Nuclear Revival and Leaded Gasoline

The website “Damn Interesting” has a great article on the history of Thomas Midgley and leaded gasoline, who might be considered a scientific pariah for inventing both leaded gas (health effects) and CFCs (ozone effects). In “The Ethyl Poisoned Earth” we learn that the health effects of lead were well known in the 1920’s and 1930’s, as corporate types continually lied to the public over and over and over, covered it up over and over and over, and influenced political attempts to address it over and over and over. Sound familiar? (DDT, global warming, smoking, etc)

And the Utne Reader has an article, “Atomic Dreams,” which talks about the revival of the nuclear industry in light of global warming and some arguments that it’s a necessary evil to deal with global energy needs.

20 Things You Have to Believe to be a Republican

This has been posted in numerous places online, but I thought I’d continue the virus (Source):

1. Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you’re a conservative radio host. Then it’s an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.

2. The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

3. Government should relax regulation of Big Business and Big Money but crack down on individuals who use marijuana to relieve the pain of illness.

4. “Standing Tall for America” means firing your workers and moving their jobs to India.

5. A woman can’t be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multinational corporations can make decisions affecting all humankind without regulation.

6. Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

7. The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans’ benefits and combat pay.

8. Group sex and drug use are degenerate sins unless you someday run for governor of California as a Republican.

9. If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won’t have sex.

10. A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our longtime allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

11. HMOs and insurance companies have the interest of the public at heart.

12. Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.

13. Global warming and tobacco’s link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

14. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush’s daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a “we can’t find Bin Laden” diversion.

15. A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is a solid defense policy.

16. Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

17. The public has a right to know about Hillary’s cattle trades, but George Bush’s driving record is none of our business.

18. You support states’ rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they have a right to adopt.

19. What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the 1980s is irrelevant.

20. Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist; but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

[Update 1/5/08: It's pretty sweet when your blog has thousands of hits, not because of something intelligent you wrote (if I've in fact done that), but because of humerous crap that you passed along.]

Lies, Music, and Bathroom Sex

(Source: Joe Jaszewski, Idaho Statesman)

At what point does a lie become delusional? At what point should you just give up, and say, “You caught me.”? Two totally unrelated liars, caught in a web of clear evidence, seem awfully similar in their denials:

Jammie Thomas illegally downloaded music and is being sued by the music industry. The evidence (Star Tribune):

• She used the online name “Tereastarr,” which was implicated in the download and distribution (how many “Tereastarrs” can there be?)
• Her Internet IP Address was assigned to her computer at her home at the time of implication (someone must have broken into her house and used her computer to download music)
• She listened to the artists that were in question
• She wrote a college paper on Napster, but had never heard of Kazaa (it’s like Ford and Chevy of online file sharing)
• She said her hard drive was installed in January 2004, but Best Buy actually put a new one in March 2005, 2 months after coming under scrutiny

Senator Larry Craig (Republican from Idaho) was busted in a bathroom sex sting but denies everything. The evidence (Star Tribune 1, StarTribune 2):

• He entered a restroom, stood outside the door of a stall with an undercover police officer, and peered in
• Entered the adjascent stall and tapped his foot, slid it closer to the next stall, and moved it up and down slowly (he said it was because of a “wide stance”)
• Swiped his left palm under the stall, more than once, exposing more fingers each time (he said he was picking up a piece of paper…many times)
• The officer saw his wedding ring on his left hand, but Craig insists it was his right hand that “picked up the paper”
• When the officer placed his badge under the stall, Craig yelled “No!” (why would he care if he didn’t know what he was doing?)
• He didn’t flush the toilet and wouldn’t leave until told he was under arrest
• He asked the officer of soliciting him and said “Am I going to have to fight you in court?”

I absolutely agree that people lie and that human nature is to divert and lie when confronted. But when presented with overwhelming and public evidence, don’t make a fool of yourself, just admit it. Clinton lied. Bush II lies. (But Clinton never killed anyone.) Say your sorry and take your medicine.

I find it especially amusing that moral majority likes to throw stones, while they are doing the same things behind the scenes. I bet there’s a high correlation between the strength of one’s public moral fundamentalism and engaging in the exact activites you decry.

Minneapolis Bridge Collapse - a teammates’s wife walked away

We live in DC now but the wife of an old ultimate frisbee teammate from Minneapolis and her friend survived the bridge collapse yesterday. They crawled out of the silver car above and are standing on the collapsed part of the bridge to the right. Here is a picture they took after getting out:

Here is a diagram of the bridge pre- and post-collapse. Her car is located on the water section: Click Here

They took many of the eye witness photos from the bridge: Click Here

Here is a video of her on Good Morning America: Click Here

Minnesota Public Radio story: Click Here

Real-Time Video of the Bridge Collapsing: Click Here

Associated Press Diagrams of the Bridge: Click Here

And a couple of days later, with the police markings:

Here is the location:

Not All That’s Renewable is Green (Part 1 of 3)

(Courtesy: NREL)

[Update 8/27/07: CitizenRE now has a competitor...]

[Editor's Note: This is a repost of a 3 part series I'm writing on CitizenRE at GreenOptions.com, titled "Not All That's Renewable Is Green" (Part 1 of 3). It will attempt be a more formal accounting on CitizenRE than previous blog posts. Access Part 2 and Part 3.]

Green Options Editor’s note: Most of us in the Green Blogosphere have followed new company Citizenrē, and its REnU program, with great interest. Mike has been analyzing the company at Solar Kismet, and we asked him to share his thoughts with our readers.

As Green Options launches new features and tools in the coming weeks, you’ll see that we’ll be involved in helping consumers consider their options for solar power. As such, we firmly believe that full transparency is necessary for the solar industry’s continued growth. Mike’s thoughts and ideas are his own, and do not necessarily reflect those of Green Options, its management or staff.

Green products come in all shapes and sizes, with many varying claims about their content, performance and cost. Sometimes it’s hard to understand the nuances of something you don’t want to become an expert in - you just want it to be excited about your green choice and have it work. Renewable energy is no exception.

Renewable energy captures everyone’s imagination, much more so than its practical cousin, energy efficiency (those funny-looking lightbulbs really do work). But it’s hard to evaluate what the best renewable energy options are environmentally and economically. You can buy green electricity (but is that really helping anything?), you can install a solar system on your house (but it’s so expensive!), you can get more energy efficiency (so boring!), or you can have a solar system installed on your house for no money down and fix your electricity rates for the next 25 years (really?).

Did you catch that? “No money down” and “solar energy” aren’t two words that normally come together. But they have in the last two months and it’s caught the eye of thousands of people interested in selling and buying these systems. But what’s the catch? Exactly. Here’s a short lesson in “too good to be true”…

I should preface this by saying that I’m a skeptical person. I’m not going to be the one leading the masses with inspiration, so when I first heard of Citizenrē, a new solar energy company and their “no-money down” solar business model, small flags went up. I didn’t think too much of it at first. But when I started to get questions from multiple, non-related sources (consumers, industry, consultants, etc), I realized that Citizenrē had started to gain real marketing traction and decided to look into it a little more…

Citizenrē purportedly offered consumers the best of all solar energy worlds - a solar electric system on your home for no money down, no risk, and insurance against future electricity cost increases. Their goal was to install 100,000 solar systems per year on homes across America and they were recruiting salespeople from all over the internet, as well as pushing press releases, websites, and blogs touting their goals and promises everywhere. (Editor’s note: According to Renewable Energy Access, Citizenrē now plans to install 25,000 systems annually).

Here’s how Citizenrē’s model would theoretically work:

Interested consumers sign a contract with Citizenrē to have a solar system installed in exchange for a monthly solar system rental fee; reportedly, if you signed a 25 year contract, no deposit was required. Homeowners and businesses in more than 35 states would be eligible (those with net metering and a retail electric rate of 7 cents per kilowatt-hour or more). The monthly rental fee would be equal to the amount of electricity the solar system would produce annually multiplied by your cost of electricity (or even less). So instead of paying your electric company $100, you might pay them $50 and Citizenrē $50, if it offset 50% of your electricity use that month. Note that you haven’t saved any money at this point. Theoretically, you could pay Citizenrē a little less, say $45, if your Citizenrē rate was lower than your electricity rate. But the main benefit is that you lock in your electricity prices for the length of the contract and assuming electricity rates go up over time, you started to pocket the difference as personal profit.

A quick example:

• A 3 kilowatt solar electric system installed in Colorado might produce 4000 kilowatt-hours per year;
• If a home uses 8000 kilowatt-hours per year, it will offset 50% of your use;
• If your electricity rate was 9 cents per kilowatt-hour (cents/kWh) and you signed a contract with Citizenrē for the same amount, you pay each $360 per year (save nothing);
• If your electricity rate went up to 10 cents/kWh the next year, you would pay the utility company $400 and Citizenrē $360 (save $40);
• You can move your solar system once at no charge, or reassign the contract to the new homeowner.

What’s in it for Citizenrē? They take your monthly rental fee, the federal solar tax credits, accelerated business depreciation benefits, potentially lower costs from vertical business integration, and potentially the renewable energy credits (if legal).

I should stress that this business model in and of itself is not new. At least three companies (SunEdison, MMA Renewable Ventures, and Solar Power Partners) offer the same concept to companies or utilities installing large solar systems in limited markets where the incentives and policies align. And I suspect the concept will trickle out to more states and smaller solar systems over time. But not now and not Citizenrē.

Unfortunately, Citizenrē has put their marketing cart before their solar panel horse. They have built up a salesforce of thousands and pre-sold thousands of solar systems, but they have nothing to install for at least a year. Not one solar panel.

Next Time: If the business model isn’t new, why does Citizenrē raise so many flags? (part 2 of 3)

CitizenRE II - No Cost Solar Energy or Hype?

[Update 1/3/08: CitizenRE has two competitors...]

[Update 2/21/07: Media Articles]

• Renewable Energy Access has since published this article “CitizenRE: A House of Cards” and this podcast “Special Report: A Look at CitizenRE“
• Wired Magazine published this piece titled, “Selling Homeowners a Solar Dream“
• C-Net published this article “Breaking the mold in solar power“
• I am writing more formal three-part series on GreenOptions.com - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

[Update 2/8/07: update about half-way down]

Here is an email I wrote to someone on CitizenRE yesterday that probably says some of the same things as before, but organized differently:

There is a lot of internet website, blog, and marketing materials flying around about CitizenRE, a multi-level marketing company out of Delaware. Unfortunately, most of it is either coming straight from the company or being reiterated by people interested in and theorizing about the concept, but not necessarily having any additional information beyond speculation. Any critical analysis is generally overwhelmed by the hype (and exclamation points!!!!). Why are they marketing it long before they have any product to offer? I have read that they will be making more announcements in the coming weeks, probably about their new manufacturing plant.

The premise is a service oriented, vertically integrated solar installation company on the residential scale – consumers want green electricity and economic value, not to actually own a solar system. CitizenRE intends to build a large solar manufacturing plant and develop a network of salespeople and installers across the country. Rather than buying the panels themselves, consumers will sign a rental contract with the company for little or no money down at a rate equal to or less than their current electricity price in markets where they pay 7 cents/kWh or more. I question their ability to operate in more than a few states with higher incentives and rates but they claim anywhere with net metering and at least that rate.

Example:
Consumer signs a 25 year contract at 9 cents/kWh with CitizenRE, with a waived down-payment because of the long-term contract. Their monthly “rental fee” is equal to the solar system’s production at the contract rate - maybe $30/month for a 3 kW system (actual amount depends on your production amount). If the consumer is paying 10 cents/kWh retail to their utility, they pocket 1 cents/kWh difference as immediate savings ($3+/month) but if it’s equal to their retail cost, they only save on future utility cost increases as a hedge. If rates go up 2 cents/kWh the next year, they save $6+/month. If they install a 3 kW system and it offsets 50% of their annual consumption, they’ve hedged that much against future increases, but not all of their consumption. This is not green pricing because they’re not paying more and they are offsetting their onsite consumption. Consumers can move once and have their system reinstalled elsewhere for free (theoretically) or pass along the contract to the next owner. CitizenRE takes the tax credits, the rebates, potentially low costs from vertical integration, and probably the renewable energy credits (if legal under net metering, which isn’t the case in every state).

This is not actually a new concept. SunEdison, MMA Renewable Ventures, and Solar Power Partners offer this in limited markets (NJ, CA, CO, i.e. incentives) on big commercial systems (500 kW or larger). CitizenRE is jumping two steps by offering it to residential consumers and offering it in all states with net metering, again theoretically.

Everything is theoretical because even though they have reportedly signed up thousands of consumers, their target date to start installations is fall 2007. But, to my knowledge, they haven’t built the 500 MW manufacturing plant, UL listed the panels, CEC certified the panels, trained installers, etc. They are talking about spending $650 million dollars as if that’s not a big deal to get this going – somebody like the Google Foundation has to be behind this to make it work (you heard it here first), but that doesn’t seem to be the case given the poor execution. They haven’t announced where the plant is going to be located yet either and no one in the solar industry has heard of them or this plant. Where are they getting the silicon which is really expensive and scarce right now? Do they have inverter deals or are they building their own? Just this manufacturing issue alone would seem to delay them at least another 2 years.

There are also obviously issues with installing all of these systems too – certified installers, priority in the queue, variable profitability across markets with different electric rates, systems malfunctioning, quality control, inspection, interconnection, delays, etc.

The September install time is extremely naive (or I am severely underestimating something) and consumers will become dissatisfied as things get delayed. If they have a secret manufacturing plant or are partnering with one currently under construction, that changes some things but fall is still too ambitious. If the federal tax credit dies in 2007, their model is dead.

Having said all this about CitizenRE in particular, which I am severely skeptical of, I think this business model is coming over the next 5-10 years. Consumers will be able to effectively reduce their consumption by 20-50% with little or no risk on their part, but they aren’t pocketing all that as savings (remember, the monthly rental fee negates most of the savings, and instead you gain a hedge against future cost increases). What companies do it and when is an open question…If CitizenRE made all these announcements and were saying 2009 or 2010, I wouldn’t be this critical necessarily. But they are putting their marketing horse before the product cart, which is suspicious.

2/8/07 UPDATE: CitizenRE internal information leaked

Apparently some CitizenRE internal information has been leaked by an EcoPreneur (click here to download):

“Citizenre Warnings & Red Flags: Immediate Action Required to Prevent a Complete Loss of Confidence and Severe Negative PR”

1. Overall: “Powur of Citizenre Network Completely Out of Control” (page 2)

• Exponential Demand Growth with Production Supply Constraints
• Training inadequate and tests compromised
• Looming PR Disaster
• Deceptive income claims…with no prospect for any significant return for >95% of ecopreneurs
• Risk of Regulatory Investigations and Sanctions
• Excessive unethical behavior driven by lack of training, skewed incentives, and lack of controls
• Excessive Secrecy & Lack of Verification

2. February Sales Won’t Be Installed Until January 2008 (page 10)

3. Security Deposit (page 16):

• $1,452 (that’s over $14 million for 10,000 systems)
• 13.5% qualify for no money down

4. Big Issues ( page 18, 19, and 61):

• >90% of sales force pitching free installations and cheap solar with expectation of Sept 2007 installations
• Current path is unsustainable and risks severe alienation of customers and the loss of >80% of associates
• It is unethical to encourage associates to make marketing investments in regions where they cannot expect installations in 2007 or the 1st half of 2008?
• If there really is $650 Million Invested, Citizenre’s Executives and Officers Are Accountable to Both the Board of Directors and the Investors

5. Sales Force - EcoPreneurs (page 20 and 51)

• Sales force training completely inadequate and missing
• Get 30,000 associates who have no hope of ever being successful
• Complete lack of renewable energy and solar product knowledge
• Horde of inadequately trained associates polluting internet with Citizenre spam and creating a potential PR nightmare
• Please explain to us why rapidly expanding the size of the network is in the interest of anyone but the handful of
  individuals at the top of the pyramid?
• The median associate sells 0 per month, and the average sales per associate is below 1 per month.

6. Who’s making money? (page 35, 43, 44, and 48)

• Possibly greater than 80% of funds go to those at the top
• Very clever marketing but how does operating a pyramid scheme where only the 20 to 50 individuals at the top of the pyramid obtain the vast majority of the cashflow make you any different from the other MLMs?
• Very few Ecopreneurs will ever achieve residual income on thousands of homes, especially given the 2007 and 2008 production constraints. So why are you pushing deceptive view of the opportunity?
• The compensation plan does tell lot about the company – a pyramid is a pyramid…

7. Marketing (page 43, 55, and 57)

• Hype the opportunity but zero discussion of the risks and real returns for anyone that sign up
• If >30% of customers are part of the Powur network, the Federal Trade Commission would sanction Citizenre for being a Pyramid Scheme
• Citizenre has a major snowballing problem with trust and its image

What Happens When the Wonkette Picks Up Your Blog

 

It was a normally quiet Friday afternoon. I had just gotten back from a work trip to California and was catching up.I decided to repost a blog entry I’d written last fall (”Metro Sexual or Hexagonal“), largely because I thought it was well written, amusing, and had specific DC content that readers of the DC Blogs Live Feed might find interesting (I wrote it before getting in on DC Blogs so it was never posted there). So I re-read, edited a bit, re-named it, and re-dated it to today and in a few minutes, it was listed.

Later, I logged into my WordPress account to (obsessively) check my blog stats and noticed that someone had arrived at my site from the Wonkette (the Wonkette incidentally left the blog to promote her book last year, so it wasn’t the Wonkette herself…but I digress).

I went to see why there was a link to my blog and saw that it was picked up in a little tiny blurb that said “Metro is getting new, square tiles for reasons not entirely clear.” Hmm. So I checked my blog stats…

Nine people had looked at the post and I decided to refresh… 16… refresh… 22… refresh… 30… refresh…now it’s up to 387 for that one post, 250 and 248 in the last two days, and I made it into a Top Post on WordPress:

My previous “biggest day” was 135 when I wrote an online article for Grist Magazine (”Count Him In“) and I probably average 50 per day normally.

Who is the Wonkette? The Wonkette is a DC gossip blog that became famous for publishing the story of a Capitol Hill blogger who was having an affair with a Bush staff (Wikipedia entry). According to Technorati, the Wonkette blog ranks 54th in their database of over 2.5 million and has over 31,000 links to it. This website says the Wonkette is ranked 12th overall for blogs and is worth over $2.7 million. According to Technorati, my blog ranks 113,581 and has 97 links. Surprisingly my blog is supposedly worth over $18,000, which makes that estimate very suspect. Click here to appriase your blog, although cashing in obviously requires a willing buyer.

So what? Exactly. Some people will read the blog entry and a few others might click around my site, but it will lose it’s luster soon enough. My content is too scattered to get a dedicated following. But in my little world of blog uselessness, it’s like meeting someone on my celebrity list (”Hello, Ms. Judd…”).

Top 10 Signs that Winter is Missing in DC

So the weather in DC has obviously been warm lately…70 degrees last weekend and 70 this coming one as well.

Having moved to DC from Minnesota last fall, which is obviously colder but doesn’t have any snow on the ground either, I’ll take warm and no snow over cold and no snow…

Here are my “Top 10 Signs that Winter is Missing” in DC:

10. Bar patios are open again

9. Wearing shorts and t-shirts to go jogging

8. A friend is still harvesting from her garden

7. A traffic jam at Great Falls National Park last Saturday

6. No need to plan a ski trip to West Virginia searching in vain for a cross-country skiing location

5. Impulsively looking for a non-existent jacket when leaving a friend’s house

4. More people at ultimate frisbee pickup in January than September

3. Turned off the heat over the weekend

2. Cherry blossoms are blooming

1. Found several mosquitos inside the house

2006 Number One Reader

There is no competition. “Adam” is SolarKismet’s number one reader. Thanks for the interest and commentary…

Science and Political Monkeys

Politicians love science; until it tells them something they don’t like. Then they call for “sound science,” which is a buzz word for “delayed science,” “biased science,” “non-science,” and “silent science.” UCS has begun documenting the blatant pattern of the Bush administration’s adherence to these latter kinds of science. Examples:

• Delayed a report showing that vehicle fuel efficiency had long been declining until after Congress passed the 2005 Energy Bill - Bush hates foreign oil but not enough to really do anything about it!

• Manipulated reports on climate change by striking out scientific information from reports - Pesky scientific statements be damned!\

• Pressured scientists to manipulate results on mercury - Drink up! Mercury is okay.

Click on the periodic table above to see the documentation, which is a part of their scientific integrity program.