Vitamin_N

If anybody wants to get into the weeds on some of the economic dynamics of EVs, here's an interview with Adam Rozencwajg of Goehring & Rozencwajg, a natural resources investment firm.

It's good to be clear on what is meant by "busiest". You can define it by number of flights or number of passengers. Charlotte is #7 by the former metric and #23 by the latter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_aircraft_movements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic#2023_statistics

The selling point of EVs is that they use lower amounts of greenhouse gases. This point has been overstated unfortunately as many calculations advancing the cause do not adequately account for the cost of everything that goes into the EV. For example, you need a bunch of lithium for those batteries, and mining is dirty work that uses a lot of fossil fuels. And more copper production will be needed to electrify everything and even current levels of copper production are problematic from an environmental perspective. The nation of Panama was recently shut down for weeks over a copper mine protest (here's the link, insert function not working for some reason: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/11/30/panama-celebrates-court-order-to-cancel-mine-even-as-business-is-hit). That's not to say EVs can't work but the technology and infrastructure are far from ready for prime time. Two things in particular are needed: (1) lots of nuclear power plants--the EROEI (energy return on energy invested) of nuclear dwarfs any other fuel source and its carbon footprint is miniscule compared to any other energy source. EVs are currently mostly powered by coal or natural gas: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_of_the_United_States#Electricity_generation) (2) an order of magnitude breakthrough in energy storage. Chemical batteries won't do the trick, we need solid state electrical storage. This would make electrical cars as well as wind and solar power much more economical and the government wouldn't have to mandate anything.

A recent thread on Reddit entitled "Worst Airport in America?" drew a bunch of upvotes and comments. I'll let you guess which airport they're talking about.

Do you think AA might restart its JetBlue partnership and codeshare out of CLT with B6?

Hopefully there won't be any earthquakes.

This was news to me but Joan's Bakery & Deli has been open on the greenway side of the metropolitan for a few months. It's takeout only but there are a few tables outside.

Yep, I went to a presentation for the new tower on Morehead on behalf of my parents and iirc it was anywhere from $6k to maybe $15k per month depending on how big of a unit. The caveat I'd make is that they don't require a massive six-figure fee up front the way some other places do but they make up for it with higher monthly charges.

I am well aware of nuclear and am in fact invested in a Duke Energy uranium supplier but it's a smaller source of electrical power nationwide. Gas is something like 40%, coal 20-25%, and nuclear 10%. If it's that old then surely you have a rebuttal to it? I've yet to see one. "Must be a talking point" is snark. Do better.

They don't though. They are most likely to be powered by coal and natural gas. "But what about wind and solar," one might ask... They're still a small proportion of total electric generation and they are not capable of providing baseload generation so in the absence of a quantum leap in battery technology and cost they will remain a sideshow. Moreover when talking about EVs you also need to take into account the tremendous amount of mining (and therefore energy for that mining) that would be needed to supply the additional lithium, copper, and other metals. It is not currently feasible to have electric-powered mining equipment.

Last time I checked (specifically, December) there were still multiple condos available at that infill condo project (called Opus, I think) at Queens & Providence and that thing was completed years ago. Those were all slightly over $1M iirc. Then there's this place in Eastover, still under construction, starting at $1.7MM and going to at least twice that.

Here's a ranking of the most kid-friendly airports in the U.S. Charlotte finished #42 out of 45 airports.

I'm a credit card buff and I've had the Barclays Aviator as well as multiple versions of the Citi AA cards. I have never once received a day pass. The only way I've ever had lounge access was from the Citi AA Executive card (speaking of which, I knew someone who figured out a way to get the 100,000 mile sign-up bonus on that card 15 times or so without paying the hefty annual fee, those were the days)... but then, I've never been EXP like you. I've also followed travel/points/miles blogs and websites for years and I've never heard of AA randomly giving out day passes to the average Joe, but maybe I've been reading the wrong sites. But yes, anyone can technically get access to the lounge if they're willing to pay the $50 or whatever it is. I think you both are arguing over semantics, specifically "exclusive" and "anyone".

Chapel Hill is certainly an offender in this regard. There's a ring of retail just over the border since they don't want to approve filthy, dirty retail within their borders. Which is why you have, for example, the Walmart on 15-501 in Chatham County is literally 500 feet from the county line. Or the large shopping centers on the other side of 15-501 about 500 feet into Durham County. Or Southpoint Mall just two miles into Durham County. Not that Walmart is something to aspire to but a while back I had a real estate professor who owned a shopping center in Chapel Hill who loved it because the town's antipathy for retail meant he could charge higher rents. That said the development seems to have changed up somewhat in the last few years--there's more high-density residential (think beige Southend apartment buildings) than there used to be. But a lot of it's scattershot and not really being done within the context of an urban framework.

I guess you should be careful what you wish for? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-03/amazon-hq2-pauses-construction-amid-layoffs-remote-work Amazon Pauses Construction on Second Headquarters in Virginia as It Cuts Jobs Delay affects three office towers, ‘Helix’ conference center Move coincides with biggest job cuts ever, remote work reality

It's growing by about 30k per year in that table so if you extrapolate that 3 more years you're at 2.96MM, give or take

Ill-informed take. "Corporate profits" are not the cause of energy cost inflation; the current energy crisis, like the upcoming food crisis, is very much a supply-side phenomenon. Oil--and more broadly, the entire energy commodities sector (coal, gas, uranium) has been in a bear market for the better part of the decade and in some cases longer. Plenty of companies went through bankruptcy, or at least too close for comfort, last decade. Energy companies are getting record profits because the low-hanging fruit is gone and it's slowly getting harder to pump oil out of the ground. OPEC doesn't even have any spare capacity anymore to pick up the slack. Moreover, American and European companies are loath to invest in new production both because of shareholder concerns (a lot of companies got burned by bad investments in the shale boom last decade) and because of ESG mandates / activism. Russia's invasion of Ukraine basically threw a cannister of gasoline on the bonfire and accelerated the timeline. The far-out part of the pricing curves haven't come up too much yet and the ESG crowd isn't backing down yet and shareholders are happy getting paid so the current situation won't improve any time soon.

According to Wikipedia they fly to... Beckley WV and Muscle Shoals AL!

I tweeted this and it ended up being my most-liked tweet ever. Which is a low bar, but still... One acquaintance of mine even booked a first class ticket with his AA miles. Aviation enthusiasts are an enthusiastic bunch! (Tried to give you some credit in the original tweet btw.) https://twitter.com/PFDigest/status/1516113737819774982?t=9fSIpqmpzJZgzb4hAOhKlw&s=19

In-N-Out is the Bojangles of California.

There was a stoplight on the rezoning amendment, was that on the original site plan? In any case, the light and crosswalks will make that section of the road a lot more pedestrian-friendly. I live a few blocks from there and I've dashed across 3rd street many a time as there is nowhere to cross between Queens and Charlottetowne.

Yes! It was even nicer (and more secret) before they took down the hedges surrounding it several years ago. I used to go there during lunch occasionally for a bit of quiet time in a green space and there was never more than 1 or 2 people there.

I'd had brief trips to Nashville a few times over the years but never enough to really see the place. I finally did four days there as a tourist last summer with my family and while I didn't dislike it I have no desire to return. I'm not saying it was bad or anything, it's just not my cup of tea. It doesn't help that I'm not into country music or the bar scene; it's probably a lot more fun with either one of those.

I can't speak to the demand side of the equation but commodities have been going nuts for the past year which is no doubt playing a big role in the cost increases. Chip shortages haven't helped either.

Some good news here: https://charlotte.axios.com/284532/5-big-takeaways-from-cmpds-end-of-year-report/