Can We Save Hubble and Where is the James Webb Space Telescope?
28 Mar 2021 Leave a comment
in transport economics Tags: space
The Swedish Question I
28 Mar 2021 Leave a comment
Sweden’s role in World War II has evoked little interest outside of that country. Although we now know this nation would never enter the war, Hitler and Dönitz could not count on this. For Hitler Sweden represented a valuable source of raw materials and manufactured goods, as well as a possible threat to Germany’s position in Norway. To Dönitz this politically unreliable nation’s location potentially endangered the navy’s U-boat training areas in the Baltic. Particularly in the final stage of the war, both Hitler and Dönitz endeavored to ensure at all costs that Sweden remained neutral.
On several occasions Hitler claimed a political motive for retaining a foothold in the Baltic States. He feared that withdrawing from Estonia, and later from Courland, would adversely affect Sweden’s attitude. Hitler believed that the presence of German troops in the Baltic States deterred Sweden from cutting off ore imports. On 5 September 1944…
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Not Cool: Another Reason to Reject Unreliable Wind Power – Iced Up Blades Totally Disables Turbines
27 Mar 2021 Leave a comment
During the recent Big Freeze, thousands of Texan wind turbines were frozen solid, incapacitated by burst of frigid winter conditions. Dead calm weather meant that those that weren’t frozen stiff, added practically nothing to the grid.
While the internal workings of wind turbines (gearboxes, generators, yaw and blade pitch controls) can be kept operable with on-board heating systems (chewing up electricity from the grid all the while), the 50-60m long blades are a different story.
This recent study from the Iowa State University shows that the phenomenon will knock – an already ephemeral energy source – completely out of action. As it did in Texas, last month.
Field study shows icing can cost wind turbines up to 80% of power production
Iowa State University
Hui Ha and Mike Krapil
4 March 2021
AMES, Iowa – Wind turbine blades spinning through cold, wet conditions can collect ice nearly a foot…
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Sir John Laws and The Constitutional Balance
27 Mar 2021 Leave a comment
The Constitutional Balance, a new work by the former judge John Laws, was published posthumously in January. Here, David Feldman discusses the key themes of the book, and pays tribute to the author, a long-serving judge, who served as a Lord Justice of Appeal and was one of the most well-respected public law judges of the last 50 years.
The late Sir John Laws stood out as one of the greatest English public law judges of the last 50 years. Throughout his distinguished and creative career as Treasury Devil – First Junior Treasury Counsel (Common Law), responsible for advising and representing the government in a large range of public law matters – and judge, he was uniquely willing to argue publicly for and apply in his judgments a systematic philosophy of the liberal, democratic state and of the respective roles within it of the people, their representatives, the government and the…
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The Elusive Quest for Growth | Interview with William Easterly
27 Mar 2021 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, growth disasters, growth miracles, income redistribution, Public Choice, rentseeking
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