Snowpocalypse Edition
Well, let it stop snowing already, please. Bah, humbug.
After that tremendously warm autumn, winter is here with a vengeance. It is at least seven degrees colder today than it usually is in Sendai in December, and it’s been snowing on and off for days. Hellish to drive on, we have fresh powder snow over black compacted ice.
And it is Christmas Day on Friday. And I haven’t done my Xmas shopping yet. Eeek.
At least the forum is looking good:
This week’s links
- I found this article slightly obnoxious, as it seems to deliberately miss the point… https://life.spectator.co.uk/…/fire-may-let-you…/amp/
- Interesting deep dive on vaccines and Covid-19: https://nymag.com/…/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-design.html
- Mark’s videos on insulation, ventilation, and other housing topics are excellent (he’s also a certified Passivhaus consultant): https://www.youtube.com/…/UCge8H5rEvJ46tdKR51gzx_Q/videos
- Falsifying nuclear data again? Put these people in prison already.https://mainichi.jp/…/arti…/20201214/p2a/00m/0na/012000c
- More detail on raising health insurance copays for seniors: https://japantoday.com/…/japan-to-raise-medical-fees…?
- I remember when these guys started their site
Kind of the like the US hipster version of Marie Kondo: https://youtu.be/jn-xbOCZOiQ - Interesting breakdown of salaries in Japan: https://www.reddit.com/…/the_ntas_2019_privatesector…/
- This interview with Bill Bengen (father of the 4% rule) is excellent: https://www.kitces.com/…/bill-bengen-4-percent-rule…/
- Someone made it over the wire
http://howtoretireearly.net/that-guy/ - Someone reminded me of how much I enjoyed binge-reading this blog back in the day: https://livingafi.com/
- It was a hell of a ride: https://awealthofcommonsense.com/…/my-2020-investing…/
- I’ve been following Richard for a long time, interesting to follow his progress learning a new language from scratch: http://speakingfluently.com/…/15/get-into-gear-for-korea/
- This is good. My takeaway? Best to save and invest as much as possible as quickly as possible. Future you will be very grateful: https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/standing/
- I enjoyed this little parable: https://contrarianedge.com/downhill-racing-meets-value…/
- Some really nice ones in here: https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/sure/
- The CEO of Shopify talks about… various things: https://www.theobservereffect.org/tobi.html
- This dinosaur is going to destroy his company: https://mainichi.jp/…/arti…/20201218/p2a/00m/0bu/004000c
- Financial origin stories (check out who is #1): https://monevator.com/financial-origin-story/#comments
What do you think? Anything good in there? If I had to choose one, maybe #16?
I like #17. Peeps complaining they can’t do that when the rest of the world is doing by rapidly expanding their EV fleets and choices. Not everyone wants a Tesla.
Yes, the problem is political in the energy sector, but the notion of needing 20 years of research only to achieve this is pure BS, these people just don’t want to change and are hoping to ride the tide until they retire. Actually, let’s make them retire much earlier via shareholder pressure because these guys are obstructionists.
Get a few energy companies in Japan’s energy market with the drive of Tesla and we’ll see a real change in 20 years, not just research.
“17. This dinosaur is going to destroy his company” Really? As a car manufacturer, you can bet Mr Toyoda will either make or, sooner or later, follow the trends. In this argument, though, he has a valid point about the knee-jerk instinct to “go over to all-electric cars”. For starters, electric cars rely on conversion of electricity into motion energy. Because the electricity has to be generated somewhere, there is at least one more energy-conversion step required to drive electric cars. At each step, energy is lost. Internal combustion engines (ICE’s) have only one energy conversion step (gasolene to motion), so it’s a no brainer that ICE’s are more energy-efficient. Pollution and global warming are different, though valid, issues but probably little different overall once you look at what it takes to make an electric car. Unless electric cars pick up from a track or overhead wire, they also require a huge battery to store the electrical energy. Take a look at all the toxic components that are needed to make a battery, plus the huge energy required in the manufacturing of such batteries. Then what about the cost and pollution risks of recycling such batteries. It’s rather like nuclear power stations – they always make a huge loss (monetarily, as well as environmentally) when factoring in costs of construction, extraction and purification of nuclear fuels, then the costs of finding somewhere to extract and store the waste and keep it safe, then the cost of decommissioning old nuclear power stations. Only the artificial support of taxpayer’s money makes these kinds of projects appear profitable but clearly they are not, and they are obviously environmentally unfriendly.
> Really?
I believe so. Even if Toyota succeeds in watering down Japan’s progress towards less polluting vehicles, other major markets (California, the EU, China!) will continue on that path and Toyota will find its products increasingly uncompetitive worldwide.
> Internal combustion engines (ICE’s) have only one energy conversion step (gasolene to motion)
To get gasoline, we need to extract crude oil (horribly wasteful and polluting process), transport it to Japan, refine it into gasoline, transport the gasoline to gas stations, then put it in cars. While current electricity generation still relies on fossil fuels, power stations are more energy efficient than cars are, and the benefit of EVs is that as you improve power generation, all existing vehicles get greener automatically.
Finally, cars pump out poisonous gases in our towns and streets, and power plants at least are mostly located away from where people live.
This is a very, very complex issue and political mandates tend to further increase polarization on the topic. And the mandates are not well thought out. Incentives or nudges to incentivize businesses regarding the goal would likely be much more effective.
Some countries have made stunning progress reducing emissions of gas cars. The current regulations in Japan seem quite dated and contribute vastly to the poisonous gases you mention Ben. I’m always surprised at the poor air quality of Tokyo. However, this costs money.
Globally, I think you’ll end up with a hybrid solution. For example, if Japan is 100% electric, I bet Africa is gas (and that’s where population is going straight up). So we’ll still be pulling gas from the ground while mining for odd metals needed for batteries.
This may be of interest. The Natural History Museum of England dug into this in 2019. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2019/june/we-need-more-metals-and-elements-reach-uks-greenhouse-goals.html
It’s taken us 100 years to put the current global petrol solution in place. Thinking that we can shift so dramatically to electric seems quite optimistic.