Oil Wars and Energy Independence – The Pickens Army Recruits for the Fight

On July 31, 2009, In LA Life, Open Topics, By Administrator

Fact of the Day – July 24, 2009

Wind accounted for 40% of the nation’s new energy generating capacity in 2008.

Love him or hate him, T. Boone Pickens is fighting for a cause. He wants Americans free from not only the control of foreign governments for our energy supply, but also free from the devastating effects of our addiction to burning fossil fuels. And he is recruiting an army to help him bring the message of how we can accomplish the above objectives to fight the battle with our government and corporations.

America is addicted to foreign oil.

It’s an addiction that threatens our economy, our environment and our national security. It touches every part of our daily lives and ties our hands as a nation and as a people.

The addiction has worsened for decades and now it’s reached a point of crisis.

In 1970, we imported 24% of our oil.
Today, it’s more than 65% and growing. (Pickens Plan Website)

Pickens is not touting simple rhetoric – he has a plan. The plan encompasses a range of activities from education, to adopting natural gas, to wind power, and the simplicity of actions such as painting your roof tops white. Why would a man who is a very, very wealthy oil magnate change his tune from “drill baby drill” to making the US a stronger country through intelligent use of natural resources and green thinking?

“Once you see how deep a hole we’ve dug for ourselves by importing two-thirds of our oil and then you see all the ways OPEC and the other oil producers don’t want us to change our ways…” (T. Boone Pickens, 24 Jul 2009)

A Call to Arms

Now the “Pickens Army” appears to be giving T. Boone the backing he needs to make some real impact on the American government’s energy policies. At a recent event in Lancaster, PA, Pickens acknowledged the “Army” effect by stating “… this rich guy from Texas is a hell of a lot more powerful with a million people behind him than he ever was before.”

Pickens wants his army to get involved, even if it is only to send their representative a form letter supporting bills before Congress such as the Natural Gas Act of 2009.  Even what could appear as a superficial, small gesture is tallied on the support board in Washington.  Get enough points on the board, and you can accomplish the real objective of lighting interest on the floor of the House or Senate.

From the Pickens Plan resource page:

“Please support the NAT GAS Act of 2009

The current battle line drawn by the “army” is H.R. 1835, New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act of 2009. H.R. 1835 will provide energy research funding for the next decade. Pickens sent the following template letter out to his army this morning, strongly recommending each soldier send a copy to their representatives in Washington:

While the price per barrel of oil has fallen from the last summer highs, it’s beginning to rise again. What hasn’t changed is the percentage of oil we import every day: over the past 12 months we have continued to import nearly two-thirds of the oil we use.

Most of the oil we import is used as a transportation fuel – cars, trucks, aircraft, boats and trains. About one barrel out of every five is used as diesel fuel to power heavy trucks – 18-wheelers.

I am all for developing battery and fuel cell technology – or some other technology which is still in the laboratory stage. But neither batteries nor hydrogen are ready for widespread distribution to our national fleet of approximately 250 million cars and light trucks. A battery also won’t push an 18-wheeler. The only fuel which is available to reduce our dependence on foreign oil is domestic natural gas.

Due to recent advances in technology, we now have the ability to recover natural gas from the enormous deposits in Texas, Louisiana and Appalachia in the lower 48 states. In fact, a recent study Potential Gas Committee estimates that natural gas reserves have surged by 35 percent. The 2,074 trillion cubic feet of domestic natural gas reserves cited in the study is the equivalent of nearly 350 billion barrels of oil, about the same as Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves.

Natural gas is cheaper than diesel fuel. Natural gas is cleaner than diesel. It’s abundant. And it’s ours.

The time to act is now and the NAT GAS Act is the best tool we’ve had in decades to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

The NAT GAS Act of 2009 is a bi-partisan bill in both the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R. 1835) and the Senate (S. 1408). In the House, Congressmen Boren (D-OK), Larson (D-CT) and Sullivan (R-OK) introduced it April 1 and it already has 70 bi-partisan cosponsors. In the Senate, Senators Menendez (D-NJ) and Hatch (R-UT) were joined by Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) to introduce it on July 8.

The NAT GAS Act provides industry with the incentives to replace older diesel trucks with newer natural gas vehicles – it’s a great step in the right direction. It will provide the momentum for engine manufacturers, natural gas producers and natural gas distributors to ramp up and make a real difference in our dependence on foreign oil.

I hope you will sign up as a cosponsor to support this important legislation. I will be watching your press and floor remarks for statements of support.

Signed,

Your name”

Looking out of my window at the port of Long Beach, and half dozen gas refineries surrounding the port, and armed with the knowledge between the two we are producing about half the pollutants within the Los Angeles Basin, this is a very up close and personal topic. California prides itself on the beauty of the state, openness and creativity of our people, and a sincere desire to make our communities the healthiest place in the country to raise families and enjoy life.

Will sending an email message to Sen. Boxer or Sen. Feinstein solve our problems? Maybe not. Will doing nothing solve our problems? Definitely not.

However we must understand the issues, impacts, and opportunities available to meet the objectives of Pickens Army.

Army Objectives and Success Factors

  • Create millions of new jobs by building out the capacity to generate up to 22 percent of our electricity from wind. And adding to that with additional solar generation capacity;
  • Building a 21st century backbone electrical transmission grid;
  • Providing incentives for homeowners and the owners of commercial buildings to upgrade their insulation and other energy saving options; and
  • Using America’s natural gas to replace imported oil as a transportation fuel in addition to its other uses in power generation, chemicals, etc. (the Plan)

This may be one of the final gifts an old oil man from Texas has to offer this country which has provided him so much. It may be our opportunity as Americans to sit back and appreciate the resources we have, the resources we are using, and the need for us to better understand our role in making America economically healthy, as well as ensuring our land and environment are protected for current and future generations.

Thank you T. Boone Pickens

 

John Savageau, Long Beach

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Long Beach Breakwater Plan Presented to City Council and Citizens

On July 28, 2009, In LA Life, long beach, By Administrator

Do the residents of Long Beach believe the breakwater issue is important? 

Ryan ZumMallen, Managing Editor of the Long Beach Post (LB Post) kept the city informed with a constant stream of “Tweets” during the entire proceeding of the Long Beach City Council meeting last evening, 27 July 2009.  City council members had already received hundreds of letters and messages from residents giving their opinions on the break water issue, and now the council was about to be presented with a detailed Long Beach Breakwater Reconnaissance Study offered by Russell H. Boudreau,  principle coastal engineer for a local engineering firm Moffatt & Nichol.

From Ryan ZumMallen’s Tweets (@lbpostdotcom):

  • I’m at the City Council meeting session on the LB Breakwater report that was released last week. You guys interested in updates?
  • Mayor Foster says that bringing back waves and improving water quality are very different, and that there is no easy solution for both
  • The breakwater report presents five options for improving water quality and maybe even bringing waves to LB (personally I liked #3)
  • … (continued) Govt Affairs Mgr. Tom Modica: “The goal is to determine if there is federal interest in a reconfiguration of the breakwater.”
  • Modica: “Long Beach’s efforts are unprecedented.”
  • Good sized crowd here, btw
  • … Engineer says, “This beach is a sleeping giant.” But it’s not clear if altering the breakwater would restore beaches or not
  • … Councilmember Garcia: “This would literally transform the city,” he says. “Having waves would be the best possible Stimulus plan for LB.”
  • … Councilmember Schipske: “This would be a fantastic economic stimulus plan for Long Beach.”
  • … Still going through public comment at the LB meeting on reconfiguring the breakwater. Whatever eventually happens, it won’t be easy or quick
  • … Seamus Ian Innes says: “Bringing waves back to LB should be the primary goal and increasing water quality should be a secondary goal.”
  • … Aaaaaaand… the meeting has ended.

This was an excellent use of real time tweeting, and did allow non-in-person participants to keep informed, and even ask questions during the proceedings.  A very hot topic for all residents of Long Beach.

This morning Mayor Bob Foster (Long Beach, California) sent the following message to the people of Long Beach:

“Dear Friend,

Last night, the City Council was presented with the Long Beach Breakwater Reconnaissance Study.  Click here to read the executive summary and the PowerPoint presentation.
 
This study adds a tremendous amount of facts to the discussion – we learned that wave height does not necessarily improve coastal water quality, especially knowing that most of the pollution travels down the L.A. River from the 39 cities upstream from Long Beach.  We also now know that some modifications to the breakwater bring waves back to Long Beach without harming property.  There is no real silver bullet solution to our challenges but adding these facts is a very important step going forward.  I also want to thank the Long Beach residents who pushed the City to study this issue.
 
Click here for additional information on the Long Beach Breakwater Reconnaissance Study on the City’s website. 

Please do not hesitate to contact my office at (562) 570-6801 or email me at mayor@longbeach.gov if you have any questions.

Best regards,

Mayor Bob Foster  

www.longbeach.gov/mayor

The Long Beach Press-Telegram also ran a front page story on the proceedings, expressing the positive outcome of this meeting, and although we are a very long way from any decision or outcome on the issue of the Long Beach Breakwater, we are one more baby step closer to resolving the 60 year old problem of altering the natural eco-system of San Pedro Bay (the area of water surrounding Long Beach, Seal Beach, and parts of San Pedro).

While Representatives Laura Richardson and Dana Rohrabacher did not attend, the city and residents of Long Beach, as well as all of Southern California owe them their gratitude for getting the funds to prepare the Long Beach Breakwater Reconnaissance Study, and bring us a small step forward.

John Savageau, Long Beach

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Tweeting for Dollars: Using Twitter in Business

On July 28, 2009, In Internet and Telecom, LA Life, By Administrator

On 21 July 2009 The Orange County Access Executive Network (AccessEN) sponsored a program entitled “A Panel on Building and Expanding Business with Social Media.”

Many of us old folks have looked at Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIN as interesting, but not essential components of a modern business plan. The panel,

  • Rebekah King, Chief Media Maven, Rebiz Works
  • Gabrielle Pascoe, Director of New Media, Dr. Phil & The Doctors
  • Vicki Tortorelli, Co-founder, System Solutions Inc. 

Had very detailed discussions on how their businesses provide consulting to many different companies on how to best use all three of the above sites for promoting their business, as well as providing various levels of customer support and customer service.

In Rebekah’s presentation she included a very nice chart showing the demographics of different social media sites, with Twitter being the closest to younger users, Facebook with a middle category of users representing up to a university degree, and falling into a 20s ~ 40s age group. LinkedIN sits on top with a 40s + age group, and a generally professional skill and job level.

It took me a good week to understand how those intelligent ladies could possibly make a living out of providing marketing and PR support for companies wishing to adopt social networking media in their businesses. Here I am, a 30 veteran of the Internet campaigns, and these people were going to open my eyes on social networking?

OK, so maybe they did. Just a little, but my eyes cracked open just wide enough to do some more thought development and homework on the subject.

How Can Business Possibly “Tweet” Professionally?

Earlier this year we discussed how Twitter was effectively used in the Jesusita fires which hit Santa Barbara in May (2009). Students from UC Santa Barbara “tweeted” each other to give status updates on the fire, and even make recommendations on how to avoid getting caught up in the rapidly advancing flames.

This is an example of a real-time rapid notification system, which does not exist within a standard text, email, or web solution.

The same rapid notification system can easily be modified to meet the needs of a customer service or operations organization. For example, in my own industry of telecommunications, we occasionally have events from many different sources that come together in our facility, ranging from natural disasters in the Pacific (cutting submarine fiber optic telecom cables), to wild fires disrupting high voltage electrical systems running up and down the state of California, to virus and spam attacks within the Internet.

If our network operations center has simple, fast, 140 character access to potentially thousands of people, then the immediate notification there may be disruption or problems, as well as recovery status messages becomes very easy.

The trick is to get information into the hands of people who need it, without the overhead of generating a lot of “tweeting noise.”

The Marketing Tweet

Marketing people are finding Twitter a great means to get product announcements, promotions, and other events out to a very large number of people and organizations with very little effort.

Personally, I tweet when posting new blogs. It does bring readers to my blogs, and has increased my readership by about 5 times since I started tweeting the articles. Also, with correct use of hash marks (or hash tags) you can narrow down the focus of who reads your tweets, which is particularly useful during disasters or when you want to limit what you read or post to a better focus niche.

Chris Brogan wrote a blog entry entitled “50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business.” There are several great ideas, and I’ll list a couple here:

  • Have two Twitter accounts. One for your personal use, and one for your professional use. Try not to mix messages between the accounts.
  • Be care when promoting your own material – you could fall into the noise category
  • If you are promoting your own stuff (or product), make sure the message is useful to the reader. Give them something to bite on.
  • Use Twitter to create a “Back Channel” for use during events. This will help you keep locals and distant contacts informed of events at a conference or meeting as they occur. God bless real time information in a meeting!

Future Tweets

Any new technology or major shift in technology takes time. Skeptics at the turn of the century thought automobiles were an annoyance, and interfered with the business accomplished with horses and carts.

In the mid-1980s my colleagues, even in the US Air Force, thought Email was stupid, would never take off, and was a waste of time.

In the early 1990s most people thought the web was a toy, and would add very little value to anybody’s life or business.

Things do change. Today Twitter is just emerging as a technology to combine blogging (micro-blogging), email, SMS/text messaging, and phone calls into a single platform. It is new, but people are starting to learn more about the concept and vision behind Twitter every day. Like it or not, Twitter, or a system that is born of Twitter, will drive much of instant communications in the future.

So the call to action is, simply, open a free Twitter account and gain a bit of tacit knowledge and refine a few skills. It costs you no more than a bit of time, and will give you knowledge that will no doubt be part of our futures. Or in short, play now, or pay later.

 How do you use Twitter?  Good for business?  Noise for business?  Please feel free to comment with your thoughts.

John Savageau, Long Beach

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The Long Beach Breakwater Removal Project Takes a Couple Baby Steps Ahead

On July 25, 2009, In LA Life, By Administrator

The south facing beaches in LA and Orange Counties are enjoying an amazing swell of high surf.

A HIGH SURF ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 PM PDT SATURDAY.

LONG PERIOD SOUTH SWELL WILL BRING HIGH SURF CONDITIONS THROUGH AT LEAST SATURDAY EVENING…GENERATING STRONG RIP CURRENTS. THE HIGH SURF ADVISORY MAY NEED TO BE EXTENDED INTO SUNDAY.

THE HIGHEST SURF WILL OCCUR TONIGHT THROUGH SATURDAY EVENING… WHERE SURF BETWEEN 5 AND 7 FEET WITH MAX SETS UP TO 9 FEET ARE EXPECTED ALONG THE EXPOSED SOUTH AND SOUTHWEST FACING BEACHES…… The Weather Channel

In reality, there were numerous reports of 20 foot faces near the “Wedge” in Newport Beach. Beautiful surf, beautiful day – this is why we live in California.

Except in Long Beach. In an entirely informal, unscientific study I decided to check out the surf while jogging during my lunch break. Ran along Ocean Blvd in Long Beach to the Long Beach/Naples Peninsula, then took the beach route back home near 15th Place. Here are the results of that entirely unscientific study.

Upon hitting the beach near the peninsula, about a mile north of the Seal Beach Pier, the waves were hitting about 8 feet on the face. The water was a nice clear blue, and it was really cool to see such aggressive surf hitting the beach. As I worked my way along the Long Beach “City Beach” the waves remained fairly nice, but the swell was noticeably getting smaller, and was starting to turn from that wonderful blue to a cloudy blue.

By the time I hit Belmont Pier, the waves were about 1.5 ft, and not too aggressive. By the time I returned to 15th place, that wonderful ocean had turned relatively calm, and the water was getting a bit sludgy, flopping on the beach. The scent had turned noticeably sewage, rather than the sharp bite of salt air the Peninsula offered.

Long Beach Break Water asnd San Pedro BayThe Long Beach Breakwater, built to offer protection to Naval vessels during the second war, as well as protection to the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, has altered the natural flow of ocean water for 60 years. We’ve touched on the story behind the breakwater in previous posts (Breaking the Long Beach Breakwater). Lots of great background information and a complete history of the breakwater.

Heal the Bay, a non-profit organization which monitors the beaches of California, routinely fails Long Beach’s beaches due largely to the poor cleansing action of the ocean through Long Beach and San Pedro Bay (the name of the bay encompassing Long Beach Harbor and the area down to Seal Beach). The Los Angeles River also contributes a tremendous amount of pollutants to the bay, which stays local due to the inability of the area within the Long Beach Breakwater to cleanse itself.

Baby Steps Forward in Removing the Breakwater

The residents of Long Beach had a small success in getting the breakwater removal project moving ahead. A baby step, but a step forward. The Long Beach City Manager announced on Thursday that an initial Long Beach Breakwater Reconnaissance Study is completed, and available for public review.

Long Beach is lucky to have a city council and representative Laura Richardson from the 37th District of California, as well as additional support from Dana Rohrabacher, US Congressman from the 46th District of California. Representative Richardson made the news and gave hope to the people of Long Beach by securing a $100,000 appropriation for the reconnaissance study.

The next step is to hear feedback from the residents of Long Beach (27 July 2009, 5 p.m., at City Council Chambers). If, as anticipated the city gains favorable support from the residents, the next step is to deliver the reconnaissance study to the Army Corps of Engineers. Their only responsibility is to determine if it is in the federal interest to consider the breakwater removal project. A very long process will follow, and actual modification of the breakwater could be years away.

Still, we have made a first baby step in removing the breakwater, and returning San Pedro Bay to health.

Here are links to the Long Beach Breakwater Reconnaissance Study. While most important to the residents and visitors to Long Beach, this is a global issue, and will hopefully pique the interest of all who are concerned with the health of our oceans, citizens, and cities.

John Savageau, Long Beach

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Redefining Television and News – The New Age of Global Media Changes all the Rules

On July 23, 2009, In Internet and Telecom, LA Life, By Administrator

Over the years I have learned as much hanging around the office coffee pot as I have learned in most formal adult and professional education courses. The coffee pot and break room is a place where anybody in the office can mingle in a neutral location, and talk about almost anything that enters their mind, as long as the topic remains mostly appropriate to the surroundings.

Recently we’ve talked a lot about television. Whether it is ripping the media circus surrounding Michael Jackson, the death of Walter Cronkite, or the last episode of “I Love Lucy” playing on the “Archive Channel,” everybody has an opinion on what television is, was, and should be.

Television has changed a lot over the past few years. Much like print news media, which has always heavily depended on advertising to both define the layouts of press – as well as subsidize and make the actual money for news papers (subscriptions have never made any money for the press), television has traditionally segmented programming around advertising.

With cable television and premium channels, advertising is being reduced as a percentage of television revenues. Add on-demand utilities such as Hulu, and subscription entertainment services make online or entertainment-based advertising even less relevant. And this could redefine how we look at broadcast television.

In the old days, before cable TV, the Internet, and satellite access, most markets had the choice of 5 or 6 broadcast television stations to provide both news and entertainment. Advertisers could expect individual networks and stations would give them a relatively high percentage of available eyeballs for their advertising segments, and most people had few, if any, alternatives to watching broadcast television at night.

Now, with 350 cable TV stations, the addressable market remains the same, but the percentage of available market for each individual station as a small fraction of the good old days prior to cable. This means advertisers must seriously consider the value of advertising they allocate to individual broadcast stations, and make a decision if this is in fact the best use of their marketing dollars.

If we add the television stations available through the Internet, the number of available channels goes into the thousands.

To put this in perspective, on June 12th the Television Bureau of Advertising released a study showing that in the first quarter of 2009 ad revenues had declined by 11.9% compared to the first quarter of 2008. Even more stark numbers were attributed to local programming ad revenues, which overall in the US declined by 27.6% The report further drills down into industry segments, such as the automotive industry, telecommunications, and entertainment (restaurants, etc).

The only bright spot, sort of, in the study was with syndicated programming, which attracted a slight increase in advertising revenue. Syndicated television such as you would find on Hulu.Com…

This does not bode very well for local broadcast television. If the addressable eyeballs remain the same or are growing, but the “connectible” segment of eyeball is rapidly declining, then the television business may start running lean on cash. In addition, local broadcast television traditional had a very broad range of viewers, allowing nearly any kind of advertising to have some level of success or acceptance.

With cable television and online access to syndicated programming and real time programming, advertising must be carefully planned to meet specific niches of viewers – not to mention the need to ensure their end user is not on a subscription-only media/channel.

Now I do watch a lot of on-demand programming. I try to catch the Daily Show in the morning, as I do not have time to normally watch in the evenings. I do not mind waiting 15 or 20 seconds while an advertising message spools through prior to the show. Most online syndicators of television programming (or more accurately media and entertainment programming) do have a pre-message to sit through prior to the download or stream. I have never heard a complaint about this, particularly if you are watching a free source of syndicated or streaming media.

The bad part in all this…

Without advertising to pay for local newspapers and broadcast media, it is natural the quality of local news will degrade. We may still have great sources of national and international news provided by big guys like AP and Reuters, but if you crave that story about the police beat in Huntington Beach, or activities in Chatsworth, you may not get either the quality or information you need. Get ready for a one paragraph segment on the State of California provided on Page 4 of USA Today.

Broadcast television and newspapers will try to fight back and keep the eyes and minds of their remaining viewer and reader base. They will offer advertising and viewer incentives, but the battle will be tough, as Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Pandora, and dozens of other content providers continue using the Internet and on-demand media to distribute their goods.

The end result is not clear, other than us consumers will still have access to quality content. We can easily filter home cat videos on YouTube out of our daily viewing cache, and concentrate on libraries and archives of quality movies, syndicated serials, and new content that will continue to emerge.

I hope newspapers do not go away, however I am ready if they do. I only watch KTLA (CW-5 in LA) in the morning because it amuses me to see the antics of their performers (oops, I mean newscasters). I do not watch broadcast television at night unless it is a Dodgers game. Or if I want to get the current status or condition of wildfires in LA County and our surrounding areas. Heck, maybe there is a need for local broadcast television!

We are entering a new phase of news and entertainment

 

John Savageau, Long Beach

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Painting Your Rooftop White Makes You Green?

On July 22, 2009, In LA Life, Open Topics, By Administrator

“By painting your rooftop white, you can save anywhere from 5, to 15, to 20% on your air conditioning bill” said Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy, on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart (21 July 2009). In a rare moment without a snappy comment, Jon Stewart encouraged Steven Chu to continue. “If we start the transition to white rooftops and white pavement, (we could make) a profound effect on the climate.”

The concept is pretty simple. If we spend less on energy, the requirement to produce energy is reduced, and we create less carbon dioxide.

In addition, Chu mentioned that if we painted the rooftops of our houses and buildings white, and the roadways to white or a lighter color, it would have the (one time) effect of taking 1 billion automobiles off the road for 11 years (from a study by Art Rosenfeld, California Energy Commission).

It really can’t be this easy…, can it?

Here is the idea. Consider when you wear white clothing on a hot day, versus if you wear black clothing on a hot, sunny day. White naturally reflects heat, while black absorbs heat. Same thing applies to a black car on a hot, sunny day. If you take this idea and apply it to a rooftop, sidewalk, roadway – you can start to imagine the potential impact if we are reflecting this heat generated by sunlight back toward the sun.

In fact, Chu continued to explain that white rooftops “reflect sunlight back into space, with no greenhouse effect.” This means we are actually eliminating that source of absorbed heat, without a carbon dioxide by-product, and no negative impact on the planet.

Not an Entirely New Idea

Throughout history we have seen examples of white and light colors being used to help cool buildings – just look at the hillside villages along the Mediterranean Sea. Or the white colors on robes worn by Arabs and Bedouins in the Sahara or Saudi Arabia. White is definitely a “cool” color.

California has required white paint on all new buildings with flat roofs since 2005. This month (July 2009) all new buildings with sloping rooftops will need to use either white or light colored paint on the roof, although it is accepted the more off-white the color gets, the less reflection value we’ll achieve.

Some “Cool” Facts

  • A typical urban “heat island” area is 25% rooftop and 35% pavement (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory/LBNL)
  • A 1000 square foot rooftop rooftop painted white, versus black, cloud save nearly 10 tons of carbon dioxide each year (LBNL)
  • An average car emits around 4 tons of carbon dioxide per year. Painting a small roof white could potentially offset more than a year’s worth of CO2 emissions from a car! (What’s with Climate?)
  • Dark roofs absorb and hold more than 80 percent of solar energy, while white ones can reflect 75 percent of it away (to space)(Washington Post)
  • The urban heat island effect is a relatively newly identified phenomenon that is characterized by a measured increase in the ambient air temperature in cities over their surrounding rural areas. (Construction Continuing Education center)

Urban Heat Islands

Using the above facts related to cities, such as nearly 60% of space within a city is either rooftop or pavement, it is easy to understand the impact of absorbing sunlight in a city such as Phoenix or Las Vegas. The Rosenfeld study shows that temperatures when using black paint can absorb in excess of 50 degrees centigrade, in contrast to white paint absorbing around 10 degrees centigrade(or 5 if using an optical white surface). Other surfaces such as raw steel, red clay tiles, green shingles, and other similar surfaces have varying absorption rates.

If 60% of the city is potentially using an off-white or dark color, then we can assume the heat absorption is high, and in fact may accelerate depending on the size of the city area. The cost in producing air conditioning needed to make the heat island livable or comfortable for human beings is much higher in this environment (obviously), and is transferred into our power grids.

While we may be able to offset a bit of the cost of power using alternative energy such as solar cells and wind, it is minimal, as the energy demand for air conditioning in extreme heat environments will far outstrip the capacity of a normal household or commercial property solar source.

By making an effort to eliminate dark rooftop space and pavement within urban heat islands, we could have a profound impact on the cost of energy, the need to continue building energy infrastructure (don’t forget the human impact of power infrastructure as shown in stories such as Erin Brockovich and her fight with PG&E), and the impact on our planet.

While there are a few groups of “greenhouse effect” naysayers, there are a lot more scientists banded together in a voice that says humans are having a direct impact on global climate change through mass production of carbon dioxide.

And a simple thing like painting our rooftops white, and producing pavement with lighter compounds and colors, can save millions of tons of carbon dioxide which is currently slung freely into the atmosphere, raising global temperatures, and contributing to air pollution.

Urban heat islands represent more than 1% of the world’s land mass (29% of the Earth). The heat radiating force of urban heat islands can raise surface and air temperatures by more than 3 watts per square meter (LBNL), further creating an almost unthinkable human problem in the event an urban heat island suffers a major or prolonged power outage. Without air conditioning and cooling systems within the urban heat island, it is probable those cities would have to be evacuated, as the heat would make the area uninhabitable.

Yes, let’s start painting things white. Let’s use some stimulus money to buy white paint. Maybe we can offer prison inmates an opportunity to complete some community service by painting stuff white. There are a lot of ways we can start paining things white.

Time to Learn More about Getting Green with White

Here are some great resources and links for more information on the topic of reducing our global carbon foot print with the simple idea of painting stuff white.

This is an exciting, simple idea.

John Savageau, Long Beach

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Opening a Window into Virtual Desktops

On July 20, 2009, In Internet and Telecom, By Administrator

“So Lee, do you think it would make your life easier if you were able to remove individual Microsoft Office and Outlook applications from desktop computers, and spend your time supporting a virtual desktop application managed on servers?”

Lee Morris, IT Manager at CoreSite answered (emotionally), “Oh god yes… That would make my life so much easier. I spend more than 30% of my day simply helping people correct configuration errors and application conflicts on their computers. Managing a central image would free me to do far more valuable work for our company.”

We talk about cloud computing, VoIP, social networking, and instant messaging, but perhaps the most important application is silently approaching at a rate that will change our approach to the desktop computer within a very short number of years.

There are many definitions describing the virtual desktop. Let’s take a stab at paraphrasing the definition from about a dozen different sources, and make it easy to understand and develop.

Desktop virtualization is encapsulating and delivering access to information systems, or an IT environment via a remote device.

That information system could be an image of Microsoft Office, a SaaS application such as MRI or SalesForce.Com, or a web-based operational support system supporting customer resource management. The user accesses the information system with a netbook, laptop, desktop, or workstation – but the data and application reside physically on a different network-enabled device.

In our example, Lee can now focus his time on ensuring the hosted edition of MS Office has all required patches, virus checking, file backup, and configurations needed by anybody in the company other than pure power users.

Now let’s be real. We are not talking about eliminating computers. We are not talking about eliminating access to applications. We are talking about putting out scarce Information and Communications Technology (ICT) CAPEX dollars into applications and software development that will drive our companies, and focus less on individual desktops and the multitude of little problems users experience on the desktop.

If we can spend our money on the power and applications of the MS Office 2010 Professional Web edition, giving everybody in the company access to those applications, then we just may have more money to spend on 25″ screens.

Maybe we’ll have a bit more money to spend on netbooks, meeting the mobile needs of sales and non-engineering staff who really just need access to email, spreadsheets, word processing, and the occasional presentation file. Face it, as much as we love that high end HP or Dell laptop, 99% of the time we are using that quad core, 8GB memory, 17.5″ screen display,… for email.

Over the next few weeks we are going to drill deeper into the world of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), cloud-based distributed applications, and geographic distribution of those applications.

This will be a fun, learning journey for the CTC and blogosphere community who does not have the time to read every magazine that comes along, and get our morsels of VDI inspiration in 500 word chunks.

 

John Savageau, Long Beach

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Shifty Powers and Walter Cronkite – Farewell to Two American Heroes

On July 19, 2009, In Open Topics, By Administrator

Since Michael Jackson died on June 25th, the news has dedicated hours of broadcast time to his life, his death, his children, his addictions, and his quirks.

During 2009 more than 100 American servicemen have been killed in action in Iraq, with more than 4300 since the conflict started.

Silently on the 17th of June another true American hero died.

Darrell “Shifty” Powers, Easy Company, 2/506, 101st Airborne

General Douglas McArthur once said “old soldiers don’t die, they just fade away.” Darrell “Shifty” Powers is one of those soldiers, whom we really didn’t know, never knew his sacrifices or contributions to America, and did not even acknowledge him in death.

Shifty Powers Shifty Powers volunteered for the Army at 17, shortly after hearing news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Powers joined the paratroops of the 101st Airborne at the young age of 18. By the time of the allied attack on D-Day, Powers had already distinguished himself as a warrior, and had worked his way to the non-commissioned officer rank of Staff Sergeant.

Staff Sergeant Darrell Powers, one of hundreds of paratroopers assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, jumped into Normandy on June 6th, 1944. He eventually became part of the famed “Easy” Company, portrayed in the HBO serial “Band of Brothers,” originally screened in 2001. Powers character was played by Peter Youngblood Hills, and Powers himself gave interviews throughout the series to ensure viewers understood that the series was an honest attempt at representing the horror, bravery, and even humanity of war.

shofty3Shifty Powers also participated in Operation Market Garden, freeing the Netherlands from German occupation. He ended the war supporting the liberation of concentration camps, and returned to the US following recuperation from injuries suffered at the point of discharge.

A veteran of every battle Easy Company fought, Powers left the Army with many impressive awards, including a Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster, one of the highest awards for valor received by soldiers in combat. He was one of a million brave Americans who faced death, serving without remorse to ensure the American people would prevail in a war with countries determined to bring harm to our shores.

Posted
(Tri-Cities News) by ( LMcClain ) on July 15, 2009 at 12:17 pm

“I just learned today of SGT Powers’ passing.  As a veteran myself, I can only imagine the sacrifices he, and the other men of Easy company made.  My eyes filled with tears as I read the story.  My thoughts and prayers are with his family.  We have lost a TRUE American hero and yet another member of the greatest generation.  Thank you SGT Powers, you will truly be missed.”

Shifty Powers was not only a soldier, he was a father, a machinist, and an advocate for the rights of soldiers – both American and his former enemies. We must never forget the contributions of Shifty Powers, or any of the other brave Americans who put their lives on the line for us every day.

Growing Up with Walter Cronkite

Marty Plotnick, a young man growing up near Fairfield, Connecticut, lived in one of the few households in the neighborhood with a television. 64 miles as the crow flies from the WCBS transmission tower atop the Empire State Building, watching a “Dumont” small screen television, Marty, like much of the rest of America, listened to the daily news with Walter Cronkite. Walter Cronkite took him through the Nuremberg trials, the Korean War, the Eisenhower years, the Cold War, and all the trials of the Kennedy Era, Vietnam War, moon landings, and the resignation of Richard Nixon.

WalterCronkite1-797145Walter Cronkite was a lifelong journalist, starting his career writing for his University of Texas newspaper the Daily Texan. Mentored by a United Press journalist named Gordon Shearer, Cronkite eventually developed his skills through years of reporting for Midwestern radio stations.

Walter Cronkite joined United Press International in 1937, and as a war correspondent covered the European Theater. Notable activities in his war reporting included joining crews in B-17 bomb missions over European targets, landing in a glider in the Netherlands (Operation Market Garden), and the Battle of the Bulge.

Following the Nuremberg trials, Cronkite did a tour with UPI in Moscow, and then returned to the US to take a position with CBS news.

My first memories of Walter Cronkite came as a young man, while at elementary school on a Friday in November of 1963, when the principle came on the intercom and patched the voice of Cronkite through the speakers, saying:

“From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official. President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time, 2 o’clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.”

As a young man I was not even sure what it meant, but I did know the announcement was so important the principle was willing to disrupt classes to ensure we heard the news. I was at home during the weekend following Kennedy’s death, when I witnessed on TV the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, suspected as the person who shot Kennedy. Again, even through the country was mourning the death of Kennedy, as a nation we still needed somebody to help us understand what was happening. Cronkite tried to help the nation cope with all the news, understand the news, and get on with our lives.

Walter Cronkite Discussing Space TechI also remember another occasion while on my summer vacation, 40 years ago this week, that Walter Cronkite walked us through the first landing on the moon. As a young man, thrilled with the drama and fantasy of technology of space, Cronkite’s detailed descriptions and explanations of the technologies used in the landing inspired me to make engineering new technologies my goal in life.

Walter_CronkiteCronkite went back to his roots as a war correspondent by visiting and reporting on location from Vietnam, and was one of the first journalists to publically share his opinion that the Vietnam War could not be won on the battlefield, but would rather come to conclusion through diplomacy. Many still believe this ended the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, and may have been a major factor in the US beginning to negotiate their way out of the conflict.

Cronkite left CBS News in 1980 at 65 years. CBS had a mandatory retirement in place, and Cronkite did not fight the system.

“This is my last broadcast as the anchorman of The CBS Evening News; for me, it’s a moment for which I long have planned, but which, nevertheless, comes with some sadness. For almost two decades, after all, we’ve been meeting like this in the evenings, and I’ll miss that. But those who have made anything of this departure, I’m afraid have made too much. This is but a transition, a passing of the baton…” YouTube Video Broadcast of Cronkite’s Farewell Speech

His career continued for many years after leaving CBS, with direct support and consulting to the US government and United Nations on many topics, as well as production of documentaries, voiceovers, and partnership in the development of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

Walter Cronkite died on July 17th, 2009

As I finish another day, much as I have quipped times after time throughout my life, the immortal trademark of Walter Cronkite ends my day with a “and that’s the way it is, 18 July, 2009.”

Walter Cronkite joins Ernie Pyle, Joe Rosenthal,  Bill Mauldin,  and Edward R. Murrow as one of the true voices of America.

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From Zero to 900 MPH – Cloud Computing Grabs Attention and Headlines

On July 17, 2009, In Internet and Telecom, By Administrator

Just 18 months ago the concept of cloud computing was still an abstract to most in the IT and data center community. In fact, those who had even heard of cloud computing were a tiny minority of IT professionals.

This morning, 17 July 2009, Google listed 177 news stories with the topic or subject of cloud computing posted within the past 24 hours. Whether you believe the cloud computing story is real or not, hype or reality, a larvae of technical reality, you cannot escape the excitement cloud computing is bringing to the technical community.

Even the Wall Street Journal is now devoting a fair amount of space to the topic, with recent stories highlighting projects including Microsoft initiatives, Larry Ellison (Oracle), Google, and HP. It seems that every company that has any vision or feels they need some quick PR is launching a story or press release on cloud computing. The past 24 hours present a roll call of cloud talk (from a query on Google News) including:

  • Dell
  • HP
  • BMC
  • Microsoft
  • Google
  • Cisco
  • Sun
  • IBM
  • Altera
  • Rackspace
  • Terremark
  • And the list goes on,…and on,… and on…..

Add Gartner’s release of this year’s Web Hosting and Cloud Magic Quadrant report, and the competition for press release ratings and standings further intensifies. It appears that if you are not currently releasing a story on how your company is moving ahead with cloud initiatives, the market will begin wondering “why?”

What is Driving Cloud?

Every company in the world has been affected by the economy, the need for developing green IT infrastructure, and the ever increasing need for compute and applications power. We are living in a global social and economic, highly interactive world. Telecommunications, applications, and the need to share enormous amounts of data are driving need for both power and efficiency in our personal and professional information and communications (ICT) tools.

Cloud computing shares the burden of compute capacity requirements among many users, whether within an enterprise, a closed community of interest, or content facing the general public. The peak processing loads of most individuals and companies are far higher than average processing requirements, and the reality is we are finding it difficult to continue buying hardware and software when we only average a few percentage points of resource usage.

Cloud computing, even in its 18 month old infancy, promises this will change with the development of virtualization models and on-demand use of shared resources. In the long term, as we continue to solve security issues, latency, capacity, and billing models, individuals and organizations will benefit from the consolidation of compute capacity.

The Media Hype and Effect

While there may be a lot of bandwagon appeal occurring in the cloud vendor community and media, it does serve the purpose of quickly establishing cloud computing as a concept that is getting into the eyes, ears, and minds of most IT and financial professionals. Without a concentrated media focus on a concept like cloud, the lead time for making this an accepted technology would greatly extend into the future.

The media is forcing us to at least consider the concepts of cloud computing technology, and start to ask the questions needed to make decisions on whether or not this will be an acceptable technology, and if we need to include cloud discussions and strategies in our current and future business plans.

And with more media exposure, more stories, and more thought leadership available on the topic, we will certainly have more intellectual tools to use in making our own informed decisions.

 

John Savageau, Long Beach

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Office Automation Online – The Network is Finally the Computer

On July 15, 2009, In Internet and Telecom, By Administrator

Recently I had the annoying problem of a failed laptop battery. Computer worked fine, but as a road warrior, without a strong battery the laptop was of little use. Because I needed to hit the road again the next morning, I had the option of living without a laptop, buying a laptop, or finding some alternative.

A frenzied trip to the local big-box computer store, a look at the price of acceptable laptops, momentary depression, and suddenly a revelation. While wandering around the computer aisle I stumbled upon a row of NetBooks. A variety of vendors, including HP, Dell, Toshiba, and ASUS.

In the past I have scoffed at the idea of buying a NetBook, thinking it was only useful as a tool for sales people to send email messages. As a power-user bigot, anything other than the most powerful computer was nothing but a passing amusement. I mean really, how is it possible to run those complex and cool programs us operations and engineering people need to run every day while on the road?

Well, not every day. Well maybe not even that frequently while on the road. OK, to be honest I use my laptop for presentations, word processing, mail, and remote access to hosted company applications that are generally web-enabled.

So I bought an ASUS NetBook. I couldn’t go cold turkey, and wanted the hard drive and potential to run local applications such as MS Office. Some NetBooks have very limited storage (~16GBytes) and available applications, however all share a common characteristic – low price.

While setting up and customizing the computer I saw a directory containing links to a variety of Microsoft Live Office, Mail, and communication utilities. Just for the heck of it, I decided to try Microsoft Live Mail, which I assumed would simply be another utility update for Hotmail. Now, the shock began…

Configuring all of my POP3 mail accounts took about 5 minutes, and that was only because I had to look up the server names. Configuring Live Mail was almost the same as configuring a local Outlook or Outlook Express mail client. More and more curious, I decided to give Live Office a whirl, even though I did receive a copy of Office loaded on the NetBook.

It works. It extends my local computer into a virtual workspace that functions almost identically the same as any other Office application, with a very positive user experience. My NetBook will be my companion on most short business trips from now on, as I can do anything with this one pound small portable computer than I can do with my powerful HP high end laptop.

Oh yes, and NetBooks weigh about a pound and fit nicely into any carry on briefcase or bag. The NetBook is only slightly larger than a standard novel.

The Trend is Clear to Me – Virtual Computing is Near

Many businesses are looking for alternatives to hosting their own basic IT infrastructure. Both Google and Microsoft are competing for the corporate IT outsourcing market. Google has deployed their Google Apps, providing a rich suite of applications such as mail, documents (spreadsheets, word processing, presentations, etc.), and collaboration tools.

Microsoft is nearing the end of their Live Office BETA period, announcing that an online version of Microsoft Office 2010 will be available for free to web users. While retaining a desktop or computer-based edition of Office 2010, users will be able to integrate their local office applications with the online version, allowing users to extend their desktop to any computer that is Internet-enabled with a standard web browser. The online version is not operating system dependent, allowing use of Office Web from MS Windows, LINUX, or Mac systems.

Throw in a few more net-enabled applications such as Groove, Google Moderator, WebEx, and other interactive collaboration tools, and we are ready to work.

Why Use an Online Version?

The answer is becoming clear. Small and medium companies simply cannot afford the expense of operating internal data centers for basic IT applications and office automation. If a business can outsource the application, then they are also not responsible for staying on top of security patches, program patches and upgrades, and the maintenance of underlying hardware. All the company needs to do is have Internet-enabled workstations and portable computers.

The cost per user can be much lower, and you are relieved of operating burdens.

Online Software as a Service In the Clouds

When you use a Live Office application, Google Apps service, or any other outsourced application, you have no real idea of where that application physically resides. Setting aside physical security concerns for the time being (we’ll cover that in a follow on article), the only major concerns when using an outsourced office application is that it is available when you want it, and the application’s performance is acceptable.

Applications such as Gmail and Live Office exist in clouds. In fact, the physical location of the service you use, such as Gmail, may even change from day-to-day or evenly more frequently based on availability of processing, storage, and network resources.

John Gage’s Vision – The Network is the Computer

John Gage, a scientist and early employee of Sun Microsystems first spoke words “the network is the computer” in the 1990s(Wikipedia). It took us about 15 years, but the network is now providing intelligence through Internet-connected applications. Sun, Microsoft, SalesForce.Com, and other companies offering network-enabled software as a service are rapidly maturing their products, and the business community is taking notice.

With my NetBook in hand, upon return from my current business trip I will head for the beach or nearby coffee shop, set up my office at a table with the best view, put on headphones and MP3 player, and indulge in the future of connected business.

 

John Savageau, Long Beach

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