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Thread: OT: Politics

  1. #1521
    Unfated - If you are ever at an event we will have to swap stories about the generation side. Some of the litigation issues I'm working on now is just crazy

    Josh - At a certain point you are going to get diminishing returns in terms of reliability on your investments. I don't know what that point is, I'll freely admit that, but I'm always skeptical of transmission provider propaganda because they get a guaranteed rate of return on the investments they make. Makes perfect business sense to keep driving investment into transmission given the high rates of return.
    Last edited by d0cwho; 11-30-2018 at 09:37 AM.

  2. #1522
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    If he gets it done and its a good deal, credit where credit is due. I still think a more effective to box China in by making them economically uncompetitive to other markets, but we shall see what happens
    I would like to see a hard meld with China to push Russia out. Have a hard talk with Xi and say - hey, there is going to be two super powers and we can grow together be prosperous or you can keep hanging out with Russia and building war machines and being a punk. Look what it got them. Then after that work with China to tell Russia to knock it off, then we are sitting with a lot less time and money wasted on war and war machines. If we could decrease out military budget by a significant amount I would be quite happy with that.

    Josh, if we are ever in the same place where I can tell you a face-to-face story about my interactions with Gigafactory 1, I'll buy you a beer and tell you about how your choice to turn down there probably saved you a lot of money and heartache. Before they were my competitor in my current job, they were my customer in my previous role. Not a story I'd put in writing.
    I am just 4 hours away, we can meet up at Charlotte Alternative Sports and BS with Dave. I should be over there in a couple weeks anyways. I really didn't want to live in NV. It is far nicer over here in Knoxville, I am working at a great company and I am tired of moving for a while.

    I am just not a fan of Solar - I want to be. It is cool. But it is so expensive and you don't have control of it. You have a 4-6 hour window of max generation, so you need some sort of storage, so it makes it 2-3 times as expensive, and since you can't control it you put in a low efficiency gas turbine (vs a Turbine/Steam setup) also for when it doesn't work.

    Then in 20 years it is at half that power, so you sell it off and get another set.

    Instead of spending less money on a more efficient combined cycle gas turbine plant to begin with that you can control and throttle as demand requires.
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  3. #1523
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    Josh - At a certain point you are going to get diminishing returns in terms of reliability on your investments. I don't know what that point is, I'll freely admit that, but I'm always skeptical of transmission provider propaganda because they get a guaranteed rate of return on the investments they make.
    In items like this, we figure unexpected downtime vs controlled, which adds up quick. One place had 400 MWH per generators (12 hour runs per day average, during peak demand, which is also peak profit), but the control system was nearing on 20 years old - they ran out of spares for all 4 units in 3 weeks. New controls and downtime had to fit a certain window of scheduled downtime so they could prep another generation facility, and the spares ran out 6 months sooner than expected, and replacement parts were days or weeks out if you could find them. Spending $100k on a new control system makes a lot of sense really quick.

    But that isn't every event, and if you look at the Smart Meter Fiasco in the UK right now, there is not the return on that investment that was promised.
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  4. #1524
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    I'm starting to believe that the biggest problems with gas turbines right now is how little GE and Siemens want to play in the market for controls. And Emerson has been stupid with their Ovation product (though I hear it is getting better soon?). If Emerson could integrate their Ovation lineup with the RX series stuff they just bought, they'd have a strong technical position over the turbine market. Mark VI Millennium Series is a superior technology but GE can't sell or support anything right now. Emerson makes a competent product but Ovation is no Delta V from a Hardware nor Software standpoint and their aggressive support practices are not well liked by the utilities. Electricity will get more expensive to generate if Emerson dominates the utility market and everyone is paying Pittsburgh for service.

    Josh, what's your preference on control hardware? We were a GE house for a long time, but couldn't ever keep up with the number of global requests for support. Not enough people out there with Mark VI training, and we constantly got poached for competent service engineers.

  5. #1525
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    I'm starting to believe that the biggest problems with gas turbines right now is how little GE and Siemens want to play in the market for controls.

    Josh, what's your preference on control hardware? We were a GE house for a long time, but couldn't ever keep up with the number of global requests for support. Not enough people out there with Mark VI training, and we constantly got poached for competent service engineers.
    The powerplant I did in Alaska with SNC-Lavalin was an Ovation product. Highly automated, combined cycle with 3 GE turbines. 200MWH, and just 2 operators. That was a solid project. I wonder how it handled the Earthquake. My family is good, but some have a lot of cleanup. Can't get drive to Anchorage - rockslides and the road is tore up.

    Before was a lot of Honeywell and Foxboro DCS stuff for refining. Right now we normally are stuck with whatever the client is using - we have an Allen-Bradley strong SI team, so normally Control/Compact Logix, though we do a bit of everything. One of our SI guys did get Mitsubishi to run PID loops in a manner their engineers couldn't. We might be using a Beckoff units to tie in a bunch of older PLCs for a client that we can't talk about, that nobody else will touch. That turbine control was GCS. The NY stuff was Bently-Nevada, but then, we were trying to bid against them directly.

    I have to agree from my limited experience fighting in that relm, but the guys here hate Siemens controls with a solid passion. I mentioned the Gigafactory was Siemens and they just threw up their hands; "Why!?" followed by a very heated rant on how much they hated it.
    Last edited by pbjosh; 11-30-2018 at 03:39 PM.
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  6. #1526
    Insider Unfated33's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by pbjosh View Post
    I have to agree from my limited experience fighting in that relm, but the guys here hate Siemens controls with a solid passion. I mentioned the Gigafactory was Siemens and they just threw up their hands; "Why!?" followed by a very heated rant on how much they hated it.
    I know why it was Siemens. The short story is because we helped them make the choice/told them to. Decision was made above my head.

  7. #1527
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    The short story is because we helped them make the choice/told them to.
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  8. #1528
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    Without the blame, histrionics or related, I find after pages of discussion about a certain party being racist that this is strangely surprising to see. No, one study is not proof, especially in social sciences.:

    Racial bias can put people of color at a disadvantage when interviewing for a job, buying a house, or interacting with the police. New research suggests that bias may also shape daily interactions between racial minorities and white people, even those whites who tend to be less biased.

    According to new research by Cydney Dupree, assistant professor of organizational behavior at Yale SOM, white liberals tend to downplay their own verbal competence in exchanges with racial minorities, compared to how other white Americans act in such exchanges. The study is scheduled for publication in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
    The team found that Democratic candidates used fewer competence-related words in speeches delivered to mostly minority audiences than they did in speeches delivered to mostly white audiences. The difference wasn*t statistically significant in speeches by Republican candidates, though *it was harder to find speeches from Republicans delivered to minority audiences,* Dupree notes. There was no difference in Democrats* or Republicans* usage of words related to warmth. *It was really surprising to see that for nearly three decades, Democratic presidential candidates have been engaging in this predicted behavior.*
    They designed a series of experiments in which white participants were asked to respond to a hypothetical or presumed-real interaction partner. For half of these participants, their partner was given a stereotypically white name (such as *Emily*); for the other half, their partner was given a stereotypically black name (such as *Lakisha*). Participants were asked to select from a list of words for an email to their partner. For some studies, this email was for a work-related task; for others, this email was simply to introduce themselves. Each word had been previously scored on how warm or competent it appears. The word *sad,* for example, scored low for both warmth and competence. *Melancholy,* on the other hand, scored high for competence and low on warmth.

    Participant also completed a variety of measures that assessed how liberal they were.

    The researchers found that liberal individuals were less likely to use words that would make them appear highly competent when the person they were addressing was presumed to be black rather than white. No significant differences were seen in the word selection of conservatives based on the presumed race of their partner. *It was kind of an unpleasant surprise to see this subtle but persistent effect,* Dupree says. *Even if it*s ultimately well-intentioned, it could be seen as patronizing.*
    Now, the conclusion is interesting also:

    Dupree and Fiske suspect that the behavior stems from a liberal person*s desire to connect with other races. One possible reason for the *competence downshift,* as the authors describe it, is that, regardless of race, people tend to downplay their competence when they want to appear likeable and friendly. But it*s also possible that *this is happening because people are using common stereotypes in an effort to get along,* Dupree says.

    Initial data from follow-up studies suggest that describing a black person as highly intelligent, thus reversing the stereotype, or as already highly motivated to get along with whites, thus removing the need to prove goodwill, can reduce the likelihood that a white person will downplay their competence in their interactions with the black person.
    Do people here think, if the political spectrum had been different in the study, would it be concluded that conservatives were just trying to connect? Or is there another motive that would be assigned to their motivations?

    It does match up with the results from the previous interviews I posted where the Berkeley students misunderstood the issues with voter ID and made similar conclusions.

    *There*s a lot of research focused on biased individuals and how holding bias, especially implicit bias, can influence social interactions,* Dupree says. *But that leaves a lot of people out. My hope is that this work will help include well-intentioned people who see themselves as allies but who may be unwittingly contributing to group divides. There is a broader need to include them in the conversation.*
    Last edited by pbjosh; 11-30-2018 at 04:44 PM.
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  9. #1529
    Josh - What is the conclusion you are drawing from the studies and how does it relate to the voter ID interviews you refer to?

  10. #1530
    Insider PBSteve's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by pbjosh View Post
    Without the blame, histrionics or related, I find after pages of discussion about a certain party being racist that this is strangely surprising to see. No, one study is not proof, especially in social sciences.
    Genuinely confused by what you're surprised about here, this is neither new nor surprising. Telling that you invoke a term disparaging to women as an insult though.

    I'm racist, I freely admit that. I have prejudices deep in my psyche that are racially based, I acknowledge them and make an effort to correct them.

    Democrats are generally racist. Dems primarily pander to white suburbia, whatever makes that soccer mom feel safe is the route they're going to take. Their policy positions are often not made with minorities in mind, although they feel obligated to at least make superficial efforts on racial issues. But at the end of the day the majority of democrats are still NIMBYs. Yes, president Obama was a part of this trend.

    The GoP is capital R Racist, and they know a significant portion of their base will revolt if they try to address the racial disparities in our society. There's constant talk about bringing Hispanic voters into the GoP fold, which would make sense given the conservative nature of those cultures. But it'll never happen because they'd alienate too much of their current base, and strategists know it. I think the "Birther" issue is a pretty good metric of what portion of the GoP is capital R Racist. 41% of Republicans refused to acknowledge Obama was born in the US when he left office.



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