Posts tagged LinkedIn

The Solution for the Detroit Situation

December 5, 2008 · Filed under business, development, economics, green living, politics, public transporation, renewable energy · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

So I’m reading the New York Times review of today’s congressional hearing, you must read it. and I’m coming up with THE SOLUTION.  Congress is debating all of the reasons to NOT bailout the Big Three that we’ve all been thinking about.  The companies aren’t competitive.  They haven’t been for a long time. The unions… (I can’t even go there, unions are such a good idea in theory…) Their product line is inconsistent with the needs of today (my consumer generation) and the people running the show think that it’s impossible to figure it out in time.  (As was suggested by the “tight calendar” line.)

Hey, I think to myself, that’s my money honey!  I have a BETTER idea.  (Actually, I believe many intelligent people have better ideas.  You can probably find a few of them here in the bloggoshere.  FYI, I love how Adrianna Huffington pronounces ‘bloggoshere!”)

What ELSE could we do with 34 billion dollars BESIDES give it to a crappy company.  (This is business, it’s not personal.  Ten cents for everytime you’ve heard that line…)

How about fund 34 of the best ideas for new green transportation (independent and community centric) with a billion dollars each.   Idea makers, lawyers, promotions people, sales people, producers, developers, engineers, advertisers, web people, (I could go on) start your engines!  What do you think will happen??

Alright- before the reveal- I don’t have a good name for this yet, you know, something catchy, quirky, with alteration… feel free to write in with ideas…

AMERICAN TRANSPORT THE TV SHOW!!!!!  Yes!! I said it!!  Make a reality tv show about our collective future.  It would be SO AWESOME!  As every intelligent reader knows, if there are 34 good ideas put on the MARKET, only the best idea will survive to change the world.  Or maybe a few of them will.  Who knows, this is live tv, I mean, economics.  The penultimate businesses will be voted of the island, the market won’t support them/America knows best.  The market naturally chooses the ideas that make the most cents/sense.   Great ideas surface like dot coms and blogs and only the best survive/ inspire audience participation.  (Well, except the Jennifer Hudson fiasco.)   A billion dollars is enough to get the process rolling and we can document it all, show it to America and we can call in and vote.  No,  I’m actually serious.  We vote on the best singers, the best dancers, Trump fires the crappiest employee, Heidi K tells the worst designer that he or she is out, even crappy chefs get chopped up, ON TV!  Let’s talk future transportation.  Let’s document it.  Let America Vote/Buy.  I mean, we are the target market, right?

I’d watch.  I’d call in, or text, or whatever.  If texting fees apply, maybe that can become a slush fund to the winner or something.  I actually think this could be the best idea I’ve ever come up with.  This would be the coolest show, so many people would get jobs.  These are my people.  We all  need jobs!!  Real jobs.  Crackberry style jobs.  Green adverting dollars…. Green fashion… Oh ya, did I mention that it’ll be good for the planet?

This is team building baby.  The bigger the ideas, the bigger the discussion, the better the outcome after everything is thought out.  I’m glad that congress isn’t just a Yes Man for the Big Three.  Way to debate you guys.  Points to Wagoner for a great statement, it’s just lacking proof… My way is better. It’s a huge idea.  Mind blowing actually.  But- we can do it.  Seriously.

Alright, the idea’s out now.  If anyone wants to collaborate, I’m right here.  Just think, you could save me from law school.

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Vote on California Prop 7- renewable energy on my mind

October 30, 2008 · Filed under business, development, economics, green living, politics, solar energy · Tagged , , , , ,

After reading the convincing argument sent to my Gmail box by Solar Nation, I had intended to write a Vote No message for California’s Proposition 7.  The ballot initiative was proposed by Arizona billionaire Peter Sperling, grad of UC Santa Barbara, who, according to the article, has little expertise in the solar arena and wrote a crappy proposition that will screw up all the progress made in California because of some bad writing…

Just imagine my surprise after more research into the Proposition revealed that it would require California public utilities to procure half of their electricity from solar and other clean energy facilities by 2025, not just maintain the goals for privately owned energy management sights.  It’s interesting to note that this would directly affect California’s public utilities such as Edison and PG&E.  They would be basically mandated to procure at least 25% of their energy by clean sources resulting in a forced change in the way they do business.  I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.  Change would happen faster than if left to an invisible hand…

Already, 2009 doesn’t live up to the hype or my own personal hopes for the solar industry take over.  According to the 2009 Energy Portfolio Outlook, not much has changed yet.  Go big or go home Obama.  You’d better be ready to show your stuff in 2009…

Just as California is attempting to throw up solar panel installations on homeowners’ rooftops in Berkeley (see Berkeley FIRST entry) and the rest of the state begins bandwagoning on the renewable energy resource expansion, Prop 7 allegedly comes alone and redefines what counts in the state’s overall renewable energy source count.  Solar initiatives become redefined as Plants that generate a minimum 30 MWs of power. There is a debate as to if in fact the Proposition actually makes this distinction or not and the arguments for or against align with the support of lack thereof for the proposition.

However, if the language does make that distinction, the proposition doesn’t help the current energy situation in California.  If it doesn’t, then the proposition is a fantastically forward looking attempt at massive utilities change.  SMUD, the Sacramento Municipal Utilities Department, already went 50% renewable energy at a profit. Every public utilities should be copying their president.  Making excuses is just foot dragging laziness…

The California solar market is growing with 60% of its new solar resources being home based instillation.  If these installations become ineligible to count in California’s Renewable Portfolio Standards then the overall change to renewables might look like the numbers moved two steps forward and a step back in the total amount of green growth.  (The energy program outlined by the RPS is a joint effort by the California Energy Commission and California’s Public Utilities Commission to produce change in California’s energy procurement possibilities.)  If, however, the proposition doesn’t in fact change the designations, then I’m not so closed minded to the proposition at all.  Sometimes society needs a governmental push in the right direction in order to make great leaps in progress. (It happened in Germany in 2004 and now there are solar panels everywhere.)

As energy procurement methods change, it’s better to count the established changes already in effect.  Rooftop generation instillation are usually quite small, 3 MW, and definitely below 20 MW.  With Prop 7, would these types of solar installations count? Arguments against Prop 7 say they won’t, arguments for Prop 7 say that this criticism is unfounded. The Sierra Club, Democratic Party and Republican Party all say No to Prop 7 but D Aitken (just received World Solar Industry award), S.D. Freemann (energy adviser to Kennedy and Carter) and F. Kydland the 2007 Nobel Prize economist say Yes along with the Gay and Lesbian Times and the Napa Valley Register.  There’s a big business vs science dichotomy in support, leading me to wonder if business might just be battling against scientific measures.

Perhaps the Proposition forces public utilities to change their polluting ways sooner rather than later in order to create a stimulus for California, allowing the state to show off, yet again, its amazing potential.  (And the ultimate benefits of fantastic weather.) That would lead to some fantastic change.

So what do you think?  Is business blocking environmental progress?  Or is it just bad Proposition writing?

Here’s a table laying out what the Presidential Candidates standing on energy issues… In case you’re wondering….

Just some notes about personal energy procurement (think along the lines of how convenient using a personal computer is as opposed to having to go to the library to use their linked network):  Home solar set ups are conveniently located close to the location of the needed power.  Home generated solar power can be put to use as soon as someone in the house needs a little extra AC in the summer. Transmission distances from solar array to the using source, the house, is minimal which is good because power moved over long distances loses its efficiency because of transmission congestion.  Home systems lessen the necessity to design new transmitting mechanisms as well which is better as new infrastructure is an extra expense.   Solar energy will hopefully meet price parity with polluting energy sooner rather than later.

Lets keep up the good work and not get waylaid in the middle by redefining what counts and what doesn’t towards solving the problem.  If however, a proposition encourages both methods of solving the energy problem at the same time (as opposed to putting one solution above the other) I’m all for it.  Alright California, any comments?

LA Times NO vote:

Napa Valley Register says Yes:

I don’t know but the research level of the two articles seems suspiciously like one did more than the other…

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Berkeley Goes Solar FIRST

October 10, 2008 · Filed under business, development, economics, green living, politics, renewable energy, solar energy · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The headline says it all:  “Berkeley Going Solar-city pays upfront, recoups over 20 years.”  Brilliant piece of work there.  Let’s discuss the brilliance:

First, congrats to the government for doing something useful, I didn’t believe that was even possible.  The city of Berkeley made a goal of reducing it’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 and they are on their way to actualizing success.  (We’re all hopeful that the planet will still be functional in 2050.)  I was thrilled when the government began contemplating creating the goal in the first place.  This is quite a few steps forward in the process.  They’ve mapped out a way to make it happen.   The city’s going solar, they’re helping to pay for it, Berkeley’s about to get a makeover.

How many people said that solar energy is a great idea but it’s just too expensive?  You who raged about the distance of price parity and the prohibitive upfront expense of solar panels.  You doubting Thomas blog posters who fired up the debate, or took the opposition stance to the possibility of going solar.  Berkeley’s taking a $tand- instead of letting the market take care of this extreme enviropolitical structural change, the city’s financial influence will determine outcome and make it a reality- now.  Looks like Berkeley will be the first of Bush’s smurf blue step children to wise up, take action, make change, and Obama hasn’t even taken office yet.

The state of California pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2020.   If people still inhabit the earth, two pieces of legislation including the California Solar Initiative and the Million Solar Roofs program provide a framework for the coming changes in the state.  The Berkeley FIRST program, the city’s Financing Initiative for Renewable and Solar Technology, will provide funding for a solar panel instillation on household roofs, yours and mine, from a bond or loan fund which will return within 20 years via an adjustment to property tax bills.  The pilot Berkeley FIRST project commenced this summer, 2008.  GREAT news!  American money improving America- what a concept.  (I’d love to hear some reviews from the locals, but more on that later.)

The lack of awareness on this fantastic step in Operation A Better America is due to the distraction of the current election.  My advice for undecideds: Just ask Ken Alex, the California deputy attorney and Berkeley’s Mayor Tom Bates who they are endorsing for President and vote with them.   Those two gentlemen and their teams have enabled the first American structural makeover since all of America’s money got spent blowing things up in Iraq.  Adding solar panels to improve a city in California instead of decimating cities in Afghanistan, or Iraq, is such a fantastically justifiable expense.  With a blown American budget, the American people, myself included, would like to see the action potential of those trillions of dollars that we don’t have that are being spent anyway.

I know what the Red Ones will think, conspicuous government spending, followed by a mighty hand wringing.  Perhaps since money will be spent domestically and we will see the results visually and in a manipulation of the domestic expense matrix, the Bigtime-Haves are going to have to start getting used to hanging with the Haven’t-Had-as-Much-Recently group.  Solar panels:  Call it the first American shopping spree!  Like buying a new outfit.

While the ugly duckling phases makes Berkeley the nearly hot new kid on the block, very shortly, the popular kids will take notice in a big way.   San Francisco, Santa Cruz, hoity toity Santa Monica among other state agencies have already looked into the Berkeley process.  If it goes, it’ll get copied.  By stealing the best working ideas, which include putting solar panels on rooftops, the yellow tinge that hovers just above our heads in LA might just being to break up before I’m dead.  (Yes, I KNOW it’s better than it was 20 years ago.  I lived in Canada, the sky is always beautiful except for Toronto.  The bling hanging in the LA sky is, will be, and always has been completely disgusting.  There can be no arguement.  Make it go away. That, and nothing less, should be the goal.)

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