Author Archives: L J Furman, MBA

About L J Furman, MBA

Analyst here and Director of Information Technology with an MBA in Managing for Sustainability.

Solar Energy Saves Money, Could Provide Free Electricity and CASH to Municipalities & Schools in New Jersey

1.5 MW Solar Array, Rutgers University, Livingston Campus

1.5 MW Solar Array, Rutgers University, Livingston Campus

New Jersey taxpayers could net $36.9 million per year, $369 million over 10 years, with the installation of 152.5 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic (PV) solar electricity systems on public schools, community colleges, and each of the public universities in the state.

The systems would pay for themselves within the first 8 years. At 2010 values of electricity and Solar Renewable Energy Certificates (SRECs), these systems would generate electricity worth approximately $300 Million and SRECs worth $1.2 Billion over the first 10 years, approximately $369 Million in excess of the cost of the systems, and provide virtually free electricity over the remainder of their 35 to 40 year lifespan.

Widespread deployment of solar energy increases the resilience of the electric grid, strengthens national security and can enhance local emergency response capabilities.

These are the conclusions of a feasibility study by Lawrence J. Furman, principal of Furman Consulting Group, LLC during the course of his studies for an MBA in Managing for Sustainability at Marlboro College Graduate School.

Continue reading →

Steinbrenner, Infrastructure, and the Estate Tax

“Taxes,” according to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, “are the price we pay for civilized society.”

George Steinbrenner

George Steinbrenner

On July 13, 2010, George Steinbrenner suffered a massive heart attack and died. Steinbrenner was worth about $1.0 Billion when he died  (click here or here). Had Steinbrenner died in 2009, the tax on his $1.0 Billion estate would have been $450 Million.  Had he lingered until 2011, the estate tax would have been $550 million. Thanks to the Bush tax cuts, $0 went to the United States Treasury.

By many accounts the Yankees needed Steinbrenner to build up the franchise.  But think about the whole system. Steinbrenner and the Yankees, and all professional sports, would be worthless without other teams and fans. The Yankees need a stadium – which was built in part at public expense. Fans need to get to the stadium. Most of the people who live in walking distance, in Harlem and the South Bronx, can’t afford the ticket prices; a local transportation infrastructure is needed so fans with the ability to purchase tickets can get to the stadium. The NY Yankees franchise would also be worthless without other franchises, such as the NY Mets, the Boston Red Sox, the Los Angeles Dogers, etc. so a national transportation infrastructure is needed to transport players.

I would like to ask Steinbrenner’s heirs how they felt about the $1.0 Billion inheritance, the $500 million inheritance tax they avoided because Steinbrenner died in 2010, not 2009 or 2011, If they would have felt poor if they were splitting $500 million but if they feel rich because they now split $1.0 billion.

Estate Tax Chart

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Oyster Creek To Close in 2019

Oyster Creek

Oyster Creek, courtesy of Nukeworker.com

Chicago, Illinois based Exelon Corporation recently announced that it will close the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in 2019. (NY Times, NJ.com AP). Oyster Creek, in Lacey, New Jersey, is the nation’s oldest operating nuclear power plant. It’s roughly 75 miles south of New York City and 60 miles east of Philadelphia. Exelon was recently granted a 20-year extension on its operating license by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission despite the wishes of local environmentalists, environmental groups, and people concerned about evacuations in the event of an emergency, and public concerns from the NJ Department of Environmental Protection.

The plant uses a single pass cooling system which sucks in 500 Billion gallons of cool water each year (click here) from Barnegat Bay, heats it 20 to 30 degrees, and returns the heated water to the bay. This kills billions of adult and juvenile fish, clams, crabs, and shrimp, and hundreds of billions, if not  trillions of hatchlings, less than a centimeter in length. This has had a negative effect – possibly a disastrous effect – on the fish and wildlife populations of Barnegat Bay during the 40 year operating life of the plant to date. The NJ DEP demanded that Exelon retrofit the plant with cooling towers.

Exelon claims the cooling towers would cost $600 million, roughly $1.00 per watt for the 610 megawatt reactor. Other estimates for the cooling towers range from $200 million to $800 million. Exelon decided to close the plant rather than spend the money on the cooling towers and other maintenance.  This is a gain for current Exelon shareholders as they defer a hundreds of millions on capital improvments, and corresponding hundreds of millions of liabilities, while they collect revenues and realize profits from the sale of electricity for the next nine years.

Continue reading →

Health Care for all Americans

President Obama, 2010

President Obama

President Obama thinks that every American should have access to health care. Judge Henry E. Hudson in Virginia, however, ruled that compelling people to buy health insurance is unconstitutional. (NY Times, New York Magazine, CNN)

President Obama is obviously correct. President Bush and Senator McCain might actually agree. Pres. ush, who appointed Judge Hudson to the Federal District Court, said in Cleveland, Ohio, July, 10, 2007, (1, 2), “People have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.” Sen. McCain repeated this during his 2008 campaign for the Presidency (click here). While this implies a form of universal health care, Pres. Bush and Sen. McCain, miss the nuance that emergency rooms are not primary care facilities (click here). Emergency rooms are designed for EMERGENCIES. They are not equipped to handle primary care (click here).  (This is a ‘nuance’ big enough for an aircraft carrier to sail thru.)

Judge Hudson, however, may have a point. While it’s one thing to mandate that everyone have access to health care, it’s another to mandate that everyone patronize a set of investor owned or privately held enterprises.  It’s like saying that every child must go to school, and must also go to a private school.

But if both Pres. Obama and Judge Hudson are right, is there a common ground?

Let’s look first at the uninsured. Continue reading →

The Furman Paradox & The Cornick Postulate

The Furman Paradox: “You want to be ahead of the curve, but not too far ahead. When the word on the street is sell, and you understand something others don’t, it may be time to buy. And remember, it’s a systems phenomenon, look for the feedback.”

The Cornick Postulate: “There are things that seem too good to be true, and yet are true – love, a child, sunset. These cannot be bought and sold; these are non-transactional phenomena.”

Wind Power and Noise

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

Graphic showing wind turbine noise

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

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:

  1. There are two (2) annual peaks, one in July-August, and an unexpected peak in December-January.
  2. The peaks are getting higher.
  3. 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 →

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 ™ .

Election Day, 2010

John F. Kennedy

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

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

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

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:

Arklow Bank Wind Farm

Arklow Bank Wind Farm. Copyright (C) 2005, GE. Used with permission.

“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 →

Apple v Microsoft; On Strategy

“Microsoft sells different flavors of soda. Apple sells water, coffee, tea, beer, wine, vodka, cheese, meats, breads, … and it also sells soda.”

Stock Price and Corporate Valuations

On Oct. 28, 2010, Apple closed at 305.24, about 4% below its the historic high of 319, reached on October 18, 2010. Apple’s earnings per share, EPS, is $15.15. It’s price earnings ratio, P/E, is 20.147. It’s market capitalization is $279.59 Billion.

That same day, Microsoft closed at $26.28, at 45% of it’s historic high of 57.625, reached on 12/17/1999. Microsoft’s EPS is 2.11, P/E ratio is 12.48, and market capitalization is $227.42 Billion, $52 Billion less than that of Apple.

If you look at a graph of their stock prices, Microsoft climbed spectacularly from 1986 to 1999, then plummeted and has been basically flat since it crashed in 2000. Apple climbed much more slowly, until recently, and may still be rising. However, while the graph may tell one thousand words, it doesn’t tell the whole story. And there are two flaws:

  1. The graph is an approximation of the stock price of AAPL and MSFT from the period of 1980 to 2010. It is neither complete, detailed, or rigorous. Complete details can be found on the Internet. The graph shows that Microsoft grew during the ‘80’s and ‘90’s then spiked dramatically and crashed around 2000. Actual high point was Dec. 17, 1999. The low of 21 reached on Dec. 29, 2000. Apple was doing pretty badly during the ‘90’s, however, since Steve Jobs return in the mid to late 90’s turned around. The stock price increased to 100 in 2007 or 2008 to 318 earlier this month.
  2. The graph doesn’t show the increase in market capitalization. An investment in Microsoft of about $3,000 at the IPO in March, ’86 would have been worth about $1.0 Million at the peak in Dec. ’99, and would still be worth about $455,000 today, an increase of 15,200%. Apple and Microsoft went from Million-Dollar companies in the early 1980s to companies worth $280 and $227 Billion, respectively today.

But perhaps the real insight is to view of these curves from a systems thinking perspective. Is the Microsoft stock price curve an example of overshoot and collapse? Will it recover or has it reached a steady state? Is Apple peaking? Is it about to collapse? Will it drop, and stabilize, like Microsoft, to a point less than half of it’s peak? And if so, if not now, when? Continue reading →

For the Future

Arklow Bank Wind Turbines

Arklow Bank Wind Farm, offshore of Ireland. Copyright, C, GE Energy. Used with permission.

Conferences –

Academics – An MBA for Changing the Climate of Business (click here). Continue reading →

Solar Power and Toxic Waste

Ground-mounted solar array in a field of wildflowers

Ground-mounted solar array in a field of wildflowers. Copyright iphotostock.com

If you think there are zero direct emissions from the production of electricity from PV solar modules, YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. There are however, indirect emissions associated with production, transport, installation and refresh / recycle are dependent on the technologies used in those processes. Most are associated with the use of fossil fuels and nuclear power to manufacture and move solar modules.

Three observations stand out David Biello’s article, “Dark Side of Solar Cells Brightens,” Scientific American, Feb. 2008.

  1. Indirect emissions are derived from the fossil fuels used to generate the electricity for PV manufacturing facilities.
  2. Heavy metals, such as cadmium, used to manufacture PV solar modules, can be recovered from mining wastes and coal ash.
  3. Overall toxic emissions are 90 to 300 times lower than those from coal power plants.

Continue reading →

Want Some Mercury With That Slice?

How’s about some arsenic? Whadda ya mean “toxic?” You got a problem wid my pizza pie?

PizzaCheck out the Slice web-site at Serious Eats. Their Coal-Oven Pizzeria map shows about 20 coal-oven pizzerias in the New York City metropolitan area. While a coal fire may produce a perfect heat for baking pizzas, coal fires also produce mercury, arsenic, uranium, thorium, and other toxic heavy metals.

YUM!

No Thank You.

Does one drink red or white wine with mercury, arsenic, uranium, thorium, cadmium, aluminum, sulfur and all those toxins?

In the Mines

In the Mines

Coal. One of the most impure of fuels. A mixture of carbon, with impurities including uranium, thorium, aluminum, iron mercury, arsenic, sulfur, and methane.  Carcinogenic, mutagenic, explosive.  But it burns great. A magic rock.  Just like Pandora’s mythical box.