Hawaii pulls Biodiesel Dirty trick, Flying Car video, Publishing Petrifying, More Money that You can count!
Stafford Williamson
August 09, 2009
Ah, yes, and another excuse to use Gabriel Anwar's picture at the top of the column (read on, you'll find out why). (:ol
Meanwhile the money from Washington keeps on flowing. But the legislative output is less than it should be. Heathcare Insurance Reform bills are languishing during the August recess, and even though they are almost certain to pass some versions of the 5 bills now floating around Capital Hill when Congress returns in the Autumn, Republican organizers are capitalizing on the delay to raise the level of debate. That is, if you measure level of debate by the volume of the ignorant who are shouting down those who might have some answers.
Kicking the Imperium When They Are Down
As if it wasn't painful enough for CEO John Plaza that his 100 million gallon capacity biodiesel plant in Grey's Harbor is sitting idle, and the only revenue the company is receiving is storing oil for other companies in their huge tanks, now comes another blow from Hawai'i. The Hawaiian Pubilc Utilities Commission has rejected a proposal from Hawaiian Electric Co. to import biodiesel from Imperium's Washington state plant. They claim it would be detrimental to utility prices because or the added cost, not of the shipping from Washington state to Hawai'i, but the added cost of trucking the fuel from the Hawaiian port up to the (yet to be constructed) new electric generating facility.
Hawaiian Electric Co.'s permits to build the 110 megawatt generating plant specified that it would burn ONLY biofuels. Since the new/renegotiated deal with Imperium MIGHT have put them back on track to raising new capital, and a general road to recovery, and there is no obvious or easy substitution for American sourced biodiesel in the volumes required (Imperium was going to build a biodiesel refining facility next to the power plant before the economic downturn and the stunning difficulties with feedstock prices).
In this case, I am not personal friends with John Plaza, but to borrow a phrase from President Obama when speaking about the treatment of his friend Professor Skip Gates, it seems fairly obvious to me that the Hawaiian Public Utilities Commission acted, "stupidly" in this situation.
Where the Money Went
President Obama was in hard hit Elkhart, IN, to announce significant funding for Navistar to build electric trucks (reportedly saving "hundreds" of jobs, when the plant is in full operation) from a grant of US$ 39 million. Seven Indiana based projects amounting to US$400 million were announced during the President's trip. Ah, but the President was not the only one traveling and talking.
Energy Secretary Chu dropped in on Celgard, in North Carolina to announce that they will receive US$ 49 million to expand production capacity for manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries.
Commerce Secretary Locke was also making the rounds as he announced, among other programs, "a $30 million grant to Ford Motor Company supporting the manufacturing of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in Kansas City and in Michigan; a $73 million grant to Chrysler for the manufacturing of 220 plug-in hybrid and electric pickup trucks and minivans in St. Louis and in Michigan."
Transportation Deputy Secretary Porcari also had an announcement for a lead-acid based battery company in Pennsylvania (a family owned business with over 60 years experience manufacturing batteries) that their "UltraBattery" which combines lead-acid with ultracapacitors and a valve controlled lead-acid battery will increase production under a US$32 million grant.
EPA Director Lisa Jackson was in Florida to announce that Saft America Inc., will build a new plant on the site of a former military base in order to manufacture lithium cells, battery packs, and modules for agricultural, military and industrial vehicles.
But just in case you were keeping score the big numbers came from Vice President Joe Biden: US$ 550 million split between A123 and Johnson Controls to, "establish a manufacturing base in the state for advanced batteries," and an additional US$300 million for manufacturing batteries cells and materials do Dow Kokam and Compact Power. Oh, yes, and not to neglect the already heavily subsidized "big Three", Ford, GM and Chrysler will receive, "a total of more than $400 million to manufacture thousands of advanced hybrid and electric vehicles as well as batteries and electric drive components."
Flying Down to ... Timbuktu(?)
The "car" named the Parajet Skycar is not yet really a "car" and is certainly not a jet, nor even jet powered. On the other hand, it has flown. It flew across the English channel (brave test pilot), and although we don't have any direct news of a triumphant return, the final "proof of concept" flight was planned to be through France and Spain and on through North Africa to the legendarily remote town of Timbuktu in the West African country of Mali. The journey was planned with a chase crew of motorcycles and 4x4 vehicles, but the outcome was not as loudly or widely reported as the maiden flight and video of it.
The basic concept of the vehicle is a fairly simple scaling up of a powered parasail design large enough to lift a small dune buggie style car, though the creators plan to keep the car portion strictly street legal when (if?) they actually manufacture it. There are some really attractive design renderings with sleek body styling, but the one that actually exists in the real world looks much like a stripped down Volkswagen dune buggie with a propeller in a safety cage on the back. Still, as compared to the "tethered only" demonstrations thus far for the San Francisco based "Moler Skycar" they probably have a better chance of having a product on the market in the near future, especially at a proposed retail price of about US$80,000 (at current rate of exchange to British currency). If you are wildly enthused about having one, you can place a firm order with a US$10,000 deposit. For the moment my wife and I are making-do with our Mercury Mariner Hybrid.
Some People Wonder
It is fairly widely accepted that the newspaper publishing business is in trouble. Some people wonder why. Some people think it is fairly obvious. I think I gallop into the last group.
Conclusion jumping is one of my best and worst habits, but there seems to me to be clear evidence that some of the more senior people (not necessarily in age, though that does tend to be a factor) in publishing generally, still DON'T GET IT! And I have at least an example, if not conclusive proof. It came via email today.
Now you might say, "Hey, these guys aren't living completely in the dark ages, they sent you email." And you would be right. Indeed they do quite a good job on putting lots of emphasis on electronic publishing, as well as expanding that into live (i.e. trade show) events, but fairly clearly, based on this example, the immediacy of "news" escapes them as a fundamental concept of what they are publishing, and who they are marketing too. Admittedly there are limitations. Sometimes the government data on which studies are based is not readily available for the most recent quarter, or in the case of census data very long intervals before fully updated data is available, but every business these days is clearly interested in the latest data on which to base their business plans, so as business news publishers, you've got no excuse for taking the Rip Van Winkle school of journalism approach.
On the other hand, there are doubtless some who read this column with a very skeptical eye toward anything that isn't as "green" as possible, so you may want to shout hurrah at this faux pas.
The specific example I am taking to task is that PennEnergy, a division of the Pennwell publishing and trade show group sent me an email purporting to be information about, "The future of coal-based products and chemicals ..." But the reports ... well, okay, granted some actually seem reasonably contemporary, but others have sales messages that talk about, "U.S. market forecast with five-year projections to 2011," (that's a real cut'n'paste from the email) and later another "report" they offer it says in the ad copy, "... CO2 market by product type, use and technology with forecasts through 2008." Wow, forecasts all the way into the mysterious future of 2008, how do they do it?!?
The "cutting edge" report at the top of their list is one from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) that includes, "updated "prism and merge" analyses showing the electricity sector could potentially cut annual CO2 emissions in 2030 by 41 percent relative to 2005 emissions levels." Duh, guys! Pay attention, will you, please. Arizona Public Service's Ray Hobbs and his "little green creatures" (better known as "algae") have demonstrated this capability (yes, almost exactly 40% COČ reduction) back in 2007 (though it did take, according to their figures at that time, several thousand acres of algae cultivation to do it). Admittedly that demonstration did not meet the goals of achieving economical conversion of the algae into transportation fuel (or even refining it to extract its oil), but considering that SRP (Salt River Project, the second largest power utility in Arizona) is claiming they have to spend US$400 million just to upgrade the scrubbers at one pair of factilities in Northern Arizona to meet present EPA standards (not to mention the fine they have to pay for not already meeting those standards), the cost of a few thousand acres of algae to capture COČ even if it was just to bury it in the ground as crop fertilizer has got to be cheaper than building pipelines to pump the COČ to some central conversion point and then sequester it in salt mines. (Uumm, of course there are people who PAY for crop fertilizer, so it isn't necessarily completely impossible for such an operation to also be a revenue center as well.)
You would think that the EPRI itself would subsidize these publications directly just to keep the data current. (Okay, maybe that would take away the appearance of "independence" and appearance of "impartiality" to formally sponsor the publication of the reports, but) They could easily commit to buying 100 copies every quarter and supply updated statistics to be included (even if it was as a separate supplement) where such a guaranteed market would more than cover the costs of the editorial and layout costs involved, wouldn't it? (How could an order for 100 copies "guarantee" to cover the updating costs? Take a seat now, I'll get to that in the next paragraph.) That is how politicians mask rather large "bribes" from corporations, by creating publishing deals in which they receive royalties for books that have a purchase guarantee to the publisher from the "sponsor" organization. If you are Richard Nixon, or Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama, you can expect to sell 100,000 hard cover copies of your book, and maybe 1 million overall. But for a book on agricultural diseases from the Senator from North Dakota? I mean, come on, folks "forecasts" of 2008?
Okay, you better be sitting down for this next part, because unless you are one of those individuals whose annual income is "threatened" by the multi-million dollar salary caps Congress wants to impose on banking executives, this may shock you. The report from Professor Edward Gobina, expert in petroleum process technologies and member of the European Membrane Society and the North American Membrane Society, will set you back US$4,543 for a single copy, or US $ 5,574 for a "site license". I think for that price I would want your report to be more up-to-date than one containing the "five year forecast" all the way to 2011. Wouldn't you, for that amount of money? I mean, come on, folks "forecasts" of 2008?
Only REALLY "old school" publishing people would believe that a report containing forecasts that, in effect, "expired" last year could be worth US$5,574. (Unless you found some really dumb foreign spies or the excessively paranoid people who keep secret documents classified secret for 50 years after the fact.)
"Sad" Entertainment News
Okay, it has to end, but it was all too short. The second season of USA Network's Burn Notice broadcast it's season finale this past week. With nothing left but the "tag" (the little couple of minutes that in sitcom shows usually is saved for a reworking some running gag from earlier in the show to "leave 'em wanting more") it certainly looked like the whole storyline of the show could have been wrapping into a final show of the series, not just the season. They also got the extra hype of Quentin Tarantino's new film trailer being popped into the middle of the show (and all the pre-publicity too, of course). Ah, but the tag was a set-up for next season's action. Hurray!
Happy Note
Fiona Glennanne survived.
For those who are not among the cognoscenti of the intricacies of Burn Notice, that's Gabriel Anwar's character name, and in the first episode (or maybe even two), she had an Irish accent, and was initially seeking revenge for her sister who had been killed, though she and Michael ended up having to escape with the aid of her brothers (a "rough" bunch, at best).
Since Gabriel's characer survived the last episode of the season, she'll be back for us (well, at minimum, me) to enjoy next season.
Love and warm wishes,
Sincerely,
Stafford "Doc" Williamson
http://daochienergy.com