It’s been about a month since I prognosticated and reflected on the BP disaster in the golf. Let’s see how things have unfolded. My predictions: Political food fight Underestimated disaster Lack of “what if” on BPs part Where is the outrage? First, I said politicians would engage in a political food fight while Rome burns. Sure enough, less than a week after that post, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee assembled a dog and pony show to poke executives of BP, Transocean, and Halliburton with a stick in the eye. Actually, it was like a dog show alright –…
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Yay! I’m outside working on my computer for the first time this year. Alright, who cares? Every week I plow through news-clipping services to see what is going on, to build my topic list, which is piling up faster than the weeks pass. This week I had to shelve 4-5 great topics to again take on the recently arisen climate bill. Many huge utilities and other giant energy users and associations are lauding the Kerry-Lieberman-Graham bill. These institutions include the American Wind Association, Duke Energy, Dow Chemical, Florida Power and Light, T. Boone Pickens, National Resources Defense Council, Steelworkers Union,…
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Like millions of people around the world, I have been following the slow nightmare that is unfolding in the gulf. Many topics and thoughts come to mind. First, our company mission is “make every project a positive experience for our clients”. It’s simple but guides everything we do. When there is a potential mistake or an angry client calling or emailing us complaining about something we are involved with, it’s a code red in our office. Engineers and managers meet immediately to plot the course of events leading to where we are and we clearly define the problem and plot…
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The masses want power on demand without interruption or failure. They want it at a practically negligible cost and more so every year, they want it without emissions or other unpleasant byproducts. In the upper Midwest, energy without emissions means wind energy. Wind energy sounds great. It’s “free”. No emissions. But it comes with a load of drawbacks compared to conventional sources of coal, nuclear, and natural gas. First, utilities can’t count on it for peak load generation. I searched a while for this and found nothing but the bottom line is there is no guarantee there will be any…
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If there’s one thing that most people painfully realized over the past couple years, it’s that there is risk in putting your money in anything in hopes of earning a return on investment. Riding a company into bankruptcy is an obvious one. I’ve done that several times by investing in fast-growing start-ups, initial public offerings (IPO) and stock options. Invest $3,000 for 100 shares of common stock and a few years later the company emerges from bankruptcy (isn’t that a cute phrase – it sounds like a daffodil blooming in spring but it’s more like rummaging for your charred silverware…
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For years, beginning in the 1990s through just a few years ago I considered ENERGY STAR® to be fluffy foo foo feel good goo – kind of like eating meringue smothered in corn syrup after chopping wood all day. Then they introduced the ENERGY STAR rated homes and ENERGY STAR rated commercial buildings. Both of these seem to be solid “programs”. ENERGY STAR for commercial buildings is based on energy intensity, which is energy consumption per square foot, climate region, type of facility and a few other things. To “earn the ENERGY STAR” commercial buildings must be in the 75th…
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