Unique Solutions for Disasters - $1,000 donation per ShelterBox
Go to: www.shelterbox.org
Sunday, April 26, 2009
American Stonehenge: Monumental Instructions for the Post-Apocalypse
The strangest monument in America.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
A Segway Built for 2
GM has shown off a new concept built in a partnership with Segway. The so-called Project PUMA vehicle is basically a two-seated, canopied version of the latter company's PT stand-up scooter. Though the project focuses on popular demand for greener, electric-powered personal transportation, its execution may be ill-timed, considering the motor company's dire financial instability.
Go to: http://www.segway.com/
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
IBM Unveils Smart Technologies, Services In Global Water Issues
ISTANBUL, TURKEY - WORLD WATER FORUM -- IBM today unveiled its first portfolio of smart water services and technologies, and a scientific breakthrough -- a more energy efficient membrane that quickly and reliably filters out salts and deadly toxins, such as arsenic.
Using advanced analytics, developed by mathematicians in IBM Research, as well as the company's information management, technology services, and business consulting capabilities,
IBM's new Strategic Water Management Solutions include the following offerings to help governments, water utilities, and companies across many industries monitor and manage water more effectively:
Natural Water Resources -- Provides sensor data integration, analysis and visualization to enable the measurement, modeling and management of water levels, usage and quality in natural water resources.
Water Utilities -- Enables water providers to make rapid decisions regarding business processes and operational efficiency to maximize their return on investments as well as foresee and quickly respond to contamination issues and emergencies.
Water Infrastructure -- Provides sensing systems for managing water infrastructure, such as levee oversight management and flood control.
Water Metering -- Improves management of water supply and demand by integrating data between the dozens of stakeholders involved. Provides all stakeholders with consistent, real-time information to help them work together to make critical decisions about water supply in a geographic region.
Green Sigma for Water (TM) -- is a business consulting service that identifies where water is being used, measures and monitors usage, and creates process improvements to reduce water use. IBM pilots have achieved reductions in water usage of 30%.
IBM also announced:
Achievements of the SmartBay sensor system, which monitors wave conditions, marine life and pollution levels in and around Galway Bay, Ireland. The system, developed by IBM and the Marine Institute of Ireland, provides real-time information to stakeholders in the Irish maritime economy, runs on a cloud computing platform, and is able to predict water conditions critical to those stakeholders.
New reports that explore public and private sector water issues, and discuss the connection between water management and data management.
Source: MSNBC
Using advanced analytics, developed by mathematicians in IBM Research, as well as the company's information management, technology services, and business consulting capabilities,
IBM's new Strategic Water Management Solutions include the following offerings to help governments, water utilities, and companies across many industries monitor and manage water more effectively:
Natural Water Resources -- Provides sensor data integration, analysis and visualization to enable the measurement, modeling and management of water levels, usage and quality in natural water resources.
Water Utilities -- Enables water providers to make rapid decisions regarding business processes and operational efficiency to maximize their return on investments as well as foresee and quickly respond to contamination issues and emergencies.
Water Infrastructure -- Provides sensing systems for managing water infrastructure, such as levee oversight management and flood control.
Water Metering -- Improves management of water supply and demand by integrating data between the dozens of stakeholders involved. Provides all stakeholders with consistent, real-time information to help them work together to make critical decisions about water supply in a geographic region.
Green Sigma for Water (TM) -- is a business consulting service that identifies where water is being used, measures and monitors usage, and creates process improvements to reduce water use. IBM pilots have achieved reductions in water usage of 30%.
IBM also announced:
Achievements of the SmartBay sensor system, which monitors wave conditions, marine life and pollution levels in and around Galway Bay, Ireland. The system, developed by IBM and the Marine Institute of Ireland, provides real-time information to stakeholders in the Irish maritime economy, runs on a cloud computing platform, and is able to predict water conditions critical to those stakeholders.
New reports that explore public and private sector water issues, and discuss the connection between water management and data management.
Source: MSNBC
Saturday, March 07, 2009
The GDP Energy Ratio
The list below shows the Top-11 GDPs in the world in 2007 (including the EU as a complete unit). Added up they account for $48.4 trillion, an astounding 89% of the world’s production. That means the rest of the world put together produces just 11% of GDP. You will also notice that none of the OPEC and related oil-producing nations are on the list. Commodity sales do not create large GDPs – productive peoples do.
As we begin the discussion regarding a brand new tax on American business, the Carbon Cap-and-Trade Tax introduced by President Obama in his 2009 budget, we might keep this in mind. Energy consumption discussions are only relevant when compared to a country’s GDP. In other words, the more efficient a country is in using energy to produce GDP, the less it should be penalized.
For example the US uses roughly 25% of the world’s energy, but contributes 25% of total GDP – a very efficient GDP/Energy Ratio of 1:1. China by contrast just passed the US as the biggest pollution emitter in the world, but contributes just 6% of total world GDP – China uses about 9.2% of the world’s oil for example; a GDP/Oil ratio of 1:1.6 – so clearly China has a far worse record than the US, as one might expect in a newly industrialized country. [This analysis ignores coal consumption in China, the world’s largest user of coal and by far the worst producer of coal pollution.]
Introducing a Carbon Cap-and-Trade Tax on US businesses will make us less competitive with less efficient countries like China and India. That will cause our 1:1 energy efficiency to decrease, the opposite of what we would like to happen, because energy costs are always reduced by scale – less GDP – less scale. The Tax is wrong-headed and counterproductive. The true cost of energy, as always, will drive efficiencies and innovation.
Fine graining even further, one should discount energy consumption by the percentage GDP value of goods exported minus the energy cost of shipping. This is because those goods are sent to countries that do not use energy to produce them; effectively representing an energy credit. The United States is a major exporting country. In 2007 the US exported approximately 11.7% of its GDP. If we count the energy cost of shipping as 1.7%, then the net adjustment to the US GDP/Energy Ration would be 10%, or 1:.9, a very efficient usage of energy indeed.
Richard L. Wottrich
2007 GDP (millions of USD)
World - 54,347,038
1 United States - 13,811,200
Eurozone - 12,179,250
2 Japan - 4,376,705
3 Germany - 3,297,233
4 China (PRC) - 3,280,053
5 United Kingdom - 2,727,806
6 France - 2,562,288
7 Italy - 2,107,481
8 Spain - 1,429,226
9 Canada - 1,326,376
10 Brazil - 1,314,170
(China passed Germany in GDP in 2008.)
As we begin the discussion regarding a brand new tax on American business, the Carbon Cap-and-Trade Tax introduced by President Obama in his 2009 budget, we might keep this in mind. Energy consumption discussions are only relevant when compared to a country’s GDP. In other words, the more efficient a country is in using energy to produce GDP, the less it should be penalized.
For example the US uses roughly 25% of the world’s energy, but contributes 25% of total GDP – a very efficient GDP/Energy Ratio of 1:1. China by contrast just passed the US as the biggest pollution emitter in the world, but contributes just 6% of total world GDP – China uses about 9.2% of the world’s oil for example; a GDP/Oil ratio of 1:1.6 – so clearly China has a far worse record than the US, as one might expect in a newly industrialized country. [This analysis ignores coal consumption in China, the world’s largest user of coal and by far the worst producer of coal pollution.]
Introducing a Carbon Cap-and-Trade Tax on US businesses will make us less competitive with less efficient countries like China and India. That will cause our 1:1 energy efficiency to decrease, the opposite of what we would like to happen, because energy costs are always reduced by scale – less GDP – less scale. The Tax is wrong-headed and counterproductive. The true cost of energy, as always, will drive efficiencies and innovation.
Fine graining even further, one should discount energy consumption by the percentage GDP value of goods exported minus the energy cost of shipping. This is because those goods are sent to countries that do not use energy to produce them; effectively representing an energy credit. The United States is a major exporting country. In 2007 the US exported approximately 11.7% of its GDP. If we count the energy cost of shipping as 1.7%, then the net adjustment to the US GDP/Energy Ration would be 10%, or 1:.9, a very efficient usage of energy indeed.
Richard L. Wottrich
2007 GDP (millions of USD)
World - 54,347,038
1 United States - 13,811,200
Eurozone - 12,179,250
2 Japan - 4,376,705
3 Germany - 3,297,233
4 China (PRC) - 3,280,053
5 United Kingdom - 2,727,806
6 France - 2,562,288
7 Italy - 2,107,481
8 Spain - 1,429,226
9 Canada - 1,326,376
10 Brazil - 1,314,170
(China passed Germany in GDP in 2008.)
Friday, January 16, 2009
Concentrated Solar Power
A recent The Economist article discussed innovation in solar power in the Western United States. The article mentions concentrating solar power (CSP) as a promising solution to the energy crisis facing the United States as energy prices continue to surge due to Middle East and global terror concerns and a lack of readily accessible alternative energy sources. CSP systems use mirrors to channel sunlight. This sunlight heats a fluid to a high temperature whereupon it turns a turbine. CSP is a source of large-scale power that is inexpensive and stores energy that can be used after sundown. CSP is found on large solar farms (see picture above ,) such as the one in California's Mojave desert that was built in the 1980s. It churns out enough power for 900,000 homes.Despite this energy efficiency, CSP has not been put to use again until recently with the opening of another solar plant in Nevada.
Source: The Economist
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Ideas That Change Lives
Enviroft Clean Stove
"More than half the world’s population cooks over open fires or small charcoal or biomass stoves. These burn fuel incompletely, producing carbon monoxide and smoke that cause 1.5 million deaths a year. Envirofit’s Cookstove burns the same easily found wood but does so more completely to cut emissions by more than 80 percent and use half as much fuel. The can-shaped stove has a precisely measured opening that lets in enough air to fan the flames, yet not enough to cool it and slow down combustion. A chimney-like tube inside helps funnel in fresh air, and a ceramic lining insulates the stove to keep the fire hot and burning efficiently."
Source: www.popsci.com
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Smallest "Green" Car, L. Mawby Winery, Leelanau Peninsula, Michigan USA
Sustainability - Wind Power & Biomass "All Electric" Winery; Electric Three-Wheel Car at L. Mawby Winery - www.lmawby.com
Monday, February 19, 2007
Sustainable Business
It has become fashionable to pitch sustainable business practices recently. One wonders if there is a profound understanding of the concept, or if it is just the catch-phrase of the new millennium. Perhaps we should cut to the heart of the matter. We are all discussing symptoms instead of the disease. This is because it has become politically incorrect to discuss the derivative cause. In fact, most pundits are not even conscious of it. To put a find point on it, earth can no longer support its population of humans. There are too many people. Every other issue currently being debated is a direct symptom this simple fact.
Why do I say this? There are two billion people on earth who do not have potable water. Over 1.4 billion humans live on less than $2.00 per day. There are roughly 800 million people on earth staving to death at any point in time. Over 700 million people in China live in severely degraded air and water environments. Over 100 million babies are born every year; the majority of them in Developing and Third World Countries. Over 50,000 square miles of tropical deforestation per year is caused by population pressures in Third World countries. Over 40 million humans worldwide have AIDS; usually in countries with no means to stem the flood of new infections. Over 4 million babies die every year in Developing and Third World Countries. And at the tip of this litany of pain, over 250,000 children are killed every year in forced participation in wars around the globe. Ours is dysfunctional world under severe stress.
It has also become fashionable to decry past alarmists regarding overpopulation because of declining birth rates in Developed Economies. Western pundits have noted that rich people have fewer children. How profound. This ignores the facts above, and betrays a vast ignorance of how one third of humanity lives – in grinding pain and poverty. This is simply not good for business. So the question becomes, “Can a business afford to ignore the human condition?”
If your business plan is premised upon, (1) continuously leveraging cheap labor in Developing and Third World Countries; (2) accessing cheap depletable resources in Third World countries without regard to environmental impact; and, (3) a consumer business model based upon endless expansion of outlets rather than profitability per unit; then your business model is not sustainable. It generates short term profits at the expense of long term stability. One need only look at the Russian oil oligarchies to see an extreme example of this point.
Concerns about Global Warming pale beside the wrenching conditions that a third of humanity is forced to endure. A simple look at the pressures worldwide on basic commodities proves the point. If all humanity were to succeed in raising their standards of living to Western norms, we couldn’t collectively afford the energy bill. Or to put it another way, there isn’t enough fresh water on earth in the right places right now to sustain the average Western standard of living for all humanity.
The answer to this is not to dumb down the Developed World’s productivity. The usual red herring is to decry the United States as being the world’s largest user of energy for example. But when one factors in US productivity as the quotient over energy usage, the US is one of the most productive and efficient nations on earth. The answer instead is to slowly and intelligently nudge the population of humans into balance with what the earth is capable of supporting.
It does not matter whether the cause of all this pain and poverty is human greed, or inefficient distribution of assets. The end result is the same. Until we bring the population of humans in balance with the capacity of earth to support them, we are doomed to our present gross inefficiency of resources; a world that wastes fully one third of its human resources and all that means in the inefficient distribution of energy, goods and services.
The purpose of a sustainable business then is to reach a balance in its delivery of energy, goods or services to stable populations of consumers; earning a profit for its owners while reaching an realistic equilibrium on the availability of raw materials and the realistic cost of labor required to accomplish the task.
Richard Wottrich
Why do I say this? There are two billion people on earth who do not have potable water. Over 1.4 billion humans live on less than $2.00 per day. There are roughly 800 million people on earth staving to death at any point in time. Over 700 million people in China live in severely degraded air and water environments. Over 100 million babies are born every year; the majority of them in Developing and Third World Countries. Over 50,000 square miles of tropical deforestation per year is caused by population pressures in Third World countries. Over 40 million humans worldwide have AIDS; usually in countries with no means to stem the flood of new infections. Over 4 million babies die every year in Developing and Third World Countries. And at the tip of this litany of pain, over 250,000 children are killed every year in forced participation in wars around the globe. Ours is dysfunctional world under severe stress.
It has also become fashionable to decry past alarmists regarding overpopulation because of declining birth rates in Developed Economies. Western pundits have noted that rich people have fewer children. How profound. This ignores the facts above, and betrays a vast ignorance of how one third of humanity lives – in grinding pain and poverty. This is simply not good for business. So the question becomes, “Can a business afford to ignore the human condition?”
If your business plan is premised upon, (1) continuously leveraging cheap labor in Developing and Third World Countries; (2) accessing cheap depletable resources in Third World countries without regard to environmental impact; and, (3) a consumer business model based upon endless expansion of outlets rather than profitability per unit; then your business model is not sustainable. It generates short term profits at the expense of long term stability. One need only look at the Russian oil oligarchies to see an extreme example of this point.
Concerns about Global Warming pale beside the wrenching conditions that a third of humanity is forced to endure. A simple look at the pressures worldwide on basic commodities proves the point. If all humanity were to succeed in raising their standards of living to Western norms, we couldn’t collectively afford the energy bill. Or to put it another way, there isn’t enough fresh water on earth in the right places right now to sustain the average Western standard of living for all humanity.
The answer to this is not to dumb down the Developed World’s productivity. The usual red herring is to decry the United States as being the world’s largest user of energy for example. But when one factors in US productivity as the quotient over energy usage, the US is one of the most productive and efficient nations on earth. The answer instead is to slowly and intelligently nudge the population of humans into balance with what the earth is capable of supporting.
It does not matter whether the cause of all this pain and poverty is human greed, or inefficient distribution of assets. The end result is the same. Until we bring the population of humans in balance with the capacity of earth to support them, we are doomed to our present gross inefficiency of resources; a world that wastes fully one third of its human resources and all that means in the inefficient distribution of energy, goods and services.
The purpose of a sustainable business then is to reach a balance in its delivery of energy, goods or services to stable populations of consumers; earning a profit for its owners while reaching an realistic equilibrium on the availability of raw materials and the realistic cost of labor required to accomplish the task.
Richard Wottrich
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