Lost without Explanation

An otherwise reliable and experienced Air France flight crew are lost en route from Brazil to Paris after encountering "an electrical storm" ... oh yea and the flight pattern is just south of the Bermuda Triangle.

Although there are quite a few reported disappearances in that area, the two most notable aircraft mystery's are the Douglas DC-3 #NC16002 and US Naval Flight 19. The commonality in all of these, including the most recent Flight AF 447, has been related to electricity. Of course this poses a lot of new questions, but also possibly some answers to an industry always in need some refining. Engineers stay tuned!!!

Giant Hypocrites

This weekend we took the fam on a little getaway to escape the frigid weather. Great times were had by all, but I feel the need to comment on a situation that proved people are big hypocrites...


The hypocritical moment began just as we pulled up to the resort. Clearly the line of cars spoke for itself and we knew the wait to check in would be a good 20-30 minutes. So after dropping off my wife, the kids and I went to park the car and wait. In doing so though we noticed about 15-20 other cars blocking each other in around the front of the resort, and all with their engines running. Yes it was cold, so perhaps that is the reasoning for many, but seriously I shut the car off for 20 minutes and we had no problem staying warm in our car. Many of these people are the same people that complain about gas prices, but by far the funniest one was a car that was plastered with Save the Planet and Environmental stickers on it.

Base Load

No this isn't about baseball, this is about energy options to power future generations.

A term that we need to understand before talking about viable energy sources for the future is called base load. It essentially is defined as the minimum power needed to supply the reasonable consumer demand. This can help us gauge what we use on average, although differences exist depending on season and location.

Starting with the basics we look at all energy sources today, classified into 3 main groups:

1. Fossil fuels---coal, petroleum, and natural gas
2. Renewable forms of energy---hydroelectric, biomass, geothermal, solar, and wind
3. Nuclear power

Now looking at the graph above and focusing only on the Residential front, our base load hovers right around 20 Quadrillion Btu.

What then is Needed:For a more accurate example we can look at the Census Bureau's stats on 119,117,000 homes in the census for 2001. Using the average number of 923kWh used per household per month we would then need nearly 110 Million MW/month (equating to roughly 4.5 Quadrillion Btu)...and that is just residential.

What is the Solution/Options: Looking to alternative renewable measures we need to consider what their output is and if it can maintain a base load to meet our demands (or be more conscious of over consumption...but that would be a miracle).

1. Hydroelectric: If Hoover Dam had all 17 generators running at full capacity it would produce 2080 megawatts of power (7.1 Billion Btu or .000007 Quadrillion Btu)
2. Wind Turbines: According to the AWEA the largest wind farm located in Horse Hollow, TX outputs 736MW (2.5 Billion Btu). A total of 16,818MW (.000057 Quadrillion Btu) are generated in the US.
3. Solar: The Nevada Solar One produces a maximum capacity of 75MW (256 Million Btu).

You can see by these three examples that it is difficult to attain a base load using renewable energy today, which is why renewable energy only accounts for 18% of our global energy source (majority in large hydro-power) ...BUT that is no reason to sit by the wayside and use up our fossil fuels. If anything we need to create more renewable energy options, which in turn creates jobs, fuels more money into the US economy (keeping it away from our enemies, all while still keeping in mind that we can't use it as our sole source of energy...at least not for some time. So as glamorous as it sounds to use ONLY green energy, according to educated scientists, environmentalists, economists (proponents and opposition) we do need to fund an option that will help to keep our base load where it needs to be and prolong the exhaustion of our fossil fuels.
Note: If you read my blog you'll find I'm about as green as a leprechaun, but I am also a realist and know that in order to talk this great idea we need a realistic plan too.

Oil turns to Gold

On the annoucement of Record Oil Profits today, I thought we'd look at what countries our money is going to;

Top 10 (accounts for 88% of US consumption):

1. Canada (1.840 million barrels per day)


2. Saudi Arabia (1.579 million barrels per day)


3. Mexico (1.116 million barrels per day)


4. Venezuela (1.030 million barrels per day)


5. Nigeria (0.851 million barrels per day)


6. Iraq (0.583 million barrels per day)


7. Angola (0.464 million barrels per day)


8. Algeria (0.440 million barrels per day)


9. Brazil (0.318 million barrels per day)


10. Kuwait (0.263 million barrels per day)

I am sure you notice a few countries that jump out as known (past, present, or future) threats to the U.S.; so what do we do about it? We can continue to fund countries that hate us; or we can look internally on how to put money into our own economy. Ideas???

*Special thanks to my brother Paul for stimulus on this topic

Half-Million Dollar Views

Thought this was an interesting photo of the Riverwalk in Grafton, where about 2 years ago they built $500,000 condo's with walkout access to the riverwalk. Ouch, check out more photo's from this storm at JSOnline

Waterpark Capital of the World - Drained

Well not exactly are the water parks empty, but a major tourist destination in the Dells is. Lake Delton, home to the Tommy Bartlett Thrill Show, has overflowed taking with it peoples homes and dreams of a peaceful summer on the lake.

It is truly sad yet awesome to see the power mother nature once again shows us she has. No matter how many damns, levy's, or protective barriers we put in place, she reminds us that nothing can stand in her way. We pray for the people in these situations and are glad to know it is only material things that were lost in this disaster.

On a personal note, my in-laws who live on the Milwaukee River are experiencing a record high and thank god to this point haven't lost much more than a couple hours of sleep. It is times like this that I think of what Noah had to face on his ark, and we are only seeing about 1/1,000,000,000 (maybe more) of what he saw.

Rationing

This day in history (1942) is known as the day in which the United States placed an official restriction as to how much each individual person could purchase in a number of different goods areas . So why did this come about? It came about after we entered into WWII and the Japanese had strategically taking control of the Dutch East Indies. Perhaps the most dramatic impact this had was that it rationed the amount of gasoline you could purchase, maxing most drivers out at 4 gallons per week, and a maximum national speed limit was set at 35. Yep, that picture below is for real and the funniest thing about it all was that it was due to a fear of the loss of rubber...not gasoline!

I guess that probably wasn't so bad because for the 3 years that went on, we probably gained back a little of our ozone...but that's a whole new debate.

Bike to Work!

It's only fitting that we have seen gas prices blast through the roof this week, which also happens to be "Bike to Work Week". Thought this picture was fitting...



With oil price above $125 per barrel we shouldn't expect prices to drop anytime soon. Oh and by the way stamps went up to $.42. This is why I am so glad I work less than 5 miles from home....ahh!

Meteorologist Flop

Perhaps you may have heard that a deadly cyclone hit Myanmar killing an estimated 15,000 people thus far, and the death toll continues to climb. What you maybe have not heard was the serious miscalculation on the part of their local meteorologists and the government. These quotes come from the World News on MSNBC;

-----"The government misled people. They could have warned us about the severity of the coming cyclone so we could be better prepared," said Thin Thin, a grocery store owner.

-----"Before the cyclone hit, the government had only put out “storm news,” saying the cyclone would travel at about 30 miles an hour, whereas it struck with winds of almost four times that speed"

In an area that has seen many of these natural diasters (tsunami's, tidal waves, cyclones/hurricanes) strike over the past few years no mild storm should every be assumed.

Only today: Going Green

Depending on who you see as the founder of Earth Day and where abouts you might live may depend on when you actually celebrate the Earth. Regardless if you credit John McConnell, which then signifies you (along with the United Nations) celebrate it on the March Equinox; or you credit Gaylord Nelson who was a Wisconsin senator and most noted for the Earth Day celebration on April 22, you are doing your "green-duty"...or are you?


This is not a rant to tell you what you should be doing to save the planet, or to save money because if you wanted that you'd visit sites like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or the U.S. Department of Energy, or just tune into HGTV. I think it is more important to share with you about companies, people, and places that are headed in the right direction.

Companies:
Continental (American): Spent $16 billion to become more efficient
-reducing emissions by 5%
-reduced the nitrogen oxide output from ground equipment by over 75%
S.C. Johnson (American-Wisconsin)
-eliminated millions of pounds of waste from product
-building power plant that is fueled from a landfill
Patagonia (American)
-the entire mission has been based on the quote "There is no business to be done on a dead planet"
Subaru (Japanese)
-zero waste landfill

People:
Elon Musk (South Africa)
-entrepreneur that is taking on the auto industry with cars like the Tesla Roadster, a sports car that reaches 60 mph in less than four seconds, and can go 220 per charge...puts the water cooler debate of speed and distance in electric cars to a hush (minus the $100+k price tag)
Robin Murray (UK)
-industrial economist coining the "zero-waste" phrase and argues that one mans trash is another man's resource (consuming everything your discard)
...and a list containing many more people can be found through a weekly UK publication called the Guardian

Places:
Reykjavik, Iceland
-good old green Iceland has runs hydrogen buses and its electricity and heat come from geothermal and hydro power sources
Portland, Oregon
-a model for new public/green transportation, not to mention it has 92,000 acres of green
...and quite a few more places in the world according to the Grist

Basically be conscious and smart about what you do from an environmental perspective. It's not a new concept and we don't need stupid politicians to tell us what to do and how to do it, your an adult figure it out. After all if we don't, the way you see nature today may not stay that way for long!

Following Passion

What does it mean to be passionate? I think my cousin Jeff sums it up pretty good in his blog Passion=Truth. I wanted to take this time to educate you about another man who followed his passion and through it accomplished great things.

This man, John Muir, was a great visionary and also happened to be Wisconsin raised and educated individual. He is what some might refer to as a trail blazer! Blazing the trail has been a term used for the first man out ahead of the group making tracks for the rest to follow…and in my opinion this is he! He was an adventurer, conservationist, naturalist, but perhaps his most important role was his passion as a writer of God’s beautiful country…for it is what got him recognized by President Theodore Roosevelt. Today Teddy Roosevelt is credited with the designation of 150 National Forests, the first 51 Federal Bird Reservations, 5 National Parks, the first 18 National Monuments, the first 4 National Game Preserves, and the first 21 Reclamation Projects. Now Teddy does deserve this credit since he did implement the whole process in his role as president, but every match needs a spark and that spark in my opinion was John Muir.

Following your passion can present opportunities not yet seen by us, but through the hand of God it will become evident that this passionate quest was worth it!



Tunnel View by Ansel Adams at Yosemite