Is Centrino brand all that strong?

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:11:16 -0500, Robert Myers
wrote:

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:43:10 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote:

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 19:34:36 -0500, Robert Myers
wrote:

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 05:20:00 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote:

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 23:47:48 GMT, Robert Redelmeier
wrote:

George Macdonald wrote:

snip


Your position is remarkably similar to the position of the Chairman of
Exxon Mobil. :-).

To repeat: he's right about the scale; *possibly* wrong about the energy
balance but you have to believe people with bio-interests to get there.

Here's an aggressive effort (from the NRDC) to make it all look
reasonable:

http://www.bio.org/ind/GrowingEnergy.pdf

They get the required land down to about 100 million acres of
switchgrass (as opposed to 30 million acres currently under
cultivation as switchgrass in the Conservation Resource Program out of
700 million acres of U.S. cropland and rangeland).

The assumptions are aggressive, and it is not a near-term solution.
Figure 1 of the Executive Summary shows a ten-percentish contribution
to gasoline demand only by about 2020.

So when the weather doesn't cooperate, we have floods and the switch grass
harvest fails, is that an "interruption" in supplies?

... to suggest that the net balance
in energy does not matter is heresy... apparently acquired by ignoring that
crude oil *is* stored energy.

But so what? You can't hook your car up to a nuclear reactor or a
coal-fired plant or run it on waste heat from biomass, but you can use
that energy in making ethanol if you have to.

But at a gain/loss which is barely self-sustaining even by the best
estimates... and what about the rest of the world? There are huge
political hurdles to get over here too. There's going to be oil for
decades - worry is the interest paid on trouble before it's due.

Oh and has anybody looked at where our petro-chemicals products will come
from without the petro-infrastructure? How to make plastics, rubbers,
solvents, detergents, etc. etc.? As you sit at your computer desk just
look around you.

Second, the fact that the US only imports
10% of its oil from the Middle East is irrelevant... showing a parochial
and utter ignorance of how the oil industry works and assigns production to
refining facilities... not to mention how amazingly efficient the petroleum
industry is.


I'm well aware that the U.S. has a commitment to sharing resources in
case of a shortage. If you don't think that actually shutting Middle
Eastern oil out of the U.S. market would change world politics
considerably, I'll politely ask you to reconsider your opinion. :-).

Sharing? That's not how it works - those are huge multi-nationals with as
much of a foot in other nations.

What's needed now is for the bio-ethanol and bio-diesel guys to fight out
which is the more efficient of the two.:-) Here's a page which has some
msgs from a guy working on a method (to be patented) to produce bio-diesel
from algae ponds:
http://forums.biodieselnow.com/topic...41&whichpage=1 and
here's a snippet from him:

"On a net energy yield per acre they're similar, but the energy balance (or
preferably Energy Return on Investment) is just as important. With corn,
there is a greater energy input to get that net output than with soy.
Still, neither of them is really suitable for a wide-scale energy crop. The
yield from both is just too low. They are nice crops to use as a
dual-purpose crop, provided there is a market for the meal product, but
they should never be grown specifically for fuel production."

On a net energy basis, ethanol from seed (corn or beans) is a
non-starter--too much energy content is just thrown away. Bio-diesel
from seed also throws a large part of the energy content away.
Ethanol from cellulose has to be made to work.

I don't see how you can play celluslose as a game winner - without even
looking at the details I'd estimate that the EROI is going to be even worse
than corn-ethanol. IOW your going to be throwing away at least as much of
the energy content.

--
Rgds, George Macdonald

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 18:38:58 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote:

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:11:16 -0500, Robert Myers
wrote:

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:43:10 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote:

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 19:34:36 -0500, Robert Myers
wrote:


snip


Your position is remarkably similar to the position of the Chairman of
Exxon Mobil. :-).

To repeat: he's right about the scale; *possibly* wrong about the energy
balance but you have to believe people with bio-interests to get there.

Here's an aggressive effort (from the NRDC) to make it all look
reasonable:

http://www.bio.org/ind/GrowingEnergy.pdf

They get the required land down to about 100 million acres of
switchgrass (as opposed to 30 million acres currently under
cultivation as switchgrass in the Conservation Resource Program out of
700 million acres of U.S. cropland and rangeland).

The assumptions are aggressive, and it is not a near-term solution.
Figure 1 of the Executive Summary shows a ten-percentish contribution
to gasoline demand only by about 2020.

So when the weather doesn't cooperate, we have floods and the switch grass
harvest fails, is that an "interruption" in supplies?

As it stands right now, a major crop failure in the U.S. could be
catastrophic for the world food supply under the right circumstances.

And I'm sure we can come up with some kind of farm subsidy purchase
and storage program to hedge against that sort of situation. Have to
take care of those farmers, you know. :-).

You *do* realize that switchgrass grown on rangeland would probably be
in *red* states?

... to suggest that the net balance
in energy does not matter is heresy... apparently acquired by ignoring that
crude oil *is* stored energy.

But so what? You can't hook your car up to a nuclear reactor or a
coal-fired plant or run it on waste heat from biomass, but you can use
that energy in making ethanol if you have to.

But at a gain/loss which is barely self-sustaining even by the best
estimates... and what about the rest of the world?

Table 20 of the NRDC document I cited shows *net* oil displacement of
between 1 and 2 barrels of oil per dry ton of biomass.

...and what about the rest of the world?

Switchgrass can be grown on beaten up, marginal land that is
unsuitable for much of anything else except possibly grazing. I
suspect substantial worldwide acreage is available for something like
switchgrass. Maybe even the Russians can figure out how to grow it.

There are huge
political hurdles to get over here too.

There is a *huge* pile of rice straw in Gridley, California, where
they figured to solve their rice straw problem (can't burn it anymore)
by turning it into ethanol. Big NIMBY problems. And all they
*really* wanted to do was to find a way to get rid of all that damn
rice straw. They would have done better to get all the problems
worked out before ordering up that big pile of rice straw. We have to
work those problems sometime.

There's going to be oil for
decades - worry is the interest paid on trouble before it's due.

Apres moi, le deluge, eh, George? :-).

There's been alot of silliness since the 1974 Arab Oil Embargo. A
program to explore production and distribution of biofuel is one of
the more sensible steps we can take. Sure beats the hell out of
hydrogen with fuel cells and a fuel cell menbrane that doesn't even
exist. Even GM thinks dual-fuel vehicles are a good idea as a hedge
against disruption--at least they're willing to say it, whether they
believe it or not.

Oh and has anybody looked at where our petro-chemicals products will come
from without the petro-infrastructure? How to make plastics, rubbers,
solvents, detergents, etc. etc.? As you sit at your computer desk just
look around you.

Well, actually, they have. Using biomass as feedstock for the
chemicals industry is a better use for, say, soybeans than turning
them into biodiesel. Just as with petroleum, you'll see processers
fractionating to maximize profit. It's not as if vegetable oils
weren't already used extensively for industrial products. And there
will *always* be oil for those circumstances where it just can't be
done without.

snip


What's needed now is for the bio-ethanol and bio-diesel guys to fight out
which is the more efficient of the two.:-) Here's a page which has some
msgs from a guy working on a method (to be patented) to produce bio-diesel
from algae ponds:
http://forums.biodieselnow.com/topic...41&whichpage=1 and
here's a snippet from him:

"On a net energy yield per acre they're similar, but the energy balance (or
preferably Energy Return on Investment) is just as important. With corn,
there is a greater energy input to get that net output than with soy.
Still, neither of them is really suitable for a wide-scale energy crop. The
yield from both is just too low. They are nice crops to use as a
dual-purpose crop, provided there is a market for the meal product, but
they should never be grown specifically for fuel production."

On a net energy basis, ethanol from seed (corn or beans) is a
non-starter--too much energy content is just thrown away. Bio-diesel
from seed also throws a large part of the energy content away.
Ethanol from cellulose has to be made to work.

I don't see how you can play celluslose as a game winner - without even
looking at the details I'd estimate that the EROI is going to be even worse
than corn-ethanol. IOW your going to be throwing away at least as much of
the energy content.

How this will really work awaits actual demonstration. As I said, the
NRDC document (which, just as I have been arguing to do, looks at
displaced oil, not displaced energy) claims net effective oil yield on
any number of scenarios.

RM

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 17:04:22 -0500, Robert Myers
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 08:01:33 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote:

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 08:01:16 -0500, Robert Myers
wrote:

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 00:19:32 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote:

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 21:18:02 -0500, Robert Myers
wrote:

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 19:31:29 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote:


snip


The problem has been that people are unwilling to invest in renewables
without knowing what the market price for product is going to be.
Letting the price of petroleum float upward on its own means we will
be in serious trouble by the time it is reliably high enough.

I dunno what you want to do about that - whingeing doesn't help
anything.;-) Maybe the petro/energy companies should be involved more in
"renewables" but I think they'll bite when there's evidence. You don't
think they're going to sit on their thumbs and watch somebody else claim
the market.

I don't know what the energy companies are going to do. My take is
that they are going to use every scrap of influence they've got to
keep their guaranteed franchise as long as they can. Corporations can
be as short-sighted as any institution or person, and they are not
immortal. Because Exxon-Mobil is completely dismissive of any
solution other than the solution it currently sells doesn't mean the
solution should be dismissed.

The fact that they are not rabidly anti-anything counts for a lot. They
have the pool of scientists and engineers to evaluate "problems" and
options for solutions. They are no more self-serving than the greens and
the bio-mass interests trying to hack a new industry out of a dubious
technology. They're more likely to come up with viable alternatives than
anybody else IMO.

I'm sorry if it seems like whingeing to you. It's a complicated
debate, it's been going on for a long time, and the rules keep
changing. I have my own take. The only thing I am clear about is
that the need to secure supplies of imported oil has an unacceptable
impact on U.S. foreign policy and security arrangements.

Everything is interruptible - you just can't have 100% guaranteed anything
and this is a global problem. It occurs to me that the greens in Europe,
who have managed to railroad through the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy)
initiatives that return farmland to nature, are going to be really ****ed
about reusing it to "grow" fuel:-)... not sure they have enough land
anyway.


You're still living in that phony "energy" crisis. We don't have an
energy crisis, we have a transporation fuel crisis. Greenhouse gases
may be a concern, but they are not the most immediate concern.

ME? I'm not worried about any energy crisis and we do *not* currently have
a transportation fuel crisis - wave your arms if you like.

No intention of doing any arm-waving. Crisis-Not crisis is just a
matter of words. Our vulnerability to a disruption in the supply of
imported oil is a crisis, as far as I'm concerned. Call it what you
like. Our military is stretched thin, and the best future sources of
oil and natural gas outside North America look like a CIA factbook of
trouble spots. Even GM thinks that vehicles that can be fueled with
ethanol or e85 in a pinch are a good idea.

Like I said, disruptions are going to happen no matter what we have as a
fuel. You're also always going to have "foreign policy" issues even
without petroleum supply as a trigger. Hell, if China decides to go
belligerent again, where will your PC come from?

Since I know you've been in the business, :-, I'll suggest that the
"Energy Crisis" should really be called a system modelling crisis,
brought on in no small part by the work of Jay Forrester, who gave a
fairly recent talk entitled, "All computer models are wrong."
Forrester and the Club of Rome predicted the end of resources, the oil
embargo (only one of about a dozen supply interruptions in the last
half century) gave the idea a push, and the government hired its own
system modellers to fight back.

One model, for which I cannot locate the reference, assumed the price
of oil would rise to something like $12/barrel, at which point it
would effectively be capped by energy available at that equivalent
price from some other energy source (presumably nuclear power).

It's easy to dig up critiques by people who didn't get their "share".
Saying "all computer models are wrong" is facile and trite - every good
modeller knows the limitations of his models and that they are not perfect.
What did Forrester use for his "predicted" outcomes?... tea leaves?


But Forrester did get his share of the action. He is a certified
systems modelling wizard. Bitterness cannot be his motivation.

I'm not sure he had much to do with the models we've talked about till now.

Before the mid-60's, people did not use systems models to formulate
policy. It seems almost unimaginable now to address some complex
policy question without a computer model. Forrester is almost an icon
of that development. The models often conceal tremendous ignorance
and uncertainty, and he has acknowledged that.

There are models and err, models - a quantitative mathematical model of
energy related operations bears little resemblence to a model which
simulates socio-economic systems, with qualitative inputs.

As to Forrester, I have no idea what he tells himself when he wakes up
in the middle of the night. Everything's okay now because he's got
GAMS (Generalized Algebraic Modeling System)?

Does he? I've no idea if he's involved in current efforts with that
particular model which uses GAMS but it doesn't sound like his err, cup of
tea to me. If that was a stab at GAMS it has nothing to do with me and
sounds like a cheap shot... unless I'm misreading your angle here. I
respect the guy who developed GAMS though I think some of its system design
stinks.:-)

As for "that model" (I think you know its name ?:-)) it's easy to take pot
shots at somebody else's efforts, especially when he/they've never actually
used the model or even seen how it can be used. There's so much rubbish
been written -- much of the writing apparently based on ignorance and
naivety -- about it by people who have a different view of how to tackle
the problem: there are people who want to "simulate" and people who want to
"optimize" - it's an old argument.

Even a very aggressive biomass program could only affect the problem
at the margins, but consider how cooperative Saudi Arabia became when
they considered the prospect of a U.S. market that didn't need them
anymore, no matter how distant the actual prospect was. I'd like to
meet the man in the Pentagon that doesn't work directly out of the
Office of the Secretary of Defense and who thinks this problem can be
worked militarily. I don't.

Christ the Saudis knew we could never be serious about self-sufficiency in
energy - I've no idea where you pulled that from. I've already told you
they have scientists too... many of them trained in the US. They used our
models... more likely the reason they became "cooperative".


We'll have to disagree about this. Terrorism is a sideshow. Money
and power are the center ring. Some analysts think the terrorism is
just another line of business made possible by the amount of money
sloshing around. You can believe what you like. I believe that part
of the swagger is the feeling that the oil exporters have the U.S.
over a barrel.

I believe that the relationship is more symbiotic than that... and the OPEC
countries didn't take long to realize where they stood/stand.

--
Rgds, George Macdonald

On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 10:17:32 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 17:04:22 -0500, Robert Myers
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 08:01:33 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote:

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 08:01:16 -0500, Robert Myers
wrote:

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 00:19:32 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote:

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 21:18:02 -0500, Robert Myers
wrote:

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 19:31:29 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote:


snip


The problem has been that people are unwilling to invest in renewables
without knowing what the market price for product is going to be.
Letting the price of petroleum float upward on its own means we will
be in serious trouble by the time it is reliably high enough.

I dunno what you want to do about that - whingeing doesn't help
anything.;-) Maybe the petro/energy companies should be involved more in
"renewables" but I think they'll bite when there's evidence. You don't
think they're going to sit on their thumbs and watch somebody else claim
the market.

I don't know what the energy companies are going to do. My take is
that they are going to use every scrap of influence they've got to
keep their guaranteed franchise as long as they can. Corporations can
be as short-sighted as any institution or person, and they are not
immortal. Because Exxon-Mobil is completely dismissive of any
solution other than the solution it currently sells doesn't mean the
solution should be dismissed.

The fact that they are not rabidly anti-anything counts for a lot. They
have the pool of scientists and engineers to evaluate "problems" and
options for solutions. They are no more self-serving than the greens and
the bio-mass interests trying to hack a new industry out of a dubious
technology. They're more likely to come up with viable alternatives than
anybody else IMO.

The oil companies are not an honest broker. The deal is: you protect
the supply lines and we'll deliver the oil (and take the profit). I
don't know that, as a citizen, I care for that arrangement. Oil
distorts our security posture and foreign policy. You'll never catch
Lee R. Raymond signing up to that.

I'm sorry if it seems like whingeing to you. It's a complicated
debate, it's been going on for a long time, and the rules keep
changing. I have my own take. The only thing I am clear about is
that the need to secure supplies of imported oil has an unacceptable
impact on U.S. foreign policy and security arrangements.

Everything is interruptible - you just can't have 100% guaranteed anything
and this is a global problem. It occurs to me that the greens in Europe,
who have managed to railroad through the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy)
initiatives that return farmland to nature, are going to be really ****ed
about reusing it to "grow" fuel:-)... not sure they have enough land
anyway.

No, I don't think they do. However, if the movement really took off,
I'm sure we'd wind up with a big environmental battle over converting
grasslands to energy production. There's alot of marginal arible land
in the world.

Nobody said anything about 100% guaranteed anything. If there is a
crop failure in South Dakota, we're not going to send an expeditionary
force up the Mississippi to deal with it. I want to take oil off the
table as much as possible as a military concern. I suspect there are
many rational military planners who would say the same, were it
politically feasible to do so.


You're still living in that phony "energy" crisis. We don't have an
energy crisis, we have a transporation fuel crisis. Greenhouse gases
may be a concern, but they are not the most immediate concern.

ME? I'm not worried about any energy crisis and we do *not* currently have
a transportation fuel crisis - wave your arms if you like.

No intention of doing any arm-waving. Crisis-Not crisis is just a
matter of words. Our vulnerability to a disruption in the supply of
imported oil is a crisis, as far as I'm concerned. Call it what you
like. Our military is stretched thin, and the best future sources of
oil and natural gas outside North America look like a CIA factbook of
trouble spots. Even GM thinks that vehicles that can be fueled with
ethanol or e85 in a pinch are a good idea.

Like I said, disruptions are going to happen no matter what we have as a
fuel. You're also always going to have "foreign policy" issues even
without petroleum supply as a trigger. Hell, if China decides to go
belligerent again, where will your PC come from?


Oh, I think we can survive a PC crunch. The world has already clearly
fought one World War over oil. Can we avoid another major conflict by
making bioethanol? I doubt it very much, but I'd rather do something
than nothing, and all the other proposed strategies look like losers
to me.

snip


Before the mid-60's, people did not use systems models to formulate
policy. It seems almost unimaginable now to address some complex
policy question without a computer model. Forrester is almost an icon
of that development. The models often conceal tremendous ignorance
and uncertainty, and he has acknowledged that.

There are models and err, models - a quantitative mathematical model of
energy related operations bears little resemblence to a model which
simulates socio-economic systems, with qualitative inputs.

I think I understand the difference between doing economics and doing
process engineering. A process engineering model allows you to keep
books. You know what your assumptions are, and, if something comes
out wrong, you can dicover what assumption was broken and either
adjust the model or change the process. Economic models try to do the
same thing, but they inevitably wind up curve fitting the past.

As to Forrester, I have no idea what he tells himself when he wakes up
in the middle of the night. Everything's okay now because he's got
GAMS (Generalized Algebraic Modeling System)?

Does he? I've no idea if he's involved in current efforts with that
particular model which uses GAMS but it doesn't sound like his err, cup of
tea to me. If that was a stab at GAMS it has nothing to do with me and
sounds like a cheap shot... unless I'm misreading your angle here. I
respect the guy who developed GAMS though I think some of its system design
stinks.:-)

It's Hogan who implies things would have been much easier (better?) if
he'd had GAMS available. Not a swipe at GAMS. Maybe a swipe at
Forrester (this business stinks, but it's sure been good to me). In a
broader sense, a swipe at modelling, the business that got me into
computers.


As for "that model" (I think you know its name ?:-)) it's easy to take pot
shots at somebody else's efforts, especially when he/they've never actually
used the model or even seen how it can be used. There's so much rubbish
been written -- much of the writing apparently based on ignorance and
naivety -- about it by people who have a different view of how to tackle
the problem: there are people who want to "simulate" and people who want to
"optimize" - it's an old argument.


Weelll, I've tested your patience here because you do know a little
bit. My conclusion about computer models is that the one that gives
the answer the policymakers want to hear is the one that's correct.
It would all be kind of comical if people didn't make such expensive
decisions based on the models. If Forrester's characterization is
correct, "All computer models are wrong," we should all take a big
step back.

To the extent that the DoD wants an honest answer, they hire multiple
vendors. That's why I'm skeptical of an official model like the, er,
National Energy Modeling System.

One of the reaons Keith here can be so smug about computers as servers
is that, if you do the arithmetic correctly, back everything up, and
receive and deliver data correctly, you've done your job. With a
model, with decision support analysis, even with "data mining," you've
done something, and chances are it will wind up as "product," e.g. a
briefing chart, but whether you've done anything useful or not is
another matter. If some guy at the Harvard Business Review decides he
wants to write an article called "IT Doesn't Matter," managers can
slash the IT budget and not really ever know whether it matters or
not.

RM

On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 11:32:48 -0500, Robert Myers
wrote:

On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 10:17:32 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 17:04:22 -0500, Robert Myers
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 08:01:33 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote:

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 08:01:16 -0500, Robert Myers
wrote:

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 00:19:32 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote:


snip


The problem has been that people are unwilling to invest in renewables
without knowing what the market price for product is going to be.
Letting the price of petroleum float upward on its own means we will
be in serious trouble by the time it is reliably high enough.

I dunno what you want to do about that - whingeing doesn't help
anything.;-) Maybe the petro/energy companies should be involved more in
"renewables" but I think they'll bite when there's evidence. You don't
think they're going to sit on their thumbs and watch somebody else claim
the market.

I don't know what the energy companies are going to do. My take is
that they are going to use every scrap of influence they've got to
keep their guaranteed franchise as long as they can. Corporations can
be as short-sighted as any institution or person, and they are not
immortal. Because Exxon-Mobil is completely dismissive of any
solution other than the solution it currently sells doesn't mean the
solution should be dismissed.

The fact that they are not rabidly anti-anything counts for a lot. They
have the pool of scientists and engineers to evaluate "problems" and
options for solutions. They are no more self-serving than the greens and
the bio-mass interests trying to hack a new industry out of a dubious
technology. They're more likely to come up with viable alternatives than
anybody else IMO.

The oil companies are not an honest broker. The deal is: you protect
the supply lines and we'll deliver the oil (and take the profit). I
don't know that, as a citizen, I care for that arrangement. Oil
distorts our security posture and foreign policy. You'll never catch
Lee R. Raymond signing up to that.

Which closet have you been living in?:-) You really think the greens and
bio-interests are err, altruists?... honest brokers?... WHY? If they get
the slightest chance they'll implement some Rube scheme which ****es more
energy away than it generates as long as they get the dough. Hell the
academics are falling over themselves to get patents in the submarines as
the ship is coming into the cross-hairs... often as not financed by public
funds anyway... scandalous!

I'm sorry if it seems like whingeing to you. It's a complicated
debate, it's been going on for a long time, and the rules keep
changing. I have my own take. The only thing I am clear about is
that the need to secure supplies of imported oil has an unacceptable
impact on U.S. foreign policy and security arrangements.

Everything is interruptible - you just can't have 100% guaranteed anything
and this is a global problem. It occurs to me that the greens in Europe,
who have managed to railroad through the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy)
initiatives that return farmland to nature, are going to be really ****ed
about reusing it to "grow" fuel:-)... not sure they have enough land
anyway.

No, I don't think they do. However, if the movement really took off,
I'm sure we'd wind up with a big environmental battle over converting
grasslands to energy production. There's alot of marginal arible land
in the world.

In Europe they're "returning to nature" some of the best, most productive
farmland on the planet - it's nuts... what happens when you have what
amounts to a Politburo of elite bureaucrats in charge I guess. I can't
believe people are sitting still for what's going on there.

Nobody said anything about 100% guaranteed anything. If there is a
crop failure in South Dakota, we're not going to send an expeditionary
force up the Mississippi to deal with it. I want to take oil off the
table as much as possible as a military concern. I suspect there are
many rational military planners who would say the same, were it
politically feasible to do so.

You're going to have to draw a line and fight at some point anyway -
there's always going to be some psycho megalomaniac to deal with, like
Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong Il. If we weren't pre-empting them, those
people would run the world.

If there was a crop failure, which we have no control over, we'd have a
serious interruption... economic and social collapse - remember how it was
with just gas lines in '77(?). I'd rather hear arguments about the
technology than some socio-political reason for switching fuel sources.

snip


Before the mid-60's, people did not use systems models to formulate
policy. It seems almost unimaginable now to address some complex
policy question without a computer model. Forrester is almost an icon
of that development. The models often conceal tremendous ignorance
and uncertainty, and he has acknowledged that.

There are models and err, models - a quantitative mathematical model of
energy related operations bears little resemblence to a model which
simulates socio-economic systems, with qualitative inputs.

I think I understand the difference between doing economics and doing
process engineering. A process engineering model allows you to keep
books. You know what your assumptions are, and, if something comes
out wrong, you can dicover what assumption was broken and either
adjust the model or change the process. Economic models try to do the
same thing, but they inevitably wind up curve fitting the past.

Theres a fuzzy area in between though and you *do* want to know whether a
scenario is actually feasible in practice.

As to Forrester, I have no idea what he tells himself when he wakes up
in the middle of the night. Everything's okay now because he's got
GAMS (Generalized Algebraic Modeling System)?

Does he? I've no idea if he's involved in current efforts with that
particular model which uses GAMS but it doesn't sound like his err, cup of
tea to me. If that was a stab at GAMS it has nothing to do with me and
sounds like a cheap shot... unless I'm misreading your angle here. I
respect the guy who developed GAMS though I think some of its system design
stinks.:-)

It's Hogan who implies things would have been much easier (better?) if
he'd had GAMS available. Not a swipe at GAMS. Maybe a swipe at
Forrester (this business stinks, but it's sure been good to me). In a
broader sense, a swipe at modelling, the business that got me into
computers.

Blame the tools is more like it; he'd also have needed 25years or so of
developments in optimization methods and software. People write papers for
whatever reason - the other model, from BNL, got much wider
recognition?shrug BTW he still wore a uniform at the start of the
project and there were several very knowledgeable, experienced people who
told him he was on the wrong track.. but then again, for all I know,
someone was pulling *his* strings. I dropped out of INFORMS a few years
ago -- still dunno what to do with the dead trees I've got littering the
place:-) -- and Hogan doesn't have the paper on his Web site. I guess I
could hunt it down at the office if I got motivated.

As for "that model" (I think you know its name ?:-)) it's easy to take pot
shots at somebody else's efforts, especially when he/they've never actually
used the model or even seen how it can be used. There's so much rubbish
been written -- much of the writing apparently based on ignorance and
naivety -- about it by people who have a different view of how to tackle
the problem: there are people who want to "simulate" and people who want to
"optimize" - it's an old argument.


Weelll, I've tested your patience here because you do know a little
bit. My conclusion about computer models is that the one that gives
the answer the policymakers want to hear is the one that's correct.
It would all be kind of comical if people didn't make such expensive
decisions based on the models. If Forrester's characterization is
correct, "All computer models are wrong," we should all take a big
step back.

Probably some truth in what you say about the "answer" which fits but
models can always/usually be manipulated to get the "right result". OTOH,
the oil companies have done rather well with the use of planning models,
both tactical and strategic; LP is a good fit for their problems of course
but it does err, "work".

No model is going to make everybody happy but IME, even if not 100%
correct, the benefits of most good models come from studying and
understanding the behavior of the system being modeled under various
different conditions; at that point flaws can often be ferreted out and
enhancement tweaks added.

To the extent that the DoD wants an honest answer, they hire multiple
vendors. That's why I'm skeptical of an official model like the, er,
National Energy Modeling System.

One of the reaons Keith here can be so smug about computers as servers
is that, if you do the arithmetic correctly, back everything up, and
receive and deliver data correctly, you've done your job. With a
model, with decision support analysis, even with "data mining," you've
done something, and chances are it will wind up as "product," e.g. a
briefing chart, but whether you've done anything useful or not is
another matter. If some guy at the Harvard Business Review decides he
wants to write an article called "IT Doesn't Matter," managers can
slash the IT budget and not really ever know whether it matters or
not.

PIES was awfully ambitious for its day - both hardware and software was
*stretched*. I'm not sure if anybody ever compared its "results" with
Markal but both helped keep CDC in business for a few extra years. The
oil/energy companies were very unhappy about much of both models - they
regarded their data as private, were understandably stingy with it and the
"bad data" was then used to discredit the model. Even good models have
enemies on all fronts though, when the model doesn't support their agenda.

Ya know I'm just waiting for an OT rant from somebody. I think we've
covered just about all that we should here... and more. It's been
interesting but it's turning into a blog.

--
Rgds, George Macdonald

On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 02:41:54 -0500, George Macdonald
wrote:



PIES was awfully ambitious for its day - both hardware and software was
*stretched*. I'm not sure if anybody ever compared its "results" with
Markal but both helped keep CDC in business for a few extra years. The
oil/energy companies were very unhappy about much of both models - they
regarded their data as private, were understandably stingy with it and the
"bad data" was then used to discredit the model. Even good models have
enemies on all fronts though, when the model doesn't support their agenda.


I don't know quite the right tone to strike in talking about models.
They are often so grotesquely misused, but then so are actual data.
Systems models just happened to come of age at the dawn of the "Energy
Crisis." The models helped to shape the language of the debate as
well as the predictions and conclusions.

Ya know I'm just waiting for an OT rant from somebody. I think we've
covered just about all that we should here... and more.

Let me leave you with a link:

http://www.energycommission.org/

There, you can download their December, 2004 report "Ending the Energy
Stalemate."

The presence of Ralph Cavanagh of the NRDC and James Woolsey probably
guaranteed that the scenario I have been talking about, biofuels as a
way to reduce dependence on insecure sources of imported oil, would be
put forward. I wasn't aware of Woolsey's position until just
recently, but he has been saying similar things about the security
implications of imported oil since a 1999 article in Commentary, and
he has proposed biofuels as a plausible alternative fuel. The NRDC,
of course, put forward a detailed scenario for biofuels that I
referred to earlier in the thread.

The Economist the conclusions as to whether they would make the
environmentalists or industry happy. I suspect the report as a whole
will make no one happy.

RM