GreenTech Pastures

November 27th, 2009

What you see is what you get: Water flow management made easier with visualization technology

Posted by Heather Clancy @ 7:56 am

Categories: conservation, green tech, research, water

Tags: Analytics, Mathematica Inc., IBM Corp., Asset Management, Financial Planning, Financial Services, Operational Planning, Finance, Business Operations, Heather Clancy

IBM has snagged another green-tech project related to project management, this time along with the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority.

The focus of the project, being managed by the IBM Global Business Services and Research arms, is to create a map of the system (including pipes, valves, collection valves, meters and fire hydrant) using asset management software from IBM and mapping and visualization technology from its partner, ESRI.

“The work of water relies heavily on our ability to monitor our infrastructure,” says George Hawkins, general manager of the DC water authority, in an IBM press release. “We can now manage almost every component from central, computer-based systems.”

The information will be shared with other public agencies in the district, such as the fire and emergency medical services agencies.

The information HAD been shared on maps and documents originally created in the 1800s.

The second project I was made aware of by Wolfram Research, which makes the Mathematica visual analytics applications. This YouTube video testimonial outlines a groundwater “recharge and discharge” monitoring application that was built by a scientist using Mathematica.

November 26th, 2009

Peak oil panic? Dubai or not Dubai?

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 1:05 pm

Categories: Blogroll, Europe, conservation, energy, fossil fuel, law & politics, ocean, petroleum, renewable energy

Tags: Dubai, Harry Fuller

Could the mushrooming Dubai debt crisis be a preview of what peak oil will produce among the oil-selling nations?

Dubai–meaning the few poweful men in control–launched itself on a campaign to become the combo Las Vegas, Miami and Wall Street of the Mideast. That meant huge construction projects and rampant purchasing of key properties across the globe. A large portion of the action in Dubai is run by sovereign firms, belonging primarily to the Dubai government and its leaders. However, they’ve borrowed up to $60-billion from all over the globe. Stock markets today tanked when the story broke: no interest payments for six months from one arm of Dubai World.

Perhpas you recell the cause celebre in Washington when Dubai bought a British company that controlled a slew of American ports? Eventually the Dubai sovereign company sold its U.S. ports to the All-American patriots over at AIG. And we all know how good AIG has been to Americans.

Why would tiny Dubai start grasping and reaching for a different future? Because they know their oil is running out and they don’t wish to go back to living like nomads or sailing little wooden boats around the Persian Gulf. Of course, now it appears their investment plans looked better in theory than in practice.
Courtesy Dubai Palm Islands.

ANOTHER WAY? THE NOR-WAY

Another major oil exporter has taken a far different approach to its excessive oil income and the eventual end of its oil reserves. Norway now has the second largest sovereign investment fund in the world, behind only Abu Dhabi. Yes, tiny Norway ahead of China and Saudi Arabia.

The streets in Norway are not paved with gold, but they are all well-paved. Every resident is covered. Health insurance, check. Lifetime pension, check. Universal child support, check. One-year paid maternity leave, check. Sick pay for ALL jobs, check. No university tuition, check. What an American news service derides as cradle-to-grave welfare.

Knowing oil pretty well, Norway has invested in potential and working oil fields from Kurdistan to Angola. They’ve known the Norwegian oil supply is limited and they began years ago to invest in alternative energy. They did not build a large palm-shaped island like Dubai, however.

Wherever it leads this Dubai story will re-heat the debate over who’s right or wrong on the amount of oil left. I recently blogged about accusations that the IEA has been cooking the books to keep American oil interests comfy.

November 26th, 2009

East Anglia chronology, so far

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 11:01 am

Categories: Blogroll, Europe, air pollution, cars & traffic, climate change, energy, environmental health, federal government, fossil fuel, global warming, law & politics, ocean, research

Tags: Hacking, Global Warming, Harry Fuller, East Anglia, media, global warming denial, emails, Copenhagen, chronology

1) University of East Anglia hacked documents appear online. We now know that a month ago the same docs were apparently offered to a British reporter who did nothing with them. During that time the University apparently did NOT know it had been hacked. Duh.

2) Reaction to hacking. Some early responses claim deception and fraud.

3) Global warming skeptics trumpet the emails, ignore the illegality. See data tampering.

4) One hacked scientist sees the affair as part of the propaganda war. Critics of global warming see East Anglia as center of conspiracy to shut down those critics.

5) One left-wing paper finds no conspiracy, no cover-up but plenty of dull emails about lunch. Realclimate website says somebody tried to put the stolen docs on their site. They alerted the ripped-off university, hitherto oblivious to the global role they were about to play.

6) East Anglia hacking shows clear dividing line in opinions on einvornmental regulations. Rush Limbaugh says the docs were liberated by a whistleblower. ZDnet poll respondents heavily in favor of full disclosure of all global warming data and documents. One left-wing colunist calls for resignation of Eaat Anglia researcher prominent in the emails.

7) Hacking may have happened last month. Dr. James Hansen weighs in, science is solid but the emails show bad judgement. Republican Senator preparing for investigation of global warming research in U.S.

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November 26th, 2009

India goes to Copenhagen

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 10:43 am

Categories: Blogroll, India, Kyoto Protocol, air pollution, climate change, conservation, energy, environmental health, fossil fuel, global warming, law & politics

Tags: emissions, greenhouse gases, Copenhagen

As the world’s fourth largest producer of CO2 emissions, India is crucial to any possible agreement in Copenhagen next month. Here’s a look at how that nation’s leaders see the international emissions debate.

India has positioned itself as spokesnation for many underdeveloped nations: the rich guys should pay first and pay most. Don’t hold back India because you’ve been driving cars and burning tons of coal for decades. We in India have a right to our share of the economic pie.

This argument will be parroted in the U.S.Congress by those working to stop any energy and emission regulation law. See, they can say, if we clamp down on our pollutilon it will just give India another economic advantage in competing with our corporations and leach out even more U.S. jobs. Once the media have forgotten about the medical insurance issue, jobs and the lack of jobs in the U.S. will become the national obsession. So job-related arguments will be paramount for most of 2010, an election year as well.

November 26th, 2009

East Anglia: anger and aggro

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 10:20 am

Categories: Blogroll, Europe, Kyoto Protocol, air pollution, cars & traffic, climate change, conservation, energy, environmental health, federal government, fossil fuel, global warming, law & politics, ocean, research

Tags: Tobacco, Climate Change, Harry Fuller

Still no public info on who hacked the Univrersity of East Anglia’s climate study center.

One right-wing British pub finds the “climate change lobby” to be “oviously traumatised.” And then goes on to warn that the global warming crowd has shifted its tactics to “cleaner air is good for you.” Does anybody really think all the human-caused particulates and nitrous compounds in the air are simply adding fiber to our diet? Well, that writer’s conclusion: clean air, be afraid, be very afraid. Just another conpsiracy to take away your freedom?

On our sister website, here’s a look at the code behind the hockey stick temperature curve developed at East Anglia. Code or crud? Using that CBS report as a basis, one “Atlantic” writer anlyzes what’s really at stake in the East Anglia affair.

The facts remain: even if East Anglia never had a university, ice sheets and glaciers are melting, the Northwest Passage is now real, plants and animals are shifting their range upslope or northward in response to milder winters. At issue after East Anglia: how far does this climate change go and should we try to do anything about it?

It would be extremely naive, it seems to me, to assume that anything humans do or don’t do about global warming will have the intended affect. Our ignorance of the our planet remains massive. Unintended consequences are almost certain to ensue.

WHO’S FOOLING WHO?

Wow, a Murdoch-owned website actually published, in the UK, a column on how the current campaign against climate change science mirrors the tobacco industry’s defense of its cancer sticks over decades. That’s a parallel I’ve blogged about a few times. Now the fossil fuel industry is funding the disinformation on climate change.Until the 1970s some tobacco ads actually claimed health-enhancing attributes for their cigarettes. Then they pretended that filtered cigarettes were healthy.
Today tobacco companies, BTW, basically stopped fighting in developed countries and now focus on poor and ill-informed populations. And some impoverished governments are only too happy to have tobacco companies’ freindship and prevent any tobacco regulations.

November 25th, 2009

Are small cars doomed to fail in the American market?

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 6:05 pm

Categories: Blogroll, air pollution, biofuel, cars & traffic, conservation, energy, engineering, federal government, fossil fuel, green tech, law & politics, mass transit, petroleum

Tags: Car, Harry Fuller

Some auto industry analysts are warning that small, fuel efficient cars are NOT going to dominate the U.S. market. Does that mean failure for the GM Volt, Detroit’s first plug-in car, next year? Here’s a look at the potential for success or failure of smaller cars in the U.S. market. There seems no question that the single most important factor in determining how big we drive: gasoline prices.

November 25th, 2009

Locus adds water module to environment software application portfolio

Posted by Heather Clancy @ 5:20 pm

Categories: green tech, water

Tags: Heather Clancy

This might not be every company’s problem, but environmental software application provider Locus Technologies, has added a groundwater remediation and monitoring module to its core Web-based service portfolio. I only wish I could figure out how my dear friend could use this project. She’s on month seven or eight of a groundwater contamination nightmare in her front yard.

In any case, the new Locus application bears the rather self-explanatory name, Long Term Monitoring Optimization, and it plugs into Locus’ environmental information management (EIM) application.

Locus claims that its software incorporates many of the analytics information and best practices knowledge associated with similar applications such as the Monitoring and Remediation Optimization System originally developed by the Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment, with this caveat: the calculations are all performed under the umbrella of the main EIM tool, which makes it is easier to review the information in the context of your overall environmental strategy. Locus also offers a number of visual reporting options that might be needed for compliance purposes.

November 25th, 2009

East Anglia: some new angles, but no arrests for hacking

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 2:29 pm

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Hacking, Global Warming, Harry Fuller

Let the finger-pointing continue.

Turns out the hacked emails were taken off the University of East Anglia computers weeks ago. A BBC employee and reporter says he was given the documents last month. He never publicized the fast which may have frustrated the hacker(s) into posting them anonymously.

A leading skeptic of global warming in the U.S. Senate is James Inhofe (R-OK). You might note that Oklahoma has a bit of vested interest in crude oil prices. Now Sen. Inhofe is saying, “I told you so” about the global warming not being real science. And he is sure the data has been fudged for a long time. Furthermore, Sen. Inhofe’s requesting all pertinent federal agencies to keep all relevant emails on global warming. If the Republicans regain control of the Senate any time soon, you can expect a full-blown Inhofe-fuelled investigation.

DR. JAMES HANSEN

One of the most prominent American scientists calling for global warming action has long been Dr. James Hansen. His terse comment after the East Anglia affair, global warming is still real. “The evidence for human-made climate change is overwhelming.”
Of the emails themselves, he said to Newsweek, “They indicate poor judgment in specific cases. First, the data behind any analysis should be made publicly available. Second, rather than trying so hard to prohibit publication of shoddy science, which is impossible, it is better that reviews, such as by IPCC and the National Academy of Sciences, summarize the full range of opinions and explain clearly the basis of the scientific assessment.”
Read the whole Hansen interview here.

MEDIATION
Ever vigilant to the latest undisclosed conspiracy Fox News has this headline, “Media Silent on Global Warming Scandal.” I’m at six blogs and counting on many more until the hacker(s) are tried or confess.

In a left-wing Brit rag, a self-proclaimed climate rationalist is ticked off. This writer has already called for the resignation of one of the East Anglia emailers.
“Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition. It is true that climate change deniers have made wild claims which the material can’t possibly support (the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also true that the emails are very damaging.”

Here’s a direct comment on the East Anglia affair from the head of the EPA, according to the Wal Street Journal: “We have 2,500 of the word’s foremost scientists who are in absolute agreement that this [global warming] is a real problem and that we need to do something and we need to do something as soon as possible. What am I going to do, side with the couple of naysayers out there or the 2,500 scientists? I’m sticking with the 2,500 scientists.”

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November 25th, 2009

Copenhagen will hear first U.S. pledge to cut emissions

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 1:14 pm

Categories: air pollution, federal government, fossil fuel, green tech, law & politics, mass transit, nuclear power, petroleum, renewable energy, solar, venture capital, wind

Tags: China, India, Barack Obama, Copenhagen, Harry Fuller

President Obama will speak at the Copenhagen climate talks on December 9. Six U.S. cabinet secretaries and head of the EPA will attend the full conference.

Obama’s presence will be early in the meeting, before the nitty-gritty negotiations talk place. That has alreasdy drawn sniping from other nations. There will be much argument in the U.S. over the potential cost of cutting emissions if that actually becomes more than a talking point and is enacted as law or regulation.

Obama will pledge the U.S. will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17%, that’s taking the 2005 level and reducing it before 2020. That 17% is the exact number in the energy and climate bill passed by the House last spring, Waxman-Markey. The bills debated in Senate committees actually have a slightly higher level of cuts.

One of the key debate points in the U.S. Congress: will India and China make any cuts or will the U.S. act alone and thus hamper American industry in competing with India and China? At this point China says it will NOT offer up binding emission cuts as most of the damage to the climate has come from developed nations.

In addition many under-developed nations at Copenhagen are going to be looking for payments from wealthier nations. Nominally this would go to developing alternative energy and energy efficiency, within the usual limits of each country’s corruption level which can vary widely.

Overall this will be encouraging to alternative energy firms and their investors. Today the Cleantech Stock index was up. The NASDAQ Clean Edge Index has been climbing for the past two quarters.

This could also put the focus of many environmental groups on China and India. Perhaps boycotts? Both nations are heavily dependent on exports to Europe and the U.S.

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November 25th, 2009

How Adaptec is trying to make your private or public cloud greener

Posted by Heather Clancy @ 6:31 am

Categories: conservation, green tech

Tags: Adaptec Inc., MaxIQ, Ip storage, Data Centers, Storage, Hardware, Data Management, Heather Clancy

Adaptec is targeting data centers supporting hybrid storage arrays that include both solid state drives and traditional hard disk drives with a high-performance SSD caching system called the MaxIQ SSD Cache Performance Solution.

Its solution is being offered in partnership with Intel. It also is the first expression of the company’s overarching green cloud technology development strategy, called the Adaptec Data Conditioning Platform.

MaxIQ combines an Intel X25-E Extreme SATA SSD with the Adaptec MaxIQ SSD caching software. The company claims the technology can help deliver up to five times the I/O performance while offering significantly reduced power consumption over infrastructure that uses HDD-only storage arrays. Each kit is priced at $1,295.

Here’s a press release detailing the results of an independent benchmarking test of the architecture, which is being pitched as an infrastructure alternative for either private data center clouds or public cloud infrastructure. And here’s a link to the data sheets for Adaptec’s MaxIQ SSD Cache Performance Solution.