Autodesk unveils $15M software giveaway for cleantech startups

Congress May Restore Hydrogen Funding - Wheels Blog - NYTimes.com

July 21, 2009, 1:00 pm — Updated: 3:42 pm -->

Congress May Restore Hydrogen Funding

Congress appears close to restoring the $100 million in funding for hydrogen research that Steven Chu, the energy secretary, had cut from his budget in May.

The House of Representatives voted 320-97 last Friday to approve $26.9 billion for the Energy Department, including $153 million for hydrogen and fuel cells in the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy program, plus $40.45 million for hydrogen from coal.

The Senate Appropriations Committee was even more bullish on hydrogen, approving $190 million for the program. Reconciliation of the two budget figures (assuming the full Senate leaves the $190 million intact) could result in a final amount greater than the $168 million for fuel cells in the 2009 Energy Department budget.

It is uncertain when the Senate will vote on hydrogen funding. Robert Rose, executive director of the United States Fuel Cell Council, said he hoped a vote would occur in the next two weeks before the Senate’s scheduled recess in early August.

“We’re encouraged,” said Patrick Serfass, a spokesman for the National Hydrogen Association. “Congress has shown that it is very well educated about these technologies. It sees the benefits of hydrogen and fuel cells, and understands we need to pursue a portfolio of technologies, not just one or two. Frankly, it’s too early to choose.”

Mr. Serfass added that the proposed budget contained no cuts for battery manufacturing or research, “and the fuel-cell community thinks that’s a good thing. But you can’t design a family-sized long-range vehicle with just batteries — you need something else, and we think that something else is hydrogen fuel cells.”

In May, Mr. Chu argued for cutting hydrogen funding because the technology seemed to be always decades away from reaching the market.

“We asked ourselves,” Mr. Chu said at the time, “‘Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will convert to a hydrogen car economy?’ The answer, we felt, was ‘no.’ ”

But according to Larry Burns, General Motor’s retiring fuel-cell champion, cutting hydrogen funding would hurt American car companies.

“Japan and Germany are moving forward with their government-funded programs,” he said in a recent interview. “This is strategically important. Do we want to wake up five years from now and say, ‘What happened to us?’ ”

On Monday, Toyota told Ward’s Auto (via Autoblog Green) that its first production hydrogen vehicle in 2015 would be priced low enough to “shock” the industry. Economies of scale will bring costs down, the company said.

The Art of Starting a Project on Time - Steven DeMaio - HarvardBusiness.org

The Art of Starting a Project on Time

6:35 PM Thursday May 21, 2009

Everyone knows that getting started is often the toughest part of a project. It's amazing how this conundrum cuts across types of endeavors: writing, research, filing taxes, drafting a presentation, preparing a budget, making repairs, cleaning a room, even grooming a dog. The anticipation is the main obstacle. You see the task ahead of you, and it looks monstrous. Even if you enjoy the kind of work you'll be doing, dread can set in, which can lead to serious delay. The single biggest factor in missing a deadline is getting started later than you could have.

I find that the art of starting on time boils down to one basic technique: creating an environment in which the project feels like it's already underway before you sit down (or stand up) to begin it formally. There are many ways to achieve this, but the best ones involve making small preparations for the new project while you're doing something else.

If the task is writing, try jotting down ideas as soon as they occur to you while you're going about daily life — and then placing the notes somewhere prominent, where their very presence will later engage your attention and interest. The prominent place can simply be your computer desktop or email inbox, although physical prominence (e.g., a paper notebook that rests on your keyboard) tends to work much better.

For presentations, budgets, and taxes, setting up and naming new files — and sticking them right where you'll see them every time you fire up your computer — works pretty well. The key is to seize on opportunities, while you're doing other work, to toss real content into those files so that they're not merely empty shells. A file with data already populating it is much more likely to focus you than a blank one is. Still, I'd add something physical to the mix (e.g., a relevant paper sitting under your mouse) in order to seal the deal.

For manual projects, physical placement of tools works beautifully. Step away from preparing dinner to put the dog-grooming brush on the coffee table or in the middle of the living room floor, so that you have no choice but to deal with it after the meal. The same kinds of tricks work with repair tools and other implements. The key is to make setting them out a distraction from another endeavor, so that the setup task doesn't feel like the moment of project initiation.

Weaving the very first steps of a new project into other things you're doing makes the transition seamless. No mountains to climb, no first hurdles to clear. You're still surmounting the barriers, but you're reducing them to the size they actually are instead of making them bigger than they need to be.

Of course, just like setting your watch ahead is no guarantee against lateness, stealth initiation is no guarantee against procrastination. But unlike the watch trick, it's not merely a psychological ploy. It actually sets you on the path to completion, and knowing that you're already on your way is the invaluable ingredient. Try it, and share the results here.

A long term opportunity for YBP

Room to roam: House votes to rescue wild horses

WASHINGTON – Galloping to the aid of the nation's wild horses and burros, the House voted Friday to rescue them from the possibility of a government-sponsored slaughter and give them millions more acres to roam.

But the effort may get penned up in the Senate.

The bill passed the House, 239-185, with Republican opponents arguing that it underscored wrongheaded Democratic priorities by focusing on animals instead of people at a time when the nation's unemployment rate is approaching double digits.

An estimated 36,000 wild horses and burros live in 10 Western states. Federal officials estimate that's about 9,400 more than can exist in balance with other rangeland resources. Off the range, more than 31,000 other wild horse and burros are cared for in corrals and pastures.

The plan aims to reduce the number of animals kept in holding pens awaiting adoption and to reduce the stress on land currently set aside for them.

Supporters mobilized after the Interior Department announced last year that it might have to kill thousands of healthy wild horses and burros to deal with the growing population on the range and in holding facilities.

Republicans dismissed the measure as welfare for horses, but Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said a majority of Americans would not support slaughtering healthy animals or keeping them in holding pens for years at a time.

"The status quo is a national disgrace," said Rahall, chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources. "It is a disgrace to our heritage."

However, no comparable bill has been sponsored in the Senate, which doesn't bode well for final passage of the measure. Both houses would have to approve the legislation before it could be sent to the White House for President Barack Obama's consideration.

Some lawmakers from Western states said Congress is mismanaging the nation's wild horse population by preventing the Bureau of Land Management from keeping populations at a level that's appropriate for the environment. They said more horses will just make the problem worse.

"This bill is based on emotion and not science," declared Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., saying the bill would elevate wild horses above threatened and endangered species in her state.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that enacting the Restore our American Mustangs Act would cost about $200 million over the next five years. Currently, the wild herds roam over about 33 million acres of Western land.

To comply with the bill, the Bureau of Land Management would need to find an additional 20 million acres, primarily after 2013, at a cost of up to $500 million, according the CBO. But Rahall said those estimates don't reflect new language in the bill that makes adding millions of acres of rangeland a goal rather than a legal requirement.

Rahall said the bill would actually save the government money by reducing the amounts now devoted to caring for the animals in corrals and on pastures. He said slaughtering healthy animals to control their population should not be an option.

"How in the world can a federal agency be considering the massive slaughter of animals the law says they are supposed to be protecting?" he said.

While Rahall said the cost estimates were overblown, Republicans weren't buying it. House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said even debating the bill was an insult to people looking for work and small businesses trying to keep their doors open.

"It doesn't make any sense that we're debating a welfare program about wild horses when the American people really want to know, 'where are the jobs?'" Boehner said.

The bill would give the government authority to enter into cooperative agreements to establish wild horse sanctuaries on nonfederal lands. It also would attempt to bolster an adoption program and sterilize more animals. It would prohibit the killing of healthy wild horses and burros and restrict time spent in holding pens to six months.

The Humane Society of the United States supports the legislation, saying the current program of rounding up wild horses and keeping them in holding pens is a "fiscal and animal care disaster."

"We have got to get off the current treadmill of spending millions of tax dollars rounding up wild horses and caring for them in captivity, and instead make wider use of fertility control as a humane population management tool," said Wayne Pacelle, the organization's president and CEO.

In Friday's vote, 206 Democrats supported the measure and 47 opposed it. Among Republicans, 33 voted for it and 138 against.

Want a different summer vacation? Go west…to Idaho

Want a different summer vacation? Go
west…to Idaho
7:01 am July 15, 2009, by Keith Still – Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ten days and nearly six thousand miles later, we have returned from our most active vacation since our
three kids came along. While we don’t mind traveling long distances, we had become accustomed to
staying put once we arrived at our vacation spot – usually on the beach.
With our oldest child heading to middle school and our youngest now a travel‐hardy five‐year‐old, we set
out for a different kind of summer break this year. Though we did make it to a beach on the Pacific Coast,
we were on the go from the get‐go as we took a Whitman’s Sampler holiday through Idaho, Oregon and
Washington. Over the next couple of weeks, I will give you this Southeastern family’s take on the great
northwest.
PART ONE — IDAHO
We took a five‐hour plane ride to Seattle; then immediately hopped into a rental car for the eight‐hour
drive down to Boise, Idaho. As travel days go, this was a doozy. It seemed a lot more reasonable when
we were sitting in Atlanta, gazing at the map and forgetting just how “big” things are out west. We left
for the Atlanta airport at 6:30 a.m. (EDT) and rolled into our friends’ Boise neighborhood just after 11
p.m. (MDT) – 18.5 hours of pure travel, spanning three different time zones.
Boise’s high desert climate was a beautiful surprise to me when I woke up with the sun the next day at
5:45 a.m. I’ve never considered myself a fan of brown, arid landscapes, but the sage‐dotted, rocky bluff
of the Oregon Trail’s historic Kelton Ramp right outside my window took my breath away.
Even though we were travel‐weary, the early sun, cool morning air and excitement over seeing old
friends was more than enough to get our family up for a day of exploring in Idaho. On day one, we
headed downtown to check out Boise’s Saturday morning Farmer’s Market and stroll through the
Basque District (a reminder of the significant ethnic Basque community that settled in the area years
ago). We then took the kids to a local park (Camel’s Back near the cool Hyde Park district in the north
end of town) to climb the massive sandy hill that offers adults a striking view of the foothills around
Boise and kids a killer opportunity to slide straight down a giant dune. If you’re a hiker, the park also
provides access to many trails throughout the foothills.
Boise heats up throughout the day, and if you’re not used to the heavy heat of Georgia, it probably feels
hot. However, the dry air out there made temperatures in the low 90s seem downright comfortable to
us. While the kids had pizza and a movie that evening, the adults capped off the day at the Idaho
Shakespeare Festival’s production of Anton Chekhov’s play “The Seagull”. The production was welldone,
and the Chastain‐like amphitheatre’s preserve setting offered a picturesque backdrop and the
occasional odd actor in the play. (For one of the acts, a peacock strutted around the back of the stage
before he flew up into the scaffolding to look down on the players below him. He was ushered offstage
during intermission.)
Over the next few days, we drove into the mountains outside of Boise to hike the backcountry and go
boating on a freezing, canyon‐lined lake. The dry air made the hiking in the heat of the day pleasant. We
climbed up rocky hills and dipped our toes in river water that had surely been snow melting off the
mountains only moments before. Noticeably absent from our hike were the mosquitoes that are
omnipresent in the summer in the Georgia woods. While that was a welcome relief, creepy crawlies are
still out there. Somewhere in our three‐state trek, I encountered a tick that would send me home with a
souvenir case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.
Everywhere we looked, we were constantly reminded of our country’s frontier history and the rugged
beauty of the west. Until now, the kids’ favorite vacation had been the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
They couldn’t imagine a summer getaway that didn’t involve hot sun, boogie boards and warm ocean
waves. Today, our Georgia girls are clamoring for another vacation in the high desert of Idaho.

The GET, Grand Energy Transition by Robert A. Hefner III, TheGET

HOME
The GET
The Grand Energy Transition
The consumption of energy is a fundamental component for the existence and growth of civilization. Today our principal sources of energy, coal and oil, have brought the world and America face to face with three intolerable consequences of their continued and growing use. The "three intolerables" are:

    1. The oil price-shock related destabilization of the global economy,
    2. The loss of energy security for America and other oil importing
         economies that translates into total economic reliance on oil exporting
         nations, as well as the loss of geostrategic advantage, and
    3. The risks of costs equal to the Great Depression and both World Wars
         combined, or even the end of civilization as we know it from the rapidly
         increasing possibility of devastating climate change.

The Grand Energy Transition, The GET, is an ongoing, powerful evolutionary energy transition that is bringing civilization out of a millennia long epoch of limited, unsustainable dirty, solid fuels, into the later stages of what history will record as a relatively short liquid transition to a future epoch of sustainable, virtually limitless, clean gaseous fuels - called by the Author, the Age of Energy Gases. The GET shows us how to accelerate the transition to the sustainable energy gases of natural gas, wind, solar and hydrogen that can eliminate the civilization threatening consequences of continued coal and oil consumption.

By viewing energy consumption based upon its state of matter rather than the fuel itself, an ongoing powerful evolutionary transition is revealed that clearly shows our energy past, present and future. And most important today, as these potentially deadly "three intolerables" are materializing, The GET shows us which energy sources and technologies are likely to be the winners and which are likely to be the losers. Click here to read Chapter 9 - What Won't Work; What Will Work (108k PDF). By concentrating our best minds, capital, policies and national will upon the winners, we will be able to rapidly accelerate The GET - "Jet The GET."

In his book, Robert Hefner, a life-time natural gas explorer, producer and energy thinker, explains the workings of The GET, and recognizing the long history in which natural gas has been considered a superior fuel, but of limited supply, he takes head-on the case for Natural Gas Abundance. He argues that natural gas supplies are not related directly to oil, and that natural gas is a much larger resource than liquid oil in both America and the world. Hefner also makes the case that America's attainable natural gas reserves are likely as large as or possibly larger than the U.S.'s remaining minable coal. Click here to read Chapter 7 - Natural Gas Abundance (184k PDF).

Hefner proposes bold new policy initiatives based upon his belief that tax, economic, energy and environmental policies are inextricably and systemically connected. Basing his policy recommendations upon America's need for economic recovery and global competitive advantage in the coming decades, as well as a massive shift away from coal and oil energy consumption to forestall further costs of the "three intolerables", he calls for two bold policies. First is the elimination of taxes on labor and capital, which would be a large scale stimulus to the economy, to be replaced with a green consumption based tax levied initially principally upon the use of coal and oil, which is causing 80% or more of the growing costs of the "three intolerables." Second is an Energy and Industrial Recovery Plan to produce and retrofit half of America's vehicle fleet to natural gas by 2015. He shows that the essential part of the infrastructure is already in place with the existence of a 2.2 million mile natural gas pipeline grid that connects most of the metropolitan gasoline stations as well as 63 million homes where 130 million automobiles reside and can be filled with a home fueling appliance.

This Energy and Industrial Recovery Plan will accomplish a number of important economic, strategic and climate goals because it will 1) pay for itself many times over in reduced foreign oil payments, 2) save millions of jobs in the automobile industry, 3) reduce oil imports by between 5 and 6 million barrels per day, 4) significantly enhance energy security, 5) save trillions of dollars in payments to foreign oil producers that can instead be invested in America, 6) stimulate our domestic economy by increasing natural gas demand that will trigger $100s of billions in new private sector capital expenditures, 7) add about 250,000 new jobs in the natural gas sector, 8) increase payments to American farmers and landowners by $10s of billions annually, 9) help America dodge the economically deadly peak oil bullet, 10) reduce CO2 emissions by over 200 million tons annually, 11) eliminate much of the pollution in major metropolitan areas and reduce related health costs, and 12) restore America's global leadership in energy and climate and help regain soft power.

T. Boone Pickens on why natural gas is better than oil - Jul. 14, 2009

Pickens on natural gas: You can't beat it

The oilman talks tough about Washington, the Iraq war, and our energy future.

By Josh Glasser, contributor

t_boone_pickens2.03.jpg
T. Boone Pickens, who conceived of the Pickens Plan, an initiative to end America's dependence on foreign oil
Gasoline prices and taxes by state
Gasoline prices and taxes by state
Prices at the pump can vary widely among states, due in large part to vastly different levels of gasoline tax. More

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Texas oil magnate T. Boone Pickens may have postponed his plans to build the world's largest wind farm in Texas, but he's come closer to accomplishing another goal: Pickens visited the nation's capitol last week to help Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), and Senator Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) introduce a bipartisan bill designed to bring natural gas vehicles to the mainstream American market.

Pickens's Washington, D.C., trip marked the conclusion of his "Pickens Plan" -- a much-discussed yearlong crusade to end America's dependence on foreign oil. Now convinced that natural gas's low price makes it more viable than expensive wind technology, Pickens stopped by Fortune's offices to reflect on his $60 million campaign to promote alternative sources of energy. The takeaway message: Natural gas must replace petroleum. "It's cleaner, it's cheaper, it's ours, and it's abundant," Pickens told Fortune staffers. "And boy, you can't beat that."

Excerpts follow:

On Washington's failures...

"Washington did not understand the problem [with relying on foreign oil], and they don't understand energy. They don't understand what it's doing to the country, they don't understand the addiction. It just kind of goes along because of one thing: For forty years you had no leadership and you had cheap oil. So what'd you do? You keep using more and more oil....

"When we kicked off [the Pickens Plan] this time last year, you had $4.11 gasoline, which helped the kick-off. And you were importing 68% of the oil in this country. If you're going to pay $140 a barrel, it's going to cost you $700 billion.... Now, fortunately, that $140 didn't hold up, and the price dropped. But it's still the greatest transfer of wealth from one group to another group."

On how natural gas will become the future...

"[Natural gas is] 50% cleaner than diesel and gasoline. So you're getting all kinds of pluses with the natural gas. What are the minuses? The infrastructure isn't quite there. But it will get there. Don't worry about it. The government doesn't have to put any infrastructure in. If the cars are still there, people will build stations to fuel the cars.

"The [natural gas vehicle] technology is there. It's in place. It works. There's 10 million vehicles in the world today on natural gas, and 142,000 of them are in the United States. What the fuel is is a bridge to [newer alternative energy technologies]. It's what you have. It's not forever."

On why natural gas must become the future...

"This is going to have to happen because it's a security issue for the country. I mean, you're buying oil from your enemy. With people around the world, our credibility isn't worth a hoot because of that reason. They cannot understand why we're funding both sides of the war."

On how the world views America...

"[An Irish colleague told me,] 'You are the biggest importer of oil of any country in the world.... Out of 85 million barrels a day, the United States uses 21 million. They're using 25% of all the oil produced in the world every day with 4% of the population. How do you justify that?' I said, 'I don't. I don't even try to justify it.'

"And I said, 'How do you think the rest of the world sees us?' And he said, 'I can tell you how we feel about it. We think you're stupid to buy your oil from the enemy.'

"See, I don't understand why the other side of this equation doesn't pin it on us, America, and say, 'Hey, you're using 25% of the world's oil with 4% of the population. You're the problem. Just cut yours down in line with the rest of the world, and hell, we'll have all the oil anybody could ever want.'"

On Iraq...

"We got nothing out of Iraq. We've lost 4,000 people and spent $2 trillion, and we have goddamn nothing. Okay, well, we can get a call on the oil [at the market price]. And I took that to the White House last April, a year ago, when Bush was there, and I said, 'Don't leave office without getting a call on the Iraqi oil.'

"Bush said, 'They'll accuse me of doing the Iraq war [for oil].' And I said, 'Hey, that was a long time ago. Since then we've lost 4,000 people and spent $2 trillion. We're entitled to it now.'"

On what we can learn from Iran...

"Iranians have already switched everything to natural gas. Why? Because they have an abundance of natural gas. It's cheaper, it's cleaner, and it's theirs. We have the same dynamics going for us, and we're sitting here not doing it. You keep saying, 'Well if it's so good, why aren't we doing it?' And I'm saying we haven't had the leadership to promote it."

On a gas tax...

"They all ask me in Washington, 'How do you feel about a gas tax?' I said, 'I can stand it a lot easier than you can -- I'm not running for reelection.' Sure, go ahead and put a gas tax on....

"You sell [natural gas] on the patriotic angle, and say we can get it cleaner, we can get it for the same price, and it's ours. Hell, you're creating jobs. Every time you do it you're creating jobs. Right now, when you buy foreign oil, your money's gone. You [do] see it again: It comes right back in and buys your assets."

On why American energy, no matter what...

"The way I look at it, everything that's made here is good. Because it creates jobs and pays taxes, and it gets [us away] from foreign oil. So everything I can do here helps the country....

"I've had the coal guys come to me and say, 'Hey, don't knock our product.' And I say, 'Look, I'm for anything that's American.' Would I rather have natural gas power than coal power? Yeah, because it's much cleaner than coal. But at the same time, you can't. That's not realistic to shut down all your coal power. You can't do that."

On changing the social climate in America...

"This is all about a move, a tipping point, where everyone says we've got to get off foreign oil. We need to get on our own resources. And then it's 20 minutes before Sunday School class -- when everybody's drinking coffee and talking about how to straighten the world out -- and somebody says, 'I notice you're still driving a car using foreign gasoline.' ... You're going to feel embarrassed. At some point you will be challenged, 'Why are you continuing to use foreign oil?'"

On where we go from here...

"You need to conserve; you have to conserve. We could be much better than we are. I can't even believe SUVs.... If we were into wind, then in ten years we'd be so much more efficient, we'd know more about it, we'd do a better job. And solar, too. People say that solar will never work. It won't work with that attitude, I'll tell you that.

"You gotta realize where we are and what we're doing to ourselves. We have actually set up a trap, we crawled in the trap, and we're real close to closing the door on the trap. And we cannot do that when we have resources here that can replace what's gotten us into the problem." To top of page

Great points, I agree!

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