September 9th 2010

Jill's Almoonak with BMNer Jo Kilburn artwork

Almoonak with Amy Caldwell artwork

Good Morning
Kevin is working feverishly on the anemometer while I'm assembling the Isuzu four cylinder engine for Nell's lil' Pup. Yeah, I thought I was working for Desertgate yesterday, thankfully circumstances allowed that I didn't need to and was able to stay here and do stuff, mostly commune with Kevin about the anemometer. I think he has settled on using a hard-drive motor spindle (or was it a VCR head?) as the rotating axis for our wind measuring device. I don't know if you remember what an anemometer looks like, so here is a little image of one style of homemade device.

Once we have the anemometer set up on the wind turbine we should be able to compare readings with a simple RPM device to tell us the relationship between wind speed and blade speed, known as TSR Tip Speed Ratio. Kevin is employing bicycle computers for the readings, as they use a magnet spinning past a sensor to count pulses , thus RPMs and in the case of the anemometer a formula will be used to compute air speed from RPMs. The TSR is important for understanding efficiency of the blades. 

My work is less glamorous and even less photogenic, nevertheless work in progressing on the Isuzu. Mostly it feels like a crap-shoot hoping gaskets fit. The heavies are done: Rear Main Seal & engine case to aluminum oil pan mating. Right there is twenty nuts and bolts redeployed, and a huge load off my mind. I'm dreading the accessory brackets. I can't believe how many brackets there are on this little engine. Now that they are off both engines I'll need to rely on memory  as to where they go and how they fit together. It will be a test of my spatial visualization ability. 

Anyway, I had to run to town yesterday for cigars, so I brought our dog along and went to hardware and auto-parts stores to make the trip count. I bought two cans of engine degreaser and a tube of gasket maker glue. I wish I would have remembered a solvent to prepare surfaces for the sealant. Oh well I will buy some today.

I got to get ready for work

–
Brian Rodgers

Comments online at: http://outfitnm.com/category/brians-morning-newsletter If you wish to chance that I'll post it off my email hit "reply," but not really the preferred method

Tuesday, September 7th 2010

 
Good Morning

Well, first off the block I want to share a website http://ludens.cl/paradise/paradise.html that for me molded wonderful dreams. Nell on the other hand, had paranoid nightmares, but now she is all better, peacefully wandering the virtual Chilean landscape, before she has to leave for work over to the hospital and her lovely new job as she moves up the the company ladder.

Alrighty then, you may wonder what my connection is to this or just how I found this beautiful website. Well Austin's camp party is over and as soon as I see some facsimile of recovery for poor old Kevin, I hope to employ his brains, and multitude of other mad-skills to fix up our wind turbine.

I've also got two other major irons in the fire here, one being a hydraulic clutch issue on Bobby's Ford, which I am already well dug in on, but will shortly require some Brianization. Currently the truck is sitting in the driveway with a load of oak on the back, the drivers side door hanging open exposing an utter lack of a rudder. I had a heck of a time yesterday morning, removing the top nut from the clutch master cylinder, so I pulled the whole steering column.

Ahead for the kid, is a quick and dirty engineering of a firewall plate to stabilize the master cylinder, righting it in the process, so that the lid can be removed, the fluid level checked, without the use of a crowbar. Anyhow, that ain't nutin, and I can do this modifcation in my sleep, unfortunately, asleep is what it is like talking to the customer, but this seems to be what is has come down to with me: I love working the machines, but the owners are way more difficult to deal with.

It sounds like I am making excuses for why the clutch did not work the first time, except I explained all this already, but nobody listens to me. We get "shut up and fix it," a lot. No wonder I don't like people that much huh?

Climate Change and extreme weather forecasters are right in there with me I'm sure. Instead of listening to the scientist and implementing slow easy modification to our behavior we accuse them of trying to trick us. Meanwhile the situation gets worse likened to a snowball rolling down a hill. I mean what is it, 80-90% of humans are too busy to think about what we are doing to the environment? The other 10 to 20% are left arguing semantics. Who is working on the problem? Well this is what I am trying to find out, who is working toward fixing the planet and what are they working on?

Yeah sometimes I feel hopeless and helpless. I can get dark in the process. Meanwhile endless debates continue. In fact it turns out that the only thing more inevitable in the life than higher taxes would appear to be more expensive wars. The debate of windmill footprint continues: Adam and I spoke at Austin's camp party. I feel better, I thought maybe I had alienated everyone over there in the Bernal – Pecos valley with my reversal on the wind farm, I'm now for them, and learning a great deal about  what people's fear and anxiety over mega wind farms are in my process.

People will feel the way they feel. At least they are people not some faceless corporation.  I want to listen, but I feel we are under the gun to get renewable energy going. Anyway, Adam was telling me that studies show it could cost million dollars per mile to bring power to the turbine farm. It  is disgusting how much money it costs to do anything anymore. I'm not just thinking of the scale issue with mega wind farms either. Everything has ridiculously high price tags.

http://cursor.org/stories/dronesyndrome.htm A little digging uncovered that a drone costs a lot, I mean a friggin shitload of money

Table 1. Drones  in Afghan Theater, 2001-2002

So why be surprised that some corporation can blow a million dollars every mile stringing wires. Oh boy lookie at the date of this data, 15 million ten years ago, why that price must be tripled by now. No doubt it is way the hell and gone of the scale, but that doesn't stop America from ordering Drones by the boatload. A million dollars per mile, hmm, a thinking sort of a person might wonder what $1,000,000.00 laid out over a mile looks like.

I can tell you that had the oil and gas industry needed a pipeline and it costs 2 million dollars per mile, it would already be built. What does this do to all of our arguments for or against? It seems to me that the renewable energy industry which is not in the same league as the fossil fuel industry hasn't got the cash to help us believe what they want us to believe, leaving us to argue, over carbon footprints of wind mills and low frequency hums.

Hydroelectric dams got built, salmon spawns were obstructed, engineers did something about the issue once it was discovered. I don't think it is the big deal people are making of it. Contractors do know how to build stuff in watersheds without tearing the heck out of the place.

Like I said, I was going to try and explain how I wound up in Chili last night.  Let me see…
Oh yeah, Kevin and I were discussing how to deal with the low wattage from our wind turbine after doubling the size of the battery bank. We need more data to look at this scientifically, quite frankly living and working in the great country such as America has become we have no budget to be scientific. We can't buy a $50 anemometer so we can measure wind speed to compare to RPM of the turbine, thereby determining TPR (tip speed ratio)

I suggested we determine best-guess blade design. We know it is simple to raise and lower our turbine, less easy is unbolting the blade set, but not insurmountable. I'm wanting to use the biodiesel Dodge to make a run to Santa Fe for a load of Western Red Cedar to laminate for some experimental turbine blades.

That is one way to look at the problem, another might be to build a controller. Reading, yeah doing a lot of reading, and there are some people out there doing open source projects who would like the help to develop a controller capable of easing the work load mostly this is PV but it should work for wind turbines as well.

So briefly as I can I will show you what people are working on that got me interested in charge controllers. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/charge-controller/

This is very basic circuitry, with a lot of tedious programming and debugging. The point is: this is what it takes to make something happen, do it, share what you have, try to get other peer minded scientist-types to become involved and more a technology out of the hands of the corporations and to the people

Right, I still have not even picked up the basic kit so I could work along with the originator of the group. He is working alone, while the rest of us are looking over his shoulder, questioning the use of this or that, not having one finger in the project.

I need to see what people, creative resourceful people like myself can do if I weren't stuck under the dash board for people who don't care what we do only that we do it by a certain time.

So first it was here: www.madlabs.info  < silly mad science stuff of mine
Cool cool stuff, mostly educational, not exactly what I was looking for,  then someone on the charge controller forum kicked this site up: 

http://ludens.cl/paradise/paradise.html

Here I'll toss you a bone, just in case you think I'm going off all technical again

Yep, they got there own volcano

Don't worry, this guy is going to build a microhydro electric system for his home below the above pictured volcano, and yes, it is going to be right up there as one of the best photographic tours I have ever been on

 These are real muscles derived from manual labor

Ditto

Wheelbarrows, horses, shovels, jungles, my god I could not tear myself away.  

 The actual hydro turbine, from my background and understanding this guy build a lot of this stuff himself.

Pictures of him sitting in his new cabin winding copper to create the transformers that push the voltage up from the Chinese generator output of 230volt 50 cycle per second up to 1000 volts to reduce voltage drop on the electricity's  journey back up to the house. I mean, damn, that is absolutely gorgeous, even better than the hundreds of photos of the beautiful Chilean countryside, right?
 

–
Brian Rodgers

Comments online at: http://outfitnm.com/category/brians-morning-newsletter If you wish to chance that I'll post it off my email hit "reply," but not really the preferred method

Labor Day, Monday September 6th 2010

My late Sister Jill's Almoonak, brought to us by Nell's Cousin Barbara. I will be posting photos through out the coming weeks
Good Morning
The baby shower for Jona and Sara was a huge success. We had it in the Plaza Hotel Conservatory (I think it is called) The combination of our worn-out camera and the skylight being covered my photos came out poorly. I suppose it is to be expected. So I doctored a few, and here they are. 

Obviously above we have Nell and Sara, I will try to do better in the next few images.

Anita Benson, her mother Orolynn, Sara and Rob Jona's dad.

My lovely daughter Brittany, Orolynn and Jim Benson in the background, and Anita again.

Corrine a friend, my mom Clara, Brittany and in the back Amy Caldwell

Ohhh, Baby Monitor. 

Friday, September 3rd 2010

BP is warning Congress that if lawmakers pass legislation that bars the company from getting new offshore drilling permits, it may not have the money to pay for all the damages caused by its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Good Morning
This is our future people. We're letting it happen.

I write about the need for Americans taking responsibility for the consequences of our actions and the oil companies continue to blast holes in the planet. Maybe I shouldn't care, perhaps thousands of scientists have everything wrong, but I can't help, but think that the question is so basic even the simple-minded can follow: The reactor melt-down at Three Mile Island, is insignificant in comparison to what the oil companies are doing to the environment, even if one only looks at the superficial affect, as in spills and disregard for inhabitants.  Still we talk about the dangers of nuclear power and let the oil companies have their way with the planet. It is sickening.

Let's look at what BP is saying in the above statement. How does that headline make you feel? Should America give poor ol' misunderstood BP another chance? We refuse to accept the fact that oil is bad, so why not? I can hardly get the flaming liberals on-board with renewable energy, and the republicans… well I named this BMN after what they are concerned about while this country crumbles financially and without conscience.

People who I have great admiration for intellectually still can't come to terms with the difference between drilling a hole in Bernal Mesa for 50 admittedly very large footings for Mega turbines and drilling a hole in the bottom of the ocean where extreme water pressure has kept toxic clouds of high pressure methane out of our atmosphere.

Question the science. Hey it is much easier than taking a stand against an obvious wrong. So Steve says', the methane bubble didn't end the world like I predicted, we can breathe easy. First of all, "I" didn't predict that.  It was Mathew Simmons, yes the same guy the republicans doubted about Peak Oil, which I assume employ this element of doubt, to give them Carte Blanche to continue unimpeded in wasting resources.

Argue, argue, argue, it is just like I said, Palin and Beck are time-wasting idiots, and so are all the arguers. We don't have time to debate. It doesn't matter if megawatt wind turbines have a large carbon footprint, my goodness, of course they do, unless we can make people understand about the cost to the environment with continued oil and gas exploration and we slow down our consumption to a sustainable level, we really ought to dig a thousand holes in Bernal Mesa, just so people can see what wasteful self-righteous environmentally-unaware idiots we have become.

This morning besides the ludicrous headliner about how BP won't be able to pay for the damage it did, unless we let them try again in the Gulf, there is an even more sinister headline," Brazil oil firm Petrobras plans $65 bln stock sale."  Tell me you can't read anything between the lines in this article, and I will leave you to your blissful oil company induced blissful state.   The state run oil company is selling billions of shares, people! You better get in on that investment. Jesus, I hope not. Please tell me you care about our planet, I really need to hear it more often. 

Oh yeah there is plenty of oil left, we can drill and spill forever and never worry no more

I posted Lee's letter on the website  http://outfitnm.com/2010/09/02/bmn-more-good-wind-info Steve posted his here: http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/31/bmn-civilization

I don't know if anyone read the articles in Wind Energy I posted this week, but if it is of any consolation, those Mega-Watt wind farms that T.Boone Pickens built over Texas-way, have problems with power transmission, so they are paying to have power taken away. I don't know if this means you can drive your plug-in electric car over to one of the wind turbines and charge your batteries for free, but yeah maybe, right?
There really could be some benefits to the locals having a huge wind farm nearby. I mean if they can't get the power out, there it is, it's yours.
Y'all have a great weekend, while pretty please try thinking more green and sustainable

Where did all the money go?
Heidi Vogt writes, “The average Nigerian still survives on less than $2 a day, despite the country’s $20 billion rise in oil exports to the United States over the past five years.”

As if the lack of contribution from the oil money towards increasing living standards of Nigerians wasn’t enough, there is the environmental damage -

Flaring & Oil Spills
Flaring, the burning of natural gas (or “associated gas”) so as to increase crude oil production, is highly harmful to the Nigerian people and the world. Flaring releases numberous harmful gases. Flaring also happens close to where the Nigerian people live and work. Photo A above shows a Nigerian woman shifting away her tapioca produce.

Vogt writes, “When the Nigerian government told oil companies to stop flaring gas from drilling in local communities, many simply paid fines instead.”

–
Brian Rodgers

Thursday, September 2nd 2010

Good Morning
 This morning I will present Adam Caldwell's letter first, then comment afterward. First because this is fine writing better than I can do this early in the morning, also because I am  proud of Adam, being able to articulate the opinions of our friends in Bernal whom we hold so dear.

 ———-

The above attached image is a piece of the NM wind survey map.  Scott Hopkins so kindly sent us a link yesterday, so you can see the whole pictur, for what it is worth. 

Re: Wind potential and the Grid:

http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/images/windmaps/nm_50m_800.jpg

Has anyone from the area of Bernal Mesa installed anemometers with data logging? I would be curious what kind of wind is up there along the edge as well as in the proposed setback zone, because this is what wind farms are all about right, Got Wind?Anyway Kevin and I are going to be building a homemade data logging anemometer for our area. if any one is interested in what Bernal actually has to offer wind-wise, I'll continue to post info from this site https://sites.google.com/site/rpmmeter/
as well as at the Otherpower forums 

In the above image I can only guess what you hope to present. In your text you suggest that there is only one major transmission line and it is antiquated. 

I am not a transmission line engineer, although I am sure one will pop up. I can say, having worked around the power line marked in red on the above map that it isn't in any way antiquated. It is huge, and it does not stop where the map shows, that power line which runs across the Crestone and high over Ojitos Frios then, I guess along the freeway to Bernal and beyond, in the other direction it runs all the way up I-25 to as far as I can remember up past Raton and on into Colorado(probably straight to one of the state coal fired generators)

This information I have provided because I have tried to make this point before. Wind energy is unlike fossil fuel energy strictly because there isn't nearly enough of it. I am sorry it takes a gargantuan wind mill to make a percentage of the power generated by coal or god forbid nuclear energy.  Perhaps we need one or more of our young computer savvy GIS mappers to overlay these three maps, so we can garner some sort of useful information from them, because what I am seeing is the limited power output from one small Mega-watt wind farm needs to be as close to the power line running up the freeway in order that a large part of the power is not lost due to voltage drop. 
Voltage Drop Calculator

Environmental concerns with wind farms, seems a bit of a stretch to me. I hope you can look at this from a electricity generation standpoint. Yet I know it is very difficult to look at this issue my way unless you too have attempted to "make" your own electricity. 

 

I don't know why for instance you posted this image.  It shows existing and proposed wind farms and transmission lines in New Mexico. Power lines which we can assume are adequate for the gargantuan quantities of power currently in use today. Effectively wind turbines suck at making power, so the transmission line upgrades which the government is beginning to sponsor research into through grants has to do with smart grids and any possibility heretofore unrealized  power moving schemes whereby little if any of the precious power from photovoltaics and wind farms is lost. I've reading the EERE newsletter for years, which is how I know what I know about power transmission and supposed "Smart Grids." http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/enn.cfm

If I could make a point, it would be that while wind farms need to be absurdly huge to create even a tenth the energy (arbitrary figure)  we are used to using, at least energy production is being thrust into people's view, in increasingly populated areas in the form of renewable energy generation. I still feel it is "Right." Power to the people, man.

In response to the statement, "we are running out of time" .. "we should be using alternative energy, locally and industrially. But lets get it right."

Time is of the essence, go ahead get it whatever way you deem "Right," just don't let it take years, we need those generators soon.

Adam wrote" 2. The accident in the gulf happened because of lack of regulations, sound protocols, and safety precautions." 

Not what I read at all. There were plenty of protocol and laws, in one of the rig manager's log file he wrote, …the warning sirens were shut down so the crew could get some sleep.  My point is it is extremely my hazardous to the environment to drill for oil two miles beneath the sea in an area believed to be responsible for a mega methane bubble which may have ended the Jurassic era, than it is to blow some holes in the Mesa, there is no comparison.

Not that I supported the drilling for oil in Santa Fe, but I did make a lot of people angry when I said, "If you don't want oil wells in your backyard the sensible thing to do is, stop driving."

If I had a say in it, which I gather many people are glad I don't, I would suggest forgetting the setback, and let them build a few "test" wind turbines so you can see if the Mesa is deconstructed in the process.

Again I say, "It's all about scale."
Population growth is more radical over there by Bernal because of the proximity to jobs and cities. With this growth comes equal consumer power requirements.
Sure, we need to  try and regulate the corporations, yet I can't help thinking about how the native Americans felt when more and more Europeans began to arrive in their lands.
 
I'm not disrespecting your concern for your local region, but I suggest you remember to give thanks to the gods that Shell hasn't decided to drill for oil in the Pecos Valley   

Beyond the Gulf Oil Spill: Five Ongoing Ecological Disasters With No End In Sight

by Jennifer Hattam, Istanbul, Turkey on 07.17.10

A burning oil spill in the Niger Delta. Photo via City of Refuge Africa

Living some 6,000 miles away from the Gulf of Mexico, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that the oil spill often seems like an abstraction to me. A big, big abstraction, but still. Pictures of oil-covered pelicans and other heart-tugging images occasionally appear in the Turkish press, but generally, people here — like people anywhere — are more concerned about domestic issues, of which we have plenty. And I know that when I was living in the United States, the Turkish mining disasters that so compel me now would have seemed equally remote.

That's why an article on "The World's Ongoing Ecological Disasters" — some of which make the BP spill pale in comparison — offered an especially striking reminder that there are ecosystems and people suffering outside the eye of the nightly news.

A Five-Decade Oil Spill in Nigeria
In his piece this week for Foreign Policy, author Joshua E. Keating highlights five global environmental catastrophes that appear to be even harder to solve that the BP spill. "The Deepwater Horizon incident may have been the worst oil spill in U.S. history, but it pales in comparison to the ongoing catastrophe that has afflicted Nigeria's Niger River Delta over the last five decades," he writes, noting that the African country suffers the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez spill every year. "Oil companies operating in the region blame thieves and sabotage for the majority of the spills, though local activists say aging equipment and lax safety are the cause of many of them," Keating writes, adding that the problem will likely worsen as oil companies seek black gold in places where it's harder to extractMore horror stories about oil

Niger Delta: In Nigeria, Oil Spills Are a Longtime Scourge (via @nytimes)

Flare, Port Harcourt Nigeria, 2001. Photo from Creative Commons by Danny MCL/flickr

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/world/africa/17nigeria.html

"…endured the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years…"

–
Brian Rodgers

Comments online at: http://outfitnm.com/category/brians-morning-newsletter If you wish to chance that I'll post it off my email hit "reply," but not really the preferred method

Wednesday, September First 2010

Bobby brought a load of oak as partial payment for the Ford PU he is buying from us. As soon as I have a free moment we'll unload it over at Clara's and Henry's.
————
Good Morning
Wowsa, yesterday was a flash from the past: Engines, trannys, and millions of nuts and bolts, oh my!

Seriously though the engine has only minor differences and slight damage due to being shipped on a tire strapped to a palette.  :-X It is a huge relief for the anxiety we have felt during the three weeks since we paid $1245.00 for a used engine. One of my worries was wondering what was included in the replacement engine and if the engine they sent was exactly the same as the one I removed, then, which parts would be transferable.

Above is the timing belt on the newish engine.

Well yeah, there are a few little issues, like the engines have very different oil pans, but at this point I am not worried about the fit. I am not sure why they removed so many peripherals like for instance the dipstick, so I'm left hoping the oil pan difference won't mean the dip stick for the dead engine will read the proper oil level on the new engine.
 
Also missing is the timing belt cover. I am glad that even though they said prior to purchase before installing the engine I would be replacing the timing belt. Yeah great, the belt has been replaced, why not put the cover back in place? Now I have to move studs and modify this and that to get the cover for the old engine to fit the new.  

It took me most of the day, but I finally got the engine and transmission apart. Even though I exclusively employed pneumatic power tools it took longer than I thought. These little engine have surprising quantities of aluminum fiddle-de-bits which hold accessories like the alternator, smog and power steering pump in place. So I'm back to being a little stressed by the number of nuts and bolts I need to remember where go and what the order for replacement.

Towards the end of my career as a computer repairman I was getting pretty obsessive with removal of screws from laptops becasue all it took was once, putting the long screw in the short hole to ruin a mother board. So I drew a picture of each laptop with the screws marked. This was a habit I created to feel confident that I would make money on each job and of course not be buying customers new laptops if I broke theirs worse than when it came in. I was good at it, but it was a little on the insane side.

All of these thoughts go through my mind as I pull short bolt, then a long one and throw them in the same parts bucket, to be sorted out another day. I will work for Desertgate today, so out of my mind it needs to go. Luckily engines and laptops have one major difference; size. I won't need to worry so much when reassembling the dozens of parts because things don't break so easy with engines, plus I am very careful and usually don't employ the air tools for reassembly, or when I do I carefully torque nuts and bolts.

Thankfully the engine is here and it looks like all the major parts fit from one to the other, anxiety melting away with each test of compatibility.
I got the first batch of gaskets and seals ordered yesterday, more than at first I figured on. Now is the time to do all the gaskets, just because the engine looks clean doesn't mean it wasn't leaking oil, they pressure washed it before shipping. Some of the gaskets are deep inside the engine, like the rear main seal. On the bright side, it will be great if I can put in a non-oil-leaking engine, and I don't know if it matters if this takes a week or a month to reassemble, I probably already forgot where some of the parts go, exactly.

I was thinking of painting the little fiddle-de-bits too, right, why not?
I always recall fondly when Hugh brought a Ford PU into the shop I was working in as a VW mechanic (I didn't do Fords then) Pete de Gringo, a fellow mechanic asked Hugh what color to paint the pieces. I don't know what Hugh replied, but Pete painted each part a different color.
Yeah that was sweet, right Hugh?
Okay, gotta get ready for my regular day job gig.
Eric called and we will be in Rociada again today. I love working up there, it is all like: The sound of Music 

Or what?
–
Brian Rodgers

Comments online at: http://outfitnm.com/category/brians-morning-newsletter If you wish to chance that I'll post it off my email hit "reply," but not really the preferred method

Letters

Hi Brian,

As you may or may not know, at the last county commissioners meeting, it was decided to take the proposed wind ordinance back to the drawing board. The proposed ordinance presented a three mile setback from an industrial turbine to a residence, church, school etc. The industry proposed a 1,200 foot setback.

The commissioners decided that rather than approaching this from “artificial” (man made) boundaries, it should be approached more “organically” with buffer zones to protect the fragile waterways… “the lifeblood, heart and soul of San Miguel County” (Jesus Lopez, county attorney). This approach would create areas around the Pecos River, the Gallinas River and their tributaries that would be protected from any industrial development.

Mapping and research are currently underway by Planning and Zoning. Soon the task force will regroup and join Planning and Zoning to begin crafting this new ordinance.

I’d like to elaborate on the carbon emission comment /question. Each turbine proposed (390’ to 450” tall) would require concrete bases of 40’wide x 40’long x 20’ – 40’ deep, multiplied by 47 turbines. That is a lot of concrete. Concrete is a huge contributor to the project’s carbon emission.

Digging and possibly blasting would involve substantial deconstruction of the mesa. Much erosion from this would fall into the Pecos River, adversely affecting the livelihoods of hundreds of valley farmers, who would not benefit financially from this project. Once the river is clogged and destroyed, who will dredge it and clean it up? And what would be left of this beautiful, agricultural valley?

It is true that corporate wind is here; it is a new industry and therefore has very few guidelines or restrictions. San Miguel County is in a position to establish rules for appropriate citing and accountability by industrial developers that could set legislative precedence for the rest of New Mexico and other states.

This is not about pro or con wind or the view; we should know better than to trust any unregulated corporate industry.

We are not against renewable energy; we are for locally based renewables and some level of protection for communities from outside corporate interests. Working toward health and safety setbacks is not anti-wind.

These mega wind facilities are being built with our tax dollars. We should have some input as to how they treat their hosts.

Lisa
—————-     

Thank you for writing in Lisa

Brian

————————–            
I understand a bit of a NIMBY attitude about the wind farms or acres of solar panels but in the end, would you rather look at those or millions of gallons of oil flooding the Gulf or the tops of mountains blown off and the sludge poured into the river valleys below as with "clean" coal?

The village of Vaughn, population <500 is also looking at a wind farm that would reinvigorate the town's economy. Perfect place to put it. Wide open spaces and nothing but the barbed wire and chamisa to stop the wind.

MB
—————   
Yeah, Vaughn, this is Rodgers'(ancestors) country. As far as I know, there isn't much  to reinvigorate, except perhaps the idea that there was ever something there. We'll just say "invigorate," Vaughn.
Not my idea of habitable country, the only other issue and I reiterate this news, transmission of power is currently this country's greatest concern. Our economy relies on distribution, corporations aren't satisfied with  local production. Wind farms absolutely need to be tied into the main pipelines crisscrossing the country, this is how our Enronesque power schemes works.

The documentary, Smartest Guy in the Room, was a sad reminder of what happens when corporations get a hold of utility power grids  through deregulation. Even after the exposure of Enron's  and Kenneth Lay's criminal disregard for people you would think that going Green would mean something more, but the truth is, we the people are captives of Capitalism. If they want to build a nuclear power plant in our backyard the only thing stopping them is the cost, whether it be in legal battles with locals or Unions, it is all about the money, and little to do with how we feel.

This is why I like wind farms: It is less worse than the alternative, and the corporation is willing to foot the bill, with the help of grants from Americans obviously. Our system is broken. Anything we can do to get off of coal and oil is better than nothing.

Brian

———
Greetings -

I've been rooting around in some lesser traveled climate change backwaters.  Buzzkill for the day:

"Shakhova notes that the Earth’s geological record indicates that atmospheric methane concentrations have varied between about .3 to .4 parts per million during cold periods to .6 to .7 parts per million during warm periods. Current average methane concentrations in the Arctic average about 1.85 parts per million, the highest in 400,000 years, she said. Concentrations above the East Siberian Arctic Shelf are even higher."

http://climateprogress.org/2010/03/04/science-nsf-tundra-permafrost-methane-east-siberian-arctic-shelf-venting/

For cogent, comprehensive and congenial discussions of conditions in the Arctic, see:

http://www.science20.com/chatter_box/blog/chatterbox_arctic_index , et seq.

I wouldn't sell my beachfront property just yet, but I'd be keeping an eye on the market…

Le Spaz d'Argent

I haven't lost my mind -
I know exactly where I left it.        
———————-         
Thanks for the updates Scott
Brian

Tuesday, August Thirty First 2010

Good Morning
Ah, Glen Beck and Sarah Palin on stage together, I mean what more could we ask for? There is a scenario in the Douglas Adams book "Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy,"  in which all of the telephone sanitizers, used car salesmen, as well as a planet's entire population of intellectually challenged,  are shipped off-world, "to populate a new planet (which coincidentally turned out to be Earth)" they were told because their home world was going to crash into the sun or some such catastrophe.  We can thank Palin and Beck for rounding up America's idiots. All that is left is to figure out how to get rid of them.

We can also thank the Tea Party for showing the appeal and excitement of endlessly arguing about subjects to which we have no expertise. Whether we want to believe in severe weather being due to climate change being natural phenomenon or human caused when in fact we haven't got off the couch in ten years to form our own opinion through active scientific research. Americans were reared by television, and the advertisers that fund the shows hammered home a constant psychological message: Consumerism, we deserve to consume the latest gadget, then as quickly as possible toss it in the rubbish bin  and buy the newer gadget: repeat. The bottom line is we are now a nation of entitled idiots incapable of believing the corporations would harm the planet, while bringing the cheapest products to market.

God will smite those who don't believe in said consumerism. Look if you will at what oil companies are doing to local wealth in Africa. I plugged  "Oil Production National Wealth " into Google. I don't know, maybe here http://allafrica.com/stories/200909180906.html, this is just one article but what I'm thinking about are interviews with people in Gambia from the documentary film, The Age of Stupid.  There is no Trickle Down Economics, people! Once the corporation has plundered a region, they bail-out leaving the locals to clean up the mess, or most likely being left penniless the locals will continue to live in the filth of post "oil exploration and drilling" activities. 

Instead of piping excess gas from wells to locals for cooking the oil companies burn-off the gas at the well. The locals get to watch as their natural resource goes uselessly up in smoke in black noxious clouds. These are the companies we trust folks, you know in your hearts this is true, every depressing bit of it is true.  Yet we still avoid  conservation and renewable energies. I get it, my question is do you get it?

You know us, Nell and I evolved from a Doom and Gloomers into biodieselers and homemade wind turbine builders having fun learning how energy is created, and creating some. The act of accomplishing energy production on even our personal scale is true entitlement, not what some pseudo-psychologist  gives us as a sales pitch.

We have to stop arguing people, civilization is falling, centuries of forward progress is threatened by one stupid narrow minded idiom: mindless consumerism. We do not actually deserve a break today. We have been fucking-up for quite some time now, and the clock is ticking. Bubble after bubble has burst, the government can not stop this decline. It goes without question that Palin's simple-brained politics are worse than Nero fiddling while Rome burned. 

Nell suggested yesterday that Americans look at the life of Marie Antoinette "Marie Antoinette (IPA: [maʁi ɑ̃twanɛt]; Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and Emperor Francis I…" She is infamously quoted, "Let them eat Cake." Nell suggests that Americans have as little common sense of the people of the world as Antoinette did when she suggested if the people are hungry they should eat cake. Of course "they" didn't have any cake, or any sort of food, which is why they were considered "hungry," but what does a penultimate child of an Empress know about anything? (I always loved the word "penultimate,'" and looked it up back in the 70's when I read Phillip K. Dick's Penultimate Truth)

Entitled: Is this what being an American has come to mean? We are entitled to all the comforts we were sold and our parents bought, regardless of the consequences to the toil of the people of foreign lands for which we depend for cheap goods and services?  I've actually heard the right wing republicans spew Antoinettisms, if I can coin the phrase. "Those people don't have to work in our factories for for barely subsistence wages." The righteous attitude of the Capitalists: They  ought to be bowing in gratitude for the opportunity to work for ten dollars a day.

How do we explain some Americans' attraction to Hummers, if not because we feel entitled to all the privileges of the empress' penultimate daughter? For a lot of us a Hummer represent the penultimate in pre-pubertal machismo with a shiny paint job and lots of chrome where the actual weapons reside on the military version.  Whatever, Assholes. You can go around wasting twice as much fuel as the rest of us because it makes you feel… What? like you are a proper Asshole? An American Asshole, wow, we kneel at the very wheels of your vehicle, not!  Get lost asshole.

All I am saying is maybe Douglas Adams had it right: We need to round up the unprecedented quantities of people feeling "entitled," in fact who are a terrible burden on civilization, and ship them off the the second coming of Christ or whatever the fuck nonsensical noise they believe in, so the rest of who are actually contributing to our planet's well-being can get about our business without the distraction of constant argument.

–
Brian Rodgers

Comments online at: http://outfitnm.com/category/brians-morning-newsletter If you wish to chance that I'll post it off my email hit "reply," but not really the preferred method

Letters

Jonathan Wrote: "Makes me puke."
Oil companies have committed the worst environmental atrocities of the industrial age. Wind Turbines make you puke?
Brian.
———-    
FYI…

this weekend we went to Colorado. We passed a sign that said a new solar farm was going to be installed somewhere up around Springer. There was a big electrical grid thing right by the sign along the highway so I assume whatever solar power is harvested will be injected into the grid right there.

Good to see NM capitalizing on its greatest resources: wind and sun.

MB
—————         
We are as well. Thank you for the positive vibes, Brian
———-
Hey Brian -

Check out the attached 50m wind potential/transmission capacity map.

http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/maps_template.asp?stateab=nm

For a little dirt on the money trail of anti-alternative energy/anti-climate change propaganda, search on the Koch Brothers.  The wingnuts like to whine about the contributions to 'liberal' causes by George Soros.  Pack of hypocrites!

I was working on the lower Pecos back in '03 when the Ft. Sumner wind project was just coming to completion.  The ranchers down there love it.  They get ~$6K/yr for the lease of the land for each tower.  As for looks, driving down from Santa Rosa it looks like the Indians lining up on the mesa above the EXXON/Mobile wagon train.  Beautiful.

Those vanadium liquid batteries I mentioned a while back scale up to boxcar size and can store enough power to smooth out the supply should the wind go variable.

Keep up the good work.

Le Spaz d'Argent

I haven't lost my mind -
I know exactly where I left it.
—————-      
Yep, the Koch Bros have been exposed on my Yahoo group Wastewatts, creating one of the largest arguments between right wing and left, another reason I decided to shift my stance on the wind farms, too much propaganda: Nobody knows what to believe, so I went with my common sense which hadn't let me down in the past. Wind farms are desperately needed, anything besides burning fossil fuels and nuclear fuels to create energy for Americans to burn wastefully (in my opinion.)  As far as the Koch Brother conspiracy I didn't read any of it, I did hit delete when I saw the corporate-brain-washed-responses. People can't think for themselves any longer.
Many people seem to need to be told the truth. I do a lot of tellin, to a lot of people, I have no idea if what I hear is the truth or not, so I go with my seat of the pants approach. Wind farms appear to me to be fantastic new sources of non-fossil fuel energy. 
Any source of energy which does not support the planet polluting uber-evil oil corporations is better more positive approach to working with the planet, instead of the current level  raping & plundering.
  
—————
Hey Brian and Nell,
Hope you guys are doing well.
Had to put my 2 cents in.
xo L.
——-    
Hi Lisa
I didn't see your "two cents," anywhere in your reply.
We want to hear why you folks over there in Bernal are so against the wind farm.
I'm thinking of writing a letter to the Optic in favor of the wind farms so that people know that not every one is against renewable energy. I don't mean to stir up anxiety, but I haven't heard any convincing evidence.. I mean compared to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, to compel me not to advocate for the biggest wind farm anywhere, whether it be a corporation or group of people can muster as close to the power grid as needed.
We're doing fine, thanks for askin :-[
Brian
———— 
Brian's Desktop now has the latest Ubuntu installed, this morning will be the test drive of Lucid Lynx, Mozilla's Thunderbird 3.0 for Linux, and Lordy knows what other slicker than snot improvements!

 
http://www.ubuntu.com/

 Ubuntu – Linux for Human Beings!

You are using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
                – the Lucid Lynx – released in April 2010 and supported until April 2013.
   

This section is an introduction to Ubuntu. It explains the Ubuntu philosophy and roots, gives information about how to contribute to Ubuntu, and shows how to get help with Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is an entirely open source operating system built around the
          Linux kernel. The Ubuntu community is built around the ideals enshrined in the Ubuntu Philosophy: that software should be
                available free of charge, that software tools should be usable
                by people in their local language and despite any disabilities,
                and that people should have the freedom to customize and alter
                their software in whatever way they see fit. For those reasons:
               
What is Linux?

The Linux kernel is the heart of the Ubuntu operating system.
          A kernel is an important part of
                any operating system, providing the communication bridge between
                hardware and software.
               

Linux was brought to life in 1991 by a Finnish student named
                Linus Torvalds. At the time, it would run only on i386 systems,
                and was essentially an independently-created clone of the UNIX
                kernel, intended to take advantage of the then-new i386
                architecture.
               

Nowadays, thanks to a substantial amount of development
                effort by people all around the world, Linux runs on virtually
          every modern computer architecture.
                 

The Linux kernel has gained an ideological importance as well as a technical one.
          There is an entire community of people who believe in the ideals
                of free software and spend their time helping to make open
                source technology as good as it can be.
               

People in this community gave rise to initiatives such as
                Ubuntu, standards committees that shape the development of the
                Internet, organizations like the Mozilla Foundation, responsible
                for creating Mozilla Firefox, and countless other software
                projects from which you've almost certainly benefited in the past.
               

The spirit of open source, commonly attributed to Linux, is
                influencing software developers and users everywhere to drive
                communities with common goals.

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Wind Farm photos courtesy of PNM http://www.pnm.com/systems/nmwec.htm

The New Mexico Wind Energy Center, the state's most ambitious renewable energy project, officially went online Oct. 1, 2003. The center is the seventh-largest wind generation project in the United States.

Located 170 miles southeast of Albuquerque and 20 miles northeast of Fort Sumner, the wind center is perfectly suited for eastern New Mexico's windy landscape. Power production does not require water, produce emissions or generate solid waste.

The wind center consists of 136 turbines, each standing 210 feet high. The facility can produce up to 200 megawatts of power, or enough electricity to power 94,000 average-sized New Mexico homes.

Florida-based FPL Energy owns and manages the facility, while PNM purchases all of its output.

I blew the images up from 400 pixels to 640 pixels and lost some resolution, you can see the original slide show here

I love the way these clouds came through. I had two images this morning from our north back yard, but I thought if I am going to call this BMN "Wind Farms," I better stick to pictures of wind farms  

Of course being a mountain loving man, I believe these wind farms are suited to deserts or prairies, or whatever this type of terrain is called. My understanding is that a major concern with wind farms is power transmission, which may be why they selected Bernal. Location Location Location
I wish the world's powers that be would give the energy to the locals. For example, if there are local natural gas wells, then it seems like the locals ought to get discounted gas because it doesn't need to be shipped. Same with mega wind farm transmission of power, just don't do that. Put the wind farm as close to Las Vegas, have the people pay for the turbines in taxes or bonds or whatever then pay them back with discounted power. What's the problem, why does everything need to be "For Profit" for investors on the other side of the world?

Yeah nice photography, yeah I get it, PMN does what it can to make these wind farms look nice. To be honest I think they succeed.  

You may be saying, "Why not put 100 of these big suckers in our valley, if I like them so much. One dimension which all turbine engineers adhere to is  the fall zone (the area all around a turbine equal to its height) our valley is small, sorry we could only fit five or six turbines. Plus the wind up here in the mountains is turbulent, unlike in the plains.

Now think about a wind farm East of Las Vegas out past the airport, wouldn't that be nice? There is a lot of space there, and as far as I know the turbines wouldn't be in anyones view who didn't want to see them.
Here are a few of the stories I read this morning.
http://www.windaction.org/news/c93-117/?startnum=201

Wind Action News

—————-

–
Brian Rodgers

Comments online at: http://outfitnm.com/category/brians-morning-newsletter If you wish to chance that I'll post it off my email hit "reply," but not really the preferred method

Letters

Ah, the Wind Turbine Savior myth.  Brian, are you aware that in 20+ years of Turbines (that started at 50' and are now as tall as 500') not one a coal plant closed, as they have to provide electricity during the 70% time of intermittent wind.  Also it will take the lifetime of the project to erase the carbon emissions created during the building of these monstrous Commercial projects.  It is not about the view.  It is about the destruction of the ecological balance of the Mesa.  It is about the impact on human and animal life.  You are the perfect example of someone who walks his talk.  We need residential and community renewables.  If you think Corporate development is for our good, then everything you write about would be hypocritical.  This project and others like it are about corporate greed.  Please research this more before you vote for a destruction that can NEVER be restored. www.windaction.org.  This wave of industry is Enron with a new face.  It is your children and grandchildren's future bailout.  I know you like to do research, so please inform yourself before you jump on the media bandwagon.  gloria
—————  
Howdy Gloria,
You wrote "Also it will take the lifetime of the project to erase the carbon emissions created during the building of these monstrous Commercial projects. "

I am with you on the wind farm in Bernal Brian. A reasonable setback of 2 or 3 kilometers, like they have in Germany, is a must though.
Bernard
–  
I don't know I like the way they look.
Brian

Photovoltaics

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20014962-54.html

August 30, 2010 4:00 AM PDT

Thinking about solar? It's easier to start small

by Martin LaMonica

Residential solar power is becoming more like a box lunch than a seven-course gourmet meal.

A number of companies are taking advantage of technical advances, notably microinverters, to make buying a handful of solar panels, rather than a roof full, a viable option. That doesn't mean that everyone can install their own electric panels, but it can lower the cost of entry for solar.

Green Ray Solar this week is expected to announce UL certification for a solar panel that puts out alternating current, rather than direct current as most solar photovoltaic panels do today. AC panels can be simpler to install and wire together than traditional panels, which makes a piecemeal approach easier, said Miles Russell, the CEO of Green Ray Solar.

Piecemeal solar panels (photos)

View the full gallery

"Nothing could be more timely in a down economy than to do the right thing in a way so that it doesn't kill the budget," he said. "You can start small and add more over time if you desire."

Green Ray Solar's SunSine AC Module, expected for availability in the fall, is one of a growing number of solar photovoltaic panels that take advantage of microinverters. It's a technology that has been pursued for years, but the reliability and efficiency have improved in the past few years.

Traditionally, solar panels are tied into a device called an inverter, which converts the direct current from panels into household alternating current. Strung together, several panels produce enough voltage to run an inverter which, sized for a rooftop array, is roughly as big as a computer monitor.

A microinverter brings that DC-to-AC function onto each individual panel. Proponents say the technology simplifies installation and improves panel performance. For example, shading on one panel will not affect the output of other panels connected to it, as happens with panels connected to a centralized inverter.

A full-size grid-tied solar array with about 15 or 20 panels can cost anywhere between $25,000 and $40,000 upfront depending on the size. AC panels are not cheaper, but proponents the modularity makes it easier to install a few panels, and then later connect more to the existing set.

More flexibility
James Cormican took the small-steps approach to solar at his parents' home. Working with an electrician, he put five panels onto their garage, which was the only space with good sun available to them, for well under $10,000.

The advances in solar technologies in just the past couple of years give solar designers more flexibility to fit panels onto tighter spaces, he said. Whereas a full-size solar array will typically have a capacity of two kilowatts and higher, Cormican's system is rated at one kilowatt, which is about enough to run a few power-hungry appliances.

"Of course there are economies of scale when you have many panels installed, but the argument that you can't have a system with one or two solar modules is not true anymore," said Cormican, who is an instructor at the AltE Store, which sells alternative energy gear to consumers and installers. He said the AltE Store is seeing more interest and business for smaller solar systems.

In addition to panels equipped with microinverters, thin-film solar panels put out a higher voltage, which gives people more flexibility in choosing inverters, he said. In Cormican's case, the panels put out enough voltage to be tied into a traditional inverter.

Although the output and cost will vary depending on location, a one-kilowatt system will put out roughly 1,000 kilowatt-hours a year, and the installation cost is roughly $6 per watt, he said. Average electricity consumption in the U.S. is about 11,000 kilowatt-hours a year. Until 2016, solar installations receive a 30 percent federal tax credit, and there are often state incentives as well.

Cormican warned against people thinking that they can install panels themselves if they don't have the qualifications of an electrician or solar installer. Although regulations and building codes vary by state, there are serious safety issues related to both grid-tied systems and solar systems with batteries. It might be difficult to find an installer willing to take on small jobs, but a do-it-yourselfer could possibly share some of the work with a pro, such as installing panel racking.

"If you can find an installer who is willing to work with you and let you do the parts that you are legally allowed to do–anything that doesn't have to do with electrical work–then that can reduce the cost," he said.

Plug and play?
The solar industry has been on a multiyear quest to lower the cost of electricity from solar with higher manufacturing volume and more efficient solar cells.

But because about half of the cost of a solar PV system is tied up in installation, a number of companies are trying to cut the installation cost, called the "balance of system" in industry parlance.

Andalay Solar, which is changing its name to Westinghouse Solar, developed what it calls a plug-and-play solar kit–available through installers and some Lowe's home-improvement stories in California. There's a panel, equipped with a microinverter from Enphase Energy, and a simplified wiring and racking system.

Similarly, Ready Solar offers a "Solar in the Box" kit designed for quick installation. Another company, Armageddon Energy, by the end of this year hopes to release the Solar Clover, which is made up of several small, hexagon-shaped mini-solar panels. The hope is to have solar installs done in a few hours and as easy as buying a kitchen appliance.

Earlier this month, Seattle-area start-up Clarian Technologies got a lot of media attention for its Sunfish, a do-it-yourself solar system designed for consumers to install themselves. Promised for next spring, it would include one or three panels, a microinverter that connects into a home power outlet, and a controller at the circuit board. As the company has not yet shown a product or gotten UL certification for safety, there is a good dose of skepticism among professional installers, said Cormican.

In addition to modularity, one of the big advantages of AC panels equipped with microinverters is that they can be individually monitored. The system from Green Ray Solar, for example, will include a solar panel from Sanyo equipped with a microprocessor to gather performance information and a microinverter. The kit, available through installers, will also have a gateway that connects to a home Internet connection, giving people access to solar data online.

"The information side of things is very rich territory," said Russell. "It's really revolutionary for the industry to have this kind of scrutiny."

Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin.

—————–          

Wind

Cash grant that propped up alt power due to expire

By JOHN MILLER (AP) 

BOISE, Idaho — The wind always seems to blow on the Snake River plain, keeping this high-desert landscape of sage, potatoes and sugarbeet plants forever in motion.

Still, General Electric Co. executives said the consistent gusts weren't enough for them to take a majority stake in Idaho's largest wind farm, a 122-turbine, $500 million complex due to produce enough electricity for some 43,000 homes.

That took cash — specifically, the promise of more than $100 million in grants from a U.S. Department of Treasury program that's pumped $5.1 billion into the nation's renewable energy projects in the last 18 months. It's helped kickstart wind farms in California's mountains, geothermal stations that tap boiling water beneath Nevada's desert, even solar equipment at a Wisconsin cranberry marsh.

Part of the 2009 federal stimulus, it came as financing evaporated after the 2008 global financial crisis.

Grant recipients say risk-leery bankers have grown more willing to give them money, knowing that renewable developers will quickly get 30 percent of eligible capital costs back, to reduce their debts.

But the grant program expires this year, so energy developers and lawmakers are pushing Congress to extend it until 2012, though they fear election-year politics and possible cost concerns will be a roadblock.

Failure won't kill renewable energy development, but advocates say wind, geothermal and solar power projects would likely slow.

"Industry is already challenged with difficulties in getting power contracts at a price that makes sense," said Alex Urquhart, president and chief executive officer of GE Energy Financial Services, before touring his new Idaho project. "If you take away the grant, you further dampen the market, you add cost to projects that may already be challenged."

For years, the U.S. government steered cash to renewable energy development by offering tax credits.

But when financial markets collapsed in 2008, banks and other investors no longer had an appetite for those, leading Congress and President Barack Obama to approve the cash grants with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

In April, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California said wind projects that may have been enabled by the stimulus grants created 51,600 construction jobs and 3,860 permanent jobs. Nearly two-thirds of wind projects and all geothermal plants built in 2009 took the grants.

GE's project in Idaho expects to create 175 construction jobs and 25 permanent jobs.

"The Treasury grant has been hugely important to date in bridging the gap in financing, as the economy took a nose dive," said Alex Klein, a consultant at IHS Emerging Energy Research in Cambridge, Mass.

Fred Prehn, owner of Prehn Cranberry Co. about 100 miles northwest of Madison, Wis.., is just now applying for his third Treasury grant. He's already received two, totaling about $93,000, to install solar equipment and a wind turbine for his 160-acre marsh where he grows 5 million pounds of berries annually.

Prehn's third will pay about $110,000 for a second wind turbine that will power his pumps and ship electricity back to his local utility to defray costs. The federal grant was critical in convincing bankers to loan him the money for his latest turbine, he said.

"Otherwise, it would have never happened," Prehn said. "People think, 'This is just for the big guys.' It isn't. It's for everybody. Grab your piece of it. But you've got to hurry up."

With the grants expiring this year, a group of U.S. senators including Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and George LeMieux, R-Fla., are pushing to extend the program two years. U.S. Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., introduced a draft bill in the House Ways and Means Committee with similar provisions.

U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, is optimistic an extension could clear the Senate Finance Committee with bipartisan backing — despite deficit concerns.

"The majority of even the conservatives in Congress believe that our energy policy, or lack thereof, is such a serious threat to our economic stability that it justifies congressional support," Crapo said Friday.

"Our sense is, it will be part of the September agenda," added Derek Schlickeisen, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Oregon and a backer of the House measure.

But Karl Gawell, the Geothermal Energy Association's executive director in Washington, D.C., said nothing is assured. He fears bad blood between the respective parties in the nation's capital could color the debate when lawmakers return in mid-September.

"It's the politics of Washington," Gawell said. "It doesn't appear to most people that any significant legislation is going be able to pass, in the Senate, in particular."

So far, most grants have gone to wind projects like GE's — largely because their gleaming white towers and spinning blades go up quickly and can meet federal requirements that projects be under construction this year. Solar, including at an animal clinic in Florida, a New Jersey tire shop and a Texas cattle feed maker, accounts for 5 percent of recipients.

Geothermal power developers got only 3 percent, or $154 million. But those that got cash called the grants a lifeline at a time when traditional investors had fled or demanded "credit-card rates" for loans. Vancouver, Canada-based Nevada Geothermal Inc. got a $57.9 million grant — cash to pay down high-interest debt on its power plant in northern Nevada, said spokesman Paul Mitchell.

And U.S. Geothermal Inc., in Boise, Idaho, expects a $34 million grant for its eastern Oregon power plant. If Congress extends the program, Chief Executive Officer Dan Kunz said it could help him build or expand projects in Idaho and Nevada.

"Maybe three good sized power plants could be brought on line, by this company alone," Kunz said.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Friday, August 27th 2010

Good Morning

Oh my god, Ive come full circle.
Do we bury or burn?
Of course whatever way I was thinking before needs the consideration of our planet.
Burial is better for the environment than being cremated in a fossil fuel power crematorium.
We are allowed to change the way we think
I got a few letters this week I'll post them below
Y'all have a great weekend
Oh I forgot to mention, the engine for Nell's Isuzu Pup is on the way to Albuquerque, yippee!

–
Brian Rodgers

Comments online at: http://outfitnm.com/category/brians-morning-newsletter If you wish to chance that I'll post it off my email hit "reply," but not really the preferred method

Letters

Hi Brian,
Is it too late to reply to an old newsletter?
I'm concerned about your resorting to WalMart for coffee.  I think placing one's foot inside the Evil Empire subjects that person to  a soulless materialism which eats away at our humanity.
For some years, I've gotten coffee from a group called "Friends Of the Third World".  They have a faith-based origin, which gives me pause, but seem to be mostly volunteer.  I buy 10lb bags of unroasted Nicaraguan beans for $40, including shipping.  I'm told a much higher percent of my dollars go to the hands of the members of a coop near Estilee who do the growing.
The unroasted beans store well and can be roasted in an iron skillet over my camp stove outside so I don't smoke up the house.  It takes me 20 or 25 minutes about every 2 weeks and gets me involved in the production of superior brew.
I offer cooking demos, sample beans to try at home, and any other support I can to help others escape the Empire.
Friends of the Third World/Cooperative Trading is at 800-401-1650.
Joe Whiteman
————-        
Thanks Joe, you got me thinking about it.
B
——-
Brian said

"although I did read that the last of the US troops were pulling out of Iraq."

We must read the fine print!

50,000 troops remain in Iraq. The combat units are being renamed advisory units, a blast from the past for those of us who remember Vietnam.

And "Operation Iraqi Freedom" is being renamed "Operation New Dawn."

But a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and a 50 caliber machine gun burst will kill you just as dead whether it comes from a "combat unit" or an "advisory unit."

Meanwhile, we still have a quarter million or so "private contractors" in Iraq and Afghanistan, folks like Xe, the former Blackwater mercs.

Make no mistake about it. The US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan continues for the foreseeable future, no matter what you name the combat units, no matter how much of your killing you outsource to mercenaries.

Lee
—————–

Extreme Weather and Climate Change News

 

Extreme Weather and Climate Change

Extreme weather is putting hundreds of thousands of lives and livelihoods at risk all around the world. In order to avoid the worst and most devastating impacts of the severe weather events that are consistent with climate change, we must begin to significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

Learn more about climate change and extreme weather and make sure your friends and family get the facts.

Get the Facts: Extreme Weather and Global Climate Change

• Pollution from human activities is warming our climate. The 10 warmest years on record all occurred since 1990, and the last decade was the hottest recorded since worldwide record keeping began more than 100 years ago. The period between January and June of 2010 was the warmest six months on record.
• A warming climate increases the chance that we will experience extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and intense storms, and ramps up the risk that severe weather events will cause catastrophic damage.
• The floods, fires and droughts we're seeing in places like Pakistan and Russia are consistent with the effects of global warming, including temperature increases, increased precipitation in some parts of the world, and droughts in others.
• In early August, a 97-square mile chunk of ice–the largest since 1962–broke away from the northwest coast of Greenland.¹ Canadian officials fear the massive "ice island" could pose a risk to ships and oil platforms.²
• Unless we significantly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, we are likely to see even more extreme weather events and the consequences they bring.

References:
1. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Earth Observatory, "Ice Island Calves off Petermann Glacier," August 13, 2010.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=45112
2. Randy Boswell, "Giant iceberg drifting toward Canada could threaten ships, oil platforms," Montreal Gazette, August 10, 2010.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Giant+iceberg+drifting+toward+Canada+could+threaten+ships+platforms/3382103/story.html

Copyright © The Alliance for Climate Protection 2010. All Rights Reserved.

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The Repower America Web site is shared by the Alliance for Climate Protection and the Climate Protection Action Fund.
Learn more about the distinction between the efforts of these two organizations through Repower America.

]]> http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/27/bmn-pyrewood/feed 0 http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/26/bmn-old-dominion-freight-line http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/26/bmn-old-dominion-freight-line#comments Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:50:40 +0000 admin http://outfitnm.com/?p=2597 Brian's Morning Newsletter

Thursday, August 26th 2010

Saving the tribe

Aug 24, 2010

Isolated from the polluted urban life, the Dongaria-Kondh tribe of Niyamgiri hills can at last breathe a sigh of relief. On 28th February 2005 British mining company, Vedanta Resources and the Orissa State Government intended on converting 660.749 ha of pristine land into a giant bauxite mine for its refineries at the foothills of the mountains. On 24 Aug 2010, the Environment Ministry formally rejected the forest clearance for mining in Niyamgiri.

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Good Morning

I like the name Old Dominion Freight Line, I guess, you figured, right? What with me naming this BMN that and all. Now I suppose you are waiting none too patiently for me to explain what the heck it means, and why I have pictures of India here instead?  There is no figuring Brian out, you know that by now, but being a wordy-rotten scoundrel,  I will give it a try.

Well first off the bat, the twits at Engine and Transmission World finally acknowledged  that we ordered an engine from them. I know I joked that they were having trouble locating a reliable thief to recover the engine, well either they did or didn't we''ll probably never know, the point is they finally passed the torch to the shipper, and lo and behold their salutation is, yeah you guessed it, " Old Dominion Freight Line."

Yes I have a screen shot of the confirmation. I don't know if you guys are aware of the power of a well placed screen shot? How so you may wonder? Well for instance in this tenuous world of fleeting Internet pages it is often difficult to trust that  simply copying and pasting information from a secure web site will  look like it did when we first saw it. I don't know if I can make this subject clear, or whether you are interested. Basically a screen shot is a picture of what your eyes saw on a website.  Use this information to your own imagination's extent.

Old Dominion Freight Line suggests that the over-priced Isuzu engine from the aforementioned engine company is already in Dallas Texas, next stop Albuquerque, needless to say, we are apprehensive of what happens to it from there. The site: http://www.odfl.com seems more informative, and today I get a break from Desertgate so I will ask them what happens when the engine gets closer to our shop.

Around the same time this morning, yes yours truly can multi-task, to a degree, I was reading news and found the photo of what I thought were Africans, which turned out to be Indians, not to be further confused with Native Americans, Indians from India. I love pretty pictures as much as the next guy. This image intrigued me enough that I plugged the name of the region into Google maps.

I have been  spending a  lot of my online time  roaming our planet via the free Google maps  located on the  Google home page, aka: http://www.google.com/  I find touring this way extremely satisfying. I've been to the ocean shelfs on the eastern coastline a lot lately. Knowing that Kevin is traveling via motorcycle down to the Florida Keys as I write this I went along for the ride from the comfort of an Easy-chair. You can see right down into the ocean, or for voyeuristic minute look into backyards from high above, with the click of a mouse pull down the Street-view and zoom in on a 360 degree panorama from many locations.   

Niyamgiri Hills, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. Google maps knew exactly where it was, though. In the too brief story, I couldn't get a sense of where  or who these people were, and searching the news for information on indian Indians proffered little more help, although not to be disrespectful of a culture of which I know so little, they do have very colorful names. I will post one of the stories below, it reminded me of Star Wars, not the evil Empire side, but the fellas with the floppy ears who were made to talk with a mixture of Rastafarian – Indian and English  dialects

Anyway, where was this mythical  forest  the article mentioned? The first screen shot is zoomed in enough to show the names of places, and the satellite overlay indeed shows  a forest. What struck me was the wording in the article, " Isolated from the polluted urban life, the Dongaria-Kondh tribe of Niyamgiri hills…" Is there someplace to get isolated in India? That's not what I understood. So I alleviated some of my naive ignorance and Google mapped their asses, and you can too, just click on either screen shot and the link should be set for http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=niyamgiri%20hills&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl  or "Niyamgiri Hills"

When I saw the flooding in Pakistan, honestly my ignorance astounded me; I thought Pakistan was mountainous and full of mean old tribal-cave-dwellers, because that's all we hear on the news. How the hell do mountains get flooded? They don't, and rivers don't flow up and over mountains either. I can tell you Google maps is a very enlightening resource and it doesn't cost any notable environmental resources to go have a look for yourself. Pakistan has millions of acres of delta rich farmland and Google maps lets us fly over the rivers and see that Pakistanis appear to live much as Americans do, in well manicured suburbs and small farms, go see for yourself.

Try not to think about the unmanned drone bombers flying low overhead in the lowlands of Pakistan headed for the nefarious mountain regions, I am certain it scares the hell out of these poor souls, when it isn't raining that is.

–
Brian Rodgers

Comments online at: http://outfitnm.com/category/brians-morning-newsletter If you wish to chance that I'll post it off my email hit "reply," but not really the preferred method

Hindi News

Manipur blockade highlights India’s northeast dilemma

Aug 25, 2010 07:24 EDT

blockade | manipur | nagas | violence

An entire state held to ransom for the past three months. And a central government that seems helpless to stop it.

Naga groups on Tuesday said they were extending for another 25 days their blockade of the two highways linking landlocked Manipur to the rest of the country.

This follows almost consecutive 20 days and 69 days of similar blockades, leaving the northeast state surviving on army-escorted supplies for the past three months.

Before a recent deployment of security forces for escorting food supplies, the state faced acute shortage of essential commodities like live-saving drugs. Petrol was priced at 200 rupees, LPG cylinders at 1,500 rupees and a kilogram of rice at 60-70 rupees.

The unrest started in April when Naga students protested amendments to a law governing the state’s autonomous district councils, which they say took away vital rights of the hill people, and intensified it when Naga separatist leader T Muivah was barred from visiting his birthplace in Manipur.

The United Naga Council, which is leading the agitation, says the blockade is being extended because the Centre has not fulfilled their demands, which include demilitarisation of all Naga-inhabited areas.

The Nagas, who are demanding a ‘Greater Nagaland’ state which include chunks from three neighbouring states, are also angry at the home minister’s statement in parliament ruling out division of Manipur.

And therein lies the catch-22 situation for the central government.

The Nagas, who say they have never accepted India’s constitution after independence from the British, claim the right to integrate all areas inhabited by the tribe.

But any sign the Centre is giving way on the issue of a state’s territorial integrity could evoke violent protests, something that has been seen in Kashmir and Telangana.

This represents the crux of the problems plaguing the northeast, home to more than 300 ethnic groups living side by side in eight states, each competing to carve out an identity.

The lack of development and the geographical and cultural isolation of the region from the rest of the country may also further stoke unrest.

Even the media and public from the rest of the country are sporadic in their interest in the region, which is rarely in the public imagination due to its relative political and economic insignificance.

The Centre, which doesn’t look like it has a clear policy for the region even after decades of armed insurgency, still lurches from one issue to the next without really achieving any closure (the 1986 peace treaty with Mizo militants being an exception).

Is there any solution to India’s northeast dilemma?

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