the Outfit http://outfitnm.com Biodiesel, Wind turbines, Permaculture, Sustainable lifestyles, and our new Renewable Energy Workshop Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:25:48 +0000 en hourly 1 BMN More good wind info http://outfitnm.com/2010/09/02/bmn-more-good-wind-info http://outfitnm.com/2010/09/02/bmn-more-good-wind-info#comments Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:25:48 +0000 admin http://outfitnm.com/?p=2621 Brian's Morning Newsletter

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.

 ———-

I really do not think that many people are seeing the big picture about industrial wind facilities, or industrial alternative energy in general.

I agree, we need to use alternative energy, Industrial wind facilities should be part of that. But First.

1. Our work in San Miguel to create a cohesive ordinance covering industrial wind facilities really has nothing to do with NIMBY.
The Gulf is NOT in your back yard (or is it?) and yet you care about the devastation. This needs to be accurately addressed.

2. The accident in the gulf happened because of lack of regulations, sound protocols, and safety precautions.
That is exactly why a simple and effective wind ordinance to protect people and the environment MUST be drafted. Any industrial complex comes with pro's and con's. We need to weigh all our options, BIG mistakes are easily made when people turn to rhetoric and not fact.

3. The conversation about Wind Energy in San Miguel (specifiacally the Bernal Mesa) must be brought up with all facts included.

a. San Miguel currently has ONE antiquated transmission line (an out of date PNM line, not built for alternative energy needs). This line currently has 20 percent capacity available. MEANING… The first industrial wind energy company to tap this line freezes all future projects untill a sustainable solution is attained (quick buck, government subsidies… YOU KNOW the rest). Maps attached. Maps include the current transmission line and a 3 mile buffer zone around populated places (this may change when the county commission focuses more on watersheds).. As you may notice all the empty land is in the East of San Miguel county. Eastern San Miguel happens to be the place the good wind is at (look at the wind data map). Really a no brainer once we get the correct grid in place. All that is needed is the correct grid. Hmmmmm.

b. The State of New Mexico is currently set to redo their transmission lines in regard to using alternative energies. They have set up the 'The New Mexico Renewable Energy Transmission' http://nmreta.org/ Give it a look. THIS is what we need to be paying attention to.

c. Watersheds and communities SHOULD BE PROTECTED in the face of large scale industrial development, no matter what that development is. Be it Oil, Gas, Wind, Solar, or Nuclear — (making bleached paper by a river?).  PLEASE get out of the mindset that "Alternative" means Non Industrial. It is NOT TRUE. Big alternative energy industrial projects can be VERY damaging to our air, water and quality of life if not done correctly. Read Up.

4. We here in The Bernal, Ribera and Villanueva area are NOT idiots, we support wind energy in the correct applications, and we have researched all possible pro's and con's. As someone eloquently said to to me. "Appropriate technologies in Appropriate places". This is NOT just a NIMBY conversation, it affects us ALL. Please support our work.

O and please don't use an excuse like, "we are running out of time" .. "just start using alternative energy, industrial is fine"… Come on. I am part of the a population that has been completely screwed by deregulation, so are you! Both in the banks, as well as in the energy sector.

Try something like this. "we are running out of time" .. "we should be using alternative energy, locally and industrially. But lets get it right."

It's us who will have to put all this back together. Let's stop, think and GET IT RIGHT.

Thanks.

Adam Caldwell.

–
"In the event that you may need a nap, take one."
-cat, late 1600's-

Thanks Adam,  I hope you don't mind if I comment and ask questions of the few points which I did not understand.

 

Below are the images you've attached.  I can't tell what these pictures are supposed to show.   
 

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   

Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it

The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused headlines around the world, yet the people who live in the Niger delta have had to live with environmental catastrophes for decades


A ruptured pipeline burns in a Lagos suburb after an explosion in 2008 which killed at least 100 people. Photograph: George Esiri/Reuters

We reached the edge of the oil spill near the Nigerian village of Otuegwe after a long hike through cassava plantations. Ahead of us lay swamp. We waded into the warm tropical water and began swimming, cameras and notebooks held above our heads. We could smell the oil long before we saw it – the stench of garage forecourts and rotting vegetation hanging thickly in the air.

The farther we travelled, the more nauseous it became. Soon we were swimming in pools of light Nigerian crude, the best-quality oil in the world. One of the many hundreds of 40-year-old pipelines that crisscross the Niger delta had corroded and spewed oil for several months.

Forest and farmland were now covered in a sheen of greasy oil. Drinking wells were polluted and people were distraught. No one knew how much oil had leaked. "We lost our nets, huts and fishing pots," said Chief Promise, village leader of Otuegwe and our guide. "This is where we fished and farmed. We have lost our forest. We told Shell of the spill within days, but they did nothing for six months."

That was the Niger delta a few years ago, where, according to Nigerian academics, writers and environment groups, oil companies have acted with such impunity and recklessness that much of the region has been devastated by leaks.

In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta's network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of a major ecological catastrophe caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that wrecked BP's Deepwater Horizon rig last month.

That disaster, which claimed the lives of 11 rig workers, has made headlines round the world. By contrast, little information has emerged about the damage inflicted on the Niger delta. Yet the destruction there provides us with a far more accurate picture of the price we have to pay for drilling oil today.

On 1 May this year a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than a million gallons into the delta over seven days before the leak was stopped. Local people demonstrated against the company but say they were attacked by security guards. Community leaders are now demanding $1bn in compensation for the illness and loss of livelihood they suffered. Few expect they will succeed. In the meantime, thick balls of tar are being washed up along the coast.

Within days of the Ibeno spill, thousands of barrels of oil were spilled when the nearby Shell Trans Niger pipeline was attacked by rebels. A few days after that, a large oil slick was found floating on Lake Adibawa in Bayelsa state and another in Ogoniland. "We are faced with incessant oil spills from rusty pipes, some of which are 40 years old," said Bonny Otavie, a Bayelsa MP.

This point was backed by Williams Mkpa, a community leader in Ibeno: "Oil companies do not value our life; they want us to all die. In the past two years, we have experienced 10 oil spills and fishermen can no longer sustain their families. It is not tolerable."

With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of all the crude the United States imports and is the world capital of oil pollution. Life expectancy in its rural communities, half of which have no access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 years over the past two generations. Locals blame the oil that pollutes their land and can scarcely believe the contrast with the steps taken by BP and the US government to try to stop the Gulf oil leak and to protect the Louisiana shoreline from pollution.

"If this Gulf accident had happened in Nigeria, neither the government nor the company would have paid much attention," said the writer Ben Ikari, a member of the Ogoni people. "This kind of spill happens all the time in the delta."

"The oil companies just ignore it. The lawmakers do not care and people must live with pollution daily. The situation is now worse than it was 30 years ago. Nothing is changing. When I see the efforts that are being made in the US I feel a great sense of sadness at the double standards. What they do in the US or in Europe is very different."

"We see frantic efforts being made to stop the spill in the US," said Nnimo Bassey, Nigerian head of Friends of the Earth International. "But in Nigeria, oil companies largely ignore their spills, cover them up and destroy people's livelihood and environments. The Gulf spill can be seen as a metaphor for what is happening daily in the oilfields of Nigeria and other parts of Africa.

"This has gone on for 50 years in Nigeria. People depend completely on the environment for their drinking water and farming and fishing. They are amazed that the president of the US can be making speeches daily, because in Nigeria people there would not hear a whimper," he said.

It is impossible to know how much oil is spilled in the Niger delta each year because the companies and the government keep that secret. However, two major independent investigations over the past four years suggest that as much is spilled at sea, in the swamps and on land every year as has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico so far.

One report, compiled by WWF UK, the World Conservation Union and representatives from the Nigerian federal government and the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, calculated in 2006 that up to 1.5m tons of oil – 50 times the pollution unleashed in the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in Alaska – has been spilled in the delta over the past half century. Last year Amnesty calculated that the equivalent of at least 9m barrels of oil was spilled and accused the oil companies of a human rights outrage.

According to Nigerian federal government figures, there were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and there are 2,000 official major spillages sites, many going back decades, with thousands of smaller ones still waiting to be cleared up. More than 1,000 spill cases have been filed against Shell alone.

Last month Shell admitted to spilling 14,000 tonnes of oil in 2009. The majority, said the company, was lost through two incidents – one in which the company claims that thieves damaged a wellhead at its Odidi field and another where militants bombed the Trans Escravos pipeline.

Shell, which works in partnership with the Nigerian government in the delta, says that 98% of all its oil spills are caused by vandalism, theft or sabotage by militants and only a minimal amount by deteriorating infrastructure. "We had 132 spills last year, as against 175 on average. Safety valves were vandalised; one pipe had 300 illegal taps. We found five explosive devices on one. Sometimes communities do not give us access to clean up the pollution because they can make more money from compensation," said a spokesman.

"We have a full-time oil spill response team. Last year we replaced 197 miles of pipeline and are using every known way to clean up pollution, including microbes. We are committed to cleaning up any spill as fast as possible as soon as and for whatever reason they occur."

These claims are hotly disputed by communities and environmental watchdog groups. They mostly blame the companies' vast network of rusting pipes and storage tanks, corroding pipelines, semi-derelict pumping stations and old wellheads, as well as tankers and vessels cleaning out tanks.

The scale of the pollution is mind-boggling. The government's national oil spill detection and response agency (Nosdra) says that between 1976 and 1996 alone, more than 2.4m barrels contaminated the environment. "Oil spills and the dumping of oil into waterways has been extensive, often poisoning drinking water and destroying vegetation. These incidents have become common due to the lack of laws and enforcement measures within the existing political regime," said a spokesman for Nosdra.

The sense of outrage is widespread. "There are more than 300 spills, major and minor, a year," said Bassey. "It happens all the year round. The whole environment is devastated. The latest revelations highlight the massive difference in the response to oil spills. In Nigeria, both companies and government have come to treat an extraordinary level of oil spills as the norm."

A spokesman for the Stakeholder Democracy Network in Lagos, which works to empower those in communities affected by the oil companies' activities, said: "The response to the spill in the United States should serve as a stiff reminder as to how far spill management in Nigeria has drifted from standards across the world."

Other voices of protest point out that the world has overlooked the scale of the environmental impact. Activist Ben Amunwa, of the London-based oil watch group Platform, said: "Deepwater Horizon may have exceed Exxon Valdez, but within a few years in Nigeria offshore spills from four locations dwarfed the scale of the Exxon Valdez disaster many times over. Estimates put spill volumes in the Niger delta among the worst on the planet, but they do not include the crude oil from waste water and gas flares. Companies such as Shell continue to avoid independent monitoring and keep key data secret."

Worse may be to come. One industry insider, who asked not to be named, said: "Major spills are likely to increase in the coming years as the industry strives to extract oil from increasingly remote and difficult terrains. Future supplies will be offshore, deeper and harder to work. When things go wrong, it will be harder to respond."

Judith Kimerling, a professor of law and policy at the City University of New York and author of Amazon Crude, a book about oil development in Ecuador, said: "Spills, leaks and deliberate discharges are happening in oilfields all over the world and very few people seem to care."

There is an overwhelming sense that the big oil companies act as if they are beyond the law. Bassey said: "What we conclude from the Gulf of Mexico pollution incident is that the oil companies are out of control.

"It is clear that BP has been blocking progressive legislation, both in the US and here. In Nigeria, they have been living above the law. They are now clearly a danger to the planet. The dangers of this happening again and again are high. They must be taken to the international court of justice."

 

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

by Jennifer Hattam, Istanbul, Turkey on 07.17.10

oil pipeline burning niger delta nigeria photo
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…"

 

 

 

By Joe Brock | May 19, 2010 4:51 PM EST

Africa's oil spills are far from US media glare

 

 

–
Brian Rodgers
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
]]> http://outfitnm.com/2010/09/02/bmn-more-good-wind-info/feed 1 BMN Isuzu Engine looks good http://outfitnm.com/2010/09/01/bmn-isuzu-engine-looks-good http://outfitnm.com/2010/09/01/bmn-isuzu-engine-looks-good#comments Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:41:55 +0000 admin http://outfitnm.com/?p=2617 Brian's Morning Newsletter

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
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

]]> http://outfitnm.com/2010/09/01/bmn-isuzu-engine-looks-good/feed 0 BMN Civilization http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/31/bmn-civilization http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/31/bmn-civilization#comments Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:57:49 +0000 admin http://outfitnm.com/?p=2613 Brian's Morning Newsletter

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
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.

]]> http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/31/bmn-civilization/feed 2 BMN Wind Farms http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/30/bmn-wind-farms http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/30/bmn-wind-farms#comments Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:15:36 +0000 admin http://outfitnm.com/?p=2608 Brian's Morning Newsletter
 

Monday, August 30th, 2010

 

The New Mexico Wind Energy Center
Wind Farm photos courtesy of PNM http://www.pnm.com/systems/nmwec.htm

 

 

 

The New Mexico Wind Energy Center

 
Good Morning
I am going to do this BMN a little different this morning, alrighty then.
The following blurb is from PMN's web site as are the photos.

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.

In May 2003, PNM was awarded the 2003 Utility Leadership Award from the American Wind Energy Association. The award recognized PNM's commitment to renewable energy and its contribution to the advancement of wind energy.

The New Mexico Wind Energy Center
I blew the images up from 400 pixels to 640 pixels and lost some resolution, you can see the original slide show here

 

 

 

The New Mexico Wind Energy Center

 

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  

 

The New Mexico Wind Energy Center

 

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?

 
 

The New Mexico Wind Energy Center
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.  

 

The New Mexico Wind Energy Center
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

Category:

Impact on Economy or New Mexico

Browse in : All > Topics > Impact on Economy (504)
All > Location > USA > New Mexico (52)
All of these categories
 
Slump dims alternative energy spark; Capital crunch starves new technologies
January  2, 2009 by Dan Healing in Calgary Herald
Lower prices for crude oil and natural gas may not have a lasting impact on expansion of the alternative energy sector in Western Canada– but the current worldwide economic slowdown will, observers predict. …"When push comes to shove in the budget process and you're concerned with funding people versus funding things, the short-run discount of protecting lives virtually always wins and investing in the future by building more renewables or encouraging more R&D in renewables tends to get less attention." That translates into fewer direct or indirect subsidies and fewer regulations designed to encourage the use of alternative energy.
Also filed under [ Impact on Economy| Canada]
Xcel plan oversold in 2000; Investigation says wind overbilling went on for years.
December 27, 2008 by Andy Vuong in The Denver Post
Xcel Energy oversold wind energy credits as far back as 2000 for a program in which customers voluntarily pay a premium for wind-generated power, according to an investigation by Colorado Public Utilities Commission staff. A settlement is looming related to Xcel's excess collections for the Windsource program from 2005 to 2007, which was disclosed earlier this week.
Also filed under [ Impact on Economy| Tax Breaks & Subsidies| Colorado]
Xcel overbilled for wind plan; Company balks at PUC suggestion to refund more than $1.5 million to program's funders
December 23, 2008 by Andy Vuong in Denver Post
Xcel Energy overcollected more than $1.5 million from customers who voluntarily pay a premium for wind- generated electricity, according to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission staff. From 2005 to 2007, the state's largest utility sold credits for more green power than it generated at the wind farms in its Windsource program. Xcel knew it would have a production shortfall in the program but "failed to act".
Also filed under [ Impact on Economy| Tax Breaks & Subsidies| Colorado]
Durango "green power" program victim of budget cuts
December 21, 2008 by Associated Press in The Denver Post
The city of Durango is pulling the plug on green power because of problems with green — or money. …The La Plata Electric Association charges 80 cents more per 100 kilowatt hours for electricity from solar and wind power. LeBlanc says that adds $45,000 to the city's annual electric bill.
Also filed under [ Impact on Economy| Colorado]
Higher electricity bills in Redding's future
December 14, 2008 by Scott Mobley in The Record Searchlight
The nearly 8 percent rate increase Redding Electric Utility will seek Tuesday for next year and 2010 could be just the beginning of a long, steady and rather steep cost climb for customers. Rate forecasts through 2014 show REU imposing identical 7.84 percent increases each year while still chewing through wads of cash. …Redding has made up for the lost hydropower, in part, by commissioning a pair of large gas-fired turbines at its plant on Clear Creek Road. The utility has also entered long-term contracts for wind and biomass power. The wind and biomass have allowed REU to meet state renewable energy mandates. But all three power sources cost more than twice as much as hydropower, adding $10.5 million each year on average to REU's fuel tab, Hauser said.
Also filed under [ Impact on Economy| Energy Policy| California]
Green jobs' false promise? The problem with talking about jobs-per-kilowatt hour
December 12, 2008 by Joshua Zumbrun in Forbes
The American Wind Energy Association claims it is wind power that creates the most jobs per kilowatt hour. One oft-cited statistic is that there are 27% more jobs per kilowatt-hour from wind than from coal, and 66% more from wind than from natural gas. …"To the extent it's true, it illustrates these technologies aren't that efficient."
Also filed under [ General| Impact on Economy| USA]
Panel OKs variances for wind farm
December 10, 2008 by Staci Matlock in The New Mexican
In a heated meeting that lasted until 11 p.m. Tuesday, the Taos County Planning Commission approved variances for a proposed wind farm, contrary to the county planning staff's recommendation. The commission voted 5-2 to grant Taos attorney and Centinel Bank founder Eliu Romero height and landscape variances and a major land-development permit for a 27-turbine wind farm west of Taos.
Also filed under [ Zoning/Planning| New Mexico]
Texas wind farms paying people to take power
December 10, 2008 by Ucilia Wang in Greentech Media
A power producer typically gets paid for the power it generates. In Texas, some wind energy generators are paying to have someone take power off their hands. Because of intense competition, the way wind tax credits work, the location of the wind farms and the fact that the wind often blows at night, wind farms in Texas are generating power they can't sell. To get rid of it, they are paying the state's main grid operator to accept it. $40 a megawatt hour is roughly the going rate.

 

—————-


 

–
Brian Rodgers
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. "

This isn't a very good  argument point. I don't know what to say to this type of thinking. Are you speaking of the aluminum smelting needed to build the bases? The fiberglass manufacturing plants full of skilled workers creating the beautiful aerodynamic blades often as you say 100 feet long?

The current buzz is most of the anti renewable energy (dis)information has its roots in oil company think tanks

They are good at what they do, they know how to sway people to their way of thinking

All I am saying is try and stand back from this issue and see what you see, especially if the turbines weren't in your back yard

In fact I wish they would install a few here, I wouldn't mind one bit. I can think of a lot worse things
 I agree that there are many pitfalls to corporations doing these, but corporations rule our world, I think they do far worse damage to the planet than with wind turbines. Look at what they did to the Gulf and in Africa

Fossil fuel development is the enemy, not renewable energy companies
I feel the most important issue is in the way people feel about renewable energy, we can't help that the scale is so large, except that it will at some point in ours or our childrens lives be more important on how we think now

Brian
————–    

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.

Related articles


]]> http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/30/bmn-wind-farms/feed 0 BMN Pyrewood http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/27/bmn-pyrewood http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/27/bmn-pyrewood#comments Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:52:50 +0000 admin http://outfitnm.com/?p=2603 Brian's Morning Newsletter

Friday, August 27th 2010


Good Morning

Everything related to collecting firewood is hard work, or at least that's what my body is telling me this morning. Jackson and I went out yesterday after cleaning and sharpening two chainsaws. I only ran three tanks of fuel through the saws, two through the big saw though. It has a 20 inch bar and weighs a couple pounds more than the saw but that extra long blade makes all the difference in reach, meaning I don't need to lean over to cut logs on the ground. I tell you though each tank of fuel lasts as much as an hour, by the time the last tank in the heavier saw was being used up, I was having trouble keeping the tip out of the dirt and rocks.

We are working near what is called Tepee Table Top.  The Caldwells camp way up there for Tusas, and our Sister's ashes are interred there, which felt a little strange, but in my mind even as the buzz of the saw through the Peltor hearing protection system,I was speaking to Jill, suggesting this wouldn't hurt, I just needed to clear this little tree out of the way for a better view, or to let more Winter light in. Jackson says that a cremated soul passes to the heavens, whereas a buried body allows ancestors to more freely communicate with the living.  Honestly, I was taken aback by this concept.

I've been watching a lot of horror movies recently.  It seems there is a recurring theme: The soul is trapped in the body, in the ground, in the casket, and it doesn't seem all that thrilled about it. Our father is considering whether he wants to be buried or cremated. I've been pushing for cremation, because that is what I want when my time is up. Cremation I believe is easier for everyone, but Jackson has a good point too. We have the land, Henry says he only wants a wooden casket. Dad isn't superstitious,  plus he doesn't watch horror movies.

The philosophical question begs to be answered; If a person doesn't watch horror movies, are they still subject to the possibility of the horror? You know the whole tree falling in the woods and nobody is there to hear it concept. The bottom line is I still want to be cremated, even if it means I won't be around to commune with the living. Anyway, I've never communicated with the dead, so I guess I don't know what I'm missing, A funeral Pyre would be cool, but who could I trust to perform it? I mean what if they didn't put enough wood on the fire and it only cooked me. "Quick get the truck, we need more pyrewood."

All kidding aside,  we watched a pretty good documentary after work yesterday, seriously solemn, this one was. Pete Postlethwaite  narrated , "The age of Stupid." All the Climate Change deniers and wind farm protesters will not like this movie one little bit. However if one is able to see with open mind,  issues such as are discussed in this post-apocalyptic review of the years leading up to 2053 when cascading CO2 levels (calculated by scientists which I believe are correct) irreversibly raise the Earth's  temperature  by four degrees, causing the extinction of the human race, as well as most life forms on Earth, and all because we argued, instead of working together to reduce fossil fuel use.

This documentary is a lot of things, much of which is grim, and yes it doesn't rely on a lot of science to prove issues one way or another. The story is about emotions. The story about the man that builds wind farms in Great Britain, attempts with a very good and sincere heart to move England away from fossil fuel dependency and further catastrophic  greenhouse gas production  toward a future not dependent on burning coal or oil to create electricity, is quashed at every  juncture by  local people  who do not want the turbines in their view. 

One of the  wind farm protesters  says," Of course I am concerned about Global Warming, I love the planet, I just don't want these turbines in our back yard." This wasn't some unfathomable corporation building this wind farm consisting  of 18 turbines, it is a guy who cares about the planet. I don't know how much is fiction or if any of the documentary is fiction, it all looked pretty real to Nell and me.  A compromise was to build only 9 turbines capable of powering 11,000 homes, the locals still voted "No."

I have to tell my readers that I am now shifting my favor towards letting them build those wind farms in Benal, or anywhere they want to, right up here in our beautiful view if it will help the planet, and make people think about the vast quantity of energy wasted in our current unsustainable lifestyle. I mean think about it, when you go anywhere in the country, or look out the window from here towards the Sangre de Cristo mountains, what is the first thing you see? Power lines. Did anyone question whether this was going to mess-up the view? No, in fact those are our power lines, we put them there, becasue we couldn't afford to bury them.

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
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



]]> http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/27/bmn-pyrewood/feed 0 BMN Old Dominion Freight Line 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.

————–       

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
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?

]]> http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/26/bmn-old-dominion-freight-line/feed 0 BMN Naptime http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/25/bmn-naptime http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/25/bmn-naptime#comments Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:34:33 +0000 admin http://outfitnm.com/?p=2591 Brian's Morning Newsletter

Wednesday, August 25th 2010

Good Morning

I was going to write about the lovely nap I took yesterday. As is often the case in the morning I haven't a clue what I will write about, this being compounded by the fact that Monday working out in the sweltering heat extracted a lot of energy from me, so I spent most of the day recovering.  As I said in  yesterday's BMN I was up early, and had a couple of chores to do, mostly phone work, at around nine-thirty I pumped of the latest batch of cool clear biodiesel which nearly overflowed our tank. I wound up leaving the last few gallons in the wash tank and coming back inside for an extended nap, on the couch in front of the wind powered entertainment system.

Scott Hopkins sent an interesting message about a specific battery technology called Vanadium Redox. I wasn't terribly impressed with the article, but then again I was nearly comatose with weariness. This morning I looked at this technology from a different perspective, although still a wee bit blurry. The first thing to grasp is how a battery stores electrons.

Beautiful Adobe Flash file format, but I could not steal it nor locate this animation anywhere else, so you'll have to go to: http://www.mpoweruk.com/chemistries.htm

I quote from the site "The Charging Process

The charger strips electrons from the cathode leaving it with a net positive charge and forces them onto the anode giving it a negative charge. The energy pumped into the cell transforms the active chemicals back to their original state."

Continuing on though this site I find this description of Redox or Flow batteries.

Flow Batteries

Flow batteries allow storage of the active materials external to the battery and these reactants are circulated through the cell stack as required. The first such battery was Zinc/chlorine battery in which the chlorine was stored in a separate cylinder. It was first used in 1884 by Charles Renard to power his airship La France which contained its own on board chlorine generator.

The technology was revived in the mid 1970s.

 

Corner
Flow Battery
 Corner

Flow Battery

 

Modern flow batteries are generally two electrolyte systems in which the two electrolytes, acting as liquid energy carriers, are pumped simultaneously through the two half-cells of the reaction cell separated by a membrane. On charging, the electrical energy supplied causes a chemical reduction reaction in one electrolyte and an oxidation reaction in the other. The thin ion exchange membrane between the half-cells prevents the electrolytes from mixing but allows selected ions to pass through to complete the redox reaction. On discharge the chemical energy contained in the electrolyte is released in the reverse reaction and electrical energy can be drawn from the electrodes. When in use the electrolytes are continuously pumped in a circuit between reactor and storage tanks.

 

High power batteries are constructed using a multiple stack of cells in a bipolar arrangement. The power rating of the system is fixed and determined by the size and number of electrodes in the cell stacks, however the great advantage of this system is that it provides almost unlimited electrical storage capacity, the limitation being only the capacity of the electrolyte storage reservoirs. Opportunities for thermal management are also facilitated by using the electrolytes as the thermal working fluids as they are pumped through the cells.

 

The above facts provide a very seductive argument in favour of flow batteries in preference to conventional secondary cells. – For the same power, flow batteries are typically dimensioned to store five times the energy stored in conventional cells.

But the same facts presented in a slightly different way can lead to exactly the opposite conclusion.

The following is also true for the same batteries. For the same storage capacity, conventional cells will provide five times the power of flow batteries and in addition they have no moving parts or energy consuming pumps.

 

The Zinc-Bromine battery is a modern example of a flow battery. It is based on the reaction between two commonly available chemicals, Zinc and Bromine. The battery consists of a Zinc negative electrode and a Bromine positive electrode separated by a microporous separator. An aqueous solution of Zinc Bromide is circulated through the two compartments of the cell from two separate reservoirs. The other electrolyte stream in contact with the positive electrode contains Bromine. The Bromine storage medium is immiscible with the aqueous solution containing Zinc Bromide.

The battery uses electrodes that cannot and do not take part in the reactions but merely serve as substrates for the reactions. There is therefore no loss of performance, as in most rechargeable batteries, from repeated cycling causing electrode material deterioration. When the Zinc-Bromine battery is completely discharged, all the metal Zinc plated on the negative electrodes is dissolved in the electrolyte. The Zinc is deposited again when the battery is charged. In the fully discharged state the Zinc-Bromine battery can be left indefinitely.

Energy densities three times better than Lead Acid batteries are claimed however the Coulombic (round trip) efficiency is typically only around 75%.

 

The flow battery technologies provide very high power and very high capacity batteries for load levelling applications on the national electricity grid system.

 

The so called Redox Battery is an example of a two electrode flow system.

The Regenesys Sodium Polysulfide Bromine battery is another example.

These are very high cost systems and so far there are very few successful installations.


I hope you found this as interesting as I did


–
Brian Rodgers
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


I'm thinking you must have heard of these, but jic -

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/04/the_vanadium_ba.php

Other articles I've read make a stronger point that a new company formed by the inventor is focusing on small scale applications like homes.

A nice side bar is that while V isn't really something you'd want to sprinkle onto your breakfast cereal its several orders of magnitude(yes, orders of magnitude) less toxic than lead – as far as we know so far, anyway…

Sarah wants to solarize the house.  I'm all for that, but I'd really like a storage system that won't take up a whole closet, fill the house with H2SO4 fumes when it gets upset and won't give me more nerve damage than I've already got.

Le Spaz d'Argent

]]> http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/25/bmn-naptime/feed 0 BMN Fuel Cells http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/24/bmn-fuel-cells http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/24/bmn-fuel-cells#comments Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:42:26 +0000 admin http://outfitnm.com/?p=2585 Brian's Morning Newsletter


I titled this photo taken this morning,"NM-climate-change-Aug-morn," because dang, I don't know exactly what the weather is doing down y'all's way, but up here it is way nutier than usual.

Tuesday, August 24th 2010

Good Morning
Welp, it's almost 7:30 already, I've been up since four, cleaning the kitchen and drinking coffee, Wal-Mart's: Cafe Verona, if you must know. No, we don't buy coffee beans from Specialty Java anymore, I don't know that it has all that much to do with the money savings, yea or nay, more the realization that supposed extremely different regions produced barely discernible flavor differences, most notably was the Maui beans, which if you've been there know exactly how the coffee ought to taste. It was the straw that broke the camel's back in the proverb.

Since we have decided that we have more important things to spend our money on, fancy coffee is out, unless Wal-Mart brands their own beans and the price shows. I guess I won't say I don't have anything to write about this morning, which is obvious anyway right? I just don't have any of my own renewable energy project info for you this morning.  I dropped by the Chinese restaurant in the sweltering heat after work yesterday, but the vat looked to be pure nastiness and not much in the way of usable veggie oil, so I spun the Trooper around and and dead-headed home. 

Our 110 gallon tank for biodiesel is nearly full, this has been a great season. Today first thing I need to do is call Interstate Chemical and pay for the methanol we've been using. It's a little past due, I believe they give us 30 days, I think it has been more like two months, and no doubt with the volume of biodiesel I've made the methanol must be running low. This has been such a good season I may push my luck and order another 55 gallon drum and see if I can't push another 250 gallons of biodiesel through our processor before it gets too cold to work.


This is what happens if you sprinkle more bird seed than the local birds can eat and your feeder is the wet ground of your garden. Yep, that's Milo aka sorghum, a beautiful grain plant. Notice from that wikipedia article that sorghum is planted and harvested in southern wet climates, but here it is, doing really well in our garden in northeastern New Mexico at 7200 feet of elevation.

I let the Milo grow because I wanted to see what it would do and also so many other garden plants were annihilated by hail again this year. I am glad I let it grow, and the crazy-ass hot wet weather of this Summer was at least ideal for this plant. No doubt if I bought the seed to plant around the edge of our pastures the weather would do something completely different. Needless to say the birds ought to be attracted  to this plant, maybe we'll have the turkeys in our yard munching down on  these  letting us know when the Milo is ready for harvest.

Like I said I've been awake for many hours this morning, and before I'm done, my accomplishments this morning will be to call the jerks at Engine and Transmission World and find out if they know where the engine we paid for is exactly. I keep imagining that they hadn't been able to steal it from where-ever they originally located it, "We're efforting that as we speak sir."

 So, yeah, y'all have a good one, don't forget to read my science news below

–
Brian Rodgers
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

 

Science News

Can fuel cells power the future?

Ventures work on ways to generate electricity more efficiently


A reporter photographs an installation of "Bloom Box" energy servers at eBay's headquarters in San Jose, Calif., during the unveiling of the fuel-cell system in February. Other ventures are getting into the fuel-cell field as well.

 

An electricity-generating fuel-cell system known as the Bloom Box sparked a huge buzz in the energy debate six months ago — and since then, still more ventures have surfaced to promise better living through chemistry.

Will future fuel cells make good on those promises? We should know in the next couple of years.

One of the concepts, detailed on Monday at an American Chemical Society meeting in Boston, combines the environmental friendliness of solar power with the 24/7 capability of fuel-cell generation. When the sun shines, electricity from solar panels would feed into a personal power grid, and also split water into hydrogen and oxygen. When the sun isn't out, the hydrogen and oxygen can be recombined to keep the electricity flowing, producing pure water in the process.

"Our goal is to make each home its own power system," Daniel Nocera, a chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explained in a news release discussing the system. "We're working toward development of 'personalized' energy units that can be manufactured, distributed and installed inexpensively. There certainly are major obstacles to be overcome — existing fuel cells and solar cells must be improved, for instance. Nevertheless, one can envision villages in India and Africa not long from now purchasing an affordable basic system."

Electricity from waste water
Nocera and his colleagues started out with the water-splitting side of the equation. They found a more efficient way to convert H2O into hydrogen and oxygen, using relatively inexpensive catalysts that contain cobalt and nickel. And it doesn't need to be pure H2O. "Owing to the self-healing properties of the catalysts, these electrolyzers can use any water source," including seawater, waste water or water from the Charles River in Boston, the researchers say.

They contend that their system eliminates the need for expensive platinum catalysts — which would make the economics of fuel cells much more attractive. Prototype water-splitting systems have been built at a cost of $30 each, operating at power levels of 100 watts. The ACS news release says the catalytic system has been licensed to Sun Catalytix, an MIT commercial spin-off, and the venture aims to make super-efficient electrolyzers available for homes and small businesses within two years.

As Nocera noted, the big issues surrounding this system have to do with the costs for the other components: Putting solar panels on your home could cost tens of thousands of dollars, although government subsidies can reduce the price dramatically . In order to get Nocera's make-it-yourself electricity system out to villages in the developing world, the devices to turn the hydrogen into energy would also have to become cheaper and more efficient.

Which fuel for fuel cells?
The Bloom Box is just one of the devices that has generated excitement among energy experts. It's generated electricity as well, in pilot projects at places ranging from eBay to Safeway. Bloom Energy's 100-kilowatt "server" converts natural gas and air into electricity, producing water and carbon dioxide in the process (CH4+2O2 is turned into 2H2O+CO2).

There are still a couple of worrisome factors about that equation, however: First, the Bloom Box is powered by natural gas. The energy conversion factor (50 percent efficiency or better) compares with the best rates for gas-fired power plants, but it's still a fossil fuel. There are still carbon dioxide emissions as well, although the carbon footprint is not as great as it would be for a gas-fired plant.

Wyoming-based NDCPower is working on a different approach: It's developing fuel cells that could take in biofuels — say, ethanol, methanol, butanol or even biodiesel that's converted to alcohol — and produce chemicals with industrial applications on the other side, along with the electricity.

"Our technology is the only existing technology that allows you to take a carbon-based fuel and make energy, and produce no CO2," the company's president and chief executive officer, Don Montgomery, told me during a recent sitdown.

The byproducts could range from acetic acid (which is used to make plastics and currently costs $400 a ton or more) to formic acid (a silage preservative that's even more expensive). Montgomery figures that the sale of chemicals produced by the NDCPower fuel cells, plus the no-CO2 angle, could win them some extra attention in the developing fuel-cell marketplace.

Ethanol plus Dran-O?
The key is in the chemicals used to make the fuel conversion — a recipe that Montgomery and his colleagues aren't talking publicly about, except in the broadest terms. "You basically take your ethanol and pour it into Dran-O," he joked. Dan Buttry, a chemistry professor at Arizona State University who also serves as NDCPower's chief technology officer, would say only that the secret ingredient is "not platinum."

Buttry also told me that the NDCPower fuel cell doesn't need a membrane — which is a plus, because in most fuel cells, the membrane "is a pretty big component of the cost."

Right now, NDCPower's main business is providing military-grade power systems to the, um, U.S. military. But the company is aiming to make its mark in the civilian power market as well. And that market is just getting revved up. "The development curve has been like stepping on a rocket ship," Montgomery told me.

—————-       

NPR

Einstein, Bohr, And Ultimate Reality

Categories: Science and Philosophy

by Marcelo Gleiser

How much can we know of the world? Some believe we can go all the way and find the answers to the most penetrating questions, at least those concerned with the natural world. Others think there is only so much we can know, that there are some very concrete limits to how much information we can gather about reality. These limits are not just a consequence of our brains or the tools we use to extract knowledge. They are Nature’s trademarks.

So, which one of the two views is the right one?

Perhaps nowhere in the history of science this split is better expressed than in the famous Einstein-Bohr debates. The two giants of twentieth century physics, with a deep intellectual respect for each other, locked horns on several occasions trying to make sense of the puzzling new science they helped developed, quantum mechanics.

In 1905, Einstein wrote what he considered his most revolutionary paper, where he proposed that, contrary to the accepted view, light could be seen as being comprised of little bullets, later called photons. The prevailing view then, after centuries of disagreement, was that light is a wave. More precisely, an oscillation of the electromagnetic field. This dual nature of light, corpuscular and wavy, was like nothing else anyone had seen. When, in 1924, Louis de Broglie suggested that this dual nature was not restricted to light but was a property of electrons, protons, and all particles of matter, things became even more mysterious.

 

The new quantum mechanics imposed two fundamental restrictions on knowledge: 1. we can only know the probability of finding a particle in a given place; 2. the observer interacts with what is being observed. As a consequence, the determinism of classical physics is an approximation to a reality where the notion of complete knowledge seems to be an impossibility.

Einstein couldn’t accept this.  In a letter to Max Born, who had recently proposed the probabilistic interpretation to quantum mechanics, he wrote:

Quantum mechanics demands serious attention. But an inner voice tells me that this is not the true Jacob. The theory accomplishes a lot, but it does not bring us closer to the secrets of the Old One. In any case, I am convinced that He does not play dice.

To Einstein, the probabilistic description of the natural world couldn’t be the final word. There had to be an objective reality out there, independent of the observer. Quantum mechanics, useful as it was, had to be an incomplete theory. He believed in a deeper layer of physical reality where the normalcy of classical physics—determinism and the separation of observer and observed—would prevail.

Niels Bohr, on the other hand, saw quantum mechanics as an expression of the world of the very small. To him, there was no reason why the rules that apply to the world around us, that is, the rules of classical physics, should also apply in such a different realm. What physicists were finding was the way things were. At some point, Bohr apparently said to Einstein: “Stop telling God what to do!”

As I wrote in my book The Dancing Universe, behind the Einstein-Bohr debate we find opposing beliefs of what physics is about and, more than that, on the nature of ultimate reality. Theirs was a “religious war,” fed by two very different ways to think about Nature and our relationship with it.

Einstein couldn’t accept what to him was akin to intellectual defeat, an acknowledgment that there is only so much we can know about the world and, at a deeper level, that Nature doesn’t follow determinism all the way down to its core. To Bohr, the success of quantum mechanics spoke for itself. The theory described the data extremely well, and that was enough. Furthermore, Bohr saw the relationship between observer and observed as an expression of our connection with the world. When awarded with the Order of the Elephant from the Danish crown in 1947, he chose as his coat of arms the Taoist symbol of the Yin and Yang, with the Latin inscription Contraria sunt Complementa, “opposites complement each other.”

At this juncture, things remain uncertain. Experiments to uncover an einsteinian deeper structure of reality have so far failed. On the other hand, quantum mechanics does display certain properties that are quite bizarre, whereby two separate systems, if initially prepared in a certain way, may affect each other’s behavior instantaneously even if separated by huge distances, a seeming violation of causality. (It’s really not.) Einstein called this effect “spooky action at a distance,” although careful analysis shows that no information is being exchanged between the two systems. And yet, a persistent nonlocal behavior remains, that is, a connection that defeats the limits of space and time. If Einstein and Bohr were still alive, they’d be delighted to find out that, in spite of much progress, the debate lives on.

]]> http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/24/bmn-fuel-cells/feed 0 BMN 4 off 3 on http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/23/bmn-4-off-3-on http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/23/bmn-4-off-3-on#comments Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:13:40 +0000 admin http://outfitnm.com/?p=2582 Brian's Morning Newsletter

Monday, August 23rd 2010

Good Morning
Ah, Monday and not a clue of what to write. Mostly because I pretty much took it easy this weekend, but also it was a fairly mundane weekend on the correspondence front as well. Not even the news this weekend is worth mentioning. The Gulf of Mexico is still a mess. I just now chatted with our quasi-resident genius, Mini-Murf, who is now in Florida, visiting with Dave the Wave and Phylis, on his way to the Florida Keys, so we'll get a better idea of what is happening down there in the Gulf.  President Obama hasn't done anything noteworthy, although I did read that the last of the US troops were pulling out of Iraq. Was this on schedule? Not that it matters really because the US starts two wars for every one it quits it seems to me. Blah blah blah

Like I said not much in the way of current events to take pot shots at, and nobody wrote me all weekend, oh wait that isn't true, Ed Littleton wrote and said that he finally accessed The Outfit web site, so I went to see if he posted on the forum or the main site I was happily surprised to learn that there is life over on the forum: http://outfitnm.com/forum/ It would please us greatly if more of you posted there but this is certainly nice.

This week and it sounds like the next month will be different work schedule for me. Desertgate asked me to work three days a week; every other day. I hoped to clump the days together, but that doesn't appear to jive very well with Eric's and Ron's schedule. I can do whatever it takes, it doesn't always need to be all about me. I'll be starting earlier in the morning on these three days: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so expect briefer BMNs, right like this morning, now that I think about it, the more days I work for Desertgate the less time I have for reportable DIY projects, oh so sad.  Not really, it'll make me feel like I'm contributing more to our household financially.

Austin and Amelia came down the hill from Taos and spent the weekend. We had a lovely visit. They had to go back even though Aus is done with rafting for this season Amelia has a couple more days to work. Then they plan to be back and we'll all start thinking about what it is going to take to put on our end of the season camp party.

Last night I did not sleep well, so I am getting  late start anyway

–
Brian Rodgers
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

Vacation Special — Excerpt from "The Witch of Hebron"

By James Howard Kunstler
on August 14, 2010 9:01 PM



    The Witch of Hebron is the sequel to World Made By Hand, a story of the post-oil American future. It is set in and around the town of Union Grove, Washington County, New York. The time is several months after the action in the first book, the week before Halloween.
      This excerpt concerns Stephen Bullock, the wealthy landowner whose plantation is home to dozens of people whose lives and livelihoods had gone adrift in the collapse of the American economy.


Mr. Bullock Meets the Enemy

     The last thing Stephen Bullock did before bedtime, in his capacity as town magistrate, was to sign a warrant directing Doctor Jeremy Copeland to exhume and examine the body of Shawn Watling and report his findings, costs of which, labor included, were to be billed to the town of Union Grove, repayable in up to four dollars silver coin. He gave the folded and sealed document to his chore-man, Roger Lippy, for delivery in person the following morning. Then Stephen Bullock retired to the bedroom upstairs in the large manor house that was the beating heart of his four thousand acre holdings.
     The spacious, cheerful bedroom, was wallpapered in a motif that featured pink cabbage roses, with a likewise flowery chintz upholstered wing-chair in one corner. His wife Sophie's dressing table stood between two large light-gathering windows, with curtains that matched the wall-paper. Two nineteenth century landscapes of the upper Hudson Valley by the painter Hastings Lembert (1824 – 93), an ancestor, hung on the wall above a fine early Meiji (1871) tansu chest of drawers in kiriwood and chestnut. Bullock had picked it up forty years ago during his post-college sojourn in Kyoto teaching English.
     Sophie sat in bed reading by the light of her bedside electric lamp. Bullock's farm was the only establishment in the vicinity of Union Grove that still enjoyed electricity. It was thanks to a small hydroelectric generator where the Battenkill made one final ten foot leap before it flowed into the Hudson River. It put out fifty kilowatts of power, enough to light the main house, the barns, the workshops, and the cottages his "employees" had constructed for themselves on his property. Finding replacement light bulbs was a problem now that trade had fallen off so sharply. He'd laid in as many as possible during the hoarding times that followed the bombings in Washington and Los Angeles and the fall of the government, but his supply had run down so severely that he'd had to stop giving new ones to his cottagers – they were going back to candles – and light bulbs were not the kind of thing he was equipped to manufacture on the farm, though his workshops did turn out many useful items from glassware to harnesses.
     "You look very handsome tonight," Bullock remarked to his wife as he pulled off his blousy linen shirt and unbuttoned his riding trousers. She looked up over her reading glasses with a sly smile. She wore a silk nightgown that merely pretended to contain her abundant bosom. Bullock was observant enough to know that she tended to wear that particular article of clothing when she wanted his attention.
     "Are you proposing to entertain me?" she said.
     "I'd be honored."
     She put down her book, Them, by Joyce Carol Oates, a novel of mid-twentieth century family depravity, and threw back the covers on her husband's side of the bed, patting the mattress to welcome him. He slipped between the cool, clean sheets until he was pressed warmly against the wife he adored. Soon he was kissing the little hollow below her ear where the wisps of silvery hair met her perfumed neck, as familiar a place to him as the wooded glens of his dreams, where he was forever young and on the hunt. She reached and turned out the light. His left hand ranged over the deeply contoured geography of her torso – as perpetually beautiful and interesting to him as the terrain of his own great farm – and she opened herself to him. Their ceremony was well practiced but no less pleasurable for its countless repetitions over the years. If anything, their comfort with each other only added to the pleasure they took together, along with their mutual wonder that they remained avid well into their age. When their ceremony was complete, they lay panting, giggling, and whispering to each other in delight.
     "Sleepy, now?" he asked.
     "You know how I am," she said. Indeed, the transports of love acted on Sophie Bullock as the most potent soporific. It was a joke between them. Bullock himself always claimed to be re-energized by love-making, as if he had taken a shot of espresso.
     "Would you like me to read a bit to you?" he asked.
     "Sure," she said. "What have you got, darling?"
     "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving."
     She let out a delighted little yelp.
     "Halloween's almost here," he said.
     "You love holidays, don't you?"
     "They're more important now than in the old days, when there were more distractions."
     "Well, you go right ahead, but don't mind me if I slip off to dreamland."
     Bullock kissed her damp forehead, reached for the lamp on his night table, and put on his reading glasses.
     "In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson," he began reading aloud, "at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town-"
     Bullock stopped reading at the apprehension of strange noises emanating from somewhere in the house, something banging, a dull thud, a squeak. The old house was alive in its own way, always heaving and groaning with the weather and the seasons. And there were the two servants who lived in the house, Lilah the cook and Jenny the housekeeper, who sometimes moved about downstairs late at night, getting something from the kitchen or the library.
     But then Bullock heard a commotion on the stairs. He flung his book aside just as three figures crashed through the bedroom door and stopped in their tracks, apparently dazzled by the electric light. Bullock knew at once what they were. The three figures – bearded, bundled in close-fitting clothing, like soldiers, with trousers tucked into the boot-tops, yet not in any discernable uniform – gaped in awe at what they had discovered, and not just the finery of the room. Sophie Bullock, shocked into waking, had been prepared for a moment like this by her husband, and by her own intelligence. She sat up in bed beside her husband and drew the bedclothes above her bosom. The Bullocks and the intruders stared squarely at one another in steely resolve during that interminable instant before one of them spoke.
    "I've been expecting something like you for a long time," Bullock said.
     "That's nice," said the tallest one, who wore a leather helmet leaking coyote fur, with an eagle crudely embroidered on a patch at the forehead. "It'll save us all a lot of bother. Just take us to where the gold is."
     "What makes you think there is any?"
     "Oh, come on. How could there not be in a place like this?"
     While Bullock sized up the trio, he heard a scream from below, and assumed it came from Jenny or Lilah.
     "If you harm any of my people, you'll pay," he said.
     "You're not calling the shots here just now," said the apparent leader, who brandished a very large revolver. He used its long barrel as a pointer, gesturing to reinforce his instructions. "Get out of the rack, Mr. Big."
     Bullock threw back the sheets and sprang to the floor with an athleticism that surprised the intruders as much as his state of complete nakedness. 
     "Check out the missus," said another of the intruders, shorter and younger than the first. He wielded a sawed-off pump shotgun and sported a head-rag that had once been a small American flag. A spray of blonde hair leaked out from under it. "Nice looking for an older gal."
     Sophie Bullock didn't flinch.
     The muffled screams continued from below.
     The third member of the trio, black-haired and broadly-built, with a tight-cropped beard and no visible weapon, approached the bed and seized the end of the blankets. Sophie resisted, but the burly man succeeded in yanking them off. She threw her arms across her bosom against the inadequacy of her nightgown.
     "You come with me," the leader told Bullock.
     "I'm not leaving my wife alone with your gorillas."
     As though to emphasize the obvious, the shorter one unzipped his fly.
     "These here boys are gentlemen," the leader said. "They just need some mothering."
     The screams from downstairs had become sobs.
     "Can I put my pants on?" Bullock said.
     "Go ahead."
     The dark-bearded hulk fingered Sophie Bullock's silk nightgown. She issued a strangled cry of distress, while trying desperately to maintain her composure. The nightgown came away with a ripping sound. Sophie drew up her thigh in a posture of protection. Bullock calmly went to the wing chair in the corner where he had deposited his riding breeches. He pulled them on and fastened the buttons, keeping his eyes on the tall one in the leather helmet with the eagle on it. Then he reached casually beside the curtained window and pulled a braided cord, which set off a blaring electric klaxon on the roof.
     "What the hell?" the dark-haired hulk said. The three intruders all shared a troubled glance. In that distracted instant, Bullock reached into a bronze umbrella stand beside the wing chair and withdrew from a sharkskin scabbard the twenty-six inch long katana, or samurai sword, that had been another of his acquisitions during his Japanese sojourn. The rigorous training he had undergone in those years returned to him unfailingly. He wheeled around and swung the weapon at the one who had been issuing instructions. The motion was so fluid and exact that for a moment, a mere red line appeared between the man's beard and his shoulders. But then his legs wobbled and his body collapsed in a heap on the rug, while bright arterial blood gushed out of the stump of his neck and his detached head, still in its leather helmet, bounced on the floor and rolled up against the chest of drawers. The young, flag-headed accomplice barely had time to goggle at the spectacle before Bullock delivered a thrust of the sword cleanly through the young man's sternum, sectioning the heart from top to bottom and separating its owner from his life so efficiently that his brain was able to behold his own death for several seconds before he too crashed to the floor. The third one had the presence of mind to lunge for his companion's sawed-off shotgun, but he also presented the back of his neck so perfectly to Bullock that a minimum of effort was required to remove his head. The eyes could be seen rolling in the head as it became lodged between the legs of the dressing table.
     When all three lay dead on the floor, except for the residual twitching of their shocked nervous systems, Bullock wrested the revolver from the dead leader's hand, grabbed the sawed-off shotgun off the floor, and hurried out of the room. Sophie remained naked on the bed above the fallen, bleeding intruders, her screams subsumed in the noise of the klaxon, which had succeeded in summoning the men from Bullock's village up the hill. They now swarmed around the house, barns, and workshops of Bullock's manor in the rain, rounding up nine other intruders at gunpoint in the electric floodlights which were part of the alarm system that tripped when Bullock had pulled the chord.
     Bullock, shirtless and bloody in the stark glare of the floodlights, ordered the captured invaders to be locked in the enormous cold-storage locker that his grandfather had installed in one of the barns in 1965 for preserving his apple crop. Others attended to Jenny Ferris, the housekeeper, on the first floor of the big house, where she lay battered and misused, while Sophie Bullock, now dressed in her gardening denims, supervised the removal of the bodies from her bedroom and the mopping up of the blood that had spilled from their worthless hearts.

* * *

     Around sunrise the day after his home was invaded, Stephen Bullock decided to hang the rest of the intruders. He drew up a warrant of execution for the nine men at his breakfast and determined, before hanging them, to interrogate whoever was next in command after the three he had killed in his bedroom.
     A little after seven in the morning, he entered the old apple storage cooler where the men were held. He went in alone. Five of his own men, well armed, remained outside the cooler. The captives inside recoiled at the light of the candle-lantern when Bullock entered. They all shivered visibly in one corner of the large chamber, where they huddled together in hobbles with their hands tied behind their backs. The room stank of animal wastes and fear.
     "Three of your men are dead," Bullock told them. "I suppose you've figured out who they are by now. Who among you has the authority to speak for the rest of this gang?"
     The men swapped glances at each other. 
    "Don't be shy," Bullock added.
    "We don't have no official ranks, if that's what you mean," said one, a large man with a shaved head, perhaps thirty years old.
    "It seems you speak for the rest."
    "Just for now" the shaved-head man said.
    "Okay, I nominate you spokesman. And second it. All in favor? Aye. See, you're elected. Get up and come with me."
     "Where are we going?"
     "You're going to have breakfast with me and we're going to talk."
    The man got up off his haunches and glanced back at his companions. He was rangy, gaunt, and hollow-eyed but obviously very strong. The tendons in his neck stood out like wires.
     "Come," Bullock said.
     The man shuffled in his hobbles, which only allowed him to take tiny steps. Bullock and his five men, armed with rifles and pistols, walked him to the manse. The clear morning was already blooming into a spectacularly warm Indian summer day with many stimulating aromas in the air: fresh cut hay, burning brush, sorghum boiling down to syrup at Bullock's new cane mill on the river, cornbread baking. Bullock led his prisoner into a sunny conservatory wing of the house and directed the man to have a seat at a glass-topped table. The cords that bound his hands behind his back were removed, though the hobbles on his ankles remained.
     Bullock's chore-man, Roger Lippy, a Chrysler dealer in the old times, laid a stiff white cloth on the table and set it with silver tableware and damask napkins rolled into silver rings. Bullock held up a sterling silver fork and examined it in a shaft of sunlight.
     "Too bad you didn't get to rob the place," Bullock said. "We have a lot of nice things here."
      The prisoner didn't reply.
     Roger Lippy stood by the table with a tray at his side.
     "What would you like for breakfast?" Bullock asked the prisoner.
     "You're gonna give me breakfast?"
     "Certainly."
     "Why?"
     "Aren't you hungry?"
     "Not especially."
     "Okay, I'll order for you. Roger, tell Lilah to make this fellow a four egg omelet with some of that Duanesburg chedder, bacon and sausage, hash-browns and cornbread with the blackberry preserves."
     "Yessir. Yourself?"
     "I'll just have tea," Bullock said. "Tea for you?" he asked the prisoner, who just grunted. "It's real black China tea," Bullock added. "None of that fruity herbal crap. It'll give you a real lift. Go on, give yourself a break."
     "Okay," the prisoner said. Roger Lippy left them. Bullock's other men took up positions sitting or standing outside the conservatory, on display but out of earshot. Sparrows flitted in and out of the room through the ventilation louvers.
     "What's your name?" Bullock asked.
     "What's it matter?"
     "It should matter to you. It's your name. You can't defend your honor without defending your name, can you?"
     "It's Jason Hammerschield."
     "You couldn't have made that up."
     "It's my name."
     "Where's this gang of yours from?"
     "It's not my gang."
     "I don't mean you own it. But obviously you're a member."
     Roger Lippy brought out a tray with a teapot and two matching cups and saucers. Bullock poured for both of them.
     "The cream's from our own dairy and the sugar's made from our own beets, though we're working up a sorghum operation now," Bullock said.  "So, Jason, where do you and your associates hail from?"
     "Waterbury, Connecticut. We been on the road a while."
     "How are things back there in the Nutmeg State?"
     "The what?"
     "Connecticut."
     "They sucked. Which is how come we took to the road."
     "Have you had many adventures?"
     "It's a hard life."
     "You must not be very good at what you do."
     "We're all right. But it's slim pickings out there."
     "Then it's extra sad that you messed up here. We're living large. We've got full bellies, electric power, amber waves of grain, groaning orchards, a nice big house, first-rate furnishings."
     "I can see."
     "Oh, you only see a teensy-weensy bit of what we've got going. Want me to put on some recorded music? I've got it all – classical, Broadway musicals, old Bob Dylan-"
     Roger Lippy reappeared with Jason Hammerschield's breakfast, plus a basket of cornbread, a ramekin of butter, and a dish of blackberry jam. The prisoner stared at the steaming plate that was set before him.
     "Put on some Debussy, would you Roger? The first preludes."
     "Sure thing, sir."
     "Go ahead, dig in," Bullock said to his prisoner, who continued to stare darkly at his plate.
     "How do I know it's not poison?"
     Bullock laughed sincerely. "You moron, if I wanted to kill you, I'd have one of my men shoot you in the head. Go ahead, eat."
     Jason Hammerschield looked up at Bullock squinting with dull incomprehension.
     "I'll be very cross with you if you just let it sit there," Bullock added.
     The prisoner took a tentative forkful of his omelet, then ate more rapidly until he was fairly inhaling the contents of the plate in a fugue of deprivation. He reached into the basket for some cornbread, slathered it with butter, and spooned jam on top. 
     "What I want to know," Bullock continued, "is whether you are part of some larger horde."
     "Some what?" Jason Hammerschield said, spraying cornbread crumbs as he spoke.
     "You know, a larger unit of people like yourselves, an army of marauders, scavenging across the land like locusts."
     Jason Hammerschield chewed ruminatively.
     "No," he said eventually. "We're just who we are. A bunch of guys."
     "What do you call your bunch?"
     "Nothing."
     "Really? I'd think you'd sit around the campfire at night memorializing your exploits."
     "What our what?"
     "Making up stories about yourselves. For your own amusement. Creating a myth for posterity."
     "We just fall out and sleep. It's hard living like we do."
      "All I can say is you boys are seriously lacking in imagination."
     Jason Hammerschield mopped up the last remaining specks of egg, hash browns, and crumbs of bacon with a triangle of cornbread.
     "Allow me to suggest a name," Bullock said. "The Nutmeg Boys. Or maybe just The Nutmeggers."
     Jason Hammerschield made a face and snorted. "What happens now?" he said, tossing his napkin on his plate.
     "Just some legal rigmarole," Bullock said. "Do you boys have a lawyer?"
     "No."
     "Want me to represent you? I'm a member of the bar."
     "That don't sound right."
     "These are rugged times, admittedly, for the machinery of justice. By a stroke of luck, though, there's a magistrate on the premises."
     "Who would that be?"
     "Yours truly," Bullock said.
     "I see," Jason Hammerschield said. "You the jury, too?"
     "Pretty much. I could appoint some of my people, but they'd just do what I tell them. So why bother?"
     A green look came over the prisoner as the horizon of his future finally resolved into a featureless landscape of grievous futility. He puffed out his cheeks, his eyes rolled up into his head, and he vomited his breakfast back onto his plate.
     "It's been nice chatting with you, Jason, but I have an awful lot to look after here. We're slaughtering some hogs today. It's the season for it."
     Bullock left the prisoner staring blankly into the panes of the conservatory walls and went outside to where his men waited.
     "Take all these fellows down to the River Road," Bullock told the versatile Dick Lee, "and hang them there at twenty-yard intervals."

From the otherpower forums


Famed homebuilt wind turbine inventor Hugh Piggot answers one of my questions
Otherpower forums recently switched over to using the same software as we use on our forum, but for reasons unknown they post messages from old to newer. so to read this you start at the bottom and work your way back up. Brian
I had troubles fitting the images so I pulled the two and deformatted the rest, I hope it is still good

——–
Here is another photo of a 12 metre mast ready to lift using a single lifting cable that passes over the top of the gin pole in this case.  As the tower goes up the lifting cable parts company from the descending gin pole and pulls direct.  Ultimately it's used as the top guy in this case.


* PICT0458.jpg (144.8 KB. 449×337 – viewed 168 times.)

I am struggling a bit to produce pictures with a small enough fiel size that you can actually make out anything useful for some reason.


* PICT0122.jpg (64.5 KB. 193×303 – viewed 168 times.)

this is a photo of the previous 20 metre windmill erected.  It's taken from the top of another tower.  YOu can see the trees behind are pretty large so it has to be at least that high.
 scoraigwind
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Re: connecting more than one windmill
« Reply #27 on: August 22, 2010, 12:13:18 PM »
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Hydraulic rams are recently very popular for freestanding towers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uro86C2q2no for example.   I woudl say that mostly the installers bring the ram and hydraulic pump with them.

I still like the old Tirfor rope-hoist.

Differences between the Otherpower design and mine?  They both initially used a too-small disk for the 10 footer.  I rated the turbine for low power at first and then later used a larger disk.  OP upgraded the magnets.  You can go either way, but the larger disk is cheaper and the larger stator is easier to cool.

Otherpower have a nicer looking steel frame but I hope that mine is easier to make.

To be honest I recommend reading both designs and then choosing your own way.  That's what a lot of people seem to do.  And they mostly add their own ideas, which is when it starts to be fun.

Hugh

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Re: connecting more than one windmill
« Reply #26 on: August 22, 2010, 10:53:58 AM »
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Ok, that solves the cabling from the turbines.

Just went to check, I have, added together, 6,8m of dia 220, 165 and 110 by 6mm. Think i will add a lenght of dia 100 and 3 guy wires at the top for a tilt-up, have 6 4m pieces of railway line to concrete and make a pivot from. Sound ok to you?

Am toying with the idea of hydraulicly assisting the tower, number of cylinders lying around from old construction and agricultural machines and my tractor has external hyd connections. Friend has Eng firm with contracts at a mine, can get more large dia pipe off-cutts if I need to.

The other two will be guy-wire towers, and the shurflo will have a windmill stand, just love the look of them. Reminds me of growing up on my grandfathers farm.

Hugh, thank you very much for your time and help in sorting out my tower and cabling issue. Now to source the winches and cables.

Have read on the OP site you had hand in designing the Dans turbines. Is there any difference between theirs and yours worth mentioning? To me they look like basically the same thing. Just a matter of curioucity.

Anyone with suggestions regarding a tilt-up with hyd assistance please feel free to raise your voice. Am open for suggestions.
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Re: connecting more than one windmill
« Reply #25 on: August 22, 2010, 09:48:39 AM »
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I did help with a system at Temaruru in Zimbabwe that had 4 machines on a hilltop and then they shared a 48 VDC cable to the battery shed.  We had some problems with lightning surges blowing the diodes in the rectifier box up there on the hill but the principle was good.  I don't recommend paralleling them before you convert to DC.  I can't see that working out happily at all.

http://www.scoraigwind.com/powervision/index.htm

Duncan designed them as 'guy wire assisted' free standing towers.   They bolted down onto the rock, and the pipes were pretty massive near the bottom but they put guys on them anyway.  Belt and braces?

Anyway yes you can do a tilt-up free-standing tower.  Why not?  Lots of people do that.  It costs a lot in steel and in foundations but you get rid of the need for guy wires.  Unless you decide to fit them anyway :-)

Hugh
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« Reply #24 on: August 22, 2010, 09:29:50 AM »
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I guess since i have not put one up before, and the towers allways looks so thin on photos i'll just have to do it and get it over and done with. I will admit though that i'm not very fond of the idea of all the wasted space around the tower because of the guy-wires as I am planning to put them up as close as safely possible to my house and workshop to keep costs down. I also do know that in order for the turbine to work properly it is of no use putting up a 50cents tower either.

Would it be an option to move them a bit further away then, connect all three together and run a single cable to the batteries?

I am asking this because there would be other structures/sheds/tunnel in the vicinity and I am trying to have the batteries/power room against the house wall and more or less in the centre of things. Hopefully that way I can avoid long cables to a few lights/pumps in the other structures. I should add that I have not started with anything on the property yet, but have bought most of what i need over the last two years. The next step is to gather the goods for the power setup. It is only going to be for 2/3 people to live comfotably and to be selfsustainable.

We do have a supllier in town that sells all sizes/sorts of 3ph cable at better prices that I can source in Cape Town. I have quite a few different sizes and lenghts of cable as well as a number of 6mm/2 rolls of wire by 30m long.

I am aware that there definitely will be power losses in such a system therefore would like to plan well and rather spend money on an extra solar panel than on my own mistakes.
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Re: connecting more than one windmill
« Reply #23 on: August 22, 2010, 07:47:51 AM »
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Wall thickness would usually be 5.5 mm on those 3 inch pipes.  They do bend and sway a bit, but I am used to that and it doesn't bother me.    Most americans choose the next pipe size up but it's not actually necessary for a 1 kW turbine.

Maximum bending load is usually at the top guy level and not at the base as one would assume.  The guys prevent it bending at the base – especially if you include plenty of guys on the way up.  I usually put in one set of guys per length of pipe i.e. every 6 or 7 metres.  The top ones take all of the real load and that's where the pipe will bend in gusty weather, but so long as the furling works right it will not be damaged.

Hugh
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« Reply #22 on: August 22, 2010, 05:28:07 AM »
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What is the wall thickness of the pipe/tubing? I would feel "safe" i guess with 4 to 6mm on towers up to 20m or maybe using 4" at the bottom.
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Re: connecting more than one windmill
« Reply #21 on: August 22, 2010, 01:08:18 AM »
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Quote from: Boss on August 21, 2010, 10:31:50 AM
I just love seeing your turbines Hugh,
What kind of material is this tower made from?
Damn beautiful country on your island
Thanks for sharing
Brian

I make towers from ordinary steel pipe.  Or Circular Hollow Section as they call it.  I use 3 inch size (89mm) for the 12 foot turbines (3.6 metre/AWP).  I don't paint it because I found that makes the rusting worse, once it gets going.  Here things rust fast, but I find that steel pipe forms a surface patina of rust, and then this changes very little over long periods of time.  But if it is painted, it forms deep blisters and rusts right through quite fast.  So leaving them bare works best for me.

Yes it is pretty amazingly beautiful here I think, which is why I find it hard to go away.  I will be travelling a lot in the next couple of months including teaching courses in Wales, Ireland, and three for SEI in the USA, but I always look forward to going home too.
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« Reply #20 on: August 21, 2010, 03:47:04 PM »
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Thanks everybody, and for the pics and advice about the tower Hugh. Will def reconcider, maybe just do the tower for the shurflo on a windmill stand to help on cloudy days.

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Re: connecting more than one windmill
« Reply #19 on: August 21, 2010, 10:31:50 AM »
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I just love seeing your turbines Hugh,
What kind of material is this tower made from?
Damn beautiful country on your island
Thanks for sharing
Brian
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« Reply #18 on: August 21, 2010, 07:41:04 AM »
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Re: connecting more than one windmill
« Reply #17 on: August 21, 2010, 05:01:42 AM »
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Finally here is a link to a video I did last year showing some simple guyed towers being lowered and erected by a neighbour, Nigel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_VrumkFx4E

and there are a few pages about tilt-up tower design and erection in my Recipe Book, now available in Amazon Kindle format.
http://www.amazon.com/Wind-Turbine-Recipe-Book-ebook/dp/B003XVZADA/
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Re: connecting more than one windmill
« Reply #16 on: August 21, 2010, 01:30:01 AM »
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Here is another photo of a 12 metre mast ready to lift using a single lifting cable that passes over the top of the gin pole in this case.  As the tower goes up the lifting cable parts company from the descending gin pole and pulls direct.  Ultimately it's used as the top guy in this case.

* PICT0458.jpg (144.8 KB. 449×337 – viewed 168 times.)

I am struggling a bit to produce pictures with a small enough fiel size that you can actually make out anything useful for some reason.

* PICT0122.jpg (64.5 KB. 193×303 – viewed 168 times.)

this is a photo of the previous 20 metre windmill erected.  It's taken from the top of another tower.  YOu can see the trees behind are pretty large so it has to be at least that high.
* PICT0458.jpg (144.8 KB, 449×337 – viewed 168 times.)
* PICT0122.jpg (64.5 KB, 193×303 – viewed 168 times.)
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* PICT1714.jpg (112.72 KB. 323×430 – viewed 169 times.)

did it work this time… ?
* PICT1714.jpg (112.72 KB, 323×430 – viewed 169 times.)
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Re: connecting more than one windmill
« Reply #14 on: August 21, 2010, 01:06:24 AM »
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Quote from: fabricator on August 20, 2010, 04:33:18 PM
Do a search on guyed tilt up towers, no fancy equipment needed and no climbing the tower, ever, a mid size tower can be raised with a hand winch.

Here is a photo of my 20 metre tower with a 3.6 metre diameter turbine on it.  I lowered it in June because the tail had jammed.  I used a 1.6 tonne rope hoist to lower it, and it was pretty easy to do.  It was the first time I took it down since first putting it up in Spring of 2007.  The gin pole is about 7 metres long and there are guys from the gin pole to the tower in 3 places.  The hoist is attached to the end of the gin pole.  I remove the guys from the anchor after attaching the hoist between the anchor and the gin pole.  The anchor is about 20 metres from the tower base.  The gin pole has its own, shorter guys.  When the tower is vertical, the gin pole is sitting a bit above horizontal so that the hoist can apply some tension to the gin pole guys even at the end of the lift.

]]> http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/23/bmn-4-off-3-on/feed 0 BMN Montoya-move http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/20/bmn-montoya-move http://outfitnm.com/2010/08/20/bmn-montoya-move#comments Fri, 20 Aug 2010 14:28:09 +0000 admin http://outfitnm.com/?p=2575 Brian's Morning Newsletter

Friday, August 20th 2010


Good Morning
This morning's newsletter is titled Montoya Move and I will get to that in a second. First, I need to tell you Sara was in a car accident yesterday morning. She and the baby are perfectly fine, no worries there.  Of course she was shaken badly and is going to be very sore.  Her car, the Honda Element is totaled. From what Nell tells us, a very elderly woman was stopped on South Pacific and Grand waiting to make a left turn, apparently had a lapse in reality and gunned it right into the side of Sara'a car.

So, right? what was I going to write about?  James' finally moved his shanty off the Rodgers' property after nearly two decades, ending fears of squatters rights being invoked (please don't tell him) We love James and are appreciative of all the help and companionship he provided here on the ranch.

When I arrived on the scene yesterday, Carlos Ortiz a mutual friend  was  warming up his big diesel wrecker, getting ready to find out if this shack was going to hold together to not only get out of our driveway, but clear over to the next valley and a good ways up Canoncito valley to boot.

The above image is from Jackson's perspective as we came down the hill. 

 The second challenge after the rig made it out of the woods was to squeeze under the front gate. Yeah it was close, but in this case close counts.

Above after I hastily reattached the electric fence to the cross-member above our gate I caught up with James and Carlos at the proverbial triangle cross road.

 

Right on up the valley at Canyoncito they go. I'm sure this was quite a sight for the people of this valley. Nuff said?

 Here we are parking the freshly mobilized home. If you are familiar with Canyoncito the location is where the road makes a zig-zag across the valley, here we are on the north side.

Joseph Montoya, leased James a space and they used a Bob-Cat to level out the site. It looks really good there and I'm not just saying this because it isn't in our backyard, but this helps for sure.

I don't know if anyone noticed that yesterday's BMN was titled Forest Work while I did not mention anything about working in the forest.  Maybe it didn't matter,  because I think I got my point across that many days and some projects are not well represented by tangible progress.

Of the three days I had here at the ranch Jack and I worked in the forest for a couple of hours on two occasions, in between wave after wave of mosquito attacks. We are attempting to get a sufficient quantity of Ponderosa Pine down and drying for this Winter. Besides the bugs and heat another constraint is the Dodge dually is not all wheel drive, so I am cutting in areas with good access, for now and later in the season when there is snow on the ground.
 

All in all it has been a good week, although some of the progress feels ethereal in nature  

–
Brian Rodgers
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

Space News

Using Galactic 'Lenses' to Look for Dark Energy


A group of astronomers recently performed a highly-complex series of scientific studies, in which they use the gravitational lensing effect some galaxies have on incoming light beams to look for dark energy.

Nobody really knows what the stuff is, but existing theories say that it may be the force permeating the Universe, which causes galaxies to push away from each other at an ever-quickening pace.

It is also believed that dark energy is responsible for the expansion of the Cosmos itself, even though that idea has yet to be proven. Experts have yet to discover signs that dark energy actually exists.

Astronomers learned a long time ago that they can use the gravitational pull of a galaxy to conduct studies of celestial bodies located even farther.

That is to say, placing a large galaxy between us and the object of our studies causes light incoming from the latter object to pass through the gravitational field of the former, where mass distorts space and time, making the light appear magnified.

This process is called gravitational lensing, because it uses massive galaxies to “enhance” light that would otherwise be extremely dim.

Now, in a new study conducted with the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, researchers at the Yale University look at very distant galaxies through this observations process, in order to gain more clues as to how the geometry of space-time looks like in the Universe by default.

Hubble managed to identify and photograph 34 such galaxies. “The geometry, the content and the fate of the Universe are all intricately linked,” says Priyamvada Natarajan, a Yale researcher.

“If you know two, you can deduce the third. We already have a pretty good knowledge of the Universe's mass-energy content, so if we can get a handle on its geometry then we will be able to work out exactly what the fate of the Universe will be,” he adds, quoted by Space.

“Using our unique method in conjunction with others, we were able to come up with results that were far more precise than any achieved before,” explains Jean-Paul Kneib, a researcher on the study and an astronomer at the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, in France.

The team says that additional data on the geometry permeating the Cosmos were derived from past studies of supernova events, galactic clusters, black holes, and other types of structures.

Full details of the investigation appear in the August 20 issue of the esteemed journal Science.

————-         

Let's not forget the Gulf just yet

Environmental News

 

(CNN) — Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said they detected a plume of hydrocarbons in June that was at least 22 miles long and more than 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a residue of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

According to the institution, the 1.2-mile-wide, 650-foot-high plume of trapped hydrocarbons provides at least a partial answer to recent questions asking where all the oil has gone as surface slicks shrink and disappear.

"These results indicate that efforts to book-keep where the oil went must now include this plume" in the Gulf, said Christopher Reddy, a Woods Hole marine geochemist and oil spill expert. He is one of the authors of the study, which appears in the Aug. 19 issue of the journal Science.

Researchers saw the plume over two weeks in June but were chased away by Hurricane Alex, Reddy told CNN Radio.

"I have no idea where those compounds are now," he said.

Another of the report's authors said the plume has probably moved elsewhere, noting that the BP-operated well has been capped for more than a month and that the plume was moving in a southwesterly direction at a rate of about 6.5 kilometers (4 miles) a day.

"(It's) extremely likely that the hydrocarbons in that plume have long moved elsewhere," report author Rich Camilli told CNN.

Reddy said that experts need more data before they can determine how much remains in Gulf.

Whether the plume's existence poses a significant threat to the Gulf is not yet clear, the researchers say. "We don't know how toxic it is," Reddy said in a statement, "and we don't know how it formed, or why. But knowing the size, shape, depth, and heading of this plume will be vital for answering many of these questions."

Camilli, also a Woods Hole scientist, said colder temperatures at the plume's extreme depths inhibited the degradation properties of oil.

Microbes act more slowly on the subsea oil than on surface oil because of lower temperatures, he said. If all other conditions were equal, microbes would eat up the plume's subsea oil about 10 times more slowly, Camilli said.

Meanwhile, Thad Allen, the government's point man for the oil disaster, responded Thursday on CNN to two recent studies that appeared to contradict the government's estimate that about 75 percent of the oil has been cleaned up.

Researchers at the University of South Florida have concluded that oil may have settled at the bottom of the Gulf farther east than previously suspected — and at levels toxic to marine life. In addition, a team from Georgia Sea Grant and the University of Georgia released a report that estimates that 70 to 79 percent of the oil that gushed from the well "has not been recovered and remains a threat to the ecosystem," the university said in a release.

Allen said the government has determined the flow rate to have been about 53,000 barrels a day, or a total of 4.9 million barrels.

"The next question is, what happened to it?" he said. "There are certain things we know for certain. We produced almost 827,000 barrels that we collected and brought ashore." The government also knows how much oil was skimmed, how much was burned and how much was affected by dispersant use. When that is added up, it leaves 26 percent still in the water, Allen said.

"That's not a definitive statement, but that's a way to start a conversation about the oil," Allen said. "You can take a lot of different estimates and run that formula, but that's the one we're starting with … other than the 26 percent, the rest can be accounted for some way. That 26 percent is going to end up on a beach or dealt with somehow."

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