Clean Power Plan | TBO.com, The Tampa Tribune and The Tampa Times

Why I support the EPA’s Clean Power Plan | TBO.com, The Tampa Tribune and The Tampa Times:

This July 28, 2014 article by Lynn Ringenberg (Professor Emeritus at USF) discusses the horrible health and wellness impacts of burning coal.

"There is no such thing as clean coal."

The good news is that Natural Gas is so plentiful in the states and so very very cheap, that it is seriously supplanting coal in power plant production. NatGas is so plentiful and contain in oil, that 40% to 50% of all US NatGas produced is flared into the atmosphere as an oil byproduct.

Of course the EPA is pushing this conversion along to NatGas. In the absence of an energy policy in the USA, the EPA is the very last stop in this decision process as to produce power, short term and long.

But here is the BIG problem. As we cut back on energy and oil and coal usage in the USA, we move the coal power production to other countries. Our exports are way up. And other countries don't use the same cleaning technologies as we (scrubbers and such).

Here's a great discussion of our coal usage and export-imports at The Energy Collective by Meredith Fowlie on July 29, 2014.

No matter what you feel about the EPA stepping up and getting involved in coal power, greenhouse gas emissions, etc. The EPA is the last, and arguably the worst way to address energy policy, health issues from fossil fuel consumption and global warming.

Some would argue, the EPA actions are better than doing nothing at all.

The EPA is the wrench used to hammer the square nail. Coal has huge impact on health and wellness, so let's export all we've got. We take make the green, they take the black.

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Bill Gates's Favorite Business Book ... and then some ... WSJ

Bill Gates's Favorite Business Book - WSJ:

I was at the beach over the summer and the condo had a book by Bill Gates.

I started reading it and was intrigued. I thought I had read it before, but it was still very interesting. As I'm skimming through into the second chapter, it hit me like a metric ton of CO2. This book was more than 2 decades old, 1994, The Road Ahead. Knowing how it really ended, I skipped ahead to see what his forecasts were for the future of chipdom and computing. He was straight on in several cases.

The point is that reading classic business books is fascinating and it is retrospectical (if that were a word).

This WSJ article talks about the great business books from the perspective of the richest man in the world (as founder of Microsoft), turned most philanthropic man in the work (with the Gates Foundation). When he takes time to write about what he reads, you aught to take notice.

The great business books include, of course, Drucker, Porter, Peters, Senge, ...

Jim Collins G2G and BTL are, well, great!:-). Level five leaders, yeap. By chance, is still growing on me. (See references below.)

Most people will include Sun Tzu with the Art of War, and Machiavelli.

For production-type clients, I always buy them a copy of the NY Times best-selling novel, The Goal, so they can simply enjoy the experience of (accidentally) learning about
operations management. See the section on Business Fables (2011) in Wikipedia
for some of the coolest business novels to read as an MBA student. Eli Goldratt did a follow-on to The Goal (2001) that was actually the text book associated with the novel; it was called, Beyond the Goal (2004).

Speaking of novels and stories and fables, Who Moved My Cheese and Fish! are wonderful classics. 

If you were to add to the list of Great Business Books that are must reads for every business professional, and absolutely every MBA, what would it be?

Reference (some)

Business fable.
(2011, August 3). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved
15:02, August 12, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Business_fable&oldid=442779574Collins J., & Porras, J. (1994). Built to last. New York, NY: Harper Business.

Collins, J. (2001). Good
to great. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Collins,
J. (2005). Level 5 Leadership: The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve.
(cover story). Harvard Business Review,
83(7/8), 136-146.

Collins,
J. (2012). Effective Management. Leadership
Excellence, 29(4), 3.

Collins,
J., & Hansen, M.T. (2011). Great by choice: Uncertainty, chaos, and
luck--Why some thrive despite them all. New York, NY: HarperBusiness.

Goldratt, E. M.(2001). Beyond the Goal: Eliyahu Goldratt
speaks on the theory of constraints (Your Coach in a Box). Audiobook.

Goldratt, E. M. and Cox, J. (2004). The goal: A process of ongoing improvement.  Great Barrington, MA: North River Press.

Johnson, S., & Blanchard, K., (1998). Who moved my cheese?: An a-mazing way to deal with change in your work and in your life. New York, NY: Penguin Group.

Lundin, S. C., Paul,
H., & Christensen, J. (2009). Fish!: A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and
Improve Results. [Kindle Edition] Hyperion.

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Can jaw-dropping visuals on CO2. BIG smokes vs. BIG OIL | GreenBiz.com

Can jaw-dropping visuals change the climate conversation? | GreenBiz.com:

This week in the news we wave the merger of BIG tobacco. Lorillard Brands if getting bought out by Reynolds; that is, the Newport brands are getting married to a camel. This will make a formidable competitor to Altria's Marlboro man. (I still love the genius of changing your name from  Philip Morris USA to "Altria", it makes the company sound so Alteristic!:-)

So these are products, when used as directed will either kill you, or cause you to die younger... i.e., kill you.

The big difference between pollution into the atmosphere is that it is generally not the smoker (and their family it seems with 2nd hand-me-downs) that dies, it is everyone in the vicinity, down wind, and down stream.

The problems with burning fossil fuels, in addition to any other pollution that pollute in the traditional science, they create vast amounts more Carbon Dioxide (CO2) for the atmosphere than what the earth systems have become accustomed to dealing with. If 60% goes into the oceans, that causes increased acidification; what remains in the atmosphere, hangs around for about 100 years -- a deadly experiment that we are just beginning to see the effects of.

At least with tobacco, people enter into the deadly agreement under their own free will. The externalities of the well documented costs in life, income and economic product is largely offset by massive taxes. And it is really other countries that have fast increases in smoking while we in the USA have a rapidly dwindling market. (You could say that the market is dying off, if you wanted to add pun to death and sickness.) Although, electronic cigs are growing rapidly.

But, the BIG producers of fossil fuels, have it rather sweet. They tap a natural resource, like an oil reservoir, pump it dry, sell into energy markets and have no responsibility as to the costs of the use of their products. The jaw dropping visuals from the main article here, show the billions (with a B) of tonnes of CO2 created from/by the BIGgest oil producing companies.

The oil company pays some taxes to the country where it permanently depleted a natural resource. That seems only fair. The health costs of burning coal, direct pollution, are huge but generally not covered by the companies the produce and use it. Countries have taxes on transport fuel, to offset some of the costs of the vehicles. But nobody really pays the costs of the CO2 externalities. Or at least very little is done in that directly.

So the two, or three, questions for government: Should government shut down BIG tobacco? Or tax it more? Or allow it to move closer to a duopoly where they can keep raising prices to consumers and have them pay through the nose?

And the questions for government: Should government shut down BIG tobacco? Or tax it more? Or move to cap-n-trade? Or subsidize renewables?

The one that seems to work best, and economists all like best, is a direct tax. The tax increases need to gradually escalate, at least at the rate of inflation. This, of course is political suicide. So the tax is out, and no addressable solution is in.

This is a supply and demand world. In fossil fuels you have the BIG consumers, namely China and the USA, and the BIG producer companies. Both are to blame if what they sell/buy kills people. Right?

The sinful problems associated with the dirty companies go on.. and they keep getting BIGger.

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Garbage-patch tale as flimsy as a single-use plastic bag - SFGate

Garbage-patch tale as flimsy as a single-use plastic bag - SFGate:

So the GREAT Pacific Garbage Patch is not real... Or maybe not nearly as big as originally expected.

Saunders does a great job of attaching the myth behind the original reports of "the size of Texas" and such.

Great sources of info included.

But now I'm really worried. The amount of plastic floating in the oceans amount to only (right, only) 7,000 to 35,000 Tons. But we know the amount of plastic produced each year, the % that gets recycle, the % that goes into a landfill and the paltry % that gets repurposed. That leaves a LOT of tons of plastic each year that go into the environment. If we estimate the amount that goes out the water systems into the oceans you get a LOT of plastics into the oceans. There's a lot of large pieces but the small stuff is mysteriously missing.

There's bit of a mystery working that is well discussed here at the SFGate with four possible theories by Leslie Baehr. None of them look good. The plastic found represent only about 1% of the plastic pollution in the ocean according to one of the researchers Cózar said. More could be hiding below the surface. 

"Indeed, the quantity of plastic floating in the ocean and its final destination are still unknown," the researchers concluded.

It may take hundreds or thousands of years for plastic to degrade. In the warm ocean with lots of sunlight, maybe only 1 year. See here on degrading and the short artgument as to whether plastics ever really biodegrade (although the degrade to smaller bits of the same).  Here's a nice little biodegadable table by the NH for the National Park Service, talking about 20 years for plastic bags and 450 for plastic bottles to biodegrade.

All that plastic is going somewhere. I was actually happier knowing where it was going... into the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Now we don't know, what we don't know. That's worrisome! 

Wikipedia of the Great_Pacific_garbage_patch and the 
National Geographic on the Pacific Garbage Patch.
Marine Debris at NOAA.
Youtube from Oprah's show where she did an EarthDay on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Several years ago (upload is 2011). Before this new study, obviously.
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Efforts Grow to Take the Sting Out of the Bee Die-Off - WSJ

Efforts Grow to Take the Sting Out of the Bee Die-Off - WSJ:

Generally, the topics discussed here aim to look at the sustainability of trends or activities. CCD is worrisome on many levels of sustainability.

This is an interesting update on the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) of bee hives world wide.

Look at the ugly research related to the mix of pesticides and fungicides that seem to cause the demise of bee hives. (See prior SustainZine blog on this.)

It is interesting that the consumer seems largely unaware of this very, very serious problem. To mix he metaphors, bees are the canary in the coal mine of world agriculture. Those things that will kill the bees, may also kill the rest of us over time... assuming that the demise of the world's pollinators does not wipe out the food supply first.

There are so very many issues related to mono-cultures. That is the miles and miles of a single crop. Without diversity, massive amounts of pesticides, fertilizers, fungicides, etc. are needed. When something does get through the defense barrier they can get out of control quickly. The weevil in the cotton, the greening in the oranges, the pollinators in the almonds. Amphibians like frogs are interesting to watch, they can be totally wiped out based on what is happening with the water, with the land, or both. The death of the piglet litters?

Golf courses and row crops are a biological wasteland. It takes a lot to keep one croup growing in an area, and all the others out.

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Nordic Poles Boost Artery-Disease Patients' Walking - WSJ

Nordic Poles Boost Artery-Disease Patients' Walking - WSJ:

Lots of studies show that simply getting up and about several times a week can be really, really good for you.

This is pretty cool. The use of Nordic poles significantly helped patents go longer... Okay, that's pretty obvious...

BUT it also worked the body 23% harder than normal walking.

The prob with walking (and running) is that you don't really work the upper body, so it might be aerobic but not a full-body exercise.

Pretty cool.

PLUS it can be great training for your upcoming Snow Ski adventures!

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Shhh!!! Don't tell anyone it is healthy(er). With low(er) Salt.

Food Makers' Secret Ingredient: Less Salt http://online.wsj.com/articles/food-companies-quietly-cut-salt-fat-from-recipes-1403566403

Thanks. But it is too bad it has to be a secret.

It is interesting how taistless and healthy seems to be synonimous to many people.

In the meanwhile, there is so much salt in things like soup, that even then "low salt" soups are 25 to 50% of US Daily recommended. And they are still not edible for those of us who have adjusted our salt pallet. You find yourself drinking gallons of water (or, worse, sodas) for the rest of the day.

Oh and Campbells slips in High Fructos sugar into all of the tomato soups we own as about the second ingredient. What is with that? Tomatoes are already sweet.

Enriched flower.

Of the Three Deadly White foods, sugar, salt and white flower, Campbells tomato soups seemed to have all three in the top 5 ingredients. Tomatos weren't even the first ingredient in the regular tomato, paste was second!

Now we'll see about donating these soups... And being even more careful with our food shopping.

BioLite BaseCamp Stove | Turn Fire into Electricity by BioLite. Saving lives, one stove at a time. Kickstarter Funded project.

Repost from IPzine...
BioLite BaseCamp Stove | Turn Fire into Electricity by BioLite — Kickstarter:

I love it. But only 62 hours to get in on the KickStarter offer. They are at twice goal with $800k+ and 3,000 backers.

Yes, it was DARK in Miami, when Hurricane Andrew came through South Miami/Homestead on August 24, 1992. Well, afterwards really. It would be weeks before most of us would get power. So bar-b-q grilling was the norm. That was not quite as much fun after a week or two without baths and without air conditioning. Little or no ice and warm drinks. Muggy and humid.

You did want to cook, obviously, but all the heat from the grill was the last thing we needed.

But a really cool cooking stove popped up in New York. A tiny stove the burned wood (or charcoal) and produced focused head for cooking. No need to cook the cook too.


This technology works wonders in countries where there is little or no electricity, and wood is often scarce, and the smoke from open cooking causes some of the world's worst health issues (probably only exceeded by water/sanitation).
You gotta see how far the technology has come. This is a BIG stove, relatively, that generates electricity (USB power) and has battery. It has an internal fan, to fan the fire so it can produce some serious heat possibilities -- especially given the ability to focus the flame.

This version comes with an LED light so you can see what's cooking at night.

As they say, this is the first version of the BaseCamp that is crowd designed. When you jump in on the crowd funding at KickStarter (BaseCamp) you will get a free carrying case.

You also get the warm-fuzzy feeling of knowing that this technology will save millions and millions of lives in energy starved countries.

All very very cool.

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Our planet is at a point of crisis - Leonard Pitts - Newsday

Our planet is at a point of crisis - Leonard Pitts - Newsday:

Leonard Pitts is going to get some hate mail out of this article. But, sadly, its all true.

The only are that could be clarified a bit is the 97% of scientist agree. I think the agreement is that there is global warming, it drops way off to 80% or so of those scientists who believe that humans are primarily the cause.

The controversy is well discussed in Wikipedia's Global Warming Controversy.

The idea that taking action now is not even thinkable because it would destroy the economy, jobs, etc., etc., is not a sound one. That was the argument against doing anything related to auto emissions and mileage standards.

Fortunately coal is a good place for government intervention. The costs of coal in health and safety are massively higher than the $.04 per KWH from the past. Although we do a better job of cleaning coal, that doesn't help if we ship it all off to China and India where they burn it without the same scrubbers that we use. Also, there's the dirty little secret of coal: coal ash!. See our discussion here on: Pain in the ash!

As well, coal produces huge amounts of CO2 emissions: twice the pollution and emission of oil or nat gas.

Hey, here's an idea. We are flaring about 50% of the nat gas produced in the USA, why not pipe it to power plants and use the fuel for "free". Or, why not build small power plants near the frank wells and run the power lines to the grid... and have power for "free".

We, at SBP, like projects that save emissions and save money and save the environment. Things like Energy Efficiency (EE) and telecommuting... Projects that will save trillions of dollars every 3 years, en perpetuity. Projects that are -- I hate to say it -- "no brainer" decisions. Projects that require no government "help".

Sadly, these projects are hard areas to gain traction.
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Off-Grid Electrification

This is a very impressive video conference hosted by the Climate Group.