The Occasional Observer

12 comments:

Fredo said...

I'm happy for Mitt. He's a good man and would make a great President.

That said, the GOP really lost an opportunity to consolidate support around McCain tonight, who is clearly the strongest candidate in the general at this point in time.

Now all we need is Fred in SC and Rudy in FL and we'll have a complete mess. My brokered convention is looking better all the time. Not a bet I want to win.

1/15/2008 11:24 PM

Fredo said...

BTW, in the midst of my Vegas vacation I thought I saw a quote from McCain saying, "MI autoworker jobs are gone and they're not coming back." Followed up by some discussion of giving workers retraining for 21st century jobs.

That's the right message.

But sometimes your straight talk can be a little too straight, Senator.

1/15/2008 11:54 PM

SheaHeyKid said...

Well, consolidation around McCain could still occur. He is now the heavy favorite in SC, FL, and CA. Rudy is done, at best he'll take NY, NJ, and maybe PA.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, if McCain wins CA, Republican party has to be tempted by the thought of him actually delivering that state in the general, which would spell the demise of the Dems.

I'm not sure about the autoworker jobs, it really comes down to whether the union is open to some negotiation and whether the US makes imports play under the same rules. One thing is for sure: if you are a struggling automaker and you want to turn things around, you couldn't ask for a better time than now. With disruptive technologies on the horizon (E85, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, all-electric, biodiesel, clean diesel, and hydrogen), NOW is the time to reinvent yourself and revive your company. The question is, will GM, Ford and Dodge actually take advantage of this situation to make cars that will lead the charge here (not just for American consumers but also globally), or will they squander another opportunity? Rather than letting a bunch of start-ups (Tesla motors, Fisker, etc.) or foreign companies (toyota in particular) lead the charge, why not make this the call to arms for US manufacturers? I think Mitt could revive jobs there AND help US by investing dollars into opening research centers in MI for these advanced technologies. This would help those companies, but also wean us off foreign oil (transportation is #1 form of energy consumption in US accounting for ~2/3 of our oil consumption, and of that 87% is foreign oil). We can't make effective foreign policy decisions if we continue to rely on OPEC nations, Venezuela, and Russia for oil. Canada and Mexico are fine, but if we could use advanced technologies to eliminate our need on the first group of nations, think about how much more flexibility we would have to deal with any foreign policies.

1/16/2008 8:21 AM

SheaHeyKid said...

BTW, if Mike Huckabee finishes 3rd or worse in SC, I believe he should call it. I doubt he will, although I'm not sure how much funding he still has on hand. But if McCain and Thompson both edge him out in SC, I just don't see what other states he can reasonably expect to win that matter, especially with McCain having such a strong lead in most.

I think the Republican field needs to be quickly narrowed down to the two most viable candidates, and IMO that's Mitt (most conservative next to mostly apathetic Fred) and McCain (most electable in general election). Just like the Dems have a two-person race, we need the same and soon.

1/16/2008 8:34 AM

SheaHeyKid said...

And according to a new poll in Post today, Rudy has fallen behind McCain even in NJ.

1/16/2008 8:37 AM

Fredo said...

"I'm not sure about the autoworker jobs"

It's possible the Big 3 could preserve the jobs they have in MI with a turnaround, but McCain's point it that the jobs that left ain't coming back. That's a near certainty, because by the time an automaker decides to shutter a plant, and possibly invest in production capacity in another place, it's a pretty costly decision to "undo."

BTW, I fully agree that there is an opportunity for the US automakers to change the game with new technology. I'm less convinced that workers in MI, rather than shareholders and workers in the South, Mexico and overseas, would reap the benefit.

1/16/2008 9:40 AM

Fredo said...

After the McCain loss in MI, you will likely see his recent polling gains dissipate. The most recent polling results reflect the post-NH primary environment.

1/16/2008 9:42 AM

Fredo said...

BTW, speaking of car technology. Could you fill me in (maybe with a post, if necessary) on the current status of the various alternative energy sources?

Hydrogen fuel cells sound great with the discharge being H2O, but from what I understand, the challenge is actually getting the Hydrogen, which requires its own power source. If this is true, and we're burning coal to make electricity to run the process that creates Hydrogen, we're still not reducing emissions, are we? It would seem we're still going to need nuclear energy to handle all the other automobile energy sources that use electricity, from plug-in hybrids to electric only to fuel cells. As for the "biofuels", I've heard that the energy used in cultivating the bio side of the equation can negate the benefit they provide. But I haven't seen anything too solid on the topic.

1/16/2008 9:47 AM

Fredo said...

Huck will be done if he finishes 3rd in SC, whether he calls it or not. He probably will, IMO.

1/16/2008 9:47 AM

SheaHeyKid said...

I agree, the current polls do reflect the post-NH bounce for McCain plus a probably built-in assumption that he was going to take MI as well (or at least be more competitive than he was). The results from MI probably benefit Thompson most in SC, but I'm sure it's still wide open.

On alternative energy stuff, corn-based ethanol is the worst form of biodiesel in that it only provides ~30-60% more energy out than it takes to make it. So it is still "green", but not great. On the other hand, other forms of biodiesel using switchgrasses, cellulosic ethanol, etc. can yield 4-10x more energy out than it takes to make them, so they would be hugely energy efficient. The main difficulty with these biodiesels today is production scale. No one yet has figured out an economic way to scale up to the massive amount of raw material and conversion processes required.

Although hydrogen does take a lot of energy to obtain, there are a lot of different ways of obtaining it. My understanding is that some are energy losers, but some can be big winners (for example, hydrogen production using wind turbines to drive an electrolysis process is supposedly a particularly attractive process both economically and environmentally, even accounting for all the energy required to manufacture, ship, and install a wind turbine).

At the end of the day I think the challenge is infrastructure. No one technology can replace all of our energy needs, but I think consolidation around one major standard will be essential for transportation. If you think about how much money and resources will need to be invested in car manufacturing and gas stations to switch to another technology, I think the economics only work if we settle on one option, whether it is biodiesel, all-electric, or hydrogen. My guess is all-electric wins out, since battery technology will be mature enough to support this soon; you don't lose any performance (in fact acceleration will be greater); and it is cheap to recharge an electric car from your outlet. Not to mention cars become a lot simpler if you basically have a bank of batteries and 4 electric motors as opposed to an internal combustion engine, drivetrain, muffler/tailpipe, etc. Then the question is what technologies will provide that electricity, but that is a much easier problem to tackle (nuclear / coal / oil / wind / solar) than figuring out a new portable source of energy for cars (gas / diesel / ethanol / electric / hydrogen).

1/16/2008 10:28 AM

ManBeast said...

The latest polls I've seen have Huckabee in the lead in SC with McCain 2nd and Mitt 3rd. I've seen on with McCain 1st in FL with Rudy 2nd. Thompson will drop out after SC. I'm hoping Super Tuesday shows a clear leader so it doesn't go to a brokered convention.

I also heard analysis that Obama should ask Edwards to be his running mate if he drops out. That will be bad news for the GOP as it will (probably) make a clear leader on the Dem side.

On the energy thing, I've heard if you add up all the costs, ethanol is actually a net negative. I've been talking about the need to generate electricity using fossil fuels to hippies for years. My gut says our best bet is electric cars and nuclear generation of the power for them. If we put more research to dealing with the waste, we can do a much better job at it. I saw a TV show about a company that has microbes that convert waste and you end up with 10% of what you would have otherwise.

1/16/2008 10:42 AM

SheaHeyKid said...

I think the most recent studies suggest that even ethanol from corn (which is the worst case for ethanol production) is slightly energy positive, giving back ~33% more energy than it takes to make it. But this stinks when compared to biodiesels from switchgrass and other sources, which can return 4-10x more energy than they take to make. Another problem with corn-based ethanol, which is already occurring, is that it reduces our food supply and drives up corn prices, which in turn drives up prices of other farm-based food products. So our food supply goes down, and prices go up.

Ethanol in general is not that exciting, because even though it reduces emissions slightly compared to gasoline, it has less energy density than gasoline (which means you need to fill up at the pump 10-30% more frequently than you do now), and it isn't much cheaper than gas. So in the end it is at best a short-term stopgap, but it really doesn't do much to change anything.

To me, electric cars will win since they are the best combination of big impact with near-term technology. Hydrogen would be the ultimate best, but technology is too far out. Plug-in hybrid electric will occur first, with GM Volt in ~2010, Toyota Prius about the same time, and simultaneously all-electric challenges from start-ups like Tesla motors and Fisker.

Nuclear to provide the electricity for our grid makes a lot of sense, but unfortunately my understanding is that there is still so much left-over regulation from Carter era that it's almost too late to scale up nuclear to the levels we need. There are studies and consortia in the US that are actively trying to get this changed, b/c the longer we wait to build new nuclear power plants (it's been 30 years since the last one), the less likely nuclear will be a source. Of course, other countries have been using nuclear successfully for years. France gets I think ~85% of their electricity from nuclear (compared to about 20% for US). I think China is also investing heavily in nuclear, although not enough at this stage to really make a meaningful impact for their energy needs. My guess is that 20 years from now we are getting more electricity from nuclear, wind and solar than we do today, but maybe only an increase of 10-20 percentage points.

1/16/2008 11:22 AM