HURRICANE IDA

As I yesterday reported that Ida was not projected to become a hurricane, I should correct that to say Ida is a hurricane, now at 100 MPH, and should weaken, but still make landfall anywhere from New Orleans to the Florida Panhandle late Monday through sometime Tuesday.

You generally don't read about these things in your local newspaper, but Ida did kill 32 in El Salvador, and could well temporarily affect oil prices.

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The last time I reported on my blog stock challenge was in August. At that time the value of the stocks I bought in November of last year, supplemented by my Ford and GM adventures in March and June of this year, were at 1.74, or valued at 74% more than my investment. Today, this "profit" is at 83%.

These were not particularly smart investment purchases, for I bought Lockheed Martin and Boeing because the former was pioneering the development of ocean thermal energy conversion and the latter had an interest in the hydrogen jetliner. I knew defense funds for hardware were going to be hard hit, but this challenge was mostly to encourage those firms involved with clean energy and sustainability in general. I also bought General Electric (because this company, amazingly enough, actually invented the modern wind energy conversion system, and is the leading American wind power manufacturer...but I recognized the terrible position their financial arm would be facing, and purchased anyway) and Microsoft (because I thought they would get involved with the smart grid and all the software also necessary for the new age of clean energy). Then, to balance the portfolio, I added Proshares Ultra Basic Materials, as renewable energy would need to use materials.

While there has been a general resurgence of interest in green energy, their stocks have been only so-so. Yet, with the Ford/GM (yes, including the bankrupt General Motors) additions, the average of all these buys showed a profit of 83%. Why? Brilliant investment plan? No. The smart strategy is to buy only when the market is down.

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TEACHING RAINBOWS (Part 23)

The following continues the serialization of Chapter 3 on education from SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity:

What then about the New 4 R’s?

There are many, many more good ideas about what to do about the new R’s. What about Edison schools? Saving school dropouts (30% will leave without graduating from high school, and many from this group will earn less than $20,000/year, or become criminals)? I just scratched the surface.

Finally, we should not dismiss cognitive factors, that is, IQ, for you need some smarts to just get into college or graduate school. IQ could be almost half determined by your environment, like school. Thus, basic knowledge helps, and reading, writing and arithmetic are important. But they are not enough. Once in the work place, your EI will better determine your success in life, and, hopefully, make you a more responsible citizen of the world.

Relationship more or less covers all added R’s, and these key parameters CAN BE TAUGHT AND LEARNED. Are our schools adequately covering the 4 R’s? A simple, loud, no. Yes, of course there are pioneers and steeples of excellence, as indicated above. Plus, there are dedicated teachers and administrators doing their best. I can only express my admiration for their devotion and commitment. But they are the exception.

This, then, is a potential area for pursuit by someone wanting to become famous in education. The world seeks the next Ben Franklin or Horace Mann or John Dewey or Martin Luther to galvanize that critical change. Maybe, even, you might be that individual to initiate the first step to make that crucial difference.

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Tropical Storm Ida is now at 65 MPH, and, while still not projected to attain hurricane status, certainly looks threatening:

There are minor disturbances in the West and East Pacific.

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One hundred and twenty countries have now visited this site:

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TEACHING RAINBOWS (Part 22)

The following continues the serialization of Chapter 3 on education from SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity:

High School Courses in Relationship

Thus far, all the relationship ideas have come from PhD’s with impressive credentials. I would like to balance these inputs with “The Young View” column written by Katie Young, from MidWeek, published in Honolulu on November 16, 2005 . She writes that high schools should teach courses in:

○ Divorce—How to Deal

○ Why Dad Wants to Tell You All His War Stories and Why You Should Listen

○ They’ll be Dead Some Day, So Show Them the Appreciation They Deserve Today

○ How to Treat the Ones You Love

There were more, but you get the point. She covers rigor, respect, relevance and relationship. Young goes on to say that “school is supposed to prepare us intellectually to find the career most suited to us, but as far as I can remember, there was no course offered in emotional intelligence to help us maneuver through our relationships.” Further, “how do we become good partners when all our lives we’ve been taught to be strong individuals?” I couldn’t have said it any better.

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Unemployment finally shot past 10%, reaching 10.2%, the highest in 29 years. Yet, the Dow Jones Industrials meandered around even, finally ending plus 17 at 10023, while world markets were also mostly up. Gold is getting close to $1100, now at $1095--yes, another all-time high--up $4/toz, while crude oil dropped down to $77/barrel.

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Ida is now a tropical depression at 35 MPH over Honduras, but should return to the Caribbean and slightly strengthen. The latest models do not show any hurricane potential. Invest 96 in the East Pacific could do anything, but remains a 35 MPH disturbance.

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Country #120 entered the site:

BELARUS POPULATION: 9,685,768

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Background

After seven decades as a constituent republic of the USSR, Belarus attained its independence in 1991. It has retained closer political and economic ties to Russia than any of the other former Soviet republics. Belarus and Russia signed a treaty on a two-state union on 8 December 1999 envisioning greater political and economic integration. Although Belarus agreed to a framework to carry out the accord, serious implementation has yet to take place. Since his election in July 1994 as the country's first president, Alexandr LUKASHENKO has steadily consolidated his power through authoritarian means. Government restrictions on freedom of speech and the press, peaceful assembly, and religion remain in place.

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I reviewed Belarus on July 17, interestingly enough, the last country I blogged about. Belgium is the next country on my survey list.

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BIOFUELS FROM ALGAE

The United Nations Environment Programme recently published its first Biofuels Assessment Report, ever. You can read the press release and view who participated. Much of this assessment dealt with conventional biomass, and mostly, the report did a fine job saying some bio systems are good, some are not so, and much depends on how you do it. Global warming remediation and economics were dominant parameters, although water, state of the technology and other factors were considered.

Let me focus on what many think might be the most promising ultimate bio option. I’ve been surveying colleagues for several years now on biofuels from algae, and the speculations on potential cost are all over the map. But the potential is exciting, for it is said that you can grow several times (factor of two to ten, you pick a number) more biomass from an aqueous environment than on land. Mind you, this point remains debatable.

Part of the reason given is that terrestrial plants need to pass nutrients only through thin roots, defying gravity, while aquatic micro and macro species can use the total surface area. Plus, genetic engineering can more readily be applied for a micro system, which has an effective doubling time of hours, not weeks, months or years.

For this analysis, I will focus on microalgae grown in saline water on land. A follow-up article will review prospects for macroalgae (such as kelp), the form pioneered in the open ocean by Howard Wilcox as early as 1968, and now, mostly being investigated today by the Japanese. This early work mostly led to methane by fermentation and as feed for animals. Recent interest added ethanol to the product mix. A third posting will blue-sky the prospects for actually attempting to utilize the effluent from ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) plantships to manage microalgal farms at sea. My speculation is that terrestrial microalgal and marine macroalgal biofuels/feed systems are a decade away from commercialization if the price of oil by then exceeds $125/barrel. The combination of our sun, the ocean, microalgae, OTEC, and genetic engineering for sustainable marine biofuels (hydrogen, alcohols, biodiesel, etc.) is probably a generation or two away. This would be an element of the Blue Revolution.

I begun to be involved with growing algae in raceways a third of a century ago, and from then till now, have observed that federal funding was spotty and mostly non-existent. There was never a truly orchestrated national program and sporadic attempts at organization were thwarted by the fickle price of oil. There remain today too many unknowns and uncertainties, for the due diligence and science have not yet been performed. The fundamental engineering was never initiated, and remains a knowledge gap, for this work should proceed in parallel to someday mesh with the science. The National Science Foundation for the past few decades has tended to avoid funding energy projects, mostly a jurisdictional attitude in favor of the Department of Energy, but is finally beginning to recognize this deficiency and has initiated steps to take a more active role.

So let’s get to the heart of the matter regarding terrestrial microalgal biofuels production: the eventual cost of production. In general, the price of crude oil is a good an indicator as any of what biofuels from algae facilities must meet to be competitive. Let us look at the numbers. Crude oil today costs $80/barrel, or $1.90/gallon. The current USA average is $2.73/gallon for regular gas. The ratio is 1.43, that is, gasoline costs 43% more than crude oil. This ratio was 1.64 in 2008, 1.85 in 2007 and 1.92 in 2006. The differential accounts for profits, taxes, marketing, etc., and will drop as the price of crude oil rises, save for added taxes. European gasoline taxes, for example are considerably higher than in the U.S. There were times last year when gas sold for more than $11/gallon in Norway and Germany.

One way of looking at this is if the best industry can do is produce biofuels for $5/gallon, then oil needs to go up to $220/barrel. If the production cost can be reduced to $3/gallon, then, oil would only need to rise to $126/barrel. My gut feeling is that $3/gallon will only be attained with considerable R&D over a period of 10 years or more, and maybe never. However, there is the matter of life cycle costing, and if the financing can proceed with the confidence that oil will rise beyond $150/barrel, with attractive government incentives, there is no reason to doubt the establishment of these operations relatively soon, even if oil only might be in the range of $100/barrel.

Recognizing my mental assessment of what knowledgeable colleagues tell me about microalgal biofuels today costing about $50/gallon, and a current Department of Defense estimate showing a minimum figure of $20/gallon, let us look at the latest possible biofuels from algae speculative future cost of production per gallon:

$ 1.....A few entrepreneurs (of significant dubiousness)

$ 2.....Department of Energy (very unofficial, but murmured)

$ 3.....Defense Advanced Projects Agency (desired)

$ 4.....Noted scientific authority (someday if all goes right)

$ 5.....DARPA definition of affordable

$10+...Noted industrial authority

My noted scientific authority (until this writing, I had real names for the science and industry individuals) said this is like comparing apples and asteroids. He is right, of course, for what do those above figures mean? Someday with major breakthroughs in genetic engineering? He provided a dozen more qualifiers. Well, for one, almost surely, these guesses represent the cost after a decade of development, not today. Even then, the Department of Energy projection must be more wishful than anything else. At least, though, that department is now treating this field with some urgency and has applied $50 million of stimulus funds toward this cause. DARPA, more so, is reported to have set aside $100 million for this adventure. But half of energy use in the military is for jet fuel, so they better be concerned. Ah, the private sector: Exxon Mobil is said to have dedicated $600 million, in partnership with the genome table co-champion, Craig Venter.

So to summarize, don’t believe $1/gallon biofuel from algae, hope for $3/gallon someday, but for the next few years, don’t be surprised if biofuels from algae only become competitive when oil reaches $200/barrel ($4.76/gallon). The only other way is for some very generous tax incentives, as for example, presently provided for ethanol, plus an uncharacteristic financial attitude incorporating life cycle costing and externalities. For their $600 million investment, you can bet that Exxon Mobile is covering their future by setting the stage for this eventuality through traditional Congressional and White House discussions.

There is an additional pathway: linking microbial biofuel production to pollution control. The added value factor might well be the key to earlier commercialization.

The situation seems more difficult for jet fuel, as the current price is about $2/gallon, almost the cost of crude oil itself. It is more expensive to refine jet fuel than gasoline, yet, over time, the selling price of jet fuel has been cheaper than gasoline. The ratio for jet fuel has over the past few years been in the range of 1.25. How can this be? Well, bulk purchases, advanced commitments and lower taxes. In any case, a microalgal jet fuel producer, thus, will actually be faced with the same production cost to match crude oil, as one selling biogasoline, for the price to the consumer is, for the investor, almost irrelevant.

The State of Hawaii absolutely depends on DARPA succeeding beyond all expectations, for at those astronomical future oil prices, which could come at any time, and certainly in five to ten years, airline fares will go sky high, tourists will stop coming to our state and we will enter into a prolonged great depression. Unless, of course, the Hawaiian Hydrogen Clipper, by some miracle, suddenly gains an Apollo-like following, with mushrooming wind farms, geothermal fields and OTEC plantships providing cost-effective hydrogen. Yes, dreaming…but not much more than the reality of bio jet fuel from algae.

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The Dow Jones Industrials surge 204 to 10006, while markets in the Orient swoon and those in Europe rise. Gold rose $2/toz to $1091 and oil is now back to $80/barrel.

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Tropical Storm Ida made landfall, and will bring considerable rain to Nicaragua and Honduras, but will weaken, than escape into the Caribbean, and possibly strengthen.

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IS THE SWINE FLU PANDEMIC OVER?

Was there ever a true pandemic? Someone out there, please explain to me what is happening.

1. On June 11 of this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the H1N1 Swine Flu was, officially, a pandemic, the first time in 41 years that a global flu epidemic was proclaimed.

2. On October 16 I provided the latest on the H1N1 Swine Flu. To summarize, for the six months of "virulence," 375,000 had contracted the swine flu and 4500 had died. In this same period, 200 million got the regular flu and 200,000 had died. Thus, for every 500 cases of flu, less than one is that dreaded H1N1 Swine Flu.

3. On October 24, President Barack Obama made the H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic a national emergency. According to the White House, it's designed to "allow hospitals to better handle the surge in patients" by allowing them to bypass certain federal laws. What?

4. Interesting timing, for a few days later, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that of 8,268 specimens tested by WHO for that week, 67% were confirmed to be the H1N1 Swine Flu. Something is wrong here, for less than one in 500 flu cases is of the H1N1 variety. Considering that the symptoms of both these ailments are nearly identical, how can WHO mostly analyze samples that turned out to be the swine flu? Anyway, it serves a purpose in scaring decision-makers. Click on those web pages and let me know what you think. AND, OH, BY THE WAY, IN ALMOST THE SAME BREATH, THE CDC ALSO SAID THAT, ACTUALLY, THE H1N1 SWINE FLU HAD PEAKED IN MID-OCTOBER AND WAS ON ITS WAY OUT.

5. SO WHY DID OBAMA DECLARE THE SWINE FLU A NATIONAL EMERGENCY?

Okay, many more will still get the swine flu, and some will die, but what kind of timing is that to declare a national emergency just before your guiding office reports that swine flu cases had already peaked? Yes, of course, children should get shots for both flu varieties and a sufficient quantity of vaccine should be made available as quickly as possible, if available. But the whole matter certainly sounds like an almost embarrassing case of poor timing.

In any case, if you do contract the flu, the odds are less than 500 it will be of the swine type. For adults, if you don't have breathing problems or a particularly weak heart, you should live. However, interesting that if you are obese, you might be in trouble. My June 29 blog on diets and longevity touched on why you should be only slightly overweight, for the really fat have higher medical bills even though they have a shorter life expectancy. You should know if you are overweight, but click on that blog page and calculate your Body Mass Index.

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The Dow Jones Industrials lost more than 100 during the final hour, but still ended up plus 30 at 9802. European markets were also all up, while those in the Orient dropped, with the Japan Nikkei now at 9697, lower than the DJI. Gold hit another all-time high, up $7/toz to $1089, and crude oil is just a smidge under $80/barrel.

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There is a small disturbance in the East Pacific and Tropical Storm Ida at 65 MPH will make landfall in Nicaragua, then, head for the Yucatan Peninsula, but there is no sign at this time for the attainment of hurricane strength.

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HAS THE TEMPERATURE OF THE PLANET REMAINED STABLE OVER THE PAST DECADE?

In a word, yes.

So why do scientists and many governments remain concerned? To the box on the right are five guides to the issue. The overriding attitude of most scientists is that a ten year period does not necessarily mean that the temperature of Planet Earth has stabilized. All the indicators (ice cores, glacier disappearance, specie decline, etc.) point to an uptick and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as recently as September reported that the expectation is an increase of 6 degrees F by 2100. This is the group that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.

Yet, our Congress will do nothing before the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference next month, which is the pivotal summit charged to develop the successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Copenhagen is looming to be a disaster because of American politics (democrats from coal states are loath to enact anything that will increase the price of energy), the global economic downturn, Republicans, conservatives, fossil fuel companies and most of all, the lack of will on part of the public.

Yet, how you can you blame the masses when, first, the globe has not warmed during the past decade, second, the annual sea level rise is barely perceptible, and, third, decision-makers seem unwilling to take any action. I have long postulated that nothing much will get done until many tens of millions perish one hot summer. But, by then, isn't it too late?

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The Dow Jones Industrials slipped 18 to 9772, while world markets mostly fell, although the Japan Nikkei rose 11 to 9814. Gold rose $19/toz to another all-time high of $1082. Why? India bought $6.7 billion worth of this precious metal. Crude oil is just under $80/barrel.

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Mirinae killed up to 20 in the Philippines and double that in Vietnam. There is a disturbance in the Caribbean.

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TEACHING RAINBOWS (Part 21)

The following continues the serialization of Chapter 2 on education from SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity:

Kagan Structures and Cooperative Learning

Spencer Kagan in 1968 began an effort to promote interaction among students. He says it's all about engagement, has about a dozen books listed in Amazon.com on the subject and has an active web site for educators. His Kagan Structures transform how content is taught, producing positive outcomes in academic achievement, thinking skills, character virtues, race relations, emotional intelligence and affirmative attitudes toward learning.

He is involved with learning centers and workshops, promoting grouping strategies and cooperative learning. It is in the mechanism of teaching, not the content. For the student, learning becomes more fun and social skills are enhanced.

Tony Wagner and the Change Leadership Group

Tony Wagner has been a leader in educational innovation, and his book on Making the Grade: Reinventing America’s Schools (Routledge, 2003) and Change Leadership: A Practical Guide to Transforming our Schools (with Robert Kegan, et al, Jossey-Bass, 2006) stand out as prime movers. He is co-director (with Kegan) of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Having served as teacher, principal and educational professor, but, more so, providing inspiration and vision, he certainly has the credentials and personality to lead the charge.

As he has on occasion come to Hawaii, I certainly would like to discuss with him how to best re-educate the one marshmallow child and upgrade gifted and talented programs. I wonder, too, how he feels about the “theory” that the future of the country is in good hands because our post-secondary educational system is so superior.

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The Dow Jones Industrials did not crash, but certainly had a wild day, initially zooming up almost 150, then, sinking from that point minus 180, only to recover to end up 77 to 9789. The Japan Nikkei is at 9803, as markets in the Orient all dropped, while that of Europe mostly went up. Gold increased $14/toz to $1059, while crude is now at $78/barrel.

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At 63 MPH, Tropical Storm Mirinae slammed into Viet Nam yesterday. The oceans are otherwise relatively calm.

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TEACHING RAINBOWS (Part 20)

The following continues the serialization of Chapter 3 on education from SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity:

Learned Optimism

Martin Seligman, psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is known to be the father of “positive psychology.” He wrote the book, Learned Optimism, on how optimism enhances the quality of life, and how it can be learned. The debate is on whether the pessimist is better grounded and the optimist deluded. Certainly, there is a link between pessimism and depression. Seligman says that pessimism played a role in the survival of our species, but might now be partially obsolete.

Everyone fails at something. The optimist has a way of bouncing back, while pessimists are defined by their failures. Optimists have less illness and recover more quickly. Read Learned Optimism for details.

For sure, optimists are more successful, as in the insurance industry, where optimists, in his survey, sold 37% more than pessimists. Seligman studied 500 freshman at his university and found that how well they did on his test for optimism were a better predictor of actual grades than their SAT scores or high school grades.

Optimists, it is now reported, live longer and healthier lives. This study by the University of Pittsburgh was comprehensive, but only followed women 50 and over. Yet, the extension can be made to all.

Thus, the bottom line is that optimism is better than pessimism, and that optimism can be learned. But are our schools teaching these attitudes? No. Mystifyingly, there is also no concerted effort regarding how to succeed in life. Next, education with Spencer Kagan and Tony Wagner.

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Now Tropical Storm Mirinae rolled over the Philippines, bringing from 3-6 inches of rain and killing at least 20. Tomorrow, landfall on Vietnam.

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One hundred seventeen countries have visited this site:

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