Benefits of High Oil Prices

I understand the pain of high oil prices, but there are some benefits:

1. Increased research (money) into biofuel alternatives. Not all of them corn based, some actually make sense.
2. Increased research into non-oil based plastics, ones that are organic based plastics. The projects that have already started were based on $40 a barrel, so with oil at over $150 these are very economical. And with the ability to quicker do the required bio-engineering, this is moving very quickly. Some people may be conservative on changing, but if the price difference is enough there will be a huge demand. Especially for some items that don't need to last 100 years (like bubble wrap).
3. Increased production of real Hybrids by more than just Toyota.
   
4. Decreased production of SUV's.
5. Increased research into batteries.
6. Plug in hybrids are getting closer
7. People taking jobs closer to where they live. I used to do a 90 minute commute one way, it was not good for a work/life balance and not great for the environment.
8. Increased efficiency in Brazil of Ethanol.
9. Increases in energy efficiency for everything from buildings to cars to appliances.
10. High Oil prices are speeding up the development of technology that will actually reduce the need for oil, which when this finally happens will make the world a better place (most places with lots of oil are not very nice nations).
    

Another writers reasons that high oil prices are good.

Wind Power Headaches

Headwind: Asian Wind-Power Upstarts Stumble - about an Indian company, Suzlon Energy Ltd. that is having major issues breaking into the US market.

• Wind turbines cracking
• Heaters needed for controls in snow areas
• New design needed for 60 Hz (India uses 50 Hz)
• Equipment is breaking down more than contracted for
• Power produced is not what was promised

Very entrepreneurial, sell, sell, sell. And fix the problems later. And since the competition is 25% more and booked through 2010, they needed to take advantage of the window. Could they have waited 6 months to do some testing that would have show up the problems?

Peter Drucker always start small and test to find out what works, and then expand.

Brazil's Ethanol - Green or not?

Lean, green and not mean from the Economist about Brazilian Ethanol.

Keep on going down, there is a table there and I am not sure what is going on with the formatting...

Claim Against Brazilian Ethanol	Reality
Workers are exploited cutting sugar cane.	Industry is moving to mechanical harvesting. 60%is already mechanized and by 2012 the rest should be.
There is a high death rate for harvesters	It’s 1 in 24,000 and it’s actually higher for regular farm workers 91 in 16,000). With increased usage of mechanical harvesters this should be lowered.
Energy gained does not make sense from Brazilian Ethanol	Brazilian Ethanol produces 8.2 X energy input, compared to 1.5 for US corn based ethanol.
It’s causing deforestation of the Amazon	The area mostly used for sugar cane is near San Paulo and in the North East, thousands of miles away from the forest (17M acres). Research may increase the energy gained from sugar cane with new varieties. Cattle ranching (485m Acres) causes a lot more deforestation.
Food prices are increasing due to Brazilian Ethanol	Only a small part of Brazilian agriculture land is being used for sugar cane, and it lowers the cost of energy. The high cost of energy contributes to higher food prices.

US halts new Solar Projects on Fed Land

Solar companies left in the dark - SJ Mercury News. The US government has halted new solar projects on Federal Land while they look into the environmental impact.

Strange thing to do in an energy crises.

California SB 50 CEW Redemption Rate

A recycler used to get 48 cents per pound for CEW (Covered Electronic Waste) in California. I heard it just got lowered by 5 cents to 43 cents. And in September it's going to take another 5 cent hit. Yet, when I read the regulations at CIWMB I don't see this. Strange...

Upon further research.

The 43 cents went into effect July 1, and the 38 cents on September 1. I just found a document that mentions this. The official reason is the huge growth in recycling in California. A challenge is the poundage should be going down, as CRT's (heavy) have in my opinion, almost totally been replaced by flat screens that weigh a lot less. The huge mother load of CEW of course is the home, that has a lot of weight in TV's that are being replaced by plasma's and LCD's that are not light.

The fees are also going to go up slightly starting January 1st, 2009 when you bu new electronics with screens.

Wind Power

Trade winds - article from the Economist

Key Points:

• Wind Power is economical compared to Natural Gas
• Efficiency is near the theoretical amount (59.3%), avg. is 50%.
• Wind Power is rapidly growing, currently 1%, may be 15% by 2020.
  

Energy Waste in PC's

My laptop gets so hot, that it can't rest in my lap. The amount of energy savings in computers is huge, it's some help to go from a desktop to a laptop. Not to mention the potential energy savings in Server Rooms.

This is interesting: Tech Firms Address DRAM Drain

The problem is for RAM currently, it takes power to keep the memory going. It's charge based and needs to keep on being refreshed. And with more and more memory, it's more power.