.:.Clusters - General on NewsGator Online

Texas tops all states in new wind energy

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:55:59 GMT

Texas ranks first in new wind power generating capacity, according to the second quarter market report from the American Wind Energy Association. The state added 454 megawatts in the second quarter 2009, bringing Texas’ capacity to more than 8,000 megawatts.

Charlie Rose - A look at the Microsoft Yahoo search deal

Alan Weinkrantz — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 17:43:05 GMT

via charlierose.com

For your weekend viewing....

Posted via web from Alan Weinkrantz's Stream of Life

Silicon Valley has lost its way

Graham Randall — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 05:06:38 GMT

What luck! My anniversary post coincides with a discussion about Houston’s startup culture. — Graham Randall

Seven years ago this week, I declared IT dead and moved from Silicon Valley to Houston. Of course, it didn’t happen that suddenly. I’d come to the conclusion in the months following 9/11 that Silicon Valley wasn’t producing anything worthwhile, anything of any value at all. That was, perhaps, an overly harsh assessment, but looking back at what Silicon Valley has produced in the intervening years, I don’t think I was that far off.

Mind you, what I’m really talking about here is startups and when I talk about value I mean contributing to GDP, increasing productivity, and improving the human condition. The old guard in Silicon Valley are doing plenty to create value. Apple has vastly exceeded my expectations for innovation; it’s products, especially the iPhone, contribute directly to GDP and increased productivity, and, at least for me, the iPhone has improved the human condition.

The Silicon Valley startups, however, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc., haven’t done anything of the sort. Sure they’ve attracted millions of users, and billions in investment. Facebook is even making respectable revenues off of advertising. But advertising isn’t a final good or service. It doesn’t increase productivity, and it sure as hell doesn’t improve the human condition*. Of course, not every business needs to meet these three criteria to be worthwhile, but Silicon Valley holds itself out as the idea factory for America. It has a history of fostering enormously valuable companies: Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Fairchild Semiconductor to list a few. Of all places, Silicon Valley should know better.

Instead, one could argue that the social media trend has been nothing but a massive jobs program for Silicon Valley. In the vacuum of ideas created by the bursting of the last bubble, social media was one of the few ideas to gain any traction with consumers. This attracted investment dollars, which, in turn, spurred the creation of more companies. Like an uncontrolled positive feedback loop, everyone in Silicon Valley has a vested interest in seeing these bubbles inflate, and few ask the question, “Does this make business sense?” It’s an astounding example of groupthink on a massive scale, and it’s happening over and over again. The first dotcom bubble was borne out of a similar idea vacuum, and as the old saying goes, “once is a data point, twice is a trend.”

What does this mean for Houston?

We waste a lot of time in Houston worrying about how to become the next Silicon Valley, and I’ll argue that we need to stop focusing on imitating Silicon Valley and start working on creating value. We also need to stop trying to acquire the resources Silicon Valley has, and start taking advantage of the resources we do have. There are plenty of industries with major presences in Houston that aren’t taking full advantage of IT and need solutions that will increase revenues or decrease costs.

Healthcare is a perfect example. Although the government’s involvement in healthcare IT is making for some quirky market dynamics, I get excited about the potential of healthcare IT. Most doctors today using paper records can’t do something as simple as notify their patients when the labeling on their medication changes. And hospitals are only just now getting the capability to determine if one glue used in surgery has a higher failure rate than another. Reducing failure rates can have a huge effect on costs.

You might be surprised to learn that Houston has had some impressive successes with guys who applied IT to solve problems in the oil industry, airline industry, etc. These guys wound up millionaires, but you haven’t heard their stories because they aren’t hanging out at OpenCoffee. We need more collaborations like these between the established industries in town and the startup community. Small companies need mentorship to become big companies, and bureaucratic inertia too often inhibits big companies from innovating. Both constituencies could benefit from better cross-pollination of ideas.

Conclusion

Building an electronic medical record company or a technology that helps make energy production more efficient isn’t as sexy, cool, or fun as building the next Twitter, but sometimes you just have to be a grown up. Silicon Valley didn’t start with Twitter. It started with companies that created value, and only then lost sight of the reasons why those companies were successful. Houston can avoid that same mistake by remembering that value creation is the basis of every sustainable business model.

graham randall, ph.d, mba

* If you compare the quality of relationships you had before and after social media, you will find that today you are closer to people you didn’t care enough about to keep in touch with before Facebook, and, without face-to-face interactions, your relationships with your closest friends aren’t much more intimate than your relationship with every other friend on your buddy list. In the past, we had a range of associations from close friends to acquaintances. Facebook is narrowing that distribution to the least common denominator.

Triton moving subsea operation to Houston

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:55:25 GMT

The Triton Group, an Aberdeen-based holding company, is making Houston its subsea equipment production headquarters.

Oil giants' profits fall far from 2008's record gains

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 02:51:47 GMT

Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC on Thursday added to the oil industry's worst midyear showing in years, stung by slumping global energy demand that threatens to further slow exploration and production.

Vital La. oil port left vulnerable to hurricanes

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:58:00 GMT

Officials worry that unless work begins immediately to bolster Port Fourchon's defenses, a direct hit from a strong Category 3 storm or worse could cripple the facility for weeks and create a national energy crisis overnight.

Actions Taken Over the Next Decade to Demonstrate and Deploy Key Technologies Will Determine U.S. Energy Future

Shirl Kennedy — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 11:44:38 GMT

Actions Taken Over the Next Decade to Demonstrate and Deploy Key Technologies Will Determine U.S. Energy Future
Source: National Research Council

With a sustained national commitment, the United States could obtain substantial energy-efficiency improvements, new sources of energy, and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions through the accelerated deployment of existing and emerging energy technologies, according to America’s Energy Future: Technology and Transformation, the capstone report of the America’s Energy Future project of the National Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering.

Initiating deployment of these technologies is urgent; actions taken — or not taken — between now and 2020 to develop and demonstrate several key technologies will largely determine the nation’s energy options for many decades to come.

Deploying existing energy-efficiency technologies is a near-term and low-cost way to reduce U.S. energy demand, the report says. Fully deploying these technologies in buildings alone could save enough power to eliminate the need for new electricity generating plants to meet growing U.S. demand. However, some new plants would likely still be needed to address regional supply imbalances, replace obsolete technology, or present more environmentally friendly sources of electricity. Deployment of efficiency technologies in the building, industrial, and transportation sectors could reduce projected U.S. energy use by 15 percent in 2020 and by 30 percent in 2030. Even greater energy savings would be possible with more aggressive policies and incentives.

The United States has many promising options for obtaining new sources of electricity over the next two to three decades, especially if carbon capture and storage and evolutionary nuclear technologies can be deployed at an adequate scale. However, according to the report, the deployment of these new technologies is very likely to result in higher consumer prices for electricity. In addition, the nation’s electrical grid will require expansion and modernization to enhance its reliability and security, accommodate changes in load growth and electricity demand, and to enable the deployment of new energy efficiency and supply technologies, especially intermittent wind and solar energy.

Read full report for free online.

Walmart Considers 3 GW Solar Deployment for Its Stores

DailyTech — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:15:49 GMT

DailyTech

One of the pilot solar panel installations sits atop the Garden section of a Walmart in Dallas, Texas. Walmart has said it may adopt as much as 3 GW of ...
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Sharing global CO2 emission reductions among one billion high emitters

Shirl Kennedy — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:52:22 GMT

Sharing global CO2 emission reductions among one billion high emitters
Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

We present a framework for allocating a global carbon reduction target among nations, in which the concept of “common but differentiated responsibilities” refers to the emissions of individuals instead of nations. We use the income distribution of a country to estimate how its fossil fuel CO2 emissions are distributed among its citizens, from which we build up a global CO2 distribution. We then propose a simple rule to derive a universal cap on global individual emissions and find corresponding limits on national aggregate emissions from this cap. All of the world’s high CO2-emitting individuals are treated the same, regardless of where they live. Any future global emission goal (target and time frame) can be converted into national reduction targets, which are determined by “Business as Usual” projections of national carbon emissions and in-country income distributions. For example, reducing projected global emissions in 2030 by 13 GtCO2 would require the engagement of 1.13 billion high emitters, roughly equally distributed in 4 regions: the U.S., the OECD minus the U.S., China, and the non-OECD minus China. We also modify our methodology to place a floor on emissions of the world’s lowest CO2 emitters and demonstrate that climate mitigation and alleviation of extreme poverty are largely decoupled.

+ Full Paper (PDF; 620 KB)

Computer security experts see dark side to smart electric grids

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 04:40:01 GMT

The race to build a smarter electrical grid could have a dark side. Security experts are starting to show the dangers of equipping homes and businesses with new meters that enable two-way communication with utilities.

Texas cornfield is test ground for machine that collects left-over corncobs for ethanol

support@star-telegram.com — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 05:26:00 GMT

By BRETT CLANTON

The high-stakes race to make a better renewable fuel took a small step forward last week in a secluded cornfield near the Mexican border.

In tiny Santa Rosa, a few miles northwest of Harlingen, the nation’s largest ethanol producer was secretly testing farm equipment that only a few years ago might have seemed absurd.

The machine collects corncobs, naked of kernels and typically left in the field after a harvest, for eventual conversion into ethanol.

The testing by Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Poet is part of a larger project that could help usher in a new era for ethanol, which in the U.S. is produced mostly from corn. The privately held company aims to be among the first in the country to produce ethanol on a large scale from nonfood sources — in its case, corncobs — at a plant it is building in Emmetsburg, Iowa. That plant is set to begin production in 2011.

Company officials say, however, that at this point they are less concerned about bringing that project to fruition than about external challenges they fear could hurt demand for ethanol and hobble development of next-generation biofuels.

"Our biggest question right now is, 'Is there going to be a market for what’s produced?’ " said Michael Roth, Poet’s biomass program director, who was in South Texas on Wednesday to oversee field testing.

The U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requires greater use of ethanol and other biofuels in coming years, growing to 36 billion gallons in 2022, about 25 percent of the 140 billion gallons of gasoline U.S. drivers consume annually.

More than half of the federal biofuel mandate, known as the Renewable Fuel Standard, calls for fuels made from nonfood crops and agricultural waste. But there are doubts that the industry is ready to meet production targets that call for phasing in next-generation biofuels through 2022, starting with 100 million gallons next year.

Larry Russo, with the office of biomass programs at the U.S. Department of Energy, called next year’s goal "extremely challenging."

In the U.S., ethanol is blended with gasoline to reduce dependence on oil and improve air quality in densely populated areas, including Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth. Boosted by government subsidies, the industry has grown rapidly in recent years.

But ethanol producers have struggled recently amid volatile corn and oil prices and weaker demand for transportation fuels in the recession. Many producers have cut output and idled plants, while several filed for bankruptcy protection.

About 11 percent of the nation’s 12.5 billion gallons of corn ethanol production capacity is temporarily shut down, said Matt Hartwig, spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol trade group.

But he noted that improving economics for the fuel have helped some plants come back online recently.

Moving the 'blend wall’

The ethanol industry is asking the Environmental Protection Agency for permission to increase the federally set ceiling for the amount of ethanol that can be blended with gasoline.

It says raising the "blend wall," now at 10 percent, would be a catalyst for development of what’s called cellulosic ethanol, made from agricultural waste and nonfood crops.

"That blend wall is holding up cellulosic ethanol," Poet CEO Jeff Broin said.

But critics fear that higher blend levels could harm engines, drive corn prices higher and give the biofuels industry less incentive to move away from corn-based fuel and into next-generation fuels.

"They’re going to hold cellulosic ethanol hostage so they can expand their market," said Nathanael Greene, director of renewable energy policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that opposes increasing the blend wall.

The EPA is expected to rule by December. Meanwhile, Poet and other biofuel companies are continuing research.

Can nanotechnology help find more oil?

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 16:42:59 GMT

HOUSTON — Imagine having a nice ripe orange, ready for squeezing, but being able to get only a small amount of juice out of it. There's got to be more, but you just can't get at it.

Koyaanisqatsi Redux

Roger Selbert — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 05:14:18 GMT

I went to Hollywood one night last week to watch my favorite film of all time, Koyaanisqatsi (released in 1983). It was being shown on a big screen at the Hollywood Bowl, accompanied by orchestra playing the original score, conducted by its composer, Philip Glass. Oh, I didn't go to the Bowl; I watched it at my daughter's apartment about half a mile away (hi def DVD and digital sound system turned way up, thank you). It was much more enjoyable than going to the Bowl; after all, I didn't want to share the experience with an audience that undoubtedly would have, shall we say, a different appreciation of the art.

You see, the message and meaning most of the Hollywood crowd take from Koyannisqatsi (Hopi Indian for "life out of balance" or "crazy life") is that man has despoiled and separated himself from his natural environment. Frankly, it has always had the exact opposite effect on me. Even after what must be 100 viewings, I am continually overwhelmed, impressed and delighted by the images of what man has been able to create, invent and build to control his environment, increase his wealth, provide him his food and energy, raise his standard of living, and transport him around the planet (or across the city).

I am sure most of the Hollywood Bowl crowd has a different response, and finds the images disturbing and disgusting. This is the reactionary impulse, born of an anti-industrial, anti-development mindset. I would wager the majority of that audience has bought completely into the scaremongering of catastrophic man-made global warming, which to the properly skeptical and scientifically literate remains unproven (oh hell, it's ludicrous on its face). This is deliciously ironic, as many sequences in Koyaanisqatsi were filmed in the 1970s, when most of the same crowd were hectoring us about global cooling (doubly ironic, as a cooling may now actually be upon us).

My first review of the film, published some 25 years ago, needs only minor updating.

This truly remarkable film by Godrey Reggio has no plot, no characters, no dialogue. The images of the film are awe-inspiring: first, huge expanses of pristine nature: deserts, rivers, mountains, mesas, lakes, waterfalls, clouds. Then grand-scale technology: huge earth-moving machines, power plants (nuclear and otherwise), oil refineries, food-processing plants, space shuttles, rockets, jets, freeways, subways, skyscrapers, shopping malls, train stations (and of course the obligatory atomic bomb explosions and mushroom clouds) - all shot in fascinating slow-motion and/or time-lapse format by cinematographer Ron Fricke. The accompanying music by Philip Glass is eerie, haunting and perfect.

The film is a visual, aural and emotional feast. If it bores you, you don't understand you are looking at, in juxtaposition, the majestic indifference of nature; the supreme accomplishments of physical engineering; and some of the most awful consequences of attempts at social engineering. Some of the images that make indelible impressions, all set to a majestic, driving score:

desert rock formations unchanged through thousands, if not millions of years
huge power transmission lines stretching forever across barren desolation
the implausible flying behemoth that is a 747
the flow of vehicles on a freeway, at night, from 50 stories up, that in time-lapse photography really does look just like the flow of blood through vessels, arteries and capillaries as seen through a microscope
row upon row of huge, empty, abandoned south Bronx tenements
the razing of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis (the most graphic depiction of public policy failure ever committed to film, I should think)
the rush of commuters who in time-lapse photography look like ants swarming an anthill
various mass production activities: mail-sorting machines, industrial assembly lines, escalators, elevators, revolving doors, conveyor belts, money counting machines, huge bowling alleys, movie theaters
finally, the high resolution satellite photograph of a massive city grid (Los Angeles, of course) overlaid, first, on a printed circuit microchip board, and secondly, on an intricate Hopi Indian woven blanket. The matches are nearly perfect.

A very noticeable detail of the '70s-era footage from Los Angeles is the blanket of smog that covers the city; I can tell you, having lived here all of these years, that the situation is dramatically improved. (I now see far-off mountain ranges daily; in the '70s that was rare.) Environmental quality has been improving over the decades (read The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg for the statistical evidence). The solutions to the problems that technology causes often end up being more technology, sensibly and carefully applied.

The single greatest contributor to the amelioration of LA smog, for example, is the catalytic converter. Instigated and required by government, you say? Developed and produced by industry in response to marketplace demand, says I.

I find the movie very relevant today. It seems some of our new political overlords seem to think they can have a productive economy without production, without what the film depicts: heavy industry; mass processing of food, clothes, consumer and industrial goods; massive residential and commercial development; huge efforts devoted to energy extraction, production and transmission; untrammeled mobility for goods, people and vehicles. Now I'm a "new economy" guy myself, but I realize that our wealth, standard of living and quality of life - the current and future prospects for hundreds of millions of us - are dependent upon these activities, and that the health of the industries that make them possible are far more important than any particular small sub-species of bird, fish, ant or rat (the threats to which are always exaggerated anyway).

We are really talking about the role of government here, not only in protecting nature. What the film shows me is that it is in fact government's job to protect the "other” environment: the environment that encourages, promotes and allows incentives for production. Part of this environment is the need for massive infrastructure: energy systems, water systems, waste systems, transport systems, roads, dams, etc., etc., in adequate capacity and in good repair. Mass production and economies of scale bring good quality cheap to millions, and provide opportunities to generate incomes, grow wealth and lead productive, modern lives. More efficiency can also create more nature; for example, the millions of acres of non-redundant farmland turned into forest or open space.

We used to know and understand this as a society. Our political elites were devoted to it. Now, not so much. We need to relearn the basic lessons and regain that consensus again.

Dr. Roger Selbert is a trend analyst, researcher, writer and speaker. Growth Strategies is his newsletter on economic, social and demographic trends; IntegratedRetailing.com is his web site on retail trends. Roger is US economic analyst for the Institute for Business Cycle Analysis and its US Consumer Demand Index, a monthly survey of American households’ buying intentions.

It's a jump-start for U.S. battery industry

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 05:30:00 GMT

The Energy Department is getting ready to hand out about $2 billion in grants to create a domestic industry for electric-car batteries, and 122 companies are scrambling to get pieces.

North Dakota may have another big oil field

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 05:30:00 GMT

Dozens of fruitful wells beneath the rich Bakken shale in North Dakota continue to fuel a hunch among oilmen and geologists that another vast crude-bearing formation may be buried in the state's vast oil patch.

Unlocking Energy Efficiency in the U.S. Economy

Shirl Kennedy — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 20:07:45 GMT

Unlocking Energy Efficiency in the U.S. Economy (PDF; 6.4 MB)
Source: McKinsey & Company

In this report, McKinsey & Company offers a detailed analysis of the magnitude of the efficiency potential in non-transportation uses of energy, a thorough assessment of the barriers that impede the capture of greater efficiency, and an outline of the practical solutions available to unlock the potential. The research shows that the U.S. economy has the potential to reduce annual non-transportation energy consumption by roughly 23 percent by 2020, eliminating more than $1.2 trillion in waste – well beyond the $520 billion upfront investment (not including program costs) that would be required. The reduction in energy use would also result in the abatement of 1.1 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions annually – the equivalent of taking the entire U.S. fleet of passenger vehicles and light trucks off the roads.

With Microsoft deal, Yahoo comes full circle on search

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 23:16:19 GMT

Yahoo Inc. invested billions of dollars in its Internet search engine during the past six years before realizing it made more sense to outsource the job — the same conclusion that the company's co-founders reached shortly after they started their Web directory in the mid-1990s.

Segway inventor brings his passion for robotics to Austin

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 23:19:59 GMT

Dean Kamen may be best known to the public as the inventor of the Segway, the electric-powered vehicle that is used for everything from shopping-mall patrols to mail delivery and city tours.

Digital nomads ditch cubicles for cafes pools

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 23:20:54 GMT

Frank Gruber's workstation at AOL in Dulles, Va., could be in any cubicle farm between D.C. and Bangalore: push-pin board for reminders, computer on Formica desk, stifling fluorescent lighting.

Oil jumps above $70 on optimism demand to recover

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:20:00 GMT

Oil prices leapt above $70 a barrel today on mounting investor hopes that a recovering global economy will boost crude demand.