Tag Archives: Supply

News

Friday night movie: The Cruel Sea (1953)

Leave a comment

Here’s tonight’s movie:

IMDB rating: [7.6/10]

Description:

At the start of World War II, Cmdr. Ericson is assigned to convoy escort HMS Compass Rose with inexperienced officers and men just out of training. The winter seas make life miserable enough, but the men must also harden themselves to rescuing survivors of U-Boat attacks, while seldom able to strike back. Traumatic events afloat and ashore create a warm bond between the skipper and his first officer. Atmospheric sea footage.

The Battle of the Atlantic: British and Canadian convoys carry supplies across the North Atlantic to supply Allied forces in Europe and Africa.

Allied supply convoy crossing the Atlantic
Allied supply convoy crossing the Atlantic

Here’s a closer look at the Flower class corvette used by the heroes of the movie:

Flower class escort ship
Flower class corvette

Specifications:

  • Displacement: 950 tons
  • Dimensions: 62.5 x 10.0 x 3.5 meters (205 x 33 x 11.5 feet)
  • Propulsion: Single shaft; 2 fire tube Scotch boilers; 1 4-cyl. triple expansion steam engine, 2750 hp.;  16 knots
  • Range: 3500 nm. at 12 knots
  • Crew: 85
  • Radar: SW1C or 2C (later)
  • Sonar: Type 123A, later Type 127DV
  • Fire control: none
  • Main gun: 1 4″ BL Mk.IX single (range: 12,660 m / 13,850 yd)
  • Anti-aircraft: 2 .50 cal mg twin, 2 Lewis .303 cal mg twin
  • Anti-submarine: 2 Mk.II depth charge throwers, 2 depth charge rails with 40 depth charges

Here is a listing of common navy ships, ordered by size from largest to smallest:

  • Aircraft Carrier (CV)
  • Battleship (BB)
  • Cruiser (CA)
  • Destroyer (DD)
  • Frigate (FF)
  • Corvette (K)

Sound action stations! All ahead full!

Happy Friday!

Related posts

News

How Obama’s opposition to clean coal raises energy prices

Leave a comment

From the Washington Times.

Excerpt:

GenOn Energy said it would shutter seven coal plants and one oil-fired plant in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois with a total generating capacity of 3,140 megawatts. Midwest Generation followed suit with an advisory that it would close two coal plants serving Chicago.

The shutdowns represent a victory for President Obama, who in a 2008 interview as a candidate signaled his intention to run the coal industry into the ground: “So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can, it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s emitted.”

The president has made good on his promise. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has squeezed coal producers in its campaign to halt carbon dioxide, the same “greenhouse gas” all animals produce when exhaling. In December, the agency announced new regulations limiting mercury emissions that will force many power plants out of business within four years.

The EPA estimates utilities across the country will need to shell out at least $9.4 billion in 2015 to meet its new mandate, but House Republicans put the true cost at $84 billion. Companies that stay in business will have to install expensive equipment that will drive up consumers’ monthly electric bills. The average retail price of electricity in America already has climbed 46 percent since 1997, says the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Cleaner-burning natural gas is touted as a viable substitute for coal but the transition can’t be completed overnight. In the meantime, the nation’s net electricity generation is falling, down 7.1 percent from 2010 to 2011, says the EIA. Demand for electricity is projected to rise by 35 percent by 2035.

Green-energy enthusiasts look to windmills, solar panels and vegetable oil to save the day, but these trendy energy sources combined generate less than 5 percent of the nation’s energy – despite billions in subsidies. The net result of this policy could be electricity shortfalls when usage peaks in the summer. The energy brain trust has a remedy: Millions of homes across the country have been equipped with “smart meters” that can be instructed to hold back the juice. Brownouts might dim the future as Americans in the Age of Obama learn to get by with less.

The troublesome thing is that it is always the poorest families that have to pay the price for Obama’s Peter Pan energy policy. The rich Hollywood celebrities and wealthy Wall Street bankers who backed Obama in 2008 don’t mind paying a few more dollars.

News

How the Obama administration deliberately ships jobs overseas

1 Comment

From the Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:

This month, one year since the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, the Noble Clyde Boudreaux—an ultra-deepwater semi-submersible drilling rig—will start operations off the coast of Brazil. Until a few weeks ago it was stationed in the Gulf.

The two events are not unrelated. Moving the Noble out of U.S. waters is one of the adverse consequences of the Obama administration’s overreaction to last year’s Gulf spill.

Despite the president’s repeated claims that he’s been “encouraging” domestic oil production, administration policies have been driving drilling rigs out of the Gulf (six deepwater rigs in addition to the Noble have left the Gulf, with two more possibly on the way out). The overall result has been lower domestic oil production, slower economic growth, job losses and higher energy prices.

In the immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill, President Obama announced a six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling. According to the administration’s estimates, this cost nearly 19,000 jobs in the Gulf states alone—even though federal researchers then cut the figure by an ad hoc factor of 40%-60% to make the results more palatable.

In the months after lifting the ban, the administration slowed drilling permits to a crawl, effectively creating what some have called a “permatorium.” Dismayed by the delays, in February U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman tried to force the administration to act on seven pending permits, calling the inaction on permits “increasingly inexcusable.” Permitting has picked up recently, thanks in part to increasing political pressure, but remains far below pre-spill levels.

In December, the White House reversed course on its own five-year plan to open portions of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Mid-Atlantic and the South Atlantic to offshore exploration. This effectively locks up an estimated 7.6 billion barrels of oil and 36.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Do you know what happens when the supply of a commodity goes down? Prices go up! And when gas prices go up, the price of every consumer good that is shipped using trucks and planes and boats also goes up.

Related posts