popular logistics

More on how NOT to respond to a disaster.  CNN reported that FEMA gave away $85 million in household supplies intended for Katrina victims.   Click here for the Article on CNN.

There are magic numbers in New Jersey: $450, $550, $771, $150 and $600.

In Jersey you can produce a widget that would cost you $150 to buy, use or sell the widget, and then sell it again for $450 to $550 - that is sell it for $600 or $700. The question is, how much does it cost to produce? And the raw ingredients and fuel are free, so the production costs are only are only the amortized costs of the machine.

Allow me to explain.

The US Tax Code allows a one time tax deduction of up to $2000 and up to 30% of the cost of a photovoltaic solar energy system (Click here for IRS, or click here). So any taxpayer who install this kind of system will get back 30% of the first $6,666.67 - up to $2,000. Typical residential scale full sized solar energy systems cost $28 to $80 thousand, so that tax rebate is fairly trivial for most of the US. But if you live in NJ, California, or somewhere where electricity costs more than twenty Cents per kwh, it makes sense.

Consult your tax advisor. Then consult your local solar electric contractor.

Congratulations NYPIRG!On winning the election at BMCC. Details to Follow. Click here for original post.

Dig 5 km, hit 200º C. Watch out for earthquakes! Actually, it’s a bit more complicated.  You dig two holes, each 5 km (3 miles) deep.  You lay a pipe in each hole, then pump water down into one hole, and up the other. The water heats up, and can turn a turbine. 

Geothermal for heat is old news. Teams at Virginia Tech and Johns Hopkins are studying at Deep Geothermal for space heating at Crisfield (click here) and at the Institute of Geophysics ETH, in Zurich, Switzerland (click here).

Deep Geothermal could, theoretically, use the earth’s heat to generate steam for industrial process power. But is this feasible? What is the temperature at the bottom of a coal mine or an empty oil well? How hot is it down there? With what efficiency, if any, can this differential be tapped to boil water to create steam to turn a turbine to generate power? How deep a hole do we need to drill? What are the potentially harmful side effects?

According to New Energy News, Article

Deep Geothermal is potentially the cheapest and most consistent, predictable form of renewable energy. The geothermal sources being probed are 400 degrees Fahrenheit and 3 miles into the earth’s crust (not the 1000 degree heat of the earth’s core). A scientist compared it to scratching the earth’s “shell.” Geodynamics Limited and Geothermal Basel (English) are racing to be the first to produce electricity in commercial quantities from the deep hot waters. When drilling reaches the deep enough, cold surface water will be pumped down to lift the hot water up where its steam will drive generators.

The Geopower Basel project is being drilled near Basel, Switzerland. Geodynamics Limited, Queensland-based, is drilling near the southern Australian town of Innamincka. Who will finish first?

The Editors at Popular Logistics wish to congratulate Randy Settinbrino on the Blue Moon Hotel and wish him success on future projects.

Spencer Reiss, writing in Wired Magazine says “Nuclear Power is The Most Climate Friendly Insdustrial Scale Form of Energy“. Forgetting for a moment that nuclear power requires fuel, waste management, national security infrastructure, massive government subsidies, including artificial limits to liability, nuclear releases tremendous amounts of heat into the environment, and new nuclear are estimated to cost about 2 to 4 times the price of new wind facilities, without cost overruns (and cost overruns are a given with nuclear power plants) and take 10 to 12 years.

The climate friendly industrial scale forms of energy are Solar, Offshore Wind, large scale Marine Kinetic - tapping the Gulf Stream, Deep Geothermal, CoGen, and the NegaWatts available via conservation. Just as a screw can propel a ship thru the water, a screw anchored to the ocean floor will spin because of currents, and can power turbines. Marine Current Turbines, Ltd., based in Bristol, England has just completed the world’s first megawatt scale tidal/marine current driven power plant in the Strangford Narrows in Northern Ireland. If with wind, the sky’s literally the limit, with MCT the sea’s the limit. Geothermal exploits temperature differentials for heating and cooling. Deep Geothermal would use the earth’s heat in abandoned mines and wells to generate steam for industrial process power. Recycled Energy Development, RED, of Westmont, Il does CoGen. RED captures industrial waste energy to produce electricity and thermal power, often without burning any additional fuel or emitting any additional pollution. For industrial partners, RED reduces energy costs substantially, increases reliability, and offers the opportunity for emissions credits. Akeena, Evergreen Solar, First Solar, Sunpower, World Water and Solar, and Vestas Wind are old news. Ausra develops and deploys utility-scale solar thermal technologies to serve global electricity needs in a dependable, market competitive, environmentally responsible manner.

Wired Magazine also published a companion piece by Matt Power that says “Pound for pound, making a Prius contributes more carbon to the atmosphere than making a Hummer” (click here). The fallacy here is that they forget to mention that a Hummer weighs about three times more than a Prius, so to have an honest statistic you need to compare 3 pounds of Hummer to each pound of Prius. They do note that the operating efficiency of the Prius outweighs any manufacturing inefficiency. And they point out that it is better for the planet to buy a used car than a new car.

Peter Gosselin, writing in the Business Section of LA Times, Saturday, May 24, 2008, writes that Ford, GM, and Chrysler are in serious trouble because of the price of gasoline. He quotes Robert DiClemente, chief U. S. economist at Citigroup in New York “The economic outlook has been taken hostage by the relentless surge in oil prices.” Gosselin adds that Ford Motor Co announced Thursday, May 22, 2004, that it was abandoning any hope of making a profit this year or next now that sales of its gas-guzzling pickup trucks and Explorers have plunged.

Gosselin and Bill Vlasic, writing in the (Click here) (or here for New York Times home) quote Ford CEO Alan Mulally saying the auto industry has “reached a tipping point” where energy costs were fundamentally changing what kind of vehicles Americans buy.

While Gosselin and Vlasic write that Ford, GM, and Chrysler are in trouble, Toyota and Matsushita Electric are investing US $192 Million / 20 Billion yen to build plants to manufacture batteries for hybrids (Click Here).

You can see this by looking at the stock value of these companies. An investment of $2,000 in Ford and General Motors, on Dec. 24, 1999 would be worth Toyota and Honda would be worth about $540 today, not counting the value of any dividends paid, as both Ford and GM lost 73% of their value. On the other hand, An investment of $2,000 in Toyota and Honda stock on Dec 24, 1999 would be worth about $2,860, not counting any dividend payouts because Toyota increased 11.36% and Honda increased 72.53%. These data can be found on the Google financial pages, (click here).

Mr. Gosselin can be reached at Peter.Gosselin (at) latimes.com

(Please Note that I am not licensed to sell investment advice. This should not be construed as such.  It is just an interesting observation. Note also that I have no investment in any of these securities. I do own a ‘99 Chevy Malibu and a ‘99 Mercury Sable. My next car will get 45 mpg, which means it will probably be a Prius.)

Rebecca Smith reported in the Wall Street Journal that Florida Power and Light, FPL, is considering spending $12 to $18 Billion to construct two nuclear reactors at its appropriately named Turkey Point facility in southeast Florida.

Florida Power says “two advanced-design nuclear plants at Turkey Point that would add between 2,200 and 3,000 megawatts. If built, the units are expected to go into service in the years 2018 and 2020.”

John Dorschner writes in the Miami Herald that FPL wants to start billing today for plants that may or may not be built and running in 10 to 12 years! “The average home electric bill in South Florida is likely to increase about $2.50 a month next year to start paying for two nuclear power plants that Florida Power & Light hopes to put in service in 10 or 12 years.” That’s like ‘buy now pay later,’ except it’s ‘pay now, buy later.’ And the plants haven’t been approved by Florida’s Public Service Commission. So it’s ‘Pay now, buy later - maybe!‘

What about Wind Power? The 7.5 MW Atlantic County Utilities Authority Wind Farm cost an estimated $12 million, approximately $1.6 per watt. (click here)

Putting the pieces of this puzzle together, FPL wants to spend $12 to $18 Billion, assuming no cost overruns, to add 2200 to 3000 mw of capacity in 2018 or 2020. If $12 Billion builds 2200 MW, then we are looking at $5.46 per watt of capacity. Similarly, if $18 Billion builds 3000 MW, we are looking at $6.00 per watt. That’s about what it costs to install commercial scale PV solar, and about four times what it costs to build land based wind farms, and twice what it costs to construct an offshore wind farm. And it takes a whole lot less than 10 or 12 years to install solar panels and build wind farms. Since there is no fuel, there is no fuel cycle, there are no fuel costs, there is no waste heat, and are no toxic or radioactive wastes with wind and solar.

Let’s ignore for a second the fact that nuclear plants present terrorists with targets, the massive subsidies that the government provides nuclear power, the national security ramifications of nuclear power, and the fact that the NRC fires whistleblowers and ignores critics – which in and of itself is a cause for concern – the regulator appears to be incompetent. Why should we spend Billions to build nuclear plants that won’t be operational for at least 10 or 12 years when we could spend a fraction to build solar and wind systems – which are available almost immediately with no pollution, no security challenges, no potential for disaster, and no need for incompetent government regulators?

Solar Balloons can power remote areas and quickly provide emergency power in disasters. Joseph Cory, of Geotectura.com, and Pini Gurfil, his research partner in the Haifa Technion, Haifa, Israel, are developing the balloons. Helium balloons floating above the trees or tethered to the roofs of buildings, can provide more power in less space and at lower cost than roof mounted or ground mounted systems. They can also be deployed very quickly in an emergency.

Where conventional PV Solar installations are two dimensional, these are three dimensional.

Initial research, using computer models and a prototype, shows that a 10 foot diameter PV Solar balloon provides the energy of a 269 square foot PV Solar surface. The cost of the balloon is targeted at $4000. The cost of a comparable surface mounted system is estimated to $10,000.

I read about this on Pinkus Javits’ SustainabiliTank blog, Gizmundo, and Israel 21C.

Curtis Brown, president of the Student Government at the Borough of Manhattan Community College is following in the footsteps of a young Jack Abramoff. As reported in the New York Daily News, May 13, 2008, Brown is trying to evict the New York Public Interest Research Group, NYPIRG from BMCC.The PIRGs have always focused on things like responsible government, consumer protection, and an informed citizenry making intelligent decisions. As chairman of the College Republicans, in 1983, Abramoff and his right-wing storm troopers did not “seek peaceful coexistence with the left.” They felt that their “job is to remove them from power permanently.” Brown is doing what Abramoff tried to do 25 years ago.

Here’s what Thomas Frank wrote in the New York Times, August 29, 2006, “Defunders of Liberty”

Abramoff and his clean-cut campus radicals pushed their own “defund the left” campaign with characteristic élan, declaring war on Ralph Nader’s Public Interest Research Groups, or PIRG, environmental and consumer activist outfits that were funded by student activity fees on some campuses. The young conservatives were always careful to cast the issue as a matter of “student rights” versus political coercion, but Abramoff clearly saw it as an avenue to ideological victory. “When we win this one,” he boasted in 1983, “we’ll have done more to neutralize Ralph Nader than anyone else, ever.”

The NY Times article is re-published in the blogosphere, click here, and here, and can be googled or yahooed.

Abramoff, currently serving 70 months for conspiracy and fraud, has also admitted to tax evasion, defrauding his clients and conspiring to bribe public officials.

Bioengineers at MIT have modified e. coli bacteria in two ways: rather than smell like human fecal matter, their E. coli cultures smell like mint when they’re growing, and banana when they are mature.

If they can do that, can should be able to devise metabolic pathways that breaks down plastics into carbon dioxide, which then can be metabolized, which will render plastic biodegradable.  However, to mitigate the global warming effects of the carbon dioxide, they also need to figure out ways to sequester the carbon.

Senator: VA lying about number of veteran suicides

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