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Global Economy Bursting?

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More renewable energy means more fossil fuels

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/More-renewable-energy-means-more-fossil-fuels-4129850.php

The Delta Energy Center, a power plant about an hour outside San Francisco, was roaring at nearly full bore one day last month, its four gas and steam turbines churning out 880 megawatts of electricity to the California grid.

On the horizon, across an industrial shipping channel on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, scores of wind turbines stood dead still. The air was too calm to turn their blades - or many others across the state that day. Wind provided just 33 megawatts of power statewide in the midafternoon, less than 1 percent of the potential from wind farms capable of producing 4,000 megawatts of electricity.

As is true on many days in California when multibillion-dollar investments in wind and solar energy plants are thwarted by the weather, the void was filled by gas-fired plants like the Delta Energy Center.

One of hidden costs of solar and wind power - and a problem the state is not yet prepared to meet - is that wind and solar energy must be backed up by other sources, typically gas-fired generators. As more solar and wind energy generators come online, fulfilling a legal mandate to produce one-third of California's electricity by 2020, the demand will rise for more backup power from fossil fuel plants.

"The public hears solar is free, wind is free."

The cost to consumers in the years ahead could be in the billions of dollars, according to industry experts. California's electricity prices are already among the highest in the nation and are projected to rise sharply in coming years.
 
The New Normal in California Employment

At the end of 2012, California is in better shape today in terms of unemployment rate and payroll jobs than the previous few years.

The latest state unemployment rate, through October 2012, is 10.1%, down from 11.5% in October 2011 and 12.5% in October 2010. Payroll jobs are at 14.4 million, a gain of 256,000 jobs over the year and a gain of 574,900 jobs since the recovery formally began in February 2010.

To focus on the unemployment rate and even to focus on payroll numbers is to miss what is really going on in California employment. The unemployment rate becomes less and less relevant each year, as the number of part time workers grows and as the labor force participation rate declines.

Currently there are roughly 1 million workers in California who are counted as employed but involuntarily working part-time. The labor force participation is below 64%, the lowest rate in decades. Workers without jobs are not counted as unemployed as they drop out of looking for work.

2012 is likely to be remembered as a year in which California continued its path to the New Normal in California Employment: more and more part-time work rather than full-time work, more and more contingent employment through staffing companies, more and more independent contracting, greater volatility, decreased security among all occupations.
 
is that wind and solar energy must be backed up by other sources, typically gas-fired generators.
exactly and that energy has to be available IMMEDIATELY. You cannot wait 24 hours to build a head of steam in a cold broiler which is what they say it takes our local coal fired plant to do when they go through routine maintenance annually. So you idle the coal and gas plants to keep the water hot, but keep them off line until the renewables get becalmed or the sun goes down. All the fossil fuels burned during these idling events is wasted.
 
"The problem with reserves is an outgrowth of a separate decision by the powerful California Water Quality Control Board. The board last year essentially ordered 19 gas-fired generating plants up and down the coast to close by 2020 because their cooling intake pipes suck in and kill fish."

So, rather than install a marine wildlife return system, close the power plants?
 
CalPERS not allowed to sue bankrupt San Bernardino

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bankruptcy-pensions-20121222,0,586466.story

Bankruptcy judge rejects the state employee pension system's bid to force the city to continue making its monthly payments into the retirement fund.

A federal bankruptcy judge Friday rebuffed an effort by the state's pension system to sue San Bernardino and force it to meet its $1.7-million-per-month obligation to public workers' retirement funds, a decision that could have wider implications in the ongoing public debate over public pensions and municipal debt. CalPERS asked the bankruptcy judge to allow it to sue in state court to collect retirement contributions.

"It ultimately could fail if enough employers don't contribute," Gearin argued. "The ongoing harm to the CalPERS system is growing rapidly."

He said allowing San Bernardino to skip that contractual requirement sets a bad precedent that could eventually threaten the solvency of CalPERS, the largest pension fund in the nation, with 1.65 million members and investments worth $248.5 billion.
 
Fed Truncates Non-Performing Loan Data Series

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogs...lysis+(Mish's+Global+Economic+Trend+Analysis)

The original series showed how banks always had 90% or above allowance for loan and lease losses until the 2008 financial crisis. It then dropped like a stone to 15%. It has been gradually struggling up since then and is now 35%.

The old data series showed how pathetically inadequate the reserves are and how slow the recovery (actually, non-recovery since about 2/3 of loan and lease losses are not covered!).

The new series makes the "recovery" look significant. I'm amazed that the Fed did this.

Because allowances for loan losses are a direct hit to earnings, and because allowances are at ridiculously low levels, bank earnings have been wildly over-stated.
 
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