THE JAPANESE ZERO

I've been fascinated with the Japanese Zero fighter plane.  So much so that I actually went to an animated film yesterday, the Oscar nominated The Wind Rises, a Japanese film by Hayao Miyazaki portraying the life of Jiro Hirokoshi, designer of this plane.  Also interwoven into the bio are love, rainbows and dreams.  Rotten Tomatoes reviewers rated it at 87%, with the audience at 81%.  

Miyazaki's Spirited Away, made with Disney, won an Oscar in 2003, and is the top grossing film in Japanese history.  He has been called a traitor for his pacifist tendencies, and, as much as The Wind Rises is about a weapon of mass destruction, his message is anti-war.  His personal life is infused into the script, as his father worked on the Zero and his mother had tuberculosis (Jiro's wife is so affected).  He is about my age and said this would be his final production, officially retiring last year on my birth date.  He is a master of anime and manga, which could well be the same thing.  

Jiro Horikoshi graduated from Tokyo University and traveled widely to learn about airplanes, mostly to Germany.  In 1937 he was asked to design the aircraft projected to attack ports from an aircraft carrier.  Three years later the Mitsubishi Zero Fighter was developed, which figured prominently in the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack.  It was the most capable carrier-based fighter at that time and had a 12:1 kill ratio in dogfights.  However, by 1942 American tactics and technology caught up, for the Zero lacked a powerful engine.  This was, however, like the B-24 for the U.S., the most prominent of all Japanese planes in World War II.  This version above crashed in New Guinea, but was rebuilt and flown for the movie Pearl Harbor.

Four years ago I visited the Yasukuni Shrine and had my photo taken next to the Japanese Zero in the military museum there:

The cherry blossoms were mesmerizing:

I wondered if I should stop by at this site, for 14 Japanese War criminals, including General Hideki Tojo, along with 2.5 million war dead, are here.  When current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a couple of months ago came to pray for their souls, he was publicly condemned by China and South Korea.

In the release of The Wind Rises, Miyazaki criticized Abe for this visit and attitudes regarding expanding Japan's military role.  I travel to Japan in a few weeks.  Do I return to Yasukuni...for the Sakura and to gain a better appreciation for the Zero?

Back to this animated film, I noticed there were mostly adults in the audience.  The title, The Wind Rises, comes from a novelette of the same name by Tatsuo Hori, taking a line from Paul Val e ry's poem, 

     Le vent se leve, il faut tenter de vivre or...The Wind is Rising.  We must try to live.

Life was tough in the period of the film, for Horikoshi was a student at Tokyo University when the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 stuck, crippling the economy even before the Great Depression.  There were 142,800 deaths, and the cataclysm was graphically illustrated.  At 7.9 magnitude, this was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan until the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011.  However, he did meet his future wife during this disaster, and their relationship was an important part of the story.  But the war, devastation and agony combined to make this an adult film.  In the 60's and 70's Horikoshi went on to teach at Tokyo and Nihon Universities, and passed away at the age of 78.

The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

Medal standings

       COUNTRY                GOLD             SILVER              BRONZE

1	Russia	11	10	8	29
2	Norway	11	5	10	26
3	Canada	9	10	5	24
4	United States	9	7	11	27
5	Netherlands	8	7	9	24
6	Germany	8	6	5	19
7	Switzerland	6	3	2	11

After all their tribulations, Russia surged into the medal lead with 29.  The USA is two back with one day of competition left.  The Closing Ceremonies are tomorrow.

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THE CREATION

The opening chapter of The Bible (by the way, you can get a free Kindle copy here) begins with:

     In the beginning God created the heavens and earth.

It took Him (only one percent of Americans believe God is a Her) six days to accomplish the above, including Us.  While we are rather religious, the trend is downwards, for according to a recent Harris poll, in 2005, 82% believed in God, while now, only 74% do.  I guess politicians are more religious, but 87% of Republicans believe in God, while 72% of Democrats do.

Not sure if this is good or bad, but, regarding beliefs:

• The Devil                                   58%
• Darwin's theory of Evolution     47%
• Ghosts                                       42%
• UFOs                                         36%
• Astrology                                   29%
• Witches                                     26%

No, let me take that back.  This is bad, in fact, embarrassing.  But there has been progress, for in 2005, 62% believed in The Devil, only 42% in Evolution and 41% in ghosts.  At this rate more Americans will believe in Evolution than the Devil by 2030.  A bit more than a third of Republicans believe in Evolution while slightly more than half of Democrats do.  Finally, a Gallup poll showed that 66%, two-thirds, of Americans believed that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.  Amen.

But returning to the Creation, as best guessed by scientists, here is the current view (the early stages expressed by Richard Brill):

• 13.8 billion years ago there was a Big Bang (BB)
• at first there was only energy--trillions and trillions and trillions of degrees (he used only two, but I added the third...for)
• when the temperature cooled to 10 with 32 zeroes (C or F is not mentioned because we're talking uber high numbers) gravity separated
• the above occurred 10 to the minus 43rd power seconds after the BB
• while there are more details, let me skip some and say that quarks formed at one micro second after the BB
• at one second, our Universe was 186,000 miles across (and I still think that this should be radius, or our Universe must be the expanding skin of a sphere--except the big thinkers all say that everything depends of something called the critical density and these are the options):

• scientists are not certain, but they speculated that somewhere between 10 seconds to 20 minutes after the BB, hydrogen was created

• around 3 minutes after the BB came helium, then lithium and beryllium
• 70,000 years after the BB there was more matter than energy in our Universe
• 377,000 (I marvel at this fairly exact number) years after the BB, the hydrogen and helium began to form stable atoms with electrons
• these gases then combined to form stars beginning 150 million years after the BB
• the larger stars created elements like oxygen and carbon, while the super massive ones formed heavier elements like silicon and iron.

Let me stop the creation here, except to say that our known Universe today is mostly hydrogen, 90%, but that we haven't yet "seen" or measured 96% of our Universe--Dark Energy and Dark Matter:

Compound these unknowns with the ultimate question:  What was there before the Big Bang?  Scientists can speculate, but haven't the faintest idea how it all began.  Does this, then, give God and religion an edge?  Nope.  Who Created God?

The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

Medal standings

      COUNTRY                  GOLD              SILVER            BRONZE

1	Norway	10	4	8	22
2	Russia	9	10	7	26
3	Canada	9	10	5	24
4	United States	9	7	11	27
5	Germany	8	4	4	16
6	Netherlands	6	7	9	22
7	Switzerland	6	3	2	11

The USA remains #1 with 27 medals and Russia #2 with 26.

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IS THERE A FUTURE FOR SOLAR THERMAL ELECTRICITY?

A couple of months ago, driving from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, I took this photo of the power plant right at the side of the road undergoing testing:

Well, the $2.2 billion Ivanpah Solar Electric Generation System, the world's largest, is now fully operational at 392 MW in the Mohave Desert, capable of supplying electricity for 140,000 homes:

The Ivanpah facility is a partnership involving NRG Energy, Google and BrightSource Energy.  It received a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy.

One of the motivations provided to utilities is that a California State Law requires that one-third of electricity generated by 2020 must be renewable.  The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission has disapproved several renewable electricity proposals because they just cost too much.  While all current signs point to California actually meeting the requirement, the California PUC can conveniently backtrack if natural gas electricity is much, much cheaper than some of these renewable energy sources.

The key question is, what will be the cost of producing this solar thermal electricity?  I've seen 26 cents/kWh, and as low as 10 cents, which is not impossible because no storage is involved.  While the details are confidential, something like a contract price of 12.5 cents/kWh is being mentioned with a time-of-day adjustment.

The average price of electricity paid by the consumer today is slightly more than 12 cents/kilowatt-hour, which means that the production cost has to be less than 10 cents/kWh.  California is at 17 cents/kWh, while Hawaii is now at 37 cents/kWh.   Here is a cost of production comparison in cents per kWh of the latest generation facilities:

• geothermal plant =                                        9 
• wind farm =                                                   9  
• offshore wind farm =                                   22
• advanced coal =                                         12
• advanced nuclear =                                    11
• biomass =                                                   11
• solar photovoltaics =                                  14 

From this same source, for conventional power plants (electricity production cost in cents/kWh):

• natural gas =                                                  3
• conventional coal =                                        4
• nuclear =                                                        5

The use of petroleum to produce electricity (which happens to be the fuel of choice in Hawaiii--and is one reason why we pay 300% more) is so rare, that it is not even mentioned in the table.  Why are these costs so low?  Those power plants were built decades ago.

Another way to look at this analysis is that a natural gas-fired generator costs $1,100/MW.  Ivanpah was $5,500/MW.  Yes, but the sun is free.  Further, coal is 30% cheaper than fracked gas, and, while natural gas might sell for $4/thousand cubic feet (also known as mcf--note, the m is a thousand here, not million), Japan pays $17/mcf delivered for liquified natural gas.  So if Hawaii is contemplating LNG, we need to multiply the source cost by a factor of three to four.  We also need to build that billion dollar facility.

There is another situation that could hurt.  Birds are killed.  The heat surrounding the towers can reach 1000 F.  Dozens of mortally scorched birds have been found at the power plant.

Yet another problem is that the Ivanpah mirrors sprawl across 3500 acres.  The Arkansas Nuclear One Station produced 1,800 MW on 1,100 acres (1.7 square miles).  But when you crank in the power factor and equilibrate the production, the solar thermal system would need more than 50 times the land per MW compared to nuclear power.  Worse for the renewables, a similar analysis for wind power shows that you would need 270 times more land per MW generated.  But at least the land can still be used for farming, etc.

Switching from apples to oranges here, but, the federal government has dedicated nearly 2.000 times more acreage to oil and gas leases than to solar development.  There is a lot of cheap and sunny land in the USA that can be tapped for solar where endangered species would not be threatened.  The key will be to reduce the suspected 26 cents/kWh cost of utility scale solar thermal electricity by at least a factor two, and more.  Or, if Ivanpah can actually produce electricity for 10 cents/kWh, then, there should be a reasonably bright future.  Both wind and solar energy are intermittent, so it comes down to what will be the value of undependable power.  Coal, nuclear, geothermal and OTEC are base load sources.

The reality, though, is worrisome.  Here is an article from earlier this week indicating that Ivanpah is already irrelevant.  The author says that Warren Buffett paid between $2-$2.5 billion to purchase the word's largest solar photovoltaic plant just outside of Bakersfield.  In 2015 this utility-scale PV farm will produce 1.5 times more power using PV than Ivanpah using solar thermal mirrors/towers.

The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

Medal standings

       COUNTRY                GOLD           SILVER            BRONZE

1	Norway	10	4	7	21
2	United States	8	6	11	25
3	Germany	8	4	4	16
4	Russia	7	9	7	23
5	Canada	7	9	4	20
6	Netherlands	6	7	9	22
7	Switzerland	6	3	2	11

The USA did not have a good day, but leads with 25 total medals.

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SOCHI WINTER OLYMPICS: Day 14

I will not give away results today, unless you are mentally tracking medals and can decipher what happened today from the leadership board at the end.  I will tell you, though, that the event President Putin (yes, that's him to the left...but not today) and Russia considered as crucial to ultimate success was in Men's Hockey.  Russia lost today and is out of the running for any medal.  This was a devastating day for most of Team Russia, save for one surprising success.  Team USA did okay.

Except, of course for curling, for we were eliminated three days ago.  That's the women's team to the right.  Have you noticed there is curling every day?  Well, almost, as competition began on February 10, nine days ago, and continues through February 21.  For curling fans, the Women's Gold Medal Game is tomorrow and the Men's on Friday. Curling kind of reminds me of baseball.

Aside from hockey fans, Women's Figure Skating will capture your attention tonight.  The extreme tension, incredible perfection, supreme beauty and uplifting music make for pure entertainment.  The short dance was today, with gold to be determined tomorrow after the free dance.  There were a couple of shocking falls, but Japan's Yuzuru Hanyu (left) fell twice in the Men's Free Dance and still won the gold.  The women are more precise, though, and even one crash and the medal will be gone.

I won't say any more except to indicate how young the women are, from top to bottom--Italy, 27, South Korea 23, Russia 19, USA 18, USA 15 and Russia 15:

Then, of course, Johnny Weir (30) and Tara Lipinski (31--who at the age of 15 won a Gold in this event exactly 16 years ago tomorrow):

Lipinski still holds the record as the youngest female to ever win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics in an individual event.

Jimmy Fallon had a few choice statements about Sochi and some competitors, but bronze meal winner Steven Holcomb of the USA had a satisfying comeback as to who was really chicken.  Click on his name.

Steven Holcomb        ✔ @StevenHolcomb

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I'm a little offended @jimmyfallon. Seriously, how dare you assume I'm a teriyaki wing guy? I only eat Buffalo style.

1. The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

   Medal standings

   
   

          COUNTRY         GOLD            SILVER       BRONZE

   1	Norway	9	4	7	20
   2	Germany	8	3	4	15
   3	United States	7	5	11	23
   4	Russia	6	9	7	22
   5	Netherlands	6	7	9	22
   6	Switzerland	6	3	1	10
   7	Canada	5	9	4	18

The USA now leads with 23 total medals.

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