Angry New Yorker

Semi-Daily Rants from New York City's Angry Man

"As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly." - Dr. Samuel Johnson, Boswell, Life of Johnson, Sept. 1783

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Wednesday, August 20, 2008
 

Mayor Bloomberg <=> Rocket Scientist

Ah, Mike, what's the problem? Human nature is why we're in favor of terms limits. Because no matter how well-intentioned, no matter how much expertise is developed in one area, no matter how noble, every politician after a certain point just can't resist hearing themselves talk. Now the Mayor is still far from Joe "I love to hear the sound of my voice" Biden or Barry "We are the ones" Obama territory, but he's been developing troubling signs of heading down the same road. His latest scheme is wind power, as he hops on the T. Boone Pickens bandwagon.

We're in favor of all energy sources that make sense, and perhaps wind farms far off the coast of NYC will prove economic, but does the Mayor grasp how much total power NYC demands? As of May 2008, the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) estimated total peak demand in NYC would reach 33,809 megawatts. That's 33,809,000,000 watts. Peak usage in the summer of 2007, according to NYISO, was 32,169 megawatts.

To put that in perspective, the two nuclear reactors at Indian Point, run by Entergy, together have a maximum power generation capacity of 2,069 megawatts. (See Entergy 2007 Investor Report at http://www.entergy.com/content/investor_relations/pdfs/2007_final_IG.pdf).

The world's largest wind turbine, the Enercon E-126, has a peak power generation rating of 6 megawatts, and the E-126 is a monster with a rotor diameter of 413 feet. And, of course, it only produces peak power when there's a steady wind of, we believe, 17 knots. Commercially available GE wind turbines are rated at, depending on the model, 1.5, 2.5 and 3.6 megawatts of peak production power. (See GE Energy - Wind Turbines at http://www.ge-energy.com/prod_serv/products/wind_turbines/en/index.htm).

With this in mind, the New York City subway system uses, according to the IEEE, approximately 500 megawatts during peak rush hour usage. (See IEEE-USA Today's Engineer at http://www.todaysengineer.org/2004/Oct/history.asp).

Therefore, to run the NYC subway alone, it would take from 84 of the monster E-126 turbines to 333 of GE's current 1.5Mw models. And that's assuming the wind is blowing steadily at a peak production speeds; add in an additional 50% capacity to account for turbines out of production for maintenance, lower wind velocity, etc., and you wind up with, conservatively a need for 122 to 500 turbines for the subway alone. Now, Mr. Mayor, where exactly at you going to put these? If offshore, where do the transmission lines comes ashore?

Our brainiac Mayor can put all the pinwheels he wants up on the Brooklyn bridge, on top of every skyscraper and in Lady Liberty's torch, but they won't make a dent in the city's powers needs. Which highlights that the green coalition has no viable answers to our actual current energy needs. But hey, if we could harness the power of good intentions we'd have solved the energy problem long ago.

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posted by anonymous at 8:11 PM

Wednesday, August 06, 2008
 
Gotham. Today's Babel.

In the Bible, which unfortunately fewer and fewer people have any cogent familiarity with or understanding of, the Tower of Babel appears fleetingly in Genesis 11, tucked between a great deal of begatting, and has commonly been understood as mankind's overreaching attempt to reach God's domain via earthly efforts. As punishment (admittedly Genesis 11 is not a model of clarity), God decides to "confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.* * * Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth."

Well, as Deroy Murdock scathingly notes, Mayor Bloomberg, is building a Babel in Gotham, whereby "America’s largest municipality soon will conduct official business not only in English and Spanish — which is bad enough — but also five more foreign languages: Russian, Chinese, Korean, French Creole, and Italian." Bloomberg nonsensically heralded on July 22nd, as he signed the edict, that “[t]his Executive Order will make our city more accessible, while helping us become the most inclusive municipal government in the nation.”

Pardon? Government offices gabbering away in seven languages will do what now? Will people have to press 7 for Creole? The actual Executive Order is available here as a PDF for your amusement.

Murdock delivers a full broadside:
Are today’s immigrants too feeble to learn English, as did the 12 million immigrants who filed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954? Since when have Italians, of all people, become too wretched to fathom English? Is it too much to ask today’s Italian arrivals to speak America’s common tongue, as did the forbears of such distinguished New Yorkers as Giuliani, former governor Mario Cuomo, Home Depot co-founder Kenneth Langone, and Academy Award–winning director Martin Scorsese?
Bloomberg is a rich man with good intentions. He's also a numbskull in many ways who can't pass up any opportunity to do for others what they should be doing for themselves.


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posted by anonymous at 4:01 PM

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