photo credit: Maryam S.

We left the following note on the Obama for President website:

While I am not an American, I have an idea that Mr. Obama might consider . . .

What if?

Mr. Obama takes public financing for the campaign.

Then

Directs supporters to direct their “campaign donations” to fund 1 public project on the ground in each state to help those most in need on a local basis - now.

Thus you demonstrate real doing while campaigning - different!

Everyone including the press would love it and the coverage would more than compensate for any restriction in campaign fund raising.

Doing while talking - the power of real change.

Be really interested in everyone’s comments or even better ideas

Good luck!

from a Canadian well-wisher.

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Tesla Motors, the automobile startup with backers that include Sergey Brin and Larry Page, held a party tonight to mark the launch of its Menlo Park storefront. The store, which is the company’s second, will be open to the general public beginning this Tuesday.

Despite Tesla Motors’ well deserved reputation as a high-end car manufacturer, it is still very much a startup - the company’s $150 million in funding pales in comparison to coffers held by large automobile companies like Ferrari. As a result, Tesla has strived to create a atmosphere of style and sophistication at its showrooms without breaking the bank.

The new dealership is situated in Menlo Park, about 5 minutes away from downtown Palo Alto and Stanford University. The interior of the building is designed to be “industrial chic” - a strange mix of luxurious furniture (white leather sofas, marble tables) and the trimmings of a basic garage (concrete walls, exposed wooden ceilings). It works surprisingly well, keeping the store’s high-end customers at home without distracting from the showroom’s main attraction: the cars.

Ah, the cars. Tesla has half a dozen of their Tesla Roadster electric car on display, and they don’t disappoint. It’s hard to put into words how ridiculously sexy the Tesla Roadster is in person, so we’ve grabbed a lot of pictures. Suffice to say, as soon as you walk in the store, you’re going to want one.

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photo credit: ken mccown

Rock Port Missouri, with a population of just over 1,300 residents, has announced that it is the first 100% wind powered community in the United States. Four wind turbines supply all the electricity for the small town.

Rock Port’s 100% wind power status is due to four wind turbines located on agricultural lands within the city limits of Rock Port (Atchison County). The city of Rock Port uses approximately 13 million kilowatt hours of electricity each year. It is predicted that these four turbines will produce 16 million kilowatt hours each year.

Excess wind generated electricity not used by Rock Port homes and businesses is expected to be move onto the transmission lines to be purchased by the Missouri Joint Municipal Utilities for use in other areas.

University of Missouri Extension specialists say that there are excellent opportunities for sustainable wind power in northwest Missouri.

There are currently 24 wind turbines in Atchison County, 24 in Nodaway County and 27 in Gentry County. MU Extension specialists say the wind farms will bring in more than $1.1 million annually in county real estate taxes, to be paid by Wind Capital Group, a wind energy developer based in St. Louis.

“This is a unique situation because in rural areas it is quite uncommon to have this increase in taxation revenues,” said Jerry Baker, MU Extension community development specialist.

The alternative-energy source also benefits landowners, who can make anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000 leasing part of their property for wind turbines.

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photo credit: esteban

In an ominous sign for Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial machine, venture capital firms are cutting back on their investments in companies at their earliest stage of development and being forced to provide extra financing for later-stage companies that can’t leave the nest and go public.

Overall, venture capital investment remained flat at about $7.4 billion in the second quarter, according to a report released Saturday by the National Venture Capital Association and PricewaterhouseCoopers. But the amount of money invested in companies seeking their first round of venture investment fell 12 percent to $1.6 billion, down from $1.8 billion in the first quarter. Also, first-round financings fell to just 21 percent of all venture funding — the lowest percentage since the fourth quarter 2004.

Mark Heesen, president of the N.V.C.A., suggested that the drop reflected caution by funders who are worried about their inability to cash out of their investments through initial public offerings of stock.

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An artist’s representation shows how a cost effective solar concentrator could help make existing solar panels more efficient. The dye-based organic solar concentrator functions without the use of tracking or cooling systems, greatly reducing the overall cost compared to other concentrator technologies. Dye molecules coated on glass absorb sunlight, and re-emit it at a different wavelengths. The light is trapped and transported within the glass until it is captured by solar cells at the edge. Some light passes through the concentrator and can be absorbed by lower voltage solar cells underneath. Alternatively, the partially transmissive concentrator can function as a window. Graphic not to scale. (Credit: NSF)

Imagine windows that not only provide a clear view and illuminate rooms, but also use sunlight to efficiently help power the building they are part of. MIT engineers report a new approach to harnessing the sun’s energy that could allow just that.

The work, reported in the July 11 issue of Science, involves the creation of a novel “solar concentrator.” “Light is collected over a large area [like a window] and gathered, or concentrated, at the edges,” explains Marc A. Baldo, leader of the work and the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Career Development Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering.

As a result, rather than covering a roof with expensive solar cells (the semiconductor devices that transform sunlight into electricity), the cells only need to be around the edges of a flat glass panel. In addition, the focused light increases the electrical power obtained from each solar cell “by a factor of over 40,” Baldo says.

Because the system is simple to manufacture, the team believes that it could be implemented within three years–even added onto existing solar-panel systems to increase their efficiency by 50 percent for minimal additional cost. That, in turn, would substantially reduce the cost of solar electricity.

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“One of the best solar ideas in the last 5 years.” - IT

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The Anaconda device could be used in groups of 20 or more. (Credit: Image courtesy of Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council)

A device consisting of a giant rubber tube may hold the key to producing affordable electricity from the energy in sea waves. Invented in the UK, the ‘Anaconda’ is a totally innovative wave energy concept. Its ultra-simple design means it would be cheap to manufacture and maintain, enabling it to produce clean electricity at lower cost than other types of wave energy converter. Cost has been a key barrier to deployment of such converters to date.

Named after the snake of the same name because of its long thin shape, the Anaconda is closed at both ends and filled completely with water. It is designed to be anchored just below the sea’s surface, with one end facing the oncoming waves.

A wave hitting the end squeezes it and causes a ‘bulge wave’* to form inside the tube. As the bulge wave runs through the tube, the initial sea wave that caused it runs along the outside of the tube at the same speed, squeezing the tube more and more and causing the bulge wave to get bigger and bigger. The bulge wave then turns a turbine fitted at the far end of the device and the power produced is fed to shore via a cable.

Because it is made of rubber, the Anaconda is much lighter than other wave energy devices (which are primarily made of metal) and dispenses with the need for hydraulic rams, hinges and articulated joints. This reduces capital and maintenance costs and scope for breakdowns.

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photo credit: jurvetson

A hydrogen refuelling station which could be installed in the home as an alternative to visiting a petrol station has been unveiled.

Users will need a hydrogen-powered car to go with it although the system can also be used for heating and cooking.

Hydrogen has long been touted as an alternative energy source to carbon-hungry fossil fuels.

One of the biggest obstacles to wider adoption of fuel-cell vehicles is the lack of hydrogen fuelling stations.

To be used as a fuel, hydrogen must first be produced using another energy source.

While some scientists are hopeful of the fuel uses of hydrogen, many others are sceptical because it is inefficient to produce, expensive to transport and to convert into electricity.

A home refuelling station could provide much needed infrastructure to kick-start a hydrogen-based economy, thinks Sheffield-based ITM Power, the firm behind the system.

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Hydrogen is interesting but the energy equation is a big question mark for its overall use and long-term viability . . . - IT

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photo credit: Guanatos Gwyn

The high priest of “peak oil” thinks world oil output can now only decline

FOR a man who believes that the world as we know it is coming to an end, as least as far as energy is concerned, Matthew Simmons is remarkably cheerful. He magnanimously excuses The Economist’s poor record of predicting the price of oil: our suggestion in 1999 that oil would remain dirt cheap was conventional wisdom at the time, he says soothingly. He also shrugs off our more recent scepticism about his belief that the world’s production of oil has peaked: he, too, hopes that “peak oil” proves to be a myth, he says. But over a 40-year career in investment banking, Mr Simmons adds, he has learnt never to rely on wishful thinking. Most of the world’s oil analysts, he believes, are far too optimistic about how long existing fields will last, the prospects for new discoveries, technology’s ability to unlock new sources and to extend the life of existing ones, and so on. He prefers to rely on data rather than daydreams. And according to the American government’s own numbers, the world’s oil output has been more-or-less flat since 2005.

It was data that made Mr Simmons famous. He spent the summer of 2003 at his holiday home in Maine, poring over technical studies describing the state of Saudi Arabia’s oilfields. Although the Saudi authorities do not release much evidence to support their claims of vast oil reserves, engineers from Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil firm, do give talks at conferences and publish papers about their experience of reservoir modelling and management. Based on these, Mr Simmons concluded that Saudi Arabia’s biggest fields were already past their peaks, required ever more expensive technological fixes to prop up production and would soon enter a period of inevitable and rapid decline.

Saudi grandees pooh-poohed Mr Simmons’s 2005 book on the subject, “Twilight in the Desert: the Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy”. But others held it up as convincing proof of the notion that the world’s oil production would soon reach a pinnacle, never to be exceeded. Saudi Arabia, after all, is already the world’s biggest producer, and is expected to cater to most of the growth in demand for oil over the next few years by expanding its output yet further. If, instead, it pumps less, there is little hope that other countries could make up the shortfall. In that scenario, as demand for oil continues to grow despite dwindling supplies, and as the search for substitutes proves fruitless, economic catastrophe ensues.

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Simmons is one of the brightest minds in the “field” of peak oil.  His scenario is realistic and world-altering if it is even partially as he makes out.  Leadership NEEDED now. - IT

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INNOVATION has become a popular subject on the business bookshelf over the past few years. But few of the new titles have offered much in the way of vision, insight or practical guidance. Two recent works—Charles Leadbeater’s “We-Think” (Profile Books) and “The New Age of Innovation”, by C.K Prahalad and M.S. Krishnan (McGraw-Hill)—are an exception to that rule. That each of them manages to say something potentially useful makes them worthy of special attention.

“We-Think” is the more radical of the pair. After a spell in journalism, Mr Leadbeater, a Briton, reinvented himself as a management thinker and as an adviser to governments via Demos, the New Labourite think-tank. There is a predictable whiff of third-wayism around his book’s central point: that internet-based, mass collaboration is mounting a serious challenge to the traditional, hierarchical company—and thus to the very organisation of capital in society.

“We-Think” innovation supposedly unites amateur and expert volunteers in such a way as to enable them produce goods and services that are not only free but often superior to those provided by corporations. Moreover, its acolytes seem happier than the wage-slaves who belong to the typical firm: “Well-being will come to depend less on what we own and consume and more on what we can share with others and create together,” says Mr Leadbeater, adding that this approach is “as effective a base for productive activity as private ownership”.

Such utopianism can provoke cynicism. Wikipedia is cited as a successful example of such new-fangled collaboration, and supposedly it outperforms traditional encyclopedias not only in its raw volume but also in accuracy. Really? And even if it is true that the “We-Think” approach is, as this book argues, spreading rapidly in business, politics, education, health care and more, unsuccessful collaborations abound, interspersed between the gems of the open-source software movement Mr Leadbeater so admires. No small number of Wikipedia entries testify to this sad fact, however useful the whole thing may be.

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A couple of very different perspectives . . . well worth reading - IT

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photo credit: net_efekt

Natural products are highly valued by consumers yet their properties have been difficult to reproduce fully in synthetic materials, placing a drain on our limited natural resources. Until now …

Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) are working towards producing the world’s first model that will predict how we perceive naturalness. The results could help make synthetic products so good that they are interpreted by our senses as being fully equivalent to the ‘real thing’, but with the benefits of reduced environmental impact and increased durability.

NPL began undertaking a real-time experiment at the Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition. The public were invited to touch and feel 20 wood and wood effect samples and vote on whether they are real or not. The exhibition will now be toured around the UK during the next year to collect a census of data from across the country. This will then be used to help build the first predictive model of how we judge naturalness.

As well as the real-time experiment the travelling exhibition will include a range of interactive exhibits that explore the perceptual process. The first of these will show how we can use body parts to measure an object, as the ancient Egyptians did with the cubit, a standard measure related to the Pharaoh’s arm length. There are visual, tactile and auditory experiments designed to demonstrate the limitations of the senses as measurement devices, by exposing how perceptions can be fooled by illusions. Videos will highlight the how the use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) brain scans is helping us understand the perceptual process, by allowing researchers to discover which areas of the brain are stimulated when people carry out specific tasks, such as using their vision and touch senses to explore natural and non natural wood samples.

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