Monthly Archives: November 2010

Wind Power and Noise

How Loud Is A Wind Turbine? Our friends at Treehugger re-published this graphic from GE, which builds wind turbines.

If a wind turbine spins in a forest do you hear it?

If you’re standing next to a utility scale wind turbine, then you’ll hear it. At 300 meters, which is as close to residences as we can build them, they are about as loud as a refrigerator. People report that a set of wind turbines – they tend to be built in sets – produce noise and subsonic vibrations, which can be irritating. But what should we do? PV solar modules are silent. However, they don’t produce power at night. Coal produces tons of toxic waste, from arsenic to zinc, including cadmium, mercury, lead, uranium, thorium – actually producing more radioactive waste than nuclear power. And coal produces carbon dioxide. Mining coal and uranium is dirty. We are converting mountains of natural beauty into mountains of toxic waste. (see Coal Tattoo, or I Love Mountains)

So how loud is a wind turbine? And if wind power is too loud, how should we turn on the lights?

New England Electricity Demand Curve – Rising

New England Electricity Demand Curve

This curve, derived from the ISO New England electricity demand table, here, shows that electricity use has been rising steadily since January, 2000.

Three observations:

There are two (2) annual peaks, one in July-August, and an unexpected peak in December-January.
The peaks are getting higher.
Low demand is flat and High demand is rising. The high of 13,386 gwh in July, 2010, is 43% above the low of 9,352 gwh, April, 2000.

I’m not sure what it means. Check back while I figure it out.

Renewable Energy, The Wall St. Journal, Faux News

George Gilder, writing in the Wall Street Journal, 11/18/10, in California’s Destructive Green Jobs Lobby complained of the defeat of the repeal of the “Global Warming Solutions Act.”

“Economic sanity lost out in what may have been the most important election on Nov. 2—and, no, I’m not talking about the gubernatorial or senate races. … This was the California referendum to repeal Assembly Bill 32, the so-called Global Warming Solutions Act, which ratchets the state’s economy back to 1990 levels of greenhouse gases by 2020. That’s a 30% drop followed by a mandated 80% overall drop by 2050. Together with a $500 billion public-pension overhang, the new energy cap dooms the state to bankruptcy.”

Gilder also wrote: “California officials acknowledged last Thursday that the state faces $20 billion deficits every year from now to 2016.” That’s $120 Billion over the next 6 years. This is a state of 37 million people (US Census). It should be able to borrow that money at 4% or 5% – which is $3083 per capita. Borrowed at 5% interest over 20 years, it’s $20.35 per person per month – which does not seem to be enough to push someone into bankruptcy.

Continue reading →

Microfinance Interest Rate Data: Promoting Transparent Pricing : MicroFinance Transparency

BBC – h2g2 – The Rendezvous Problem

The Rendezvous Problem

via BBC – h2g2 – The Rendezvous Problem.

VoIP or IDAV

The term “VOIP”, or “Voice Over IP” doesn’t tell the story. What telecommunication people mean by the term is more than voice traffic – that is phone calls – riding on the Internet, along with data. What they are actually referring to is integrated or converged systems in which voice and data packets “ride” over the same circuits. Integrated Data and Voice – IDAV™, is a better acronym. It’s not only Voice over Internet Protocol, it’s Voice and Data integrated over the Internet. “Voice Priority” circuits give voice traffic priority over data packets. The phone systems know the difference. IDAV™.

I am proud to say that the owners of Popular Logistics own the Trademark, and the term is available for licensing. As my buddy Jim says, “It’s All About Beach Time ™ .

U.S. alleged to have ignored warnings from three sources that informant was assisting terrorists

From D.E.A. Deployed Mumbai Plotter Despite Warning, by Ginger Thompson, Eric Schmitt and Souad Mekhennet of The New York Times (dated 7 November 2010):

American authorities sent David C. Headley, a small-time drug dealer and sometime informant, to work for them in Pakistan months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, despite a warning that he sympathized with radical Islamic groups, according to court records and interviews. Not long after Mr. Headley arrived there, he began training with terrorists, eventually playing a key role in the 2008 attacks that left 164 people dead in Mumbai.

The October 2001 warning was dismissed, the authorities said, as the ire of a jilted girlfriend and for lack of proof. Less than a month later, those concerns did not come up when a federal court in New York granted Mr. Headley an early release from probation so that he could be sent to work for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration in Pakistan. It is unclear what Mr. Headley was supposed to do in Pakistan for the Americans.

“All I knew was the D.E.A. wanted him in Pakistan as fast as possible because they said they were close to making some big cases,” said Luis Caso, Mr. Headley’s former probation officer.

On Sunday, while President Obama was visiting India, he briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the status of his administration’s investigation of Mr. Headley, including the failure to act on repeated warnings that he might be a terrorist. A senior United States official said the inquiry has concluded that while the government received warnings, it did not have strong enough evidence at the time to act on them. “Had the United States government sufficiently established he was engaged in plotting a terrorist attack in India, the information would have most assuredly been transferred promptly to the Indian government,” the official said in a statement to The New York Times. The statement did not make clear whether any American agencies would be held accountable.

[pullquote] One Warning May Have Been Withheld from Court during Sentencing [/pullquote]

In recent weeks, United States government officials have begun to acknowledge that Mr. Headley’s path from American informant to transnational terrorist illustrates the breakdowns and miscommunications that have bedeviled them since the Sept. 11 attacks. Warnings about his radicalism were apparently not shared with the drug agency that made use of his ties in Pakistan.

The director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., began an investigation into Mr. Headley’s government connections after reports last month that two of the former drug dealer’s ex-wives had gone to American authorities between 2005 and 2008, before the Mumbai attacks, to say they feared he was plotting with terrorists. Combined with the earlier warning from the former girlfriend, three of the women in Mr. Headley’s life reported his ties to terrorists, only to have those warnings dismissed.

An examination of Mr. Headley’s story shows that his government ties ran far deeper and longer than previously known. One senior American official knowledgeable about the case said he believed that Mr. Headley was a D.E.A. informant until at least 2003, meaning that he was talking to American agencies even as he was learning to deal with explosives and small arms in terrorist training camps.

D.E.A. Deployed Mumbai Plotter Despite Warning via NYTimes.com

For background, see the BBC’s excellent (and award-winning) Special Report on the 2008 Mumbai Attacks.

Admiral and Mrs. Mullen on NPR – frank discussion of suicide, post-service homelessness in military

Here’s the summary of Scott Simon’s interview with Admiral and Mrs. Mike Mullen. Admiral Mullen is the serving Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I found their candor and compassion – no easy answers, no platitudes, no avoidance of responsibility – striking:

In September, four soldiers at Ft. Hood, veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, took their own lives in the course of one week. More than a hundred Army troops have killed themselves this year. Host Scott Simon talks with Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, and his wife, Deborah, about the increased efforts to curb suicides by military servicemen and women.

Link to interview. We’ll post transcript when it’s available, expected later today.

Election Day, 2010

John F. Kennedy

President Kennedy once said “Politics is the only game that matters.” It’s winner take all, and the winner decides how your money is spent. President Clinton used to say “It’s the economy, stupid.” This still applies. Neither the President nor the Congress was focused on putting Americans back to work. They need to re-read Keynes, and also study Ecological Economics. (And Mr. President it’s not the economy according to the economists, it’s the economy according to voters who are up to their eyeballs in debt, unemployed, or facing foreclosure, and their kids, with health care, courtesy of your law, but fresh out of college, with huge college loans, and no jobs.)

Gov. Elect Cuomo

Andrew Cuomo’s win of the NY Governor’s race was not a surprise. Altho the margin – 1,135,214 votes (2,565,869 votes, 61%, to 1,430,655, 34%, Washington Post) is staggering . Some of my conservative Republican friends voted for Cuomo. Others abstained. How could they vote for Carl Paladino, with such an obvious inability to govern, a guy who is uncomfortable with gay people but who owns 2 gay bars?

Congratulations to Governor-Elect Cuomo, and the State of New York. Popular Logistics would like to see Gov. Cuomo run for President in 2016.

Lucy Liu, Actor

Jennifer Lopez, aka Jennie from The Hood

Jennifer Lopez, Singer & Actor

Senator Harry Reid won reelection, thanks to Hispanics, Asians, and African Americans, by a margin of 5%. Hispanic citizens were 10% of the vote, with 66.7% voting for Reid. According to the AP, on NPR, “Reid won two-thirds of the Hispanic vote” 80% of African-Americans and 75% of Asians.

(Note to Sharron Angle – like Asians and Hispanics generally, both Lucy Liu, on the left in blue, and Jennifer Lopez on the right in beige, have black hair and brown eyes. Even if I didn’t know who they were, I’d know the woman in blue is Asian and the woman in beige is Hispanic, or white-with-a-tan.) Continue reading →

Google announces Biggest OffShore Wind Project

Schematic Map of Atlantic Wind Connection

Google is putting its money where its mouth is. Back in early September, 2008, Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt said, “We have a total failure of political leadership, at least in the U. S., and perhaps the world.” He then called for 100% of U. S. power to come from green energy in 20 years – with 500,000 wind energy jobs. (See “Google’s Eric Schmidt Details Energy Plan, Chides Lack of Leadership,” by By Katie Fehrenbacher, Sep. 9, 2008, on Gigacom.) Schmidt combined Al Gore’s call for 100% clean electricity in 10 years with Intel CEO Andy Grove’s call for millions of plug-in hybrid cars. (I would like to add that they should be plug-in hybrid biofuel, with the fuel coming from sewage and factory farm waste, not food crops.)

Recently, 10/12/10, Erick Schonfeld at GreenTech (onTechCrunch) wrote Google Backs Biggest U.S. Offshore Wind Project:

“Using its cash to kickstart renewable energy businesses, Google is now backing the largest U.S. offshore wind farm project to date. The Atlantic Wind Connection is a proposed string of offshore wind turbines that will stretch 350 miles off the Atlantic coast from Virginia to New Jersey. Once completed, the project will produce 6,000 megawatts of power, which is equivalent to 60 percent of all the wind power built in the U.S. last year. The wind project will serve nearly 2 million homes. Continue reading →

GSA: $10,000 Cash for Green Building Design

Design a Zero Environmental Impact Building and win $10,000. Metropolis Magazine and the U. S. General Services Administration announce the Next Generation ® 2011 Design Ideas Competition: Help the GSA meet its goal of Zero Environmental Impact for its 9,600 properties. Winning Designer gets $10,000. Deadline is January 31, 2011. (From Douglas Seidler’s website.)