UPDATE ON RENEWABLE ENERGY

Some good and bad news about renewable energy:

• The Environmental Protection Agency invalidated 33.5 million renewable-fuel credits sold by E-Biofuels LLC, accusing them of falsely claiming this incentive.  The worth was about $13.4 million.

• USDA and U.S. Navy unveiled a "farm to fleet" program.  Essentially, the Navy will purchase 77 million gallons of jet fuel and marine diesel each year beginning in 2015.  These will be used in 10-50 percent blends:

          

           Let's see what the Republicans say when we find out the cost.

• Renewable energy provided 100% of all new U.S. electrical generating capacity in November 2013.  Can you believe that there was no new installations during the past month from natural gas, coal, oil or nuclear power?  I thought fracking was causing a windfall for new gas turbines.  What was the renewable percentage in October?  99%.  Yes, 99%!  However, don't get too excited, as renewables in 2012 accounted for 11% of all electrical production, and, of that more than half, 6%, came from hydroelectricity.

• How will the renewables fare in the proposed U.S. energy tax reforms in Congress?  Here is an in-depth article by James Montgomery, associate editor of RenewableEnergyWorld.com.  There will be a simplified mechanism for the production tax credit and investment tax credit.

• Hey, it is Christmas Eve, so here are the 12 Days of Solar Christmas:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Oh, the Dow Jones Industrial Average went up 63 to 16,3576, another all-time record.

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WHAT IT TAKES TO GET INTO STANFORD

Yesterday I posted on the greatness of Stanford University.  Today, I refer to an article in the November/December issue of STANFORD:  "What it Takes:  How does Stanford's undergraduate admissions staff decide who gets accepted?  The Short answer is:  It's complicated.

Over the past three decades, applications have tripled and the acceptance percentage has dropped by three:

This year Stanford got more applicants than Harvard, Yale and Princeton.  The trend shows that Stanford has gained in attraction.

I remember when I was a freshman, football coach Cactus Jack Curtis addressed the class and said he scoured the nation for the best players who qualified, and signed both of them.  (* See the asterisk below to gain an appreciation that Stanford brings in students who can contribute.)  Thus, read and weep:

• That one person who reads your application reviews an average of 745 others...spending 15 minutes on each.
• 80% of those who apply would graduate if accepted.
• Each application then is quickly processed through a committee of five individuals:  if you get a majority vote, you're in.
• Many universities, especially in Asia, ONLY rely on your scoring well in a standardized test:  Stanford looks for:
• intellectual vitality
• passion
• uniqueness
• probability of becoming an agent for change
• etc.
• This is scary:  69% of applicants who got PERFECT SAT scores DID NOT GET IN!!!
• * However, if there is only one decent tuba player for their band, chances are this person will be admitted.  This would also apply to athletic teams, of course.
• Says Marie Bingham, 
• "OK, let's assume there are approximately 10,000 high schools in the United States (and just the U.S.--students were accepted from 67 countries this past year).  
• Assume that the very best students from only half of those high schools all apply to Stanford.  That's 5,000 of these very best kids, just in one country.
• Stanford can only take half of those kids, because they don't have the space. 

• The percentage of alumni children admitted is roughly three times the overall percentage of acceptance, and this group takes up around 15% of those admitted.  However, there are many, many more "no's" than "yes'," so there are a lot of unhappy alumni Moms and Dads.  Stanford's best response is that Provost (ranks #2 to the President) John Etchemendy, whose mother was a Stanford graduate, applied when he was in high school, and was turned down.  He said his parents were crushed, and very well understands this problem.
• If you get a thin envelope, the answer is a no.  If you get that thick envelope, great!

To close, there is also graduate school, and Forbes has the following ranking for the best business schools:

          SCHOOL                    CLASS OF 2014

                                        TUITION    GMAT SCORE

1. Stanford               $118,000           740
2. Chicago                $117,000           720
3. Harvard                $127,000           730

Ho hum, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke yet another all time record, up 73 to 16,295.  For the year, the Dow is up 24.4%, but the Nasdaq has zoomed 37.4%.  Maybe I shouldn't have sold all my stocks.

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STANFORD TODAY

When I was a freshman at Stanford University, I was most amused by a car owned by a freshman classmate adorned with a decal reassembled to read Snodfart.  (This t-shirt would be worn by a Cal-Berkeley student at the Big Game).  In the 50th year class reunion, a book was published quoting me on "what did you most gain from attending the school."  Respect came with graduation, of course, but I said "confidence."  

When I first drove up Palm Drive:

I was dismayed to see this:

I was stunned that I would be attending a junior college.  Just showed how much I really knew about the school.  And why were they using those foreign words?  I never figured out what this German phrase meant.  I'm still confused.

There have been more than 200,000 graduates of Stanford and a study showed that our alumni had a $3 trillion impact on the economy every year.  They have created 39,000 companies and 5 million jobs since the 1930's.  Using logical metrics, the school would have the world's 10th largest economy.  These graduates created Google, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, Tesla Motors, Gap, Victoria's Secret, Renren (China's Facebook), Nike, Netflix, Trader Joe's, Capital One, Yahoo, Sun Microsystems, Charles Schwab, the Special Olympics, Dolby Labs, Pay Pal, Pandora Radio, and many more (remember, there are 39,000 of them).  Also:

• 22 Nobel Prize laureates
• 18 recipients of the national Medal of Science
• 4 Pulitzer Prize winners
• 24 MacArthur Fellows
• 3 Presidential Medal of Freedom winners
• 112 Rhodes Scholars
• 5 Supreme Court justices
• Only one American president (Herbert Hoover), but two Japanese prime ministers (Yukio Hatoyama and Taro Aso).

This not the best university in the world, but it ranks well:

University rankings
National
ARWU[115]	2
Forbes[116]	1
U.S. News & World Report[117]	5
Washington Monthly[118]	6
Global
ARWU[119]	2
QS[120]	7
Times[121]	4

Maybe most impressive of all might be success in athletics, for Stanford has had at least one NCAA team championship every year since 1976, and has won the NACDA Director's Cup (Sears Cup) awarded to the top-ranked collegiate athletic program now for the past seventeen years.  Our athletes have won medals in every Olympics since 1912--244, with 129 gold. We have only one color (almost everyone else has two), cardinal red, and a tree (Palo Alto redwood--same as in the logo above) for a mascot, albeit only unofficially.

The present freshman class to graduate in 2017:

• 38,828 applied
• 2,208 were admitted (5.7%)
• 54% male
• 49 states and 67 countries
• 31% White, 21% Asian, 15% Hispanic, 10% African American

Majors:

• 51%  undeclared
• 30%  humanities and science
• 17% engineering

Once you get in, you graduate, as just more than 90% of freshmen have gotten degrees, and in 2013, in:

1. Human Biology
2. Computer Science
3. Biology
4. Engineering
5. Economics

There are 7,002 undergraduates, with 84% receiving some form of financial assistance ($166 million this year).  The cost of attending is $60,311/year and upon graduating 23% will be in debt averaging  a total of $16,640.  But after all that, you will have sufficient confidence to survive well in the real world.

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HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A ONE HOUR RAINBOW?

I awoke this morning to two spectacular rainbows:

Perhaps Pearl was communicating with me, for the rainbow began at exactly the wing of Kuakini Hospital where she spent a month in intensive care and passed away.  

Read my Huffington Post article on Gratitude...Not Grief.  Tomorrow would have been our 51st anniversary.

Note the double rainbow.  The rainbow actually was part of a larger circle, as here the color continues almost to my building:

I don't remember ever gazing at the same rainbow for more than a few minutes. Fifty minutes later:

Note how the rainbow has moved to the right.  This double rainbow configuration remained strong for 55 minutes, but at the one hour mark, there is only the primary bow:

My rainbow hour actually lasted for 65 minutes.

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FINAL BLOG STOCK CHALLENGE REPORT

Yesterday I sold all my stocks.  Here is how the blog stock challenge started:

My blog stock challenge began on 3November2008 when I purchased five stocks, not because they were looking promising, but I thought I would almost foolishly buy those blue chip companies admirably developing sustainable resource projects.  Click on that date for details.  With Barack Obama coming in as president, I knew defense projects would take a hit, but still bought Lockheed Martin and Boeing.  It turns out even he is afraid to consider my 10% solution for peace.

Then in March 2009 I purchased Ford, first because they were always conscientious about next generation vehicles, but, also because it was at a good low of 1.9.  There was a point, then, in June of 2009 when it looked like GM was going to avoid bankruptcy.  So I bought some of their stocks, because if they survived, Ford would drop.  Alas GM went bankrupt a few days later.  Amazingly enough, GM became GMGMQ, and initially dropped, but jumped up one day to 20% above my purchase price.  So I sold.  The stock later sunk, but I actually made a few bucks by hedging my bet on my Ford stock.  Well, the best part of all this is that Ford is now at 16.8.  

How have these six (plus the old GM) stocks done in a little more than five years?  They are up 463%.  The timing and magnitude were ideal, for I made enough money to buy into 15 Craigside.  When I sell my current apartment, I'll consider re-entering the market.  However, only if the stock market crashes--something I expect by 2015--and I can catch the next recovery wave.  

That 4.63 factor increase had nothing to do with my financial acumen.  There is only one policy for stock purchases:  BUY LOW AND SELL HIGH.  Today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit another new all-time high (16,288). Sure, I could have waited another day, but you just never know.

Incidentally, these above six were among two dozen stocks I've had for a dozen years, and all were sold yesterday.  The overall percentage increase for all these stocks for this period was in the range of 200%, not particularly outstanding, but better than keeping your money in a bank.

I was lucky enough to ride the following:

• I bought Amazon.com at $16.64/share and sold at $396 (+2380%)
• I bought Ford at $1.90/share and sold at $15.26 (+803%)
• I bought Sirius XM at 35 cents/share and sold at $3.41 (+974%)

I have had my embarrassments, for I lost everything with United Airlines and Enron.  However, even including these disasters, I still more than doubled what I invested.

Nothing like a Friday sunset dinner on my lanai.  I had a 1984 Joseph Phelps Syrah, which would have a value today of around $18:

A thirty year old wine, and still excellent.  I barbecued a Costco blue plate rib eye and saw the following sunset:

Certainly looks like an atomic bomb with a hydrogen bomb explosion in the background to the left,  If I had this view in 1962 I would have seen those H-Bomb flashes, which would have been just right of this scene.

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I JUST SOLD ALL MY STOCKS

The Dow Jones Industrial Average inched up 11 to 16,179...yes, another all-time high.  So what did I do today?  I sold all my stocks.  Most of them were purchased during that terrible late 2008 period when the economy seemed to be edging towards depression.  

Recall that on 9October2007 the Dow closed at an all-time high of 14,164.  It took a little more than a year to plummet to 7,552 on 20November2008, then rebounded to 9,035 on 2January2009, before collapsing to 6,595 on 5March2009.

Basically, I doubled my money during this five year run.  My anxiety has now been neutralized and I'll wait until just after the next collapse to re-invest.  When will this happen?  I'm terrible at these predictions, for I expected 2013 to be that crucial down year.  My gut feeling is that this must now be 2014.  However, that is a mid-term election year, so government will do everything possible to avoid anything economically cataclysmic.  Thus, 2015 could well be that fateful time period.

So why did I sell so early?  Stress reduction and my need to re-invest in my future.  In the meantime, I'll enjoy myself in 15 Craigside.  The media calls this a nursing home, but it is much more than that.  However, I'll be nursing whatever sum I gain from selling my apartment next door.

I'm particularly worried about Japan.  Here are two charts:

The Nikkei 225 hit an all-time high of 38,957 on 29December1989 .  After the Fukushima cataclysm of March 2011, the Nikkei bottomed out at 8160 on 25November2011, or 21% of the high.  An equivalent drop of the Dow from 16,179 would be to around 3400.  Since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office at the end of last year, the Nikkei has jumped from 9,924 to 15,780.  Remarkable, considering everything is not going well.  I'd be especially cautious if I owned Japanese stocks.

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Tropical Cyclone Amara is at 120 MPH, but will weaken and turn south before threatening Mauritius:

There is another major storm just east of Amara, Tropical Cyclone Bruce is at 125 MPH, will strengthen into a Category 4, but will also turn south to nowhere:

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THE BEST DANCE SEQUENCE EVER?

I had a showing of my apartment this afternoon.  On this hump Wednesday, I thought I'd then go to "Anchorman:  The Legend Continues," for that flick kind of reminds me of a camel.  Over the top?  Certainly.  An insult on your intelligence?  Probably.  You can come up with a thousand similar comparisons.  Rotten Tomatoes had Anchorman 2 at 77% reviewer and 81% audience ratings.   However, I just happened to finish reading the newspaper, and noticed that "Broadway Melody of 1940" was soon to show on TCM, at home, for free.  Plus, I was born in 1940.

Wasn't this the movie that some critics have said had the best dance sequence ever in the history of films?  Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell with Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine."  Here is an 11 minute clip.  I opened a bottle of Stanford Alumni Brutocao Chardonnay, which just arrived, had most of it with an artichoke, a bit of foie gras, some Castello blue cheese, Bugles, endive and radicchio.  Go ahead, click on that clip, go to full screen and turn up the volume.  It never seems to end, thankfully.  This will be the best eleven minutes of your day.

Eleanor Powell was in Broadway Melodies of 1935, 1936 and 1938, and the 1939 Honolulu, where she danced a hula.  Well, here are Astaire and Powell, the first and last time they danced together in a movie (B the B first sung by mezzo-soprano Lois Hodnott, and later by The Music Maids):

She held her own with him...and more.  Some say they never danced again because of Astaire's ego.  Also, too, Eleanor Powell married actor Glenn Ford in 1943, and, well, retired.  Here is a Tribute to Fred Astaire in 1981, 41 years later, with Eleanor Powell.

Returning to the movie, this is one of those dance routines that never ended.  At the finish there was to-be-U.S. Senator George Murphy to the left below joining them.  He pre-dated Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger in national politics.  You kind of have to see the movie to appreciate this finale.

Followed on TCM was the 1948 Easter Parade with Fred Astaire and Judy Garland, perhaps the best musical ever made featuring 17 songs by Irving Berlin.  However that will be for another day.

Yes, retirement can be enjoyable.

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THE LATEST UPDATES ON OCEAN THERMAL ENERGY CONVERSION DEVELOPMENT

BACKGROUND

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, or OTEC, while potentially the ideal cornucopia of sustainable products for humanity, has had a very difficult beginning.  The biggest problem is that you can't build a commercially viable small one, unlike wind energy conversion devices and solar photovoltaic rooftop installations.  The first successful OTEC facility for electricity only will cost more than a billion dollars.  The pathway to success will involve co-products such as potable water, air-conditioning, aquaculture, biopharmaceuticals and the like to support 1-10 MW systems built for resorts and government facilities.  To the right above was the first net positive OTEC system built off the Big Island of Hawaii by Lockheed in 1979.

This is not a new technology, for Jacques Arsene d'Arsonval (left) of France first proposed the concept in 1881.  A half century later, his student, Georges Claude (right), built a 22kW system, on Cuba, but it did not attain net positive and was destroyed by a storm.  He tried again on a ship in 1935, but this facility, too, did not survive the weather.  The French continued in 1956 with a 3 MW OTEC plant on the Ivory Coast, but never completed it because oil became too accessibly cheap.

The American father and son team of J. Hilbert and James Anderson patented their closed cycle design in 1967, but they, and their follow-on companies, now known as OTEC International, never did actually build a real system.  Negotiations are continuing for a 1MW test operation at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority and a 100 MW floating OTEC plantship for Honolulu.  OI's CEO is Eileen O'Rourke (right above).

When Lockheed succeeded in 1979 I happened to have started working in the office of U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga that summer, and was asked to draft the first legislation on OTEC which became law.  In 1981 Tokyo Electric Power Company led a consortium on Nauru Island, testing a 120 kW system, which was wiped out by a hurricane.  When I returned to Hawaii from Congress I formed a team for the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research, which twenty years ago (1993) succeeded in building a 210 kW  (left above) plant at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority.  The only operating OTEC system today produces 50 kW of electricity on Kumejima, Okinawa:

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

1.  The above Kumejima OTEC facility received its 1000th visitor.

2.  Stephen Oney (left, hmm, I think I was on his PhD committee at the University of Hawaii), Timothy Hogan and John Steinbeck published a paper on "The Potential Impacts of OTEC Intakes on Aquatic Organisms at an OTEC Site under Development on Kauai, HI."  Comments can be read at this OTEC site.  I long expected Senator Dan Inouye to provide funds for this facility at Port Allen, but his passing away probably ended this prospect.

3.  The most prominent OTEC engineering company in the world, Makai Ocean Engineering, is seeking an experienced ocean/mechanical engineer.  Hmm, that was back in May.  Maybe they're looking for another one.

4.  Here is a November 2013 update from OTEC International about their discussions in Hawaii, Cayman Islands and the Bahamas.

5.  Who's involved with OTEC?  Two gatherings with details:

• OTEC Symposium 2013
• OTEC Africa Conference 2013

6.  A headline worth noting:

     Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Power Plants Closer to Commercialization

The November 2013 article reports on the Lockheed Martin and Reignwood Group agreement to build a 10 MW commercial operation for an Asian resort.  The fact that Secretary of State John Kerry  was at the signing seems significant.  Said Dan Heller, VP of new ventures for LM:

Capturing this energy through a system like OTEC means we have the opportunity to produce reliable and sustainable power, supporting global security, a strong economic future and climate protection for future generations.

Also featured was Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion's agreement with DCNS (French naval defense contractor with 13,000 employees) and commercial facilities in the Caribbean, East Africa and the Pacific Rim.  They have developed innovative financing mechanisms.  Said Jeremy Feakins, Group Executive Chairman:

Baseload 24/7 renewable energy is only a small part of what OTEC can offer.  OTEC can also provide a better quality of life to millions of people by its three key outputs:  clean energy, fresh drinking water and sustainable food production through aquaculture.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy indicates that at least 68 countries and 29 territories around the globe are favorable candidates for OTEC.

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Okay, honestly, if you are into stock market investments, if the Federal Reserve suddenly announces the beginning of tapering, surely, there should be a panic and the Dow Jones Industrial Average would crash.  Well, exactly the opposite thing happened today.  While the Dow dawdled at no movement throughout the day, when Ben Bernanke, on his final official bit of action, indicated that bond purchases would be reduced beginning in January...the stock market surged, up 293 to 16,168, an ALL-TIME HIGH!

Why?  I guess everyone was relieved that it wasn't as bad as feared and that the interest rate would be kept low.

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Tropical Cyclone Amara, now at 90 MPH, will strengthen into a Category 3 hurricane, and head for Mauritius and Le Reunion Island.

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