“Closing the gun-show loophole” has become a cause célèbre of American progressives.
As a European liberal living in the US, people expect me to march in lock-step with American progressives, and are surprised that I think this is a crock of shit.
Above all else, I am an empiricist and a realist.
The supposed purpose of “closing the gun show loophole” is to reduce the number of firearms falling into the hands of violent criminals, so it is reasonable to ask “where do criminals get their guns?” The best evidence we have is a 2002 report by the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) based on two surveys of inmates in state and federal prisons.
The upshot of this BJS report is that (roughly speaking) 40% of felons got their guns from friends and family, 40% got them from street or other illegal sources, and 20% purchased them from a variety of legal sources including gun shows where 0.6% and 0.7% got their guns. We don't know how many of the inmates surveyed would, at the time they acquired their guns, have passed a background check.
So, the long and the short of it is that “closing the gun show loophole”, at best, has the potential to reduce the number of firearms falling into the hands of criminals by 0.7%. All of the other sources, the sources where 99.3% of criminals get their guns, are still open.
In other words, the evidence indicates that “closing the gun show loophole” is utterly pointless.
Showing posts with label opinion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opinion. Show all posts
Monday, December 7, 2015
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
I'm a Wingnut and a Moonbat: Part 2
In an earlier post, I explained why I might be considered a “wingnut”. Briefly: I don't support the California assault weapons ban because it restricts access to certain firearms based on their cosmetic appearance rather than their functionality. Now I have to explain why I'm a “moonbat”.
When I say that the difference between the murder and assault rates in the US and the analogous rates in Western European countries can be explained almost entirely by economic inequality, I get accused of being a socialist, which I am, although not in the American sense of the word (where socialism is conflated with communism, totalitarianism, and oppression).
The evidence, however, is clear: about three quarters of the variance in murder and assault rates is explained by income inequality. This means that if you want to reduce violent crime in the US, you can address at most one quarter of the problem with all other measures combined: neither harsher sentences, favored by the right, nor gun control, favored by the left, are nearly as strongly correlated with violent crime as income inequality. Neither gun control nor prison sentences are statistically correlated with violent crime rates to a significant degree.
So, if you actually want to address violent crime, the elephant in the room is that you must address poverty, and not just absolute poverty, but relative poverty. To do that, you need to ensure that the distribution of wealth between rich and poor favors the poor more than it has in the past.
What policy changes ought to be introduced to ensure that the poor get a greater slice of the pie, and the rich a smaller slice, is open to debate, but any way you cut it, this sounds far too much like redistribution of wealth for any right-winger to resist the temptation to call me a “moonbat”.
When I say that the difference between the murder and assault rates in the US and the analogous rates in Western European countries can be explained almost entirely by economic inequality, I get accused of being a socialist, which I am, although not in the American sense of the word (where socialism is conflated with communism, totalitarianism, and oppression).
The evidence, however, is clear: about three quarters of the variance in murder and assault rates is explained by income inequality. This means that if you want to reduce violent crime in the US, you can address at most one quarter of the problem with all other measures combined: neither harsher sentences, favored by the right, nor gun control, favored by the left, are nearly as strongly correlated with violent crime as income inequality. Neither gun control nor prison sentences are statistically correlated with violent crime rates to a significant degree.
So, if you actually want to address violent crime, the elephant in the room is that you must address poverty, and not just absolute poverty, but relative poverty. To do that, you need to ensure that the distribution of wealth between rich and poor favors the poor more than it has in the past.
What policy changes ought to be introduced to ensure that the poor get a greater slice of the pie, and the rich a smaller slice, is open to debate, but any way you cut it, this sounds far too much like redistribution of wealth for any right-winger to resist the temptation to call me a “moonbat”.
Friday, October 3, 2014
I'm a Wingnut and a Moonbat: Part 1
For those unfamiliar with American political discourse, a “wingnut”, so the stereotype goes, is a gun-totin' redneck Evangelical Christian Republican-voting moron who gets all of his/her opinions straight from Rush Limbaugh. A “moonbat”, by contrast, is a gun-grabbin' city-dwelling atheist Democrat-voting commie who gets all of his/her unconsidered opinions straight from The Daily Show.
Now, you might think that an advocate of evidence-based policy might end up somewhere in the middle and would be neither a wingnut nor a moonbat, but it turns out that such a person is actually both.
Here's one example (I'll address the other side in Part 2)...
California has, arguably, the strictest gun control of any state. I come from a place where firearm licensing is immeasurably stricter, basically the strictest in the world. There is no legal provision for a license for a handgun or a center-fire rifle. You can get a license for a shotgun, double-barreled or pump with a 3 round magazine, or a .22 rim-fire rifle, but that's it and it's not easy. Broadly speaking, as a people, we have no tradition of firearms ownership and we neither need nor want firearms. Our police are mostly unarmed, and we like it that way.
As a person living in the US on a visa, I can't legallyown buy (see edit note, below) a firearm. I find them interesting, of course, as any kid who played cops & robbers patterned after American TV shows might, but basically, I have no dog in this fight. I'm undecided whether, if I were allowed, I would end up having a ridiculous arsenal of firearms just because they're cool and fun and I'm a big kid, or I just wouldn't bother because they're dangerous, expensive, and the likelihood of ever actually needing to use one in the wealthy suburban part of California where I live is essentially zero.
But here's the thing. I read California's so-called “assault weapons” ban, and it is, by any objective standard, absurd. It is absurd, not because of its abuse of terminology (it actually bans some facsimiles of assault rifles), but because it regulates the appearance of the firearm, not any feature of its operation. In short, it regulates only the cosmetic appearance of the firearm. Don't believe me?
OK...
This is illegal to buy, sell, import, etc. in California (legal to own if grandfathered in). You will probably be charged with a felony (technically, it's a “wobbler”) if you are caught with one of these and can't prove that you bought it before the ban:
This functionally identical rifle — firing identical rounds with an identical mechanism from an identical magazine down an identical barrel at an identical rate of one per trigger pull — is legal to buy and own in California (assuming in both cases that the magazine holds no more than 10 rounds, despite looking like 20 or 30 round magazines):
What makes the legal difference?
The pistol-style grip above is illegal; the one below, fused to the stock, is legal. That's the difference. And don't think that federal laws are much better. If you add a handle-like grip to the barrel of either of the above without permission from the ATF and a $200 tax, that's a felony.
This, we are supposed to believe, is what is going to protect children from a Newtown-style shooting: making guns have the right kind of handle and making it a felony to have the wrong kind of handle or, perish the thought, an extra handle.
So now you know why I agree with the gun rights activists and say “the California Assault Weapons Ban is one of the most astonishingly stupid things I have ever heard of”, but only wingnuts say things like that, so I must be a wingnut, right?
Edit: in the original version of this post, I said that (as someone here on a visa) I couldn't legally own a firearm. That's probably not exactly true. 18 USC 922 (d)(5)(B) criminalizes the sale, or other transfer, of a firearm or ammunition to a person “who, being an alien— [...] has been admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa [...]” (that's me). Not that I'd realistically consider doing it, but it might be perfectly legal, at least under federal law, for me to make a firearm (e.g. from an 80% complete lower) and ammunition (e.g. by reloading), since the power that the federal government uses for 18 USC 922 derives from the Commerce Clause and so, strictly speaking, regulates only interstate or international trade. There's even an argument that I could legally purchase ammunition manufactured in California (since it would not involve interstate or international commerce and, therefore, cannot fall under the authority granted by the Commerce Clause). In any case, it's a minor technicality, there's probably some other law that prohibits it at the federal or state level, and I'm not so enamoured with the idea of firearms ownership that I'd bother risking it. Nevertheless, I've changed “own” to “buy” since, as far as I know, that's more accurate.
Now, you might think that an advocate of evidence-based policy might end up somewhere in the middle and would be neither a wingnut nor a moonbat, but it turns out that such a person is actually both.
Here's one example (I'll address the other side in Part 2)...
California has, arguably, the strictest gun control of any state. I come from a place where firearm licensing is immeasurably stricter, basically the strictest in the world. There is no legal provision for a license for a handgun or a center-fire rifle. You can get a license for a shotgun, double-barreled or pump with a 3 round magazine, or a .22 rim-fire rifle, but that's it and it's not easy. Broadly speaking, as a people, we have no tradition of firearms ownership and we neither need nor want firearms. Our police are mostly unarmed, and we like it that way.
As a person living in the US on a visa, I can't legally
But here's the thing. I read California's so-called “assault weapons” ban, and it is, by any objective standard, absurd. It is absurd, not because of its abuse of terminology (it actually bans some facsimiles of assault rifles), but because it regulates the appearance of the firearm, not any feature of its operation. In short, it regulates only the cosmetic appearance of the firearm. Don't believe me?
OK...
This is illegal to buy, sell, import, etc. in California (legal to own if grandfathered in). You will probably be charged with a felony (technically, it's a “wobbler”) if you are caught with one of these and can't prove that you bought it before the ban:
 |
| Illegal “Assault Weapon” in California |
 |
| Legal “Sporting Rifle” in California |
The pistol-style grip above is illegal; the one below, fused to the stock, is legal. That's the difference. And don't think that federal laws are much better. If you add a handle-like grip to the barrel of either of the above without permission from the ATF and a $200 tax, that's a felony.
This, we are supposed to believe, is what is going to protect children from a Newtown-style shooting: making guns have the right kind of handle and making it a felony to have the wrong kind of handle or, perish the thought, an extra handle.
Wow!
So now you know why I agree with the gun rights activists and say “the California Assault Weapons Ban is one of the most astonishingly stupid things I have ever heard of”, but only wingnuts say things like that, so I must be a wingnut, right?
Edit: in the original version of this post, I said that (as someone here on a visa) I couldn't legally own a firearm. That's probably not exactly true. 18 USC 922 (d)(5)(B) criminalizes the sale, or other transfer, of a firearm or ammunition to a person “who, being an alien— [...] has been admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa [...]” (that's me). Not that I'd realistically consider doing it, but it might be perfectly legal, at least under federal law, for me to make a firearm (e.g. from an 80% complete lower) and ammunition (e.g. by reloading), since the power that the federal government uses for 18 USC 922 derives from the Commerce Clause and so, strictly speaking, regulates only interstate or international trade. There's even an argument that I could legally purchase ammunition manufactured in California (since it would not involve interstate or international commerce and, therefore, cannot fall under the authority granted by the Commerce Clause). In any case, it's a minor technicality, there's probably some other law that prohibits it at the federal or state level, and I'm not so enamoured with the idea of firearms ownership that I'd bother risking it. Nevertheless, I've changed “own” to “buy” since, as far as I know, that's more accurate.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
The “Secret to Happiness” Isn't on LinkedIn
LinkedIn's machine learning algorithms have decided that I need to be emailed daily with vacuous deepities from every self-proclaimed “life coach” on their multi-million user site, when, in fact, I hold them in contempt and put them into two categories: charlatans and clowns.
The charlatans prey on the insecurities that about half of us share: we don't like our jobs, we wonder if we were “meant to do” something else, our marriages or relationships could be better, we procrastinate, we feel guilty, or trapped, or unhappy or all of the above. The “cure” to all your ills is their patent medicine, their “Secret of Happiness” and as surely as snake-oil comes in a bottle, it's always the same hackneyed aphorism: “work towards being able to “pursue your passion” as a job even if it means taking a small pay-cut”, swiftly followed by a liberal dose of loosely connected banalities.
Almost worse than the charlatans are the semi-literate deluded clowns, who — having, to all appearances, dropped out of school and never been within a bull's bellow of an introductory philosophy or psychology book — nevertheless believe they're in a position to hawk hokey cornball platitudes to the rest of us (in fairness, I don't know if this particular “coach” is a charlatan or a clown, but, either way, I wouldn't give you the gum off the back of a stamp for five hundred of her moth-eaten potboilers).
The reality is that happiness is amenable to scientific inquiry and can be studied empirically. There are legitimate “happiness researchers” in psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience. Here's the upshot of what we know: happiness is approximately
But the really important points here are twofold:
Empirical evidence suggests that spending 15–30 minutes every day cultivating mindful awareness or practising CBT techniques will do more for your long-term happiness than any new job, spouse, or money, and certainly more than any vapid drivel peddled on LinkedIn.
The charlatans prey on the insecurities that about half of us share: we don't like our jobs, we wonder if we were “meant to do” something else, our marriages or relationships could be better, we procrastinate, we feel guilty, or trapped, or unhappy or all of the above. The “cure” to all your ills is their patent medicine, their “Secret of Happiness” and as surely as snake-oil comes in a bottle, it's always the same hackneyed aphorism: “work towards being able to “pursue your passion” as a job even if it means taking a small pay-cut”, swiftly followed by a liberal dose of loosely connected banalities.
Almost worse than the charlatans are the semi-literate deluded clowns, who — having, to all appearances, dropped out of school and never been within a bull's bellow of an introductory philosophy or psychology book — nevertheless believe they're in a position to hawk hokey cornball platitudes to the rest of us (in fairness, I don't know if this particular “coach” is a charlatan or a clown, but, either way, I wouldn't give you the gum off the back of a stamp for five hundred of her moth-eaten potboilers).
The reality is that happiness is amenable to scientific inquiry and can be studied empirically. There are legitimate “happiness researchers” in psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience. Here's the upshot of what we know: happiness is approximately
- 50% genetic,
- 40% attitude, and
- 10% all the shit people think it's about.
But the really important points here are twofold:
- your “career”, relationships, finances, etc. basically don't matter a shit; and
- you can learn to change your “attitude”.
Empirical evidence suggests that spending 15–30 minutes every day cultivating mindful awareness or practising CBT techniques will do more for your long-term happiness than any new job, spouse, or money, and certainly more than any vapid drivel peddled on LinkedIn.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Rapid Charging Electric Cars
One of the things that comes up repeatedly with electric cars is how fast you can charge them. The current answer is “overnight” or, at least, on the order of hours. Some more bullish electric car proponents argue that charging stations could be built that would reasonably match gasoline filling speeds. I don't think that's plausible.
The EPA limits gasoline filling speeds to 10 gpm (gallons per minute), or 0.63 l/s (liters per second). The volumetric energy density of gasoline is about 36 MJ/l (megajoules per liter), which means that, at the gas station, energy is flowing into your tank at a rate of 36 MJ/l * 0.63 l/s = 22.7 MJ/s = 22.7 MW (megawatts).
Now, suppose that the battery-to-wheels efficiency of an electric car is five times the tank-to-wheels efficiency of a gasoline car, which is a fairly reasonable assumption. Then we only need a charging power of 22.7/5 = 4.5 MW. Generously supposing 90% efficiency from grid to battery, we need “only” draw five million watts off the power grid.
That is an absolutely vast amount of electric power: not much less than is needed to supply 4,000 American homes. This is not a plug-in device.
A reasonable rule of thumb for distribution level electricity supply is “100VA/kV” in other words, if you were to be a 10kV primary customer, you can expect to be able to draw at most 1 MVA (the difference between VA and watts is not important for the current discussion). On that basis, the 5MW charging station will need to be a 69 kV subtransmission customer of the local power utility. One charging station, not a gas station forecourt with 8 of them.
Now, let's talk about slew rate. You can't just turn on a 5 MW load (for want of a round number) like a 60W lightbulb. Call your local power company and ask them how quickly they would allow a subtransmission customer to turn on a 5 MW load. The answer cannot be faster than they can spin up a gas turbine. The slew rate of a “hot” GE gas turbine generator is, at most, 5%-per-minute. In other words, to be able to even ramp-up a 5MW charger to full power in one minute would take 100MW of spinning reserve, and only after that have you hit gas pump-equivalent power.
Let's look at that another way. Take the 85kWh (kilowatt hour) battery in the top-end Tesla Model S. 85kWh is 306MJ. Suppose you want to charge that sucker in a minute flat, which is not unreasonable given its range of 265 miles: one minute would give you ten gallons of gas, at least enough to run a modern luxury car for that distance. To supply 306 MJ in 60s is 306/60 = 5.1 MW. Pretty much the same number.
In synopsis, refuelling an electric car at the same rate as a gas pump, any way you look at it, requires something of the order of 5 MW of electric power. This is, practically speaking, impossible. Notice that I haven't mentioned cost. Economically speaking, it is utterly beyond any reason: the charger alone would cost millions. Recharging an electric car at even ten percent of gas-pump equivalent speeds (requiring “only” a half-megawatt charger), presents enormous technical challenges in electricity supply.
In short, the technical challenges of recharging an electric car on consumer-acceptable timescales is almost nothing to do with the car or its battery.
The EPA limits gasoline filling speeds to 10 gpm (gallons per minute), or 0.63 l/s (liters per second). The volumetric energy density of gasoline is about 36 MJ/l (megajoules per liter), which means that, at the gas station, energy is flowing into your tank at a rate of 36 MJ/l * 0.63 l/s = 22.7 MJ/s = 22.7 MW (megawatts).
Now, suppose that the battery-to-wheels efficiency of an electric car is five times the tank-to-wheels efficiency of a gasoline car, which is a fairly reasonable assumption. Then we only need a charging power of 22.7/5 = 4.5 MW. Generously supposing 90% efficiency from grid to battery, we need “only” draw five million watts off the power grid.
That is an absolutely vast amount of electric power: not much less than is needed to supply 4,000 American homes. This is not a plug-in device.
A reasonable rule of thumb for distribution level electricity supply is “100VA/kV” in other words, if you were to be a 10kV primary customer, you can expect to be able to draw at most 1 MVA (the difference between VA and watts is not important for the current discussion). On that basis, the 5MW charging station will need to be a 69 kV subtransmission customer of the local power utility. One charging station, not a gas station forecourt with 8 of them.
Now, let's talk about slew rate. You can't just turn on a 5 MW load (for want of a round number) like a 60W lightbulb. Call your local power company and ask them how quickly they would allow a subtransmission customer to turn on a 5 MW load. The answer cannot be faster than they can spin up a gas turbine. The slew rate of a “hot” GE gas turbine generator is, at most, 5%-per-minute. In other words, to be able to even ramp-up a 5MW charger to full power in one minute would take 100MW of spinning reserve, and only after that have you hit gas pump-equivalent power.
Let's look at that another way. Take the 85kWh (kilowatt hour) battery in the top-end Tesla Model S. 85kWh is 306MJ. Suppose you want to charge that sucker in a minute flat, which is not unreasonable given its range of 265 miles: one minute would give you ten gallons of gas, at least enough to run a modern luxury car for that distance. To supply 306 MJ in 60s is 306/60 = 5.1 MW. Pretty much the same number.
In synopsis, refuelling an electric car at the same rate as a gas pump, any way you look at it, requires something of the order of 5 MW of electric power. This is, practically speaking, impossible. Notice that I haven't mentioned cost. Economically speaking, it is utterly beyond any reason: the charger alone would cost millions. Recharging an electric car at even ten percent of gas-pump equivalent speeds (requiring “only” a half-megawatt charger), presents enormous technical challenges in electricity supply.
In short, the technical challenges of recharging an electric car on consumer-acceptable timescales is almost nothing to do with the car or its battery.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
NatGeo on Biofuels
What breakthroughs do biofuels need? asks National Geographic.
The real breakthrough would be recognition that biofuels simply cannot reasonably be expected to address a significant fraction of our energy needs. The only breakthrough worth having would be a tenfold increase in the solar efficiency of photosynthesis, which would only be possible through advanced genetic engineering, is very far beyond our current capabilities, and would be vehemently opposed by environmentalists.
The basic problem is that photosynthesis is horribly inefficient in converting sunlight to usable fuel. The maximum theoretical energy conversion efficiency of sunlight to biomass, not useful fuel, is just 6% [Zhu et al., 2008]; real efficiencies are considerably lower.
Brazil's sugarcane ethanol production is the absolute gold standard for large-scale biofuel production. The Brazilians started this bandwagon in the 70's and have aggressively optimized their ethanol production for 40 years. The most bullish prediction is that — if they keep improving at the same rate as they have in the past — they'll be able to average 9,000 liters of ethanol per hectare per year by 2018 [Goldemberg, 2008].
What's the energy content of 9,000 liters of ethanol? The highest value I could find is 23.4 MJ/l (megajoules per liter), corresponding to the HHV (higher heating value) of anhydrous ethanol. This means that 9 kl (kiloliters) of ethanol yields at most 211 GJ (gigajoules) of thermal energy on combustion.
Now, how much sunlight falls on a hectare? In energy slang a “sun” is 1 kW/m^2 (kilowatt per square meter). That's about the peak insolation (energy density on the ground from the sun) at noon at the equator, but of course, the sun doesn't shine at night, insolation falls with latitude, and there's seasonal variation. An insolation map of Brazil suggests that a reasonable value for the sum of the insolation over a year may be up to 2,000 kWh/m^2 (kilowatt hours per square meter), so let's be super-generous to biofuels and use a stingy figure of 1,000 kWh/m^2, which is more like the correct value for Ireland than Brazil, and equates to 36,000 GJ/ha.
So, every hectare gets at least 36,000 GJ of sunlight and produces at most 211 GJ of ethanol. That's an energy conversion efficiency of, at best, 211/36000 or less than 0.6%. A fair figure (using the LHV of ethanol, production of 7kl/ha, and 1,750 kWh/m^2) would be less than half of that. I think it's fair to say that the solar-to-liquid-fuel energy conversion efficiency of sugarcane ethanol production is currently no more than one quarter of one percent, less by the time the input energy necessary to grow, harvest, ferment, and distill the ethanol (at least one tenth of the energy produced) is accounted for.
You can do far better than this generating hydrogen in your backyard using a modern solar PV panel (20% efficient) to power a commercially available electrolyser (73% efficient). Under reasonable assumptions, today you can produce hydrogen via solar panels and electrolysis with more than 50 times the efficiency of sugarcane ethanol production. I'm not arguing for hydrogen-powered cars, merely illustrating the horrible inefficiency of ethanol production.
Speaking of cars, to ram the point home, let's suppose that we could magically transform all of the vehicles in the United States into flex-fuel vehicles capable of running on 100% ethanol. Let's further suppose that we could out-do the future Brazilians at their own game and obtain fantastic yields of 10 kl/ha (or 1 l/m^2). Let's further suppose that we could substitute ethanol 1:1 for gasoline, meaning that we would need 500 billion liters of ethanol per year just for gasoline, never mind other energy needs. How much land would that require? About 50 million hectares. That's about half the total area of the United States or about three times its arable land area. If you use actual figures for US corn ethanol production (about 3,750 l/ha)? You need 8 times the arable land area of the USA.
So when I see headlines like this, I say, “So what, it's 1% efficient?”
I don't know how we can address our need for a gasoline substitute (easily transportable, high energy density, short “recharge” time, etc.), but it seems pretty clear that biofuels are merely a distraction.
The real breakthrough would be recognition that biofuels simply cannot reasonably be expected to address a significant fraction of our energy needs. The only breakthrough worth having would be a tenfold increase in the solar efficiency of photosynthesis, which would only be possible through advanced genetic engineering, is very far beyond our current capabilities, and would be vehemently opposed by environmentalists.
The basic problem is that photosynthesis is horribly inefficient in converting sunlight to usable fuel. The maximum theoretical energy conversion efficiency of sunlight to biomass, not useful fuel, is just 6% [Zhu et al., 2008]; real efficiencies are considerably lower.
Brazil's sugarcane ethanol production is the absolute gold standard for large-scale biofuel production. The Brazilians started this bandwagon in the 70's and have aggressively optimized their ethanol production for 40 years. The most bullish prediction is that — if they keep improving at the same rate as they have in the past — they'll be able to average 9,000 liters of ethanol per hectare per year by 2018 [Goldemberg, 2008].
 |
| Brazilian Ethanol Yield Over Time |
Now, how much sunlight falls on a hectare? In energy slang a “sun” is 1 kW/m^2 (kilowatt per square meter). That's about the peak insolation (energy density on the ground from the sun) at noon at the equator, but of course, the sun doesn't shine at night, insolation falls with latitude, and there's seasonal variation. An insolation map of Brazil suggests that a reasonable value for the sum of the insolation over a year may be up to 2,000 kWh/m^2 (kilowatt hours per square meter), so let's be super-generous to biofuels and use a stingy figure of 1,000 kWh/m^2, which is more like the correct value for Ireland than Brazil, and equates to 36,000 GJ/ha.
 |
| Yearly Sum of Global Irradiance |
So, every hectare gets at least 36,000 GJ of sunlight and produces at most 211 GJ of ethanol. That's an energy conversion efficiency of, at best, 211/36000 or less than 0.6%. A fair figure (using the LHV of ethanol, production of 7kl/ha, and 1,750 kWh/m^2) would be less than half of that. I think it's fair to say that the solar-to-liquid-fuel energy conversion efficiency of sugarcane ethanol production is currently no more than one quarter of one percent, less by the time the input energy necessary to grow, harvest, ferment, and distill the ethanol (at least one tenth of the energy produced) is accounted for.
You can do far better than this generating hydrogen in your backyard using a modern solar PV panel (20% efficient) to power a commercially available electrolyser (73% efficient). Under reasonable assumptions, today you can produce hydrogen via solar panels and electrolysis with more than 50 times the efficiency of sugarcane ethanol production. I'm not arguing for hydrogen-powered cars, merely illustrating the horrible inefficiency of ethanol production.
Speaking of cars, to ram the point home, let's suppose that we could magically transform all of the vehicles in the United States into flex-fuel vehicles capable of running on 100% ethanol. Let's further suppose that we could out-do the future Brazilians at their own game and obtain fantastic yields of 10 kl/ha (or 1 l/m^2). Let's further suppose that we could substitute ethanol 1:1 for gasoline, meaning that we would need 500 billion liters of ethanol per year just for gasoline, never mind other energy needs. How much land would that require? About 50 million hectares. That's about half the total area of the United States or about three times its arable land area. If you use actual figures for US corn ethanol production (about 3,750 l/ha)? You need 8 times the arable land area of the USA.
So when I see headlines like this, I say, “So what, it's 1% efficient?”
I don't know how we can address our need for a gasoline substitute (easily transportable, high energy density, short “recharge” time, etc.), but it seems pretty clear that biofuels are merely a distraction.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Holy Fukushima: Scaremongering is Everywhere!
It seems like this kind of thing has been doing the rounds:
I got a message on Facebook saying “I'd really like you to do a blog piece on this”, so here it is.
The above image is, in fact, an ocean wave amplitude graphic for the April 2011 Fukushima earthquake from NOAA. It has nothing to do with the “fallout” from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. I repeat: it has nothing whatever to do with nuclear radiation of any kind — it is an ocean wave amplitude graphic. Somebody took this innocent graphic and maliciously emblazoned it with a scaremongering lie. A slew of ignorant anti-nuclear Internet Luddites then reposted this complete fabrication, which has been swallowed wholesale by some of the more gullible members of the public.
In many cases, the above graphic has been replaced by this one:
Now, this one is actually a particle simulation from the New Zealand based ASR Ltd., a marine consulting company. If you actually go to the original page, it says (in their block capitals): “THIS IS NOT A REPRESENTATION OF THE RADIOACTIVE PLUME CONCENTRATION”. What this graphic actually tells us — if their computer simulation is accurate and reliable — is that, in the year after Fukushima, nothing (radioactive or otherwise) in the ocean surface currents could possibly have gotten much further than about halfway across the Pacific Ocean, which is quite a different thing from what the scaremongers would have you believe, and says nothing whatsoever about dilution or concentration. This was a publicity stunt by a private company showcasing their technology; it is neither peer-reviewed science, nor the report of a competent panel of experts.
So, is radiation from Fukushima killing Americans?
If you look at similar peer-reviewed science [Behrens et al., 2012], whose graphics have also been used for scaremongering, what you find is that the radioactivity of 137Cs — everyone's favorite radioisotope — off the coast of California (blue box IV) due to Fukushima peaks at about 1.2 Bq/m3, while further North it might peak around 2 (cyan box II). To put this in perspective, the background of 137Cs in the Pacific is about 3 Bq/m3, and the background level of radon in the air averages 5–15 Bq/m3, depending on where you live. In other words, this kind of increase — another couple of becquerels per cubic meter — isn't going to make a whole lot of difference to anyone.
The expert consensus is similarly undramatic: by far the most pessimistic part of the WHO's assessment is that the lifetime risk of thyroid cancer for a 1 year old female in the most affected parts of Fukushima prefecture may increase by 70%. Wow! 70%. But here's the thing: the baseline lifetime risk of thyroid cancer for women is 0.75%, 70% of that, the additional lifetime risk, is just 0.5%. I'm not saying I'd like my risk of some kind of cancer to increase by 0.5%, but it's not anything that I'm going to get my knickers in a knot over either.
If you look around, you'll find out that the total Fukushima release was 900 PBq — by any standard an enormous amount of radiation — about one sixth of a Chernobyl, about equivalent to the fallout from a 2Mt nuclear warhead, or approximately bugger all compared to what the Americans, the British, the French, and the Russians were doing throughout the 50's, 60's and 70's in the Pacific, Siberia, and the Nevada desert.
You'll also find that a reasonable estimate of the total number of additional cancer-related deaths attributable to Fukushima is about 130. That's less than half the number of coal-mining deaths over the last 10 years in the US, less than a day-and-a-half's worth of road traffic fatalities, or a few weeks of coal-mining deaths in China. In other words, also bugger all.
The reality is that nuclear power plants are actually pretty safe in the grand scheme of things, it's just that when there is an accident, it's big and it makes a big splash on the news. It's a bit like the way a plane crash that kills 300 people is a major news event, but the 300 people who die on our roads every few days in an unnoticeable trickle never get on CNN.
So, to answer the question, the danger to Americans from Fukushima is essentially zero. If you're going to start washing your vegetables in filtered water — as some of the sensationalist anti-nuclear liars in the lede would have you do — think again… with a little more skepticism and balance.
 |
| Bogus Fukushima Radiation Map #1 |
The above image is, in fact, an ocean wave amplitude graphic for the April 2011 Fukushima earthquake from NOAA. It has nothing to do with the “fallout” from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. I repeat: it has nothing whatever to do with nuclear radiation of any kind — it is an ocean wave amplitude graphic. Somebody took this innocent graphic and maliciously emblazoned it with a scaremongering lie. A slew of ignorant anti-nuclear Internet Luddites then reposted this complete fabrication, which has been swallowed wholesale by some of the more gullible members of the public.
In many cases, the above graphic has been replaced by this one:
 |
| Bogus Fukushima Radiation Map #2 |
Now, this one is actually a particle simulation from the New Zealand based ASR Ltd., a marine consulting company. If you actually go to the original page, it says (in their block capitals): “THIS IS NOT A REPRESENTATION OF THE RADIOACTIVE PLUME CONCENTRATION”. What this graphic actually tells us — if their computer simulation is accurate and reliable — is that, in the year after Fukushima, nothing (radioactive or otherwise) in the ocean surface currents could possibly have gotten much further than about halfway across the Pacific Ocean, which is quite a different thing from what the scaremongers would have you believe, and says nothing whatsoever about dilution or concentration. This was a publicity stunt by a private company showcasing their technology; it is neither peer-reviewed science, nor the report of a competent panel of experts.
So, is radiation from Fukushima killing Americans?
If you look at similar peer-reviewed science [Behrens et al., 2012], whose graphics have also been used for scaremongering, what you find is that the radioactivity of 137Cs — everyone's favorite radioisotope — off the coast of California (blue box IV) due to Fukushima peaks at about 1.2 Bq/m3, while further North it might peak around 2 (cyan box II). To put this in perspective, the background of 137Cs in the Pacific is about 3 Bq/m3, and the background level of radon in the air averages 5–15 Bq/m3, depending on where you live. In other words, this kind of increase — another couple of becquerels per cubic meter — isn't going to make a whole lot of difference to anyone.
The expert consensus is similarly undramatic: by far the most pessimistic part of the WHO's assessment is that the lifetime risk of thyroid cancer for a 1 year old female in the most affected parts of Fukushima prefecture may increase by 70%. Wow! 70%. But here's the thing: the baseline lifetime risk of thyroid cancer for women is 0.75%, 70% of that, the additional lifetime risk, is just 0.5%. I'm not saying I'd like my risk of some kind of cancer to increase by 0.5%, but it's not anything that I'm going to get my knickers in a knot over either.
If you look around, you'll find out that the total Fukushima release was 900 PBq — by any standard an enormous amount of radiation — about one sixth of a Chernobyl, about equivalent to the fallout from a 2Mt nuclear warhead, or approximately bugger all compared to what the Americans, the British, the French, and the Russians were doing throughout the 50's, 60's and 70's in the Pacific, Siberia, and the Nevada desert.
You'll also find that a reasonable estimate of the total number of additional cancer-related deaths attributable to Fukushima is about 130. That's less than half the number of coal-mining deaths over the last 10 years in the US, less than a day-and-a-half's worth of road traffic fatalities, or a few weeks of coal-mining deaths in China. In other words, also bugger all.
The reality is that nuclear power plants are actually pretty safe in the grand scheme of things, it's just that when there is an accident, it's big and it makes a big splash on the news. It's a bit like the way a plane crash that kills 300 people is a major news event, but the 300 people who die on our roads every few days in an unnoticeable trickle never get on CNN.
So, to answer the question, the danger to Americans from Fukushima is essentially zero. If you're going to start washing your vegetables in filtered water — as some of the sensationalist anti-nuclear liars in the lede would have you do — think again… with a little more skepticism and balance.
Friday, June 21, 2013
The NewLeaf Tragedy
Now, anyone who knows me knows that I'm opinionated: I'm not often ambivalent on “issues” because I think about them and decide which side I'm on, and genetically modified organisms — GMOs — are no different. So, here's the thing: I'm generally, though not unreservedly, in favor of GM technology subject to appropriate safeguards. I think most public opposition is a lazy bandwagon, fueled by a Luddite echo-chamber of mindless and ignorant fear-mongering activism that is impervious to evidence and reason. I think GMO-free products and “organic” produce are no more than a brilliant marketing tool to separate the gullible from their money.
One absolutely magnificent scientific achievement, an unqualified good for humanity, was killed by Luddism and ignorance: Monsanto's NewLeaf potato.
To understand what happened, the background begins with a family of pesticides collectively called “Bt” (for the harmless soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, from which they are derived). Bt is generally regarded as harmless to the extent that it is approved for use on certified “organic” crops with zero wait-time between spraying and harvesting; it is produced by breeding vats of one of a handful of B. thuringiensis strains and extracting the spores or the active pesticidal proteins: the Cry family of δ-endotoxins, and spraying on crops in suspension. Different Cry proteins are toxic to different ranges of insect species, so each different Bt strain yields a fairly narrow-spectrum insecticide depending on what exact Cry protein combination the particular Bt strain expresses. The usual targets are coleoptera (beetles) and lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), the most pestiferous insect classes, but avoiding hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and ants), which are generally benign or even useful (some Bt strains express proteins that are toxic to certain sawflies, but not other hymenoptera). Cry proteins have been confirmed to be entirely non-toxic to vertebrates, but might be immunogenic to humans in high doses. Technical details aside, Bt is, or was, widely used on potatoes to control the Colorado potato beetle, an endemic pest that is devastating to potato crops.
The other piece of background information that you need is that the Russet Burbank potato is the most widely grown potato cultivar in the US, preferred for french fries by fast food chains, and is widely grown on a very large scale for this purpose.
Now, Monsanto succeeded in splicing the Cry3a gene from Bt into the Russet Burbank potato — this was the NewLeaf potato — so that it would express a protein known to be toxic to the Colarado potato beetle at a few ppm (part per million) in the leaves, sufficient to kill them, but totally harmless to us (the Cry3a protein concentration in the tuber is less than 180 parts per billion; at this concentration, it wouldn't matter if it was strychnine). Clever, eh? No, not just clever: a bloody marvel of modern science is what it was. We should've had a ticker-tape parade for these guys.
NewLeaf was a massive success. Half of Idaho grew it. It was in every french fry you ate for several years. Then the Luddite activists stepped in. It was “dangerous”, they said. It was “unnatural”, they said. It was “frankenfood”, they said. It was harmless and brilliant. It contained the same pesticide that's sprayed on their beloved “organic” produce by the ton, the only difference was how it got there.
Unfortunately, the PR campaign to demonize NewLeaf was a massive success too. Misinformed consumers revolted; fast food chains stopped buying NewLeaf potatoes; farmers stopped growing them; and, after a few iterations (there were later “versions” of NewLeaf with different genes), Monsanto stopped producing them altogether because there was no demand any more.
Sad.
Now, there are basically two purposes for which genes are spliced into crops like potato, soy bean, and corn:
My concern is that transgenic crops have been so massively successful that, in some cases, it can be difficult for farmers to get seeds that aren't genetically modified, and their choice of what to plant should be preserved. It seems like there may be a risk of a monoculture arising, which history (the Irish Potato Famine of the mid 19th century, for example) suggests is a really bad idea.
Provided that the availability of a wide range of cultivars is preserved, I see no reason to fear GM.
One absolutely magnificent scientific achievement, an unqualified good for humanity, was killed by Luddism and ignorance: Monsanto's NewLeaf potato.
To understand what happened, the background begins with a family of pesticides collectively called “Bt” (for the harmless soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, from which they are derived). Bt is generally regarded as harmless to the extent that it is approved for use on certified “organic” crops with zero wait-time between spraying and harvesting; it is produced by breeding vats of one of a handful of B. thuringiensis strains and extracting the spores or the active pesticidal proteins: the Cry family of δ-endotoxins, and spraying on crops in suspension. Different Cry proteins are toxic to different ranges of insect species, so each different Bt strain yields a fairly narrow-spectrum insecticide depending on what exact Cry protein combination the particular Bt strain expresses. The usual targets are coleoptera (beetles) and lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), the most pestiferous insect classes, but avoiding hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and ants), which are generally benign or even useful (some Bt strains express proteins that are toxic to certain sawflies, but not other hymenoptera). Cry proteins have been confirmed to be entirely non-toxic to vertebrates, but might be immunogenic to humans in high doses. Technical details aside, Bt is, or was, widely used on potatoes to control the Colorado potato beetle, an endemic pest that is devastating to potato crops.
The other piece of background information that you need is that the Russet Burbank potato is the most widely grown potato cultivar in the US, preferred for french fries by fast food chains, and is widely grown on a very large scale for this purpose.
Now, Monsanto succeeded in splicing the Cry3a gene from Bt into the Russet Burbank potato — this was the NewLeaf potato — so that it would express a protein known to be toxic to the Colarado potato beetle at a few ppm (part per million) in the leaves, sufficient to kill them, but totally harmless to us (the Cry3a protein concentration in the tuber is less than 180 parts per billion; at this concentration, it wouldn't matter if it was strychnine). Clever, eh? No, not just clever: a bloody marvel of modern science is what it was. We should've had a ticker-tape parade for these guys.
NewLeaf was a massive success. Half of Idaho grew it. It was in every french fry you ate for several years. Then the Luddite activists stepped in. It was “dangerous”, they said. It was “unnatural”, they said. It was “frankenfood”, they said. It was harmless and brilliant. It contained the same pesticide that's sprayed on their beloved “organic” produce by the ton, the only difference was how it got there.
Unfortunately, the PR campaign to demonize NewLeaf was a massive success too. Misinformed consumers revolted; fast food chains stopped buying NewLeaf potatoes; farmers stopped growing them; and, after a few iterations (there were later “versions” of NewLeaf with different genes), Monsanto stopped producing them altogether because there was no demand any more.
Sad.
Now, there are basically two purposes for which genes are spliced into crops like potato, soy bean, and corn:
- Pesticide expression (such as the Cry3a protein in NewLeaf)
- Herbicide resistance (such as glyphosate resistant “Roundup Ready” soy)
My concern is that transgenic crops have been so massively successful that, in some cases, it can be difficult for farmers to get seeds that aren't genetically modified, and their choice of what to plant should be preserved. It seems like there may be a risk of a monoculture arising, which history (the Irish Potato Famine of the mid 19th century, for example) suggests is a really bad idea.
Provided that the availability of a wide range of cultivars is preserved, I see no reason to fear GM.
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