Give and Take

August 15, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

It's August 14, and I’m at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas attending the Schneider Electric Init@iative 2008 event, which is providing about 1300 of their customers and distributors with educational sessions on industry challenges and the solutions Schneider Electric is bring to the market.

There are about 1,300 attendees here, not including over 500 Schneider Electric staffers and executives.

There are 100 seminars scheduled over the next two days, one of which is an editor-to-editor panel discussion on energy, which I will be participating in along with several colleagues from other technical publications and four Schneider Electric executives.

August 8, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

The roller coaster of oil prices did something quite amazing this year: It went up long enough to catalyze lasting changes to America’s energy consumption patterns. Oil prices are in decline while American business and consumers are just getting into a committed consumption retreat.

According to data from the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE), May 2008 prices for oil were about 100% greater than prices in May 2007 and May 2006 ($120 compared to about $60 in nominal dollars). The steep incline started in August 2007; the incline is sharpened by the decline that occurred between August 2006 and January 2007, when oil fell to approximately $50 per barrel. You can see these trends in a PDF of historical oil prices at U.S. Dept. of Energy En...Read More

July 18, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

In a speech at an energy conference in Washington, D.C., Nobel laureate, Academy award winning filmmaker, and former vice president Al Gore, stated that the United States must totally convert to carbon-free renewable energy technologies by 2018. “The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,” Mr. Gore said (really). “The future of human civilization is at stake.”

At the conference, Gore rebuffed critics of the increased electrical consumption of his Tennesse...Read More

July 15, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (1)

Who has a national energy plan that could sustain human civilization (in America) for more than 100,000 years?

In such a time frame, oil and natural gas are not viable answers. Nor is coal.

More than $100 dollars a barrel ago, in 2005, when oil began creeping steadily upward, I wrote for another publication that there's no reason for oil to go back down. I cited factors that have become standard fare today, such as the draws of India and China on the global supplies, unceasing Mideast tensions, refineries at capacity, and escalating demand. At the time, the international benchmark for the "preferred" price of oil was $25, and at $35 per barrel, the writing was on the wall (and in the newspapers, websites, ceilings, floors, and tea leaves).

Basically, the ...Read More

June 19, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

As Iowa’s flood waters recede and recovery ramps up, the race begins to minimize problems with moldy buildings. Summer weather and flooded buildings are not a good combination. Here are some links that I found that can help citizens of Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin and other flooded Midwestern states prepape for dealing with mold in flooded buildings.

MOLD NEVER SLEEPS
Katrina serves as a good (bad) example of how mold can still be present months after a flood and even after remediation efforts. In study of post-Katrina New Orleans, a team of investigators performed continuous airborne sampling for mold spores and endotoxin for two months after the Katrina and Rita hurricanes in 2005. They took measures indoors and outdoors; in flooded and non-flooded areas. T...Read More