Computer help

I have witnessed the advance in computer over my business life. Early in my career I helped people with financial plans for their retirement. I would gather information from them as to their current earnings and savings and what their goals were. Then by hand I would determine how much they had to invest to achieve their objective. This meant taking a percent of their current earnings which would increase over time and taking a percentage of that and investing at a projected rate of return. I would do this for each future years often time for up to 40 years. In the late 1970’s my company, using a main frame computer in New York could do this calculation for me but I had to send the information to them and wait for a return which took about two weeks. By 1980 they had such a computer in Fargo and the turn a round was reduced to two days. Then in 1982 I purchased an HP 10 calculator and a local engineering student showed me how to do the calculation and I could complete a plan in a couple of hours. Today, I could do all of that on my smart phone in a few minutes. Imagine how many situations like mine have happened and are happening.

Smaller chips

Early chips used visible light to imprint the circuits on the disk but to get more in smaller spaces UV light became the way. UV light ranges from 10 to 400 nanometers (nm) and the newest chips are 3 nanometers so how is this possible. Modern machines can use 13 nm light to imprint 3 nm chips by vaporizing tiny droplets of molten tin and using the vapor as a lens to reduce the size to 3 mn much like a light microscope can magnify. These machines are made exclusively by ASML in the Netherlands at a cost of $400 million each. Eventually these will have to be made in the US to protect the chip business from depending on outside sources. In the long run all supply chain materials will have to be made in the US.

Chips

During the mid-20th century home phones became popular with 70% of homes having a phone by 1950. At that time Bell had a regulated monopoly until 1984 when it was broken up in to smaller companies. Ma Bell became the baby Bells. Part of the agreement with the government is that Bell would share technology. In 1947 Bell invented the transiter and later how to place the transiter on a chip. This allowed connections between transiters without using wires. The first chips were memory chips and each purpose needed a special chip. Later chips were programmable and one chip could be used for many purposes. In time US companies like Apple began to design their chips and manufacture them in Tiawan. The early chips were used primarily by the military but today 99% of chips are used in private industry. Countries around the world, led by the Soviet Union, used espionage to steal research and thus never became adept at their own research. Even today the research is done by American companies. China’s entire chip industry is founded on intellectual theft. Because of the way the chip industry evolved the supply chain is world wide and this leads to possible problems with national defense. The current trend is to bring home manufacturing to the US and this includes the chip business. American companies like Apple are now producing chips in America and this will expand over time until the supply chain is all America.

Intervention

As D Day for Iran approaches, it is time to look back at the US attack on Libya in 2011. Three women, Hillary Clinton, Samantha Powers and Susan Rice convinced Obama to intervene in Libya based on their policy called, “Responsibility to Protect”. This doctrine holds that the global community must intervene when a state fails to protect its own citizens from mass atrocities. Powers, an expert on genocide, was the primary intellectual driver of this humanitarian approach. In the past few months, the Iranian government has killed anywhere from 3,000 to 30,000 of its own citizens. The numbers vary widely because the government has shut down communication to the outside world. The result of the US intervention was the end of Gaddafi followed by chaos. The 2011 US-led NATO intervention in Libya successfully overthrew Muammar Gaddafi but resulted in a power vacuum, transforming the nation into a failed state marked by15 years of civil war, terrorism, and severe humanitarian crises. The collapse of central authority led to prolonged factional fighting, economic disruption, and regional instability. The press and Congress heavily criticized President Obama for the 2011 Libya intervention, focusing on the lack of clear objectives, poor timing, and failure to seek Congressional authorization and you can expect more of the same regardless of the outcome.

U235 part two

For uranium 235 to be used in small nuclear reactors it must be enriched from .7% to 15% and there is only one place in the US where this is done and that is a plant in New Mexico. The Centrus Energy company has started production in Ohio, and a new plant is planned in Tennessee. There are currently six companies in the US, one in Canada and one in England focusing on factory built modular reactors. The Trump administration is actively pushing the development and deployment of Small Nuclear Reactors (SMR’s) with an $800 million funding for projects in Michigan and Tennessee. This includes fast tracking regulations and promoting SMR’s for national defense. Private companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft are spending $15 billion on developing SMR’s. The use of renewables cannot keep up with the need for electric power and nuclear is the only viable source of carbon free energy

U235 part one

There are nine naturally occurring radioactive elements including uranium and thorium. A radioactive element is unstable and breaks apart into new elements. It is a natural, random and uncontrollable process. Some elements are fissile meaning they can sustain the breakdown to the point of critical, leading to a nuclear explosion. Uranium, like most elements, is composed of different types called isotopes. The two isotopes vary by the number of neutrons in the nucleus. U238 has three more neutrons than U235 and it is only the U235 that can be used in a bomb. Uranium in nature is 99.3% U238 and only .7% U235, so it must be concentrated or enriched before it can be useful. The standard reactor needs U235 at 3.5 to 5%. These are formed as small pellets and put into 12-foot-long tubes and then placed in the reactor core and they are replaced about every five years. For the newer small nuclear reactors called modular reactors, the fuel must be enriched to 15% and is in the form of pellets about the size of a jelly bean. These are fed into the reactor on a continuous basis as needed and if the supply is interrupted, the reactor shuts down. This is known as walk away safety, since the unit shuts down if the power goes off and the fuel supply stops. U235 must be enriched to 20% to be used in weapons but most is enriched to 90%. One of the advantages of thorium is that it cannot be used for bombs but can be used in pellet form for the safety feature. Also, thorium is more abundant and does not have to be enriched. The first reactor made, used thorium but the government changed to uranium so they could make bombs.

Iran

Iran has been engaged in acts of violence, including the killing of American citizens and military personnel, for over four decades, primarily beginning with the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Here are some highlights 1983 Bombing the US Embassy and killing 241 Marines 1984 Kidnapping and killing CIA station chief William Buckley 1980 to present. Sustained campaigns using proxies like Hezbollah to kill US troops Presidents Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden and now Trump have stood by using diplomacy in an attempt to stop Iran but no action has been taken. Each feared that things could go wrong and the Monday morning quarterbacks were waiting in the weeds to jump out and make political hay. Congress would demand that the president consult them before acting which would give them the right to complain the loudest if things went wrong. They would sit safely on the sidelines awaiting their opportunity to spring forward with condemnations. Will Trump be the one to finally take action. Stay tuned.