Alternative Power Ideas

I was reading a posting by Scott Adams in his Dilbert Blog about harnessing the power when an elevator comes down (see http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2008/03/elevator-power.html)and this got me to thinking about a recurring idea of mine: urban wind farms. I live in Plano, Texas. At the present time, there is approximately a 30 MPH wind blowing. This is not unusual for this part of the country. Indeed, it has done the same thing over several days of the past week. We get a lot of wind.

Therefore, if there was some way to economically capture energy from that wind, it would make sense. There are several requirements to have a viable wind farm: 1) you need wind; 2) you need connectivity to the power grid; and 3) you need permit and access to place a wind generator. As stated earlier, we have a lot of wind, so requirement 1 is met. As for the second requirement, a good place to gain connectivity to the grid that is everywhere in an urban area is the standard light pole that dot many streets. As for permitting, the big argument is that the wind generator detracts from the surrounding beauty of the neighborhood. However, since when is a light pole pretty. They are ugly and they are everywhere, so why not make the most of a bad situation and use them for double-duty--light pole and wind generator tower. Since the light pole is tied to the power grid, are typically well-anchored, they would make a great location. A few statistics will demonstrate how attractive this alternative is.

Plano, Texas is a rather spread out city of somewhere around 160,000 people. if we eliminate the residential roads and only concentrate on the main thoroughfares in the city, I would guess that there are 5 running east-west and 10 north-south. From city limit to city limit, I would guess that Plano is 9 miles wide and 7 miles long (main road areas and I want to be on the conservative side). That means there are 45 miles of east-west road and 70 miles of north-south road, for a total of 115 miles of usable road.

Using that number and being conservative using a light pole every 300 feet (conservative because in many places there are two poles on the roadway because it is divided lanes), this would give 2,024 usable light poles. Again being conservative and using a smaller wind generator in the range of 250 Kwh each, this means that putting a wind generator on each pole would pump more than 500 Mwh into the grid!

A good estimate based on some fast research on the Web is that the average home uses 850 Kwh of energy per year. This means that my city-wide wind farm would generate enough electricity to power to power almost 600 homes for a year.

In actuality, there are many more generators that could be installed in a city such as Plano and my guess is that the typical capacity would be more like 500 Kwh. Think of all of the towns across the US in high wind areas (Chicago comes to mind for example, not to mention every city and town in most of the west). I think this idea has merit.

Deming's Critical Mass

I came across an interesting blog post this evening titled, "1,000 True Fans." (http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php) The premise is that if an artist--I'll call him/her an Internet entrepreneur--can cultivate 1,000 true fans, the individual can make a decent living. The author, Kevin Kelly, defines a true fan as:

"Someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can't wait till you issue your next work."

Dr. W. Edwards Deming often referred to a similar concept when he was talking about organizational change. He referred to "critical mass," and defined an organization's critical mass as the square root of the number of employees.  His reasoning was that if you could get the "square root people" to champion the change, the organization would change.

I suspect that the "1,000 true fans" actually equates to the square root of the market you are trying to penetrate. In lieu of knowing the number of clients in your target market, the number 1,000 is probably as good as any. Either way, given the tremendous reach of the Internet (1.3 billion users according to http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm), 1,000 true fans does not seem to be a reach for any decent product or service.

Perspective on Internet Time

"Internet Time" is the concept that time moves faster or events compress in time on the Internet much faster than they do in "real life." An interesting event occurred yesterday that brought this home: the YouTube domain was registered on February 15, 2005, making yesterday the third anniversary. In that time, YouTube was purchased by Google a year and a half later (October 16, 2006) for $1.65 Billion (which represented a capital appreciation of $6.8 Million PER DAY by the way); now serves more than 100 million videos per day; has changed the way police departments identify criminals (alleged criminals); has changed the way politicians communicate and are questioned in debates; and has become the 4th most visited Web site in the Internet.

That's hard to compete with using traditional business models.

Alternative Energy--A Clash of Cultures?

As wind farms and solar farms sprout up around the world, there is an increasing chorus of complaint about the impact that whirling wind generator blades will have on birds, and about the impact that large areas covered with solar cells or solar concentration mirrors will have on animals. While it is a valid question that should be asked, those protesting this move to renewable energy seem to lose sight of a larger picture.

Sure, these installations will have some impact on birds and animals (let's not forget the little bugs either). However, continuing to rely on carbon-based fuels and continuing to spew hydrocarbons into the atmosphere will also have an impact on the birds and animals--and one of those animals is us.

Personally, I believe that propagating switchgrass across the mid-west is a great idea. It basically begins the process of reintroducing native plants back into the ecology, not to mention controlling erosion on marginal lands. It also offsets the dependence on corn for ethanol production which is a good thing considering that corn is a primary food source for the world. Introducing this one "crop" back into the ecology creates an improved environment for a variety of native mid-west animals and birds. That's not a bad thing.

Introducing wind farms and solar arrays offsets the need to generate energy through coal-powered plants, one of the most polluting machines in use today. Substituting birds who can't fly certain routes for birds who can't breath seems like a fair trade off.

Substituting electric power from solar for gas burning engines in cars seems like a fair trade off to me. I imagine that many of these same arguments went on when there was a move from horse power to steam power and then gas power. I'm sure the lantern fuel providers had a problem with the "environmental" impact of electric lights. The point is that any new technology has its advantages and disadvantages. The determiner of whether that new technology will be adopted depends on demand. If there is suitable demand, it survives and thrives. If it doesn't, it dies. Adam Smith's laws of economics are still valid.

The fact is that wind energy and solar energy are taking hold simply because the cost is rapidly approaching that of traditional energy production. The difference this time is that even the individual can get in on the action. That is, the individual land or homeowner can be a power generator--either by installing their own energy sources or though leasing a energy production capability.

I suspect that it is this individual control over energy production that is the real issue, not the environmental issues.

Security versus Privacy

I saw this quote in the "Good Morning Silicon Valley" newsletter and I found it interesting in light of the events that have occurred over the last eight years and the lasting impact that those events will have on the future. The quote is by security expert Bruce Schneier:

"We've been told we have to trade off security and privacy so often ... that most of us don't even question the fundamental dichotomy. But it's a false one. Security and privacy are not opposite ends of a seesaw; you don't have to accept less of one to get more of the other. ...

Since 9/11, approximately three things have potentially improved airline security: reinforcing the cockpit doors, passengers realizing they have to fight back and -- possibly -- sky marshals. Everything else -- all the security measures that affect privacy -- is just security theater and a waste of effort.

By the same token, many of the anti-privacy 'security' measures we're seeing -- national ID cards, warrantless eavesdropping, massive data mining and so on -- do little to improve, and in some cases harm, security. And government claims of their success are either wrong, or against fake threats.

The debate isn't security versus privacy. It's liberty versus control."

In this political season, his perspective is certainly food for thought.