Blog - Emerging Technology Corporation, Green Division Emerging Technology Corporation - Green Division : The Green Energy Company http://etcgreen.com/blog/general/ Thu, 19 Dec 2013 13:49:59 +0000 Joomla! 1.5 - Open Source Content Management en-gb It Couldn’t Be Done http://etcgreen.com/general/it-couldn-t-be-done http://etcgreen.com/general/it-couldn-t-be-done

It Couldn’t Be Done, by Edgar Albert Guest

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it!

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it;”
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure,
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.

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[email protected] (Steve) General Wed, 15 May 2013 19:51:52 +0000
American Greatness - Letter to Rachel Maddow http://etcgreen.com/general/american-greatness-letter-to-rachel-maddow http://etcgreen.com/general/american-greatness-letter-to-rachel-maddow

Rachel Maddow, D.Phil
MSNBC Broadcast Journalist

Dr. Maddow,

Thank you for your contributions to the world of journalism. While so many of your colleagues are challenged to stay inside the lines of your profession's proverbial ethics, your smiling face appears on my screens delivering a "better reality". Your recent series of broadcasts regarding our nation's history and heritage are indeed inspiring, however, they do not reflect an understanding of current resource availability. To better convey my point (in your own style) I will share the following quotes from the movie, "Six Days Seven Nights"...

Robin: Aren't you one of those guys?
Quinn: What guys?
Robin: Those guy guys, you know, those guys with skills.
Quinn: Skills?
Robin: Yeah. You send them into the wilderness with a pocket knife and a Q-tip and they build you a shopping mall. You can't do that?

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[email protected] (Steve) General Thu, 31 May 2012 00:14:56 +0000
Pondering Our Modern Values http://etcgreen.com/general/pondering-our-modern-values http://etcgreen.com/general/pondering-our-modern-values

Repinned from Funny Things by Nancy Roycraft

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[email protected] (Steve) General Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:59:59 +0000
Blogging on renewableenergyworld.com http://etcgreen.com/general/blogging-on-renewableenergyworld-com http://etcgreen.com/general/blogging-on-renewableenergyworld-com @etcgreen

Even if we use your number of 2.8 miles/kwh, the Nissan still costs 4 cents/mile @12 cents/kwh. Or 1/2 the cost of a Jaguar @ the national B100 average of $4.20/gallon.

Response...

With respect, please take the time and make the effort to understand the world around you. Today, the average kwh rate in CA is about $.24 rather than your suggested $.12kwh. Many areas of CA are now peaking at $.38kwh. This is the result of clean air legislation and increased renewable energy sources. Should the rest of the country opt for the same level of clean air legislation, the kwh price in many parts of the country would rise to 3-4x this cost - over $1kwh - due to the lower number of photons and greater amounts of rain, hail, snow, ice, humidity, tornadoes, hurricanes, ..., in those areas. A more viable alternative is the proverbial National Smart Grid where solar and wind power are long hauled from their optimum generation sources to other parts of the nation. Though this plan, by all estimates, will require a double digit $T something commitment (in the range of $12T-$25T by most reports) - to power the states that need the energy. This also results in something close to $1/kwh.

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[email protected] (Steve) General Tue, 20 Mar 2012 18:55:25 +0000
Longevity is Critical for Sustainability http://etcgreen.com/general/longevity-is-critical-for-sustainability http://etcgreen.com/general/longevity-is-critical-for-sustainability Dexter Ford, the long respected auto industry journalist, recently had an article printed in the NYT, "As Cars Are Kept Longer, 200,000 Is New 100,000". I was surprised at what he thought was important in that article until I began "walking a mile in his moccasins", if you will. Here is a guy who has been writing about cars for decades. His very livelihood is based on the evaluation of new models - year after year. Has this man or for that matter, has any individual so well embedded in the auto industry ever driven a single vehicle over 200,000 miles? To most of these people, the very concept is probably a concerning and potentially embarrassing thought.

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[email protected] (Steve Frazer) General Sun, 18 Mar 2012 22:45:18 +0000
PENN & TELLER & H2O http://etcgreen.com/general/penn-teller-h2o http://etcgreen.com/general/penn-teller-h2o Penn & Teller are a veritable institution in Las Vegas Entertainment. Good to see they are expanding their horizons and using their celebrity to help the environment.

PENN & TELLER & H2O

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[email protected] (Steve) General Sun, 19 Feb 2012 02:21:15 +0000
Blogging on the Tesla Forum http://etcgreen.com/general/blogging-on-the-tesla-website http://etcgreen.com/general/blogging-on-the-tesla-website It has been an interesting experience visiting the Tesla Forum. Throughout the etcgreen.com website and on our blog posts there, we salute EV's as a viable solution to reduce our dependency on petroleum and (if the energy source is not coal) reduce emissions. The purpose of our articles is not to attack EV technologies, rather it is to provide buyers accurate information that they can better filter through the EV marketing hype that we all constantly encounter. Our shared and ultimate goal is to reduce our dependency on petroleum and emissions with an immediate and economically viable solution.

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[email protected] (Steve Frazer) General Wed, 15 Feb 2012 23:01:19 +0000
Does Cycling Reduce Petroleum Usage? http://etcgreen.com/general/does-cycling-save-petroleum http://etcgreen.com/general/does-cycling-save-petroleum By Steve Frazer

I love cycling. Year after year I have put more miles on my bike for transportation than on my ICE vehicle. However, cycling is not a solution to our petroleum problem. Actually, for most individuals, it is exactly the wrong direction based on the required energy conversion - particularly when factoring in emission levels.

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[email protected] (Steve Frazer) General Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:07:48 +0000
EV Tech - Postmortem http://etcgreen.com/general/ev-tech-postmortem http://etcgreen.com/general/ev-tech-postmortem The phrase "Who Killed the Electric Car" has been in the press again lately with the recent release of the documentary, "Revenge of the Electric Car". While it is our dire desire to be rid of all dependency on petroleum for our transportation needs, current generation EV technologies are still far from viable per a list of issues... economically, environmentally, safety, human health, longevity, scalability and sustainability. These high-tech vehicles simply do not make sense for the vast majority of American drivers. Per our exhaustive evaluation, we consider the EV "dead" to the general American public until the various technologies surpass a long list of reasonable thresholds. The following is the postmortem report on the current generation of EV vehicles.

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[email protected] (Steve Frazer) General Fri, 02 Sep 2011 22:45:09 +0000
MPPG http://etcgreen.com/general/mppg http://etcgreen.com/general/mppg Everyone today seems so focused on MPG, yet this unit of measure is outdated. If the fuel is scalable, economically viable, environmentally friendly and truly sustainable, then MPG is actually not that important.

Petroleum is a finite resource. Focusing our resources to double or even triple the Miles Per Petroleum Gallon (MPPG) for vehicles is wrong headed in that this direction only delays the depletion of this finite resource. The correct focus is sustainability. We must migrate to sustainable fuels as soon as possible to reduce the impact the end of the petroleum era will have on our economy and on all our lives.

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[email protected] (Steve) General Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:02:35 +0000
Japanese Announce Source of Rare Earths http://etcgreen.com/general/japanese-announce-new-source-of-rare-earths http://etcgreen.com/general/japanese-announce-new-source-of-rare-earths The Japanese have been searching for an alternative to Chinese rare earth minerals for more than a year and claim to have found it with this recently published paper.

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[email protected] (Steve) General Wed, 06 Jul 2011 03:16:57 +0000
Letter to our Friends in the Sierra Club http://etcgreen.com/general/letter-to-our-friends-in-the-sierra-club http://etcgreen.com/general/letter-to-our-friends-in-the-sierra-club Rachel Rye Butler
National Conservation Organizer
Sierra Club, Green Transportation
e: [email protected]
w: sierraclub.org/transportation

RE: Invitation to participate in your Transportation Activists Blog

Dear Rachel,

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to your Transportation Activists Blog. Working together we can move this nation into more environmentally friendly solutions while still supporting our economy and way of life.

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[email protected] (Steve Frazer) General Mon, 06 Jun 2011 16:53:10 +0000
U.S. Migration http://etcgreen.com/general/u-s-migration-to-diesel-biodiesel http://etcgreen.com/general/u-s-migration-to-diesel-biodiesel There are a dozen transportation infrastructures with a poll position to "wean" U.S. drivers off of OPEC petroleum. Only one of them is economically attractive, has the potential to become a large scale solution and can achieve rapid success. It is a win, win, win, win solution in that it can (#1) eliminate 100% of all U.S. purchases of OPEC petroleum within 5 years. It is (#2) great for the environment in that it results in an immediate 30%-35% lower emissions and puts us on the path to 95% lower emissions. This migration (#3) results in an immediate 25% petroleum volume reduction over-all each year at the same number of miles traveled in comparable sized vehicles and establishes the infrastructure and industry capacities over the long-term to eliminate petroleum as a transportation fuel entirely. It is economically viable (#4) - while this Migration will save U.S. drivers a considerable amount of money individually, many economists are suggesting this immediate solution has the best potential to boost our economy of any option on the table today.

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[email protected] (Steve Frazer) General Sat, 30 Apr 2011 19:00:39 +0000
Secrets to Success - Colin Powell http://etcgreen.com/general/secrets-to-success http://etcgreen.com/general/secrets-to-success

"There are no secrets to success"

]]> [email protected] (Steve) General Wed, 08 Dec 2010 22:36:59 +0000 Letter to our Friends in the EPA http://etcgreen.com/blog/general/letter-to-the-epa http://etcgreen.com/blog/general/letter-to-the-epa Public Information Services Team
U.S. EPA
Office of Transportation and Air Quality
2000 Traverwood Drive
Ann Arbor, MI 48105-2195

Thank you so much for your politically correct reply. There is a level of awareness in the letter that suggests the author has some engineering credentials and the experience to apply the knowledge. Also, I will share that I spent a great deal of time in Ann Arbor years ago - I have fond memories of good times and wonderful people.

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[email protected] (Steve) General Thu, 14 Oct 2010 18:17:40 +0000
EV's and Hybrids are not our Future http://etcgreen.com/blog/general/evs-and-hybrids-are-not-our-future http://etcgreen.com/blog/general/evs-and-hybrids-are-not-our-future While we appreciate the concept of limited EV production for specific markets, using battery powered vehicles to replace liquid fuel vehicles on a mass scale is problematic.

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[email protected] (Steve Frazer) General Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:04:06 +0000
Are you driving your last gasoline powered car? http://etcgreen.com/blog/general/are-you-driving-your-last-gasoline-powered-car http://etcgreen.com/blog/general/are-you-driving-your-last-gasoline-powered-car Vehicle owners now understand the ever dwindling supply and higher expense and risks of extracting petroleum will continue to increase the price at the pumps.

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[email protected] (Steve Frazer) General Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:30:29 +0000
Peak Oil - Ride the Slide http://etcgreen.com/blog/general/peak-oil-ride-the-slide http://etcgreen.com/blog/general/peak-oil-ride-the-slide A fun animation for perspective. Consider that the US is now consuming 375 million gallons of oil per day. This is unsustainable. How will you "Ride the Slide"?

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[email protected] (Steve) General Thu, 27 May 2010 03:02:45 +0000
Change the World - Plant a Tree http://etcgreen.com/blog/general/a-worthy-task-plant-a-tree http://etcgreen.com/blog/general/a-worthy-task-plant-a-tree Produced in 1987, the message of this video, L'homme qui Plantait des Arbres, or The Man Who Planted Trees, is even more important today (runtime - 28 minutes). The narrator is Christopher Plummer.

Jean Giono, the author of the short story upon which the movie is based, wrote the story after American editors in 1953 asked him to write a few pages about an unforgettable character. They intended him to write about a real unforgettable character, but he created the fictional Elezeard Bouffier. When the editors objected that no Bouffier had died in Banon, he donated the story to all humanity. It was soon after published by Vogue in 1954. Many people have assumed that Bouffier is a real person.

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[email protected] (Steve) General Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:30:54 +0000
Semper Fi! http://etcgreen.com/blog/general/semper-fi http://etcgreen.com/blog/general/semper-fi The ETC Green Staff has surveyed and developed dozens of Green Energy Managed Sites (GEMS) over the past 2 years. We are initially attracted by the site's resources and sometimes later excited and inspired by the site's history and character. A few times we have been motivated to stop our regular operations and efforts to raise a flag. It is simply the right thing to do at the time. Semper Fi!

US Flag on tower

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[email protected] (Steve) General Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:11:34 +0000