popular logistics

Why is Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, venture capitalist, and environmentalist, critical of Dr. Hermann Scheer, economist, member of the German Parliment, and author of Germany’s clean energy program?

Is this like a Wind Power advocate from west Texas criticizing California based Solar installer because there is too much rain and cloud cover in Seattle, for solar to work effectively?

Diane Moss, above, writing on Diane’s POV, has a comprehensive analysis of Khosla’s criticism of Scheer.

As noted in my previous post, Scheer says says “A Solar global economy will enable the total demand for energy and raw materials to be met. … By the systematic use of solar … all material needs of humanity can be satisfied on a permanent basis.” (For the text of the article, click here.) And the fact is that Germany has set the standard.

Then there’s Ausra Solar, which has some pretty hot technology and hopes to be a pioneer in what the Venture Capitalist might call “The Solar Thermal Space.” Venture Capitalists, including Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield, and Byers, and Khosla Ventures, have just invested $40 Million in Ausra. And Khosla runs Khosla Ventures. Maybe Khosla’s critical of Scheer because Scheer focuses on PhotoVoltaics, not Solar Thermal. Are Khosla’s criticisms of Scheer and Solar in Germany like Bill Gates’ criticisms of Steve Jobs and the Mac - i.e. different - and competing technology?

From Boing Boing Gadgets:

The “Moflow” water pack from Polarpak looks like a traditional back-mounted water carrier, but the inclusion of an air pump adds two useful features: you don’t have to suck on a hose to get a sip of water, as biting on the tip gives you a blast of pressurized liquid; the air pressure in the reservoir helps keep the water from sloshing around. You can add a shower head attachment as well for a little backwoods rinse down.It looks like a wonderful addition to the standard design, but I’d worry that the little hand pump, which isn’t integrated into the system, would be easily lost.

It’s selling at a suggested $32, but you’ll still need to purchase a backpack with a standard hydration pack slot.

Product Page [PolarPak.com]

From Joel Johnson  at Boing Boing Gadgets.

The existence of a “standard hydration pack slot” is, in our view, a very helpful innovation, and we’d like to know who came up with it. We hope to start reviewing light packs with these slots as candidates for g0-bags/jump bags - and the presence hydration slot should count for a lot.

The Technisches Hilfswerk is the German government agency charged with responding to disasters at home and abroad. In a country of about 82 million (source: CIA World Fact Book), 80,000 people work for the Dederal Agency for Technical Relief. That’s roughly one person per 1,000 - 99% of whom are volunteers.

One of the THW logos, courtesy of Wikipedia.

According to the United States Census Population Clock, there were, as of today, 301 million peoplein the United States. If the same proportion of people in the United States were active as volunteers in disasters, we’d have over 30 million volunteer first responders.

Think about that - and we’ll be back to discuss it - as soon as we’ve gotten bug or two out of WordPress.