for this mandate. I smell the latest voters initiative for 2012.

[dai bread]

If the schools know the parents are illegal immigrants, why don't they pass the information on? Is condoning a crime considered better than a breach of privacy?

If the schools don't know, and I don't see how they can if they don't specifically ask (in which case, see above), how can survey people know that children of illegals are being educated at State expense?

[Haggis@wk]

Because the last thing they need is new entry-level jobs: New Fast Food Restaurants Banned in South L.A.



Dai, incoming students have to provide social security numbers and birth certificates to inroll.

[Haggis@wk]

California’s high-speed rail off to awful start:

“There are a lot of critics when it comes to high-speed rail. So what does California do? They approve the first section of HSR rail to be built without trains or electricity. This has bad idea written all over it. . . . No trains, no maintenance facilities, just empty tracks and stations. Que?”

[piqaboo]

what a creative way to fund a homeless shelter.

[dai bread]

Railbeds make good cycle tracks too. Smooth off the surface and you've got miles of nice easy grades free of motor traffic.

[Haggis@wk]

California’s unemployment rate has soared to 12.4%, third highest in the nation. For the sixth straight year, it has a net loss of population to other states as employers look to escape the onerous regulatory regimes and high tax rates in the nation’s most populous state. What better time to make energy more expensive and give government even more command control of the economy? :

California regulators Thursday are expected to adopt the nation’s most comprehensive carbon trading regime, creating a market-based way to lower greenhouse gas emissions at a time when similar efforts have stalled in Congress.

The program is the centerpiece of the state’s 2006 global warming law, which aims to slash carbon dioxide and other planet-heating pollution to 1990 levels by 2020. That would amount to a 15% cut from today’s level.


The cap-and-trade system “will help drive innovation, create more green jobs and clean up our air and environment,” said California Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary D. Nichols, adding that it “provides flexibility” to industry and takes “into consideration the current economic climate.”

Well, states are the laboratories of democracy. An imposition of cap-and-trade would allow the rest of the country to see how well it works to lower carbon emissions, and just how much it “drives innovation” and “provides flexibility.”

[Haggis@wk]

California Bans 100-watt Incandescent Bulbs.


I'm hording light bulbs. You can still get them on Ebay.

[analog]

buy battery futures...

California energy storage bill signed into law

Published: Sep 30, 2010

30 September 2010 -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law one of the nation's first energy storage bills, which could result in the state's utilities being required to bank a portion of the electricity they generate.

Assembly Bill 2514 originally would have required Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric to have energy storage systems capable of providing at least 2.25 percent of average peak electrical demand by 2015. By 2020 the target would have risen to at least 5 percent of average peak demand.

After revision, the signed law now requires the California Public Utilities Commission to determine any appropriate targets for energy storage systems and then require the utilities to meet those mandates by 2015 and 2020. Publicly-owned utilities must set energy storage system targets to be met by 2016 and 2021.

http://www.powergenworldwide.com/index/display/articledisplay/3369146695/articles/powergenworldwide/Business/Policy/2010/09/california-storage.html

how much pumped hydro do you guys have out there?

a.

ps Haggis - your local Grainger store should have residential 100 watt GE's for around $65 per hundred.
The industrial 130 volt ones cost several times that but have about 5X longer life.
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/incand ... alog/N-9hf

I'm hoarding them too for my touch-dimmer lamps.

[Haggis@wk]

Highest-Paid University of California Execs Demand Millions In Benefits.

Yeah, that’ll play well.

[Haggis@wk]

Fresno, Zimbabwe

Local newspapers and Fresno County officials are trying to rally Facebook users to vote for Fresno in a corporate contest sponsored by Wal-Mart for $1 million in charity food donations for the hungry.
Fresno, a city of 505,000, has taken the national lead because 24.1% of Fresno’s families are going hungry.

Civic spirit is good, but something big is wrong here. Fresno is the agricultural capital of America. More food per acre in more variety can be grown in the fertile Central Valley surrounding this community than on any other land in America — perhaps in the world.

Yet far from being a paradise, Fresno is starting to resemble Zimbabwe or 1930s Ukraine, a victim of a famine machine that is entirely man-made, not by red communists this time, but by greens.

State and federal officials, driven by the agenda of environmental extremists, have made it extremely difficult for the valley’s farms, introducing costly environmental regulations and cutting off critical water supplies to save the Delta smelt, a bait fish. It’s all driving the economy to collapse.

In the southwest part of the Central Valley, water allotments as low as 10% of normal have created a visible dust bowl. The knock-on effect can be seen in cities like Fresno, where November’s unemployment among the packers, cannery workers and professional fields that make agriculture productive stands at 16.9%.

[dai bread]

Liberal intellectuals will be the downfall of Western Civilisation.

[Haggis@wk]

Fresno, Zimbabwe

Local newspapers and Fresno County officials are trying to rally Facebook users to vote for Fresno in a corporate contest sponsored by Wal-Mart for $1 million in charity food donations for the hungry.
Fresno, a city of 505,000, has taken the national lead because 24.1% of Fresno’s families are going hungry.

Civic spirit is good, but something big is wrong here. Fresno is the agricultural capital of America. More food per acre in more variety can be grown in the fertile Central Valley surrounding this community than on any other land in America — perhaps in the world.

Yet far from being a paradise, Fresno is starting to resemble Zimbabwe or 1930s Ukraine, a victim of a famine machine that is entirely man-made, not by red communists this time, but by greens.

State and federal officials, driven by the agenda of environmental extremists, have made it extremely difficult for the valley’s farms, introducing costly environmental regulations and cutting off critical water supplies to save the Delta smelt, a bait fish. It’s all driving the economy to collapse.

In the southwest part of the Central Valley, water allotments as low as 10% of normal have created a visible dust bowl. The knock-on effect can be seen in cities like Fresno, where November’s unemployment among the packers, cannery workers and professional fields that make agriculture productive stands at 16.9%.

UPDATE:

Nine of the top 10 metro jobless rates in the nation are California, and seven are in California’s Central Valley:

El Centro, CA – 29.3% (east of San Diego near border with Mexico)
Yuma, AZ – 26.7%
Yuba City, CA – 17.8%
Merced, CA – 16.3%
Stockton, CA – 16.3%
Modesto, CA – 16.2%
Visalia-Porterville, CA – 15.9%
Fresno, CA – 15.7%
Palm Coast, FL – 15.5%
Hanford – Corcoran, CA – 15.0%

Four of the next five after that are in central California as well, with #15 being the Riverside-San Bernardino area, It's not a Central Valley locale but it had significant agricultural production (lots of tomatos) when I lived there in the late 80's.

[piqaboo]

analog,
I'm not sure this answers your q:
50% of San Diego's electricity use is to pump water over the mountains between us and northern california,
according to a display in our local science museum.

so, run low on power, get thirsty.

[analog]

Thanks Ms Boo,

i was curious about that mandate for California to have "electricity storage".

Pumped- Hydro plants can use electricity to fill a lake that's high up in the hills at night when demand is low, then let that water run back down in daytime to generate for peak demand hours.. They use ' reversible' pumps that can either pump or generate. That's been around since Niagara Falls. It's storing electrical energy as gravitational and is well behaved. (It's only water)

Environmentalists are pushing for other methods, like humungous batteries(chemical energy) and storage of compressed air in abandoned mines(mechanical energy).
My opinion of those is they're impractical and dangerous because both are hard to keep penned up.
But they'd create jobs, both building them and cleaning up after the resulting disasters.

I hope you guys can meet those state targets with benign old water and gravity. (Recent mudslides acknowledged)

Happy New Year!

a.

[BigJon]

They should be converting all that excess energy to hydrogen for the governor's car, that would probably be the most efficient used for it. Pumped storage is lossy.

[analog]

50% of San Diego's electricity use is to pump water over the mountains between us and northern california,

Wow, i had no idea it was that significant... and a lot of that power comes from coal plants around Arizona? You need to make N California come and get it theirselves! Surely there's a recovery mechanism whereby the water running downhill from high point in line helps lift water on the uphill side?

Pumped storage is lossy.

sure is.. doesn't make much sense unless your fuel is free, like at Niagara Falls. That water is gonna get downstream anyhow ..
Burning coal to pump water for peak hour generation seems somehow akin to lighting cigars with treasury bills. Probably over 2/3 of the BTU's are lost, yet that's probably cheaper than the cost of capital to provide the peak capacity by thermal generation.

A good engineer would no doubt make that decision, we're trained to look at life cycle cost which includes interest on the loans. But i have a streak of perfectionism that made me a good troubleshooter and a lousy manager. So that became my career choice. Some of us should stay close to the machinery.

Our utility did something interesting in 1950's - they put in a series of 125 megawatt steam turbine generators with 150 megawatt boilers.
On those cold Florida winter days when demand was more than all they could make, buy and borrow, they would actually overload those generators slightly.
The weather was cold anyway so they had good cooling and by keeping a close eye on generator temperatures they were able to squeeze out extra peak capacity for almost zero capital cost. And if the boiler needed cleaning you could still get your full 125 out of the unit until the cold snap passed.
I always admired them for that one.


a.

[jamiebk]

You need to make N California come and get it theirselves! Surely there's a recovery mechanism whereby the water running downhill from high point in line helps lift water on the uphill side? a.

Ahem............most of the southland's water comes to them courtesy of NorCal. Now they want to build a G/D canal system around our delta to send even more.

[analog]

You're right Jamie - i misread 'over..between..and' as 'over..from...to.'

Bad parsing on my part. These Senior Moments are running together...

a.