On Haiti and on internet comments about the 2010 earthquake.

Reading the inane comments on Huffington Post and other blogs such as flipcollective, here is my take on these things.

Right after the earthquakes, liberal-retard (a redundancy) commentators scream about historical events in theearly 1800's, thinking the misery of today was caused by events more than 200 years ago. Haiti was given an effective "reset" by the US occupation Haiti from 1915-1934. During that time, all but 2 currently existing bridges were built; the Peligre Dam (source of 1/2 of the electricity) was started; Port-au-Prince was the first city in Carribean/Latin America to have an automatic dialing phone system; General Hospital of Port-au Prince was built; 1000 miles of roads were built; the first and still main Agricultural College was established in Damiens; etc.. When the Americans left, Haiti was not a bad place; of course, it soon started to slide down.

From "Testing global interdependence: issues on trade, aid, migration and development", by Ernest Aryeetey,
Natalia E. Dinello:

In 1950, Haiti was 36% richer than South Korea, in 1998 South Korea was 16 times richer that Haiti.
In 1950 the Haitian economy was more or less at the same level as the economy of the Dominican Republic.
2009 per capita income, of Haiti = 1,340; of Dominican Republic = 8,672.
Per capita GDP was nearly twice as high in Haiti as in Bangladesh back in 1950--but by 2001, per capita
output was higher in Bangladesh than in Haiti (by about 15 percent).

Shortly after WW2, many Jamaicans immigrated to Haiti since - at the time - Haiti was more promising. At least 2 became millionaires there; 1 of them became a Haitian citizen but was forced - in 1964 - to hand over more than $5 million (US currency) to the Duvaliers. Many Jamaicans left Haiti in the 50's and 60's; some went back to Jamaica.

The main problem is land property rights, thus the peasants cannot build credit and sustain any enterprise.
Now, one builds temporary shelters, and then what?

The second main problem is deforestation and attending water problem. Most of the rivers are dry. The biggest river, the Artibonite has its source in the Dominican Republic (DR); if DR was as bad as Haiti, the Artibonite would be dry. There was an area of Port-au-Prince where mud flowed down the road after a heavy rain; then, a few years later, no more mud but rocks were then washed down the road.

Culturally, the elite focused too much on the past and wax nostalgic about the War of Independence (it is indeed a glorious story). Indeed, out in the countryside many Haitians have Greek or Roman names because slaves cannot have Christian names. The French colonial legal system had 16 racial grades, going from pure white to pure black. Some intermediary grades: mulatto, grimeau, quadroon, octaroon, etc... The fine racial distinctions are still pertinent today socially.

Is voodoo a cause of Haiti's poverty? Do not think so. Voodoo did play an important role in Haiti's independence and it is one of the few cohesive organization in Haiti. Although Jean-Francois (papa Doc) Duvalier was born and raised in Haiti, his parents were from Martinique: he was an outsider. In order to have any political future, he allied himself with the voodoo association of hongans and mambos: he would still have won the 1956 election without the fraud.

One commentator (not liberal): "Neither the U.S. nor any other nation wants to take over the governing of Haiti." Back in the 70's someone asked the Cuban ambassador to the UN why Castro did not send any communist agent to Haiti. Haiti is about 100 miles away, more than 50,000 Haitians were trapped in Cuba when the OAS embargo against Cuba was established. The ambassador replied: "We do not want to inherit the problems of Haiti."

One commentator (liberal): "Tariffs that allowed Haitian agriculture to compete with imports were removed, "
Nope. Tariffs on ALL imports increased, never decreased. What Haiti had and still have is crony capitalism, where a business man make a deal with the government (the president and selected others getting their piece of course) and have a nation-wide monopoly on some imported commodity, usually meaning a tariff often as high as 100%. Sugar in Haiti suffered because of tariffs in the US, so the canefields cannot be harvested (loans are based on next year's harvest and are used to pay the workers; so loans cannot be repaid and has a cascading effect). Rice in Haiti suffered because of drought and also corruption: the electricity is supplied by the Peligre Dam on the Artibonite river which irrigates the rice fields. Often the oil to be used for the lubrication of the turbomachinery is sold and the machinery grinds to a halt. No electricity. No harvest.

Let us revisit some of the rants of socialist denialist commentators on the 19th century reparations demands by France on Haiti. One would think that Haitians shit gold, piss honey, and fart perfume and that mean evil
bloodsucking caucasian capitalistic industrialists want all that gold, honey, and perfume. For a country burdened by France's indemnity demand of 150 million francs (lowered to 60 million francs, something the revisionists will not tell you), it did not stop Haiti from occupying the Dominican Republic, something the socialistic revisionists will not tell you either.

Haiti occupied the Dominican Republic from 1821 to 1844; Haitian president Boyer confiscated all church property, all lands owned by caucasians, and deported all foreign clergy. Oh, but that was the second invasion by Haiti; in 1805, the Haitian Army invaded the Dominican Republic, reached Santo Domingo, and made a fast retreat using the destroy and burn tactics.

The revisionists and socialist liberal/progressive idiots have the same affliction as many Haitian elite:
stuck in the 1800's. In 1950, about 25 percent of Haiti was covered with forest. By 1994, it was down to 4 percent. Events more than 200 years is irrelevant to Haiti's current problems.

Jamaica, Haiti, and bauxite. Reynolds Metals (now Jamaica Bauxite Mining Limited, in Jamaica) had bauxite deals with both countries. In Haiti, the bauxite site at Miragoane is one big open pit. In Jamaica, the site at Discovery Bay has the land rehabilitated: you would not have known mining took place. The ecological safeguarding is the citizens' responsibility, not the foreigners'.

In Haiti, they have a saying: we need 2 white winters (i.e. snow): the first is lesson, the second is examination.

Well, this earthquake will have to do as lesson. The second earthquake will be examination.

Various cooling methods for Earth

There are 2 main methods of cooling: radiative and convection. Radiative cooling is what is referred to by the greenhouse effect. The IR radiation of Earth is being slowed by molecules with 3 or more atoms (bending modes), such as water, methane, and co2. However, Earth is not a perfect blackbody and the IR radiation is that of the Earth's surface, mostly water. Satellite data show that although there is a rough contour of a 300K blackbody, the spectrum is that of water, with a big hole around the 600 cm-1 (one of the 2 co2 IR lines). Surface IR emissions are absorbed by water vapor, not so much by co2.

In terms of energy transport, the convection process is much more powerful and faster than the radiative
process, thanks to latent heat transfer by water phase changes. Experiment: 2 containers of water are heated to, say, 40C. Container A is a thermos without the mirroring so the water can cool only by radiation. Container B has the top opened so water can evaporate into the surroundings. Which container has the fastest
lowering temperature?

The alarmists are confused by first crying about global warming, then about climate change. GCM used to be
Global Climate Model, it is now Global Current Model, since air currents, along with the attending water dynamics, dictate climate. Well, ocean dynamics (again, water) plays a big role in climate.

Essentially all warming effects - climatewize - of co2 are mitigated by the convection mechanism. Think of the area below the clouds and about 2-3 kilometers above as the water backyard: here, co2 is water's bitch. You see clouds and conclude that water way up there come from the surface. As a mass of air goes up, adiabatic expansion occurs, lowering both temperature and pressure. Now, you say that IR is still being emitted and absorbed by co2 and reply is: yes and the clouds will be higher by less than 1 meter and have the same cooling effect.

Now the water has condensed and the air mass cooled, the descent back to the surface commences. Most water has condensed away and the % of co2 increases. Temperature rise on adiabatic compression is a function of the heat capacity ratio (Cp/Cv): the higher (Cp/Cv) is, the higher end temperature becomes. For o2, n2, h2o, and co2, the (Cp/Cv) are respectively 1.39, 1.40, 1.34, and 1.30. Here, paradoxically, the greater the co2 %, the lower would be the temperature at the end of the compression process. Now, you say IR is still being emitted and absorbed by co2 and reply is: the temperature rise from the IR absorption cancels out the lowered temperature from compression.

Strivers and Environmental Nervous Breakdowns.

In the 1980's, I read a piece (newspaper? magazine? I do not recall) related to strivers, namely people who did well in life despite being raised in a bad situation. One case stayed in my mind and involved a mother, her 2 daughters and her son. During dinner, occasionally, the mother would tell the children to stop eating because the food is poisoned. The daughters would be upset and cry while the son kept on eating. The mother and daughters end up in psychiatric care and the son became a well-adjusted man. When asked why he kept on eating, the son said: "I was not dead yet."

The global climate alarmists are like the mother and daughters. A good number of the climate skeptics are like the son. The son looked at past events and made (subconsciouly) a decision based on Bayes' Theory: quite like he is not going to die today. Everyone uses Bayes' Theory everyday: a meteor might strike you dead if you step out of the house but you still do. The exceptions are those suffering from agoraphobia, a condition listed in the psychiatrists' Bible, the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual).

One looks at the current physico-chemical state of the atmosphere, oceans, and land and asks if disaster is coming. One can look back - through geology, paleobiology, archeology - 2 billions+ years and find instances where the current state is fairly well duplicated. The biologic ecology was different. There has been no warming runaway events. There were some mass extinctions but none from too much warming; most of said extinctions were due to cooling. More on extinctions in a later post.

I want to spend some time on the case of Tuvalu, the poster child of the climate alarmists. Tuvalu is an atoll, a circular-shaped set of coral islands. Darwin was correct in proposing that the atolls originated from coral growth around volcanic or volcanic-like islands (thus the circular-like shape of the islands' positions). By a combination of island sinking (via plate tectonics) and rising sea levels (via warming events) the volcanic layer of Tuvalu is currently more than 1250 meters below sea surface. This means that coral grew 1250 meters tall on top of the volcanic islands. Coral grows somewhere between 1 cm/yr to 10 cm/yr with most corals growing at 3 cm/yr. At 3 cm/yr, 1250 meters translate into
41,700 years. A relative sea level rise of 3cm/yr for 41,700 years is extraordinary so I propose that the coral has emerged from the sea (forming a coral island) several times in past millenia. For coral need to 2 things to live: water (it has to be submerged) and light (it cannot be submerged too deeply).

Currently Tuvalu is about 6 feet above sea level, which tells me that sea level was at least 6 feet higher than it is now. Recently, from what I learned from Internet-land, divers have human artifacts about 40 meters below current sea level. Tuvalu has been inhabited for the past 2000 years. 40 meters imply (at 3 cm/yr) that previously, Tuvalu was totally submerged for at least 1300 years. At the time of the first Egyptians, there may not have been any Tuvalu. So looking back at Tuvalu, some islands emerge, some islands submerge in the grand scheme of things.

People come. People go. Civilizations die and life goes on. Level-headed people (like Bjorn Lomborg) will have Tuvaluans move elsewhere. This action is more direct, more focused, and most economical. The savings in effort and treasure can be put to better use to assist other people.

Them 200+ mpg hybrid car.

Recently, there has been a rush of announcements of hybrid cars getting more than 200 miles to the gallon.
Toyota's Prius claims to get around 50 mpg. Many people (beleivers) in Internet-land claim they get high mileage (> 60mpg) for the Prius. However, some (skeptics), who record on paper the amount of fuel bought and the odometer readings, are saying that the hybrids are getting smaller mpg than a Ford Fiesta which gets about 32 mpg. What gives?

The truth lies between the beleivers and the skeptics. The purpose of this essay is to give some ballpark figures on the hybrid versus conventional cars so as to make one become a better, more objective judge on carmaker claims.

The skeptics do a lot of highway driving, putting in at least 100 miles daily; for such driving the hybrid loses most of its competitive advantage. The beleivers may do a lot of street driving or they are putting a lot of faith on the mpg readings from the dashboard.

The main purpose of the electric component of the hybrid system is that of a kinetic energy recovery system (KERS), namely recovering the car's kinetic energy upon braking, which happens often in street driving and not so much on the freeway, especially during the off-peak hours. Conventional cars are engineered to be at maximum efficiency at 50 miles/hr. During a long period of highway driving, the battery by itself cannot provide the energy needed and thus the internal combustion engine (ICE) provides for the propulsion and battery recharge.

There are mainly 2 types of hybrids: serial and parallel. The Toyota Prius is a parallel hybrid: both the ICE and battery can provide simultaneously for propulsion, with ICE providing battery recharge at appropriate times. The Chevy Volt is a serial hybrid: the role of the ICE is to recharge the battery which in turn provides all the propulsion energy. During prolonged highway driviIng, for serial hybrids, the battery is between the ICE and propulsion and thus lowering efficiency; for parallel hybrids, the battery can be seen as dead weight.

Still staying with the highway driving case (50 miles/hr), what would be a realistic estimation of the maximum highway mpg for an ICE-only car? The car has to overcome at least 3 types of resistance: wind, rolling (tires), and drivetrain (tranmission). As a rule of thumb, at such speeds, wind resistance is about equal to the sum of rolling and drivetrain resistances. To overcome wind resistance at 50 miles/hr, an average car needs about 7.5 kilowatt of power; after 1 hour the car has travelled 50 miles and used up 7500 watt-Hour which is about the combustion energy content of about 0.2 gallon of gasoline. Assuming an average ICE converts about 30% of the combustion energy into mechanical work, the 0.2 gallon becomes 0.67 gallon. Ignoring rolling and drivetrain resistances, the mpg is 50/0.67 = 75 mpg. Accounting for rolling and drivetrain resistance, the actual mpg is closer to 75/2 = 37.5 mpg. So any claim of highway mpg much greater than 75 brings out the skeptic in me.

The American customer should not be considered a sucker, despite what P.T. Barnum said. For conventional cars, one is given at least 3 measures: city street mpg, highway mpg, and acceleration time from 0 to 60 mile/hr. Giving only 1 measure for hybrid insults the buying public. There has been many comments made in the media and Internet-land on these 100+ mpg claims, so some of what I say now is not new. These large mpg claims are predicated that 1) one drives only 60 miles per day, 2) the first 40 miles are due to the electric motor alone. What makes people contemptuous is the idea that said 40 miles is added to the remaining 20 miles powered by the ICE to calculate the mpg: 60 miles/(gasoline used to go 20 miles). If one assumes only 40 miles driven in a day, then the mpg becomes infinite, an absurd number.

The electric hybrid has an advantage over the conventional vehicule for street driving since they have KERS and the conventional car does not. In an ideal, frictionless world, the minimum energy needed to go from point A to point B, both points at same altitude is zero. However, reality is neither ideal nor frictionless. The carmakers owe the public to give an objective assessment of the hybrids' performance. I would like to see a stress test of the KERS system: disable the ICE, have the battery fully charged, go 100 meters at less than 15 mph, stop for 10 seconds and repeat until the car can go no more. Take the distance and divide by the gasoline equivalent of the battery charge. A fully charged Prius battery pack contains about 10 MegaJoule of energy, equivalent to 0.3 gallon of gasoline. Most likely the electric power is provided by coal or
natural gas plants with a 50% efficiency: said 0.3 gallon becomes 0.6 gallon. If the car is set not to allow the battery pack to below, say, 20% to prolong the battery pack's life, then the 0.6 gallon becomes 0.48 gallon.

As stated by many people, the gasoline equivalent for electric charge needs to be given. Currently electric power is a good bargain: in the US, average electric power costs 10 cents/kWH. Gasoline at $3/gallon amounts to 8.25 cents/kWH; since ICE converts 30% of combustion energy into mechanical energy, the 8.25 becomes 27.5 cents/kWH. However, Cap/Trade/Tax bill, transition from coal (cheap) to wind/solar (expensive), market forces (greater electric use brings higher electric prices) will diminish the hybrid advantage. Also, people will pay a premium for performance; if energy economy is most important then everyone will travel no faster than, say, 10 miles/hr. In future posts I will discuss some potential transportation engineering issues.

The conventional car has its advantages, especially for long distance. The ICE automobile took off after some very publicized transcontinental travels at the turn of the 20th century; there was no need for government subsidies. In 1906, a 6 cylinder, air-cooled car crossed the US in 15 days. In 1968, CalTech and MIT had an electric van race, with both vans crossing the US in 9 days; not really impressive given that there wasn't much in terms of roads and infrastructure in 1906. I would like to see a Winter Canadian transcontinental electric (or electric-hybrid) car race.

Electric Hybrids have a proper niche in the transportation ecology. Do not overhype.